(Disclaimer: All characters seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender belong to Nickelodeon. Keep that in mind so I don't have to repeat it at the beginning of every chapter, which gets annoying.

Author's Note: Hello! I'm not quite sure how this is going to turn out. I'm bored, so I came up with this story idea. This starts right after the third episode, (fourth chapter, Book 1). I've only recently started to write, so please review. I need constructive criticism. -Smiles-)

Chapter One

How They Met

A sound in the bushes made Prince Zuko pause. He eyed them up, preparing for an attack. He was more careful in enemy territory when his men weren't there to back him up. He couldn't take the chance of being caught by a band of warriors. People from Kyoshi could have followed his ship here for revenge.

He made the executive decision to play offense. He liked offense. Offense was fun.

With no further ado he hurled a fireball into the bushes. The scorching weapon ending up hitting an oh-so threatening tree, which instantly caught fire. To his shock, instead of people jumping out, a load of dirt took the leap, and threw itself upon the flaming tree. Jumping dirt equals Earthbender, that much he knew.

Sure enough, a girl came out of the bushes, but instead of paying her enemy any mind she talked to the flaming tree. He searched the tree line for more movement, in case she had friends, but was disappointed to see she did not. He's only opponent was the measly girl who didn't even have the sense to realize she wasn't alone. But he was no such fool, and quickly sized up his opponent, on the off chance that she might be a decent Bender.

She was quite clearly a teenager, and a pretty one at that. Her deep brown hair was just a bit shorter than her waist, accented with natural highlights, and was billowing in the wind gracefully. Her eyes were an interesting mixture of emerald green and bark brown, making them look a forest incorporated into the human body. Her long bangs playfully covered them. All she wore was a full length black dress which held nicely to her petite figure--but it was an odd thing to wear in summer.

"Don't cry! You've barely lost any bark, and I can fix that!" the girl insisted. It took him a moment to come to the conclusion that she was talking to the tree.

She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath as she brought her hands up until they were right in front of her face, then tapped her front foot. Around her chunks of rocks rose slowly from the ground. She then began to weave her hands around each other in a complex motion, never having her hands touch. After a moment of this she gently turned her hands so her palms faced her. It was a such an odd sight that Zuko began to wonder if she was actually Bending.

He couldn't resist the reflex to flinch when the proof of Bending presented itself: the clumps of dirt she had raised earlier were now shooting straight at her from every direction. With one tiny flick of her pinkies she stopped them from pummeling her. As she continued to Bend the dirt formed a line, and it was then that he noticed each bit of dirt had a thin piece of wood resting on it.

The girl opened her eyes, still seemingly unaware of his presence. She revealed her purpose by taking the piece of wood off of the first chunk, and placed it over the edge of the hole he had burned. It fit perfectly. Her other hand did a pulling motion, bringing the next rock closer while sending the first one back to the area from whence it came. She repeated this until the hole was completely covered.

He admired her handy work for a moment, before remembering who he was. "Earthbender…" he growled through his teeth.

Startled, she turned around to face him. She took in his appearance for a second, and when the flames began to ripple over his fists her gaze flickered from him to the tree, making the connection. "You're not very nice, hurting my friend like that! You need to go to the naughty corner and learn your lesson!" she said with a childish pout as she slid her back foot, getting into a better fighting position.

"Naughty corner?" he demanded, incredulously. "Not until hell freezes over…" He allowed the flames ignited on his fists to grow to a more useful size. "…and the Fire Nation makes too much heat for that to happen."

Feeling proud of the wit in what he had said, Prince Zuko released his fireballs with his trademark smirk in tow.

- - - - -

"Food! I need food!" Sokka fell onto his face in a bow-like position, trying to emphasize his point. Appa gave a grunt at the pounding. The saddle and thick fur absorbed most of the weak blow, but Appa was bored, and wanted to make a scene.

"How is that humanly possible? We just left Kyoshi Island! There is no way you can be hungry already!" Katara, his sister, stood up, glaring at him. It wouldn't bother her so much, except he refused to do any of the cooking, calling it women's work, and depended on her to appease the endless pit that was Sokka's stomach. Normally he wasn't that bad. It was usually only when something was gnawing at him that he constantly wanted to gnaw on some grub. Something that he didn't want her to know. Something that he thought he could hide by distracting her with his whining. "What are you hiding?"

He immediately shot up, trying to seem casual. "Who, me? I'm not hiding anything!"

Aang leapt off of Appa's head, landing right next to Katara, offering his childish grin to his friends. "I bet it has something to do with Suki. He was looking at her all funny when we were leaving. Did she beat you in another fight just before we left or something?"

The comment hurled Sokka into defensive mode. He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to appear tough, but instead he looked like a fitful kid. "She couldn't beat me!"

"Of course not. And all those times you ended up on the floor with her standing above you were nothing? Admit it, you asked her to teach you. I know. I saw you in the dress." Katara smiled, knowing she had got him.

"Ah, man! You saw the dress?" He turned away and smiled, absentmindedly talking aloud to himself, "at least she didn't see the kiss-"

"Try running that by me again?" Katara raised her eyebrow, only catching the last bit of his sentence. "Did you say kiss?"

Sokka was the definition of wide eyed terror. "I said nothing!"

"Of course. Kissing being nothing," she teased, and then it clicked. "You had your first kiss! With…" Now there was the tough bit. Who would kiss Sokka? None of the girls on the island seemed to like him. At all. But then, Granny had always said that young children pick on those they like, and Sokka was basically a child. "Suki?" No… Not possible… But then she saw Sokka's face become as red as a tomato. "Suki? I thought you guys hated each other!"

"Too bad he'll never see her again," said Aang with a careless shrug.

Katara sighed at the Avatar. Too young to even know what he said had been so cruel. "Wait a minute…" murmured Katara, realization dawning on her face. Before they had left, Suki had said…

"Oh, yeah!" replied Aang, nodding his head in agreement.

Despite his normal ignorance, Sokka knew they were talking about Suki. And that it would be something he would love to know. "What? WHAT? Tell me!" he begged pitifully.

"Oh, nothing," said Aang, "I mean it's not like-" He caught Katara in the corner of his eye, her index finger over her lips. He promptly shut his mouth.

"Not like what? C'mon guys! Tell me! Please!" He threw himself onto the saddle, earning another grunt from Appa.

"Hm… How much should I give away?" Aang looked up into the sky, not bothering to make sure that Appa was staying on course. He had always been lazy when it came to steering a flying bison.

"All of it, you-" Sokka was cut off.

"Look down there, guys!" Katara was leaning out of the giant saddle, pointing down to one of the islands that were scattered all around Kyoshi. The two boys joined her, wondering what had their companion so excited. Also curious was Aang's flying lemur, Momo, who climbed onto Katara's head.

Below them, on one of the islands that seemed like a little forest on water, dust was rising. It didn't take much thought to figure what was happening.

"Looks like Aang had the right idea when he said we should circle over this area to make sure Zuko didn't make trouble. That guy just can't learn!" Katara said, getting up. Momo instantly jumped from her head, not appreciating the sudden movement.

"Well," said Sokka, pulling out his boomerang, "he hasn't had very many lessons."

"Guess it's time for another one," said Aang. He grabbed the reins, and tugged Appa to the right direction.

"We need to be careful…" started Katara.

"Don't worry, Katara. We're always careful! Time to help another poor, defenseless person," said Aang, thrusting his fist into the air. Katara gave a nod as they lowered, but her frown, and her brow crinkled with worry, gave away that she was not quite as confident.

"See you guys soon!" yelled Aang as he threw himself off of Appa, while they were still at least a hundred feet above the ground.

Katara rolled her eyes at the young boy. "Show-off," she whispered to herself.

Aang shot a blast of air through his staff, forcing wings to pop out in several places. He set it on his back, shoving air under the wings so he could fly gently down to the island. He allowed himself to settle in the woods, glad for the cover. The less time Prince Zuko had to prepare for him, the better. As soon as his feet brushed the ground he was running toward the cloud of dust the fight had created.

Through the trees he was able to see fire and earth colliding in the middle of the sky. Knowing the person was an Earthbender brought some relief, but not enough. There was no doubt in his mind that the Earthbender would eventually fall to the power of the banished Fire Nation prince.

With one hand firmly holding his still winged staff, he rushed out of the woods. He didn't think, he just did. Without getting a good look at the Earthbender Aang grabbed them with one hand, all his concentration on getting himself and his passenger off of the ground. He put a lot of power into it, expecting the passenger to be heavier than they were, making his takeoff more wobbly than he would have liked. Even though the Bender were lighter than expected, they were still hard to hold up with one arm, and Aang gripped them as tightly as he could, praying to high heaven that he wouldn't lose his strength.

Appa quickly flew below him, allowing him to drop the Earthbender, and more easily avoid Zuko's fireballs. He did several circles to distract the angry prince from the others before making his escape, offering only a cheerful goodbye wave to Zuko for his trouble.

Aang landed with a pleased strut, and looked over his crew, only to find a problem. Before him was a youthful girl--not an old, buff, male warrior. He remembered some of the Bending he had seen, and jumped to conclusions.

"Oh, no! There must have been more than one person down there! I better go get the warrior and-"

"Why would you do that, silly?" asked the girl, playing with her hair. At first glance she looked like a teenager, but the way she talked made him think she was far younger.

Aang looked at the girl, stunned. "Don't you want me to help your friend?"

"How can you help the trees?"

"Trees?" repeated Aang, shaking his head. Girls. "I was going to save the guy who was defending you."

"No man defended me," she replied lightly, mimicking him by shaking her head. "Why do you assume I would a need a silly man to protect me?" Boys.

Aang decided to ignore the girl's confusing prattle. "Was it a warrior from Kyoshi? I didn't think any of them could bend."

"I'm a warrior in training, and I'm not suppose to be able to. Duh." She wasn't even bothering to look at him anymore, instead concentrating on braiding her hair.

"Wait! You were the person Earthbending?"

She nodded, and Aang couldn't help but to feel odd under her gaze. It was weird seeing someone whose body looked older than him behave so much younger.

"Okay. Guess I don't have to worry about returning to the island then…" Aang said, embarrassed, and walked off, deciding it was time to start heading for the North Pole again.

Katara, on the other hand, moved closer to the girl, and sat down beside her. After hesitating she lifted up some of the girl's soft hair, and began to braid as well, earning herself a broad smile.

"So," said Katara, "What's your name?"

"Ka-hor-i." She sang out each syllable gaily.

"How old are you, Kahori?"

"Seven."

Katara stopped braiding, staring at the girl. Sokka, who had been snacking on a bread roll Katara had given him, began to choke. Once he managed to get the food down he stared at Kahori, looking her over. "There is no way you're seven."

Kahori's face scrunched up with anger, and she crawled over to Sokka, giving him a vicious smack on the head, pulling enough power behind it to knock him over. "How dare you call me a liar! My mama taught me good. I. Don't. Lie."

"Um… Well then…" Katara wanted to start up a conversation, but the girl's odd ways had taken her by surprise. All the same, Kahori was staring at her, obviously expecting her to do something now that she had spoken.

"Well… I'm Katara. I'm fifteen. That's my brother, Sokka, he's eighteen. The kid steering is Aang, whose fourteen."

The girl nodded. "The Avatar." The others all turned to gape at her.

"How did you know that?" ask Aang, clearly surprised.

"The arrow markings on you are of the Air Nomads," she stated, as if it were common knowledge.

"Yeah, but there's no way you've ever seen an Airbender before, so how did you know about the arrows?"

She paused, and they all leaned closer, bodies tense, desperate to know the answer.

"I dunno." The three fell smack on their faces.

"I'm tired. I think I'll get some sleep." With that Kahori yawned and lied back, asleep before she had become comfortable.

"Well, she's trusting," muttered Sokka.

"What makes you say that?" questioned Aang, giving a small jump as he sat back up.

"Well, she barely knows us, even if the information we gave her was true. We could be taking her anywhere, and do anything while she's asleep."

"But we wouldn't do anything."

"She doesn't know that."

"Good point."

"So…" Sokka tried to sound as casual as possible. "What were you saying about Suki earlier?"

"Oh, yeah. That…"

"C'mon, man! Tell me! I have the right to know!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you!" replied Aang as he pranced away.

(Author's Note: What do you think? I know it's not the longest thing in the world, but it still gives a lot of information. I'm quite proud of myself, this story has a lot of potential. Ya know ya love it. Zuko will also become a big part of this story, because I think he's the most amusing character…)