Disclaimer:I do not own Avatar: The last Air bender, but I do own Cho.


Chapter 3: Dreaming

There was fire, everywhere. No one in sight, just the noises of people screaming and coughing all around her. Cho herself was coughing her head off and was looking around as much as she could. "Mommy!" she called, looking through all the smoke and running around in it also.

"Come here you little brat!" someone called from behind her as she tried to run away but failing. The fire bender grabbed her and held his hand at the back of her head, ready to fire when he was blown away and her mother had Cho in her arms.

"Come on, we have to get away from here." Cho's mother cried as she tried to run away from the fire benders.

"Daddy!" Cho yelled as her mother continued to run.

"Daddy's dead." Cho's mother replied as she tried to escape the air temple in time. "Kiku!" The large Bison flew up above them but didn't land before Cho's mother was forced to the ground by a shot from behind.

"Mommy!" Cho cried as she wriggled free of her mothers grasp. It was no use, she was already dead.

The fire bender picked up Cho. "I have the little girl." he said and threw her to another. "She might be useful to us."

As soon as she hit the other ones arms she sat up, breathing hard. She blinked her eyes and looked up at the sky. "It was dream…" Cho said lowly to herself. It was almost morning so she decided it was no use to try and go back to sleep.

Cho stood up and dusted off a bit before go over to the fire and helping it grow again. Once that was done she went over to a tree nearby and picked some fruit from it, placing them on a piece of fabric after cleaning them. She sat in front of the fire and stared at it for what seemed like forever. She was thinking about her dream. She had this dream many times before but it had never gone this far before, she had always stopped when her mother grabbed her. She sighed, looking down from the fire, not knowing that someone was awake and watching her.

She turned away from the fire and looked out over the water, watching the sun rise above it. It seemed so calm, as if nothing in the world was happening, as if the war had never started and as if the avatar had stopped it all. That was the one thing that always amazed her, no matter how much fighting was done, no matter how much people said they were different, they weren't. They were all the same people under the same sky. She pulled her knees up to her chest and looked again out at the sun.

Cho knew that everyone would be up soon, almost everyone who had ever camped at woke up at the crack of dawn, she doubted they would be different. She gasped when she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up.

"I'm not that scary, am I?" Aang asked, laughing a bit at her reaction before moving his hand.

"No…just surprised." Cho replied.

Aang looked at her skeptically for a moment before noticing what she meant. "Did Momo get these apples for us?" Aang asked, pointing to the apples on a piece of cloth.

"No, I did." she replied. "Shouldn't you be sleep?"

"I woke up early, plus I want to ride a humpback lizard before we have to go." Aang said, smiling widely. "Will you tell them where I'm going?"

"Yes." she replied and looked back out at the water as Aang turned and began to walk into the woods.

She closed her eyes and began to meditate like Aang had showed her the night before. He had said something about focusing your inner chi. She took deep breaths and let them out slowly. It took her awhile before she could actually clear her mind but she almost accomplished it when…."Cho! You're floating!" Sokka shouted, staring wide eyed at the girl who had just fell.

"Oww…" she said, rubbing her lower back. It wasn't that the landing hurt her, it was that she had ended up falling on a rock that she didn't know was there.

"Sorry…" he murmured, turning back around as he began to roll up his sleeping back.

"Ok." she said, standing up and picking up the fruit that was laying on the cloth. She walked over to Sokka and held a few out to him. "Breakfast."

"Umm…ok." he said, taking one of the apples. "Hey, where did Aang go?" He took a bite out of the apple he had just gotten.

"Ride humpback lizard." Cho stated simply then walked over to Katara who had just woken up. "Breakfast." she held out the apple. "Picked this morning."

"They're good, thanks." Sokka said, finishing off his first apple.

Katara took an apple and took a bite out of it. "Thank you." she said, stretching a bit.

"You welcome." Cho said, taking the rest of the apples over to the cloth again. She took one and took a bite out of it, looking around as she did. Something about this place made her feel a bit uneasy. It was probably her fear of reptiles but she knew they stayed away from the larger bodies of water unless it was needed for them to go there. She took another bite before looking back at Sokka and Katara. "Need Help?"

"Sure." Katara said. "You can help us get the sleeping bags on Appa."

"Ok." Cho replied, standing up and walking over to Appa, climbing on top of him gently.

Sokka walked over and threw his sleeping bag up to Cho, watching as she almost fell off of Appa. "Watch out." he said, laughing a little.

Cho placed the sleeping bag where she had seen them the night before and got ready for Sokka to throw up Katara's sleeping bag to her. "Kay." she replied, hearing what Sokka said.

He threw Katara's sleeping bag to Cho and smiled again as she almost fell backwards again from the force.

She placed the sleeping bag beside the one that she had recently placed on Appa and turned around, only to be hit by the next sleeping bag. "Oww…" she said, getting the sleeping bag off her face and securing it with the other sleeping bags.

"Oops…sorry, I thought you were looking…" Sokka said, placing a sheepish grin and a slight blush on his face.

Cho jumped off and rubbed her eyes a bit, getting them to focus again. She smiled as Katara walked over to her. "Why do you have a huge red mark on your face?" Katara asked Cho, looking at her suspiciously.

"Sokka hit with sleeping bag." Cho replied.

"Sokka!" Katara said, looking at him.

"It was an accident…I said I was sorry." Sokka replied, looking back at Katara before almost falling down from a rumbling in the ground. "Ok…that doesn't feel good."

"Lizard…" Cho said, hiding behind Katara before hearing a loud yell from Aang.

"Woohoo!" Aang shouted as he held on the back of one of the humpback lizards. They looked like large komodo dragons with large humps on their backs. They were at least six feet tall and ten foot long and there Aang was riding one of the largest ones on the island. Little did he know they were headed straight for his camp.

"Don't like lizard…" Cho replied shakily as she lowered her head behind Katara's back, just as the lizard came into view.

Aang opened his eyes and noticed that he was headed right for Katara and Cho. "Watch out!" he shouted. "It won't stop!"

Katara shook her head, getting out of the trance she had been in and barely made it out of the way. She looked at Cho and realized she wasn't there anymore but on the back of the lizard with Aang.

"Hold on." Aang said, trying to get the lizard to stop. He managed to turn the lizard away from the water and back into the forest but that only made the lizard faster, causing it to go head first into a tree and throw both of its passengers into the air.

Sokka and Katara ran to where they heard a crash and looked around a bit before finding Aang. He had managed a more graceful landing but still was a little shaky when he got up. "That was so not smart…" Aang said, rubbing his head a bit before looking around. "Where did Cho go?"

At the same moment Cho fell out of a tree about three yards away, unconscious. "I think we need to leave." Katara said as she helped Aang along and back to Appa. Sokka walked over to Cho and picked her up, following Aang and Katara.

Katara and Aang put the fire out while Sokka climbed up on Appa with Cho. He had a few problems but managed to get him and Cho both safely on Appa. Aang used his air bending to get on Appa's neck and waited for Katara to get on. "Yip, yip." Aang said, moving Appa's reins a little to get him started.

Katara looked Cho over a little. "She didn't get hurt too badly, just a few minor cuts and bruises but nothing that won't heal in a matter of days." Katara said, putting Cho's sleeve back in place after checking on her stitches. "She should wake up soon."

Aang waited for Appa to get a good start before climbing back with Katara, Sokka and Cho. "I wonder why she didn't move…" Aang said, looking at Cho who was still unconscious and curled into a small ball opposite of Aang.

"She said she was afraid of lizards." Katara said.

"Oh…" Aang replied as he looked at her a little. "I didn't put her on the back of the lizard…I think she did it herself."

Cho sat up and rubbed her head. "What hit?" she asked, looking around.

"A tree." Sokka said, shrugging nonchalantly. "You're just getting hit with all kinds of stuff today aren't you?"

"What do you mean?" Aang asked.

"Well, first of all this morning she was floating and she hit a rock…" Sokka said and paused for a moment.

"And the Sokka hit her with a sleeping bag." Katara finished it for him.

Aang chuckled a bit before looking at Cho. "So that's why she had that red mark on her face before she almost got hit with the lizard." he said. "Hey that reminds me... Did you put yourself on the back of that lizard?"

"Think so…" Cho replied, looking down at the very light blue arrows on her hands.

"But how, I mean that take a lot of practice." Aang said, looking at her.

"Don't know…got scared, closed my eyes and wished was out of the way…" Cho said, looking up a little.

"Wow…"Aang replied. "You must have had some training while you were younger, most benders do anyway."

"If did cant remember." Cho looked ahead with an unfocused gaze.

Momo yawned and stretched, finally waking up after all the events that had happened so far. He scurried over to Aang and climbed on his shoulder, staring at Cho.

The day went by slowly and uneventful. Just the usual arguments with Sokka and Katara. Aang taught Cho a bit more about her powers and how to better to keep control of them after being distracted or when in trouble. Aang also showed Cho the trick where he made the marble spin around, she had liked that trick.

The sun had went down a lot sooner than they had thought it would and after about an hour they found somewhere they could stay, yet another deserted island but this one had no signs of life, not even the trees had fruit on them. After checking everything out they decided to stay there for the night and get an early start the next morning.


To repay you all for waiting so patiently, I made this chapter a bit longer. I hope you all like it so far. I'm getting a bit of writers block so any suggestions would be helpful...I was also wondering if I should put a few parings in here? I'm all ears!