"Nope," laughs Beila. "I asked Shifu Riko what in all the spirits' names I was meant to be hearing, and she realized she wasn't dealing with someone who'd known herself an earthbender all her life, and actually explained quite lucidly in plain language that since earth isn't transparent like air or water I need to be paying attention with bending senses, to have a handle on all of it at once when I'm trying to move a chunk bigger than a grain of sand. And she got me some sand so I could use waterbending forms with it as a transition and then I was able to pick up some rocks. She doesn't like sand herself but she knows how to work it."
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