Silence was a double-edged coin. Armor had two sides. After a while had been spent in complete silence, Zuko relaxed. Silence opened things. Armor was an invitation.

He began to hear the wind whistling past his ears. It blew fast and trapped itself in eddies around his ears, making a sound like greatly excited incoherent whispering. What is it trying to say?

He closed his eyes and listened. The wind whipped around them, sometimes blowing one way then switching to another. Sometimes it made its way down his shirt, then the next moment flittered up his sleeves. Zuko adjusted his arms to allow it easier access. Air spirits are nice. I'm not bonded to one against my will. It's not bound to me. There's nothing personal between us. I can just watch air spirits play whenever I feel like it. It's relaxing.

His scalp felt different. Now that his hair was growing back, he felt the playful tugging of air for the first time in three years. Currently, it was blowing his hair back. There wasn't much for it to play with yet, but in time passing air spirits would find a lot to occupy themselves with.

The wind continued to make sound. Zuko uncrossed his arms. He sat up, leaned forward, crossed his legs and clasped his hands in his lap. He closed his eyes and began to meditate.

Almost immediately, the Avatar had to interrupt. "Are you meditating?"

"Yes," Zuko replied. "Firebenders meditate to be aware of our environment. Now shut up." He concentrated on the whispering of the wind. It now sounded something like laughter. Typical. Air spirits don't care about anything. They just go random places, playing games as the mood strikes them. They don't have goals. They don't have anything to worry about. Why couldn't I have been bonded to an air spirit instead of a fire spirit?

He then focused downward, on the saddle and Appa's back below it. There was a faint steady up and down movement as the bison flapped his tail. The leather held tight, flexing easily to accommodate the movement. Zuko didn't slide a single millimeter. He might as well have been sitting on solid earth.

Earth spirits. They're nice, I guess, if you just want to rest. They weren't as nice as air spirits. Zuko had never seen them do anything. There was nothing to watch when one watched an earth spirit. It was hard for him to watch something that never moved or changed. At least paint stopped glistening as it dried. But he wasn't bound to any, so it was still pleasant to sit against a rock occasionally and wonder what it would say if it wanted to say anything.

Could it have been different? Would I get along with them better if I had some space? If it wasn't always following me, I might really like the water. The fire spirit wouldn't put such pressure on me. I would be free to live my life the way I want, and so would they, and we could all be happy.

A flare of cold erupted in his chest. It wasn't icy and did not hurt him. The water spirit wasn't angry. But Zuko knew the flare to be a denial, an argument that he was not correct. He snorted. What did it know? He was sure he would be happy without it. He should know what made him happy.

What made him happy was the quiet sounds of the air and nothing else. With his eyes closed, he could almost pretend there were no other humans around and that he was entirely in the judgment-free, carefree company of air. For a moment, he felt himself surrounded and comforted by friends on all sides.

"Why do you meditate to be aware of your environment?" The Avatar's voice broke through, snatching away the company of the air spirits. They could not accompany him into the human world. Zuko was alone again.

He opened his eyes. "Fire is dangerous. We have to be aware of it at all times."

"Can firebenders burn themselves?" the Avatar asked.

"No. But they can be burned by someone else's fire in a duel."

"So meditating is good for fighting firebenders?"

Zuko refused to answer. He needed to stay far away from anything that could help the Avatar. "It's good for whatever you use it for. Now stay quiet." He closed his eyes again.

Meditating was good for backing away from the human world into the world of spirits. I wish I didn't have to deal with any of you. You all should be here, blowing around and sitting around and not involving yourself in human business at all. I'm a human. Why are you sticking your noses into my life?

This time the fire spirit flared. Zuko clenched his hands tighter. The fire spirit's answer to why it did anything was that it wanted to and nobody was going to stop it from doing what it wanted. Well I don't want you to, you jerk. And nobody is going to stop me from getting what I want, either.

.

Despite Zuko's demand, Sokka and Aang started talking about waterbending. Zuko didn't object. He just opened his eyes and looked over the side of the saddle.

Aang tried to keep the conversation going. Sokka didn't understand how practicing without the help of a master would get him anywhere. Aang wanted to explain, but he was too distracted. His eyes and mind were called, softly but insistently, to the far side of the saddle.

He was in the middle of giving the same explanation the monks had given him about how practice helped align the body and spirit when Sokka raised a hand to cut him off. "You feel it, don't you?" Sokka whispered. "That spiritual connection you have with him."

Aang flushed. He hoped Zuko hadn't heard that. Sokka had whispered very quietly, so he probably had not. Aang whispered even more quietly, "Yeah. Something about meditating did it. I can't explain."

"Go ahead," Sokka said. "I can see you want to."

"Thanks." Aang crossed the saddle and looked over the side of it, too. He didn't say anything, and he didn't look at Zuko.

The air they flew in wasn't clear. Katara was doing her best to stay out of the clouds, but cloud wisps drifted past on all sides, obscuring the land below. They weren't solid enough to form shapes, didn't last long enough to study, and weren't moving in any interesting ways. What was there to look at?

"What are you looking at?" Zuko asked.

"The same thing you're looking at," Aang replied.

A foggy cloudbank passed by. "Maybe," Zuko said. "Why did your ancestors live on mountains?"

Aang was very surprised by the question. "Uh… I'm not sure. Probably because they're isolated and remote, and peaceful."

"Then you aren't looking at the same thing I am," Zuko said.

What? How could Aang's ancestors and the clouds they were flying through be related? "I don't understand."

"I could be wrong," Zuko said.

"About what?"

"It doesn't matter."

Aang sighed. "You're really frustrating, you know that?"

Zuko didn't answer. Aang grumbled. "Sokka's right. You never make jokes. You barely say anything in a conversation. You never tell stories. You're really dull."

Zuko's fists clenched. "I'm not dull."

"All you ever want is for people to shut up and go along with whatever you say. It's like you wish we weren't people."

"Maybe I do."

That hurt. Aang looked up at him. "How can you say that?"

"Animals are better than people," Zuko said. "They're...easier to get along with. Not so demanding."

"You'd rather we were animals?"

"No." Zuko shook his head. "I don't know what I mean. Forget it."

"I won't forget it," Aang said. "How could you say that you'd rather we were animals? That's low, Zuko. Low and mean."

"I didn't-" Zuko groaned. "Ugh. Whatever."

"I don't wish you were an animal," Aang said.

"Maybe you don't."

"We stopped tying you up after that night Zhao attacked."

"It's not about being tied up. It's about how I'm not treated with the respect I deserve."

Aang looked back at the clouds. "What does the respect you deserve look like?"

Zuko clenched his fists again. "I'll know it when I see it."

Aang closed his eyes. "I thought we had things in common."

There was a long pause. "...And now you don't?" Zuko asked in a soft and feathery voice.

"I don't know. Maybe I was looking for them just because I wanted to be friends."

Another long pause. It was very long. Very, very long. Aang opened his eyes and looked up. To his astonishment, Zuko was confused. An internal conflict he didn't put into words raged across his face. Aang's heart leaped. He felt the same way. Saying that he didn't know if they really had things in common contradicted the connection he felt. Did Zuko feel the same connection?

"Do you think we have things in common?" he asked.

Zuko settled into his usual glare. "I think the question's pointless."

"It's not pointless," Aang said. "It's important."

Zuko closed his eyes and turned away. "No. It isn't."

.

Sokka was still arguing that aligning the spirit and the body sounded like woo-woo nonsense when they landed for the night. Appa yawned. "Katara?" Aang asked. "Have you been making him fly faster?"

"Yes," Katara admitted. "We have to get to the Northern Water Tribe quickly, before a disaster happens."

Aang blinked. "You sound exactly like Zuko."

Katara whirled around. "I do not sound like Zuko!" Crickets could be heard in the silence that followed. Everyone was staring. She turned back around and crossed her arms. "We have nothing in common." She hurried forward to find a good campsite.

"That explains why you get along so poorly with her," Iroh said.

"No it doesn't." Zuko crossed his arms. "She's right. We have nothing in common." He hurried off to look for firewood.

Iroh and Aang looked at each other, and started to laugh. It was very amusing! It was like a scene from a comedic play. "Hey," Aang said. "Zuko is pretty funny sometimes."

"Now if we can just get him to do it more often, he might not be so bad to travel with," Sokka said.

"Good idea," Iroh said. "There's nothing like a good laugh!"

Sokka looked skeptical. "I suggested it rhetorically. It would take magic to get rid of the stick up his butt."

"He said he has fun," Aang said. "It's possible."

Katara came back. "Up ahead, there's a little stream. We can camp where it bends. Aang...I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"It's okay," Aang said.

"Did I really sound like Zuko?"

"To the word. He's always going on about how we need to hurry up and get there before the water spirit causes a disaster."

"I did sound like that," Katara admitted.

"How long have you been hurrying Appa?"

"The past two days." Katara looked up at the bison. "Sorry for rushing you, Appa." The bison yawned again and walked forward. Katara led them to the bend in the stream, where he took a big drink from the water and lay down to sleep.

Sokka had out a map. "At two days of fast flying, we should be… About here. We could reach the North Pole in a week, assuming we don't have any more adventures."

"That never happens," Aang said.

"Yeah, I thought so too. Two weeks at least."

Zuko returned with an armful of branches. "Two weeks until what?"

"We're a week away from the North Pole, but that's assuming we don't stop anywhere," Aang said. "Which never happens."

Zuko arranged the firewood in the center of the camp. "Have you people ever just moved on without getting involved in all the local troubles?"

"No." Aang held his staff higher. "I'm the Avatar! It's my duty to help people. I can't let innocents suffer when I could help them."

Zuko mumbled something under his breath. It sounded sullen and resentful, so nobody paid it any attention. "This is a good place to gather supplies," Aang decided. He handed Iroh and Zuko the waterskins. "You two refill our water, and Sokka and I'll look for food. There's got to be berry bushes around here."

Iroh and Zuko went upstream, following the water until they reached a point where it flowed quickly over rocks and sprayed into the air. Zuko refilled the waterskins from the spraying water. When he was done and he sat there recapping the skins, Iroh decided it was a good time to talk. "Zuko."

"Yes, Uncle?"

"I've noticed how silent you are in the saddle. You don't participate when others are telling stories. You don't engage." Iroh shook his head. "That's no way to travel, Nephew. You should open up more."

"No."

"Nephew. You cannot ask the Avatar for his help and repay him by being rude. He's doing you a great kindness."

"So?" Zuko said. "You were there that night we spent at Bato's place. Telling stories is how you make friends. I'm already just a hair away from treachery, Uncle. I can't take that risk."

Iroh's eyes widened. "You're deliberately avoiding making friends with him?"

"Of course I am. He's the enemy." Zuko stood and began to walk back to camp.

Iroh rubbed his beard as they walked. "Well, you can't be completely silent. So what to do? Not stay silent, and not make friends either. That's hard."

"I need something else," Zuko said. "Pai Sho works, but only on the ground. I need something like it for when we're flying."

Iroh raised an eyebrow. "You've been using Pai Sho to avoid friendship?"

"Yes."

Iroh was faced with a dilemma. In his experience, playing Pai Sho with someone was a great way to accomplish the opposite. Should he tell Zuko it was a mistake? If he did, they'd go back to fighting. Iroh decided not.

When they returned to camp, Zuko got out the game set.

.

Dinner was eaten, fingers were licked clean, and it was all washed down with fresh stream water. Everybody was in a good mood. Aang grinned as he sat down to play Zuko. "You'll never beat me at Pai Sho! I learned from the best."

"I doubt that." And they selected their tiles.

Katara studied Zuko's choice of accent tiles. Was that what she would have chosen? Were they alike?

The game began.

Aang moved much more confidently. He had a strategy in mind from the start. Zuko was in trouble. As before, he clearly did not have a strategy. Aang had little trouble putting together a ring. By the time he did, Zuko still hadn't thought of one.

He ground his teeth. "I demand a rematch!"

Aang obliged. Zuko chose his tiles with more purpose. But he still didn't have any strategy in mind other than trying to make a ring, so Aang won easily again.

"Want another rematch?" Aang asked. Zuko nodded.

The third match went no better than the second. Zuko did his best to interact with Aang's pieces, setting up Clashing tiles to block Aang from moving. But it was clumsy and he neglected his own ring in the process. Aang won again.

Katara reluctantly admitted that she would probably play no better. Her match against Zuko had been much more even. But that did not mean they had anything in common. She only agreed with him on the importance of getting to the Northern Water Tribe because she wanted him to accomplish his goal just as much as he did. Once he got rid of the water spirit, he would go his separate way and they wouldn't have to travel together anymore. She wanted that just as much as he did, so of course she sounded like him. It didn't mean they actually had any underlying similarities.

Zuko snorted fire. He looked ready to set something aflame, so Katara stood. "I'll play Aang." Zuko sat by the stream with his back to them, and she took his place.

Katara figured that if she was going to stand a chance, she had to make full use of her tiles. The basic flowers were not enough to win. She chose her accent tiles carefully, and made sure to use them when Aang started to make his moves. She also put both the special flower tiles into play.

Aang made a Harmony with her White Lotus and used it to plant an accent tile which moved her Red Lotus into a position where he captured it easily on his next turn. She also ran out of accent tiles. Defeat came quickly.

Katara had to work to stop her fists from clenching. He made it look so easy!

Aang started to give advice. "I think you should -"

"Rematch." She would use her accent tiles slower this time, keep her special flowers out of his hands. She wouldn't be beaten so easily again.

Aang granted her request. Since the White Lotus could hardly move, helped him and didn't do anything to help her, she left it out. Without it in play, her Red Lotus was indestructible. But it couldn't capture any of Aang's tiles, so it didn't benefit her to have it in play. It didn't help her form Harmonies, and every time she used it to paralyze some of his tiles he just moved others. She lost again. But, she was proud to note, it took longer.

"Nice playing," Aang said. "You're getting better."

Katara smiled. That was all she wanted: to be among the pretty good. She just wanted to keep up. Falling behind would be humiliating.

The games had gone on long enough. The fire was put out, the ashes surreptitiously scattered when Zuko wasn't looking, and they all went to bed. Zuko got a second blanket to cover himself. It was starting to get chilly at night.

.

The next day, as they were packing up, Aang found another opportunity to talk to Zuko. "Hey Zuko?"

"What?"

"I really want to meet your alter ego. The one that has fun. What kinds of fun do you have?"

Zuko tossed the tents into the saddle. "None of your business, and never going to happen."

"Do you play games? With who? Can I join?"

"Sometimes, none of your business, and no."

Aang went back to sweeping up the remains of their campsite so it would seem like they had never been there, and sighed. Sokka came up. "Don't worry, Aang. I've got this. One stick extraction, coming right up." He walked up to Zuko. "Hey. You look like a man in need of a sense of humor."

Zuko glared at him. "I am not humorless! I can be fun when I want to be."

"Yeah, but more practice never hurt anybody." Sokka placed a hand on his chest. "I happen to be the expert in sarcasm, witty quips, and other forms of humor. With a little bit of my expertise, you'll be making audiences howl with laughter in no time!"

"I don't need to -"

"Let's start with identifying your style." Sokka peered closely into his face. "Sarcasm? No, you look more like a snarker. Have you ever tried puns?"

"Leave me alone!" Zuko pushed him away. "I don't need to be funnier or more playful."

"But you really should be," Sokka said.

"I shouldn't have said anything. I really shouldn't have said anything." Zuko shook his head.

Sokka backed off. "How was that?" he asked Iroh.

"Hmm. He didn't attack you or start a fight, so it might just work," Iroh said. "I hope it does. I can't wait to meet his fun-having alter ego!"

"Nice work, Sokka!" Aang grinned. "You were right. I was coming at him from the wrong angle."

"I don't think it's going to work," Katara said. "He's Zuko. He's arrogant, thinks he's better than everybody else, and has a huge temper problem. He's never going to be like you are, Aang."

"Hey," Sokka said. "Back off. You and Aang are the ones that wanted him to come, so I've been letting you handle him, but it's not working and I'm getting sick of it. It's Sokka time!"

Katara raised her hands. "Okay. But remember, I told you so."

.

Zuko studied the map. "Here. This place looks good." He pointed to a wooded area just north of them.

"Looks good for what?" the Avatar asked.

"Stopping."

Everybody looked at him. Even the Avatar let go of the reins to look in the saddle. "Since when do you want to stop?"

"Since Uncle suggested we get away from each other, and this moron keeps trying to feed me lines!" Zuko glared at Sokka. "They aren't even funny."

"Of course!" Iroh said. "Good idea, Nephew. We should all take some time to ourselves. It's been a long few days of traveling since Zhao attacked, and we're all going stir crazy."

"I need to find someone who appreciates a good joke," Sokka agreed. "Are there any comedy clubs on that map?" He took the map from Zuko and looked at it. "You want us to land in the middle of the wilderness?!"

"Less chance of getting involved in yet another rescue mission."

"What are we supposed to do in the middle of the wilderness?" the Avatar asked. Zuko shrugged.

"Let's land," Iroh said. "We're almost there."

They landed and got off Appa's back. Appa stretched. Momo flew around looking for fruit. "I could practice my waterbending," the Avatar said. "If I can find any."

It had rained recently in this area. Zuko could feel the ground saturated with water beneath them. He turned away. "Whatever. See you guys back here for lunch."

"What are you doing?" Katara asked.

"None of your business." Zuko looked back at her and made a fireball with one hand. His promise was clear. If anyone followed him, he would not react well. He disappeared into the forest.

I wish I had my swords. And my mask. He walked among trees that shed their leaves into the air. A thin layer of leaves already crackled beneath his feet. As he walked, his footsteps grew quieter and quieter, until he stopped walking entirely. They want to meet my alter ego, and that makes me want to be my alter ego. How fitting. It had been far too long.

Zuko watched the leaves fall through the air. They fell straight. Not a hint of a breeze stirred. That annoyed him very much. Great. No air spirits to follow. I'll have to make something up. He climbed a tree and looked around. There was nothing attention-grabbing in any direction, so he followed the slope of the land upward, leaping from tree to tree. At the top, he peered down at a pool of water. It would be a lake one day if the plants that hemmed it in were cleared. The pool was swollen from the rain. A small creek ran from it, trickling silently downhill. Zuko climbed down and used his firebending to clear a way through the plants, wishing again that he had his swords. He made sure his fire was completely out, then knelt at the edge of the water to investigate it.

He cupped his hands and drank a small mouthful, swishing it around his mouth before spitting it out. It did not taste bad and it didn't have great quantities of sediment floating in it. He decided it was an acceptable pool to drink from, but the amount of insects dancing on its surface and the shallow depth of the water made it risky. it would be too easy to accidentally stir up the mud or swallow a bug. He shooed away a trio of water striders and took another small mouthful before leaving.

He followed the creek downhill, watching it wind this way and that according to the placement of the rocks. The water bounced off a bank of rocks, directly into the hollow beneath a tree's roots. Zuko hopped up onto the roots and circled the tree. A smaller creek ran out the other side.

A leaf pressed itself flat against the back of his neck. Zuko whirled around. Finally! Watching a creek wander along was boring. He snatched the leaf before it could reach the ground and held it up, dangling it from his fingers. It twisted to his left, so left he went, sneaking up a small hill and climbing a tree. He saw another leaf spinning as it fell, and made his way in that direction, where he saw yet another leaf making circles in the air. A breeze was in the air now. He followed it, looking for where the leaves were spinning the most. Suddenly the breeze changed course, sending leaves flying past him. He changed course as well.

It was hard work, following a breeze in a forest. Sometimes the air stilled and he struggled to tell which way was downwind. Sometimes the breeze disappeared in the branches, but could still be felt on the forest floor. It took all his powers of observation to watch out for moving things. It took all his patience to sit and concentrate on his skin hard enough to feel the very faint movement of air. Air spirits could be stealthy! He tracked this one across what felt like half the forest before stopping to rest. It was an achievement, and he congratulated himself for it.

His stomach growled. Zuko sat up on his branch and looked around. He had allowed himself to be obvious as he chased the air spirit. Now it was time for him to get serious. He pressed himself against the trunk and listened. Were there any animals nearby? His eyes widened. Something was making the leaves crackle at the far edge of his hearing. If he hadn't been listening so closely, he wouldn't have heard it. He crept out along the length of the branch, shifting his weight in order to make no sound. He hopped over to the next tree and flattened himself against the trunk, listened again. The soft crackling continued. He had not been noticed.

He climbed higher, hoping to see what it was he hunted. From behind a screen of small branches, he peered around the trunk. What he saw made his heart skip a beat. It was a baby platypus bear rooting around in the leaves, sniffing curiously. Forget that. Its mother wasn't around, but if he killed the baby she might catch his scent and track him down just to make him pay. It would be best to leave.

His stomach gurgled. He clamped a hand over it. As high up as he was, the baby platypus bear hadn't heard him...and he was hungry. What if it flushed something out, or smelled its way to a cache of buried nuts? He decided to stay. If the baby found something and its mother still hadn't come back, he could scare it away easily enough.

The baby grew bored with whatever it was sniffing at and trundled away. It scared a squirrel into a tree. The baby put its front paws around the tree and roared up at the squirrel, then moved on. Zuko followed the squirrel with his eyes. It hopped along a series of increasingly smaller twigs until it disappeared into a tangle where he could not follow.

When he caught up to the baby platypus bear, it had started to dig. It lowered its head into the hole. When it raised its head, it chewed and its chewing made crunching noises. Nuts! Zuko leaped down next to it. "Hyaa!" He swung a fist at it with just a little bit of firebending.

The baby did not, as he had expected it to, run away. It reared up on its hind legs and roared at him, swiping its paws in a feeble display of ferocity. Then it went back down to all fours and blinked at him. It had no fear of him.

Zuko stared back. What do I do now? More firebending might attract its mother. He looked at the buried nuts. His stomach growled. He looked back up at the baby. It seemed docile. He reached down into the hole and dug out the remaining nuts, brushed the dirt off, and roasted them with his fire. He kept an eye on the baby as he broke open the nuts and ate them. His stomach quieted.

The baby got busy digging. It sniffed and dug, sniffed and dug. Then it turned back to look at him. Zuko couldn't believe it. Why are animals so much better than people?! He reached into all the holes it had dug and found caches of nuts. This area of the forest floor was almost entirely dirt, and soft as well. It must have been the favorite of all the local squirrels.

The baby platypus bear licked the side of his face as he ate the nuts. Was this normal? Zuko usually explored forests at night when almost everything was sleeping. His experience told him to tread carefully and avoid the sleeping animals. Were they normally this friendly and approachable in the daytime, when they were already awake? And how had it known to lead him to food? It was only a baby.

He saved a handful of nuts from the bounty and held them out to the baby platypus bear. "These are yours. You've earned them." He placed them on the ground and backed away. The baby ate them with much gusto. That was why he didn't hear its mother approaching. All he heard was a low snarl. He turned very slowly, and found himself face to bill with a deeply suspicious mother platypus bear. Uh oh.

What he needed to do was run. But he knew for sure that she would stop threatening him and start attacking if he moved, and she was so close, and between the two he couldn't bring himself to move. She did not move either. Her snarling grew just a touch louder. He stopped breathing. Help!

The baby opened its mouth and made a loud baying noise. It spit out the remaining shells and licked Zuko's face again. Then it started trying to walk on him. Zuko fell back onto the ground and let it. Its weight might leave bruises on his stomach muscles, but having it on top of him was the surest way to calm its mother. It turned around on top of him, stepping painfully over and over again on his ribs. Tears came to his eyes. It arranged itself so it could comfortably look down at him, in a position of complete power and dominance, like it already knew what it was going to grow up to be. It bayed at him.

Zuko coughed. It was hard to breathe. He cried out when the baby shifted its weight to step off of him, but when the pain faded he could breathe again, and he was grateful for that. He coughed and clutched at his ribs. Even lightly touching them hurt. Through tears of agony, he looked up and saw the baby sniffing around and pawing at the ground. It hadn't dug up all the nuts for him.

The ground shook beneath him as the mother joined her baby. She used her enormous paws to sweep the piles of dirt back into their holes and used her tail to flatten them, making the ground look undisturbed. She dug up a cache of nuts for herself, and then mother and child moved on.

Zuko sat up, wheezing. He remembered what his mother had told him about mothers and their children. Even a mother turtle duck could be vicious. If the baby hadn't intervened to demonstrate that he was no threat to it, if he had been doing something stupid like touching the baby in any way or reaching out to it, she would have held nothing back. His belly was full, but his ribs might have cracks in them, and he'd been lucky to get out with only that much damage. Was it worth it?

Next time, just remember where it dug its holes and dig them back up after they move on. He winced as he got to his feet. He'd be lucky to make it back by lunchtime.

.

Sokka searched for food and water. He was a hungry growing warrior; he liked his snacks. Unfortunately, this forest didn't seem to have any. He passed a large pool of water, but it was shallow enough to look brown and there were bugs buzzing around it. No thanks. He passed through several large clearings where great quantities of open dirt had accumulated, looked around, saw no berry bushes, and moved on. He saw a platypus bear footprint and went the other way. There was nothing for a person to eat around here!

He returned early for lunch. "This forest is full of nothing and platypus bears," he told Katara. "Oh, this food smells so good! I'm starving!"

"You had two bowls for breakfast," she reminded him.

"So?"

She served him two bowls again. "Have you seen Aang? We split up to look for water. I haven't seen him since."

Sokka chewed a big mouthful of dried meat and swallowed. He moaned in pleasure. "He'll be back. Nobody can resist this!"

Momo flew through the trees on a direct beeline for the food. Katara had to grab him before he flew into the cooking fire. Aang was right behind him. "Wow, that smells good!" He accepted a bowl from Katara. Iroh appeared not long after. He drooled when he saw the food. He gave his compliments to the chef before digging in.

Sokka finished his food, leaned back against a tree, and patted his belly. It took him a while to notice that something was wrong. "Hey, where's Angry Jerk? He said he'd be back by lunch."

Aang finished his food. "I haven't seen him." He airbended himself up into a tall tree and looked around. "There's no sign of him."

Katara stood. "He went that way." She pointed to the trail Zuko had left in the leaves. "We can track him."

Sokka sat up. "No. You saw what he did with his firebending. I'm sure he's fine. He'll come back any minute now."

A half hour later, Iroh shook his head. "He may be in trouble. We should look for him."

"He's probably a platypus bear's lunch," Sokka said.

Just then, there was a rustling sound. Zuko appeared over the top of the nearest ridge. He was walking very slowly and holding himself oddly, as if he was injured. Iroh helped him to the fire, where he collapsed with a groan.

"What happened to you?" Aang asked.

"I made a new friend," Zuko answered.

Iroh gave him a bowl. "Here. You must be starving."

Zuko pushed the bowl away. "Later. I'm full."

"Of what?" Aang asked. "Who'd you meet? They fed you? I didn't know anybody lived out here. There's nothing on the map."

Zuko rolled his eyes. "It wasn't -"

"I'll eat it then. Your loss!" Sokka snatched the bowl and finished it in under a minute.

Zuko sighed. "Let's just get back in the air. We've wasted too much time here."

Iroh helped him up. Zuko paled and wrapped an arm around his abdomen as he got into the saddle. "Are you all right?" Iroh asked.

"I'm fine. I just got stepped on by a baby platypus bear." Zuko waved him away.

"You made a new friend, got fed, and got stepped on by a platypus bear and lived?" Sokka asked. "Someone's had a lot of adventures today."

"My new friend was the baby platypus bear, it dug up nuts for me, and it stood on me to protect me from its mother," Zuko said. "It doesn't matter. Can we go now?"

Sokka gasped. "You can talk to platypus bears too?" Zuko glared at him, which he took as a Yes. "Okay, I'm a grown man. I can admit it. That's pretty cool."

"Thanks," Zuko muttered.

"Can you teach me how to talk to animals?" Aang asked. "I've always wondered what the birds are singing about."

"No," Zuko snapped. "I'm not teaching you anything, Avatar."

Aang sighed and turned back. "Appa, yip yip." He took off.

Zuko leaned back and groaned. Something occurred to Sokka. "Wait, aren't you the one who said we should stop in a forest to avoid having adventures?" Zuko shot him a venomous look. "I'm just sayin'. We could have been gone half an hour ago if you hadn't...what's the phrasing? Gotten yourself involved in all the local trouble?"

Zuko clenched a fist. "You're lucky I can't move right now."

Sokka laughed. "You're not so big and scary without your firebending, are you?" Zuko snarled. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Stop teasing him, Sokka." Katara was not saying that in Zuko's defence. She shot her brother a look. Sokka backed off.

"So, how did the vacation work for everyone?" he asked. He'd spent hours in a fruitless search. Aang and Katara got waterbending practice. Iroh had thought of a few haikus based on the golden light shining through yellow autumn leaves. And Zuko got stepped on. Whatever miracle the old man had expected to happen, it hadn't happened. The stop was a waste of time. Nothing good had happened that couldn't have happened anywhere else.

"It was really nice," Zuko said. "This was a good idea."

Sokka stared at him with his mouth open and his eye twitching in complete confusion. Zuko was the last person he'd expect to have enjoyed the stop. "How can you say that?"

Zuko did something that nobody had seen him do in a long time: he smiled. "It was fun."

.

A/N: I've been informed that it would be good to hurry up. That's why this chapter is long. If I make my chapters longer, we'll get to the important events in fewer chapters. I don't know how to write shorter, so that's the best I can do. I'll try to have at least one important event per chapter, or two if it's a long chapter, as well. A canon episode is coming up soon.