Candle's POV.
We had spent the night at the white house and were now on a plane to go to the Amazon jungle. We had looked over the letter and saw that there was a new part of the letter. Mom had said that there was a clan the my grandmother had been friends with after she helped heal the sick. They called themselves Jungle people. It was simple to remember, but the hard part was getting into the jungle.
We all knew of the poison filled, unexplored parts of the Amazon jungle. That was what we were most wiry of. So was the president, he asked if there was any other way. There was nothing on the letter that said otherwise.
We were flying over the jungle right now and it looked just as it did in the pictures that people had taken. Though it was 20x cooler! The sun was just about to set, which also made it prettier. Though the pilot said that we would touch down at a camp and then they would give us a map of the jungle. Only then would we be separating from the government. I couldn't wait. I was sick of all the watching and when we had to go somewhere we had to tell someone and then they would send someone to watch us.
The sun had set and the pilot said we would be there in 20 minutes. We had all been quiet for the whole ride. This had been the longest plane ride I had ever been on, and I think my car sickness had spread to the plane. I wasn't feeling as good as I was when I was in the car driving to the airport.
I sighed," I don't feel good."
"But you only have small car sickness," Gabe said turning around from his seat.
"Yeah... well, plans change," I groaned.
"Do you want me to make you feel better?" Mara asked turning coming up from behind my seat.
"Yeah...," I said groaning.
"OK, so close your eyes," she said. I did.
"Hey what are you-," I heard and then a sharp pain in my chest. I opened my eyes and then saw darkness.
''''''''''''''''''''''
"Candle! Wake up!" I heard yelling and then jerking. My eyes snapped open and I sat up. I reached back and punched what ever was in front of me.
"Hey cut it out!" I yelled at it. Then my eyes came into focus after I put on my glasses. Which had been taken off. I heard a groan and got up.
"Zach! What are you doing on the floor?" I asked him.
"You have... a good arm," he said. Then I felt a jerk. I looked out the window to my left.
"Hey, what is that?" I asked him.
"Candle come on. Zach get up! Put these on. We have to jump!" Sapphire was yelling at us over the wind. The door had just opened. I put on the parachute and walked over to Zach, who was still a little lightheaded.
"Come on. Or you die," I told him, tightening the straps. I turned around and he did the same. He had started to come back to reality. I felt each being pulled tight and then he stopped.
"All good. Come on," he said. We were the last to jump out. I hesitated to do it," come on. We can find the others once we get to the bottom. Come on we jump together," he yelled. He grabbed my hand and then jumped, pulling me with him. I screamed until I got used to falling. Which only happened when we opened the parachute.
We floated down into the darkness. Then hit the canopy. The leaves caught the parachute in an instant. I was left hanging in the canopy.
"Zach?" I looked around and then saw him break through the canopy. He was hanging just like me.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Do you want me to cut the ropes?"
"Yeah," I moved the air until it was going fast enough to cut the rope. Then slowly moved it toward Zach. He backed away as I got closer, but then after about 3 second the ropes cut. He fell and hit the large branch below. It was big enough to walk on and still have about a foot of walking distance.
"I am going to cut myself down now," I yelled at him. He nodded, I moved the air closer to me, it looked like a mad whirl wind storm. I was almost as scared as falling from the plane. Even more so to put that to my face. Then I heard snapping, the ropes. They were being cut by the wind. In about 2 seconds I fell. Instantly I twirled around and an air bubble soften my fall. My hair was all in my face when I was on the ground.
"You look like you just woke up," Zach was laughing.
"Oh shut up," I said and then blasted some air in his face," now you look like you just woke up," I laughed and then pulled my hair back and put it up in a ponytail. The end of it touch down at the edge of my back. I looked down at the branch.
"Wait. Where are we?" I looked all around. It was silent, I mean like no sound except for us. Then I realized that we were at the mother tree.
"We're on the...," I trailed off.
"Mother tree," Zach said," we're off at the edge of the tree. Lets make our way to the middle of the tree. Maybe we can find the others once we're there," Zach said. I nodded. We were in the middle of the jungle.
Zach started down without any thought. I followed close behind.
"What made us fall?" I asked," and why do I have an aching feeling in my stomach?"
"Well, you were feeling plane sick. Your car sickness had spread to the plane. Mara offered to make you feel better. You agreed and then she knocked you out. Gabe yelled at her until he took a breath and she explained why she had. Your mind would slightly less active at the part that was making you sick. Part of your mind stays on so that when you are asleep. She started to "heal" you mind with water.
Then we felt a bump. We figured it was just a cloud until Alex and Sapphire started to freak out. We looked out the windows on the right side and saw a huge tornado. That wasn't natural, it just appeared and then after about 10 minutes it was gone, but we were going down. Alex yelled at me to wake you up. And then you know what happened after that," Zach finished.
We were at the center now. The trunk was huge, almost 6 times as big as the branch we had landed on. It went up above the clouds.
"How did we not see this as we were flying over the jungle?" I asked Zach, he looked in awe.
"We did, you were just knocked out," he said walking forward," come on. Lets climb to the top and see if we can see any traces with our friends."
I followed Zach quickly behind. He must have climbed trees a lot, I was breathing heavily half way up. Zach was speeding ahead of me and was almost to the top. I wasn't sure how long we had been climbing, and I wasn't sure if the sun was going to rise soon.
"Are we there yet?" I asked him.
"Yeah, just about a third of the way," Zach yelled.
"That's not funny," I yelled back at him. He was at the top before I could climb the next two. I hurried after him.
"Hey that wasn't funny," I yelled at him, but he seemed lost in his own mind," hey," I said shaking my hand in front of his face," hey wake up. What is up with you," I asked turning my head to where he was looking. I gasped there were blue orbs floating all around the jungle.
"What the...," I trailed off, it was amazing.
"Get down from there!" someone yelled from behind me. I felt a grasped around my arm and then a jerk.
"Hey what the-," I tried but then a hand was placed over my mouth.
"Shh..., or you will get us caught," he thing said, I couldn't see him. It was too dark, I couldn't even see Zach when he yelled and got pulled down.
"Where are we going, and who are you!" I said as he pulled me down as he jumped from branch to branch. Then he stopped, I was hanging on the edge of a branch. I was pulled up almost right after I realized I was hanging. Then I saw light, well lot of lights actually. They looked like campfires.
"Come on, we need to get to the light," the figure said. He jumped and pulled me along with him again. I screamed until we landed with a thud. I gasped, the campfires weren't just campfires. They came with people. It looked like a whole tribe, of people living in the jungle.
"Whoa. What is this place?" I asked.
"This is where we live. We are the Jungle people. Come we have food and drinks, I'm sure that you're hungry," he said. He walked into the light and I saw what he looked like. He was an older man and had white hair starting to come in. He smiled and lead me over to a table of food. I walked over to the table and saw slices of meat and fruit.
"That's jaguar meat. It's a little tough, but if you cook it right it taste like beef," An old man smiled at me. He was standing in line next to me. I looked at the meat, it looked like regular beef.
"Eh, I'll try it," I put some on my plate and moved on. There was lots of things I couldn't name, but I put them on my plate anyway. I sat down with the man who saved me and Zach. They were talking about this same "tree house" that they live in.
"We use the branches and trunk for our home. Each hut that you see can hold about four people in it. We build on the tree, but we don't cut into it. This tree is very important to the living of the jungle. If we were to hurt it in anyway it would also start to kill us. We would have no food or protection from the Kar," he explained, then looked out at the sky. I saw stars, but nothing looked out of order.
"What are Kar?" I asked still staring at the sky.
"Kar are those blue orbs. They aren't really blue orbs, they are more like small moths that suck your blood. Sorta like vampires, but in moth form. They draw you in with their blue light. It entrances you, until it takes over your mind. They aren't really something you want to meet in the forest," he laughed.
"Oh right, sir we have some friends missing. We had to jump out of a plane because there was this tornado that came out of no where. It made our plane go haywire, we were the last to jump and the longest to get out. We fell into your tree and climbed to the top to see if we could see anything that would help us find our friends. Then you came along. Thank you for saving us," Zach said shaking hands with the man.
"By the way my name is Esbin. I am the leader of the Jungle people. I have been leading this village for only 6 years. In my time I have learned to help my people in more ways than being leader. I was informed that there was indeed a plane flying over our territory. We watched it and did see the tornado. We saw your friends jump out, and we did also see you fall out and land in our tree. Then the Kar showed up-,"
"That's when you guys grabbed us and brought us here," Zach finished.
"Do you think there is a way for us to find our friends?" I asked him. He nodded," really how do we find them?"
"You'll have to wait till morning, when the Kar are gone," he said, I sat back down with a sigh.
"Come on, you can use one of our spare huts for now. We can bring you bed rolls for now. I am sure you'll be leaving with your friends in the next couple of days," he smiled.
"Well actually we came here to find you and your people. You see Candle is the Avatar and she needs to learn water and what not-," Zach was cut off.
"What! She's the Avatar!" he exploded.
"Well you do to be too surprised," I sighed," yeah I am the Avatar, but I can only bend air and move a little of water. When I tried it with a waterbending master at Yellowstone national Park I ended up being smacked with the lake more than any person should be," I laughed and they laughed too," but I went there to learn airbending and then to my dad's place to teach myself the second half of airbending. Now I need to come here and learn Waterbending. I was hoping you guys could help," I explained, he nodded.
"I see, so you will be staying here longer than I expected. For now I will be okay with it. But if you bring us any harm to our village I will have no choice but to evict you," he said I nodded and tried to look strong.
"Aye," Zach and I both said and high-fived. Esbin smiled and then showed us to the hut. He brought us some water and the bags that we jumped with. I smiled and thanked him. Zach and I were too tried to get changed and just fell asleep when we hit the pillow.
''''''''''''''''
"Hey Candle, Candle," I heard a voice. I slowly opened my eyes. There was a boy sitting there. I sat up and looked around it was the same place where I had met Iroh. It was green all around and there was a forest off in the distance.
"Candle," said a small boy. He had an arrow coming down onto his forehead and was smiling," look, see," he said and then I saw blue light and then fire. There was fire everywhere and people dead and alive, crying and bleeding.
I gasped I saw a blue light among them. It was walking slow and the light was getting softer. I ran over to it, but it was gone by the time I got there.
"Who were you?" I asked, but I didn't get an answer. Then I saw the blue light again and then the boy.
"What did I just see, tell me!" I yelled at him. He didn't move except the smile from his face went down.
"You saw what would happen if you were to lose. The world would be put at the mercy of the Devil. You can't let that happen," he said. I looked at him in horror.
"Who was that blue light," I asked quietly.
"That was the Avatar, you and your future lives. That's what you will become if you loose a servant of the monster that you have to defeat," he said.
"Wait what is your name?" I asked.
"I'm Aang. The avatar you've descended from," he smiled. Then he started to fade.
"Whoa, wait. Wait!" I yelled and then sat up. It was broad day light and Zach was still in his sack. He muffled something.
"Shut up Candle I'm trying to sleep,"
"Huh," I looked over at the covered door. I could see people's shadow's and feet walking by. I got up and opened the sheet. The people rushed around, kids climbed up the tree with bags behind them. Some women were going down the tree, by jumping from branch to branch, to collect some water. Men were working on starting fires in the fire pit, it looked like it was made so that it wouldn't catch the tree on fire. Some of the men had spears and were ready to go out and hunt for the next meal.
I walked around and saw that people were dress in things made from the jungle. It looked like they wore pelts of jaguar and other things. I walked around confused, I still had not waken up. I didn't remember what had happened last night. People were running past me quickly and I didn't realize what it was until I was almost pulled off with them. They were the hunting parties. I was hanging on the edge of the tree with just my hand.
"Well this is just great my first day with the tribe and I am already hanging off the tree for dear life," I said, I wasn't too pleased about where I was. Then I felt a hand grasp my wrist and pull me up. I gasped and turned when I felt it. I came face to face with a girl, she looked about a year older than me.
She had a hard face and forest green eyes. Her long brown hair went down to the end of her back. Though she was smiling, and had a bag that looked like one you would have if you had to deliver mail.
"You might to be more careful. When the hunting parties go out there isn't much you can do to avoid them. By the way my name is Amber," she said shaking my hand before letting it go. I was stunned, she was the first person to talk to me in the tribe.
"Oh, uh... thanks I guess...," I trailed off not moving from the spot.
"Are you OK?" she asked.
"Yeah, um... my name is Candle," I said.
"Oh, great. You're the one I'm looking for Esbin asked me to go get you. He wants to speak with you about your friends. Oh and here," she said opening her bag, I looked inside and saw something moving.
"Ah! there is something moving in your bag," I yelled, she looked up holding something she had just found.
"Oh yeah that is my pet panda. Her name is Feather," she said.
"But you live in the Amazon Jungle," I said.
"Yeah, so what I went to China one time and found this mini panda," she said holding out what she had found.
"Oh...,"
"Here take this hair look like you went through a lawn mower," she handed me the hair brush. I took out my ponytail and let my green hair loose. The tension on my head fell a lot. The funny thing was I hadn't noticed it until I let it down.
"Whoa, is your hair really green?" she asked as I brushed it.
"Yeah, why?"
"Why, because I could be seeing things wrong. How did you get a dye to look like that?" she asked touching it.
"Um, it's not a dye. It's how I was born," I said taking a step back. I guess she noticed that I was creeped out because she instantly apologized.
"Oh, sorry. Come on, we need to get to Esbin," she smiled and then ran off. I ran after her, just I was far behind her. She was climbing the tree before I reached the lowest branch. I jumped up and followed her. I reached the part where she stopped I was out of breath.
"Here we are," she said and pointed inside a hold. It looked like were a bird would have its nest but 20x bigger.
"Whoa...," I said and she dragged me inside. There sat on the ground with a fire in front of him was Esbin. He was drawing on something, it looked like paper but older.
"Esbin, Candle is here," Amber said. I smiled and waved. He looked up from where he was and smiled. I heard some more foot steps and saw Zach and some other dude.
"Good you're all here. Candle, Zach we have located your friends. Amber and Jack will take you to them tomorrow,"