"Hey, guys! We've been invited to ride horses at Iroh's place!" I sang as I entered the rooms assigned to us in the Earth Kingdom Palace.

Aang was sprawled on a sofa. Sokka was sitting in the corner, avidly drawing, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth. Suki sat next to him, watching him with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. Toph was playing with Momo in the middle of the room.

Aang sat up. "Horses? Just horses?"

I sat next to him. "Yeah, it… just says horses."

Sokka looked up from his drawing. "Did you mean platypus-horses?"

"No…"

"Ostrich-horses?"

"No, just… horses."

"Wow. This place… is weird," Toph said.

"So, are we going?" Suki came to lean against the back of the sofa behind me. I looked at Aang. He smiled wide and said, "Of course! It'll be fun! And easy!"

"Ahhh!" Aang yelled as he flew through the air. He landed with a grunt in a puddle of mud.

We snickered from the backs of our horses. The owner had warned Aang that his was feisty. Aang hadn't listened.

He got up and airbended the mud off. His horse, Snowfire, was standing next to him and he mounted again. He turned his horse back to us.

"Okay, not trying that again…" he laughed, so easy-going. We spurred our horses into a walk and were halfway to the trail when we realized Sokka wasn't with us.

Suki turned around. "Sokka, what're you doing?"

"I'm maintaining a safe, steady pace!" he yelled. He had his hands thrust forward, his face scrunched, making him look like a pig, and his arms were parallel with his ears. His horse, Merlin, was going half a step a minute.

"Kick him, Sokka!" I yelled. Sokka looked annoyed.

"No!" he said, "He's going way too fast already! Just go on ahead! I'll meet you there!"

"Yeah, in three days," Toph muttered. After discovering that the stirrups were metal, she'd agreed to come with us. Through the metal, she could feel the reverbs of the horse on the ground, and see. Faintly, but she could still see.

"I heard that, Toph!" Sokka yelled after us. We ignored him, heading for the trail, laughing.

It was sunset when we got back.

"Where's Sokka?" Suki asked as we dismounted. Some stablehands took out horses and pointed us in the direction of the trail.

We followed their point and found Sokka, twenty feet from where we'd left him.

Aang and Toph started laughing, hard. Suki just stared. And I shook my head and said, "Sokka, I worry about you."