So sleepy... --
The sun was up and it shone through Elsie's eyes. She turned her head to see if any of the others were up.
Sokka had his arm thrown across his eyes and Katara was curled up with her nose tucked under the covers of her sleeping bag. Aang was lying on his stomach, his walking stick in his left hand, Momo kicking in his sleep while he rested on Aang's back. Momo's body rose and fell with every breath Aang pushed out.
Elsie kicked her way quietly out of her sleeping bag and walked to the edge of the clearing and looked back. Nobody had moved in the slightest (except for Momo).
She turned and walked on, into the forest.
When Elsie returned from relieving her bladder, Katara was up, rolling her sleeping bag. She looked up and smiled as Elsie entered the camp.
"Good morning," Katara rested the bag on her hip. "I heard you walking back so I thought I'd get up."
Elsie's good mood plummeted.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"No, its fine," Katara waved Elsie's words away. "I needed to get up anyway." She tipped her head to the side and peered at Elsie.
"You know," she said slowly. "I heard you talking to Sokka last night. I didn't mean to eavesdrop or anything, but Sokka creeps around about as well as Appa." Katara's smile invited Elsie to smile, but Elsie's heart was thudding too hard for her to do so. "I just want you to know that you can come to me if you have a problem or you need something. I know we haven't known you for very long yet, but…" Her grin grew less intense and became a softer smile. "I'd like to think we're friends and that we can trust each other."
Elsie's heart stopped.
Two? Two friends? Two people wanted to be her friend? Was that possible? Well, they were twins, weren't they? Don't twins usually do things together?
Or were they twins? How could she tell? Maybe they were just very close to each other in age. They never said they were twins.
They never said they weren't.
This had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
Elsie could have two friends. Possibly even three, because it was very likely that if the majority of the people in this group liked her, the last person would like her too. At least, when the majority of a group of people didn't like her, they all seemed to dislike her.
"Yes," Elsie said. She felt more confident than she had ever before in her entire life. "I'd like to think we're friends, too." She felt shy again. "I'd like to be your friend."
Katara walked past Elsie to where Appa was lying, but as she passed, she placed a hand on Elsie's shoulder and looked her in the eye.
"Elsie," she said. "Once you're our friend – and I'm sure Aang wants to be your friend, he wants to be almost everybody's friend – once you're our friend, we'll take care of you. And there's not much you can do to make us not like you anymore. I mean, unless you're planning to wipe out an entire village or murder us all in our sleep, I doubt that anything you say will make us angry enough to want to get rid of you."
Katara smiled encouragingly and Elsie smiled back but her heart wasn't in it.
Little could make them not like her? What exactly could make them not like her and was it exactly what she had?
Elsie closed her fist.
It was exactly moments like this when it came back to bother her.
"I don't know why I'm stuck with the flying furry walrus and monkey-boy over there," Sokka whined. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Appa was resting on his back, next to the edge of the forest on the top if the hill, and Aang, who was making monkey noises and scratching under his arms while Momo cocked his head to the side and squeaked curiously.
Katara raised an eyebrow at Aang who grinned sheepishly and stopped. Momo jumped down from the tree and landed on his shoulder, his arms clutching his forehead.
"Well," Katara said. "That's because I don't trust you to come back with any food. You might eat it all on the way back. Or you'll buy something nearly useless that isn't really food, like sweets or something."
"Yeah," Sokka muttered, his arms crossed across his chest. "At least I don't steal priceless waterbending scrolls from sneaky pirates."
"Excuse me?" Katara demanded.
When Sokka didn't say anything, Katara continued.
"And then there's the fact that us girls just need some time to ourselves."
Sokka uncrossed his arms and held them out. "Why can't you do that here, with Appa, while Aang and I go down into the market and get food?"
"One," Katara held up a finger. "Because you'll eat it. And two, because Aang buys stupid things."
"Hey!" said Aang. "That bison whistle saved our lives!"
Katara ignored him. "I don't trust either of you well enough to let you roam around with out money and our food."
"Well, what if someone attacks you?" Sokka demanded.
"I'll use my waterbending skills," Katara said. "We are right next to the ocean."
"Come on, Katara. What if a real threat happens? What are you going to do then?"
"You don't think I could handle myself?" Katara stepped up to Sokka.
Sokka leaned back and crossed his arms again. "I think if a real threat – like a firebender – attacked you, you'd be dead in about five seconds."
"Oh, so I guess what you're trying to say is I'm not a good enough waterbender?" Katara said angrily. "Well, Aang? Do you think I'm a horrible waterbender, too?"
"Whoa," Aang held up his hands. "I think you're a great waterbender, Katara. I didn't say you weren't."
"See?" Katara said to Sokka. "Aang thinks I'm a good waterbender. And Aang's the Avatar."
Aang sighed and shook his head. Elsie smiled at him in compassion and sympathy, though he didn't see it.
"Look, Katara," Sokka held out his hands. "All I'm saying is: I don't want you to get hurt, okay? I'm just being your big brother."
"Well, go and be somebody else's big brother, Sokka," Katara spun around and grabbed Elsie by the sleeve and started dragging her down the field. "We're going into town to get supplies and we'll be back whenever we feel like it, right, Elsie? Besides," she called back to Sokka. "Elsie's a waterbender, too, and water beats fire."
"What's this – rocks, paper, scissors?" Sokka asked Aang. "And what about earthbenders?"
Aang shrugged. "Water does wear away at rock."
"Yeah, but doesn't that take, like, thousands of years?"
"I don't know," Aang said as he swept a gust of air across the ground, causing brown dust to rise in the air. Momo leapt from his shoulder and rode it up into the trees. "I'm just the Avatar."
The town was a medium-sized place, not yet under complete Fire Nation control, but not a free town, either. Its streets were very wide because it was created to be a trading port, and while it wasn't a world center for commerce, it was still a pretty popular place to stock up on supplies.
There were people everywhere – earthbenders native to the area, Fire Nation soldiers and patrols, merchants of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom alike, and even a few Water Tribespeople, so Katara and Elsie didn't stand out so much.
The town was in a valley created by the hills that covered the land and turned into mountains that stood purple in the distance against the gold and green of the fields of tall grasses and the forest that touched their edges.
It was a great place to shop for supplies because it was big enough so the two, blue-eyed, blue-dressed girls didn't stand out, but small enough so that being able to find decent prices wasn't the nearly impossible task it was in the larger cities.
Katara led the way, with Elsie walking behind and a step to the side. It took all of her concentration not to reach out and grab Katara's belt when the crowds got thicker.
Katara stopped at stand.
"How much are these?" she asked the merchant, holding up a bunch of carrots tied together. "Do you like these?" she asked Elsie.
Elsie shrugged her shoulders. "I'll eat them."
"Do you know what they are?"
"No."
Katara sighed. What else had Elsie eaten besides fish, bread and the few berries that grew in the summertime in the North? Seal? Penguin? What kind of vegetables would she like? What kind of fruits? Because Aang was a vegetarian and they didn't eat anything else except for maybe bread.
Then that must be the answer – bread. Lots and lots of bread. At least until Elsie got used to the other stuff. Then they could get the usual amount.
Katara bought the carrots and continued walking down the street, looking for the baked goods section. It was helpful how those merchants with similar products sold them near each other. It would be such a pain to have to look for bread if any stall in any part of the market were selling it. So much easier to just follow the smell of the collective breads instead of a single, maybe-bread smell.
A group of people rushed into Katara and they knocked Katara's basket from her hands.
Falling to her knees, Katara hurried to gather the poor carrots before they were trampled and inedible.
When the group had passed (and Katara had managed to save about three carrots total) she looked behind her to see how Elsie was doing, but Elsie was nowhere to be found. Katara stood up and looked around the market place. It was obvious they got separated by the crowd. Did she get caught in them and dragged along with them?
Katara gave the place one last sweeping check to make sure Elsie wasn't hiding in some shadow somewhere before she turned and bumped into someone.
"Oh, sorry," she said automatically.
"I'm not," came the low, gravelly reply.
Katara looked up and gasped.
"You!" she said.
"Me," Prince Zuko agreed. He grabbed Katara's upper arm and jerked her towards him. Katara's basket dropped from her hands and the carrots bounced out onto the dusty street.
Prince Zuko leaned in close to Katara who felt as though she'd been turned to stone.
"As I always like to say," he smirked. "Where there's a waterbender, there's a way…"
Katara just stared up at him silently.
"…to the Avatar."
That line still makes me wince. Not only for Zuko who has to say it, but for me who actually wrote it, edited it, and decided it was okay because she couldn't come up with anything better.
Zuko: Damn right you should be wincing for me! Why'd you make me say it?
Ani: Ahh! Hallucinations! And they're OOC!
Zuko: What?
Ani: ...--...