Zuko climbed up the mountainside and narrowly dodged to his left as a rock slid past. For the love of all that was sacred, was the mountain trying to kill him?

A half-hour later, he had reached the summit without even a scratch. Wait, does a paper cut count? He pulled the document from pouch at his waist. Stupid scroll. He had nearly been killed because of this thing. "I hope you're happy," he languidly addressed the figure before him.

"You did it," commented the person. Another figure shrouded in mists hovered behind the speaker.

Zuko snorted. "Of course I did." He rolled his eyes. "My future depends on this thing too, you know."

"Of course. But there is no need to worry. Even if they still had the scroll, they wouldn't be the rightful owner of Avatar, and therefore could not change the story," said Mike and Bryan.

Well, that's a relief, thought Zuko as he started to make the treacherous descent.

P.S. I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender.

The Desert

Sokka ignored his sister's patronizing voice as he pulled out his machete and sliced the top off of the cactus. He turned around while bringing the suspiciously perfect 'bowl' of cactus to his lips and sipped the juice.

Five Minutes Later

His head spun. The world seemed to go hazy before his eyes. His eyes seemed to be bugging out of his head. He brought his hands in front of his eyes to push them back in. Ahh, much better. Now everything seemed to be turning several different colors at once; and, more importantly, he could feel the colors. He distantly recognized the sound of Katara's voice questioning him, and, doing what the colors told him to lest the leprechaun in his head get mad, he replied: "Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya. Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest." He also dimly registered that she was taking the cactus bowl out of his hands and emptying on the sand. He looked to Toph, who had asked about having some of the cactus juice. Normally she was dressed in green, which is a soft color. Mmmm, nice soft softiness. Wait, now she was red! How did that happen!?! He had to know, so he asked "Who lit Toph on fire?" No one answered.

Sokka was just having a nice, private, in-head discussion with his boomerang, debating the finer points of the Earth Rumble competition when the cloud had come up. Katara and Toph had just stopped, Katara awed, and Toph, being blind, was uncaring, but Sokka was psyched. The two girls trudged onward, away from the cloud, but Sokka stared and stared and stared. It was a giant MUSHROOM. D'you know how cool mushrooms are? They're AWESOME.

"It's a giant mushroom. MAYBE IT'S FRIENDLY! Giant Mushroom! Mushy giant friend!" And he swayed along to the beat of the mushroom waltz, which, despite the term 'waltz', is very upbeat and peppy.

And that, my friends, is where I end Sokka's 'trip' in the desert. Do I get to qualify as insane now? :)