Well, hello again!

I know I've been gone for an abysmally long amount of time, and I apologize for that. If you are curious as to what happened, I have a little synopsis on my profile, but I won't go into detail here—I suspect most people here are looking for the story.

Anyway, I'm already starting to rant. Let's begin the story!

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: the Last Airbender. This is on fanfiction for a reason.

Chapter I: The Bison

The waterbender almost fell over when she saw the gigantic moving blur in the sky, but then again, most people would have—a sky bison wasn't a common sight, and it wasn't the most friendly-looking creature out there.

Despite this fact, Katara hadn't reacted with shock because of Appa's size, or his appearance. No, it was something completely different. Not a soul had seen the bison, or its rider, in over six years, which raised one huge question: why would the Avatar return here now?

He had, after all, said he would never come back.

"So where do you think you're going?"

Aang froze in his footsteps, one foot still in the air. He slowly turned to see—

"Katara? Why are you awake?"

There was something…off…about him. It felt oddly like he was hiding something from her…

Katara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why are you awake?" she asked in response, ignoring his question.

The answer that followed was far too saturated with tension and fear to even be slightly believable. "I…I…was going for a walk," Aang stammered out, looking at the ground quickly. He glanced up at her again. "I was going for a walk!" he repeated weakly, forcing a cheerful smile.

"You were going for a walk," Katara said dubiously, "with everything you have?"

Aang cast a quick glance at the bag and staff he held in his hands, with something akin to panic on his face. "Muscle training," he finally said, holding up the items, grunting for emphasis. "Gotta…keep my strength up, right?" Another artificial smile flashed across his face, something she'd only seen reserved for fangirls and politicians—when he was putting on an act.

Katara was not in the mood for a performance.

"Aang, what are you doing?" she asked bluntly.

"Going for a walk," Aang repeated, starting to seem frustrated. He turned again to leave.

"Aang, wait." She placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back around to face her. She immediately felt him tense under her touch. "Why don't you want to tell me what you're actually doing?" she asked softly, trying to meet his eyes.

Avoiding her gaze, Aang again said, "I already told you what I'm doing, Katara—I'm taking a walk!"

"Right, and I'm Sokka, and I want to go vegetarian."

"Katara—"

"I know you well enough to know when you're lying, Aang," she interrupted, starting to get annoyed herself.

Apparently Aang had come to the same conclusion too, because a look of profound regret and resignation appeared on his face. "Fine…look, Katara," he sighed. "I promise it's not anything bad."

The look on his face was sending a very different message. Aang couldn't have looked guiltier if he'd just killed someone.

Katara cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "You promise?"

"Yeah. Actually…I think it's going to make things better for all of you guys," Aang said, giving her an oddly wistful smile. "You'll find out tomorrow. Good night!"

Without further ado, he immediately turned and strode off into the darkness.

Katara gave his retreating form another piercing stare before deciding that whatever he was up to couldn't possibly be that bad.

In retrospect, she should have gone after him and frozen him to a tree.

"Helloooo? Anyone in there?"

Katara snapped out of her daze with a shock. "Hmm?" She turned around, trying to locate the voice's owner. She immediately found him, standing behind her with an incredulous expression.

"You haven't heard a single thing I said?" Sokka asked incredulously. "What's suddenly so interesting about the sky today?" He squinted upwards. "Actually, it is unusually blue right now, but still—"

"What were you saying?"

"Oh, right." Sokka cleared his throat and drew himself up importantly, clearing his throat. "A very important person has asked me to tell you tha—"

"—you mean yourself, right?"

"Don't interrupt!" Sokka snapped. He closed his eyes and cleared his throat again. "As I was saying, a very important person has asked me to tell you…that the Avatar has arrived!" Sokka frowned at the unimpressed expression on Katara's face. "What?" he demanded. A slow, disbelieving look formed on his face. "Don't tell me you already knew…"

"I'm pretty sure the entire town saw the bison before you did," Katara answered.

The sound of a wildly cheering crowd floated over from the direction of the city square, interrupting whatever retort Sokka had been about to spout out.

"Well, anyway," he said, apparently deciding to let Katara's remark pass. "It sounds like Aang's doing something interesting—don't you want to see what it is?"

"Have fun," Katara replied blandly, walking in the opposite direction.

Sokka paused mid-step with a loud crunch. "What do you mean, have fun?" he called after her. "Don't you want to see Aang again? After six years?"

Katara's response was short and definite.

"No." Katara continued to crunch away, hoping that Sokka wouldn't stop her again—

"No? You were looking for him so hard and now you're just going to walk away when he literally just waltzes in for all of us to see?"

Great. She could guess what was coming next…

"Come on, Katara—all of us want to know why he just upped and left for no reason. He's right here now…you're not curious at all?"

"The Avatar made it clear enough that he didn't want us bothering him anymore in his little note," Katara said, trying to make it sound like she was just stating a fact. It didn't work—she could still hear the hurt in her own voice, and she cursed herself for it.

I'm supposed to be over this, for Spirits' sake. I don't care why Aang left us anymore. It doesn't matter anymore. I don't care. I don't care. Idontcareidontcareidontcare…

Katara stopped walking.

Oh, who was she kidding? She would never be able to come to terms with this. Not unless she talked to Aang himself, for better or for worse.

She turned around to face Sokka, who seemed almost surprised that she had actually decided to change her mind.

"Fine," she said. "Let's go see why Mr. Almighty Avatar is back."

End of Chapter One

Cheesy, that last line? Well, at least I thought so…but I couldn't really figure out how to cut this chapter and I didn't want it to run away from me. Any more than it has already, I mean. Though admittedly this chapter is pretty short anyway—think of it more as a prologue.

I decided to take start with a different perspective this time and see how that would go, so this was also a bit of an experiment. How did it go? Is this rewrite working out so far or is it even worse than last time? (I kind of need to know, so I can know what to change, etc.)

Or, in shorter words…

Read and review!

PythianPickles out. (ahaha, memories…)