No, I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. If I did, I wouldn't be here right now, would I?
I didn't think I'd get the response I have - thanks to everyone for sending me your comments! So without further ado...
Aang ran all the way to the midway where the rides were, speeded along by his Airbending. Bamboo scaffolding, stone towers and steel rails intersected each other to form massive machines that made cars zip around their tracks, soar into the air, or swing about on cables. Watching it all in motion made his head spin happily.
"Hey there, birthday boy!" called one carnie, "Take a ride on the Zipper! It's the best ride here, you'll see! Your ride is free, you know!" He shook his wrist, indicating Aang's day-pass bracelet.
"Yeah! Okay!" Aang hopped up on the platform, handing his glider staff to the carnie, and gazed up at the contraption.
It was a long arm, maybe two hundred feet high, counterbalanced by a massive load of rock at one end and secured by a sturdy rope and pulley system. A two-person enclosed cab was attached at each end of the arm. Currently, someone appeared to be occupying the cab suspended at the apex, shrieking joyfully at being suspended upside down.
The cab at the opposite end was empty. The carnie hurried him into the car, not wanting to keep the other riders waiting, and strapped the little monk into the safety harness. He slammed the door and went back to his complicated ropes, pulleys and levers.
"Here we go!" He pulled on a lever. One load of rocks descended, slowly at first, but as its momentum built, so did the speed. The arm pointing at the sky suddenly plummeted, its riders screaming all the way down.
Of course, this meant that Aang's little cab was kicked straight up. He felt gravity press him into the padded seat and he gave a whoop as the arm reached the apex of its circuit. A second of weightlessness as his stomach floated in his chest and Aang was falling, falling… to be safely caught by the Zipper arm's counterweight.
And around again – and Aang savoured the second of weightlessness that was so like gliding on his own air-bent winds. The third time around the ride lost its charm. The other cabin's passengers were still shrieking with joy. Aang felt a little dizzy, but the novelty of the ride was entirely gone.
On the tenth pass, the arm stopped to let the other passengers out. Aang hung upside-down in his seat, the binding holding him securely in his seat biting into his shoulders. The wind whistled through the cab's little windows, and he could see the entire colourful fairground through it, upside-down, the sky at his feet.
He waited and waited. Maybe the carnie was having trouble finding more passengers. The blood rushed to his head and he began to have trouble breathing, so he shifted in his seat, trying to bend at the neck so that his head was right-side-up in relation to the ground.
A voice wafted up from the ground. "Uh, son? Sorry, but you're going to have to wait a while," the carnie called apologetically. "I'm gonna need a mechanic to come and replace this cog. Get comfortable!"
"What?" Aang undid the harness and landed on the roof/floor of the cab. It shook and squealed in protest, its bolts threatening to pop.
"Aw, man…" Aang sat cross-legged and waited.
Sokka was happily welcomed by every food vendor he passed. They treated the wearers of the gold bracelets like royalty, and stuffed him full of barbecued meats and warm breads and sweets and fried things he had no idea could ever exist. If I die, this will be my heaven, he sighed happily, taking another bite of the juicy morsel-on-a-stick he'd just acquired.
"Hey water boy!" One vendor called. His stall advertised the vendor's specialty was in authentic southern water tribe cuisine. "Want some eel jerky?"
A taste of home. Sokka drooled at the thought of Gran-Gran's eel jerky, the best in the village, and dropped the half-eaten morsel-on-a-stick into a waste bin, high-tailing it to the Water Tribe food stall.
Home, home, home… the words struck a chord in Sokka's core and he suddenly realized how homesick he was. He missed Gran-Gran, and the snow, and the pelt-lined rooms. He was hot and sticky all the time now, it seemed. He guiltily wondered if leaving the tribe to follow Aang to the North Pole was a good idea. Was the tribe safe from the Fire Nation? Prince Zuko and the Fire troops had found them once – would they return to finish the job?
Sokka shook the thought from his head. The Water Tribe was strong, even if all the men had left to fight in the war. They'd be fine, he concluded uneasily, wiping the thought from his brain as he approached the vendor.
The man behind the counter wasn't a member of the water tribe, but Sokka hardly cared. The smiling vendor handed him a wad of dried meat, and Sokka bit into them hungrily.
Salty, spicy, fruity, and nothing like home. His face screwed up and he spat out the offending mouthful.
"Ugh, what is that?" Sokka's tongue hung out of his mouth.
"What, you don't like it?" The vendor asked in dismay.
"That's nothing like eel jerky. What did you do, marinate it in urine?"
"See here, young man, I've been working here for 15 years, I think I know what authentic Southern Water Tribe eel jerky should be like." The vendor scowled.
"Yeah? Well, I'm actually from the Southern Water Tribe, and let me tell ya', that ain't no eel jerky we'd eat." Sokka folded his arms and gave the man a haughty look. "It'd barely pass for firewood."
"If you're such a good cook, why don't you show me how it's done?" The vendor graciously stood aside, making room in the tiny stall for Sokka, and presented the counter with an exaggerated flourish.
Sokka sputtered. "I will!" Proud as ever, he washed his hands and donned an apron. He appraised the ingredients the vendor stocked – all locally produced, so the eel was a different kind than he was used to dealing with – and asked the vendor to describe his jerky making technique.
"No, no, no, you're doing it all wrong!" Sokka cried in exasperation after the vendor ran through his process. "It takes days to make this stuff right! Here, let me show you."
And he took to work, savouring memories of home.
Katara ambled along Ho'Wan's main thoroughfare. The buildings lining the main street were all permanent, stone buildings, some of them hundreds of years old, but sturdy, and well-kept. She stopped and read the historic plaques dotting the carnival town, describing how an Earthbender, Waterbender, Firebender, and Airbender had constructed this paradise together more than two hundred years ago, long before the war, and long before Aang was ever born.
She wondered where the two boys were now. If she knew Sokka, he was probably stuffing his face. Aang wound more like be ride-hopping. She hoped he was having fun – it was his birthday, after all.
Fun… rule number one, right? Katara sadly realized she wasn't having any fun at all. Maybe she was worrying too much about her companions – but they could take care of themselves. From what she'd heard from other carnival goers, she gathered that Ho'Wan wouldn't allow Fire Nation troops to put one toe on the sand, much less gain entrance into their paradise.
Katara tried to think about the last time she'd had any fun. Since her mother had died and her father had gone to the home front, Katara had been working with Gran-Gran to help care for the younger children in the tribe. There had been fleeting moments of joy on the road with Aang and Sokka, despite the dangers in their path, but she hadn't had real fun since… well, ever.
Remember rule number two: if you're not having fun, try harder. Papa Pipi's words echoed in her mind. Well, that settled it. Katara would just have to find fun for herself.
She walked along the narrowing, down-sloping road, heading deeper into the centre of the carnival city. Most of the inns and taverns resided here, as well as the locals. A less savoury portion of the tourist population hovered in these parts too. The canopied stalls thinned to be replaced by more permanent stores and shops. Katara toyed with the notion of shopping for clothes, but realized with dismay that the gold beaded bracelet probably wouldn't buy her a pair of socks, much less an entire new outfit. Too bad – the two changes of Water Tribe robes she'd packed were starting to wear thin.
She stopped to admire the window display of a jewelry shop. Silver pendants and wrought copper bracelets gleamed on velvet and satin cushions. Katara caught her breath at the sight of a silver bracelet made up of links that looked like little waves of water. She touched her mother's recently reclaimed necklace clasped around her neck, wondering if her heirloom had once been bought from a shop like this.
She was about to go in and ask when she froze. In the window's reflection, she could see a figure in black, watching her from the other side of the road a short distance away. Something about his wide stance, the way he skulked just behind that statue, and his intense glare made her extremely nervous. She slowly turned, pretending to inspect a street sign, and looked out the corner of her eye to get a glimpse of the stalker. No one was there.
Still uneasy, he walked quickly away, not daring to turn around, and descended into the city.
Zuko watched his prey make her way down the street and he followed her, never taking his eye off the blue robes. Did she even know how remarkable her tribe's colours were? It was a shameful miracle that he hadn't caught them yet: after all, how could a 12-year-old boy monk tattooed with arrows, two rather foreign-looking Water Tribe children, and a flying lemur, all traveling on the back of a giant flying bison, escape anyone's notice?
Too engrossed in his pursuit, Zuko barely noticed as a slender bare arm silently snaked around his. "Hey handsome," a liquid voice cooed. Zuko was shocked to find a moon-faced local girl hanging off his arm. "Where are you going in such a hurry?" She batted her eyelashes seductively.
Zuko, slightly nauseated yet pleasantly flattered, gently tried to extricate his arm from the young lady's vice-like hold. It proved more difficult than he'd imagined. "I'm looking for someone."
"Well, you've found two someones," another honey-dripping voice whispered in his other ear. He turned to find a sylph of a girl clinging to his other arm with manicured talons. "How about you join us for a cup of tea?"
"Back off, Lani, this one's mine," the moon-faced girl hissed. The sylph, Lani, was undaunted.
"Oh, come now Kerima, surely he's enough man for the both of us." She winked knowingly at Zuko, giving his biceps a firm squeeze. "Mmm, nice." She purred.
Intrigued as he was, Zuko tore himself away, practically wrenching his arms off. He was a little surprised at himself for not having punched either of them out. Of course, hitting girls wasn't exactly honorable, especially if they were unarmed. "Thank you ladies, but I have a previous engagement." He bowed slightly, and found himself smiling.
Well, this is a change, he thought, viewing himself through the mind's eye. Exiled, scarred, temperamental Prince Zuko, being polite to two hussies who'd just tried to take him for a sucker. He paced as quickly away as he could, once more catching sight of the blue robe moving through the crowd.
"See what you've done! You had to ruin it!" The girls began a nasty battle of unkind words.
Zuko walked away, smiling at the chaos he'd left in his wake. Well, I guess some things don't change, he thought, and quickly took to retracing the Water Tribe girl's path.
Katara walked on, passing more shops, inns, taverns, and unmarked buildings that a lot of scruffy looking men were going in and out of. She didn't even want to imagine what those buildings housed. All the while, she watched her shadow, growing long in the late winter's early afternoon, making sure no other menacing shade interposed from behind.
Glancing warily at the window reflections, and saw him again. The figure in black was following her. Panicking, Katara quickened her pace and started weaving around people, trying to lose the stalker. Then she was nearly running up the street, making wild lefts and rights at each intersection until she had no idea where she was pointed anymore.
Sokka, Aang, where are you guys? She pleaded silently. She knew she shouldn't panic. There were plenty of people around, and no one would try to hurt her here in broad daylight, would they?
Katara turned into what she thought was a main street, but it narrowed and twisted about behind the buildings. She found herself in an alleyway with only one exit and entrance, and she could not turn around with the man in black stalking her.
Her heart palpitated wildly. Are we having fun yet? She asked herself. She chanced a quick look behind her and shrieked as she ran into a solid body. Someone grabbed her wrists and yanked them up.
Ooh, fancy cliffhanger! What will happen next?