Meet the Family (Open)

Gav waved goodbye to Zahara. "Nice meeting you! Hope to see you soon!"

He chuckled. "Yes, more sweets for the two of us." He winked. "Do you happen to like Goji berries?" he asked.

Eriyana nudged him in the side. "Don't get cheeky with me, I saw that wink... and yes, I happen to like Goji berries, why?"

She followed behind him, her bag on her back and her hands floating freely beside her as she walked, secretly happy that the women didn't use any firebending around her.

Gav laughed. "They have goji-berry tarts." He winked again.

Eriyana smiled at the thought of enjoying something sweet. She agreed and followed Gav to where they were going. An idea popped into her head and she reached into her bag, pulling out a different color gem, this one just being ordinary.

She handed a chunk of citrine to Gav. "Your first homework assignment is to re-form this citrine into something smooth or tool-shaped." She smiled evily and waved her hand over the citrine, not touching it, but making a faint outline of the basic shape she wanted it to take.

After several circular motions over the gem, it started to turn into an oval shaped stone, looking much nicer than it had a moment ago. "Something like this, or a tool for extra credit. What you have to do is imagine the shape you want it to make, making the outline with your hand is a good focus-boost." Eriyana smiled proudly, having given her first crystal bending lesson, which made her start to feel like a teacher.

Gav took the gem, wondering over it. He smiled, and looked around.

A short distance away, he saw an old rotten plank with a few rusty nails. He went over and pulled them out. Turning, he handed them to Eriyana. "And your homework is to turn these into one solid piece. Try not to cut yourself." He winked again. "Oh, and quick tip: it's easier to bend metal by physically shaping it. Touching it works best."

Eriyana held the nails in her hand, she inspected them for a few short moments and wondered if the approach was similar to earthbending. She kept up with Gav, following him and trying to bend one of the nails with her fingers. She held each side tightly with her index finger and thumb, barely making the first one bend.

She stumbled a bit as she walked, getting a bit dizzy from trying to use earthbending on the wrong material. "This might take some sitting down... I guess it just takes a bit of trial and error to get the chi right..."

"It does take some practice. I actually first Metal Bent by accident. I had been arrested for stealing a cabbage (and i'm still not sure why i stole a cabbage, but anyway) and they cuffed me and threw me in a cage cart. I was somehow able to turn the cuffs into a ball of iron, and the door of the cage into a board. I earth bent to propel myself along, riding the door all the way to the outer wall. That's when I met Kang." Gav stared out into the distance, remembering that day.

The two of them finally arrived at the restaurant, sitting down at one of the outdoor tables under the paper lanterns. Gav placed the order for two Goji-berry tarts, and the waiter brought them out.

Eriyana chuckled a bit. "My mother told me a story once... she said it way back during the time of Ozai..." She smiled and continued to try and bend the nails as she told the story. "She said there was a bitter old man who had a cabbage cart, and no matter what city he went to, his cart would always be destroyed, and his precious cabbage lost. It made him so angry and bitter that it drove him crazy, and then some nonsense about how he stopped selling cabbages and started throwing them at benders..." She started to laugh, thinking about what a bunch of nonsense it all sounded like.

The nail started to bend a bit more, the dizziness not being as bad while she was seated.

Gav laughed. "Yeah I probably stole from his decedent or something, cuz that guy was crazy too."

He watched her work with the nails, and pulled out the crystal she had given him. He traced his finger in a roughly circular pattern, then waved his hand over the crystal. It shook a little, but nothing else happened.

He emptied his mind, envisioning only the orb he wanted the crystal to form. He put his hand on the piece, gently pressing it.

He looked down. In his hand was a slightly rounder piece of crystal.

"YES" Gav cheered, "Progress!"

Eriyana smiled as his response to the story, closing her eyes and stopping for a moment, using just her fingers instead of her earthbender chi. She tried thinking of something else, imagining the metal changing shape, how it would feel to wield such a powerful bending technique if she ever needed it.

Her hands trembled a bit as she tried harder to bend it. The metal slowly started to bend... before the nail snapped in half like a twig.

She sat there stunned for a moment. "Well...that's... kind of metal bending? Just the opposite of what I wanted." She chuckled a bit and tried to imagine the nail forming back to it's original shape, to no avail.