I'd like to get this next one done in one chapter. It's kind of hard to deal with The Storm from the third-person limited perspective I've fallen into. When I first noticed this story peeking over the horizon, I thought I'd have to cheat, but after great consideration, I think I've found a way to make it work…

Tom wasn't an early riser as it was, but the routine he had settled into was wearing on him. About forty-eight hours of adrenalin followed by almost a week of doldrums. Even all of his party's magical flying chauffer and airbender antics could keep the endless travel from growing tiresome. Tom wasn't used to this sort of thing or motivated enough to stick with one goal this long. Perhaps it was a good thing he was mysteriously trapped in this alternate (?) world…

Never the less, he carried on. The group had camped near the ocean that night. The farther north they got, the less land there was to camp on. They were still some ways away from the North Pole, but there destination wasn't so far away anymore. Unfortunately, they were out of food. Again. It was actually surprising how often they had to find a market and usually barter for food.

After finally forcing himself awake, it didn't take long for Tom to see that one of those forty-eight hour adrenalin rushes was on its way. The crystal clear skies didn't fool him, he could practically feel the low-pressure system and humidity coming on the gusty and erratic wind. "Look at those clear skies, buddy," Aang said happily to Appa, "Should be some smooth flying." Famous last words.

Fortunately, the food issue was easier to solve than the coming typhoon. There was a fishing town very nearby that had a fully stocked market. With Appa docked like one of the small trawlers, the group set out to stock up at a quaint fruit stand. Despite the town's sleepy appearance, the people seemed abrasive, to say the least.

"Ach, it's good. It's perfect, I'm telling you!" the middle aged saleswoman insisted.

Katara, with whom the woman was speaking, gave the melon-like fruit an experimental shake. "I don't think I like the sound of that swishing," she said to the irritable woman.

"Swishing means it's ripe!" the woman practically growled, "It's the ripe juices swishing around, huh?"

"I think it's true, Katara," Aang said, "Swishing means it's ripe."

Katara soon decided against and put the fruit back. "I just remembered we're out of money anyway…" The woman seemed to take it well, stripping the basket Sokka had with the goods he intended to purchases from his hand and kicking him as he left for good measure.

"Out of food and out of money," Sokka lamented a few moments later, "Now what'll we do?!"

"You could get a job, smart guy," Katara suggested sarcastically.

"There's a blacksmith in town," Tom noted, "I bet that pays well."

"Do you know about smithing?" Aang asked.

"No. But I feel like giving it a try."

Before the conversation could continue, more of the charming populace of the town wandered by. An old man and woman were arguing as he made for a boat docked next to Appa. "Please, you can't go out there," the woman implored, "There's going to be a terrible storm!"

"Ah, you're crazy," the old man dismissed. "It's a nice day! No clouds, no wind, no nothin'."

"Maybe we should find shelter…" Aang suggested.

"Shelter from what?" Sokka scoffed.

"Can't you feel the humidity on the wind?" Tom asked.

"What wind?" Sokka asked before a gust blew through town.

"My joints say there's going to be a storm. A big one!" the old woman emphasized, rubbing her sore hands.

"Well, it's your joints against my brain."

"Then I hope your brain can find someone else to haul all that fish, because I won't!"

"Then I'll find a new fish hauler and pay 'im double what you get!"

Sokka happily ran up to the arguing duo, "I'll go."

"You're hired!"

Katara in particular seemed perplexed by Sokka's decision to start a new career. "What?" he asked, "You told me to get a job."

Tom started back into town, waving the incident off. "I'll be in the blacksmith's. Call for me when there ship is sinking in the storm." He got all of twenty steps into town before the massive, ominous storm clouds started to gather from the north. He entered the smith and was greeted, unsurprisingly with a blast of heat. There was a man inside working on something in the furnace. When he felt eyes upon him he looked up. He was thirty something with dark hair and a short cut beard. "What do you want?" he grumbled, whipping sweat and soot from his brow in a blackened mess.

"I'd like a little work if you have it," he asked cordially.

"Got experience?" the smith asked, sounding at least a little intrigued.

"No, but I'm a quick study. I can just be an extra set of hands until I can do it on my own."

"Got some guts comin' in here and asking that."

"I've got nothing to lose if you say no," Tom told him easily. "And if I mess anything up, I you can just not pay me."

"I am down a man…" the smith considered. After a moment he nodded, "Okay then. But I ain't gonna babysit you. And I won't just not pay you if you cost me too much, I'll take it out of your hide, got it?"

"As well you should." Blacksmithing, unsurprisingly, was a job not meant to be done alone. At first Tom was mostly relegated to keeping kilns hot enough. But as the next few hours passed, he was doing more and more. Getting tools, preparing molds, even helping to pour molten steel. Near the end of the day he was making smaller things like fishing spear heads (nearly) faultlessly all on his own. The smith was duly impressed, but Tom shrugged off any praise. The truth was that he loved to tinker anyway. While he had never worked at a blacksmith before, but he had done things like build tools and blow glass. His unusual list of skills was wide and growing quickly. Especially in recent years.

It was upon realizing that that Tom came to an odd, and a bit sad realization. He was so seamlessly woven into this grand adventure, and yet he was still so other. No one was hearing the sob story of his life. And no one on the entire planet he was standing on could understand it even if they did. It was the story of his life, he told himself. Perhaps it was true, though this time it wasn't self-inflicted. Tom refocused on his work. He in his dark sense of humor decided that there were too many sharp objects in the room for him to start along that road.

"I can't believe I caught up on all my overdue orders!" the smith said as he was dousing the kilns. "You're pretty good for an amateur."

"I like to be good at what I do. But before you put out all those fires, I'd like to make another request."

"You sure do ask a lot," the smith noted.

"I want to make a sword for myself," Tom told him, "I'm a traveler, and I'd just feel safer with a weapon."

The smith shrugged, "Why not. Just don't burn my shop down and pick up any tools of the ground if the place starts to flood or something." The storm had arrived by then and they could hear the rain pounding outside. The smith opened the doors of the shop to go home and saw the torrential weather outside. "Crimeny. And I was kidding about the flood thing. Oh, and your pay's on the table in the other room."

"You're not going to take out the cost for the sword?"

"Well, I was thinkin' I might give you a little extra for your good work," the smith explained, "so just make your sword and we'll call it even."

"Thanks, man," Tom said gratefully with a wave.

The smith parted with a lackluster "Yeah, whatever," and disappeared into the storm on his way home.

Tom got right to work on his sword. He employed all his all of the skills he earned during his hard day's work. And with the help of his firebending, he had a blade in less than an hour (managing to only get a little burn when some splashing molten steel grazed his arm). That didn't mean he was done, however. He decided the balance was off, so he heated up the blade so it was malleable and reshaped it to his liking. It was easy for him to reshape his sword-to-be. He could impart or remove heat with a thought. He had gotten good at manipulating heat thanks to all his early failed attempts at firebending. Finally it was just right. A double-edged straight sword like the rest (though a bit shorter than average), but custom fit for his hand. The blade was meticulously balanced with the grip, which he made from some high quality wood that would have otherwise been cut into spear shafts. The grip was sanded to fit each of his fingers and there was polished stone weight at the end. He could balance the weapon on one finger and if he held still enough, it would sit there like a stone. He collected a scabbard, not caring that his sword was a few inches short for it and repurposed it to hang around his waist. He never finished any of the myriad of swordsmanship classes he had taken, but none of them practiced carrying the user's sword on their back.

Outside of lamenting the fact that he didn't have the weapon to use on those damn canyon crawlers, Tom was pleased with the results. He was doing some experimental flips he'd seen in a movie or two when the fisherwoman burst into the otherwise empty blacksmith shop. "Please, you have to help me!"

"Sokka and your husband were idiots and didn't come back in time."

The old woman huffed, "That obvious?"

"My friends can help," Tom said, sheathing his sword. He grabbed the bag of coins the blacksmith left for him, doused all the fires, and lead the old woman to where he knew Aang and Katara would be. Outside of that, he wasn't much help. Though nearly drowning in a typhoon did give him an intense adrenalin rush. Just another day at the office.

I hope Tom's character is coming through. I'm being intentionally veiled about his character, but I also want to make him consistently interesting. The Storm is supposed to be a sort of introspective look at two of the main characters, so I used this as a way to give a sort of mosaic look into Tom's mind rather than a more biographical one. I also had a hard time not making him seem too weepy. He's not supposed to be some ordinary guy with third-rate first-world problems to borrow a phrase from Crash Course, but I also didn't want Simple Plan's "Untitled" to start playing in the background when Tom was getting all introspective either.