The next several days were a blur of training and travel. The closer they were to the desert, the drier and hotter the air was. Matthew could speak better and more fluently with each passing day. He could now convey likes, dislikes, and basic needs in simple sentences, which made things easier for everyone.

"Let's stop here!"

Katara snapped out of her leisurely doze, looking over the edge of Appa's saddle to see much of the same barren savanna they'd been crossing for three days. "Bathroom break?"

Aang was already guiding Appa to the ground. "I wanna show you guys something really fun-er, cool! And…educational. A mini-vacation!"

"Uuugh, we don't have time for this," Sokka groaned, but his complaint went largely unheeded.

Appa's feet touched the ground. Toph was the first to clamber off, digging her toes into the cracked soil with a contented smile. "Aaaah, vision. I love you, awareness of my surroundings."

Matthew nimbly jumped off the saddle, stretched, and turned full-circle to regard his surroundings. "Who-er…What is here?"

"Something cool," Aang reassured vaguely. He rummaged through his pack and brought out a wooden flute.

"When did you get that?" Sokka immediately demanded. "Are you spending money on stupid things, again?"

"You're the one who trusted him with money in the first place," Katara reminded.

The airbender ignored them both and walked a measurable distance away from the bison before sitting down on the ground.

"Seriously, though," Sokka said, "What's out here?"

Toph blinked. "A lot, actually," she said, mild surprise coloring her tone. She knelt down and touched her palm to the ground. "There's a bunch of-"

"Shh! You'll ruin the surprise," Aang admonished. He brought the flute to his lips, and played a short note.

A groundhog-like creature popped up from a hole in the ground, and mimicked the note before disappearing into the ground again. Aang played a simple scale, causing more of these little animals to pop out from different holes to answer each note.

Katara giggled despite herself. "Spirits, Aang. You could've been a composer.

Matthew made a noise that sounded somewhere between a snort and a laugh, shaking his head. "So odd."

Aang leaned back in surprise when one popped out just inches from his face. The group laughed, save for Sokka. The Water Tribe teen stomped over and confiscated the flute. "We don't have time for this…this 'mini-vacation'! We need to be making plans."

"Like what?" Aang was immediately defensive. "I'm mastering the elements as fast as I can! It's not like we can really do anything to the Fire Lord until then!"

Katara nodded in agreement. "There's no harm in having some fun in our downtime."

"We should be gathering intelligence," Sokka snapped. "Aang can't beat the Fire Lord if we can't even find the guy. And Matthew still needs a way to get home. You think he'd be okay with this if he really knew what was happening, here?"

Matthew perked up at hearing his name. "Home?"

The group went uncomfortably silent at the innocent hope in his tone. 'Home' had been one of the first words he learned since they'd found him. The most important word, at least for him.

Katara did her best to dispel the sudden pall that had fallen over the group. "How about this? We'll mini-vacation while we're out here in the middle of nowhere. The moment we find civilization again is the moment we can start looking for Sokka's intelligence."

Sokka huffed and crossed his arms at Katara's joke. Toph openly laughed.

Aang spread the map out on the ground and grinned up at his waterbending teacher. "Okay, Katara. Where do you want to go for your mini-vacation?"

Katara studied the map for a moment, and tapped one of the few icons nearby. "Oh! What about the Misty Palms Oasis? That sounds refreshing."

"Oh, yeah!" Aang grinned. "I've been there. It's a pristine natural ice spring. One of nature's wonders!"

Matthew frowned. "I am sorry. What is 'pristine'?"

"Pristine is…" Sokka trailed off, hunting for a way to explain it. "Pristine is like—untouched. Do you understand?"

Matthew blinked and shook his head.

"You'll see it when we get there," Aang promised. "Okay?"

"Yes," Matthew sighed a bit wearily. He ran a hand through his light hair. "Sorry. Frustrating."

"Sure is," Toph grumbled in agreement. "I still want to know who you really are."

"What do you mean, who he really is?" Sokka demanded, eyes narrowing slightly. "You don't think he's…?"

"No," Toph denied quickly. "I don't think he's an enemy. He's just…different. I feel it in my feet."

Sokka was now giving Matthew a careful look. The man furrowed his brow and raised his hands in a pacifying gesture, seeming to sense the new suspicion being held towards him even if he couldn't understand everything that was being said.

"He's still learning how to talk," Katara said, trying to ease her brother's misgivings. "Wouldn't even understand the question if we ask."

"Yeah," Aang quickly agreed. "I'm sure he'll be happy to explain once he learns how." He rolled up the map. "The map says that Misty Palms isn't far from here. We'll get there by afternoon if we start flying now."

"I spy with my little eye, something brown."

"Hmmm…" Iroh looked around. "Dirt?"

"Correct!"

Zuko scowled. "Don't encourage him, Uncle."

"Being irritated will not make this journey any easier," Iroh said sagely. "So there's really no point in it. You should really try being cheerful, sometime, Nephew."

"I'll pass," Zuko shot back, adjusting his grip on the ostrich-horse's reins. "Cheerfulness is equally pointless. Just look at Alfred."

Alfred didn't even bat an eye. "You're grumpy," he observed. "Even worse than Arthur."

"Someone you know back home?" Iroh guessed.

"Uh-huh," Alfred affirmed. "Raised me like his own son. Or brother. He never really decided which."

"Where did he go wrong?" Zuko wondered aloud.

Alfred snorted. "He always asks the same thing."

The trio fell into somewhat companionable silence as they continued down the trail. Two days, and they've seen nothing but hard dirt, rocks, and tufts of stubborn yellow grass. They needed to resupply, but there were no towns or villages anywhere nearby. They would be running out of food soon.

Not that one could sense the dire straits they were in with the way his uncle and the tag-along were carrying on.

"I spy with my little eye—"

"Uncle!"

"—something blue."

Alfred turned in a full circle. "Aaaah…is it the sky?"

"Indeed," Iroh congratulated grin. "Your turn, Nephew."

"I'm not playing."

"Just once. Then we'll leave you alone."

Zuko sighed, wanting to know why the spirits hated him so much. "Fine. I spy with my little eye, something annoying."

"Ah…I'm actually stumped on this one. Alfred?"

"I dunno. The heat, maybe?"

"Hmmm, I don't think that's it. Very well played, Nephew."

Zuko growled at them both incomprehensibly. Thankfully, this game was short-lived. Because there really wasn't anything else to point out besides the empty blue sky, or the dead ground. There was heat, too. But heat like this was negligible to a realized firebender.

"Oh! I know some fun travel songs."

"From your homeland?" Iroh asked curiously.

Alfred nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah, I learned a bunch of them on the road. People can be real creative, ya know? Except—" and here he deflated a bit— "they're all in English. Damn."

"You could sing one anyways?" Iroh suggested innocently.

"How about no?" Zuko also suggested, less innocently.

"Too late!" Alfred cheerfully burst into song. Song, as in a patterned jumble of strange vowels and oddly placed consonants put to a whimsical (and annoying) tune. His voice projected easily across the empty savanna.

Iroh laughed and attempted to sing along at what sounded like a chorus. Zuko groaned and clapped his hands over his ears, wondering how much linger he'd be subjected to the cruel brand of torture.

"This is…pristine?"

"No, Matthew…no it's not."

The spring was still there. But at some point in the last hundred or so years it had melted into an odd ice lump in the middle of the square. What was left looked like it was being chipped away, or outright broken. And given the state of the dilapidated buildings and extremely shady characters inhabiting them, it wasn't difficult to imagine how that had happened.

Aang glanced over at his disappointed friends, and then away. "Must've…changed ownership…"

Sokka rolled his eyes. "I knew this would be stupid."

Aang flinched, and of course Katara was quick to try and raise his spirits. "Let's at least stop for a drink." She pointed to a nearby cantina. "Looks busy in there; I bet it's good."

As they were filing through the narrow doorway into the building, one of the dirty people loitering outside grabbed Matthew's wrist. "Why hello there, pretty thing," came the dry hiss. He stroked a lock of Matthew's hair, appraising it like a product to be sold, "I know someone who'd pay big money for something like—"

Matthew was quick to guess the man's intent. Sokka was the only one to witness him punch the man hard enough that another loiterer had to hold the first one upright.

"Friends are 'pretty' also," Matthew muttered to Sokka, very deliberately ignoring the attention he'd earned from the people around them. "Bad people." The Water Tribe teen understood him perfectly well.

The dim lighting did nothing to hide the shabby interior, or the quality of clientele. It only served to gleam against the wicked swords and knives amongst the huddled groups of seedy figures clumped at each table.

Toph was the first to actually order something from the bar. While Sokka himself was admiring Toph's bravery, Aang collided with another patron.

'Oh, now he's done it, there's gonna be a fight and weapons and spilled mango juice—!'

"It's alright," the airbender reassured, not realizing the potential situation. "I clean up easy." He conjured a wind to evaporate the spill on his clothing.

Sokka groaned at his friend's thoughtlessness. Aang might as well have jumped on a table and announced to the bar, 'HI EVERYONE YES LOOKATME I'M AN AIRBENDING CHILD AND WORTH A LOT OF MONEY.'

The spirits were smiling down upon them at that moment. Because no one else in the cantina seemed to notice the display, and the man just looked excited.

"Oma and Shu, you're an air nomad!"

Even Aang had to step back from the force of this man's enthusiasm. "Yeeees?"

"A living relic!"

"Er…thanks…I guess." Being who he was, Aang had received a lot of admiration over their journey. Rarely was it strong enough to make him actually self-conscious.

"Magnificently intriguing!" the man cried, coming too close to Aang and circling him as though hoping to memorize every little detail. "Now tell me, what was the agricultural product of your people?"

The rest of them stood aside, watching Aang get pelted with questions too fast for him to answer. Toph and Katara had apparently decided this man was not a threat (if anything, they were amused), and Matthew hadn't made any aggressive moves either (though Sokka had a niggling suspicion that he very well could if he wanted to). So Sokka was content to let Aang squirm a bit.

Call it mini-payback for the worst mini-vacation ever.

As the man had paused to scribble into a worn leather-bound journal, Katara was good enough to finally intercede. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

The man stopped writing and looked up at her, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. "Oh dear, where are my manners?" He snapped the book shut and bowed deeply. "I am Professor Zei, of Ba Sing Se University."

"You sound like the kind of guy that has a map," Sokka said, stepping forward. "Ours is a bit out of date." He gave Aang a pointed glance; the airbender smiled sheepishly.

"Of course!" Zei exclaimed. He eagerly led them to an empty table and dug into his bag. "Let's see…ah! Here we go." He spread it out onto the table.

Sokka leaned close to study it. "No Fire Nation?" he asked, dismayed. "Does no one have a good map of the place?"

"I certainly don't," the professor admitted with a small shrug. "Those are rather hard to come by in the Earth Kingdom. I only have this one, detailing my numerous journeys into the Si Wong Desert."

"Why would you go there?" Toph asked, finally entering the conversation now that her mango drink was finished.

"I am searching for something." Zei answered as he stashed his map away again. "I specialize in lost civilizations. While I have discovered evidence of many, many amazing and intriguing lost cultures, I have yet to find the crown jewel."

Katara tilted her head in intrigue. "Crown jewel?"

"Wan Shi Tong's library." The professor sighed wistfully. "Though I've about given up on it. I've nearly died every time I went looking for it."

"Really," Toph snorted. "You've made multiple trips into the desert for a library?"

"This isn't just any library!" Zei insisted, the browned scholar more defensive and incensed than they'd seen him yet. It sounded like he'd had some version of this argument multiple times. "It's the largest collection of knowledge that exists! Thousands of years of books, scrolls, maps, and documents all gathered up and brought out of the Spirit World by Wan Shi Tong and his knowledge seekers so that we humans could better ourselves."

"There might be something about Matthew's home there," Aang said, glancing back at the quiet blond standing awkwardly behind them. "Or about how he got here, at least."

Sokka, however, had latched onto a particular word in Zei's ode to the Magic Library. "I heard maps. Like maps of the Fire Nation, maybe. Do you know what it looks like?"

"I've got an illustration right here." Professor Zei dug into his rucksack and carefully withdrew a particularly old scroll. Like it was the most sacred thing he owned. "But like I said before—"

"Yeah, yeah, dangerous desert," the Water Tribe teen interrupted, his mind already moving on to the coming trip. "We can just fly over it, anyways…"

"Fly?" Zei raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're no air nomad."

The group exchanged several gleeful looks. Aang's most of all—he loved to show Appa off. "Professor? How would you like to meet our sky bison?"

As the sun started to sink, they encountered an abandoned barn. Despite the holes in the roof and likely termite-ant infestation, the wooden structure was miraculously upright. The dying light cast long, eerie shadows.

"Let's stop here for tonight," Iroh suggested with a yawn. "Soon we'll reach the Si Wong Desert, and we should be well-rested for it."

Zuko eyed the barn warily. "What're the chances that this building, that hasn't fallen yet, decides to fall on our heads while we're sleeping?"

"Yet another good reason to have a diligent night watch, Nephew," Iroh reminded wisely.

They weren't quite ten feet from what used to be the doorway (but was now just a slightly larger hole among holes) when Alfred stopped them both. "Something's in there."

There wasn't even time to draw another breath before there was a movement from the shadow of the barn. A wild moose-lion pounced at Iroh, who dodged just in time to avoid the razor-sharp claws. Zuko had to fight the ostrich horse's reins to keep it from running off with their supplies. The huge predator snorted and turned towards them again, pawing the ground for a second charge.

Alfred ran up from behind and grabbed its antlers, sharply yanking back and effectively ripping its focus away from Iroh in favor of this new opponent. The beast snarled and bucked. Alfred laughed something in his own language right back at it even as the moose-lion wrenched itself free. It lunged to pin the blond to the ground.

Zuko was still wrestling with the ostrich-horse, and his uncle was still at the other end of the clearing. Before either of them could think of something to do, Alfred punched up desperately into the thing's slavering jaw.

There were sparks flying off his knuckles.

Iroh had seen it too. They spared quick, significant glances at each other. And in that moment Alfred punched again, hard enough that the animal's head snapped aside. Alfred took the opening and rolled away from those giant paws. He stood while it was still disoriented and slammed both fists down onto its head. A sharp CRACK! and the saber-tooth moose-lion crumpled.

It took a moment for Zuko to remember how to speak. The moment he did it was to ask, "Do you know what you just did?"

"Killed a—thing?" Alfred looked down at it uncertainly. "A lion with a moose head. Probably edible. Not sure how to go about this one though, honestly. Doesn't look anything like the stuff at home ... But moose are mean as shit, so I guess you got that much right?"

"I believe he's referring to the other thing," Iroh prompted gently.

"Oh. That. Um," Alfred began running fingers through his mussed hair. "I've always been…strong…I guess."

Zuko recognized that hesitation for what it was, and wondered why Alfred was suddenly so nervous just talking to them, when he had just come off fighting for his life as if it hadn't been a big deal.

Except in infuriatingly Alfred fashion, the blond was still absolutely missing what they were trying to tell him.

"We're all tired," Iroh announced abruptly. "I don't know how to properly dress a moose-lion either, if there even is a protocol for that. But we'll put our heads together and figure something out. We really need the meat."

Iroh quelled the blatant comment on Zuko's tongue with a look. A look that said very clearly, 'Later. Don't jump to conclusions.'

Though really Zuko felt it should have been very, very obvious.

Aaaand that's another one wrapped up. Things are due to start picking up from here.

Later dudes. ^J^