Disclaimer - I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. If I did, I would force Zuko to make better decisions.
Chapter 2 - The Interruption
Feeling refreshed, Katara sat back on her heels. She had been kneeling at the waters edge. Her blue water tribe robe gathered around her thighs. She had washed her face and taken a long drink of the cool mountain water.
She refilled her water skin and stood up.
The afternoon sunlight was now slanting through the trees. She needed to scope out the surrounding area like she had told Sokka she would.
Reluctantly, she left the spring and climbed across the rocky slope.
She had been climbing, walking, and stumbling for nearly an hour now and feeling satisfied with her inspection of the surrounding area, she turned to head back to camp.
It was then that she heard something, something large rushing through the undergrowth.
She froze. Any number of dangerous animals resided in this mountain country.
With practiced stealth, she uncapped her water skin and waited. Out of the trees barreled a weary looking ostrich horse. Katara relaxed.
A saber-toothed moose lion would have been a dangerous animal to stumble across out here on her own, but ostrich horses were fairly tame. This one even appeared to be domesticated. Katara stepped forward with her hand outstretched.
"Easy there. It's okay. I won't hurt you." She spoke softly to sooth the nervous creature.
The animal eyed Katara warily but held his ground.
Katara inched forward until her hand made contact with its' beak. She slid her other hand to the side and down its feathered neck.
The saddle was worn and the saddle bags empty. Why would someone allow this animal to get away? It certainly would make travel in this county easier.
Her curiosity building; Katara took the reigns of the beast and began to lead it back through the brush it had stumbled out of.
Moments later, she heard the noises of much larger animals moving through the trees.
Deciding it was safer to be up on the ostrich horse as apposed to underfoot, Katara skillfully jumped onto the animal, swinging a leg over the animals back.
The sounds stopped and Katara thought she heard men's voices. She nudged the horse forward, keeping her arm poised above her water skin.
As the men came into sight, she gasped. Four full grown, and very lethal looking, men on rhino back were facing away from her. These were the same men who attacked Katara and her friends in the forest a few weeks ago. The gaang had barely gotten away. She wondered if they were after Aang again.
She peered around the leaves blocking her from view. The men appeared to be focused on a figure standing in the shadows of the trees around them.
As she took inventory of the situation she heard the callous voice of one of the men, "They want you dead."
It all happened in a few seconds. Hearing the whistle of a flying arrow and the cry of the person being attacked, Katara leapt from the horse and ran toward the group, unleashing a series of whips and slicing ice knives on the backs of the rhinos closest to her. She sliced the leather straps holding the rider's saddles steady.
Her fury building as two of the riders were dragged away though the thick brush, she turned her attention to the archer. Creating ice darts she sent them hurtling in his direction. The first two missed their mark and seeing the darts fly before his face, the archer turned his surprised gaze on Katara. Her third dart hit its mark, severing the string and rendering the bow useless.
Without his weapon, the archer paled and called out to his companion.
As the rhinos and their riders turned to face her, Katara saw the slumped body of a earth nation teen on the ground. Oh, no! He didn't appear to be moving.
In a wave of adrenalin, Katara created a cover of mist around the group.
Racing in-between the remaining two riders, she skidded to a stop at the battered body of the boy.
His back was crusted with dirt and blood oozed from the wound in his shoulder.
She knew the mist would only last for a few minutes. She needed to get this boy away from here.
Reaching under his arms, she carefully lifted him and began to drag him away from the clearing.
Keeping her eyes focused on the mist around them, she gently laid him on his side.
"I'll be back." She whispered as she leapt back toward the mist and the riders.
It only took a few minutes of confusing water attacks coming through the mist to send the remaining riders into a retreat.
After their shadows had fallen out of the range of her barrage of ice needles, she drew the remaining mist into a sphere of water and with a wave of her hand sent it gliding back into her water skin. They would probably return soon and she was too far from the stream to rely on that as a source of water if she needed to fight again.
She capped her water skin and turned to rush back to where she had left the injured youth.
The shadows were getting longer and the cover of night would come soon.
Coming to an abrupt halt next to him, she reached around. She gently took hold of his shoulder to turn him onto his back so that she could assess his wounds.
As his limp body fell back, Katara let out a cry of surprise as she noticed the large scar across the left side of his face.
"Zuko!"
Author's Notes
I have almost completed this story so I will be updating quickly.
I know, I hate to wait, too.
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