~~ Sokka watched the sun start to set in the distance over the edge of the balloon. Toph lay sleeping next to him, and Mai sat across from them. She had her eyes closed, but Sokka could tell she wasn't sleeping. He spoke in a hushed tone, so as not to disturb the girl at his side.
"So how did you guys get this to work without firebending?" he asked.
There was no response from Mai, so Sokka sighed and settled back against the basket.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" she asked after a few moments of silence.
"The Western Air Temple. It's not too far from here, and that's where we said we would meet no matter what. Maybe Aang and Zuko finally made it."
"And what if they're not there?"
"Then…I guess we go looking for them. It can't be too hard to find the Avatar right?"
"Tell that to Zuko." Mai turned around and stared off into the sunset as Sokka settled back and tried to sleep. "How'd you two end up in the Boiling Rock anyways?"
"Do you really want to know?" Sokka said as he sat up again.
"I guess. It's better than doing nothing…probably."
"Alright then Mai, have I got a story for you."
3 Days Earlier
~~ Appa was flying low over a field, which was a nice change of pace compared to the mountains the gang had been seeing for the past few hours. Sokka was at the reins, and he kept peeking over Appa's head to see below him, and peering above as well.
"Where the hell is this temple?" Toph suddenly exclaimed.
The others jumped and turned to her.
"The Air Nomads were a very secretive people Toph." Katara said. "They wouldn't just leave their temple in the middle of a field. They'd hide it, so only airbenders could reach it."
Toph sighed and fell back onto the saddle, landing on the sleeping Momo. He screeched and jumped into the air, flying into place beside Appa.
"Sorry Momo." Toph yawned as she settled down to sleep herself.
Appa suddenly roared and veered downwards past a cliff. The group screamed as the bison plummeted. Toph was having the hardest time as she struggled to keep a hold on the edge of the saddle. Finally, he evened out, and once Suki had helped Toph back into the saddle, they took a moment to examine their surroundings.
There were various buildings and temples hanging upside down, and for being several hundred years old, they were holding up remarkably well.
"What? What is it?" Toph asked.
"We found the temple." Katara said breathlessly.
Sokka set Appa down on a platform that jutted out from the rest of the structures. The four teens climbed down from the bison and began exploring their temporary home.
~~ Sokka and Suki had gone down the right hallway and found a long stretch of empty rooms. The rooms were all identical, and Sokka was exploring one where the ceiling had almost completely collapsed when his girlfriend called out to him.
"Sokka! I think I found our room!"
Sokka went to see what she had found, and his jaw dropped. The room looked like it used to be two separate rooms, but the wall had long since disappeared. There was also a tree growing out of the outside wall, and it had taken out a section of it to poke its branches into the room. Suki went over and held one of them.
"I love this tree. It's like it's trying to prove that it can grow in any environment."
"I don't care where we sleep Suki. As long as I'm with you." Sokka said. He took the warrior's hands and leaned in to kiss her when a voice interrupted them.
"Ugh. Could you be any more cheesy?" Toph groaned.
Sokka sighed and Suki smiled as she let go of his hands. Toph wandered into the room and felt the tree.
"Wow, is there a tree in here?" she asked.
"Yep. Coming right through the wall." Suki replied.
"That's cool." Toph said, then after realizing how awestruck she sounded, she composed herself. "I mean, yeah. That's cool I guess. Um…I'm gonna go see what Katara's doing."
"That's a good idea." Suki laughed.
Once she was gone, Suki got closer to Sokka and moved in face to face with him.
"Now, where were we?" she asked seductively.
~~ "You can skip this part Sokka." Mai said rolling her eyes.
"Ok ok. I just thought you'd want to hear the entire story, but if you want to skip some important details then fine. Ok so after a little while-"
~~ Night had fallen, and each of them had retired to their respective rooms. Toph and Katara were on one end of the temple, Sokka and Suki shared the room with the tree in it. Sokka was in a light sleep, while Suki dozed comfortably with her head on his chest. A noise woke him up, and he looked around to see if it came from anywhere nearby. Deciding to venture out, he lifted Suki's head and placed it gently on his blanket. He got his sword and boomerang and readied them for battle, slowly peeking his head around the corner of the room.
His hands shook a bit as he slowly peeked into each room, finally reaching the front area where Appa was sleeping soundly. He relaxed a bit, as the bison would have been at least awake if he had heard a sound. He was about to head back to his room when he saw something in the corner of his eye that made him do a double take. What appeared to be a man dressed completely in black and wearing a white mask was perched on a ledge high above him. He was there for a fraction of a second, but when Sokka blinked, he was gone.
He rubbed his eyes, and the ledge remained bare. Sokka shrugged his shoulders and headed back to his room, chalking up the vision to lack of sleep in the past couple of days. He laid down next to Suki again and went back to sleep.
~~ "So you weren't at all suspicious of a masked figure up in a temple that supposedly only Air Benders can access?" Mai asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well like I said, I just thought I was seeing things. If I knew then what I know now I would have woke everyone up and gotten us out of there then. But…I didn't think anything of it."
Next to him, Toph yawned and sat up in the basket. She felt what she was sitting on and remembered the balloon.
"So we're still not there yet?" she asked.
"Nope. I was telling Mai what happened at the Western Air Temple."
"Oh! Did you get to the part with the freaky ninja assassins?" Toph asked excitedly.
Sokka sighed and covered his face with his hands.
"Not yet. I was getting there."
"Oh ok. Go ahead."
Sokka inhaled and was about to continue when Toph cut him off.
"By the way Sokka, I meant to ask you a while ago, where's your fancy space sword?"
Sokka's face fell and he quickly patted himself down.
"My sword! I must have left it back at the prison! We have to turn around and-"
"Calm down." Mai said. She reached into her robe and pulled out Sokka's sword, handing it to the dumbstruck warrior. "Don't even think about hugging me or anything. I saw it lying on the ground and figured I owed you guys for all the trouble we put you through. Just keep telling your story."
"Well the next morning-" Sokka began, but once again, Toph butted in.
"Hold on Sokka. I think we should have some different perspective on this story." she said smugly. Not pausing to let him interject, she continued. "So where are we? Day two? Ok so the morning started pretty much the same as it always does."
2 Days Earlier
~~ Toph yawned as she approached the fire Katara had set up in the center room of the temple.
"Do I smell food?" she asked, sitting down across from Sokka and Suki.
"Yep. It's lunch." Katara replied.
"Lunch? Jeez I woke up early." Toph fell back onto the floor on her back as Katara rolled her eyes.
"So what's the plan?" Suki asked. "Are we just going to wait here for Aang and Zuko to show up?"
"There's not much else we can do." Katara replied. "Aang promised he'd be here in a day or two and I trust him."
"Of course you do. He's your boyfriend." Toph said, waving her hands around for emphasis.
Katara blushed and busied herself in the preparation of lunch.
"Hey leave her alone." Suki said. "I think it's cute."
"How about we don't talk about my sister's love life!" Sokka interjected. "I hate being the only guy in the group. Well, except for Toph."
Without sitting up, Toph smacked the ground and launched Sokka into the air, landing him on his chest. Suki giggled the whole time she was helping him up.
"Don't encourage her." Sokka mumbled. When her laughing continued, Sokka headed out of the room. "I'll leave you ladies to your girl talk." he grumbled.
~~ "Ok, now we have to switch back to my perspective." Sokka said. "I'm sure Mai doesn't want to hear a bunch of boring girly conversations. Um…not that she's not…girly…or um…"
"Just tell the story." Mai replied.
~~ Sokka wandered outside and sat on the edge of the temple, hanging his feet over the edge. He watched Momo circle around Appa's head and the bison's futile attempts to catch him in his mouth. He took out his boomerang and tossed it halfheartedly, not even looking up to catch it. He repeated this several times until the boomerang didn't come back. Looking up, he couldn't see it anywhere close by. That's when he saw him again. The masked figure had returned, and he held Sokka's boomerang in his left hand. Sokka tried to call out to the others, but no sound came out. The figure held up a finger to his covered mouth and tossed the boomerang back to Sokka, and it hit him in the side of the head.
He awoke to see Suki and Katara peering at him from above.
"Sokka are you ok?" Suki asked as she helped him up.
Sokka groaned in response and rubbed the growing bruise near his temple.
"Yeah I'm fine. Hey wait!" He looked up to the spot where the masked man had stood, but once again, he was gone.
"What are you looking at?" Katara asked as she and Suki stared at the ledge as well.
"There was a guy up there! He caught my boomerang and threw it at me! He had a mask and he was there last night too!"
The girls looked at him and Toph spoke up from behind him.
"Are you sure that boomerang didn't knock something loose up there?"
"I swear there was someone up there!" Sokka insisted, but Suki put her arm around him and led him back into the main room.
"It's ok Sokka I believe you. Let's go get you some food."
~~ "The rest of the day went by pretty normally." Sokka continued. "But the next day was when things started go bad."
Suddenly, the balloon lurched forward and launched the teens out of its basket. Sokka and Mai tumbled on the ground and stopped just before falling off of a cliff. Except for Toph that is. She was clutching the basket for dear life, and it had kept going, right off the cliff. The balloon itself had broken off from the basket and was drifting away.
Sokka cried out and moved to the ledge to reach Toph, but Mai grabbed his arm.
"You're not going to help her by dying." she said.
Sokka was forced to watch the basket fall out of sight. He was forced to watch Toph fall to her death.
