Breathing hard, Amanda stayed in the background as Aang went into the Avatar State. 'WHY does the stupid scroll have to be across the courtyard?' she thought.

She ducked as a rock impacted the wall next to her head. Great, now she had dust in her eyes. Praying to whatever deity might be watching over her, she moved to the side until she hit a corner.

Blinking, she realized that she now had a clear path to the scroll. Before anybody saw her and wondered, she dashed over to it and pulled it with her to a dark corner. Unfortunately, someone did see her.

"Hey, did anybody see that?" said Sokka, turning towards her hiding spot.

"See what, Sokka?"

"A girl! She went over there…"

Cursing in her head, Amanda opened the scroll and tried to figure it out as quickly as possible. She had just scrawled the answer down when she heard the Gaang coming.

"That's weird, there's nothing here…"


The second season was much harder to navigate through. Amanda knew, somehow, that she should not let herself be seen, which was more difficult to do when people could actually see you. Or if you were avoiding Toph. The questions were much harder as well.

But somehow, she made it through to the last episode.

Heart thudding almost painfully in her chest, Amanda watched as the Gaang (and Iroh) talked.

"We should split up. Aang, you go with Iroh to look for Katara and the angry jerk...no offense."

"None taken."

"And I'll go with Toph to warn the Earth King about Azula's coup."

Toph and Sokka ran off. Aang started Earthbending a tunnel down to the crystal caverns.

For a moment, Amanda wondered if she should follow someone, or just stay put. But she was impatient to find the last scroll and go home, so she carefully edged of out her hiding place and followed Aang and Iroh.

Following very slowly, she listened as they talked. She had not actually paid much attention while watching the episode.

'It's kind of scary here,' she thought, trying not to notice the darkness around her. Not paying attention to where her feet were, she stumbled and fell. She clamped her mouth on her arm to try and not cry out. It seemed luck was on her side, for once, as neither of the benders ahead of her heard her fall.

'I want to go home,' she mentally whimpered. It was dark here, and earthy, and whole bunch of other things that were not nice. But to go home, she had to finish what she had started. 'Why oh why did I volunteer for this?' she wondered as she stood up.

Suddenly, the light ahead obtained a different tint. Aang had finally broken through to the crystal cavern!

As soon as Aang and Iroh were out of sight, Amanda sprinted down and collapsed against one of the large crystals. She could not rest for too long, though. That scroll still needed to be found. Sighing, she heaved herself up and started walking again.

Nothing much happened until the fight between Aang and Zuko and Katara and Azula started. Then the scroll appeared – right in the middle of the battle!

Mentally, she cursed. Even if she managed to not die, she doubted she could get away without being seen. Then again, they were awfully focused on their fights. And she really did need to get that scroll. But is was in the middle of the cave!

She finally reached a decision. If she did not go for it now, who knew when she'd get the courage to do so? Edging carefully out of her hiding place, she tried to keep an eye on everybody at once, really not wanting to be seen. Finding that her eyes could not point in several directions at once, she abandoned the idea of watching everybody and instead waded carefully into the water.

The water was absolutely freezing.

Closer and closer she inched, miraculously not being seen. Finally, she reached out and grabbed the scroll. Now all she had to do was get back to her hiding place unsee-

"Hey, who's that!"

Amanda turned to see every person in the cavern starting at her. Panicking inside, she threw caution to the wind, running for the nearest exit as she screamed at the highest pitch possible. Behind her were the sounds of Dai Li soldiers, ordered by Azula to chase her.

She was back in the first cavern now, dashing towards the tunnel that led to the outside world. And suddenly, her hands were bound together – somehow still holding onto the scroll – and her mouth was covered, and she had tripped, and the soldiers were all around her.


"Who are you and why are you here, peasant?!" Azula was trying to interrogate her prisoner; however, the girl seemed to be in shock, for she did not answer and stared straight ahead, trembling. At least she was not crying – that Azula could hardly stand.

"Tell me!" she shouted, unleashing some flames in her anger at the girl's lack of response. This seemed to snap the girl back to reality, and she spoke.

"I don't kn-know. I ca-can't remember anything." She claimed.

After a few more minutes, the Fire Princess ordered her put in the dungeon, to pry more information from later, and turned back to the old man who had betrayed his nation.


Wondering why the scroll had not been taken from her, Amanda concluded that they must not be able to see it. That still did not help her situation too much. She had nothing to write the answer with.

Somehow, she managed to wriggle her hands out of their prison, and she opened the scroll. Squinting in the dim light, she could barely make out the words: "What is Iroh's favorite type of tea?"

She blinked. 'That's easy,' she thought, 'that's Ginseng.' But she could not write the answer and so remained stuck.

There was a metal splinter on the floor, just long enough to write with. There was no ink, though, or anything - even dirt - that Amanda could have mixed with her spit to form a makeshift ink. 'Stupid metal cell.'

After a while, she got an idea. At first she tried to push it out of her head - it was painful and awful and would likely get her infected with some sort of illness. But the idea played around her mind until finally, she could stand it no longer. She carefully picked up the splinter and gingerly cut the top of her arm. Holding back the whimpers of pain, she managed to write out the answer in her blood.

For several moments, nothing happened. 'Does writing it with blood invalidate it?' But then the world faded to black.


Now everything was white. So white that it hurt to look anywhere. But what else was there to do?

After a few minutes, Amanda felt her feet brush against something. She looked down. They were casting a shadow on something, although she could not see anything. Willing herself to float downward, she was relieved to finally be standing on something solid rather than floating. Oddly, the part of this strange world not part of the platform was shaded in light grey.

What looked like a fountain was at the other end of the platform. When she got closer, though, she saw short clips from the episodes fading in and out of the 'water'. A clear glass bottle was on the white edge of the fountain. It had a label that read 'Essence of Episodes' on it, though it was empty.

She picked it up. Carefully, she edged it into the 'water', starting to fill it. But when her skin touched the 'water', she dropped it and screamed, pulling her hand out. The skin was suddenly red, as if she had put it under hot water. And it hurt!

'But this has to be the way out...' she thought. Shrugging, she plunged her arm back into the Essence of Episodes, grabbing the bottle and pulling it out. The skin on her arm looked raw, and her cut felt like she had put alcohol on it, but she had what she needed. A cork appeared in midair and plugged the bottle by itself. Another portal opened. She stepped through it, feeling exhausted.


A/N: insert usual apology sort of stuff and excuses for taking a forever and a half to update Besides the fact that I lost interest in Avatar for a while (due to lake of episodes) and the fact that I was busy writing a novel for NaNoWriMo by the time I did feel like writing more on this... I really don't have any excuses. I was lazy. And I really don't like this fic anymore (but then, I think most of what I write is awful...), but I want to finish it.

Next chapter... um. I wanted to have something on crossovers in this, but I'm not really the best person to be writing about how to write a good one (help?). I'll try, though...

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender.