We hadn't really eaten in what seemed like forever, but we had to keep going. I knew there was a town nearby – the problem was finding it. With our entire group being as weak as we were, it was hard to find paths in the forest. There weren't any rivers for miles, so it wasn't like we could just follow it towards a village or city.

That's right: we were lost in the Earth Kingdom.

It least being lost gave me a lot of time to think. I'm a thinking sort of guy, you know? Anyway, it had been a couple days since we left that Fire Nation city, after we escaped Combustion Man, and after we scammed those scammers to the North Pole. It's too bad I lost Hawky. Apparently Katara used him to send a message to Toph's parents.

Speaking of Toph... I learned a lot a few days ago. It's not that I didn't know Toph before then... But there was a lot I didn't know about her. There still is a lot. But I can talk to her in a way that I've never been able to around anyone else. And it's not because she's blind. I realized that she and I, while we don't have a lot in common, work well together in the team. Both of us are appropriately handicapped: she is blind, but a master earthbender; I can't bend at all, but I think a lot, and I'm good at making plans if I do say so myself.

I think I like her. I really do.

I looked over at Aang. He looked paler than usual. He looked like he wanted to say something, but kept hesitating, even before he opened his mouth. I felt bad for the kid. I mean, he was supposed to save the world, right? It wasn't exactly something to sneeze at. I looked away, towards the ground I walked on. We were miserable. We needed to do something.

Before I knew it, and before I think everyone else knew it, the sun had set, and we were surrounded by darkness. The trees around us looked bare and forbidding. And we were at the base of a large hill. I couldn't help but look up. A nearly-full moon grew brighter every minute, and bathed the forest in blue light. I looked around at where our gang had stopped walking. It was a small clearing, just big enough for us to comfortably relax for the night.

"Let's stop here for the night," I said. My voice felt dry and weak from the lack of use all day. While that would have discouraged some people, it uplifted me. I couldn't help myself for smiling. "I have an idea."

They all looked at me like I was speaking some other language. I swung out my sword and slashed the tip into the ground near the center of the clearing.

"Scary stories..." I started, my tone much clearer and more enthusiastic, "around a campfire!"

I could tell the mood had lifted immediately. Some color even appeared in Aang's face. I grinned at them, and felt like reveling silently in my knowledgeable success. After a few minutes there was a warm fire to cut through the blue and cast orange light everywhere. It added to the stereotypical scary feel of a story-telling group, especially since the light dissipated after only a few layers of trees surrounding the clearing.

"Thanks, Sokka," Katara said as she passed with Momo in her arms. I looked around at the somewhat-less dejected group around the flickering campfire, sitting on the cold, rocky ground. At least it was warm and stayed off the cold. I looked at Toph. She looked like she was spacing out and staring at the ground... Or maybe it was because she was blind. I couldn't really tell. I glanced back up at Appa, who was snoozing peacefully in a cave that seemed to be carved out of the side of this mountain.

I took my position next to the biggest tree there, one that had no leaves. I started to tell various stories, all of which I thought were pretty scary... None of them agreed with me. Finally, I arrived at the end of one of them.

"Suddenly, they heard something down the hall in the dark." I stopped for a moment and moaned for emphasis. "It came into the torchlight... And they knew...

"The blade of Wing-fung was haunted!" I stood up and slashed my sword towards the fire, then howled like a screaming bird.

Nothing.

"I think I liked the man with a sword for a hand better," Aang said calmly.

"Water Tribe slumber parties must stink," said Toph, a bite to her voice. That sure put me down.

"No wait!" Katara said. "I've got one, and this is a true Southern Water Tribe story.

I sat down, shoving my sword into the ground. "Is this one of those, 'A friend of my cousin knew some guy that this happened to' stories?"

"No. It happened to Mom." That shut me up fast.

She continued. "One winter, when Mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks. A month later, Mom realized she hadn't seen her friend Nini since the storm. So Mom and some others went to check on Nini's family. When they got there, no one was home; just a fire, flickering in the fireplace. While the men went out to search, Mom stayed in the house.

"When she was alone, she heard a voice. 'It's so cold, and I can't get warm!'" I shivered and curled my knees up to my chest. It was actually a really scary story. I could imagine it all in my mind...

She kept going after a moment, and I took the opportunity to hide behind a visible root. "Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire. She was blue, like she was frozen. Mom ran outside for help, but when everyone came back, Nini was gone." Aang gripped Momo's ears and pulled them over his own. I drew myself up ever-so slightly. Katara really knew how to make it sound so scary.

"Where'd she go?" I asked quietly. My voice leaked some of my fear.

"No one knows..." she said slowly. "Nini's house stands empty to this day. But sometimes, people see smoke coming up from the chimney, like little Nini is still trying to get warm..."

The camp was silent for a few moments.

Toph suddenly gasped, and I jumped. "Wait!" She placed a palm on the ground. "Guys, did you hear that?!" Her voice was excited, but whether it was a happy excited or not, I couldn't tell.

I shot over to Katara to huddle with her, and Aang did the same. Toph stood up. "I hear people under the mountain. And they're screaming!" We shook in unison.

I detached myself. "Nice try..." I started. It wasn't real. Toph was just a good actress, that was all.

"No, I'm serious," she said. Her voice was ever more urgent. "I hear something..."

"You're probably just jumpy from the ghost stories," said Katara, but she couldn't keep the nervousness from her tone.

Toph was quiet for a second. Then, "It just stopped."

"I think we should all just try to get some rest." I said. Maybe ghost stories weren't such a good idea right now. The group nodded.

That night, none of us slept well.

The good thing was the next morning, Toph's hearing – while it was creepy – did help us locate a small town, a few miles away. We kept our pacing slow, to rest Appa and our own tired feet. Unfortunately, we were still stuck in the forest. It was really good fortune that we found a traveler during the day who was actually traveling to a faraway market to sell his goods. He had all sorts of produce in his wagon, and his Ostrich-horse was really nice.

He let us buy some food, and pointed out the direction to get out of the forest and towards the village. It really made me change my views about Fire Nation citizens. I guess the normal people and even some of the firebenders aren't so bad. We weren't about to tell him we were from the South Pole, of course, or that we were traveling with the Avatar, but still.

It was about midday when it happened. Toph stopped Katara, who was in front.

"You guys, there's an animal trap up ahead," she said after a moment. Her sightless eyes narrowed as she thought. "And there's a person around, too." She tapped a foot and a pillar of rock a few steps in front of Katara rose up, revealing a thick brown rope tied noose-style. Due to the amount of dirt and leaves that were now fluttering to the ground, it had been keenly disguised.

"Thanks, Toph. We owe you one," I said, but suspicion was already crossing my mind. I crossed over to look at the rope. I followed its line down to the ground, where it was very difficult to see. I had to work carefully or else the trap would be set off. It was really strange that the trap wasn't set off already by Toph's bending...

I followed it around the tree it was beside and over a neighboring tree's branch, only to find the end. And that was just it: it wasn't weighted, there were no triggering mechanisms. It was just a hiding rope. I tugged the end and there was no reaction. I could feel the confusion on my face as I looked back at the gang.

"This doesn't make any sense..." I muttered.

I heard Toph sigh again, exasperated. "What doesn't?" she asked impatiently.

"This is just a rope. The trap wouldn't be set off if you stepped in it. It's just... a rope..." I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Someone had obviously placed the rope there, but either they didn't intend to catch anything, or they were totally incompetent trappers. "I just don't understand..."

I stepped forward after releasing the rope and looked up at the gang. "I think someone's after us," I said after a moment. I was strong and sure about it. "Someone we haven't met before."

I heard Katara cry my name out, just before there was a sharp pain on my head. Something big and hard hit me. I crumpled to the ground, my skull pounding. Was I going to pass out? The next few moments were blurry in my mind.

I heard Toph yell. "Toph!" I answered back, struggling to get up and keep my eyes open. There was someone, all dressed in black, who had encased Toph's limbs with something hard and shining... It wasn't rope, and it wasn't rock. It was ice. She was shoved into a net and suspended with mastery from a thick tree bough.

My instincts told me that Katara should handle the situation, or even Aang, who was getting better than Katara every day. But Katara was busy with a piece of fabric tied around her face so she couldn't see and she could hardly breathe, and with a rope shackle. Aang was waterbending, but he was warding off the person.

My vision blurred, but I was able to realize something. Our ambusher was a waterbender, too! He must have been from the North Pole... And if that was true, then the gang might have met him at some time...

The attacker wasn't very tall, though. He was probably not much older than Aang. Or me, for that matter. He was thin, too. How did he fight so well? It was the daytime, and waterbenders shouldn't be so powerful during the day, especially for someone who was so young. Aang was freaking 112 years old, and he wasn't even really good... Well, he was, but he wasn't as good as he could have been during the day.

The attacker was losing, thankfully. I couldn't do anything but watch: my arms and legs felt heavy and limp, and every single movement sent blades of pain into my head. But I could see that Aang was quickly overpowering this person, and gained the upper hand in a few moments.

The tides turned in an instant. Before anyone knew what was going on, the attacker had an ice blade against Toph's throat as she dangled, bound, in the tied net. "Toph!" I cried again, my heart beating faster even than it had when we were escaping Combustion Man. I felt the strength to stand, and did so. As soon as I got up, though, my head felt like it was split open with the pain, and I staggered to slump on the trunk of a tree. I panted, but was able to stay standing and watch the scene I was helpless to stop.

"Don't move, anyone, or she will die," came a voice. It was high for a man's. But he probably wasn't very old, so it was to be expected.

"What do you want with Toph?" I asked, my voice accusing, and I fought against the wave of pain brought on by my own sound. Even Aang froze. Katara finally slipped off the fabric and stared as well. My eyes were locked on Toph, who struggled against the strong ice. She was powerless without the ground, I knew. Her bracelet... It lay on the ground beneath the net.

The person's face slowly turned to me. I noticed an air of confusion about him. He wore a mask like a wolf's face, like the masks warriors in the North Pole wore. I could see the dark blue eyes in their proper slits, narrow and accusing. And I saw his hair, many shades of brown and down to his shoulders, unrestrained by a wolf's-tail band.

"This girl has a high price on her dead body." There was a collective gasp through our group. I gritted my teeth in frustration at my helplessness. So he was a bounty hunter! There was a beat of time, then the hunter continued.

"She has a higher price alive."

"So you won't kill her unless you have to?" I asked. My voice was weak, and it cracked at least twice, to my knowledge. Toph... I wouldn't let this person hurt her, even if it put me in danger.

The hunter shook his head. "Only if there is resistance. Like you all. We are not enemies..." He hesitated. "I seek money. My employer will give me what I seek if I give him what he seeks." He tested lowering the knife, and seeing that none of us were going to risk stopping him, he melted it into water, and deposited all of his water in a skin at his hip. "He seeks the girl who stole his money."

I felt my anger rise, and I shoved myself off of my support to thunder towards this hunter. I walked towards him, and realized as I drew nearer that I was far taller than he was. But I stopped when he jammed the knife up to Toph's neck again. I raised my hands up in submission, but couldn't contain the fact that I was seriously upset.

"Look, whoever you are we'll give you the money she took or whatever else your employer wants..." I started, but the hunter cut me off with a wave of his free hand.

"He doesn't want her because she took money from him. He wants her so she can make more money for him. She'd be an endless source of income, in his opinion." I was stunned to hear how apathetic his voice was. Did he really not care that he was going to turn a poor blind girl into a slave? He was just stating it as a fact, as if it was supposed to be accepted or something.

An idea came to me. "Once you turn her in, will you get to keep the money immediately?" The hunter hesitated, then nodded slowly. I felt my rage start to slowly fade. "Then once you turn her in, and you get the money, you can bring her back to us?"

His eyes were barely slits as I watched them consider this. I kept going, urging him to come to our side. "We'll make a bounty for you to rescue her. We'll pay you twice what he's paying you, and then you'll be debt-free or whatever."

After a few moments of tense thinking, the guy finally spoke. "As long as you happen to have more than one gold bar..."

I felt a smile coming on. "How does three sound?" I offered, doing some gambling of myself.

"Then it's settled," he said suddenly, and sliced the rope that suspended Toph's net. I stared at her with a renewed hope. She would be okay, I told myself. She wouldn't be hurt, or forced to do something she didn't want to. I closed my eyes and nodded solemnly.

"You can meet us at the next town over, just a mile or so away, I think." The hunter nodded his recognition.

"Be careful in that town. There's a lot of superstition. And they say there's a monster, or a large beast, that captures the villagers and keeps them." He slung Toph's net over his shoulder, though I was surprised that someone of his size could carry her... Not that I wanted to insult Toph, but this guy was barely taller than she was, and he looked skinnier.

"Thanks, guy. I hope I can trust you," I said, and felt my stomach flip uncomfortably. Could I trust him?

He stared at me, then moved his gaze to Aang, then Katara, and then back to me. (Actually, it surprised me that they hadn't spoken against this plan. But they actually both seemed to agree with it.) He took a step forward, then reached up with his free hand to remove his mask.

He was a girl.

"My name's... Arashi," she said. "And... just for good measure, so you have a nice cover..." She expertly slipped her mask back on, and drew out water with her free hand. After a moment she had shaped and frozen it into a long, rough-edged and uneven cone... A knife?

For a moment I thought she was going to hand it to me. I was wrong. And I paid dearly. She shoved it into my upper arm, and was gone with Toph by the time I shut my eyes from pain. I cried out and fell to my knees on the ground.

"Sokka!" my sister yelled again. She and Aang rushed to my side, and she quickly pulled out the sharp blade of ice. There was another burst of agony, and I felt myself slip out of control.

I could only remember Toph's stunned look of shock as she was carried away against her will before I went totally unconscious.

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