I awoke stiff. Over the months of living in the beach house with a nice bed and reasonable bedtime, I had become accustomed to the nice living. Too accustomed it seemed.
I sat up, grumbling a little too much for my liking. If I wasn't careful, I'd end up sounding like Sokka. I rubbed my eyes, wiping away all the fuzz that had accumulated over the night. I stretched out my arms and yawned. I stood up and began to roll up my mat. I didn't bother to eat breakfast. I wasn't hungry and I didn't know how long I would be traveling until I stopped at a town. I wanted to use the least I could.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder, instantly regretting how I had packed so heavily. I should've known better that to have packed so much! I began to march through the forest. It began to be tiresome all too quickly. One foot in from of the other. In front of the other. In front of the other. In front of the other. I walked and walked and walked without ceasing.
As the day wore on and sweat poured down my forehead, I began to feel as if I was being followed. As I walked further and further into the forest. I saw signs that someone had been there just the other night, two at most. I occasionally heard a twig snap or I would see birds fly away from behind me. The faint scent of ash and smoke lingered in the air, leaving me with the most unpleasant knot in the pit of my stomach.
I squatted down, looking closely at a bush. Some of the leave had been burnt by the looks of it. The tips were blank and ashy and fell off just by a single touch. It looked as if a firebender had recently passed through the forest, and that's what frightened me. I didn't want a fight, it would blow my cover.
I reached out and plucked a leaf off and sniffed it. It reeked of smoke.
I scanned the rest of the area, squatting low at the ground, trying to catch anymore clues. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Nothing at all.
Exasperated by my futile search, I decided it was time to rest for lunch. My stomach had been rumbling since I began walking this morning. Skipping breakfast was not one of my best moves.
I pried my pack off my shoulders and slammed it onto the ground. I opened the lid and started to rummage through its contents. I bite my lip as I started to think of the nice, tasty apple somewhere at the bottom of the backpack. My fingers came in contact with a waxy surface and I pulled it out as quickly as I could, but my hand knocked out some of my belongings.
My other food and some papyrus paper and a lead pencil. I had brought them with since I liked to write about my experiences and feelings, but I didn't want to bring a brush and ink. Sokka had introduced a "pencil" to him and I a while ago when he came back from the market. He said it was used by the Egyptians and Romans. He said it was much better than using a brush and ink. We were all skeptical and I stuck to using a brush, but it was lighter and easier to travel with without the risk of dying all of my belongings if the ink leaked, so I decided to give using the pencil a shot.
I scrambled to pick up my things when I heard what sounded like someone dropping out of a tree and landing right behind me. My heart pounded inside my chest and in my ears. I felt my stomach leap all the way up into my mouth then drop back down. I slowly stood up straight and turned around.
My eyes widened as I saw right before me a man. A Fire Nation man that appeared to be around my age or older stood in front of me in the most desolate forest in the world. He was, well, handsome, I had to admit. He looked maybe a few years older than me, probably nineteen or twenty years of age. He was tall and was strong looking. He was definitely comparable to him. He had black hair that was up in a tight topknot. From what I could tell being so far away from him, he also had golden eyes.
I imagined his hair let down from his topknot and hanging down around his eyes. I imagined a scar on his left eye. He would've closely resembled him if so considering they both had an incredibly pale complexion, but it wouldn't have been the same. Who knew what his personality was? In fact, for all I knew, he was some sort of serial killer hiding out in the forest from the soldiers.
His eyes were cold and unrelenting though, worn down by years of fighting. They gazed upon me with a ghastly pierce. They were as passion-filled as his were, but they held a different emotion. They were full of strife, true, but they also held what seemed to be unknown, horrifying stories of years and years of fighting in a rigorous, bloody war.
He wasn't wearing a Fire Nation army uniform. He did, however, seem to be wearing a uniform of some sort. I hadn't been informed on the styles of uniforms and which one stood for which army. His uniform was decorated to an extent and it was gray. There was no nation anywhere with its national color as gray.
Maybe he's from a multi- bender army… I silently contemplated with myself.
I stared wearily and suspiciously at him. I eyed him, trying to catch anything that would five away where his place stood; friend or foe. He seemed to be doing the same thing, watching me.
We stood apart for a few more minutes before he finally spoke.
"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice came out velvety and soft. He didn't have the voice of someone who had been worn down by years of fighting. His eyes still were cold, but seemed to soften up just a little.
"Putting my things away," I said smoothly. I didn't want to trip over my words and look like a fool, but my rapidly beating heart seemed to want the exact opposite. From the breathing exercises he had shown me one day that he used to help calm his heart rate before a battle, I calmed my own heart down enough to stay tranquil and keep my head clear so that I could focus on the matter at hand.
"Why?" he pursued.
Well, he's blunt. Persist too. I acknowledged.
"Because they fell." I left my answer blunt and bland. I didn't want them to mislead him into thinking that I was an enemy, even if I truly was an enemy.
"Hm," he grunted his understanding. The man started to walk closer to me. He walked casually, giving off a leisurely effect.
My eyes followed his every move. From the way he moved his left foot then his right to the sway of his hips as he strutted forward towards me, I eyed him more and more intently, trying to draw any sort of information from his actions. I wanted to know who he was and what he was doing here with me. I assumed he was doing the exact same.
He was soon only a meter away from me. He began to pace around, looking me up and down. I started to turn around as he did, but I soon stopped.
He stopped circling me and stood in front of me. "You look… familiar." Familiar? "Have we met before?"
I shook my head. "No, I've never seen you before in my entire life." I stuck out my hand with a smile, shifting my things to my left hand. I was trying to make amends and get to know him, find out whose side he was on. "I'm On Ji."
He gratefully took my hand, much quicker than I had expected him to. "Jang. What are you doing here all alone in these woods? I hear they're haunted."
I nodded knowingly. "My aunt is sick and the quickest way to her house is through the forest." I was surprised at how easily that lie had come out. I hadn't prepared it or even thought of any other lie for that matter before hand. I hadn't expected to see anyone in the forest at all.
"Oh?" Jang lifted his eyebrow. Uh- oh. He wasn't buying it. "What town does she live in?"
I bit my lip. "Uh…" My cover was blown for sure. He was probably an undercover Fire Nation soldier, trying to capture rebel soldiers. He probably though that I was a soldier sent out to scout the terrain in hopes that the Fire Nation would leave a female alone, thinking she was obviously not in an army. He was probably going to capture me and take to a prison.
"Can't think of it?" he asked casually with a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. I shook my head, hoping I looked sheepish.
Sure, let's go with that.
"Is it Uso- Tsuki? That's about a four days walk from here."
"Yeah, that's it!" I grinned. "I'm on my way to Uso- Tsuki." I nodded my head.
"Hey, so am I. We should travel together."
Suddenly an alarm went off in my head. Was it just me or was this guy being way too nice for a stranger? Something about his words didn't seem quite right, but he acted perfectly normal. Could he really be telling the truth? Or was he just some other deranged killer, trying to get me alone with him. If he was a murderer, wouldn't he have already killed me? We were already alone; no one could possibly hear my screams.
What if he's telling the truth? Should I risk it? Oh…
I shook my head. "No, I don't think so." Better to play it safe. My mission was already almost a suicide mission; I didn't need to add another dangerous factor into the equation.
Jang simply shrugged. "Suit yourself." I squatted back down on the ground and put my things away and stood back up, facing Jang. "I just thought that maybe you'd feel safer sleeping at night with someone with you. But if you're alright…" Jang walked past me and further into the forest.
For some reason, I was slightly offended by his words. I didn't need any protecting. I was fine on my own, and if worse came to worst and I was attacked by some animal, I could simply waterbend to protect myself. I was a master waterbender after all, I didn't need protecting.
"And why's that?" I asked before he was out of sight, putting my hands on my hips.
He turned around. "Well, I just know that there are wild bat wolves and platypus bears that come out to hunt at night," he stated, matter- of- fact. I gave him a condescending look, prompting him to elaborate. I just met the guy not even five minutes ago and he was already starting to get on my nerves. I mean, what did he take me for? Did he think of me as a pitiful, little, weak girl who can't do anything on her own?
"And?"
Jang sighed, telling me there's was so much more that I apparently didn't understand. "And I know," he took a few steps toward me, "that when you're out there all alone at night when's it's so dark you can barely see in front of you, you won't be able to waterbend in that kind of condition. Not to mention there won't be any water available to you because I already you didn't pack some with to make sure you didn't draw attention to yourself."
"H- how..? How do you..?" I breathed, trying to get a grasp on things. How did he know I was a waterbender?
"How do I know you're a waterbender?"
I numbly nodded.
"It was simple." He ambled towards me until he was a meter away again. "You have blue eyes. Firebenders don't have blue eyes," he shook his head, "even if they're half Water Tribe, half Fire Nation. If they were a waterbender then they would have blue eyes, and if they were a firebender they would have gold eyes."
"Is that it?" I asked, still shocked. "Is that how you figured out I was a waterbender?"
"Well, not exactly. I didn't know that you were a waterbender just by your eyes. I had a hunch that you were, but when you were talking about your aunt and you couldn't think of a town to tell me, I knew then."
I arched my eyebrow.
Jang looked at me then simply stated, "Uso- Tsuki isn't a real town. I asked you that to see if you were lying. When you said you were headed there, that was when I knew that you were a waterbender for sure."
"Oh." I nodded my head, sadly. "What are you going to do to me?" I asked timidly. For once, all my strength was gone. The thought of being taken away from my mission to find him was frightening. I was so scared that I was to be arrested that my legs felt frozen to the ground.
"Help you get to wherever you're going," Jang said as if I was crazy, smiling.
"What?" I gaped at him.
"Well, I mean, I will, this is, if you're not with the Fire Nation." He gave me a coy smile.
"No, of course not." I shook my head, happy to be able to tell the truth for once.
A/N: Hey! I am incredibly sorry this chapter hasn't come out sooner, but I do actually have a legit excuse! I don't really want to type it all out again, so if you're curious, check Fate's Sense of Humor Chapter 6. Or maybe it's 5. No, no, I think it's 6. Oh, well it's the newest chapter lol. :P
So this chapter is REALLY different from the original story. Jang and Katara meet in a totally different way. I didn't really like the way Jang scooped her up from the ground while he was swinging through the trees. Personally, it reminded me too much of Tarzan, plus I didn't really like it in the first place, but I was in a hurry and I didn't really want to type out another whole 1000 words. So I just went with the first thing that popped in my head. I really like this version much better. (In more ways than just this chapter, but I guess I could've stuck with the original and just revise it, but this just sounds more logical and realistic.)
I know you guys are probably aching to know when Zuko comes back into the story, but, honestly, I have know idea! Sorry to let you down. Although I think he might be back after three more chapters. Maybe four. I don't know. Just don't hold you're breath. All the other characters like Tumcria, Zatica, Shang, and Tekei will be in the next chapter! Stay tuned! Lol that sounded really cheesy and like I was a talk- show person. :)
Well hoped you like it! Thanks!
-Neon
