I wanted to do a piece showing them training and sparring. They would have to keep it up every day like any good warrior or athlete and no one ever shows that. It takes time out of your day and needs planned for. I know I spend about 2.5 hrs a day exercising and training my body. And I'm not the Avatar…

This piece (like several others) has pieces of imagery from the real novel I'm working on. I like play testing the scenes here :)

Little bits of new writing here and there.

As always, please R&R!

Hunting for a Leaf and a Drop of Water

"Thirty-five. One. Two… Thirty-Six. One. Two… Thirty-Seven. One. Two…"

The quiet voice was swallowed up in the thick forest. The leaf canopy had grown in heavily. Underbrush which had been barren during the winter was so thick that you couldn't see more than fifty feet in any direction. Humidity hung in the air like a blanket, the trees trapping it near the ground. His yellow and orange robes clung to his body in the sticky atmosphere but he didn't dare take them off. That was a sure fire way to get every buzzing insect bite imaginable.

The light was trickling in from the canopy, just spots of sun, so no matter how hot it was, it was still comfortable and somewhat cooler on the forest floor than anywhere that was being beaten into submission by the sun. Sometimes there was a little bit of a breeze higher up, and the leaves would rustle in harmony with everything surrounding the young man. If he could, he would sit there for hours and just listen to the animals as they scurried around, just out of sight, or the birds as they sang to each other in a language that only they understood. It was beautiful music.

But back in the strenuous reality, he was squatting low, fist to palm; his breath was ragged, hissing though his teeth as he counted out the series of exercises. Thighs burning with the tension. Just one more set and the hunt would begin. Somewhere out there was the woman preparing to track him down as well.

It was one of the highlights of his day.

"Fifty-seven. One. Two… Fifty-eight. One. Two… Fifty-nine. One. Two… Sixty!"

The woman huffed out the last numbers and collapsed to the mossy ground after holding her body outstretched, parallel to the earth for a solid minute. It was her fifth set. The muscles of her abdomen trembled and hot drops of sweat splashed to the ground. Leaves tickled her nose and she brushed a few chocolate curls away from her face that had come out of her tight plait.

"Ready or not, here I come," she whispered to herself, pushing her body off the forest floor and glancing around.

She concentrated and ran her hands down her torso, cooling herself with her waterbending energy. She ghosted frost across her exposed skin- a trick she was trying out for the first time to protect herself from the insects. Her flesh sparkled in the dappled light. She re-tightened her chest bindings and started padding barefoot along as softly as she could. Her prey would be searching for her with seismic sense. But if she was careful, she could feel for his vibrations through interconnected plants and roots in a similar way. She was new at using her waterbending this way, but she was versatile and learning. Just like learning her morning fighting and exercise forms.

Everything was so… green. The world even smelled green, if that even makes sense. Her bright blue eyes slid closed and she listened. It was that odd, late morning time of day when all the animals were silent. Everything was so surreal.

If you've ever spent a good deal of time outdoors you can tell the hours with all of your senses. No matter which sense, mornings are comparatively cool and calm, afternoons, harsh and rushed. Morning light has a soft blue feel to it, while afternoon is callous and orange. Mornings smell damp and feel cooler, afternoons, the opposite.

But the sounds of the forest. You can nearly pinpoint the exact hour based on sound. Early morning is so loud with the little birds chittering and fighting with each other. By late morning, everything is dead silent with the exception of a lone woodpecker-lizard hammering away at a tree, searching for its next meal. Noon gets more boisterous with larger birds and all the chipmunk-frogs scurrying and yelling at you for daring to exist in their woods. Late afternoon is utter silence again. By evening everything is alive again, in the final push before bedding down, insects and sparowkeets making the most noise. Slowly the scampering and screechings die down to be replaced only by the buzz of crickets and mosquitoes.

But right now it was silent. Perfect for her to listen for the water in the plants. If she was lucky, her quarry hadn't completed his morning forms yet.

She cocked her head as she picked up a telltale tremor through the liquid in the plants.

There.

A half mile away.

She could feel his heart pounding through the soles of his feet on the vine covered ground. The fluid pushed and pulled along the outstretched water lines like staccato Morse code, telegraphing his location. She knew that beat as well as her own. It practically was her own. It was heavy and rhythmic. He was stationary. She had completed her forms before him. She set off in the direction of that guiding pulse.

Done.

He jumped up from the ground and as the woman had and flicked away the sweat from his slick bald head. And panted out a few last breaths. Out there somewhere she might be stalking him already. He had to move. He stomped his foot into the soft ground and sent tiny seismic tremors out through the area. They would bounce back off whatever they hit and tell him exactly where everything was. In the heavy humid forest he was searching for a drop of water in an ocean.

There, off in the distance he could feel her heavy steps coming towards him. She tried to be light on her feet, but she was no airbender. They flowed more than pounded though, unlike other forms. For him though, today's bending form was earthbending. It made the hunt more sporting, more fair. And forced him to practice his other forms. Too often he would rely on just airbending or waterbending as a close second.

The task at hand: hunt her down and then the sparring battle would begin. He may have only been able to earthbend for the hunt and fight today, but he couldn't help the fact that he was naturally spry and light footed as he took of in the direction of her familiar glide. And that he enjoyed being tricksy and relied on being fast and witty in a pinch. As he raced through the woods, dodging rocks and trees and underbrush, he concocted a plan. He knew where she was. He was going to draw her out. Make her give herself away and tease her into a false sense of security before taking her down.

He added a prance to his step and began dancing through the forest instead, laying the trap, with himself as the bait.

She was gliding through the summer-warm Earth Kingdom forest, stalking. There was a shift in the momentum of the cadence through the plants- she could tell that her prey had finished his own bending and exercise forms and had taken off. He was on the move now. Light as a feather, his feet barely connecting with the ground, he was on the prowl. She lost track of him with every step that did not land on the interconnected plants and roots.

She picked up on his movements again when he finally stopped. The heartbeat quickened and the pounding turned towards her. Surely he had caught her trail in a similar way as she had searched for his. For a vegetarian, he was a surprisingly good tracker.

Now he would be hunting her and she was the prey.

She picked up her pace, searching out a more secure water source than just the thick, muggy air when suddenly she tripped, caught off guard and took a fall. She slid several feet in the damp leaf litter and came to rest by an old log. She rolled over and was lying on her back under a tiny forest of palm tree-like may apples and curling fiddle head ferns; her vision a ceiling of green leaves. She had caught sight of a tiny silver and red spider fly spinning a web on the underside of the orange may apple blossom when she thought she heard something coming towards her. A true sound, not vibrations from her waterbending senses. She probably wouldn't have heard it if she hadn't fallen and it hadn't been that weird quiet time. It was definitely footsteps. So light.

She sprung as quickly as she could and hunkered down behind the log, hoping that she had not been spotted. She cautiously peeked out over the top to see what had found her, wondering what sort of danger she would possibly have to do battle with. Since they were distinct footsteps, not the scuffling of a raccoon-possum or chipmunk-frog, she was hoping for a serval-deer and not her quarry catching her off guard.

She pulled water out of the wet soil and iced the ground beneath her, hoping to shield herself from seismic sense if he was there.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a little flash of yellow weaving through the trees and thought to herself that a falling leaf had turned to an autumn hue early. But it didn't fall though, it moved just out of sight.

There it was again. The yellow and now a flash of orange. And sky blue along his bald head and muscled, bare arms.

Shit.

There he was. There was no one else on the planet that displayed those blue tattoos.

Her vision followed his graceful movements and she couldn't help but stare at his toned, attractive body.

But honestly his body wasn't what caught her attention the most. What made her stare was the way he moved. He flowed, he danced, and he twirled about bobbing and weaving between the tree trunks, like there was music that only he could hear directing his path. Like he was one of the leaves, floating on the breeze. His arms were flung wide, fingertips brushing every leaf and branch he passed. It was as if he was part of the forest, and it was part of him. He wasn't using airbending to find her per se, but he didn't seem to be hunting and earthbending either. His feet scarcely made a sound as he soared from tree to branch, and then kicked off of a rock.

Shit.

She suddenly realized that the music he was dancing to was *her* heartbeat. He was listening through rocks like she had with the plants. His movements were perfectly matching the pulse in her veins. What was he up to, a grown man prancing around like that? Boy, was he a goofball.

She didn't realize that she was doing it, but she had slowly raised her head to get a full view of him, her gaze following him as he popped in and out of sight. The woman slowly summoned a snaking stream of water from the nearby trickle of a creek to be used when the moment presented itself.

The man would dip behind a tree or duck down behind a small hill and emerge from the other side. He would deftly dance around a tree aided by a puff of swirling air. When he spotted the nearby creek as well, he called handfuls of water to his fists, the liquid floating through the air and spinning like marbles in his palms playfully. And that was when he caught sight of the woman as she stared. He stopped in mid-step as their eyes met across the flowing water.

"Dammit, now he definitely knows where I am," she thought as she hunkered back down out of sight again. She tried to make herself as quiet and small as possible against the back of the log she had chosen for her defensive position, hoping that the man would not find her. She wished that she was an earthbender and could sink into the soil beneath her. She was actually self conscious and embarrassed at being caught just watching him.

Out of nowhere she heard a deep voice pipe up, "Hi there." Not a question, not wondering, just a statement of greeting.

She looked up and he was hovering over her, kneeling on the log she was hiding behind. His face was inches from hers and had this little smirk of curiosity. He had a short black chinstrap beard with two beads in it that clinked together and brushed against the woman's forehead. The woman hadn't even heard his final approach and the woods were so silent. How did he get across the creek and do that?

"Hi Aang," she kind of mumbled, doing her best not to let her voice crack. It didn't work. "You caught me. Again."

"Yep!" He giggled with this bubbly energy that over took all of the frustration that she was feeling. "But you're getting better, Katara!"

He planted a sloppy playful kiss on her nose making her groan and swat at him. He stood quickly and jumped, dropping a handful of leaves all over her face and grabbed a low branch. He swung his feet effortlessly up and around the branch and just hung there by his knees, still giggling while she wiped away the wet spittle. His bald dome was nearly brushing the mossy ground and his yellow under tunic came untucked from his bright blue belt sash and fell a bit, exposing the pale belly underneath. It still showed faint track marks of burn scars. It always would. She couldn't help but let her eyes wander along the taut planes of his abdomen.

"I found you first though." Katara pouted. "I should have attacked. You were being so goofy, bounding through the trees like that."

"You did find me out first, but didn't take the decisive opportunity," he replied, swaying back and forth in puffs of breeze of his own creation. "I was simply maintaining maximum aloofness to keep you off guard."

She rolled her eyes at his old joke. He knew her too well; knew exactly how to make her drop her shields. For him. For anything else she was tempered steel.

A sudden look of surprise crossed his face. He reached back up and grabbed the branch, swinging his legs back over his head, flipping down from the tree. He landed gracefully beside the woman and ducked as if attempting to conceal himself also. As he fell into place beside her, their legs touched briefly and her heart fluttered, remembering heated exchanges and tender touches from the night before.

But there were more important things to be paying attention to. He talked in hushed tones as he reached over and ran his rough palm along her soft, cool cheek. Her skin was shimmering like crystals for some reason.

"There could be Dark Spirits lurking in these woods," he whispered into her ear. "You never know when one may catch you defenseless…"

Her bright blue eyes widened with a hint of fear at the prospect. "You said we were still a few days away from the temple…"

He smirked and twitched his fingers into fists. Suddenly the earth beneath her shifted, locking her hands and ankles in place to the forest floor beneath them. She gave a half-hearted scowl.

"Aang…"

He had her pinned, his body caging her against the moss and fern-covered ground. His hip pressed into hers as she was locked there, nearly spread open to him in her thin skirt. His mouth hovered over hers, preparing to devour a deep kiss.

"What?" he continued to whisper, "I caught you…"

She sighed and arched into him as best she could as his tongue traced her lips… she suddenly twisted her head away from him. He drew a sharp breath and braced himself. He knew this move, but hadn't predicted it coming this time. Tricksy vixen.

WHOOSH! SLAM!

A great green and slimy wave crashed into his body, summoned from the little pond-fed stream, throwing him forcefully aside, leaving him slipping in the now slick and mucky underbrush. The water seeped into her earthen bindings, dissolving them into pliable mud, which she whisked away with the flick of her now free hand.

"You may have caught me, but the fight's not over," she laughed back, the wet soil sliding easily from her icy skin at her command. "Today is Earth only for you… and I have a pond and stream and vines at my command." She twisted her fingers like a puppet master and the plants around him began to swing and writhe.

He glowered back at her and shook the mud from his own body. His yellow and orange robes were now splotched brown and green. If she wanted a fight, then he was more than willing to give it. It would make victory…or loss… that much sweeter. He punched toward the ground in order to sure up his footing and slid into a wide, firm stance. The earth solidified around him and he prepared for battle.

"Ha!" she shouted as a stream of water was pulled from the nearby pond and flowed towards him as another small wave. Meanwhile the vines scurried across the landscape, searching for his limbs. If she could trap him with vines or ice before he did the likewise with earth, she would gain the upper hand.

He grabbed toward the ground and pulled, feeling the solid earth twist and sway. The wave broke against a wall of rock that he effortlessly threw up. He stomped and sent a tremor rolling towards her. It disrupted the oncoming vines and resisted their grasp. The cruel seductress may have caught him off guard when he thought he had already won, but he wasn't about to let her wriggle away.

She raised her hands, pulling the water filled tree roots below her from the earth like a springboard, throwing her body out of harm's way of the oncoming rock slide. She flew through the air and settled herself with the tethering aid of a vine on the branch of a tree, temporarily safe from the earthbending.

"You can't hide up there forever!" he shouted at her and pulled a bolder from the ground, taking aim. The muscles of his arms rippled from the force.

"Maybe, maybe not," she teased back, hanging down from the branch like he had earlier, her long braid dangling back and forth. "But would you really risk hurting this innocent tree, just to get at little old me?"

His face went slack and his aggressive, furrowed brow softened with shock and hurt. The fierce gleam in his eyes dimmed.

"No…" the bolder fell back down with a loud thud. The rock wall slid back in to place as well. "Not fair Katara… you know me too well… you win." He turned and kicked at the ground once, before sitting on the spot lotus style.

"Oh sweetie…" Katara bent the branches and vines into a slide and made her way back to the ground. Her voice was apologetic as she placed a gentle hand on his orange robed shoulder. "I… I didn't mean anything by that Aang. I was just trying to goad you on."

"I know," he patted her hand and looked up at her with those shining stormy eyes. "but you're right. I won't hurt that tree just to get to you."

"But… we're training. You can't hold back. I won't." She shook him slightly. "Who knows what kind of person or spirit we'll run into next. I need to be ready for anything. You do too. Sometimes you have to make the tough choices and take the shot."

Aang took in a sharp breath. She was right.

And it scared him.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down into his lap and wrapped his arms tightly around her. She was abnormally cold. He buried his face into her neck and breathed deeply her natural perfume. Salty sweat like the ocean and crisp freshness like a gentle spring rain.

"I know… I know… I…" he thumped his arrow tattooed forehead against hers. She was smiling serenely at him. "I don't want to compromise myself, or do something that may anger a spirit either… damaging that tree just for training? That would probably do both. I… I can't risk losing you again."

It had been nearly a month since the Butterfly Spirit had returned Katara to him. The pain and fear was still fresh in his mind. It always would be. She was his everything.

"And I won't risk losing YOU either. I'm here," she slipped her hand under his robes and over his heart, making him gasp. Her hand was chilly. He felt her energy slipping into him, past his defenses like a hot knife through butter. "And here." She kissed the tip of his arrow and he smiled again finally.

"Why are you so cold?" he asked as he leaned in to kiss her again.

"Oh. I covered myself in frost to keep the bugs away," she puffed up her chest, proud of her ingenuity. "It's working too! Come on. Hand-to hand."

She jumped back out of his arms suddenly and spun. She readied a strong stance; light on her feet, but solid and balanced. Elbows in and hands at the ready to deflect blows. Then she dropped her hands and laughed. Aang was still sitting on the ground with a dopey look and pout. His lips were still pursed in his single-sided kiss from when she deftly hopped away.

"Daydreaming of living underwater?" she teased.

"Maybe." He smirked and pushed himself to standing with a puff of air swirling beneath him. His robes lightly flowed around him. He stood firmly now, readying his spar.

"You don't even think about that when you do it, do you?" she said as she repositioned her stance again. She knew she would have to lead the attack. He never did. Only ever evading and deflecting at first.

"What?" he cocked a brow and took a step back.

"The airbending there. To get up." She threw a sudden left punch which he turned away from. She hadn't put all her force behind it and held her form. Testing the waters for when he'd return a blow. "You've always just…done it. I can count on one hand the number of times you've actually used your own MUSCLES to get up."

She swung a kick this time. Hard. He caught her foot between his hands and shifted, throwing the leg aside.

But she had been practicing and kept her balance. Never throw a kick higher than you can hold. She spun away from the counter attack chop that she knew was following.

"Good." He coached without emotion. "Keep flowing. Be a leaf on the wind."

"I'm a waterbender, sweetie…a leaf on the WATER…" she continued her rotation and followed through with a balance shift into another kick- a leg sweep. "I always flow."

This time it connected, taking Aang's feet from under him. Aang's eyes shot wide open as he was caught off guard and the ground came rushing to meet him. Instinctively he flipped and airbent himself right, twisting in mid air effortlessly to land on his feet like a squirrel-cat.

"Hey! No bending!" Katara huffed at him, putting her fists to her hips in annoyance. "Hand to hand only!"

"Sorry!" he replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Like you said, I don't think about it. I just do. Especially the airbending… yeah. Mostly the airbending. But hey! You would have knocked me down!"

"Someone needs to chi-block your airbending…" Katara bit back, putting her fists back up and nodding her head towards him to continue the fight. He nodded back, his beard-beads clinking.

He came at her lighting fast, but without bending this time, with a flurry of blows which she dodged and blocked. Weaving and bobbing. She was getting much better at fighting without bending. It was a skill that you never knew if you'd need or not.

Her heart was starting to pound faster in her chest from the work as she tried turning his attacks back against him. Their fighting styles were very similar. Not just because Aang had been her teacher, but because of how their own bending styles were so similar as well. There was a certain amount of harmony between water and air. Flowing and changing. Raging or tranquil.

One missed block caught Katara in the side, cracking into her ribs just right to knock the wind out of her. She fell back heavy on her rear and would have hit the ground had Aang not whisked up a cushion of air to soften her fall.

She forced the air back out of her lungs and gasped as she lay in the soft moss. "Thank… you…Good… Hit." She wiped the sweat from her brow and flung it. It crystallized into snowflakes before it fell to the ground. "I guess I bend without thinking much about it either… makes sense after so many years…"

Aang reached out to take his wife's hand to pull her from the forest floor. Instead she took advantage of the momentary distraction and shifted the water in the grass under his feet, making the ground icy slick and knocking him off balance. He fell forward onto her suddenly, tangled in his robes. Since she had his hand, she used the fall to twist him and control how he landed, using the shift in weight to switch their positions. Aang landed on his back with Katara straddling him, laughing.

"Well… this is inviting…" Aang leered and grabbed Katara's hips tightly, thumbs digging into the exposed bone peaking above her skirt. "You may have come out on top, but I think I still win."

"Mmmm. I dunno…I have you just where *I* want you… Maybe it's a tie." Katara dipped down to swallow another kiss, proud of her move. Training would definitely be over. It tended to end this way. "It's a good thing you weren't chi blocked before or I would have hit the ground even harder…"

"Yeah… well… I wouldn't know…I've never been chi blocked…" He plucked a leaf from her hair and blew it into the breeze and watched it float peacefully away.

"Wait. What?" Katara cocked her brow at him rolled off to his side, propping herself up on one elbow and leaving one leg draped over his. He absentmindedly traced his fingers up and down her thigh. "Really? You're… you're right! I never thought about it but yeah. You never actually fought Ty Li… or The Southern Chi Blockers."

An odd, worried look crossed Aang's face. "When you went south and I stayed in the Fire Nation during the time Azula was riling up the New Ozai supporters years ago, Ty Li and I talked about it. She said she knew how to immobilize non benders and how to chi-block fire, earth, and water benders… But she didn't know how to block an air bender. Each bending style has slightly different pressure points that need hit in order to block the bending. It had been nearly a hundred years since an airbender had been around, so that part of the art was lost. She could stop my physical combat skills, but bending? ... She would have had to experiment on me, being the only remaining airbender…" He shuffled under Katara's leg and looked away. He tugged at his robes awkwardly. It had been an uncomfortable conversation that the fifteen year old Avatar had had with a young woman who WASN'T his girlfriend at the time. An overly flirty, attractive (but harmless) young woman. "We kinda decided that was a really bad idea. For anyone to have all the keys to bringing down the Avatar… that didn't sit well with us. I don't know what will happen in a few hundred years from now when the cycle returns to an Air Nomad… if that even happens… or who would even train them… but at least the next Avatar should be safe from losing his or her air bending should they confront a chi-blocker."

Katara shifted uneasily and slid her leg off of him. Talk of the future of the air nomad race was always peppered with trepidation. There was no good answer to that uncertain future. Katara's hand fell to her lower abdomen instinctively. Aang was staring into the sky and didn't notice.

Katara curled into his outstretched arm and looked upward as well. The leaf canopy wasn't as thick here and the bright blue sky could be seen peaking through the branches. Their sparring had taken them near the edge of a clearing. Katara followed where Aang's eyes tracked towards white puffy clouds and thought about the time in the Si Wong Desert when Appa had been stolen by sandbenders and they mistook a cloud for the bison.

Aang was thinking about that time too.

Their rag tag team nearly fell apart there, but Mama Katara kept everyone together. Aang loved her so much for that. Even through his insanity and rage, she was there, loving him during the pit of his despair. When everyone fled, she was there, being his earthly tether.

And he was thinking about why they were so far from their home in Republic City on the outskirts of the borders between the Earth Kingdom and the Eastern Air Temple.

The Eastern Air Temple was where Appa had been born. Where most of the Sky Bison were raised by the nuns. Aang and Katara knew the Air Nomad race was spent, but maybe, just maybe they could find some remaining sky bison. Hidden away in the wilds. Momo was proof that some of the Air Nomad animals must have survived.

But that temple that had taken the worst immediate losses at the beginning of the war.

When Aang had returned to the Eastern Air Temple to study with Guru Patik there was… nothing. The buildings were in terrible ruin, most of the temple was overgrown with plants and trees. The stables and nurseries and dormitories were completely empty and destroyed. The wilds were reclaiming the land.

Guru Patik had been nearly timeless. Aang never asked his age, but he was well over 100- maybe even pushing two. Usually only truly powerful benders would have their lives extended by their connection to the elements. Like Avatar Kyoshi. Like King Bumi. Patik's long life was probably because he was so enlightened that he was half in the Spirit World as is.

Or maybe it was the Onion-Banana Juice.

Aang smirked at the memory, but continued his silent sad reverie; barely tethered to earth by Katara's warm head on his shoulder and hand on his thigh.

Guru Patik had been a hermit at the Eastern Air temple for decades- waiting for Aang- and in that time he had cleared and reconsecrated the sacred sanctuary. He had removed all the remains and evidence of the massacre, although there weren't many. Everything had been incinerated. The nuns. The children. The Bison herd.

It had been a coordinated attack, making sure to wipe out the women, children, and bison in the first wave with the power of the Great Comet (which would come to be known as Sozin's Comet). With no bison, there was no escape. With no women and children, there was no future.

Aang wanted that future. He could only hope his children would be air benders with a waterbending wife.

"Well… that's a good thing. About the chi-blocking" Katara finally spoke, shaking Aang from his thoughts. He tightened his grip on her shoulder, ignoring the tear sliding down his face. She curled in to his embrace, her still slick body melding to his and whispered seductively. "Only I should have the key to bringing you… down…"

"Oh… you do…" He wrapped his hands around her bare waist and pulled her tight to his hips as his eyes slid closed in preparation for another passionate kiss and more…

CRACK! ZING! ZING! ZIP!

Aang's head snapped back, eyes wide and searching for the source of the strange sound, all amorous intentions evaporated in an instant, replaced with fight or flight instincts. They both sprang immediately to their feet. Back to back, the pair reflexively readied defensive stances. Aang's hands at the ready to evade and block, Katara ripping a whip from the water in the grass beneath her feet to attack. Energy between the two of them sparked back and forth. They were like a pair of well experienced dancers, prepared and fighting in tandem. Able to predict each other's moves, ready to play off each other's strengths; to defend and strike in harmony.

Something was flitting and buzzing back and forth as fast as lightening. Just on the edges of their vision. A sense of being watched and followed by a light within a shadow; by pure energy itself. Nothing of solid matter. Leaves were flipping and twisting in the trees while there was no breeze.

"What is it?" Katara hissed her question out between gritted teeth as her eyes ticked back and forth. Aang dug his feet into the earth, searching. Whatever it was, it wasn't touching the ground. "Could it be a spirit? It doesn't feel like an animal."

"No. It doesn't. I don't know. I can't get a bead on it." Aang stepped back and slid next to his wife, hip to hip. "There was nothing out here when I checked the archives. We're still about a two days' march away from the Eastern Air Temple, where a spirit should be. Let's get back to Appa and get moving."

Always thanks for reading! Reviews make me write faster!