Author note; Hi every one... I'll try to be frequent in my updates but school can be a real pain in the... well - I don't think I need to finish that sentence.

Anyway I would like to thank the following;

Faye Rae,

Hockeygirl9,

Violet Colored Pencil,

The-awesome-avatar,

MissDott,

and Sailor Stella.

Your reviews have kept me writing. This chapter is for you guys!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~*`~~:Chapter Nine:~~`*~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ally awoke to the sounds of Snow-fire snarling. Ally got up and slipped into a fighting stance automatically. "What is it Snow-fire?" Ally whispered. She looked at the alert lemurs, who were looking in the same direction as Snow-fire. They're attention was at the trees. Ally pulled out her fans, warily looking at the tree line.

"Who are you girl?" Said a voice that was soon identified as a fire-nation soldier, as he stepped out of the trees with several others behind him.

Ally looked at them with a disbelieving frown, didn't they know she was an Air bender? Obviously not. "I'm just a simple Nomad." Ally said calmly, still in her fighting stance, eyeing the fire-nation soldiers warily.

Suddenly a injured soldier came on a stretcher, held up by four others, injured badly. They stopped at the sight of Ally and the snarling Ermine-wolf.

"What is that?" said an awed fire-soldier, who sounded young; late-teens.

"My Ermine-wolf." Ally said, still tense, ready to fight.

"What nation are you from?" Asked the leader.

Anger bubbled in the pit of her stomach, "Does it matter?" she said in defiance.

"Sir, we need to get the Captain to a healer." said one of the younger soldiers.

"Very well. Onwards." the leader said. He inclined his head slightly to Ally before he and his troops started to walk down stream.

Ally straightened out of her defensive possession and folded her fans with a quick use of air-bending, still watching the fire-nation warily as she slipped her fans back into her belt. The youngest, judging from the shortness compared to the others, looked back at her and gave her a genuine smile. Shocked, Ally returned it hesitantly. Suddenly reminded of Kuzon...

Perhaps they weren't too bad... and the injured soldier, "Wait!" Ally called after them, cringing at her compassion side. The Fire soldier's turned to look at her. "What happened to him?"

"He was injured when earth benders attacked us." said the leader coolly. "We suspect a broken leg and a shattered arm." He said after a while, "His lost a lot of blood."

"I can help." Ally said tentively, expecting a stab in the back.

"Why would you help us?" said one of them.

Ally grimaced, "Do you want my help of not?" she asked.

They came back wearily and Ally took a bag of healing herbs with a scroll on how to fix injuries written by Koiki. Snow-fire watched the soldiers with hackles raised, growling slightly; The soldiers looked back at the gigantic animal with cautious expressions'.

Ally followed the instructions on the scroll; carefully checking and prodding in a few places; The wounds were a verity of different severities, one was a large cut to the ankle and was very deep, it was the main source of blood loss, accompanied with a sprained ankle, then up the leg that was attached to the ankle was shattered bone, then there was a broken arm, which was broken in two places. The rest were minor cuts and bruises.

Ally cleaned the large gash on the ankle first then started to stitch the skin together as the scroll told her, she then asked one of the men for a spear they were holding, one hesitated before handing it to her, watching her carefully.

Ally snapped the blade off then snapped the long rod it in two, she then carefully folded the arm in a right angle, then put one part of the snapped spare next to the forearm and bandaged it firmly, but enough for the blood to keep flowing. She repeated the progress for the upper part of the arm and the leg. Ally then moved to the less serious injuries, cleaning and mixed a few ingredience together before putting them onto the cuts. There wasn't anything she could do for the bruises.

Ally leaned backwards with a sigh, moving a strained of hair from her face and behind her ear. "I can't fix the blood loss; but I can give you some herbs that will help replenish the blood, when he wakes make him eat it." Ally said emotionlessly to the soldiers.

She stood up and carefully manuvered in such a way that her back wasn't facing them and returned with a hand full of olive coloured leaves. She cautiously gave one of the soldiers the leaves and with drawled swiftly but careful not to make them think she would attack.

Four soldiers stepped forward and picked up the stretcher the injured Captain was on.

"Thank you," said the leader stiffly, he paused for a second before "Here," he threw her a small bag at her that she instinctively caught via air-bending.

A few guards gasped. Ally dropped the bag quickly, - of what she suspected was gold, - and brought out her fans; flipping them open while slipping into a defensive stance. Looking at them through narrowed eyes. They pointed their weapons at her; Snow-fire snarled.

"A simple Nomad hu?" the leader said sarcastically, as the soldiers stepped back at the Ermine-wolf's new viciousness.

"Can we pretend you didn't see that?" Ally responded hopefully. The soldiers looked at the leader, who was undecided, "look I really don't want to fight, but I will defend myself if necessary. You're looking at a master Air bender and I doubt any of you have fought an Air-bender before. So let's just go our separate ways; your Captain has gotten the immediate attention he needs, but he still needs to see a healer all the same, and I just go and do what a Nomad does." Ally noticed the spear owners now looked hesitant, "And don't run with those spears." Ally added cautiously.

Ally glanced at the youngest of the fire nation soldiers; he looked too shocked; as did everyone else. Finally the leader of the group inclined his head towards Ally and ordered his soldiers onward. Ally held her fighting stance, watching the fire nation head down stream without a backward glance.

Ally could have slapped herself. Though she was rather proud of herself for showing compassion, she had learnt one thing though; Not all of the fire nation was bad.

Ally packed everything quickly, and air-bended the saddle back onto Snow-fire's back. Nyx and Neo hopped onto the saddle and Snow-fire was off.

Ally looked down at the landscape and directed Snow-fire onto a mountain ledge. "I'm going to go down to the port village below." Ally explained to her animal friends. "So stay. Nyx you can come."

Ally would need at least one lemur to tell her if danger was nearby.

Ally walked through the street with a cautious eye, there are a lot of tough looking sailors, merchants and shady types walking past each other. Ally walked around and was now on the docks.

A shady looking person in front of a large ship was calling out, "Earth Nation! Fire Nation! Water Nation! So long as bargains are your inclination, you're welcome here! Don't be shy, come one by!" He spotted Ally looking and beamed at her, revealing two golden teeth, "Come over here young one, I can see your a world away from home, but don't worry! we have plenty of curios from nearly every inch of the world to make your journey more bearable!"

Ally hesitantly walked over, "Am I really that obvious?"

The man chuckled, "No, not really." he said, putting an arm over her shoulders. Nyx looked at the man with a nervous look and hid under Ally's cloths. Ally looked at the flag on the man's ship, her eyes widened in surprise. "You're a pirate!" Ally exclaimed, well - that explained why Nyx was cautious.

"We prefer the term high risk traders." The man chuckled again, moving her into a room with all sorts of merchandise; weapons, jewellery, scrolls, gem decorated statues, clothing and other sorts of artefacts.

"Wow, you certainly have a lot of stuff." Ally complemented, looking around.

"We try." said the pirate humbly. "Feel free to browse through the collection. I'll just wait over there until you've had enough searching." The arm disappears from her shoulder and Ally moved forward towards the scrolls. She looked at a thin scroll that had the water nation emblem on it, Nyx pops out of Ally's collar and onto Ally's shoulder.

Ally un-scrolled the thin water scroll and her eyes widened in delight; thinking about Aang, she rolling up the scroll and moved onto another scroll that had a fire nation insigner on it, Ally did the same with this scroll. She looked again, scanning her eyes across the rows of scrolls then came across another water scroll, she gave it to Nyx to hold, whose large blue eyes blinked and started to inspect the scroll curiously. Ally found two earth bending scrolls with a smile.

Taking the five scrolls she walked towards the more none lethal looking weapons, but something caught her eye; looking around at the source Ally looked at a chocker necklace with a yellow ribbon and a white circular pendent with was engraved with the three spirals of the Air Nomad emblem.

Ally took a look at the back, the words; 'When life gives you lemons, throw them at someone!'

Ally chuckled and approached the pirate with the scrolls and necklace. The pirate looked at her choice thoughtfully. "The price for a scroll is one hundred gold pieces, and jewellery is fifty silver."

Ally grimaced easily calculating the five scrolls to be five hundred and the necklace fifty silver. "Four hundred gold pieces and thirty silver pieces... I'll throw in these two fans." Ally said, taking the two green fans from her belt and laying it on the table, the pirate inspected them thoughtfully.

Finally he nodded, "These are of good quality." he said, "deal."

Ally took out the bag of money the fire-nation soldiers from this morning gave her and counted four hundred gold pieces and thirty silver. She still had quite a bit left and she still had those other fans waiting with Snow-fire and Neo.

"Pleasure doing business with you, my lady." said the pirate bowing and putting the money into a treasure chest, and putting the scrolls and the necklace into a paper bag and handing it to Ally. "I shall escort you back to the deck." he siad. Ally followed him looking into bag and its contence within, smiling. "You're welcome to drop by anytime." the pirate said, "again, pleasure doing business with ya."

Ally bowed to him and jumped off the ship and onto the port. She tickled Nyx behind her ear, "I don't know what you were so nervous about." Ally chuckled. "Come on Nyx, Snow-fire and Neo are probably worried about us."

Ally walked back towards the mountains when someone ran into her, Ally stumbled and tripped over, using mild air bending to soften her fall. She got up and looked at the boy who ran into her; it was the young fire nation soldier.

They stared at each other and Ally offered a hand to help him up, he took it wearily. "Thanks." He said, a little awkwardly.

"Your certainly not like other fire benders I've encountered." Ally said, perhaps a bit bluntly.

"And you're not like any air bender I've met." he shot back, thinking Ally had insulted him. Nyx hissed like a cat.

Ally looked around quickly, "I meant that as a complement." Ally hissed, "And it would help if you didn't shout out to the world that I'm an Air Nomad. I try to go un-noticed for a reason."

The fire soldier looked abashed and guilty; "Sorry..." he looked at her quizzing for a name.

"Ally, my name is Ally."

"John." John said. "- I got to go, I have to get these to the commander." he held up a basket of vegetables and dried fruits.

"Privet! What are you -?" Ally turned to see the leader of the fire troops from earlier. "Ahh."

Ally eyed the Fire Nation soldier with dis-trust, "Is this the part where we start to fight?" she said drily.

The leader smirked while rolling his eyes, an eyebrow raised. "Me and my crew owed you, so consider the debt repaid."

"You wont tell anyone about my bending ability?" Ally asked suspiciously.

The leader frowned but told the boy to go ahead of him, the boy left obediently with a curious glance over his shoulder. "I won't tell of your existence, but I can't promise my crew will hold their tongues."

Ally nodded, "By then I will have vanished and no air-bender will be seen until this war is over."

The leader tilted his head backwards slightly, contemplating. "For what it's worth, I don't like the way Fire Lord Sozin dealt with your people, and it is rather regretful that your people obviously feel the need to hide."

Ally looked at him with offended face, "We don't hide, we try to avoid conflict."

The leader turned away and looked over his shoulder, "I have a feeling that's about to change."

"Me too." Ally murmured to herself thoughtfully, watching the retreating back of the fire nation soldier.

Author Note; in this chapter I kind of wanted to show Ally's compassionate side, I think I show too much 'fighting Ally' which goes against Air Nomad beliefs... What do you think? Please Review!