Thanks, LittleHogwartsGirl. :D I kinda wish I'd spent more time writing about Long Feng; he has an interesting mind. Not that I condone what he did, but… you know. XD

Chapter 29. And thanks again, everybody.


Chapter Twenty-Nine:
The Great Tree

"So where are we going to now, exactly?" Sokka asked as the Gaang flew away from Ba Sing Se.

"The Heart of the Swamp," Aang replied. "Remember that giant tree that helped me find Appa in the Great Swamp?"

"Sure he remembers." Katara grinned. "Just like he remembers that giant bug he ate."

Toph cracked up. "You-hoo-hoo ate a giant bu-hug?"

Sokka shrugged loftily. "I'm not proud of it, but I did what I had to do to survive. I was hungry, and that's all I'm saying."

"Like you were thirsty, so you drank that cactus juice!" Toph replied, still laughing. "Or you were curious, so you licked the wall of that buggy cave!"

Sokka folded his arms, closed his eyes, and turned his head. "Yes, I did. And I gained knowledge."

"I'm gonna remind you of that 'knowledge', Snoozles."

Katara shook her head smiling, then looked at Aang. "So why the Heart of the Swamp?"

"Well, when I was looking for Appa before, I knew what to look for because I know him so well. And when I took Ozai's Firebending away from him, I got to know what a Firebender's energy feels like. If I think about what my own energy as an Airbender feels like, maybe I can find somebody that feels like me."

"But when you were looking for Appa, he was already in the Great Swamp. Can the Heart of the Swamp help you find something outside it?"

Aang shrugged and grinned sheepishly. "I didn't say it was going to be easy."

"You know, we did see visions of things outside the Swamp when we were there," noted Sokka, his eyes open again. "I saw Yue, you saw Mom," he gestured at Katara, "Aang saw Toph. There is some logic to this. Fuzzy, but there is some."

"Sokka has fuzzy logic, and Aang saw visions of me in this place." Now Toph folded her arms. "Sounds like a real funhouse."

"Oh, wait til you meet the swamp monster." Katara nudged Toph. "He's real fun, too."

"The what?"

o o o

The Great Tree was visible from a long way off.

"This may be just coincidental," said Sokka, "but the Great Tree looks like a giant Airbender arrow."

Katara's eyes widened. "It does."

"And we never did figure out where that tornado came from."

They landed in a clear spot near the base of the Tree. Aang climbed the massive roots of the Tree, closed his eyes, and started walking around slowly.

"Hey, be careful!" Katara called. "You're going to trip!"

"I have to do it this way." Aang kept walking. "I have to use my inner eye to find the best place. The outer eye can fool you." Then his feet found a tree root. "Whoa-oa!" He teetered.

Katara laughed and came to him. "Here. Let me be your outer eyes." She looked toward the Swamp. "But I wonder if we should be asking Hue about this. It's his Tree."

"Hue…" said Toph. "Is that—?"

"The wise old man of the Swamp," Sokka answered. "He bends the water in the vines and makes them move." He gave Toph a wry look. "You might say he's a real swinger."

A huge vine-draped figure loomed out of the Swamp.

"Swinger." Toph snorted. "Nice, Sok—wait."

She froze. Then she stomped her foot down and thrust up a column of rock behind her, right under the viney mound. The mound wavered on top of its new stone pedestal, well up out of the swamp.

Toph thumbed nonchalantly over her shoulder. "Is that your swamp monster?"

Sokka was in shock. "Toph! That's Hue!"

"Yeah, yeah, I had a feeling it was. But nobody gets the drop on me."

Whereupon the mound dropped off the column of rock and rushed Toph in a viney whoosh. It caught her in an arm of vines and raised her up.

"Hey! Put me down, you, you… overgrown hedge!"

"Wait! Stop!" Sokka ran to the viney mound, waving his arms. "We're friends!"

The creature stopped—then put Toph down. Vines fell away—Toph kicked away the ones nearest her—and a gray-haired man clad in a leafy loincloth stepped clear. "Sorry about that—but I sure wasn't thinking that you were friends when that column of rock came at me."

"Hey, Hue!" Aang came down from the tree roots with Katara. "Long time no see!"

Hue nodded and smiled. "It's good to see you again, Avatar. I wondered when you'd be back."

"I thought I'd try using the Heart of the Swamp to find more of my people." Aang tilted his head. "Any suggestions?"

"No, you're goin' about it the right way. You need to find the spot where you feel the most connected to the world. Other than that, ya have to find things for yourself."

Hue turned to the others. "You might want ta get comfortable. Everything is connected, but sometimes it takes a long time ta find."

"Okay." Aang smiled. "Thanks, Hue."

"No problem, Avatar. Good luck."

o o o

Aang found the place he was looking for, Katara guiding his steps. He sat down and settled in, folded his legs into the lotus position, and looked at Katara. "Wish me luck."

She smiled. "I don't have to. You'll find them." She leaned down and kissed him.

He closed his eyes and reached out to the root of the tree. The arrow on the back of his hand lit up.

At first he checked his immediate surroundings, gauging how the others felt to him: Katara, the Waterbender; Toph, the Earthbender; Sokka, the meat-and-sarcasm guy. He reached out to where Hue was, and compared how he felt with how Katara had felt to him, noting the differences. He felt out to the Foggy Swamp Tribe.

And then he leapt outward.

Katara felt his presence moving around as he felt hers, and knew when he had left. She kissed the top of his head. "Be sure you come back," she whispered. Then she went back to the others.

"How long do you think he'll take?" Toph asked.

"It didn't take him very long to find Appa," Katara said. "But then, he knows Appa… and Appa was closer. For this…" She shrugged.

"Days… weeks… months…" Sokka shrugged too. "Who knows?"

"Yeah. Let me know when he's moving again." Toph sat, and threw up an Earth tent.

o o o

A couple days went by.

Sokka supplemented their diet with fishing and hunting, catching a few exotic things. More than once, things tried to catch him. Once a crocodile cat chased Sokka through the camp. Toph laughed. Katara water-lassoed the crocodile cat and convinced it to go elsewhere.

It rained. Toph was fine in her Earth tent. Katara just bent the rain off of her, sometimes onto Sokka, who busied himself with building elaborate lean-tos—and yelling at Katara when she stole some of his materials to make a lean-to for Aang.

And then…

"I found one!" Aang bounded up—and went through the roof of his lean-to. "Hey—where'd this come from?"

"I made it to keep the rain off you." Katara beamed.

"Out of my lean-to," Sokka noted for the record.

Aang smiled. "Thanks, Katara. And Sokka," he added quickly.

Toph shoved down her Earth tent. "So where do we go, O great root-surfer?"

"He's in a mountain village northeast of here, far away from any of the main roads." Aang shook his head and smiled. "I never would have thought of looking there."

Sokka folded his arms. "I thought that was the idea."

"Sure enough. Come on, guys, let's get going!"

They packed their things quickly and headed out, waving to Hue as they flew to the northeast.

o o o

The people Wa Si talked to did indeed spin a web strong enough to walk on. Individually they yielded pieces of a puzzle that together pointed to his next place to search: an army division's headquarters in the east.

This time Wa Si went in far simpler garb, humbler reds and browns rather than the intimidating black of an Inquisitor. The chief adjutant reacted as expected. "Who are you to ask such questions?" he sneered. "And of these loyal soldiers of the Fire Nation! Begone, or I shall have you thrown out!"

Wa Si smiled. "It's true. Such questions are unusual, and ordinary people... have no right to ask them. But as you see, these are not ordinary times." He drew out a scroll trimmed with red, gold, and black, and handed it to the man. "You may answer my questions now..." He waited until the man read his identification scroll. The man paled. "...Or you can say no—and have to answer them anyway."

"I can't tell you. He wasn't here!" the adjutant said in a rush.

Wa Si laid a hand on his arm. "I believe you. But I need proof. I need access to your records."

The man was shaken but relieved. "This way." He led Wa Si to the division's records.

The records confirmed what Wa Si had suspected. A few higher-ranking officers had been detached from the division for "special duty", then had rejoined the division at various dates—all after the assassination. One of the officers was lodged nearby. Wa Si noted the locations of the others and set off after the first.