Book Two: Earth

Chapter 4

The Swamp

Disclaimer: I own nothing Avatar except the characters I create.

For some reason this trip was more weary on Lin than her previous travels. It could be the fact that she was part of a serious mission or the countless hours spent sitting on the air bison, Appa. What cheered her up was the thought of how close she felt to her friends and started to think of them as family with everything they had been through together. They had joked together and shared stories of their childhood. With so many intimate details out in the open Sokka, Katara, and Aang became the closest friends the healer ever had. It finally dawned on her just how important this journey was. She was helping the Avatar. Someone thought to be long gone for 100 years and now she is helping him save the world. When Lin left her home in the North Pole the second time her parents had tears of pride. So much was changing and Lin was able to be part of it.

Her thoughts were soon interrupted by Sokka who noticed that we were flying lower than usual. Aang who was dazing off mentioned that the swamp below felt like it was calling him. The group agreed the swamp was omitting a strange feeling they thought would be best to ignore. It seemed a random tornado had better plans. They were sucked into the tornado despite Aang's best efforts to create a barrier of wind. The tornado threw them into the murky swamp.

"Where's Appa and Momo?" asked the Avatar after they crash landed. There was no sign of them anywhere. As they looked around the swamp looked quite eerie as if the trees around them were growing or moving closer.

After some hesitation the gang moved forward to find their furry companions. Sokka was recklessly cutting through the tall thick grass to make a path when Aang nervously said "Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp."

Sokka just mocked him, but Lin could sense something. "Maybe Aang is right. It feels like the forest is alive" commented Lin.

The darkness crept in slowly as it became night time and the fog thickened. Visibility was terrible and they decided it would be best to camp. Lin and her friends sat in silence eyeing the darkness as if they expected a terrifying creature to come launching towards them. After smelling terrible swamp gas and hearing a bird that sounded like a person screaming they decided to make a fire. Lin was scared, but didn't want to cozy up with Aang to stir up any kind of jealousy so reluctantly she sat closer to Sokka, whom she hoped wouldn't get the wrong idea.

"Does anyone else get the feeling that we are being watched?" asked Katara.

"I have had that feeling all day, but didn't want to say anything." answered Lin as she stared into the darkness of the forest.

"Please there is nothing out here" exclaimed an annoyed Sokka. Then a bright round orb appeared and showed countless eyes staring at them through the trees.

Lin bit her lower lip and shut her eyes hoping it was her imagination. The group did eventually fall asleep huddled in a circle until they were abruptly pulled away from each other with vines. Lin used her waterbending to make ice daggers that sliced the vines off of her and ran into the fog, but she couldn't find her friends. Now she was even more scared. "Aang, Sokka, Katara?" The only answer was silence.

As she walked deeper into the forest she thought she heard something up ahead.

"Guys is that you?"

She saw a flash of red run through the trees. She chased after it stumbling over tree roots and swatting away branches and then she saw Zuko standing right in front of her.

"Zuko? What are you doing here?" As she approached him she noticed he looked upset.

"What do you want?! You think I want a waterbending peasant following me around!? Leave me alone!"

Tears welled up in her eyes and as she blinked them away Zuko was gone. Was the forest playing tricks on her? Before Lin could think any more of it Katara, Aang, and Sokka landed on top of her. "Ow!" she screamed.

"Where were you guys!" yelled Sokka.

"Looking for you!" his sister yelled back.

Aang admitted that he wasn't looking for them, but chasing some girl wearing a dress he didn't know. Katara admitted that she thought she saw her mother.

"Look we were all just scared and hungry, and our minds were playing tricks on us. That's why we all saw things out here" explained the Water Tribe boy who was rubbing his butt from the rough landing.

"You saw something too?" his sister asked. Yue had appeared to Sokka.

"Lin did you see someone too?" the young Avatar asked.

"Yes. A boy I once knew." There was no way she would tell them it was Zuko, but Sokka gave her a glance as he figured it must have been the boy she talked about in the secret love cave.

Sokka tried to rationalize these visions, but Aang believed they were led to the center of the swamp on purpose. Next to them out popped a giant creature from the water which started attacking them. The giant vine beast grabbed at Sokka, but Katara and Lin tag teamed against it. They were able to get Sokka out by Katara forming a ball of water around him and Lin froze it to blast him out. Katara noticed there was a person controlling the vines from inside and was using waterbending to control it. The swamp man stopped attacking once he realized Aang was the Avatar.

The man explained how everything in life is connected and that the swamp was really one giant tree. He also told them that their visions were people they had lost and the forest shows that they are still connected to them.

"But the person I saw wasn't dead" said Lin.

"Then you feel disconnected from the person you saw." That was exactly how she felt, disconnected. After a deep discussion about time being an illusion the Avatar used the tree to find Appa and Momo.

Aang and his companions caught up with the people that captured Appa who turned out to be waterbenders. Together they sat around a fire and had dinner before moving on with the rest of their adventure. It turned out to be a very enlightening day for the Avatar.

A few years had now passed and the world beyond the walls was becoming unsafe as the Fire Nation armies grew. New was spreading that their new conquest was the Earth Kingdom. So far the Northern Water Tribe had been lucky enough to thwart the Fire Nation unlike their sister tribe in the south. They formed large barricades and had guards ready for any boat that came to close to finding their city.

With the war getting worse Lin couldn't understand why women still weren't allowed to waterbend. Didn't it make sense to have larger armies of waterbenders by letting women fight? Lin had tried asking her guy friends to teach her secretly, but they all refused because they were afraid of Master Paku finding out.

The black haired girl already mastered healing and was now helping her teacher train young girls. She even branched out towards sprits as Lin was able to soothe their anger and heal their spiritual wounds. Now if she could only calm the turmoil within herself. She grew bored of her home because of all the limitations placed on her and no one seemed to understand that except her mother. Kaito thought maybe arranging a marriage would help snap Lin back to reality, but that was quickly shot down by both women in his life. In fact many boys had tried to win over Lin, but were quickly put off by her persistent begging to learn waterbending. In fact she grew quite the reputation.

Lin's head was also spinning with the news of the war. She worried about Zuko and wondered if he would take part in enslaving the world like his grandfather was. He didn't seem that way as he was a carefree kid, but things change. There had been times when she contemplated writing the prince a letter, but knew it would only cause trouble. Instead she wrote all her thoughts down and kept it to herself.

It was another typical day after school as she headed out to her secret spot outside the main walls of the city. Lin would try to each herself how to waterbend away from prying eyes. She hoped that if she was able to master the basics then maybe she could convince Master Paku to change the rules and allow her to become one of his students. After all this time all she could accomplish were small icicles out of the snow. Ice was easier to manipulate opposed to large amounts of water which she could only make small ripples.

Mei-Lin was always joined by her close friend Isatok who was a nonbender. He always warned her that what she was doing was dangerous and one day she would get herself hurt. The waterbender never appreciated his commentary and made it known that he could always leave. After that he would try to be more encouraging, but he mostly stayed to make sure she was safe since he was deeply fond of her.

"How about one of these days we actually hang out like the normal kids?" Isatok asked as he was doing his homework.

"Isa! I told you I need to concentrate. Uhhh….I guess I could take a break. What do you want to do anyways?" the waterbender dropped a small handful of water back into the ocean.

"I dunno. I'll come up with something."

In the Fire Nation tensions were rising as they expanded the war effort. Zuko had finished his training with Master Piandao where he mastered wielding dual swords. He took pride in this feat since he firebending was nowhere near the caliber of his sister Azula. His own father even mocked his lack of abilities. In fact his father thought Zuko was a nonbender and was going to kill him. The Prince couldn't understand how his father could tell him such things.

Zuko wanted to become part of the war effort and always asked to join in on the war council as he figured it was his duty. Even though he wasn't an accomplished firebender he mastered sword fighting which he felt was just as necessary for battle. He wasn't sure what he could do anymore to get his father to approve of him just once. Azula continued to be the rising star in the family and it caused her to distance herself even more from her brother.

With his uncle and cousins out fighting in the Earth Kingdom the only person Zuko could spend time with was his mother. Lately she seemed more distressed than usual, but whenever her son was around her face became as bright at the sun. Mai would still secretly visit him from time to time when Azula was off being the firebending prodigy.

One day the black haired prince was practicing with his dual dao swords in the garden as he hacked at straw figures shaped like people. His training was interrupted when a knife darted by him and hit the straw figure in the head. Quickly he whipped his head back to see Mai standing 10 feet away in her usual poised manner.

"Did you just throw that?" Zuko's voice was a little shrill with surprise.

"What if I did?" Mai shrugged.

"Well you could have hit me!" the price pulled out the knife from the straw head and noticed how sharp it was.

"No I wouldn't. Don't be a baby" the young black haired girl walked towards Zuko to reclaim her weapon.

"Yes you could."

"If it was the other way around would you have hit me?" asked Mai.

"No."

"And why is that?"

"Because I'm well trained" the prince slightly pointed his chin up proud of his skills.

"As am I. What do you think girls can't master a weapon? Look at Azula who already mastered firebending" her face continued to remain emotionless throughout the conversation.

Zuko knew Mai had a point as she poured salt in his wounds by mentioning his sister.

"I just never thought you would learn to fight" Zuko wiped the sweat that was developing over his brow.

"I was bored."

They decided to test out their skills on each other as Zuko used his blades to block off Mai's attacks. He was quite impressed by her skills and he noticed that Mai had a small smile on her face as they danced in combat.

It was short lived as his sister arrived to claim her best friend.

"Sorry you had to babysit poor Zu-zu. Father wanted to show off my firebending to his generals. They said I would be an excellent commander when I am older" the princess flicked her hair back and gave an evil smirk towards her brother before pulling Mai away.

Zuko and Mai shared a short lived glance that made both of them blush as the young girl was pulled into the palace.