I didn't really want to post this until later to make sure that there's not too much of a time lapse between now and the next update, but my dad got the Volume 3 DVD (:D) and I was just too excited not too..
This chapter is certainly not worth the wait that's preceded it, but I hope it's okay anyway.
"Ah... finally. Rest..." Toph had mumbled as she settled into the dirt. Hours later, though for her it felt like only minutes, one person in camp had taken it upon himself to prove those words false.
A loud snort was heard from a couple of feet away as dawn's sun reached its fingers through the bare, blackened branches of the ravaged woods around them. Toph jumped, senses keen and sharp after nights of having to be on one's guard -- she couldn't believe the vibrations Snoozles was sending off just by snoring. The uninterrupted silence, however, wasn't broken again, so she grumbled and fell back into the welcoming arms of sleep.
A faraway voice echoed within the recesses of her dream.
"Toph..."
She frowned and swatted off the annoying weight that seemed to constantly attach itself to her shoulder.
"Toph..."
--
"Toph!"
Katara frustratedly shook her, muttering to herself about the utter stubbornness that the girl possessed even in her sleep. A word seemed to make its way out of Toph's mouth, and her muscles tensed, as if she were about to get up... Katara hoped for the best.
"Mmm... So... ahmm..." The earthbender turned onto her side. Katara rolled her eyes, not bothering to muse over the girl's curious speech. Finally, she stood up abruptly only to turn and squat down to her brother's unmoving body. She brushed over his shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin when he opened his eyes immediately in response to her touch.
"Sokka..." She took a few moments to recover from his unexpectedly quick awakening. "It's time to get up. Go get Toph."
Under any other circumstance, he would have questioned the traces of bags under Katara's eyes, but he watched her move away from him and make her way toward a furiously sweating Aang and decided to give her a break...
Wait... furiously sweating Aang? As soon as his mind caught up with his vision he scrambled to his feet and rushed after Katara.
"Woah, what happened to him?"
Katara sighed wearily. "Fever," she said. "It just started last night."
"Do you need me to get you anything?"
"There's no water... no nothing. I... I don't think there's anything else to do." The little remaining vegetation was suffering from a drought, he noticed. The waterbender had already figured that out that past night.
Sokka laid a hand on his sister's shoulder and forced her to look at him. "He's going to be okay."
Katara nodded. She felt his grip loosen and his fingers slide off of her as he went to rouse the dreaming earthbender. Katara dropped her gaze to Aang's shivering form and gently squeezed his hand. His pale skin contrasted starkly with the brown-gray dirt that had been slightly humidified by droplets of moisture trickling off of his body.
Going to be okay...
She absently fingered the empty vial she had kept around her neck before bending down and draping Aang's arm around her shoulders. She rose and walked unsteadily toward Appa and laid the boy onto him. Sokka, successful in his previous task, set out to help his sister.
Toph stood at a distance from the three, curiously quiet and introspective. Ever since they had first landed after their midnight escape from Ba Sing Se, she had noticed a strange difference in Katara's weight and step. Sokka had grown more attentive and serious, and of course Aang... wasn't waking up.
It was infuriating how close they had been to a pure victory in the Earth Kingdom... it was humiliating to see that they had been so unmindful to the corruption directly under their noses. Yet, amidst all of their failures and shortcomings, the worst disappointments of all were the changes within themselves. Not long ago, their days were bright and hopeful; what with the - admittedly annoying - carefree airbender, the waterbender who watched him with joy and laughter, and the warrior who would boredly turn to none other than herself to crack a joke -- for a sound punch in the arm in return.
How bleak they were now, roaming from place to place with no intention but to survive for just one additional day. Of course Sokka would never run out of punchlines, maybe Aang would even wake up again... but nothing would ever be the same, she could tell. The very air around them had thickened and trailed the group wherever they happened to wander. No one ever bothered so speak much anymore for they had something else to listen to: the mocking whispers of guilt emanating from the ravens of their minds. No footsteps would sound; no breathing being could be felt within miles of where they stood.
But it didn't take sight to be able to tell that they were most certainly not alone.
--
Katara's eyes opened to a silent, dark world, surrounded by the looming treetops of the forest. Frowning at her sudden awakening, she turned onto her side in an effort to avoid the bright waxing moon that shone, unobstructed, into her pupils. It was almost as if it could speak to her some nights, sending mysterious messages she simply couldn't -- or wouldn't decipher.
Not safe, Katara... not safe...
The murmur that had seemed to blow through her ears caused her to instinctively sit up and spin her head to where she had last set the young airbender to sleep just hours before...
In that very spot, he still lay, nearly as unmoving as the eerie woods that enveloped their clearing. Katara's brow furrowed further and she cast an annoyed glare at the moon. Looks like I won't be sleeping much more tonight.
The girl carefully stepped away from the campsite, after being fully assured of her friends' safety. Sokka sat at the top of a nearby hill, remaining wide-awake and vigilant despite his recent lack of rest. She knew she should probably take over his post as she was unable to sleep in any case... but instead, she turned in the opposite direction and began a slow trek through the underbrush. The threat of discovery by an enemy and the danger of embarking on a spur-of-the-moment journey with no one by her side were all too real, yet the worries grew weaker with each new step. They were brief and soon replaced by a desire to simply explore and push through the rough limbs and plants... to find herself at the bank of a crystal-clear tributary flanked by the dense cover of deciduous trees. The river was dark, without sparkle and instead accented with black flashes; the moon was nowhere to be seen.
Katara stooped to cup a bit of the glittering liquid and brought it to her lips. The water was salty.
Hastily spitting the water back out, she rose, only to peel down to her underclothes and lower herself into the gently-moving water. She floated on the water's surface, relaxing on her back and closing her eyes in peace. The tranquility of flowing water and the crisp feeling of the coldness stroking her skin was enough to soothe her tense figure and mind. There was no light to trouble her eyes, nothing to worry about. She simply fell back into the strangely lulling dream from which the moon had taken her just several minutes ago.
--
Darkness. Any rays of light that could have possibly been around him were absorbed into unseen objects, never to hit his startled eyes. He could feel himself floating; held by familiar hands as those soft voices again murmured in his ear. He stiffened. He'd been here before... this time though, the voices were far from comforting. The sense of drifting in the wind was soon replaced by a solidness beneath his feet and he looked down, finding a narrow white path that rested on the oblivion. How much it resembled the scene of when he was ready to give everything up... walking along as he connected with the Avatar spirit before him. The difference was, the spirit of the Earth was nowhere to be found... that and the pure blackness, unobstructed by light nor person, that stirred a strange sense of fear within him. Everything surrounding him was silent and unmoving, frighteningly so, and the absence of color seemed to wrap itself around him, slowly closing itself onto the boy.
The path on which he stood stretched for only a few steps before splitting off into two different ones. Both were identical. Both twisted and turned in dizzying fashions before finding each other once again. The convergence of the two was not far off, and there stood three grinning figures: his friends. Katara, Toph, and Sokka all waited, faces shining with happiness; fulfillment. Beginning to smile at their presence, he advanced along the small road, but stopped short when reaching its separation. A faint haze could be felt against his cheek, and soon along his entire body. The curtains of the invisible abyss around him seemed to press against him, forcing him to take yet another step, urging him to choose. The two paths were equally tempting... seemingly equal in every respect...
He took the left one... and everything went black.
Screams of battle seemed to echo from all around, but evidence of the occurring fight was difficult to find. Only a few people stood near him, seemingly calm and unaware of the loud cries. He tried so hard to focus on his friends amidst the crowd but he failed, a strange fog overcoming his senses. He desperately attempted to move, but couldn't. A faint voice murmured in his ear, urging him to look up into the large sapphire eyes of Katara. Her lips moved, yet no sound seemed to escape them as she softly smiled and pushed Aang back until he lay flat on the ground. She repeated her silent words just as his world dimmed and faded away...
And then there was water. All he could distinguish was the rough, violent liquid all around him, engulfing him into its blackened depths. An airy laugh carried over the deafening waves. He looked up at a strange platform drifting on the surface of the ocean to see Katara standing on it eyes closed and a peaceful smile gracing her face. A strange figure cloaked in black waited behind her, hand on Katara's shoulder, gently guiding her toward the edge. The water churned below and thunder rumbled above in the ominous gray skies; Katara was still smiling.
"Katara, no!"
She paused for a moment, her expression flickering between neutrality and confusion before the mysterious being behind her pushed her yet that little bit more.
"Katara!" Aang tried his hardest to push against the waves and stay afloat but his limbs seemed to be plagued with surreal lethargy which pulled him down like a dead weight. Katara now teetered on the side of the platform.
He screamed louder.
She soundlessly plunged into the unmerciful waves.
"Katara!"
--
The sound of splashing was the first thing that registered within Katara's ears -- right before realizing there was actually someone gripping onto her arm. Bursting up to stand in the shallow stream, she formed a water whip with her free hand, ready to fling it into the face of--
"Aang?" Thoroughly bewildered, she abruptly dropped her bending water and looked at him more closely. He was sleepwalking. "Aang." She gently shook his shoulder. "Aang!"
Her second yell caused him to jump and his red-rimmed eyes burst open. In even more pronounced surprise, she noticed the trails of tears that stained his pale cheeks. "Aang," she asked worriedly, "what's wrong?"
His eyes had the appearance of a spooked animal caught in a sudden flood of light. "K-Katara..." He stared at her frozen and at a complete loss for words. All he could remember was that horrid vision of the stormy ocean... he shivered involuntarily. Beginning to recover, he quickly pulled his hand back from her wrist and began to apologize. "I'm sorry... I, uh, had a bad dream." He couldn't bring himself to recount it to her. "Was I talking in my sleep or something?" He winced, a sharp pain spanning from his back wound piercing through his chest.
Katara, eyes still wide with shock and anxiety, looked the soaking wet Aang completely over before responding. "Um... something like that."
And that's when he finally felt the coldness of the waist-deep water he was standing in. How in the world...
Katara swallowed nervously and decided to go for her next query. "Why were you screaming for me, Aang?"
The Avatar's cheeks flushed a deep red in embarrassment. He backed away a step and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, searching for a response. "I... I..." His sentence trailed off as he began to fully take in his surroundings. The quiet scene of the rocky creek around him brusquely contrasted with his dream of a roiling ocean, and yet it stirred the same unease within him. He cast an unsettled glance at the moonless sky and retook Katara's wrist. "I really don't think we should be here," he commented, beginning to walk out of the water. A resistance from Katara stopped him and he turned around, confused. Katara hadn't moved an inch and was staring Aang down with a faraway look, as if in a trance.
The uneasiness in Aang's stomach doubled.
"Katara?"
"Hmm?" Her gaze refocused onto him and she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. "Oh... I'm coming." She trailed after him onto the shore.
--
Sokka tiredly yawned and stretched his arms above him. The night was proving to be long and drawn out -- but above all, unbearably mundane, as was usual when taking watch. The sky was a black velvet, sprinkled with vivid, twinkling stars and a thick sliver of white moon. It seemed to be emanating purity and life, the pristine color capturing his gaze just as its human form had only months before.
But it felt like a lifetime ago. He sighed, tearing his eyes away.
The landscape was calm and silent from Sokka's vantage point on a hilltop. The few farmlands remaining amidst sporadic factories were small and deserted before they ended at the edge of the island. Hours before, he thought he'd spotted a small blink of orange light at the base of his hill, but nothing had come of it and he blamed it on the dancing spots of color resulting from staring at the moon for too long a time. In contrast to the scene which he faced, the forest he now sat in was dense and dark, though obviously also deserted. Although the warrior still felt uncomfortable with the sentiment the group's previous conversation had left him with, he couldn't help but smile at their earlier trek through the woods...
Aang leaned heavily on Katara's arm for support. The viscous night air made his scalp feel itchy and hot, but he didn't bother touching it... until he realized his head felt much more heated than it should. He reached up a hand to feel the tips of something warm and fuzzed. He instantly retracted his limb and let out a yelp, causing Katara to whip her gaze around to him.
"Aang! What happened? Are you feeling all right?" Her words tumbled out in a succession worriedly enough for Toph to stop and turn around in concern. Aang stared, wide-eyed at the girl peering intently at him and stammered out a sentence.
"Katara..." he whispered, "what... what in the world is on my head?" Katara froze, lips slightly agape as she watched the look of stupefied horror etch into his face... before a light bubble rose from her chest and she could not help but release a long, full, much-overdue laugh. Toph stood dumbfounded at the mirthful cry and Sokka even halted his clipped gait to watch the scene unfold. Katara felt slightly guilty for her reaction to Aang's question, but the one bit of humor was immensely welcome to her tense heart. She passed a hand over his head as Aang's confusion deepened. She truly wondered how he hadn't noticed before...
"Um, Aang, that's your hair," she stated, cheeks still flushed at her outbreak of laughter. The ensuing silence, however, caused Katara's slight amusement to subside and Aang just continued to gawk at her.
"And then," Sokka muttered under his breath, "everything went downhill from there..."
"What?" he managed to choke out. "How long was I..."
"Two weeks." Sokka stepped forward to say his piece, pondering why Katara hadn't told him this before. She'd spent all of that time alone with him and she hadn't said anything? Had he not even asked?
"Two weeks?!"
Sokka rolled his eyes at the outburst oddly reminiscent of Katara's reaction to her bout of long sleep. Toph made it a point to quiet him.
"Twinkletoes, you're gonna get every single Fire Nation goon all over us." Aang sighed deeply, trying to clear his mind of the sudden shock and allowing Katara to gently grasp his arm and guide him further along their track.
"I failed didn't I."
It was hardly a question but Katara didn't hesitate in her response. She instinctively - almost painfully - tightened her grip on him and paused in her walk to say, "Of course not, Aang. Don't worry -- we'll make it--"
"No," he interrupted, eyebrows furrowing in anguish and pain. "I let everyone down in Ba Sing Se... I deserted everyone. Again."
Sokka watched solemnly as she kneeled before Aang, wordlessly pleading the poor boy to not put himself down... to not let her down. He was conflicted, all of them knew that, it just worried Sokka how much faith Katara had in him -- how much unwavering devotion she had to the one person who could save them all. It wasn't that he didn't trust Aang... no, he trusted the kid with all of their lives. But a noticeable piece of Katara had died along with him in Ba Sing Se... the last thing Sokka needed was for his own support to give way again...
"We've gotten through worse," Katara said, almost willing her own confidence into Aang. "We're going to win." Aang smiled slightly, a vague appreciation of her efforts to uplift him. Not once, during the Avatar's two week lapse into unconsciousness had she ever harbored the same feelings of hope as she did now. Sokka slowly shook his head. Nevertheless, he kept right on walking..
--
A slight shift in the bushes to his right jerked him out of his memory. His heart leapt into his throat for a split second as he struggled to focus on just what had moved in the blackness of the forest undergrowth. Slowly, he picked up a stick from the ground and tentatively probed at the foliage, only to reveal a large, dark, shiny object that appeared to be stationary. Brow furrowed, he trailed it up its strangely long body... only to find it belonged to another body. Eyes widening, he rested his gaze on the face of a looming Fire Nation soldier.
Sokka couldn't even gulp in fear. Yet, the man's expression was far more jovial than would have been expected. Seconds seemed to stretch interminably; the silence became ethereal as he waited for a word to be spoken. The man suddenly burst out grinning.
"Great day for a moon-watchin', isn't it boy?" Sokka stared incredulously.
"It's the best," he squeaked, cautiously retracting his hand from the boot. He must have been the source of the light he'd spotted in the distance earlier. For a second, he wondered why the soldier hadn't just attacked him, before remembering he had kept the Fire Nation clothes on. Relieved and reassured, he stood and decided to humor his interlocuter. Upon arisal, however, a wave of the man's breath hit him -- a warm mass of alcoholic air emanating from his mouth. Sokka tried to hide his grimace. He's drunk.
"Say, is that yer lady down there?" Sokka froze, remembering the three he'd left at the other foot of the hill... but according to the soldier...
Sokka peered nervously down at their camp.
... there was only one. Toph.
"Um, yeah," he fibbed, willing to endure Toph's wrath if just to keep the man from trying anything with her. On one hand, Sokka was overly relieved that they had spotted neither Aang nor his sister... but where were they?
"Why don'cha get 'er up here wit'cha?" the man asked with a pronounced slur. Sokka barely heard. All he could see were the telltale green clothes Toph was wearing and the platoon of soldiers that were descending toward her.
"Good idea," Sokka responded, half running-half sliding down the hillside until he reached his friend. Toph lay on the floor, obviously exhausted as she hadn't even noticed his hurried approach. He shook her shoulder and crouched to whisper in her ear. "Whatever you do, don't earthbend." Toph's eye slightly opened and she frowned but quickly understood when she felt the vibrations of a group making their way toward them. "And take off your clothes." A resounding crack broke the area's stillness as Toph's fist made full contact with Sokka's jaw. He cried out. "Toph!" He yelled at first at her scowling face but then lowered his voice. "You're wearing Earth Kingdom clothes!" Toph's mouth formed a silent 'oh' and her cheeks instantly reddened.
"Oops." Sokka just threw a bundle of fabric into her face.
"Duck into the woods so that you can change," Sokka said, rubbing his swollen skin. He hoped the moon wasn't so bright so as to illuminate the color of her tunic and suspicious disappearance. "Next time I'm letting them take you away!" he called after her, grimacing at his pain.
Sokka turned back to the approaching troop feeling the unease mount in his stomach. His sister and friend had disappeared. Fire Nation soldiers had stumbled upon them of all people to find and didn't appear to be leaving anytime soon. Sokka sighed.
This would be one long night.