The Burning Rose

Chapter Two: The Spirit and Sokka

OOC- Actually, it isn't short, but it isn't long, so I hope you like it! I am so bad at writing,"cry", I wish I was better! I have updated it. I hope is better than the first one! Please review!

"Hey, Aang!" She shouted from the kitchen as she waterbended some water into the sink in front of her.

"Yeah?" he said from the dining room. He started to walk towards the kitchen through winding hallways. He finally got to the kitchen. He stood in the doorway as Katara started to speak.

"Where is the new Fire Lord?" she said, staring at her bowl as she cleaned it.

"He had to go to a meeting right after this," he said as he moved right next to Katara, watching her wash her dish.

"Why did he come to see us if he had to go to the meeting?" she asked as she got out some soap and quickly rubbed the dish down once with soap before she started to clean again.

"He said he wanted to see you." He said, trying not to get mad at Zuko for saying that. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that they are friends. Only friends. Katara's mine. He took another deep breath.

"Did you hear me?" Katara said as she took out the bowl and waterbended the water off, making it bone dry. He saw that the fading sunlight that came through the window make the sweat on her brow glow an orange color.

"No. What did you say?" his voice fading as he said it, thinking about how beautiful Katara looked when she worked hard. He pushed back a stray hair that had escaped from her now loose bun.

"What is so important about this meeting? Is it important enough to leave right while you are in the middle of meeting some friends you haven't seen in a while?" she snapped at Aang as she put the bowl down in the cabinets on top of the other bowls.

"Well," he said, coming out of his thoughts, "It was a meeting between all of the major leaders of the world. Something happened that they had to have an emergency meeting."

"What happened?" she asked as she tried to pick up the heavy black pot holding the soup.

"No one knows, only the leaders," he said, trying to help her by bending some of the water out of it to make it lighter. "but I bet Sifu Hotman will tell us."

"I bet so too," she panted as she put the heavy black kettle full of soup near the window sill and tipped it so the contents spilled over.

She pulled it back and set it back where it was, over the dead fire. She walked over to Aang, and gave him a hug.

"I am going get everyone and get them in their rooms, ok?" she said.

"Ok," he said, pausing in the doorway, wondering if he should go back and kiss her, but decided against it and went to bed.

Katara moved and got all of her friend's bowls, put them in the kitchen, and showed them all their rooms, Suki insisting to have her room right next to Sokka's.

Once everyone was situated, she went and washed the bowls in silence, using her waterbending to get the bowls wet and drying them off. The whole time, she thought about Suki's request.

'What happened at the South Pole?' she thought as she put a bowl away. 'Did Sokka do anything to her? Why did they Suki want their rooms close together? What is going on between them? Did they get married? I have a right to know! I should ask Suki, at least she would tell me. Sokka would deny anything. I don't want to bother her at this late of a time, so I will just finish this and go to my room and go to bed.

She did just that, but she didn't go to bed. She ended up watching the moon come up and see the stars come out. She loved to watch it from her beautiful balcony she cleans everyday. She leaned against the marble rail, holding her yellow and blue necklace that had been made by Aang for a betrothal necklace. It had a yellow air symbol with a blue water symbol inside of it. The band's colors was split in half, the top half yellow and the bottom blue. She hated the colors together and she wanted to yank it off and throw it out the window, but she couldn't and wouldn't break Aang's heart.

That was the same thing that got her in this situation. She didn't want to break Aang's heart when he asked her to marry him. She didn't want to marry him, but she didn't want to see him hurt, so she said yes. That was the decision she regretted most in her life.

She stared into the sunset, thinking about what she had done. She had always had a crush on Aang, but she found someone else who had taken her heart. Now Aang was just like a little brother to her.

She sighed as she saw the full moon reach halfway across the sky. She felt like she had gotten an energy boost under the moon, but she knew it wouldn't last long.

Suddenly, she saw a black streak across her left. She turned to look and it was gone. She pulled out her waterskin and opened it when she heard a whisper in her ear.

"Don't worry. It's just me." It said, soft enough that she barely heard it.

She immediately relaxed, put the water back in her skin, and corked it in one smooth motion. She turned around to see the person behind her and it put a blindfold over her head.

"What are you doing?" she said as it moved over to her back to tie it behind her head.

"Nothing," it said, as it finished tying the knot. It tried to lower its voice more so she wouldn't recognize it. It worked for a little while, then she could pick up its real voice.

"Tell me or I will kill you," she said, trying to rip the blindfold off. She tugged with all of her strength and it wouldn't come off. As she pulled on it, she felt her circulation in her head begin to stop, and she frantically tried to rip off the blindfold.

"Help me," she screamed to the darkness, waving her hands around like a blind man, trying to find the other person. "Get this loose or something, it is cutting off my circulation!"

"Shush!" it said as it began to loosen the blindfold. It was even lower this time, but she swore she knew the person.

She stood there, steaming, as it loosened the blindfold. Instantly, she was grateful that the person was there, even though she didn't know who it was.

Once it was done, she felt it begin to tug on her hand. She immediately followed the direction it was tugging her. She stumbled twice as she was being pulled, and she tripped once, but the person caught her and hastily put her back on her feet before pulling again. Once it stopped pulling her, she stood, waiting for it to say something. When the person didn't, she spoke up.

"Can I take off my blindfold?" she said quietly, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"NO!" it said in a loud whisper.

"Well, I am going to do it anyway!" she said as she started to move toward the blindfold across her face.

"Fine," it whispered, and she immediately pulled it off. She looked around and saw nothing but black. She wanted to scream, but she made no sound. She felt like the black was enclosing her body, she felt like she couldn't breathe, and she actually screamed this time. Then she felt a hand over her mouth that she couldn't see. She began to freak out again and started to scream, but the hand muffled it.

"Be quiet," it said, its face right next to her ear. She felt a shiver run down her back as it spoke into her ear. She immediately stopped screaming and turned to look at it. It had an ugly spirit mask on. It was made a red mask that covered the left half of its face, and blue the other half, like a yin yang mask. It looked like the Blue Spirit, but with it cut in half and the other half was red with gold. "Follow me," it said. "We aren't done yet."

Katara followed the spirit out a window that let in none of the moon's light. She hadn't noticed the window or the door in the room they left behind, but she did notice that the other person was very agile and flexible. The spirit leaped the top of buildings like a grasshopper. The spirit never stopped, only to help her when she got caught on a piece of shingle. She was now very grateful the spirit was here.

They leaped over the green and brown buildings like cats over a wall. She could spring high in the air, but not very far. The spirit, however, didn't leap very high, but made it a farther distance. The spirit was always ahead of her, and she got mad at that fact. That meant he was better than her.

She looked at the spirit, and it felt like, somehow, she knew the spirit. It had its face covered, but she could see the way it moved, like someone she had known. It crouched like someone she had known, but it wasn't a girl. She could tell of the difference. The spirit didn't really crouch low, and it wasn't very agile as a girl would be, but it was still very agile.

She shrugged it off as the spirit turned the corner of the Temple into a deserted building right inside a dark alley. It was a far length from the Temple, just enough that if she were to scream, no one would hear her from the temple. Katara hesitated at the end of the dark alley.

"Whoa, wait," she said. "I don't trust you enough to go in there with you."

The spirit just motioned for her to follow, so she cautiously walked over, keeping her guard up at all times. When she got into the building, the spirit closed the rusty door with an earsplitting creak. Katara gasped as the spirit did so. She immediately uncorked her water skin and got the water ready out in front of her. The spirit put his hands up, and pointed toward the corner of the building. There Katara saw a body on the floor. There were holes in the roof of the building and Katara was lucky that it wasn't going to rain or it could have made the roof cave in. A tiny amount of light escaped from the moon into the building, just enough so she could see where she was going.

She walked over to the body and crouched over it, trying to make out their face. She looked carefully, trying to see the face with a strip of moonlight over their body, then her face went deathly pale and she looked like she was about to scream. There was blood in a little puddle underneath the body and she fainted from shock, but screamed one thing before her world went black.

"Sokka!"

OOC- Sorry for the OOCness from Katara. I wanted to make a cliff hanger! (I do like them!) I won't leave you with cliff hangers all the time, and I promise to get better at writing, (I hope!), if I can get better... Ok! Thank you for reading, and don't be afraid to review. I have the anonymous up, so if you want to, you don't have to login to review!

I would like to thank silver-nightstorm for her advice. It really helped me! Thank you!

And I want to thank hhi. You are awesome! Thank you for reviewing, and they help me to keep writing!

Thank you for reading!