I'm so sorry, everyone! I hate not updating for long periods of time like this. November was a rather chaotic month between NaNoWriMo, trying to find a second job, Thanksgiving, and becoming a Dual Major. I hope you will all forgive me and continue reading and reviewing!

AvatarCat11: Hmmm, I haven't decided yet how Lan is going to react when Zuko joins them.

Melody Sparrow: I have a little cousin that acts a lot like Lan. I get most ideas from her.

Sakura02: Yes…Sokka should never be given so much authority…it doesn't end well for others XD

Thank you: grapejuice101, chickenchick, The BloodBender at Full Moon, BANEHiwatari, Winged Wolfie Chibi, Moonlitdaze, and MangaMagic for reviewing.

Hooray! Over 200 reviews! Thank you so much for your continued support!


Lan crinkled her nose as a rather foul stench hit her nose. Slowly, she woke up from her nap and rubbed her eyes. She looked blearily around to see Sokka fishing while Katara and Toph simply sat off to the side. "Where's Aang?"

Katara glanced over the side of Appa's saddle. "He's swimming."

Lan peered over the edge as well and blanched. The river was disgusting brown color and clearly not suitable for swimming in. "Aang, I think you should get out."

Aang looked around himself for the first time, his eyes widening when he saw just how disgusting the water was. He quickly flew out of the water and back into Appa's saddle. Using his airbending, he removed all the clinging goop off of himself and deposited it onto the others. He smiled apologetically when Lan glared at him and quickly airbended the goop off of the group.

"I'm not eating anything that comes out of that water." Lan protested, staring nervously into the water.

"We'll need to find a town to get food." Katara mused thoughtfully, pulling Lan further back into the saddle when she thought the little princess was leaning too far over.

Aang scanned the horizon for a moment before his eyes lit up. "There's a town over there!" The group steered Appa to land where Aang proceeded to disguise Appa as a giant hill with horns.

Lan looked around the landscape curiously. "I've never seen a village on a river before." Lan said as they walked towards the edge of the shore. She blinked when she noticed a strange man in a small boat at the dock's edge. "Hello!" She called before any of the others could stop her.

The old man grinned and waved the kids over. "Hello there! The name's Dock. Where are you kiddos from?"

"We're from the colonies." Katara lied smoothly. It had worked as a ruse when they were in the other Fire Nation town. Surely it would serve them just as well here.

"Neat." Dock said, his grin never leaving his face. "Why don't you all hop on and I'll give you a ride into town." Once all the children were settled into the boat, Dock launched into an explanation of the town. "We used to be a fishing town before that factory moved in." He motioned towards a rather ominous looking metal building built into the side of a cliff wall. "The army makes their metal there. They moved in a few years ago and started polluting our river. Now, we're struggling to survive."

Lan's eyes saddened as they pulled into the village's dock. She stepped onto the dock and saw the villagers were all sitting miserably about, some even appeared sickly. She wanted to reach out to the people, to her people. She couldn't reveal she was their princess, though so she simply reached for Katara's hand. It comforted her a bit to see that Katara was just as distressed as she was about the abysmal situation. "Is there any way we can help these people?"

"Nope." Sokka said firmly. "We don't have time to help them. We just need to get our food and leave. These people will just have to fend for themselves."

Katara glared angrily at Sokka. "That's cruel, Sokka! These people are starving, yet you just want to turn your back on them."

"I'm being realistic." Sokka argued. "We can't go saving every town we wander into. Our way of helping them is by taking out the Fire Lord." He flinched as the others immediately shushed him. "Katara," he said, more softly this time. "be reasonable. Our mission comes first. Lan, don't forget these people when we succeed. They're your people after all."

"Okay…" Lan reluctantly agreed. She looked up at Katara who hadn't said anything. "Katara?"

Katara sighed and squeezed Lan's hand. "I guess you're right, Sokka."

"Let's just get what we need and go." Aang said, quickly leading the group over to the only open stall in the center of the small village.

Lan raised her eyebrows when she saw Dock behind the counter. "So, you work here and at the docks? That's pretty neat."

Dock chuckled and pointed to his hat which was different from earlier. "I'm not Dock. I'm his brother, Xu." He ignored the incredulous looks the children exchanged and simply pulled out a box full of rather rancid looking fish. "What can I get you? If you by three fish, I'll give you a clam for free."

"I'm not eating any of that." Lan whispered while Sokka simply purchased the fish. She rolled her eyes as Dock disappeared under the counter and reappeared wearing his hat from earlier, offering to give the group a ride back to the shore. She stayed by Katara's side and blinked when a scrawny boy ran up to them.

The boy smiled nervously at the two of them. His gaze lingered on the pathetic fish that Katara was holding. "Can you spare any food?"

Katara glanced back to see that Sokka and the others were already at the dock. She looked down at Lan who gave her a smile. Katara smiled at Lan and then at the boy. She handed him one of the fish. "I wish I could do more…"

Lan felt her heart clench as they watched the little boy run back to an open hut and proudly show the fish to a sick bedridden woman. Lan squeezed Katara's hand. "My uncle doesn't care about our people. He's worse than Azula. When we beat him, I'll make sure that all these people are helped."

Katara didn't say anything. She tugged Lan over to the group that was now impatiently waiting for them. She wanted to help these people so badly. She just needed to figure out how.


"What's wrong, Appa?" Lan cooed at the large flying bison. She had been awoken that morning from Katara's concerned voice. She glanced up when Aang and Sokka walked over with Toph close behind them. "I think Appa is sick."

Aang looked curiously at the bison. "He doesn't look sick…" He opened Appa's mouth and yelped. "His tongue is purple! That can't be good! Katara, can you heal him?"

Katara thought for a moment. "I'm sure the village has some herbs we could use."

Lan looked suspiciously over at Katara. She had woken up late in the night to find that Katara was gone from her pallet. Lan was about to get up and wake the others when Katara had slipped back into the camp. Katara had been surprised to see Lan awake, but she simply refused to tell her where she'd gone and insisted Lan go back to sleep and not tell the others.

The group made it back to the small village which seemed much more chipper than the day before. Lan looked at the scrawny boy from the other day who seemed much happier as he kicked a ball around. "What's going on? Did we miss something?"

Sokka led the group over to the small stall where Dock, who was currently Xu was busy with his merchandise. "Hey, Xu, what's going on? Everyone seems…perkier."

Xu grinned widely at the group. "Food was delivered to us last night by a wonderful and beautiful person; the Painted Lady."

Katara blinked slowly. "The Painted Who?"

"The Painted Lady is part of our town lore." Xu explained, pulling a statute of a beautiful lady out and handing it to Lan. "Here you go, little girl. That's on the house. She is a river spirit who watches over our town in times of need."

Lan ran her fingers lightly over the statute. She looked suspiciously over at Katara who refused to meet her gaze. She looked back at Xu. "Do you have some medicine? Our friend is sick and we can't leave until he's better."

"Nope, sorry." Xu said apologetically. "All our medicine goes to the factory. That's why we've got so many sick people."

"Guess we'll have to stay another night." Katara said, smiling over at Sokka. She blinked when Lan grabbed her hand.

"I know you're up to something." Lan said.

Katara simply smiled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Just don't do anything stupid." Lan sighed out.

It had been a couple of days since they'd arrived in the town. Lan was almost certain that Katara was the Painted Lady, but she didn't want to say anything since she had no proof. She had been sleeping rather peacefully, but she was rudely shaken awake. She flailed about and glared angrily up at an apologetic looking Sokka. "What?"

"Katara and Aang are gone." Sokka explained, helping the Fire Nation princess out of her sleeping bag. "Katara is the Painted Lady."

"Well, yeah." Lan said, following Sokka over to the fire where Toph was already sitting. "She probably went to go help the villagers again. What's so wrong with that?"

Before Sokka could say anything, Katara and Aang walked back into the camp. Katara smiled guiltily at them. "Hi guys! We were just on a morning walk."

"We know you're the Painted Lady." Lan said.

"You put our whole mission in jeopardy!" Sokka accused, waving his finger in Katara's face. "We are leaving right now!"

Katara sighed as they all began packing up. She blinked and looked up when she felt a small hand on hers. "What's wrong, Lan? Do you need help packing?"

Lan shook her head and smiled at Katara. "I think it's really nice what you did. Helping those people, I mean. I promise, when we get rid of Fire Lord Ozai, I'll make sure all these people get helped.

"Thanks, Lan." Katara kissed the little girl on the forehead. She and the others looked up to see Fire Nation soldiers on jet skis racing towards the village. "Oh no…"

"Katara, what'd you do last night?" Lan asked curiously.

Katara shifted nervously. "I kind of blew up the factory…" She winced at the angry shout Sokka let out.

"Did you even think your plan through before you did that?" Sokka asked furiously. "Did you even stop to think that they would blame the town for what happened? We should have just left like I wanted to and done nothing!"

Katara frowned at Sokka and stood up. "No. I will never turn my back on people who need me. I'm going down to the village to help."

Lan jumped up and raced after Katara. "I'll help too. They're my people after all."

Sokka groaned in annoyance. "I'm coming too."

Katara looked at him suspiciously. "I thought you didn't want to help."

"You need me and I'll never turn my back on you." Sokka said to his sister with a grin. He blinked as he was suddenly being hugged by both Katara and Lan.

"You're such a good big brother." Lan murmured, hugging him tightly. She wondered idly if Zuko would've done the same for her. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind and buried her face in Sokka's side. Her heart clenched tightly in her chest and her stomach twisted into knots just at the thought of his name. It was still too painful to think of Zuko. At least she wasn't crying just at the thought of him. That was an improvement.

"Okay, Lan, now." Sokka whispered.

Lan began playing an eerie melody on her flute while Toph made two large boulders go up and down to make what would sound like large footsteps to those in the village. She tried to stop herself from laughing every time Appa growled. She never thought scaring off Fire Nation soldiers could be so much fun. It was difficult to see what was going on in the village due to the fog Aang had created, but Lan trusted Sokka to tell her what to do.

"Let's go." Sokka said after the terrified screams of the Fire Nation soldiers dissipated.

As they entered the town, Lan could hear the suddenly very angry voices from the villagers. "That doesn't sound good." She let out a yelp when Toph dragged her into the crowd while Sokka ran to Katara's aid.

"We can't have people recognizing you." Toph whispered. "Just stay here with me."

"She's a waterbender!" Dock pointed and accusing finger at Katara. "She's been tricking us this whole time!"

Sokka stepped forward to protect his sister. "She may be a waterbender, but she was trying to help all of you. Thanks to her, that factory won't be polluting your river anymore and there won't be any soldiers to steal your medicine. You should be on your knees thanking her."

Katara placed a hand on Sokka's shoulder and shook her head. "It's okay, Sokka. I'm sorry to all of you for tricking you. I just felt like I had to do something to help you. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not, because your problems are very real as is this river. You shouldn't just wait around for someone to help you, you should help yourselves."

Dock nodded thoughtfully, while all the villagers whispered uncertainly to each other. "She's right! Uh, what should we do though?"

Toph suddenly popped out, talking in a much deeper voice. "Let's clean the river!"

Lan giggled while Toph smiled proudly at herself when all the villagers agreed. "You're so weird, Toph."

"I know." Toph grinned.

The rest of the afternoon the group spent helping the villagers clean the river. By the time they got back to their campsite, they were all completely exhausted. Lan tossed and turned in her sleeping bag, trying desperately to go to sleep. When she couldn't, she got up, only to find Katara's sleeping bag was empty as well. Lan went to the river and wasn't surprised to see Katara there. What did surprise her was that the real Painted Lady was hovering just above the river water. "Katara?" Lan called uncertainly.

The Painted Lady looked up and seemed to recognize Lan. She smiled sadly and beckoned the little girl closer. "Poor child…"

Lan shuddered and grabbed Katara's hand when the Painted Lady reached out to touch her. The woman's hand was cold. "Do you know what's going to happen on the eclipse?" Lan blurted out suddenly.

"Yes." The Painted Lady whispered, backing away and already beginning to disappear. "Poor child…good luck."

"Lan, what is she talking about? What's going to happen on the eclipse?" Katara asked worriedly.

"Nothing…" Lan said after a moment. "Nothing at all."