Water

The Rescue

Aang waited for the snores from inside the tent to begin before he wiggled out from under Momo and climbed up into the saddle. For a second, he considered taking Appa—it would be quicker than flying with his glider, and the trip back with Katara would be easier too—but Appa was big and conspicuous, and conspicuous was the last thing Aang needed to be tonight. He pulled his glider out from its place in the saddle and flicked the wings open. The ship couldn't be too far away. Just a few miles off the coast, if what Sokka said was true.

Aang could carry Katara back that far. He'd taken plenty of people for glider rides before—never thatfar,but it wouldn't be that hard. Besides, Katara was technically an airbender too. If it got too hard for Aang to keep them both aloft, he would just have to teach her a few things about airbending so she could help.

Katara would probably like that. She liked practicing her waterbending, and she'd like airbending even better because she would have a teacher.

Before Aang could open the glider, Appa raised his huge head off the ground and rumbled.

"Sorry, buddy. You'll have to stay here with Sokka, okay?" Aang scratched Appa's nose. Taking a deep breath, he turned toward the coast and raised his glider. "I'll be back with Katara in just a little while."


For a few seconds after he jolted upright in his sleeping bag, Sokka couldn't figure out why he was awake. It was dark. Darkness meant sleepy time. And he didn't have to go to the bathroom, so it couldn't be that.

Blinking blearily into the blackness of his tent, he wracked his brain. Had there been a noise around camp? Unlikely. Everything was calm and quiet. Even if it weren't, Sokka was an excellent sleeper and as Gran-Gran liked to say, would only wake up for war or natural disasters.

He rubbed his eyes. Momo didn't seem to be in the tent with him, so the lemur probably wasn't trying to cram rocks or soggy leaves in his mouth or up his nostrils. And it couldn't have been Katara kicking him because, well—it couldn't.

Sokka sprawled out again and rolled onto his side. It was probably just a dream. He thought he remembered something about frantically paddling a chunk of carrot across a bowl of watery rice to escape a ravenous piece of rabbit squirrel meat. That definitely could have woken him up.

But now that he thought about it, camp seemed a bit too quiet. When Aang slept, Aang snored. There was no snoring. Which meant that Aang must be lying awake too.

Sokka didn't want to crawl out of his sleeping bag. He wasn't keen on the idea of a late-night conversation either. Sleep, as far as he was concerned, was a sacred thing. But it was just the two of them now, and that meant that Aang was Sokka's responsibility. Including late-night conversations, apparently.

Yawning, Sokka wriggled his way out of his sleeping bag and poked his head out between the tent flaps. Even outside it was almost too dark to see, with the moonlight obscured by layers of clouds. He blinked a few times, and when he still couldn't make out much more than faint, grayish blobs, he half tumbled, half crawled out toward the barely glowing remains of the campfire. Fumbling in the dark, Sokka managed to find a stick and plunged it into the coals.

Raising his sad-looking makeshift torch, Sokka looked around camp. There was Appa, with Momo curled up on one of the bison's massive legs, and on his tail where Aang normally slept, there was—nothing.

Huh.

Maybe he'd decided to sleep in the saddle instead? Sokka clambered up Appa's tail and peeked over the edge. Nope. Not there either. So maybe Aang had just wandered off to relieve himself somewhere in the woods—but then where was his glider? Potty breaks did not require gliding.

Half frantic, Sokka dug through their pile of supplies. The glider wasn't there. The feeble light from his makeshift torch flickered then extinguished, sending a curl of smoke upward. Dread settled heavily on his shoulders.

No, no, no, no, no. Hadn't he warned Aang? Hadn't he been clear enough? We need to have a plan before we try to rescue her. Yeah, that seemed pretty clear to Sokka. We need to stick together. That was clear too.

Still, there was no doubt in his mind that that was exactly what Aang had done.

Sokka tossed his smoldering stick back into the fire pit and scrambled to the front of the saddle. Dangling over the rim, he tugged on one of Appa's horns.

"Appa! Appa, wake up!"

A great, rumbling snore came in response.

Sokka slithered even farther forward and patted Appa between the eyes. "Appa! Come on, buddy, we have to go after Aang."

Again, Appa didn't wake. Momo, though—Momo definitely did. With a terrible, unearthly screech, the lemur launched himself up over Sokka and onto Appa's horn. That did the trick. Appa snorted, tossed his head, and Sokka started to slide.

"Ahh!" Somehow he managed to twist so his back hit the ground first, and all the air rushed out of his lungs. Ouch.

For a second, he lay still, waiting for his breath to return. Appa snuffled at his hair, then licked him from the top of his head down to his waist in a single swipe.

Ewww. Sokka staggered to his feet and shook off some of the slobber. There wasn't time to do any more than that. He grabbed the edge of Appa's saddle and hauled himself back up. Smelling like Appa spit was not ideal, but he didn't have time to find fresh—well, relatively fresh—clothes, even if he could see where they were.

He felt for the reins, and Momo settled down in his lap, chittering too loud.

"I hope you can see better in the dark than I can, big guy." Sokka snapped the reins. "We have a runaway airbender to track down. Yip-yip."


Once he was skimming his way over the waves, Aang discovered a small flaw in his plan. Spotting Fire Nation ships was easy. They were so well lit that Aang could make out the faint, glowing patches on the horizon from miles away. But the problem was that he could see three of them. And from here, he had no way to tell which was Zuko's.

He frowned, swooping in a broad circle, riding an updraft higher and higher. Since Zuko was traveling north, it probably wasn't the southernmost ship. But the other two patches of light, spaced miles apart on the ocean, looked equally likely to him.

Hmm. Well, the one on the right looked a bit closer than the one on the left. That was easy enough. He'd check on the closer one first. They were all Fire Nation, after all. Even if the closer ship wasn't Zuko's, the crew would probably know where Zuko was going. That was how the military worked, wasn't it? They all kept track of each other. It would almost be nice if there wasn't so much fighting involved.

He rode the updraft around once more, then dipped one wing of his glider and soared out over the open water. He wasn't used to flying long distances without Appa, but there were enough warm patches in the water giving his glider lift that it wasn't so bad keeping himself aloft. Besides, if he got too tired, Aang could probably freeze himself a little ice raft and rest for a few minutes until he was ready to fly again. On the way back, he would have Katara to help with that bit too.

For a long while, the glowing spot on the horizon didn't seem to change. It was a long way off, and traveling by glider was terribly slow. Aang wished that he'd been able to take Appa instead. Appa was fast. Appa was smart. And it was lonely being out here by himself, even if it was safer to present a smaller target.

Well, he wouldn't be lonely for too much longer. That was a much happier thought. When Aang turned back around, he'd have Katara with him. They would all be so happy by the time the night was over. Sokka would be ecstatic, and Katara would hug Aang, and—

One wing of his glider dipped, and Aang jerked himself level again. Whoops. Maybe this wasn't the best time for daydreaming. Nightdreaming? Well, whatever the word was, it made flying much, much harder.

Still, Aang was going to be a hero to his friends. That had to be the best way to be a hero.

As he drew nearer, the ship's lights shone brighter against the black sea, and by the time he could make out more than the faint outline of the ship, the clouds were beginning to part just enough to allow splashes of moonlight to touch the waves. And under the patches of relative brightness, there was something about the ship that looked—off. There was no mistaking the shape of it—it was definitely a Fire Nation boat, but something about it looked all wrong.

Aang caught another updraft and rode it in an upward spiral, squinting down at the ship. What was it? What looked so wrong?

A bit of movement caught his eye, and Aang dropped out of the updraft, squinting even harder to make out the source of the movement. Then the tiny speck shifted again.

Oh. That was a person. A person who looked far, far too small for the ship they were on.

The ship was too big, Aang realized. He had been too far off to tell before, but this ship would have dwarfed Zuko's. That was what looked wrong.

Aang set his jaw and dropped close to the water. It didn't matter. Katara may not be here, but the sailors had to know where to find her. They were all Fire Nation, after all. If he could get down there, he could find out where Zuko's ship was, then Katara would be all but rescued.


Night flying was miserable.

Well, most everything was miserable at night, but Sokka was quickly growing convinced that flying was the worst of them all. It wasn't bad enough that this was sleepy time for every normal person in the world. No, night flying also meant trying to navigate. Which Sokka was good at. But his navigation skills suffered considerably when it was too dark to read his maps and when the stars were all blanketed by clouds. Appa seemed confident enough in the direction he was flying, but that wasn't entirely reassuring to Sokka. They could be seconds away from crashing into a mountainside and Sokka wouldn't know the difference.

He tightened his grip on the reins. Feelings of imminent doom aside, he wasn't fond of all the buzzy, flappy noises whizzing past his head either. Were they birds? Bats? Giant, man-eating bugs? Momo? Even he could be pretty terrifying under the right circumstances. Like any mealtime ever.

But even worse than flying blind with unknown things flying past his head every minute or two was the irrepressible voice in his head, constantly reminding him of everything that could have gone wrong. It wasn't helpful, that voice. Sokka was sleepy enough that his mind kept mixing in nonsense with the real dangers, then doing little to sort them back out. Maybe Aang had been captured. Or a spirit had grabbed him. Or he'd gotten lost. Or he was being chased across the ocean by that weird glowy lady and her sea monster.

On second thought, none of those things were that farfetched. Not when Aang was involved. Or Katara, for that matter.

At long last, the clouds parted enough for Sokka to see the ocean stretching out before him. He snapped the reins, urging Appa faster. Zuko's ship was northwest of them—Aang had to know that much—and Sokka hauled the reins in that direction.

"You're gonna have to work with me, Appa." Even with moonlight beginning to seep through the spaces between the clouds, Sokka couldn't see much. A few brightened points along the horizon—possibly Fire Nation ships, probably as good a place as any to start looking for Aang—but anything smaller than that got lost in a wash of dark. He patted Appa's neck. "Come on, you have to know which way Aang went. I've seen you track him down before, you big snot monster."

Appa rumbled, sounding displeased.

"You don't like that? Fine. Just find Aang and I'll stop calling you a snot monster."

Another unhappy noise.

"And I'll give you a nice long belly rub," Sokka added. "Is that better?"

A more agreeable rumble came in reply, and Appa sped up a fraction.

With an exaggerated sigh, Sokka rolled his eyes. When and why had his life turned into this? If anyone had ever suggested that he'd be negotiating with giant flying animals in the middle of the night while hunting a wayward airbending kid across the ocean, Sokka would have called them crazy. Sometimes he felt a little crazy just for being involved.

Appa took them out over the rough, black ocean, massive legs pumping as he angled toward the northernmost patch of light. The wind rushed by faster, and Sokka shivered. He was almost tempted to crawl to the back of the saddle to dig out his parka—or Katara's, whichever one he could find—but he couldn't afford to waste that much time. He had to keep watch. He had to find Aang before something bad happened to him too. Aang was his responsibility as much as Katara was. Sokka couldn't lose him too.

Well, maybe he hadn't always thought of Aang as his responsibility. When Katara was still with them, she did enough that Sokka hardly needed to think about looking after Aang. He cared, of course, but Katara was so much better with all the feelings and junk, and she was always more than happy to deal with that stuff. Now that she was gone—well, Sokka was trying. But figuring out how to cook and keep the two of them safe while they tried to keep pace with Zuko's ship was about all Sokka could manage right now.

Maybe that was part of the reason Aang had run off.

He leaned forward, squinting into the dark for any sign of the glider. Whatever the reason, it was a monumentally dumb risk to take. Sokka shouldn't have to get all touchy-feely to make that part perfectly, abundantly clear. It wasn't even a hard concept! Stick together. We have to get Katara back , and we can't do that if we split up. What part of that had gone over Aang's head?

The ship slowly came into focus, and by the faint, patchy moonlight, Sokka could see that something was—off. The ship's hull looked too bulky, its control tower and smokestacks too short and too skinny. It was the wrong ship. It had to be. Zuko's ship was big, but not this big.

"Appa, are you sure this is the right—" He cut off midsentence as something small and wedge shaped flew past the ship's lights. His heart dropped. "You've gotta be kidding me."

Appa rumbled in reply and snorted out a puff of hot, moist air.

"My feelings exactly." Sokka snapped the reins again. "Let's get down there before he gets killed."


Everything was going well. Aang had taken his glider down closer to the water where he'd be more difficult to spot from the ship. At this height, the updrafts were weak enough that keeping his glider aloft took more work, but at least he could be completely certain that the firebenders hadn't seen him. As trades went, that seemed pretty good to him. Once he knew where to find Zuko's ship, Aang could go back to flying at an easier height.

He was so close now. All he had to do was get on board, find their maps, figure out which direction to go to find Zuko's ship, and then get out without being caught. He could do that. Aang was very good at sneaking.

Taking a deep breath, he angled one wing up and banked along the side of the ship. He had to come up at exactly the right place—right about there. He turned again, and with all the force he could muster, he rocketed upward.

And then, just as he was hovering over the railing, about to land, something wrapped tight around his ankle and yanked upward.

Aang forgot that he was supposed to be quiet. A scream ripped its way out of his mouth as the thing around his ankle dragged him higher and higher until he was dangling upside down, barely maintaining his grip on his glider. He wriggled and struggled against whatever it was holding his ankle in place, but it only tightened until it pinched his skin clear through his boot. Ouch.

"Help!" he shouted to no one in particular, strengthening his grip on his glider and craning to see what had trapped him.

A great rumble came from above, and as Aang swung, he caught a flash of something big and white hovering overhead. Appa?

"Shut up, Aang! They're gonna see you!"

Sokka? He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to still be back at camp, sleeping, and waiting for Aang to come back with Katara. As a hero.

Besides, if Sokka was so worried about how much noise Aang was making, he shouldn't be yelling at Aang to shut up. Aang never would have yelled if he hadn't been surprised by getting his ankle caught and suddenly turning upside down. There wouldn't have been a problem at all if Sokka had just let Aang snoop around to find the information he needed.

Shouts came from somewhere behind Aang—somewhere on the ship, and footsteps started coming their way. See? He knew it.

"Come on, Appa, let's get out of here."

The reins snapped, and Appa began to move with Aang still dangling by his ankle. He started wriggling again, trying to right himself rather than escape this time. Huh. So it was a rope that had snatched him by the ankle. He wasn't sure how Sokka had managed that, but it was sort of a neat trick.

Except for the fact that it had ruined Aang's whole rescue plan.

He finally managed to swing himself high enough to grab the rope and hung right side up long enough to take a breath before he started climbing up into the saddle. If Aang could just get up there, free his ankle from the rope, and explain things to Sokka, his plan might work even better. Now that they'd spotted Appa, this ship wouldn't do them any good, but Aang and Sokka could go looking for Zuko's ship together. It would be faster and easier this way, even if Aang didn't get the satisfaction of surprising anyone when he brought Katara back.

Aang dropped his glider into the saddle before he flopped in after it and lay there to rest for a moment. Flying that far on his own was really tough. He'd have to give Appa extra belly rubs to thank him for carrying them all. Aang would be tired all the time if he had to do it.

After a second, he sat up and crawled to the front. "Hey, Sokka. Now that you're here, maybe we could—"

Sokka snapped back around and gave him such a glare that Aang couldn't help but shrink away. "Sit down," he growled.

Aang obeyed. Sokka sounded mad. Really mad.

Lips pressed together into a tight line, Sokka nodded once before turning forward again and steering Appa back in the direction they'd come. Back toward the Earth Kingdom shores, back toward camp. Away from Katara.

Aang fumbled with the knots until he managed to free his ankle. "Sokka," he tried tentatively. "I didn't get a chance to find any maps, but I think I could figure out which ship is Zuko's anyway if we'd just—"

A crackling, roaring sound came from the ship, and Sokka yanked the reins to the side as a ball of fire hurtled through the air toward them.

"No." Sokka's voice was firm and yet brittle enough to crack. "No. We're going back to camp. No arguments."

"But—"

Sokka steered Appa clear of another fireball and then reached back and grabbed Aang's staff away from him. "I don't want to hear it. Sit down. We're not doing anything that stupid."

This time, Aang couldn't even find the words to protest. Sokka turned forward again, Aang's glider balanced across his lap, and urged Appa faster. Back toward land. Back toward camp. Leaving Katara behind.

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, and he curled himself into a ball. He didn't understand this. Any of it. Sokka was supposed to be happy that Aang was getting Katara back. They both missed her, Aang knew that much. So why was Sokka so angry? He should want things to go back to normal, right? Wasn't that the whole idea? They'd find a way to get Katara out safely, and everything would be okay again. That was how it should work. That was all Aang wanted. He wanted his friends back to normal.

Aang hardly noticed when Sokka swore and swerved clear of another fireball. Instead, he stayed still, his knees pulled up to his chest, and stared back at the promising patches of light on the dark horizon. He could still feel how close he'd been.


It was still dark, still cloudy by the time they made it back to camp. Appa landed with a thump on his side of the clearing, right beside the now dead, blackened remains of the campfire. Sokka patted one of his horns and slid down to the ground without looking back. His jaw muscles kept clenching and unclenching—that had been too close. Way too close. Another minute, and he wouldn't have found Aang until he was already aboard the ship, snooping around and getting himself caught. All for no reason. Katara wasn't on that boat.

Aang slid down after him, barely making a sound. Good. Sokka didn't want to talk. Not yet. It was a small relief to find that Aang apparently shared that sentiment, or at least respected it.

Sokka plopped down beside the fire ring and loaded it up with the few remaining sticks and hunks of half-rotten logs they had left. It had to be close to morning by now. Even if he could trust Aang not to run off a second time, it was too late to get much sleep. Or any sleep. He found his spark rocks and lit a clump of dried grass at the base of the mound of firewood.

Aang still hadn't moved from Appa's side when the twigs caught fire and sent curls of thick smoke up with their flames.

Sokka clenched his jaw harder and looked away.

"Sokka? Are you mad at me?"

A hard, bitter laugh forced its way up. What kind of question was that? Wasn't it obvious? "Do you think?"

Aang shifted his weight. "I could have done it."

"Done what?" Sokka demanded. "What were you planning on doing there?"

"Rescuing Katara."

His mouth hung slack for just a second. "Aang—that—that wasn't even the right ship."

"I know that! I was going to find their maps, figure out where Zuko was, and then go rescue Katara."

"How? How was that supposed to work? How were you planning to sneak onto two different Fire Nation ships, find exactly what you were looking for, and then get off without being caught?"

"I—" Aang fumbled for words, then finally shrugged. "I don't know."

"Aang! Why would you do something that stupid? You can't help Katara if you get yourself captured. What made you think that any of this was a good idea?"

Aang's lower lip wavered. "I just—I just wanted everyone to be happy again. Katara was so mad at me before, and you've been mad at me since the map, and I thought—I thought that if I could bring her back, everything would get better. I thought we could all be friends again." He started to turn away.

No. Oh, no, no, no. He wasn't going anywhere. "Stop right there." Sokka stood up. "You don't get to run away, understand? You're not going back out there again."

He couldn't tell for certain, but Aang might have been crying. Maybe. Okay, probably. Aang swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I just want things to be the way they were before."

Sokka shook his head. He felt a little like he should have been comforting Aang, like he should have given the younger boy a hug and assured him that everything was okay. Well, it wasn't. Sokka wasn't going to lie about that. He crossed his arms.

"They aren't. Okay? Katara is gone, and it's just the two of us until we can get her out of there." He felt his own chin waver just a bit and steeled himself. No. He wasn't going to get emotional. He had to be practical. Someone had to be. That was his little sister out there, and they wouldn't get her back by getting all sad and weepy about it. "And we can't get her back by running off in the middle of the night without a plan, understand? I don't care how sneaky you think you can be. Katara needs us to get her out, and that means that we can't take any stupid risks."

Aang wiped his eyes again. "I don't want you to be mad at me anymore," he said mournfully.

"Then don't run off in the middle of the night to do stupid stuff like this and I won't get mad."

This time, Aang shook his head. "Before that. You were mad at me before that too."

Sokka felt his brows furrow. What? When was he mad at Aang? Except for the map debacle at the convent—he'd been pretty angry about that, but he'd barely thought about that since. "When was I mad at you?"

"All the time! You've been grumpy ever since—"

Sokka didn't have to hear the end of the sentence. Since the convent. Since they lost Katara. Still, he wouldn't consider it grumpiness. He wasn't grumpy, he was focused. Focused on finding a way to get his sister back that didn't involve unnecessary risks like Aang had decided to take.

"Can you blame me? I'm trying to get my sister back in one piece. It isn't exactly easy, you know."

Aang nodded miserably. "I thought it would help if I got her back. It was going to be a surprise."

"You don't get it, do you? Aang, the only reason Zuko hasn't taken her back to the Fire Nation is because he's still looking for a way to get you. How is it supposed to help us if you barge in there without a plan and get yourself caught? Hmm? Because you would have gotten caught."

"We did fine at Haishui."

Sokka rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but Haishui wasn't meant to hold a waterbender. And it was so big that no one noticed us until we started the breakout. And Zuko was at Haishui. He saw how we all escaped." He frowned and kicked a small branch farther into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. "He's an idiot, but he's not that much of an idiot. He's not going to make the same mistakes they did. I told you that we needed a plan. And I told you that we had to stick together."

Momo came to perch on Aang's shoulder, and he reached up to scratch the lemur behind the ears, staring into the fire to avoid Sokka's eyes. "You weren't worried about that part back at the convent."

"What?"

Aang swallowed visibly. "With your friend Bato. You guys were going to leave me behind."

He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, an edge of that old irritation bubbling to the surface again. "Aang, you hid the map from us. The map to our dad. We haven't seen him in years." He stared harder at Aang. "You almost kept Bato from ever getting back to our people. That's a big deal. You can't try to keep us away from our family."

They should be there right now. They should be at Dad's camp, sitting around a fire and listening to Dad's stories, all three of them. It shouldn't just be Sokka and Aang out here in the middle of nowhere with a conspicuously empty space on the other side of the fire.

"You would have left even if I gave you the map." Aang squared his shoulders a bit. "I know I shouldn't have kept it, but you guys were going to leave me anyway. I didn't want that." His voice wobbled again. "You guys are all I have."

Sokka stared. The annoyance, the anger was still there, but surprise moved in to blur its edges. "What?"

"You were so excited about seeing your dad again. No matter what I did, you were going to go, so I just—I tried to slow you down. I just wanted a little more time with you guys before you left."

"Aang—ugh." Sokka rubbed a hand down the side of his face and let out an exasperated sigh. "What made you think that we were going to leave you behind?"

"You wanted to meet your dad, and—"

"And you could have come with us. Seriously. I know my dad, and he'd want to meet you. If we were there right now, he'd probably be trying to teach you all the best knots for fishing or something."

Aang made a face. Right. Fishing probably wasn't the best way to appeal to Aang.

"Point is," Sokka continued, "we weren't going to leave without you. Not unless you wanted us to. And even then, Katara probably would have tried to talk you into coming with us." And it would have worked, too. Katara was always good at stuff like that. Much as he hated to admit it, she was much better at convincing people than Sokka was. "We said that you could be part of our family, but you don't get to replace the family we already have."

Aang shifted from one side to the other. "So—you weren't really mad at me for the map thing?"

Sokka huffed. "No, I was mad. I would have left you behind for that." So would Katara. They'd been very much in agreement on that one.

"Is that why you've been mad at me ever since?"

"What? No." He crossed his arms and rested his elbows on his knees. "I've been trying to think of a way to get to Katara without getting you caught. I haven't had time to be mad." He shot a sideways look at Aang. "Tonight, I'm making an exception."

Aang scratched behind his ear, looking confused.

"Don't you get how this works? Aang, you can be mad at people and still care. I mean, me and Katara—we argue all the time, but she's my baby sister. Nothing we could ever argue about is more important than that. You might not be family by blood, but you're close enough. I'm mad at you, but that doesn't mean that I want Zuko to get his slimy claws on you."

"I don't want anyone to get mad at me."

Sokka shook his head. "Too bad. That's part of the deal. Do stupid things and people get mad at you." He looked into the fire for a little while. "But taking care of you and Katara is my job." His throat felt tight. "I already screwed that up when I lost Katara. Don't make me screw it up again."

Slowly, Aang nodded. "Okay." His voice came out small and almost timid. "How long are you going to be mad?"

With a sigh, Sokka rubbed his forehead again. At this rate, he was going to have a permanent mark there. "I don't know, Aang. Probably until you apologize."

"I'm sorry, Sokka."

Sokka nodded and frowned into the fire for a minute. "Maybe a little longer than that." He stood up and squeezed Aang's shoulder. "Go to sleep, okay? We'll have to leave early to catch up with Zuko's real ship again."


Author's Note:

Gaah, it feels weird to post a chapter with no Katara and no Zuko. But the boys had to make a rescue attempt sooner or later (or... y'know, two separate rescue attempts, a failed one for Katara and a successful one for Aang), and chronological order is a cruel master. It was either this or confusing both myself and the story's timeline.

And it was high time for some blunt conversations to happen. Hopefully they hit the spot!

I'll be back again in two weeks with the next chapter, and in the meantime, reviews are always appreciated, and feel free to visit me on Tumblr!