A week had passed since his breakdown and breakthrough, and he was feeling more human than he had since arriving. The rest days had done wonders for his body, but more importantly, he'd solved his food problem.
The pitfall trap had been surprisingly effective once he'd figured out where the mountain hares actually traveled. The small brown creatures had well-worn paths through the rocky terrain, and a simple hole covered with branches and grass had been enough to catch three of them over the past few days.
The Air Nomad kitchen had been a treasure trove once he'd really explored it. Clay containers filled with salt, preserved spices that still had some potency, and even some basic wooden utensils for cooking. He'd spent an entire afternoon figuring out how to properly butcher and prepare the hares, then another day setting up a makeshift smoking and drying setup to turn the meat into jerky.
The results weren't exactly gourmet, but the dried meat would keep for weeks and provided the protein his body had been craving. Combined with the preserved vegetables and grains from the temple stores, he finally had a sustainable food situation.
Which meant he could finally focus on what really mattered: airbending.
This morning, he sat in the main courtyard with a small pile of objects in front of him—pebbles, dried leaves, a few lightweight scraps of fabric he'd found. The tiny air movement he'd discovered the week before had become more consistent with practice, but it was still frustratingly weak.
"Okay," he said to himself, settling into a comfortable position. "Let's see what Aang did with the marble trick."
He remembered the scene clearly. Aang sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, using airbending to spin a marble around his hands in a perfect circle. It had looked effortless, meditative, like the marble was just dancing through the air on its own.
He picked up one of the small pebbles and placed it in his palm, then tried to recreate what he remembered. Gentle breathing, circular hand movements, trying to create a current of air that would lift and move the stone.
The pebble sat there stubbornly, unmoved by his efforts.
"Right, probably too heavy," he muttered, switching to one of the dried leaves. "Let's start smaller."
The leaf was better. When he cupped his hands around it and created that subtle air movement he'd learned to produce, the leaf would flutter slightly, shifting position in his palms. But lifting it? Making it actually float? That was still beyond him.
He spent an hour working with different objects, trying to understand the limits of what he could currently do. The lightest materials—thin fabric scraps, individual grass blades—would respond to his air currents, moving and shifting when he directed the flow correctly. Anything heavier than that might as well have been made of lead.
"Precision before power," he reminded himself, remembering something from a martial arts video he'd watched years ago. "Get the control down first."
He switched focus to working with the fabric scraps, trying to create specific movements rather than just random stirring. Could he make the fabric move in a circle? Could he direct it to a specific spot?
This proved to be much harder than he'd expected. Creating a general stirring of air was one thing, but directing that air precisely, making it do exactly what he wanted—that required a level of control he was nowhere near achieving.
But it was fascinating work. Each attempt taught him something new about how the air responded to different hand positions, different breathing patterns, different mental focuses. The element had its own personality, its own preferences for how it liked to be moved.
After two hours of fabric manipulation, he decided to try something he remembered from early episodes of the show—the air scooter. Aang's signature move, spinning a ball of air beneath his feet to ride around on.
"Yeah right," he laughed, looking down at his feet. "Can't even lift a leaf and I'm thinking about riding air balls."
But he tried anyway, more out of curiosity than any real expectation of success. Standing up, he attempted to create air movement beneath his feet, imaging spinning currents that might provide some kind of lift or support.
The result was exactly what he'd expected—nothing. His feet remained firmly planted on the stone floor, and the only air movement was the normal breeze flowing through the temple.
Still, the attempt gave him ideas. If he couldn't create dramatic spinning balls of air, maybe he could work on smaller applications. Enhanced jumping, better balance, tiny bursts of air to help with movement.
He tried jumping while creating downward air currents with his hands. The effect was minimal—maybe an extra inch of height, if that—but it was something. A hint that airbending could eventually enhance his physical abilities even if he couldn't fly yet.
The afternoon was devoted to precision work. He'd found a small courtyard with minimal wind, perfect for testing fine control. Using single blades of grass as targets, he practiced directing tiny air currents with increasing accuracy.
"Move left," he said, focusing on a grass blade about two feet away. The subtle air movement he created nudged it slightly to the right instead.
"Okay, adjust for that," he muttered, trying again. This time the grass moved more in the intended direction, though it also moved further than he'd wanted.
It was painstaking work, like learning to write with his non-dominant hand while blindfolded. Every small success was followed by multiple failures, every breakthrough immediately revealed new layers of complexity he hadn't considered.
But there was something deeply satisfying about it. This wasn't the flashy, dramatic bending he'd fantasized about, but it was real. He was actually manipulating air, actually developing a connection with an element that had been completely unresponsive just a week ago.
By evening, he could consistently create air currents strong enough to move lightweight objects in roughly the direction he intended. The accuracy was terrible, the power was minimal, but the control was definitely improving.
He'd also developed a better sense of his limits. Sustained airbending left him mentally exhausted in a way that was different from physical tiredness. It was like a muscle he'd never used before, getting sore from unfamiliar exercise.
"Small steps," he reminded himself as he prepared his evening meal—dried hare meat, preserved vegetables, and some kind of grain porridge that wasn't terrible once he'd figured out the right water-to-grain ratio.
The food situation still felt weird. Here he was, a guest in the temple of a peaceful, vegetarian people, eating meat he'd killed himself and planning to kill more. But the alternative was slow starvation, and he didn't think the long-dead Air Nomads would have wanted that for him.
Besides, he was treating the animals with respect, using every part he could, and not killing more than he needed. It wasn't the Air Nomad way, but it was the best he could manage given his circumstances.
That night, he practiced his precision work by candlelight, using the flame as a target for his air currents. This was much more challenging—too much air would blow out the candle entirely, too little would have no effect. He was trying to make the flame dance without extinguishing it.
After an hour of practice, he managed to create air currents gentle enough to make the flame bend and sway in specific directions. It wasn't much, but watching that tiny flame respond to his will felt like magic.
"Tomorrow," he said to the flickering candle, "I'm going to try the marble trick again. For real this time."
The flame danced in response to a tiny air current he created, and for a moment, everything felt possible.
He was still barely a beginner, still frustratingly weak compared to any real airbender. But he was making progress. Real, measurable progress. And in a world where he'd started with nothing, that felt like everything.
The mountain wind picked up outside, and he found himself listening to it differently now. Not just as background noise, but as something he was slowly learning to understand, to communicate with, to be one with.
It would take time. Months, maybe years of patient practice. But he was on the path now, taking the first small steps toward becoming what he'd chosen to be.