Chapter 2
The Moon.
That was the first thing Sokka saw as his eyes opened. He sat up uneasily, his head spinning. As it cleared he could immediately tell that he was no longer 'somewhere in the Earthkingdom' as Ty Lee put it.
'Where is she anyways…' Sokka wondered briefly 'well she's not here…'
He looked around. It was hard to believe he had been here only a few months ago. The air was warm and humid near the pond. In the pond swam two koi fish. One was black with a white spot on it's head. And the other, the other was white with a black spot. He gazed at the white fish, his heart getting heavier each moment.
Sokka blinked. Something was wrong. His reflection was light blue and a little transparent. Exactly how Aang had described being in the spirit world. Before he had enough time for it to register, the white fish started to glow a warm golden white color. The fish floated into the air and turned into Yue. She looked exactly as she had when he had seen her first become the moon, and how he had seen her in the swamp.
"Sokka," She started "you have to leave."
'What? How was he supposed to leave if he was in the spirit world? Plus he didn't even know how he had gotten here!' He thought looking up at her face. She looked worried. 'Why is she so worried? Why is it so important that I leave?'
He gazed at her standing on the other side of the pool. A dark swirling shadow appeared behind her. The shadow began to take a form. It was someone in a black cloak. The hood of the cloak hid the being's features completely.
'Dark evil looking guy in cloak who walks out of shadows,' He thought sarcastically 'he seems like a nice guy. But why does something about him seem familiar…?'
There was silence for a moment until Sokka finally decided to break it with some questions.
"What am I doing here? What happened? Why is this happening to me? This is Avatar stuff. And I'm not the Avatar!" He snapped a little at the end.
The dark spirit was probably smirking under his hood because he sounded very smug when he spoke. "You need to do what I tell you if you don't want to die."
"What he means to say is," Yue said quickly but softly "right now, you're about to die-"
"And I can spare your life." The spirit gave a small, cold laugh as he said this "That is, if you do what I tell you to."
Sokka was silent, at a loss of what to say. 'What did he mean when he said I was about to die? And what could he want me to do? And why?'
"Now the question is…" The spirit said coldly "What kind of task could you do?"
Sokka looked up, and saw that Yue still looked worried as her soft gaze was pointed down at the lush green grass.
"Yue." He saw he snap her head up in the other spirit's direction when he spoke. "I believe you have a younger sister, am I correct?" There was a hint of amusement when he said this.
She gave a small nod. Sokka was surprised at this. In the short time that he had been at the North Pole, he and Yue had talked a lot. She had never mentioned a sister. He hadn't seen a sister either.
"What was her name again?"
"Yukiko." Yue said sadly.
"Yukiko… child of the snow. An appropriate name for the princess of the Northern Water Tribe." The spirit remarked.
Sokka was starting to dislike the spirit more and more each time he spoke.
"What happened to her now?"
Yue was silent. After a few minutes she murmured "She was taken by the Firenation."
"That's right…" The spirit turned to Sokka. "Your task is to find her, Yukiko." When he said the girl's name, Sokka felt very uneasy. It was almost as if it was amusing to the speaker. "You are to find her by the next new moon." Simultaneously, the three of them turned to gaze up at the full moon. "Tomorrow, you will have exactly two weeks to complete the task. If you don't complete by then, you will die. But if you do, I will spare your life."
And with that, a shadow consumed the spirit and he disappeared.
As soon as he had disappeared, Sokka spoke.
"Yue, what does he mean?"
"Exactly what he said." She replied sadly.
"So, if I don't find your sister then I'll really…"
She nodded "The place where they were headed is at the eye of the hound. Now you must go. This spirit is powerful and evil. He won't show any mercy if you don't complete his task! Now you must leave!"
"But who is he!" Sokka asked.
"Nobody is entirely sure… you'll have help. Good luck." She finished.
"Wait! Yue!" But it was too late.
Sokka's eyes opened to stare into a pair of curious brown gray eyes. A strand of brown hair fell in front of them.
"Oh yay! You're awake." The owner of the eyes said cheerfully.
"Have you ever heard of personal space?" Sokka snapped.
Ty Lee moved, no longer leaning over him. Sokka sat up, looking around. A few feet away from him were Mai and Azula. Sitting next to him was Ty Lee, and in the corner of the room was… his stuff! Including his knife, he realized as he noticed that his hands and feet were tied.
"What are you looking at?" Ty Lee's voice cut through his thoughts.
"Nothing." He replied quickly, scooting towards his stuff.
"Nuh uh! You were looking at you knife!" She told him, following him, crawling on her hands and knees.
"Then why did you ask?" He snapped, scooting faster.
"I dunno." She replied vaguely, crawling at his speed.
Sokka scooted faster "Why are you following me?"
Ty Lee crawled faster "'Cause you're gonna try to get away."
"How do you know?" He scooted faster.
"Why else would you be heading towards your knife?" She crawled faster.
"What do want!" He asked angrily as he reached the knife.
"To know why you want to leave so badly." She answered, stopping in front of him.
Her gray eyes bore into his blue ones stubbornly. She was clearly not going to give up. What harm would it do to tell her? After all even he didn't know what 'the eye of the hound' was! But how could he tell her, at the same time! She was the enemy. She was Firenation. But she seemed like someone who could be trusted. But there was no forgetting that she was holding him hostage.
Then, Sokka did something that surprised him. He told her what happened.
She stared at him.
"You're kidding right?" She asked incredulously.
"No. Now if you don't mind, I'll be leaving now." He smirked, holding up his unbound hands. He glanced down at his unbound feet smugly.
She stared at him for a moment silently, with her head cocked to the side.
"I believe you."
"That's nice." He said standing up. He noticed a hatch on the ceiling that looked like it would lead to outside. He walked over to it. He heard her stand up. It sounded as if she was in no hurry.
"I'll help you." She said seriously.
A/N: Whee! Happy 4th of July fellow Americans! If you're in Limoges, France and go to lycee Renoir, happy first day of summer. If you fit neither categories, happy random day of the year! Ok... well the whole 'eye of the hound' thing is a clue of where they have to start in order to find Yukiko. Basically there'll be a lot of that... unless I get lazy, but I probably won't! So r&r!
