Chapter Two: Soon There Will be Laughter and Voices
Aang, Katara, Sokka
Upon breaking his icy prison, the boy in the iceberg stopped glowing and fell backwards, unconscious. Upon being awoken by the girl, much to the chagrin of her brother who was insisting it was some sort of trap the dragons had set up, he announced his name to be Aang, of the Air Nomads. The girl introduced herself as Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and gesturing toward her brother declared him to be Sokka of the Paranoid Tribe, to which the aforementioned glared angrily.
After revealing his huge bison to the amazed Water Tribe members, Aang asked,
"Where are you guys headed? Isn't the Southern Water Tribe that way?" he pointed in the direction opposite the way they had been traveling.
"None of your business, Baldy!" was the quick response he received from the elder sibling, and after the younger sibling was done bashing the elder's ribs in, she replied,
"We are headed to the Northern Water Tribe, and yes that is where the Southern Water Tribe... used to be." she added quietly, lowering her head to hide the tears that threatened to escape her eyes.
Her brother just placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly as the meaning in her words finally sunk in for their new friend.
"It was destroyed!" he shouted, clearly shocked.
"Yeah, about a week ago, so we're going to rejoin our people in the North." Sokka replied, almost sounding civil, almost.
"Who destroyed it? Fire Nation?"
"Fire Nation! It was the dragons! The Fire Nation's been destroyed for a century, geez. Fire Nation...that's a good one. Ha!"
Sokka began laughing to himself as Katara tried to explain dragons and the Fire Nation's destruction to Aang, concluding that he must have been frozen in the ice for over a hundred years. Aang and Katara finally convinced Sokka that it would be best to just travel together on the bison, Appa, because it would be faster and safer than sailing the sea in a dingy, and so they set off for the Northern Water Tribe!
Blue Spirit, Little Girl
To his surprise, he'd actually found a survivor, a little girl. She looked to be about five or six with green eyes, but the amount of light coming from the fire within his grasp prevented him from observing any other distinguishing features. He started to approach her and when he did, she crawled away from him further into the cave until reaching the wall, she curled into a ball. As much as he didn't want to, he spoke,
"I'm not going to hurt you."
He hated to talk, because it gave him away, he had a telltale accent and any who knew enough about the rest of the accents would be able to tell he wasn't Earth Kingdom, Air Nomad, or Water Tribe. He could fake being from the Western Temple, except he lacked the distinguishing blue arrow tattoos. The girl stopped sniffling for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to trust him, then she crawled toward him. He reached for her hand and together they walked out of the cave.
It was approaching dusk, so he knew he didn't have much time, for whenever the sun set it seemed he just couldn't keep his eyes open. He figured it had something to do with what his wise uncle had told him ages ago, that firebenders rise with the sun, so then they rest with it too? Ah, well. He just knew he had to set up some kind of camp before sunset... and it looked like he was going to have a companion...
Aang, Katara, Sokka
She had noticed that the little monk had deftly avoided the Southern Air Temple, did he not want to go there? Hmm...Why would he not want to visit his own people after a hundred year long absence, because yes, he had been in that glacier for at least a hundred years. ...Had he been banished? Sokka suddenly throwing a pair of his pants into her face snapped her back into reality.
"Sew the holes up for me!" he demanded and she had half-a-mind to throw them back and tell him to sew it himself, but she was bored and had nothing else to do so she glared but sewed.
She had successfully repaired all his clothing within an hour's time (Of course he had added more after she finished the pants!) and was settling back into a daze when he shrieked,
"NOOOOO!"
Aang almost jumped clear off of Appa, who had jumped himself jostling everybody and all the belongings in his saddle, and Katara jumped and shrieked
"AAAH!"
"La, Sokka! Geez, what was that for?" she huffed at him, regathering and assorting all their belongings again in the saddle and trying to regain her composure as well.
"I accidentally ate all of my meat...there's none left." he sniffled in reply then took on a tone of authority as he instructed Aang to land Appa on the island that he spotted below them.
Katara just rolled her eyes, but she did think it would be nice to stretch her legs a bit, so she didn't disagree. A few moments later, however, the whole GAang agreed that it would have been better had they not descended in that particular spot.
Blue Spirit, Little Girl
After gathering some wood for fire and starting one with a well placed burst of flame, he pulled off his pack and began searching through it, cataloging what he had, a few pieces of jerky, his bedroll, and some...unknown...fruit? He tossed the last one into the fire and he could have sworn he saw smoke rise in the shape of a skull.
He turned to the girl, she was shivering, was it cold or shock? He decided to set up his bedroll and let her use it, what was a little dirt anyway? She was just a kid after all... better let her have the jerky too, it is unsure when it was she ate the last time after all. He laid down on the hard rocky earth, then he realized he still had his mask on, hmm... whatever, it didn't really matter if she saw his face he finally decided after eyeballing her suspiciously.
He removed it and set it by his head, the girl crawled cautiously toward him and grasped the mask before moving back to the bedroll. He was about to yell at her to give the mask back, but she was just harmlessly caressing it all over and he was just... too tired...to...care...
Aang, Katara, Sokka
Upon descending, Appa had noticed a shadow below him in the water. He could only see it faintly and his animal intellect told him that he was far enough above the water to be bothered by anything in the water. He was wrong. The serpentine creature rose out of the waves sending the water thrashing up the bay violently as the water also rose to drench the bison and his passengers.
"I told you that if we flew around we'd get EATEN by a DRAGON!" Sokka yelled above the crashing waves.
"Well, if YOU hadn't run out of meat and MADE us land here, WE wouldn't BE in this situation!" Katara responded angrily.
"Quiet guys! Appa needs to concentrate!" Aang added and then they noticed what a marvelous job the chunky bison was doing to evade the crushing jaws of the sea monster.
He couldn't evade the blast of water that blew off his passengers though, all three of them. The cold rushed through her entire body as the water seeped into her clothes and hair. Other unpleasantness rushed her as well, her eyes stung and her ears filled with pressure for a brief moment after the plunge, when she surfaced she was met with another unpleasant feeling, abject horror. She was staring down the sea creature's nose, straight into its cruel eyes. She hoped it wouldn't be too painful...
Blue Spirit, Little Girl
Wet. What was wet? His chest and his side oh, and some of his back. What was wet on his chest, side, and part of his back? Hmmmm...! He bolted awake to the sight of the girl laying her head on his chest with her arm stretched comfortably across as well, she was drooling...but that didn't explain why his side and back were wet...?
Oh, Agni, you have to be kidding!
ARGH!
He was doing his best not to scream. A bed-wetter. Seriously? He rose up from under her head and outstretched arm, letting her roll unceremoniously onto her back with a plop. Water, water, water... he needed a stream, pond, heck, a waterfall would work at this point! Finally he heard the trickling of water, found a small creek and followed it to a river where it emptied. The river was crystal clear and relatively calm, it had a small waterfall on the right. Perfect. He plunged right in letting the cold of the water remind him he was getting clean.
He cleaned his clothes and strew them over some tree branches to dry, he would finish drying them later but for now he had to scrub his skin raw. He wasn't much for gross stuff, a bit obsessed with cleanliness, not that he would admit it. He was in the process of scrubbing his scalp, just in case, when the little girl appeared clutching his mask carefully in her hands. He immediately began to wish for his clothes. But why? She was just a little girl, she probably still bathed with her parents... but he was NOT her parent and her presence bothered him now.
That's when he noticed that she was turning her head from side to side and when she stopped she had a confused look on her face as well as a few tears in her eyes. He looked closer, her eyes were unusually light...he pulled his hand up and waved hugely in her direction, no response. She was blind.
