Hi, I'm back.
Disclaimer: I do not own A:TLA
Aqua's POV
I gasped excitedly when I had finished reading the letter. Abilene asked what it said.
"The C-Year is arriving tomorrow!" I said.
"Really?" Alinta asked.
"Yes, why would I lie to you?" I asked.
Alinta shrugged. "I guess I thought I heard wrong."
"How could you hear "Princess Azula of the Fire Nation has dyed her hair bright pink" wrong?" I asked jokingly.
Abilene looked at me strangely. "Wait, princess Azula dyed her hair pink?"
"No," Alinta said, "She was just joking,"
"Oh," Abilene said.
"Were you even listening to me?" I asked.
"No," Abilene said sheepishly. "My mind just wandered."
"Oh," I said. That happens a lot. "The C-year is coming tomorrow,"
"Yay!" Abilene said, "Excitement,"
"Ooh, that's nice," Alya said, coming from getting some water from the river, trying to airbend it and make it look like she's waterbending. I was honestly fooled. I saw her with the ball of water and I almost screamed, but I noticed that her hands were different.
"Nice airbending," I said, "Almost had me fooled."
"What?" Abilene siad, turning around. Alya airbended the water back, this time making her hands look more believable. Abilene's jaw dropped.
Alinta turned around. "Oh, you're just airbending the water up, aren't you?"
"How did you know? I got the hands better!" Alya said unbelievably.
"Aqua said something about airbending, no seasonbender can bend two elements, and your hands are kind of swirling," Alinta said plainly. "Just connect the dots,"
aLiNtA bEiNg SmArT.
A few minutes later, I wanted to play Abilene's submerge game. "I wanna play submerge," I heard myself say.
"Submerge? What's-oh, submerge." Alinta said, "Sure,"
"Fine with me," Alya said.
"I'll start making the playing field," Abilene said, stomping her foot to make the ditch.
One minute later, we were all standing in our corners, holding up a sphere of our element. For some unknown reason, we did not jump to try to fight someone else off of their pillars, like we normally do. I guess we were waiting for someone else to come to us. Alya took the initiative and blasted Alinta off her pillar. I hopped over to Abilene and created a water octopus. She tried to hurl small boulders at me, but I blocked them. I felt the oncoming blast of air that I had trained myself to feel; Alya was using my distraction against me. I had to quickly kneel down, evading the air blast that now sent Abilene tumbling off of her pillar. I turned around and stood up. Alya's face was unreadable. I let my octopus down and launched three streams of water at Alya, who deflected the first two, but the third got her left hand. I sent three more her way, and the same thing happened, but now she had both her hands in water-cuffs. I moved her arms in every direction; up, down, out, in, left, right, left-up, right-down, right-up, left-down, until she lost balance and fell off of her pillar.
"Great job, everyone!" I said, "Now, wanna play sardines?"
"Sure," Everyone said.
"Antidibs," I said, kneeling down and touching my nose.
"Not it," Alinta and Alya said in unison.
"Not it," Abilene said last. She was it.
We all covered our eyes and ears, and Abilene went off to hide. 30 seconds later, we uncovered our eyes and ears and went searching.
Concordia's POV
"Hellooo, helloo?" I called. "A-Year! Abilene! Aqua! Alya! Alinta!"
I waited a few seconds, walking with the river. Chasca had originally wanted to go in this direction, but I argued that since I was a waterbender, I should be with the water. Here's what happened.
A half-hour earlier… still Concordia's POV
I scanned the river and its banks. We were all looking for the A-Year, or their camp. Chasca was down on the ground, earthbending around to try to look out at the further plains. Chrystal was flying around on her glider, and Clove was riding next to me, scanning out on the other side of the river to where Chasca was. A few minutes went by without saying anything since we dropped Chasca off. Then, I said, "There!" Then, patting Chrystal's flying bison, siad, "Salt, will you get us down there?" Salt immediately obeyed, heading just to the side of a splotch of color that I had glimpsed.
Once we got down, Detected the blue, green, orange, and yellow tents as belonging to the A-Year. I told Salt to look for Chrystal, and I went off in search for Chasca. Clove stayed near the camp, just in case the A-Year came back. After 10-15 minuets, we were all gathered in the A-Year's camp, discussing what to do next.
"We should all search in different directions, they couldn't have gone far," Chrystal said. "Someone should go along the side of the river, one directly west, one directly north, and one should stay here, in case they show up, but no one has to go east, because I already looked there,"
Everyone agreed to this, and Chrystal volunteered to stay at the camp.
Clove said, "I wanna go due north,"
"Yeah, and I wanna go along the river," Chasca said.
"Actually, shouldn't I go along the river?" I argued, "I am a waterbender, after all."
Chasca shrugged. "Good point,"
And so, Chasca headed west, Chrystal stayed at the camp, Clove headed due north, and I followed the river. Since the river headed north-east, I could chat with Clove at the start. We talked about nothing really interesting, just what we would do if we found them. We decided that the person would head back to the camp and send Salt after Chasca, and Chrystal after the other person. Eventually, though, we got too far apart to talk any longer.
When Concordia found Alya… Still her POV
Yeah, nothing much. But, a minute after I had called the A-Year, calling each of their names, I got a response. Alya, the A-Year's airbender, flew up from the waterfall that was just in front of me.
"Concordia!" She squealed as soon as she saw me, "You're here early!"
"Yeah," I said, "Is everyone else here?"
Alya nodded, "Yes, they're down somewhere by the lake, playing sardines. Is the rest of the C-Year here?"
"Yes, we were looking for you," I said, "Now, since I found you, I have to go back to your camp, where Salt and Chrystal are waiting."
"Nice," Alya said, "how about we go back to camp, call everyone back, and bring them to the area where we are playing sardines."
I agreed, and a few minutes later, we were all bending our way down the river.
Chasca's POV
I had an idea where Abilene would be. Alya explained that we were playing sardines., and it wasn't too far into the game. Earthbenders know where earthbenders be. I waited for everyone else to leave, pretending to think about where she might be. I had three ideas of what might describe it. One; eathy. Two: not out in the open. Three: probably covered, but still accessible to benders of other elements. Most likely in a cave behind the waterfall. Once everyone else had disappeared, I walked to the waterfall and bended a little stairway spiraling up. As I walked, I bended the rock back so that no one else could tell that I had entered here this way. I walked up the stairway, bending out more space in front of me and moving the rock back behind me. Once I got halfway up to the top, I came to a little nook behind the waterfall. I saw Abilene huddled in a corner, practicing her earthbending.
She looked up from boredly raising a patch of earth repeatedly to me and said, "Chasca! You're here!" She stood up and hugged me fiercely, a good, earthbender hug. "You're a day early,"
I coked my head, "No, we sent a messenger hawk yesterday,"
Abilene looked confused, then, after a moment, a look of a mixture between realization and embarrassment came over her face, "Oh, yeah. Alia has been practicing airbending and has grown quite strong, I guess she is stronger than she thought,"
I laughed. "She must've delayed it, the poor creature. Messenger hawks are strong flyers, but when you said Alya was getting strong, you meant strong." Abilene nodded.
A few seconds later, a small outcropping was formed out of ice in front of the cave, and the water on top was bended away as Concordia dropped into the cave.
"Hey, guys!" She said, "how late am I?"
"Not much," I said, "I basically just got here."
"Great," Concordia nodded.
"Well, while we're waiting for people to continue on with the game, let's play a game!" I Abilene said, earthbending a small rock out of the ground. "Say the other person's name, then throw the rock to them,"
"I'm not an earthbender," Concordia said.
"No earthbending. Or waterbending." Abilene siad. We arranged ourselves in a circle.
"Concodia," Abilene said, throwing the rock.
Concordia catched the rock deftly in one hand and then thew it to me, saying, "Chasca."
I threw it back to Concordia, saying, "Co," because that was our nickname for her, because "Concordia" is so long of a name. No offense meant to Concordia.
She threw it to Abilene, and this went on for a few minutes until Alya came crashing through the waterfall on her glider. "Hi," she said.
We played rock toss in between someone coming into the cave, then rock toss, then someone else, on and on until everyone except Alinta were there. (In case you were wondering, this was the order of who found Abilene; me, Concordia, Alya, Aqua, Clove, then Chrystal. We were just waiting for Alinta and we decided not to play rock toss, because it was getting boring. Eventually, though, Alinta bended her way into the cave and scanned each of our faces and determined that she was the last one to find Abilene.
"Okay, so, Do I hide or is the first one to find Abilene hiding?" Alinta asked.
"Uh, rock, paper, scissors?" Abilene suggested.
"Sure," Alinta shrugged.
"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" I threw rock, and Alinta threw paper. "Best out of three," I said. I won with a paper, then lost with a scissors. She knew my strategy already.
"I don't wanna hide," Alinta said, "Chasca gets to hide."
I groaned. This was the only spot I had in mind! And I didn't even know it existed back then. Well, I had to try.
I exited the cave and looked around for a good hiding spot. There was a lake, a few cliffs, a tree, and a waterfall. Not much here. I decided to go to the top of the cliff and search there. (Nothing in the rules against it.) I saw a small forestry area near the edge of a cliff, but far enough away to be safe, even if you were walking at the edge of the forest. I walked over and bended five tunnel entrances around the clump of trees, and created a maze-like tunnel system, with a few extra hiding places as a bonus feature, nonbender- welcoming. I crawled into a tunnel, past 2 hiding places, turn left, pass one tunnel, turn right, turn right, second hiding place to the left. And I waited.
Alinta's POV
I lost last time. I would not lose again. There is an even lower chance that I will find Chasca first. I am a firebender. Chasca is an earthbender. I am a winterbender. She is a summerbender. I am in the A-year. Chasca is in the C-Year. But I will still try.
I figured that Chasca wouldn't hide down by the lake, so after everyone else was out of sight, I flw up the cliff using firebending, making myself look like a human rocket, if anyone saw me. I saw a small grove of trees and some tunnel entrances. I guess that Chasca made it easy. But there were five, so four of them were red herrings. Or they all were red herrings. I decided to give it a shot. Might as well, I didn't see anyone else up here. I think. I scanned the cliffs. I didn't see anyone else climbing up from the valley.
I turned back to the tunnels. I took a wild guess and climbed into one of the tunnels, the second-closest one. (A/N basically the tunnels are intertwined, so the fact that the tunnel that Chasca climbed into was the one next to it, the closest one, doesn't really matter.) I crawled into the tunnel, head slightly tired back so that I could see in front of me. There seemed to be what looked like little niches in the tunnels, possible hiding places? I peered into each one and didn't see Chasca, or anyone, for that matter. I turned down a tunnel, then another, until, eventually, I found Chasca, huddled up in one of the niches.
"Hey," I said, startling her.
"Hi, you're here early." She responded.
I raised an eyebrow, "Early?"
"Oh," She said, a little embarrassed. "I mean, quick. Quickly."
We both nodded vigorously until we burst out laughing, and apparently that was a mistake.
Aqua's POV
I slowly walked over to the grove of trees. I trodded among the trees for a few minutes until I thought I heard laughing. Laughing? I thought. That can't be right. No one is here. I thought for a moment, then realized. Unless people are here!
I navigated through the branching leaves and walls of vines until I reached the forest's edge. I circled the ring of trees, and I came to an unusual tunnel entrance, and, naturally, I crawled through.
I crawled through a system of tunnels, seeing little hiding places along the walls. I wandered around until I found Alinta and Chasca huddling in one of the larger niches.
"Hey, nice place you got here," I said, crawling into the surprisingly spacious nook. It was more comfortable than it seemed.
A few minutes of waiting went by, until Chrystal came, soaked in water.
At my questioning look, she explained, "Thought she was near the water, but it was only Alya."
"Ah," I said. "Alya the airbender?"
"Yep," Chrystal answered, "Alya the airbender."
And, blah, blah, blah, the order in which the people came: Alinta, me, Chrystal, Concordia, Abilene, Alya, Clove. Rock, paper, scissors, Alinta won and wanted to hide.
Bada bing, bada boom. We all set off, searching for Alinta, who could be anywhere, considering that she's a winterbending firebender in spring. (Well, actually, It is technically winter, but Abilene hasn't seen spring in a while because last spring we were in the south pole visiting Katara, (Oh, yeah, if you didn't know, we are also friends with Katara. Did I mention that? No, I think Abilene said that. Maybe.)which is a winterbender's land.)
Here's the summary: She hid in the cave where Abilene hid, and It took a half-hour for the first person to find her, which was Chrystal. Then Abilene, then Clove, Alya, and me, who were kind if teeming up for a little while, then Chasca and finally Concordia. You might want the details, but basically, it was boring. Well, I stubbed my toe slightly. But still, it was basic.
bUt, ThEn, as we were climbing up the waterfall, I smelled some smoke. I was worried that the campfire had spread too much, and scared that Salt might have gotten hurt. That wasn' the case, but I wish it would have been.
We bended our way up the waterfall, cringing from the smell of smoke. When we reached the top, we discovered that a fire nation thingy-ma-bob was passing by on the plain. It looked like a ship… being towed… by an alligator. Oh, wait, it was a rhino. A pack of rhinos. Yes, a pack of rhinos were pulling a fire navy ship across a 3-mile strip of land to the nearest lake. I squinted my eyes, trying to figure out who that might possibly be.
Finally done with chapter 2! Sorry it took so long.
No promises on the posting date of chapter 3, but I will tell you that you will get to see Katara.
-Saladin2
