A.N.- Yes, I know it has seemed like I've given up on this story, but whatever. I haven't, I just happen to have a life too.
And for all you smoochers out there that didn't review, I didn't force myself to write this for you. I glued my butt to this chair to write this for Tefnut Talvi and Shadowsole. Everyone else just happens to be able to read this too, because only 2 reviews out of 130 is ridiculous.
Toph could just make out the soft voices of people arguing as she woke up. The words seemed to slur together in her foggy brain, so she had trouble figuring out what they were saying. She heard her name mentioned a few times and something about a book, but that was it.
She sat up from the floor and shook her head, trying to clear away the foggy feeling. She could feel the sun shining on her face through an open window, but it was a cooler feeling, telling her that it was early in the morning. She groaned and stood up, knowing she had to be on her way. The two other people in the room took notice of her and stopped their conversation immediately.
While the uncle's vibrations were of a pleasant mood, the nephew's were still angry and frustrated. Whatever they had been arguing about, he wasn't coming out ahead.
"Good morning Mi… um… Toph! Would you like some tea?" Iroh asked her. Now that he mentioned it, the pungent smell of jasmine tea hit her. It was relaxing.
Toph sensed that the table the two were sitting at had an extra place set, which she assumed was for her. She sat down and accepted the cup Iroh handed her. She took a swig of it and smiled a bit. He had made this by hand with tea leaves instead of a tea bag like most people today. She voiced this to him and he chuckled.
"I have never liked the way tea tastes like that. I prefer the old fashion way with the leaves. And it costs me less too. This forest is filled with tons of herbs and tea leaves. All I have to do is walk outside." He said this with so much pride it was hard for Toph not to feel happy for him. The table was silent after that as the three ate the watered down oatmeal. Toph had never eaten oatmeal that tasted so bad before, but she was hungry, for she didn't have much food of her own, and ate it anyway.
The nephew, on the other hand, ate one bite of his food before putting down his spoon and glaring at the bowl. Iroh noticed this and looked at him questioningly.
"Is everything alright Zuko?"
"No! Everything is not okay. Uncle, we're eating like rats. We're better than this! We could be eating like royalty and instead we're here sharing what little food there is with the peasant girl," he snarled. Toph's eyes hardened at him.
"You know what Hot Head? You're not the only one with problems. You're not the only one that could be living a better life, so watch who you're talking to," Toph told him. The rest of the meal was completely silent save for the sound of their spoons clattering on the bowls.
When Toph finished her food, she stood up. "Well, thanks for everything Tea Man, but I've got to get going. I can't waste any more time." She started towards the door, but was stopped when Iroh called out to her.
"Oh! Wait one moment Toph. I have something for you." He hastily stood up and got something out of the only other room. Toph sensed him carrying a large object when he came back. He handed it to her, and she realized it was a pack.
It wasn't too heavy, so she assumed it just had food in it. She smiled at the old man's kindness. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. It's been a pleasure having you here. I do hope our paths will cross again." He bowed to her and, despite the fact that it seemed strange to her, Toph returned the gesture. She turned towards the door and was just about to leave when Iroh spoke again.
"You know, I think it would be good if Zuko went with you Toph, to show you the way to the nearest town."
Toph froze in her tracks. The last thing she wanted was to spend more time with Hot Head. The vibrations he was putting off told her he felt the same way. "Look, that's really kind and all, but I can find it on my own."
"Oh no, I insist." Zuko grumbled as he stood up and lead the way through the door. Toph followed him in the same manner.
The walk through the forest was a hard and silent one. The far beyond trees were hidden behind a thick fog and the sunlight was reflecting off all the water molecules. The air was tense between them was as dense as the forest was. Even Toph could hardly see a long way away ahead of her because of all the foliage in the way.
One thing Toph did notice was that where they were, there were lots of animal traps. Whoever set them hadn't done a very good job of hiding them from her vision, but she presumed they were well hidden from everyone else's sight when Zuko almost stepped in one. She reached up and pulled on the collar of his shirt to keep him from having one leg cut off. He fell back onto the grass with an "umf!" He glared up at her, thinking she had done that just to tick him off. He stood up and was about to yell at her when she cut him off.
"Watch where you're going Hot Head," she said, pointing to the trap. She kept walking onward, while he stared dumbly at the ground for a moment whilst his eyes tried to catch sight of what she was pointing at. His eyes went wide at the sight of the deadly trap. He looked back up at Toph to see her pick up a decent sized rock and throw it into the trap. It hit the trap's trigger and it snapped shut, but since the rock wouldn't cut like the flesh of something alive, the trap broke instead.
When her task was completed, Toph continued to walk in the same direction they had been before the incident. Zuko, however was dumbstruck as to how she had known the trap had been there. He ran after her, although not as fast as he could have because he was worried about there being more traps.
"Hey! Why'd you help me?" he asked her when he caught up to her.
"Look, I may not really like you, but even you don't deserve you leg chopped off," she chided, as if it was obvious. This remark silenced Zuko for only a brief moment before he thought of something else.
"How did you know that trap was there?"
There was no hesitation in her answer. "I guess I can see better than you Hot Head," she told him, elbowing him in the side, a small smile gracing her lips.
The silence from before befell them again, but this time there was no tense air surrounding them. It was silence both benders, although unknown to each other, liked to bask in. They stayed like that until the edge of the forest could be seen by them both. The noise from the nearby village could be heard from where they were standing and all the aromas could be smelt by Toph.
"Well, maybe I'll see you around Hot Head," Toph said before leaving his side and exiting the forest and leaving him standing there, just watching her go.
Aang awoke from his slumber in the same condition he was when he fell asleep. He was covered in mud from sleeping in it and he still felt like a jerk. The rain had stopped overnight, but it didn't make him feel any better. He couldn't help but feel horrible about what he figured out last night. He buried his head in his arms, feeling bad just thinking about it. He was so scared. He wished there was someone he could talk to about it all.
Just as he thought this, something was plopped down in front of him. He opened one eye to see a rice cake and somebody's shoes.
"Time to wake up sleepy-head," a voice told him. He looked up to see a girl with bright red hair smiling down at him. He then remembered that Sokka and Suki were with him.
Aang reached out and grabbed the rice cake and started eating, but he didn't move out of the position he was in. Suki sat down in front of him.
"Look kiddo, we'll find your friend, don't worry about it."
"But what am I going to say to her when I see her? I just took off without even saying good-bye. I wouldn't be surprised if she hated me," Aang said, knowing it was all true and hating every part of it.
"If she's really your friend, she'll understand you just wanted to help her. And as for what to say to her when you find her, don't think about that either. Just tell her the truth," Suki said softly. It hurt her to look at Aang so broken up about this, even if she'd only known him for one day.
"Thanks Suki," Aang said as he looked over at her. Silence overcame the two as they ate, but it was broken when Sokka showed up.
"Hey guys! You are never going to believe it! I got job for today! And they'll pay me fifty! Whoo!" he said loudly, clearly proud of himself.
"That's great Sokka, but what about Aang?"
Sokka stopped his happy dance and looked at Aang. He was about to open his mouth and try to say something comforting, but he never got the chance.
"Don't worry about it Sokka. We need money, I'll even come with you, and maybe they'll let me help too."
As it turned out, the people that hired Sokka did need some extra help. The union guys that originally had the job had gone on strike and they needed all the help they could get… lifting extremely heavy boxes onto trucks.
By the end of the day when Aang and Sokka had gone back the where Suki was waiting for them, they could barely walk. Suki sat there giggling at them as they groaned when they tried to sit. "So how'd the job go?" she teased.
They glared at her in response. "Hey, we made some money today, so quit making fun of us," Sokka said, trying to seem manly. He pulled out the bills to show her two fifties.
Suki laughed. "Well, you're not the only one that got a temporary job today. I spent my whole day cleaning bathrooms in a local shop. So quit acting so high and mighty." She pulled out her money to show them. It was fifty also.
"But you didn't have to lift forty pound boxes all day! Cleaning is easy, lifting is hard," Sokka said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What! Easy?! Are you kidding me?! That had got to be the worst thing to do in the whole world," Suki yelled back at him.
"I'm just saying that it's easy woman work. Lifting is hard man work."
"Well, I'll lift you somewhere!"
"Hey! Easy there, we're in no position to fight with each other," Aang said, stepping in between the two, fearful of what Suki might do to Sokka if she had her way. Both teenagers shut their mouths, knowing Aang's words were true. Aang decided to break the silence.
"So together we have one hundred and fifty. Should we go and get some food?" Aang suggested.
"Yes! I'm starving! I need meat!" Sokka exclaimed, acting as if nothing happened.
"Hey kid! Wake up!" a girl yelled, but the sleeping girl didn't stir. "Ugh! Why won't you wake up! You need to get out of our club house!" A hand rested on her shoulder in a comforting way.
"No Longshot, I will not calm down! This girl is in our home!"
"Geez Smellerbee, I can hear you from all the way down here. Do you mind taking it down a notch?" a boy on the ground asked her.
"Shut up Jet. There's a girl up here that doesn't belong here." No less than a second later, Jet was up with the others, looking over the girl. He shook her a little bit and she woke up.
"What! Are you kidding me?" Smellerbee yelled.
"Bee, get a hold of yourself," Jet said over his shoulder. The girl on the floor moaned a bit before sitting up.
"Wha… What's going on?! Where am I?" she asked to no one.
"Well, you're in one of the Freedom Fighters tree houses. As to what's going on, we just found you here, so we were going to ask you the same thing," Jet told her.
"I remember running through the forest, trying to get up here, falling, and then somehow making it back up here."
"Well, I'm Jet, that's Smellerbee and Longshot, and we're part of the Freedom Fighter gang. You can stay with us, if you want."
"Um… okay. I'm Katara, by the way."
A few hours later, Jet had told Katara all about the FF, just to try and impress her. In return, she told him all she could remember about what had happened over the past couple of days. She even told him about being a bender. He was taken by surprise, but didn't think of her any differently.
He showed her around the tree house, and she was surprised that she hadn't noticed any of it before. There were many floors, at least two or three. The one she had slept in was the original one they hadn't added on to. Even though she put on an easy going shell, Katara was terrified on the inside. She didn't know these people; she didn't know what they would do.
Toph had been wandering around the small village looking for some kind of clue to figure out where she was supposed to go to find Aang. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know where to look. She felt like the helpless little girl her parents always expected her to be.
She could tell it was nighttime already by how cold the ground was. Wandering around, she finally found a small alleyway she figured she could sleep in for the night. She just sat down and stared blindly out in front of her, hoping something would come to mind.
But nothing did. The only thoughts running through her head were that of sorrow and fright. She was scared by herself and lonely too. She knew leaving her parents was the right choice, because she would have been locked in her room for the rest of her life, but she didn't know what to do on her own.
She felt lost.
Aang, Suki, and Sokka were having similar feelings to that of Toph unknowingly. They didn't know what to do. They knew that the world was such a big place and it could be next to impossible to find Toph. The only comfort they had was that they weren't going through things alone. They had each other.
A few miles away from the trio, Katara couldn't sleep. She, too, was scared. She was mixed up in a gang. For all she knew, these kids killed people for fun. Sure, Jet had seemed nice, but she didn't know all the other kids in the gang.
She couldn't even run away because she had nowhere to go. It was a sickening feeling, to be stuck where she was and not do anything about it. She wanted to hide, she wanted to run. To be anywhere but where she was her greatest wish.
After what had seemed like hours, but really only a few minutes, all of the kids had fallen asleep, not feeling any better about their situations. But when a rattling noise close by each of them woke them up, the air around them changed. For Toph, a can mysteriously rolled down the alleyway she was in. For Sokka, Suki, and Aang, a mouse scurried by. For Katara, the branches of the trees shook in the peaceful night air. Although none of the kids were relatively close to each other, something was changing.
Toph quickly jumped up and looked around her. She hastily pulled the knapsack onto her back and surveyed the area with her senses. There was something there, she could feel it. It felt like another presence, but she couldn't see it with her earth bending. But she could feel it all around her, and it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
She whirled around as the footsteps of people make their way towards her.
"Hey kid! What are you doing out past curfew?" someone yelled at her. Toph did something she had never done in her life. She turned on her heel and bolted in the opposite direction.
"Hey! Come back here!" But Toph didn't stop. She kept on running as fast as she could away from the people.
Sokka, Suki, and Aang were on edge too. They could feel the same presence Toph could and it was scaring them. Before they could even start to look around, a pack of dogs showed up under the street lamp, looking at the kids with a wicked eye. The trio got up and ran away from the dogs in terror.
It was the stupidest thing to do; the run away from dogs like that. The dogs, more power and quicker than any of the kids, should have caught up to them in no time. But they didn't. The trio didn't want to know how close the dogs were, so they never looked back, but kept running forward.
Katara was on scared out of her wits. When she had woken up, feeling the same feeling as the other kids had, she had gotten up to look around. She had heard voices from the other tree and could swear she had heard the kids talking about her. Feeling as if her suspicions had been correct, she quickly got out of the tree house and ran away from them.
She wanted to get as far away from them as possible. She hadn't heard what they had been saying, but she guessed they were planning to rob her or harm her in some way. So she just ran, hoping no one had heard her leave.
Soon, the people had stopped chasing Toph, the dogs had stopped chasing the trio, and Katara could no longer see the dim lights from the tree houses. All had stopped running and were now slowly walking along. The ground below their feet was getting wetter with every step, and the air was becoming thicker. At once, all the kids realized where they were.
A swamp.
A.N.- Once again, I'm loosing interest in this story because I have very little motivation to continue. I'll keep writing as long as someone reviews, but hey, your choice.
Thanks for reading and please review or expect the next chapter 5 months from now... or more.