"Uhhhh" Toph groaned. "No offense Appa but I hate flying."
Appa made a sound of acknowledgment but Aang couldn't tell if he cared. They had been flying for days and the monotony had really been getting to them. Katara lounged, keeping the bags of what little food they had left away from Sock.
"Are we there yet," Sock whined.
"Do we look like we're there yet?" snapped Katara.
"I don't know where we are," he sighed. "All I see are some trees, a lake, and someone washing clothes, and someone else walking around in a clearing. Do you think they have food?"
"People?" Toph perked up. "Like actual, living, breathing people?! Can we go meet them, please?"
"It's nice to know you value my company," Sock said though Toph didn't here him. She put on the best puppy-dog eyes she could muster and look at Aang who blinked twice. He sent a glance at Katara who was trying very hard not to laugh at Toph's escapade.
"They might be Fire Nation," she said seriously. Katara deeply wanted to go down and meet those people if not for anything more than a chance to practice her water bending and to have a nice bath, something she hadn't had in a while. But her personal hygiene aside, it could be dangerous for all of them. "Maybe we shouldn't...."
"Come on Katara," begged Sock. "It's not like we're going anywhere important."
"You don't regard a mission to restore balance to the universe as we know it important! That's like saying-" her protests went unnoticed as Appa made his descent into the now empty clearing. Toph was nearly bouncing around she was so eager to get her feet onto the first solid ground in nearly a week.
"Hey, worst case scenario they point us in the direction of the nearest town," Aang shrugged, leaning over the side to get a better look at the people. When they descended under the tree line there was next to know sign of them, just a small camp fire that smoldered.
Toph hopped down from Appa and threw herself down on the ground, taking in every part of the land. Katara thought she could hear her mumbling something that sounded like thanks to the gods but she may have been mistaken. It was obvious that the presences of rock had brightened her mood. She signed, taking it all in. Sock on the other hand went over to the camp fire. There were a few bags but he lacked the manners to abstain from going threw them.
He picked up a scroll and unrolled it, boring. Sock pushed past some worthless trinkets and opened up a map. Helpful...but boring. At last he came to what he had dreamt of, a perfect piece of fruit was resting at the bottom of the bag, not at all bruised and freshly picked, wrapped in a cloth for protection.
"Hey!" Katara said taking it from him. "Don't steal their food. Why are you going through this girl's stuff anyway?"
"How do you know they're a girl?" he challenged, eyes locked on the fruit Katara held in her hand. She lowered her gaze to the scarf that Sock had pulled out of the bag, a woven silk piece died blue with butterflies embroidered on the corners.
"Not a very masculine object," she did her best to put things away."
Aang walked over to the brush were the lake hid behind. He peeped through to see that the person washing clothes was actually a girl about Katara's age. Her hair was a deeper brown, wet and falling in her face as she leaned into the river to scrub her overskirt on a flat rock. She was making vigorous movements against the fabric until she suddenly stopped. Aang halted, he though he had been discovered but instead of turning towards him the girl moved her arms so a stream of water blocked a fire-bender's attack.
The attacks kept coming and she held them off, Aang stepped out of the brush to help the unnamed girl and saw that the attacker was no older than himself.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, not lifting his stance. His skin was tan from the sun that had bleached his hair a lighter brown. He wore Fire nation robes with bandages wrapped up to his wrists.
"Why are you attacking her?" Aang asked. Instead of an answer he received a ball of fire coming towards him. His initial reaction was to ward it off with an air attack.
"Stara, run!" he said to the girl. "I can handle this."
"What, you know each other?"
"Get the others and go," he ordered, throwing more attacks at Aang. Aang decided that this would be the opportune time to strike back, avatar or not he was being attacked which pretty much justified some kick ass water bending.
Toph was the first to hear the confusion. She could feel it, lying down in the grass, that something was going wrong by the lake. Footsteps once so careful became violent and she could practically see him fire bending with his movements.
"Katara!" she yelled. "Wang's in trouble."
At that she raced of through the brush to arrive at the scene of Aang using as many elements as he could to ward off his attacker. She tried to even the playing field by throwing the other boy off his feet, which worked but he got up and threw more fire at Aang.
"What the hell?" Toph hear another voice she didn't recognize, it was another boy who hadn't stumbled in by mistake. "Arcain, stop."
By this time Katara and Sock final entered. Better late than never, Toph thought, throwing attacks of her own at the fire bender who dodged them all, focusing completely on Aang. He must have identified him as the avatar, Aang really had to do something about those arrows...
Katara felt a stray piece of fire nearly graze her face. She took the water from the lake and fired ice shards and the boy in the red robes, Arcain she thought the other one called him. Arcain didn't half to worry about them because a wall of earth rose from the ground beneath them and shattered the ice crystals.
"Toph!" she cried angrily. Why was she trying to protect them? She couldn't see the other one's Earth kingdom robes.
"That wasn't me!" she yelled. So the other one's an earth bender. A fire and an earth bender, that was going to make things interesting.
"Uh, guys, a little help here?" somehow Sock had managed to get every one of his limbs pinned to the ground by the earth bender.
"I'm a little busy!" Aang flipped to dodge another fire attack. Arcain had really bad aim but apart from that his bending was lethal.
Toph quickly removed the binds so Sock could get up and go charge the earth bender. He simply sent a boulder in his direction and Sock turn a full 180 degrees. Katara did her best to hold off the earth bender, distracting him with a water whip to his side. He raised a pillar to safety and flipped off backwards, racing to his companion.
"Chris!" Arcain yelled, firing more attacks at Aang who sent a gust of air back in response. "Where are the girls?" it was just quiet enough for Aang to hear.
"We're right here!" yelled Stara, sending her own ice towards an unexpected Katara.
"How many of you are there?" Sock asked.
"Four," said a pale girl with strawberry blond hair from behind him. She hit Sock in the back of the head with a branch and stepped away as he went down.
"So why are there two of you?" he mumbled before falling out of consciousness. "Both...very pretty."
Katara went to go after the girl but the water bender grabbed her wrist with an attack and pulled her around.
"What do you want," Katara asked her, drawing up some water from the lake. "We don't have money."
"How did you find us?" she asked, whipping out four bands of water, two of which missed by a long shot. The other was a cheap shot that hit Katara in the back of the knees, sending her to the floor.
"Stara!" the other girl cried, one of the attacks accidentally hitting her. "You go help Chris, I can take care of the water bender. You have Arcain's aim, I want you to know that!"
Stara made the unfortunate decision to step into the lake's surf in order to aid Arcain but Katara wasn't letting her attack slide so easily. She immediately dragged the poor girl into the deeper waters of the lake and an unprepared Stara fell. She wasn't sure what intimidated her so much about the girl but Katara dragged her deeper and deeper even as she tried to fight it.
"Make one more move and it'll be the last one you make." The other came behind her with a knife to the throat. Katara let the current go and a gasping girl immerged from the shallow water. She took two steps towards Katara but a yell from Arcain sent her running in the other direction. Toph had hit him with a well aimed rock.
"Who are you?" Katara asked, slowly gathering water to free herself from the girl.
"Lilona Isabelle Ayria, but you can call me Li," she said calmly. "Go ahead, try to see if you can water bend before I slit your throat."
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Aang send another blast of wind into the earth bender's eyes, blinding him with dust it had gathered. He then used his own earth bending skills to take care of the other boy.
"Oh my god," Li's grips loosened on the knife as she took off sprinting in the others' direction. Yelling for them to stop fighting immediately. Katara took off after her, not fully understanding but not trusting either.
Attack after attack was being fired, blocked, and returned. Neither side was tiring, both making no progress. Arcain was focusing on Aang because he was certain that he had tried to harm Stara and somehow could be responsible for his actions. Chris understood his reasoning but not his logic, Arcain lacked a lot of that. But he was a strong fighter and he was very much usefull in these fights. Arcain didn't believe in no-win situations.
Chris on the other hand knew when they should bolt. When some four-foot-nothing blind girl starts dishing it out like there's no tomorrow, that might be a good time. But you try to hurt Stara there is no turning back with Arcain. Chris deflected another well aimed rock from Toph and lowered himself to finally hitting a girl.
"All of you stop!" Li yelled coming into the clearing. She sent a wind so powerful it separated the two groups over ten yards apart. "He can shift air," she panted, pointing at Aang.
"Yeah, I noticed that," Arcain said realizing the fight was over but the threat was not yet gone. The stunned looks on everyone's faces wasn't as good insurance as them being six feet under.
"You're an air bender?" Aang stuttered and it was Li's turn to look confused.
"More like a failed fire bender," she said. "But can we stop fighting now?"
"He started it!" Aang and Arcain pointed at each other. "Did not!"
"Hold it up twinkle-toes," Toph ended it. "You're telling me that little Miss princess over there is an air bender, and she's with the guy with anger issues and those two idiots?"
"Your regard for my intellect it duly noted," Chris said. "Obviously we have a big misunderstanding here and no one can be held responsible. Agreed?"
"I must have jumped to conclusions," mumbled Arcain, already walking back to the camp. The others just stared at each other, waiting for someone to speak up with an explanation. Finally Arcain couldn't take it any longer. "Ok, who's coming back to camp with me? You all seem like really interesting people but your unconscious friend over there is gonna need soup when he wakes up."
He was much more observant than Aang gave him credit for because he hadn't even noticed where Sock was. He tried not to flush red in embarrassment but followed Arcain back to the clearing.
"I for one think introductions are a great place to start," Arcain threw the half dead Sock onto the ground by the camp fire while Li got the hidden belonging out, including a bag of food.
"My name is Christophe Mayfield," said Chris as everyone got settled. "As you al realize I'm an earth bender, not a very good one but I'm working on it. I'm about 15, medium build with pale skin, choppy black hair, and blue eyes." He added for Toph's benefit.
"Katara," she shook his hand, clearly being the most polite. "I'm from the Southern Water Tribe, I've been traveling with Aang for a while now, and we're heading to the Fire Kingdom."
"I'm Aang and I'm the Avatar," he said brightly. "112 years old but I've been told I look a lot younger."
"Don't worry, I'm 107," Li said. "And I don't look a day over 14." Toph couldn't tell whether she was joking.
"Toph Bei Fong," she spat out her last name. "5 more minutes and I would have kicked your butts. Especially you Sparky."
Arcain didn't seem to register she was talking to him. He absentmindedly kept sketching away in a book.
"That would be Arcain," Stara said. "He's not from anywhere and an oddly temperamental fire bender if I do say so myself."
"I'm not temperamental," he said.
"Fine, overprotective," she glared but he smiled a bit. "And emotionally arrested. But I love him all the same, even if he's three years older than me. We're going to the Fire Kingdom too but if I'm not mistaken your Avatar doesn't know how to fire bend."
"I'm not teaching him," Arcain said before Aang could ask, not that he wanted to learn from him. Even Zuko could be better than that. Arcain must not have been hugged enough as a child.
"Well before you two go at it again I'd like to get in my two cents," Li got up and sat between them. "Lilona Isabelle Ayria, my father is a wealthy merchant and doesn't know why I ran away and probably assumes it was because of Chris. His father is, uh, was the governor. I'm going to the Fire Nation to stop my brother, Leon, from addressing my uncle. That was a mistake, they don't disown people they want to see again."
"So who's that?" Stara looked over to the boy Li beat over the head with a tree branch.
"My thick skulled brother," Katara sighed. "His name's Sock. He's your basic meat-loving sarcastic comic relief."
"So how did you learn to air bend?" Aang asked the question they were all wondering.
"Leon, my brother, taught me," she said. "He told me to keep it a secret and that worked up until now. Leon is...confusing. He was disowned from his family and came to ours instead. He's making a mistake and it's my duty to stop him."
"How do you guys know each other?" asked Chris. "We're childhood friends, all of us but Arcain who just swept Stara off her feet so we had to keep him around."
Stara proceeded to blush. Arcain smiled but kept drawing, looking up occasionally at Katara or Aang but very much apart of their conversation.
"You know, I've never been much for sleeping but I don't think I've ever seen someone drool before," Arcain noted looking at Sock. "Especially not with such conviction."
"It's getting late," Katara said. "Maybe we should get some sleep."
"Yeah sure, right after earth boy shows me how to do that awesome move," Toph said. "Remember, the one where you raised that column of rocks from underneath me and used it to throw my sight while breaking off pieces to attack Aang? That was awesome!"
They went off together while the other set up camp, Li trying very hard not to look jealous of a twelve year old. When she was almost certain that the others were asleep she turned to a still sleeping Sock and said, "Remember the days when people used to be anger when we tried to kill them?"
"Yeah," Arcain said from where he slept on the cold clearing ground. "It really used to piss me off."
"What do you think we should do with them, the strangers? I don't trust them."
"We could kill them," he suggested. "It was a joke, feel free to protest at any moment."
"The only thing I'm worried about is that if Leon gets to talk to Fire Lord Ozia we'll never see him again," she sighed. "That would kill Li. Did you hear what he did to his first born son?"
"Leon is his first born son."
"You know what I mean. But I don't like this Avatar or the others. I don't have great instincts about people but those arrows creep me out."
"You don't seem to have a problem with my tattoos."
"Focus Arcain. I just don't trust them, do you get what I mean?"
"I don't trust anyone," Arcain said. "And the one in the oversized yellow pants is listening to us so maybe we could fake going back to sleep."