The sight of two big, lush green oak trees is enough to make me smile. I've heard a small number of animals scurrying around and birds chirping. This is a great sign; it means that there's water nearby and we've pretty much reached the Earth Kingdom. The animals in the Fire Nation are scraggly and dry. Like the rabbit we had for dinner last night, they've learned to live on little water. I'm looking forward to the food that the Earth Kingdom will have to offer. And I've been noticing a few patches of soft green grass, which could mean a good night's sleep.

We've covered a considerable distance in the past few hours. The sun has dipped lower in the sky, much to my delight. It just barely hovers over the tops of the tall trees. I'd guesstimate the time of day to be somewhere around five or six pm. We'll have to stop soon and make camp, although I would like to find a nice water source first.

Chen is walking a few feet to my left, twirling his knife around in his hand. I've yet to tell him where it is that I'm headed. I wonder if now that we've reached the Earth Kingdom, we'll be going our separate ways soon. I'd like to atleast keep him around until we've reached a town. From there, I can send messenger hawks and get directions. But Chen and I have yet to discuss the terms of our… allyship.

The ground starts to become more ragged and we find ourselves having to climb over rocks and up small hills. I'm thankful that the sun is no longer beating down on my back. When the earth starts to level out again, we find ourselves facing a small valley. It's nothing compared to the cliffs we'd encountered outside of Pohuai Stronghold, but it's definitely not something I feel comfortable looking down into. The edges of the valley are lined with sharp, jutting rocks and the bottom, which I'd put to be nearly two hundred feet down, is filled with them too.

And we've reached a ten foot wide rock bridge that stretches the thirty feet across to the other side. I'm really starting to get sick of valleys. Something about the bridge structure is making me nervous. I look all around, and find that the rock valley itself is only a few miles wide. On the end of it, the land just continues. The whole thing looks like a giant hole in the ground. But this bridge just looks wrong and out of sorts. It screams danger.

Chen is already about to cross, when I grab his forearm to stop him. "Wait… I … I don't think we should cross here. The valley ends on both sides. Let's just go there."

He looks up to see where I've pointed and his face falls. "That's like a two hour walk from here, atleast. The sun will be down by then. C'mon, why can't we cross here?"

I bite my lower lip and give the bridge a second look. "I just… it doesn't feel right."

Chen snorts. "Look, I'll go first. Just to prove that there's nothing wrong." We're right at the edge now. I can see bits and pieces of the rock bridge have crumbled off, leaving a jagged pathway. Chen takes the first step on to the structure and I flinch. But nothing happens. "See?"

I shake my head slowly. "I don't know."

"Katara." Chen raises an eyebrow at me in protest. "You're being ridiculous. The bridge is stable." He doesn't notice the rock start to shift under his weight. He lifts his foot, prepared to stomp down on the ground to argue its durability.

My lips open in warning, but it's too late. Chen's foot slams onto the rock and it crumbles beneath him.

"Chen!" I shout, reaching forward to grab him. The ground beneath me gives out and I stumble forward, headed straight for the jagged rocks below.

In an instant, Chen grips his dagger in both hands and shoves it into the wall of rock, slowing and eventually stopping his fall. I manage to grab onto his ankle in the last second. He shouts in pain as my added weight nearly brings the both of us down.

I can hear the entire bridge falling to the ground and crashing into the earth below us. The sound is almost deafening and I wish for a second that I could cover my ears. But that would mean letting go of Chen's ankle and falling to my death. So I can deal.

I can feel Chen shaking as he struggles to keep a hold on the knife that is now our lifeline. "Katara." He says through gritted teeth. "You have to climb over me. I can't hold us both for long." He chokes the words out.

Do not look down. Do not look down.

A few times before, when Sokka and I would go hunting for leopard seals, we'd hit a few spots of weak ice. The ice below our feet would give way, opening up to reveal huge caverns that went hundreds of feet down. It's pretty rare; usually when ice breaks, there's water underneath. I can't say for sure how the caverns fell, but I do know that falling into them would mean breaking probably every bone in our bodies. But then, I was always able to use my bending to stop our fall and get us out of the caves.

I'm not so lucky this time.

I pull myself up, wrapping my right arm around Chen's shin. My left hand trembles wildly as I reach up and grab onto the bottom of his shirt. Immediately he protests. "It'll rip!" He barks. So I try again, quickly pushing his shirt out of the way and curling my left arm and then my right around his stomach, hugging him tightly. I can feel myself starting to shake with more severity and mentally scold myself for not staying steady.

I take a deep breath before advancing. I reach up and grab onto Chen where neck meets shoulder. "Aghh!" He groans in pain as my fingers dig into the skin there. His arms are completely outstretched above him, both hands desperately clinging onto his knife. I can't wrap my arms around his neck without choking him. I let go of his shoulder and wrap both arms around his waist again.

"This isn't gonna work!" I yell, trying to hide the panic that I'm feeling. I search the rock wall around us, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. This close to the ground above, most of the surface is smooth. We'd managed to just miss the sharp, jagged edges that protrude out from the wall beneath us.

But there are a few jutting rocks that I might be able to make use of. The closest one is almost a full foot away from my right heel, but if I can get onto it I'll be able to grab hold of a higher one and hold myself up. "Hold on." I tell Chen. I swing my leg out, just barely missing the small rock. My second try has more luck, and I manage to prop my foot up onto it. Atleast now Chen doesn't have to hold all of my weight.

The next available rock is just beside Chen's right shoulder. If I can just grab onto that, I'll have a free arm and be able to bend. With another deep breath, I let go of Chen's waist and leap up to grab onto the rock with my left hand. Chen lets out a loud sigh of relief.

With my feet perched precariously on a small rock and my left hand gripping another, I act quickly. I use slow and deliberate motions to bend the water from one of the two trees above ground. I can hear it snapping in protest as I suck the life out of it, and eventually the sound of its dead remains hitting ground.

I bend the water against the wall below me, freezing it into a larger platform for me to stand on. I glance up to see Chen's eyes locked on me. I quickly bend an ice block for him to stand on as well. With both arms free, getting up the wall will be a lot easier. I bend ice blocks into the rock, zigzagging up the wall and creating a path for me to climb up. I quickly scale the wall and pull myself onto stable ground.

I'm tempted to kiss the dirt in relief, when I remember that Chen is still stuck below me. I lay flat on my stomach and lean down over the ledge, where Chen is waiting nearly ten feet down. "Are you alright?"

"Hanging in there." He shouts.

I frown at his joke. I bend the ice I'd used to climb up into a path of steps above him. "Climb!" I instruct. He looks up at the ice warily. His left hand releases the knife hesitantly and he reaches up to grab hold of the first ice block I'd bent in place for him.

He's just about to let go of the knife entirely and reach for the second one when his left hand slips, eliciting a small shriek from me. "I'm fine!" He yells up somewhat sourly in reassurance, quickly wiping his hand on his shirt and grabbing onto the knife once more.

The ice must have melted under his hot touch. It hadn't even occurred to me that people from the Fire Nation have naturally hotter body temperatures and are therefore unable to do things like holding ice without it melting.

But atleast with his boots on, the ice below his feet remains frozen solid in place.

"Alright, new plan!" I call back to him. "Only put your feet on the ice and use the knife to pull your body up!"

I widen the ice platform under his feet and he nods up at me. With a vicious yank that nearly knocks him backwards, he tears his knife out of the rock. I bend the water from the second tree, ready to create a larger ice structure to catch him if he should fall. If only there were more trees, I'd be able to bend a water sphere around him and simply pull him up.

I bend a new ice block beside Chen's right knee. Using the knife as leverage, he pulls himself up onto it and I create another ice block to catch his left foot. He steadies himself before leaning down and tearing the knife from its former spot in the rock.

We continue this way until he's only a foot below the surface. He reaches up to hand the dagger to me, handle side up. I toss it on the ground beside me as Chen's elbows come to rest against the steady ground. I lean down in front of him and notice that for the first time, he's actually sweating.

We lock onto eachother's forearms and with a grunt of exertion, I pull him up onto stable land. We collapse beside eachother on the ground, our chests rising and falling heavily. Narrowly escaping death is terribly exhausting.

"No more bridges." I say, staring up at the pinkish sky. The sun is almost fully set.

Chen nods. "No more bridges." He echoes.

We set up camp a few dozen yards away from the valley. Just the thought of being near it makes me shudder. We ate dinner in silence again; a lynx squirrel that Chen had gone out and hunted down. The patches of green grass nearby offered a small amount of drinking water.

I took the first watch and stared up at the bright white moon for most of the night. I couldn't place it exactly, but something had once again shifted between Chen and I. We hadn't said another word after the bridge ordeal, but I attributed it to that. Something about going through near-death experiences just changes people, really. And that bridge collapsing was not something the Blue Spirit was prepared for. Atleast I can assume that he sees me as an equal in the life-saving ability category now. I can tell that Chen is used to surviving mostly on his own and that the idea of needing help is not one that he embraces. I get the same feeling, but in reality, I wouldn't be anywhere without Aang and Sokka-although I don't like admitting it. Chen is different. He's always prepared and he knows every survival skill that I can think off, so when he's unable to protect himself it rattles him. I'm surprised that he's part of the crusaders, because he doesn't really give me a team player kind of vibe. So I don't expect a thankyou for saving his life today; he's too proud for that. And we're both too proud to openly admit that we've become dependent on the other.

But I did notice that he slept a few feet closer to me tonight.