New readers! Thanks for continuing! Introduction to the valley that needs healed. Please R&R!

The Gufeng Valley

Mid day settled hot and muggy over the Fire Nation mountain range. It was always hot in the Fire Nation, laying right along the equator. Even along the northernmost ridge, flying high in the atmosphere, the South Pole native found herself tugging at her clothing uncomfortably. The peaks of the mountains were poking out through a dense fog of what appeared to be low hanging clouds. The high sunlight bounced off them and scattered into every shade of the rainbow. Villages dotted the landscape at the foothills of the mountains. The whole scene was quite peaceful. The fog seemed to be most concentrated inside the ring of mountains, just spilling out from between the peaks.

"I wonder what might be wrong with the Gufeng Valley?" Katara inquired. She was in the back saddle reading the maps to make sure they stayed on target today. "This place is beautiful!"

"It might look it from up here," Aang guessed, searching for evidence of spiritual or natural mishaps, "but who knows what it's like down in the valley past that fog."

It didn't take long to discover what the problem was. They reached the edges of the misty fog and were assaulted by the thick gas. They could barely breathe and their lungs began to burn as they started coughing.

"It's all smog!" Katara choked out. Her eyes were stinging from the noxious fumes trapped in the clouds. She grabbed a cloth and tied it around her face in hopes of blocking out the toxins. The unnatural chemicals were actually what was causing the beautiful colors they had seen from the refracted sunlight. The flying bison was having even greater difficulty breathing and was already starting to go down. His breath was ragged and he was bucking wildly as he was hacking through the smog. Momo hid, wedged between the sacks and baskets of gear.

"Hang on buddy! Katara! Get up here and wrangle him!" Aang called back to his wife. Not being an air bender made shuffling between reigns and saddle immensely dangerous- a task compounded by the convulsing bison. He turned back to the water bender and with a flick of his wrist he seized control of the liquid in the water skin at her hip. He snaked the water out of it and wrapped it around her torso like a rope to steady her as she clambered out of the saddle and towards her husband. "I got you!" he gasped, grabbing onto her and returning her water to the skin.

"Thanks! And I got him!" Katara struggled with trying to calm Appa.

Aang jumped nimbly to the peak of the saddle and swirled the air around them into a giant protective sphere. The spinning winds kept the smog at bay and cleared the air enough for breathing. He was balancing and concentrating hard, holding his hands outstretched to maintain control of the rolling ball of air. But Appa was still having difficulties and was losing altitude fast. They were heading straight for the side of the mountain range.

"Keep steady, Appa! We gotta get over the ridge!" Katara yelled to the ill beast. "Aang! I have an idea! Keep up your bending. Don't worry about me."

Aang looked over just in time to watch in horror as his wife dove off their shaggy companion and into the smoggy void.

"KATARA!" he screamed, helpless as they continued to careen towards the looming wall of mountain. His vision flared as Aang fearfully slipped into the Avatar State. The power of the Avatar State would allow him to keep the protective windscreen around them without sacrificing all of his concentration on that one action. He had to save Katara!

Then he saw that the horn reigns had been cut on one side.

He trusted her and knew he had to let her go.

Appa was hurt on the inside. The toxic fumes had gotten into his lungs and were shutting them down. Thinking quickly, Katara used her water to slice off the rope on one side of the horn reigns. She tied the rope around her waist and froze the knot to make sure it stayed before jumping. Her weight pulled Appa unevenly off course, but there was nothing else she could do in that moment. Off course was better than into the side of a mountain. She fell between the bison's rows of legs and slammed against his segmented underbelly.

Katara pulled more water from the leather ballast and energized it. The glow coated her hands as she blocked out her panic. She closed her eyes and felt into the beast with her healing abilities. She could sense his strained lungs and thrashing suffocating heart. She could see the heavy contaminants coating the lining of Appa's lungs and felt an angry energy within him. She reached for the moisture inside the delicate air sacs. She used that to push the foreign substance out and Appa was able to cough the rest out. She used the therapeutic waters to penetrate the injury, soothing and healing the damaged tissue.

Within moments Appa was breathing steady again. He regained control and pumped his huge flat tail and soared up and away from the looming crag. The weight of the woman hanging onto the one sided rope was pulling him sideways, but they were out of danger. They were still in the thick smog but were able to clear the summit of the mountain range.

Katara slowly and laboriously climbed back up the rope and pulled herself up the side of the animal's thick neck. Aang was there, extending his glowing tattooed arm out to her to pull her up the rest of the way. The other was raised to maintain the airshield.

"That was amazing, Katara!" Aang gasped, pulling her into one of the tightest hugs ever. He trusted her insane risk, but that didn't change the fact that she had terrified him. She could feel his heart thumping wildly against his ribs as she melted into his arms. "You saved Appa. You saved us."

"Heh heh heh," she weekly laughed as the adrenaline rush was seeping away her remaining strength. "You were able to clear the air for me to be able to, Glo-Boy. I think it was a team effort." She ran her hand over his bright forearm. She could feel the energy tingling between their skin as it dissipated. Without being distracted by threat of death, Aang was able to keep the air shield steady by his own volition, and without needing the Avatar State.

Katara sat in front of Aang as he maintained the bubble. She curled between his straddled legs and attempted to give Appa some direction just through touch as his cut reigns hung out of reach.

"Think you can get us to the valley floor on your own, Buddy?" Katara patted the bison's head. "Hopefully this clears."

Appa grunted a positive response. They slowly made their descent.

The air didn't clear. If anything, it became worse. Inside the mountain range was more like a bowl, trapping the pollution, poisoning everything. There was no outlet for it. The land was desolate. No animals, no plants for leagues.

"Well, now we know what's wrong out here," Aang murmured sadly gazing out at the bleak landscape. Katara glanced over at her husband. Sweat was beading on his brow and his chest was slick. He was wearing out, trying to keep the air clear for them.

"Sweetie, we need to find a place to land," she took the edge of her dress and wiped his head with it. He smiled thankfully at her touch. "No matter how terrible this looks. Even you can't keep this up forever. Once we touch down, Appa won't be breathing as hard, so he won't be poisoning himself…as fast…" She frowned. It wasn't the best idea, but they didn't have any other options besides abandoning their mission.

"Yeah…I know…" His shoulders slumped. "I don't like it, but we don't have any other choice."

Appa landed heavily on the barren ground, crunching beneath his feet and kicking up dust. Aang took one last breath before dropping the shield. The smog rolled slowly back into the empty space.

"That's not so bad now that we're not breathing as heavy," Katara said as she hopped down from Appa. She scowled at the ground under her feet and searched the air for any signs of moisture. "Ug. This place is as bad as a desert. This smog is more smoke than fog. I can't bend anything."

Something more than just the pollution was pulling at Aang, creeping into his mind like another cloud. Aang tried to hold it in, but he started hacking anyway. He couldn't catch his breath after all of the exertion. His vision started to fade and he grew lightheaded at the lack of oxygen and sheer exhaustion. The last thing he saw was oddly enough butterfly wings. He didn't even feel himself fall from Appa's neck.

Katara saw Aang start to sway as he was coughing and immediately readied herself to catch him. He was probably the fastest person on the planet, but even he couldn't evade the need to breathe. For a moment an odd breeze pushed through the mist and Katara thought she could see something moving in it, but was more concerned with the rapidly deteriorating health of her husband. When he lost consciousness she was right there for him.

She was able to guide him gently to the ground, but it was a struggle now that he outweighed her by easily fifty pounds. She bent the remaining bit of water out of her ballast and felt along his air ways with it. There was more than just the smog constricting him. Some foreign energy had crept in as well.

"Oh man. I think we found the angry spirit, sweetie," she whispered to him. She looked around. She needed more water and shelter. Appa looked forlorn and Momo was peering down at them from the saddle worried. "Come on boys, we need to move."

She grunted as she lifted her helpless husband onto Appa's tail and coughed a bit herself from the heavy breathing. "This is no good," she thought to herself, "I can't go down too or we're dead…" she pulled the cloth over her nose and mouth again. She thought for a bit on her healing training from the North Pole and wished she had paid more attention. She wanted to fight more than heal, so most of her healing had been experimental and on the fly. Well… she had been able to bring Aang back from the dead, so she must be doing something right. She sat next to her husband and placed a hand over his heart. It was pounding against his ribs, fighting the lack of clean air. She took a meditative pose and thought. Could she shield herself so she could press on?

'I am a water bender… Aang tells me all the time I'm the greatest waterbender … but I'm out of water…My body is mostly water…I am a bloodbender, even though it isn't a full moon…'

She felt inside herself for her own water and concentrated on her healing energy. She searched inside for the blood pumping from her heart and flowing through her own veins. She visualized the moisture inside of her lungs and focused on pushing her energy and life force into that water. Instantly, she could feel the weight lifting from her chest and windpipe and she breathed easier. She could feel a protective barrier form inside her lungs. It felt like the arctic air inside her chest, but she wasn't coughing.

"Maybe you are a master waterbender after all, Katara," she said aloud, congratulating herself. Toph was known for her pride and often touted her own accomplishments; Katara was much more modest and humble. She looked back down at Aang, still unconscious. She couldn't do the same for him- the barrier wouldn't keep. The energy had to come from within to do that. "Hang on, sweetie." And she started to lead Appa through the inhospitable landscape, pushing her waterbending energy and focus out ahead of her, searching.

It took about an hour of Katara acting as a living divining rod in order to find the stream. It was murky and torpid and full of dense sludge. But it was there, and it had plenty of water. Nothing was living in or around it. She tried touching the water and it burned against her skin. If she wanted to use this water she'd have to separate it from the acrid pollution.

She followed along it for a ways, hoping to stumble across some sort of shelter, and thankfully wasn't disappointed. There were plenty of rocky outcrops and formations in the valley and soon she found a cave a short distance from the stream. It was deep and cool, but still thick with the low hanging smog. Katara shuffled Aang off of Appa's tail and cradled him gently, kissing his arrowed head.

"I'll figure this out, sweetie." She looked around the cave. It was big enough and deep enough for Appa to fit in as well. She bit against her lip and then talked soothingly to the giant beast. "Appa, I know you don't like caves, but the air out here isn't fit for us to be in right now. I need your help. Can you airbend the smog out of the cave? Can you stay in here with us?"

The sky bison grunted in disgust at the proposition, but the lemur jumped up on his head, chittering angrily at him. He roared back his apparent opposition, but begrudgingly entered the cave.

"Thank you, Appa," Katara said sweetly to him. He went into the crevice as far as he could before his nerves gave out and began pumping his tail up and down. Katara grasped her husband tightly as the bison created a gale force wind that blew all of the air from the cave. The air from deep within was dank and stale, but at least it was free of the smog. "Great work, boy! Now keep it up! Keep this clear long enough for me to seal it!"

Slowly Katara summoned just the water from the stream, leaving the toxins and sludge behind. It was a much more difficult task than it had been at the river village of Jan Hui because she was the only one bending. Before, she had Toph and Aang helping pull the water and the earthy mire apart in the river. Carefully she created an ice basin full of newly cleaned water inside the cave. All the while Appa was slowly keeping an air flow moving out of the cave to prevent the smog from creeping back in. She drew her energy center and flung her arms high, creating a great wave that flowed over the land and smashed against the entrance of the cave. She blew a frigid breath across the wave and froze it, sealing them inside with a small glacier of a door. She melted out a little opening near the floor so air wasn't completely trapped, but the ice itself would act as a filtering barrier for the time being. It was cold, but she didn't dare start a fire in the contained area. It was actually a relief from the earlier oppressive heat.

Now she could focus her attention back on her husband. She took the clear water from the ice basin and flowed it over her hands. It felt good to touch the pure liquid again and it revitalized her as much as she pushed her own energy into it. She ran her shimmering hands back along her husband's sternum and chest, pushing the healing energy into him. She could still feel the knot of strange energy as it clung to the muck coating his lungs. Cold sweat began to bead along her forehead as she willed his lungs to eject the gaseous intrusion. With a final forceful push of energy, Aang started coughing and expelled a thick black mucus and began breathing strongly again.

He blinked open his eyes and the first thing he saw was a shimmering blue glow. He knew he wasn't in the Avatar State because he could feel an outside energy pushing into his chest and around his heart. It was familiar and warm while the air was stale and cool. He closed his eyes again, enjoying the sensation. Her energy always prickled along his most basic instincts. Katara had once embarrassingly informed him that she discovered this as well after his lightning strike in Ba Sing Se. He reached up and grabbed her soft hand blindly, knowing exactly where it was, hovering over his torso. His kissed her fingers and pulled her to him, just holding her.

"Mmmm. You're really good at that," he murmured, kissing her head. He sat up slowly, bringing her with him. "You caught me again, didn't you."

Her eyes met his and she blushed. "Of course. I'll always catch you."

"I feel like that should be the other way around… " he admitted guiltily, then smiled. "But I wouldn't expect anything else from you. We catch each other." He looked around, finally getting his bearings. They were just within the mouth of a large cave. Even Appa was inside. There was a huge door made of ice closing them in, but letting light through. It was slowly dripping from the hot air and fading sunlight outside, but it was so thick that Aang suspected it would hold through the night."What happened? Where are we?"

"You've actually been out for a while. A couple hours I'd guess," Katara responded, handing him a skin of drinking water and a bowl of dried fruits and nuts. He graciously accepted them. "When we landed, you kind of hyperventilated after holding the airshield for so long. You took in a lot of the pollution. You fell off of Appa, but I caught you. You were hurt pretty bad inside and I needed more clean water so I could heal you. It took us a while to find this cave. There's a stream outside of it, but it's really dirty. The cave was actually pretty full of the smog too, but I had Appa air bend it all out before sealing us inside to keep it from seeping back in. It took a while to separate the water from the pollution by myself."

"Wow, Katara," he replied, astonished. "Have I told you you're amazing lately? I think I already did earlier. But I need to say it again. You are absolutely amazing. I don't know how you do it sometimes. Water really is the element of change. You can improvise anything!" He wrapped his arms around her tightly, entranced by her unending ability to astound him. He could feel her cheek grow hot against his own and he knew she was modestly blushing.

"I'm just thankful you're okay," she smiled, brushing a kiss against his scruffy cheek. She passed her hand into his robes and over his heart again and searched into his lungs and blood. It felt all clear. There was no sign of the pollution or strange energy anymore.

"Woah there, Touchy-Mc-Touch-ster," Aang gasped as he felt his wife's energy flow into him enticingly, "I don't know if I can handle that right now…but I could try…"

"I was just feeling for any more pollution, you big jerk," Katara gave him a snarky look and pursed her lips at him. "Plus when you went down there was a really weird energy that was hovering in your lungs. But it's gone now."

"Oh, right…" Aang rubbed his neck and felt kind of stupid for thinking that his wife was looking for a quickie right after that whole ordeal. Truth be told, his interest had been piqued on the issue the moment her hand touched his chest. He had to will his hormones to calm back down, but then remembered the last thing he saw. "Wait, a 'weird energy?' You didn't happen to see anything before I went down, did you?"

"Well, actually I thought I did." Katara cocked her brow at him, "The air whipped a bit oddly and I thought I saw something in the fog that almost looked like a giant butterfly… but I was pretty focused on catching you."

"I thought I saw something like that too!" Aang's eyes were bright and he actually clapped his hands a bit excitedly. "That must be the spirit of this valley! If it's a butterfly I bet it's an Air Spirit! I've never met one of those! It will be so happy to meet me, being an Air bender and all! This will be so exciting!"

"I don't know Aang," Katara grimaced, "It felt kind of dark and angry when I was trying to heal you… And it went after you… and I think Appa too… but it left me alone. I mean, I felt ill, but I didn't feel the spirit energy in me."

"Oh Katara!" Aang said gaily, squeezing her tightly again, "I'm sure everything will be fine. You'll see, come morning we'll get this all cleared up and have a happy spirit and valley again!"

She wasn't so sure, but right now didn't care as fatigue began to overtake her. Aang laid out the sleeping mats and bedrolls for Katara and insisted she rest a while and let him take care of her for a change. The monk began preparing the cave for bed. They would be plunged into secluded darkness soon… something he was planning on taking full advantage of.