Thankfully, Aang and Zuko came back from their little field trip with success, telling us how they'd learned a new fire bending form from the ruins of the Sun Warrior civilisation, which turned out to not just be ruins, but home to real Sun Warriors who still lived there, as well as two dragons who had survived the dragon hunting tradition started by Sozin. "With this technique the dragons showed us, Zuko and I would be unstoppable." Aang told us all as he and Zuko demonstrated the form together, which looked rather ritualistic and when they finished with their fists pressed together, we all applauded for them.
"Yeah, that's a great dance you two learned there." Sokka said, making Zuko snap back defensively.
"It's not a dance. It's a fire bending form."
"We'll just tap dance our way to victory over the Fire Lord." Continuing to be irritating just for the sake of fun, I giggled as Zuko stalked over to Sokka defensively.
"It's a sacred form that happens to be thousands of years old!"
"Oh yeah? What's your little form called?" Katara questioned, making Zuko falter slightly before he admitted with a tone of embarrassment.
"The Dancing Dragon." Everyone laughed at his expense which he accepted with a shrug until I waved my hand.
"So, the Sun Warriors let you go on the promise that you wouldn't tell anyone about them or the dragons Ran and Shao, or the Sun Warriors' civilisation, right?" I questioned as Aang smiled cheerfully at me.
"That's right!"
"And what's the first thing you did when you got back here?"
"Tell…you all…about it." Realising his mistake, Aang clapped his hand over his head as I tittered my tongue.
"You need to work on keeping your promises as the Avatar, Aang. I know you can trust us, but a promise is still a promise." Now all I wanted to do was go and meet those dragons. I'd never seen one before and only heard about them from stories. It would be so awesome if I could go see them for myself, even better if I could fly with one. Things settled down for a few days, being peaceful and quiet which was a nice change. Zuko was clearly making an effort to get along with everybody and most of the others were beginning to accept him as a part of the group, though others were still cold towards him. He even made tea for us all, doing his best to mimic Iroh's brewing technique though he flopped on the joke which made me laugh. Even Sokka seemed to be more at ease with Zuko being around, talking to him privately and the next day, left a note saying that they'd gone fishing together, Katara finding the letter with Momo.
"What does it say?" Toph asked as we all looked over at Katara, noticing that she'd picked up something.
"Need meat. Gone fishing. Back in a few days, Sokka and Zuko." She said and I had to laugh.
"Zuko fishing? I've seen him try to fish before and the fish won. That'll be a laugh." Thinking back to how Zuko hadn't been able to catch anything more than a minnow on a stick, I smiled to myself. At least they were spending time together and getting used to each other. That was something.
"One more thing." Katara mentioned as she continued to read what else had been left on the note. "Aang, practice your fire bending while I'm gone. Do twenty sets of fire fists and ten hot squats every time you hear a badger-frog croak. Zuko." Almost immediately a badger-frog croaked, making Aang get up with a groan as he shook off his sleep.
"Nobody else has homework. One hot squat. Two hot squat. Three hot squat. Four hot..."
"Forget about homework, come on! Let's ditch practice and have some fun." I decided, pulling on Aang's arm to find something fun to do. "I'll deal with Zuko, you can practice your fire bending forms with me later."
"Okay!" More than happy to have some fun instead of training, Aang and I spent the entire morning chasing frogs and exploring, even playing a game on the giant Pai Sho table which I really enjoyed. "You're not gonan win this time Kayo!"
"Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" I grinned as I used water bending to push the tiles whilst Aang used his air bending, both of us standing on ledges overlooking the entire board. "I have to hand it to the monks, they really knew how to enjoy life. If I wasn't a water bender, I think I'd do great as an air bender." I said to him as we continued our game.
"I think so too, you're definitely free spirited, and air is the element of freedom so you've already got that down." Aang agreed, moving a tile with a heavy gust of wind. "Do you think Sokka and Zuko will be okay on their own?"
"They'll draw less attention than if we'd all gone together, and I suspect that they're up to something more than just looking for meat otherwise they would have said goodbye before they left." I answered whilst concentrating on the game, thinking for a moment as Aang's move put me in a precarious position.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you saw Sokka talking to Zuko last night right? After people had gone to sleep I went to see Zuko for a bit to talk and he mentioned that Sokka had asked about where his father and the other war prisoners might have been taken. My guess is they've gone to do some jail breaking." Aang almost fell off his ledge from where he'd been playing around with Momo, arms flailing before he yelled.
"What?!"
"Makes sense to me, don't worry. I'm sure they'll be fine. If they're not back in a couple of days I know which prison they would have gone to, so we can always go bust them out." Zuko hadn't let on that he thought Sokka would try going to free his dad on his own or that he planned to go with him, but he'd made sure to tell me about the Boiling Rock, probably as insurance. If they didn't make it out, we could go get them.
"That's terrible! Shouldn't we go after them? What if they get caught?"
"Going after them now might only make things worse. They both knew what they were going into, so we'll just have to trust them. Besides, I think this is something Sokka needs to do." I continued as I finally moved a tile to make my move. "He feels guilty that the invasion failed and his dad got captured, so he wants to try and make things right. He'll only feel better after he frees his father, so we should let him at least try, otherwise he won't be able to properly forgive himself."
"Maybe you're right. I just hope they don't run into any trouble." Yeah, me too. Looks like Zuko really was doing everything he could to be liked by these guys. I just hope it pays off. "You care about Zuko a lot, don't you Kayo?"
"We lived together for almost a year and went through a lot of stuff together." I said as we continued our game, my voice echoing slightly as Momo flew in circles over the board before coming to me, making me smile as he landed on my shoulder and nuzzled for some affection. "When we were both fugitives from the Fire Nation and enemies of the Earth Kingdom, we stuck by each other, helped pull each other through as we survived on little food, no comfort, sleeping outdoors on the dirt whilst constantly having to hide from everyone. I know him. Of course I care."
"What I mean is…do you…do you care about Zuko the way I care about Katara?" Stopping in my fuss of Momo I looked at Aang in surprise, and even from all the way across the other side of the room I could see him blushing.
"Ah, so you're looking for relationship advice." Saying nothing about whether or not I cared about Zuko that way, I focused on what Aang was really asking. "I saw you kiss her, you know."
"Yeah, I know. Neither of us have said anything about it and I'm a little worried. Have I messed up?" He asked me as we took a break from the game in order to talk.
"I wouldn't say so. There was a lot going on and although Katara was surprised, she didn't outright reject you. She's probably still a little unsure about how she feels about the kiss. That doesn't mean that you've messed up what you have." I told him, thinking carefully on what best to say. "I think you should wait until she brings it up herself, so that she doesn't feel rushed or pressured and she can talk about it in her own time. Don't worry about it. You kids are young and love takes time. There's no rush."
"Right. Be patient. I can do patient, patient is my middle name." Nodding his head and reassuring himself, Aang and I finished our game where I kicked his butt before we practiced some more advance fire bending sets together, him making fire and me just teaching the movements. We then applied what he'd learned to some combat training, sparring together where Aang would fight with his fire bending and I would counter with water bending but using fire bending style forms.
"This will probably easier when Zuko gets back and you can spar with him, a real fire bender, but for now this is enough."
"Thank you for helping to teach me. You're a lot more patient than Zuko, and better at demonstrating." Aang told me with a goofy grin as he scratched his head awkwardly. "I bet your dad will be impressed when he learns you helped teach the Avatar in mastering fire bending."
"I hadn't thought about that." I laughed, moving my hair out of the way after I signalled that we could stop for the day. "I still can't believe I finally know who he is, he's like a pirate general stealing from the Fire Nation and giving the spoils to the refugees. Isn't that cool?"
"Yeah! I really want to meet him, I bet he'll be so excited when you finally see each other for the first time." Aang was saying as we walked back to the others in order to get something to eat. "But what about your mom? Will she be mad that you switched sides?"
"No my mom's not like that. She'll just say that I would have done what I felt was right and she trusts me. She's a little like me in the way that neither of us particularly like violence, which was why we stayed out of any war efforts before, but if she saw what had been happening in the Earth Kingdom territories then she would have done the exact same thing I did. Knowing her, she probably found out and is helping refugees in secret, she's that kind of person."
"She sounds amazing too, I'd like to meet her as well."
"Hopefully you will. I can't wait to tell her all about you guys and everything that's happened since we've been separated. It'll be one heck of a story." Grinning at each other, Katara called us over to tell us we were just in time for food so we raced each other there, though Aang cheated by using his air ball so I caught him in the end and pulled on his ears playfully before we settled down to eat, all of us joining each other in conversation, jokes and laughter.
