The Burning Rose
Chapter Three
The Trudge Back
OOC- Sorry! The writing sucks. Please excuse me.
This is going to be EXTREMELY LONG, compared to my other chapters, so don't freak out.
"Katara!" she heard a familiar voice scream. "Katara! Wake up!" She felt something cold wash over her face, instantly waking her up.
"Huh?" she said as she tried to sit up, but fell back onto the floor instead. Her vision was blurry but she could see some red and blue. 'Is it the spirit?' she thought as she blinked her eyes to get rid of the blurriness. When her vision slowly came back, she saw the spirit's shape leaning over her. "W-What happened?" she said, looking around and trying to remember what happened earlier.
The spirit pointed to her brother, lying on the floor around a puddle of blood. She quickly got onto her hands and knees and crawled to her brother, but her vision went blurry again from getting up too fast. She stopped for a second to blink her eyes a little to get the blurriness off again. Then she ripped off Sokka's shirt, with the spirit helping her, to see what had happened. He had a nasty gash across his back diagonally that was beginning to get infected. There was a green color that was creeping up his back. It was still dripping blood. It just ran down his already blood red back into the puddle of blood.
She wanted to gag and she wanted to cry, but she held them back and she took out the water from her waterskin. She wrapped it around her hand and it began to glow an electric blue. She stuck it on Sokka's back and concentrated all her energy on trying to clean the infection. Slowly, the green on his back began to fade till it was completely gone. By this time, Katara was about to fall asleep, but she kept persistent and started to heal the wound. Blood was running down his back, and she wanted to cry more, for she didn't like to see her brother hurt, but she held it back and continued on her struggle. She saw the skin knit together quickly, like someone had sewn the two sides of his skin together.
Once the skin was sewn together, she used the drops of water left to wash off the blood on his back. It cleared less than half of his back of the blood, but she felt a little bit better, because he was somewhat clean. She moved him over so he wouldn't lay in the pool of blood. She used the rest of her energy to move him, and when he was moved, she felt like she was going to collapse. But she didn't and went over to Sokka's side and watched his chest rise and fall, hoping that he would be ok when he woke up. She grabbed his limp hand and held it in her own, hovering over her heart. She wanted to cry, but she didn't have enough energy to cry. So she just hung her head and was very glad that the spirit had shown her where her brother was.
Only when the spirit tapped her on the shoulder did she get out of her trace-like state. She turned her head and saw the spirit standing next to her. He pointed toward the sky and she saw the sun was up. She had been sitting in one position for so long, so she was sore and didn't want to move. The spirit stuck his hand out in a gesture to help her up. She took his hand, stood up, and she instantly regretted it. All the pain that shot through her legs made her fall back down, but he caught her before she was going to fall. He held her in a bridal style fashion and helped her back onto her feet, holding her shoulders just in case she fell again. Once she got back on her feet, she began to try, and fail, to pick up her brother.
"Can-you-help-me?" she said between grunts. The spirit didn't move. She glared daggers at the spirit as she kept pulling. Nothing. Finally, she gently laid her brother down and said, "Please?" mustering as much innocence and manner in her voice she could in her fatigue.
The spirit shrugged his shoulders and came over to her brother, pushing her out of the way hastily. The spirit picked up Sokka, opened the rusty door with another loud squeek!, and started to walk out.
"Hey! That wasn't nice!" she screamed as she sat there, watching them go out the door. "Wait! Stop! Wait for me! Don't leave!"
The spirit didn't slow down and she had to run to catch up to him. She finally caught up to him in a dark alley, panting, and she had to run to keep up with the spirit for they was walking extremely fast. Katara was starting to get a little spooked because she with a person she didn't know, but swears she knows, and was walking with them in a dark alley. She began to get worried about Sokka and herself.
'What if the spirit would turn on me and kill me or Sokka?' she thought. She looked around and she noticed that she didn't have any water and there was no way to get to water in the little alleyway. She looked around frantically, letting the spirit gain some distance between the two. She finally figured out that there was no way for her to waterbend to protect herself and she noticed that the spirit had stopped and was now staring at her. She kept her guard up, but she ran next to the spirit and quietly followed them.
While the spirit was walking and Katara was running, she looked at her brother, not wanting to look at the spirit. She noticed his hair was singed at tips and his boomerang was gone. His clothes were ripped all over, and there were ugly burn marks where fire had grazed his shirt and pants. He had no shoes on, and his toes looked ugly. They looked like Toph's feet with bits of dirt and grass stuck in his feet that probably have been there since Sozin's comet.
'Sokka, when was the last time you cleaned your toes?' she said to herself. She began to chuckle, but it hurt too much to do that with all the running she had to do, so she just laughed inside. She took her gaze away from Sokka and she noticed that the spirit had started to walk slower. She slowed her pace so she matched the spirit's slow walk, but it was a fast walk for Katara. She immediatly put her gaze back on Sokka. He was still breathing and his face had a red glow to it.
Soon, she had nothing to do, so she finally looked at the ugly spirit mask that the spirit was wearing. It kind of reminded her of some story she had heard of before, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It bugged her, and she kept staring at the mask, thinking and trying to remember. The spirit held her brother and walked like it wasn't carrying anything. He walked with a smooth stride and he never leaned on one side when he shifted his weight. It would have looked odd, if Katara would have been paying attention. The spirit looked like it was thinking of something else as well, but you could only see its eyes.
Before she knew it, she was at the doorway of the Northern Air Temple. The spirit had magically disappeared and Sokka was on the ground, drooling everywhere. 'Why is he drooling?' she thought as she tried to pick him up, but failed for she was very fatigued. She dropped him accidentally, and she whispered a silent "Sorry!" to Sokka as she quickly tried to pick him up, but only got him up about a foot before she had to let go of him, but she did it smoothly and slowly this time, still clinging onto Sokka.
"Katara!" she heard as she let go of Sokka and ran toward the voice.
"Aang! I need help with Sokka. He was hurt last night. " she said as she led him toward her drooling brother.
"What happened?" he said as he knelt down next to Sokka, checking his pulse.
"I don't know," she said, not wanting to tell him about the spirit. She walked next to Aang and leaned against one of the pillars with her arms crossed. ",but his hair is singed. I think it might be Azula's doing."
"I thought she was in the Boiling Rock?" he said as he pushed air at Sokka to make him fly up in the air.
"So did I, but if Sokka and Zuko could escape it, she could have," she said worriedly as Aang barely caught Sokka by his fingertips. "Don't do that again Aang. You could have missed and hurt him more!"
"Sorry, it was the only way I could have gotten him up! He is too heavy for me to lift, and obviously you are tired, you can't lift him up either!" he defended as he started to walk toward the doorway. He pointed at Sokka in his arms. "I guess you're right. She could get out. I'll take him to his room."
"Ok, I will go to bed. I am tired!" she said as she briskly walked to her room with a fake grin on her face. She opened the door, and shut it, but put her back on the door and slid down to the floor so she could grab onto her knees. She laid her head on her legs, grabbed her legs, and began to cry. She couldn't stop herself and she just let them slide down her cheeks. She didn't know why she was crying, probably for Sokka, but somewhere in her mind, she thought she was crying for herself for giving up the chance of marrying her true love so her friend wouldn't be heartbroken.
Soon, she got so tired, she could fall asleep crying, and she just moved to her bed, and she fell asleep before she could lay down, so she just fell onto the red blankets, her cheeks still wet with tears.
The spirit had carried her stupid brother who kept drooling all over his arm. It would take weeks to get the smell of peasant drool off of him, but it was all worth it when he could see the waterbending peasant.
'Wait, did I just think that I was happy to see her?' he said to himself as he saw the city around the temple approach. His arms felt very weak, but he had enough strength to hold her brother. He started to think about her, but immediately stopped and thought about her brother that he was carrying.
'Why am I carrying this, peasant?' he thought to himself as a wad of spit landed on his flawless black jumpsuit. 'That is just gross. I shouldn't be carrying him if he is going to drool all over my jumpsuit. I just had it cleaned.'
When he walked up the temple steps, he was thinking about the peasant and what had happened. When he saw the avatar approach, he quickly and quietly set her brother down next to her on the floor so she wouldn't notice him leaving. He quickly hid in the bushes next to the steps, and he watched the waterbender and the avatar talk. When they talked, they didn't talk like a husband and wife, he noticed, they sounded more like friends or brother and sister. He saw when Sokka went flying into the sky and he began to worry and chuckle at the same time when he saw the waterbender's face. She looked like she was going to murder the Avatar with her stare. When the waterbender, the Avatar, and the peasant left, the spirit quickly followed Katara. He wanted to make sure that she would be okay after what happened to her brother.
He followed her outside of the building so she couldn't hear his footsteps in the narrow hallways the temple was covered in. When he heard her crying, he kept looking up and up till he followed the sound to a third story window with a marble balcony. He could hear her sobbing and was probably going to drown everyone in the temple. He surpressed a chuckle as he focused back onto getting up into Katara's room without her knowing.
"Perfect," he said sarcastically to himself as he quickly tried to climb up the wall, but there was nothing to grab except some loose pebbles that he found, so he climbed up on the first floor balcony, grabbed the bottom of the second, then jumped to the rail on the second, and grabbed onto the bottom of the third floor balcony. When he grabbed the edge of the balcony, it started to crumble from use and erosion. He cursed and quickly shifted to his right so he wouldn't lose his grip and fall three stories. He began to swing and used his momentum to flip upside down, let go of the balcony edge, and flip onto the balcony. He finished on his feet, and he did so without making a sound.
He quietly crept over to her bed in a crouching position, and saw she was slumped over the bed, sleeping. He immediately got out of his crouch and stood up straight, hearing his back crack.
"Man, I am getting old," he said to himself quietly.
He picked up the waterbender, set her head on the pillows, and covered her body with the blankets she was laying on before. He looked down at her neck, as he pulled up the blankets and saw, not her mother's necklace, but a new necklace he had never seen before.
'Where did that necklace come from' he thought to himself before he hit himself on the forehead with his hand, making a loud noise and made Katara jump in her sleep. 'The Avatar! They are married!' For some reason, saying that in his head had made him very sad.
He quickly dropped the thought as he sat next to her and stared into her face, looking at her dark, mocha skin that looked like chocolate, compared to his pale white skin, which reminded him of the stone they used to make this temple. He put his hand on her cheek to compare the skin tone. His hand was very ugly compared to her beautiful skin. She immediately rolled over so his hand fell onto the bed, and she shivered as she moved.
'She must be cold,' he said to himself as he took off his black glove and put his hand, palm up, next to her face, and made a small fire in his hand. He tried to make it as big as he could so she could get a lot of heat, but tried to keep it contained to his palm. Even with the fire, she still kept shivering. He sat there, staring into his fire and thinking about what to do to keep her warm. He looked around and saw there was no fireplace or safe place to start a fire without burning the drapes or the house.
'Oh man! I guess I have to do it!' he thought as he walked over and began to peel the blankets off on the other side of the bed. He sighed and climbed into the red blankets. He slipped in quietly and laid down so his back was to her. He began to raise his body temperature, and turned to see that she had stopped shivering, but this time she had begun to sweat. He quickly lowered the temperature and tried to keep as far away as he could from the avatar's wife, but the bed only allowed about an arm's length away. He took off his mask because it made his face very hot as his body temperature went up. He sat there, thinking about the woman next to him, and just tried to keep his body at a level temperature.
'I wonder what she is dreaming about?' he thought to himself.
When she seemed content, he began to creep out of the bed, but it became so soft and he was so tired, he let sleep overtake him, and soon, he was asleep in the same bed as Katara.
OOC- Was that too much ? Sorry, if it was. Anyways, sorry for you Taang fans, they won't come in till the second story!!(At least, major Taang. I will put little Taang fluff in occasionally!) I am sorry!
Yes, the Sokka/Suki has begun! Oh, Ti Lee doesn't exist in this story, but if you want her, I can put her in!
Thanks for reading, and PLEASE REVIEW! I AM BEGGING YOU! PLEASE!