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Potential students were scattered all around. So were fangirls. You could tell the difference between them by the squeals. Rook was attractive and rich, and no one knew he got to be the later by cheating, so really, he was the perfect guy. Minus the married thing. But come on. There were always ways around that.

He tapped his foot lightly on the ground and a large stone wall rose, lifting him above anyone else present. Unlike Sen Wei, who would have been official about the thing, Rook sat in a lazy way like he was giving a speech about something hardly worth the time.

"Alright, alright, everyone settle down, please." He waited until the crowd quieted and then continued, "If you go around to the left there's a sign up sheet, so... Please go around to the left."

Rook hopped down and tapped the wall with his fist similar to how one would knock on a door. It crumbled at his feet, and he found this endlessly amusing judging by the loudloudloud laughter that burst forth from the man.

It was awkward how it stopped without really finishing. Who the heck was this guy? Rook turned around and grinned, stretching his arms above his head. "Ah, hello there, young man!"

At the mention of Sen Wei's name, his hands fell down to his torso, one supporting the other as he tapped his chin and twisted to the left, talking entirely to himself. "Sent him? Would she really do that? What's she doing talking to all these young guys, anyway? Jeesh, what a crazy woman. Oh well."

He faced back to Tsai Shen and gave him a thumbs up and the biggest grin one would ever see. "Well, if the wife sent you, you're now my favorite student!"

"Of course! I couldn't possibly make someone she sent here wait in line like the normal people." Not that there was anything wrong with normal people. Sen Wei had never agreed with him on that. Or... anything else, actually.

--What had this Tsai Shen kid done to get in her good graces?

"Hmm..." He stared at the sky seriously. "Yes, wait here." In a dramatic way, he drifted off, returning with his arms tucked behind his back. He approached Tsai Shen, and then stuffed a watering can in his hands.

"The flowers around this place are dying, so, you go ahead and water those."

"It?! Don't say it like that, boy!" Rook scolded. A laid back guy he was, but a good teacher he also was. There would never be a good teacher who wasn't slightly strict on duty, if you asked him. "To use the Earth, you have to know the Earth, and appreciate it. Not just the rocks, but the flowers, the grass. These are things that will make you an amazing bender."

He paused, and then, far too over-dramtically, threw his arms in the arm and begun shouting, "And when I am killed in a life or death struggle you will be strong enough to defeat Sen Wei! It's the only way to marry a woman like that!"

People who had gone to sign up for his teachings were suddenly stopping, staring, and thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea to learn under a master bender if he was also insane...

"You might be a bit young for her, now that I think about it. Maybe you should meet her daughter, instead. That girl is really something. Not a bender but amazing with those axes she carries. I pity any man she falls for who even glances at another woman." And yes, he meant exactly what he was implying. But Tu Jin was like her mother, and had no real interest in males. Or females. Or most people in general.

Rook knelt down to the flower and pondered the question over. "Because, Sen Wei is like the Earth, and like bending, too."

Rook laughed again. It wasn't amused like the other ones. It wasn't awkward or uncomfortable either. It was laughter for the sake of laughter, and the man shook his head, digging his hand into the dirt.

When he stood back up, he was holding a rock, which he tossed up and down twice. "Rocks are made of many things, just like people are made of the things they experience. You can say that about any of them; Water, Fire, Air. But the other three... The other three change, depending on what happens. The ocean can be peaceful or deadly, as can the wind. Fire burns and is destructive, but easy to put out, even destroy completely. A rock, however, can go through many, many storms, almost anything else you could think of, and still be a rock."

He dropped the stone to the ground and nudged it away with his foot. "Bending is something everyone knows of. They understand what it is, but no one, not even prodigies, immediatly know how it works, or how to work it properly. Even teachers like me will never fully understand it. The Avatar will never fully understand it. Sen Wei is like the two of them in ways like that."

He grinned assuringly at Tsai Shen. This kid was really an odd one, but for some reason, he liked him. Rook liked everyone as a general rule. This was still somehow different. "Not sure what you did to make yourself worthy enough of her telling you I exsisted, or why you're so interested to begin with, but I became intranced with bending because of Sen Wei, not the other way around."

"Story for another day, my dear student!" Rook declared loudly. Most of what he said was louder than it needed to be, actually. He moved away from Tsai Shen just a few feet and crouched down in a manner very similar to a frog, hands sprawled out against the dirt.

It was comical until the wall of rock a good twenty feet high shot up from the ground. Rook stood--and there was little room for him to be able to do much else--and took a few steps to the right, as if testing his balance.

There we go! Very good!

"Okay, I want you to try and knock me off this wall just using bending. The goal is to accomplish that in no more than five tries."