Still do NOT own Avatar.

Sorry for the long wait (lol). Anyways, hopefully this makes up for it a little bit. It might be a little rough. Didn't take the time to proofread much

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"Ok, I think we all want to know what happened your face, Jung." Sokka instinctively flinched, before realizing his sister had not returned from her argument with prince Jerkbender.

"I was being followed by some of Hahn's men. They had been tracking me since I left the Earth Kingdom about a week ago, and when they were still there this morning, leaving the Southern Air Temple, we figured we'd need to do something. So, I flew down and kicked some waterbender ass. It's what I do best." Jung smiled as she then related the events that took place on the ship, step by step. "…and WHAM!! Face plant into the deck! Then I kinda lost consciousness."

"That doesn't sound good, sweety," Suki spoke up.

"No! It was awesome! You should've seen the look on that guy's face when I did a back-flip over him! He was all" Jung twisted her face into what looked like a cross between fear, confusion and constipation. The whole time Leitha flew around the airbenders hands as though playing her part in the acting job taking place.

"That's not what I meant." Suki cut in on the dramatization again. "They saw you and Katara, flying Northwest from the Air Temple. No way they're going to be looking for more evidence as to where you are."

"And, I'm afraid," the Fire Lord's voice was deep and foreboding, "We have reason to believe that there are spies stationed in a few of the nearby cities. It would be impossible to conclude that nobody saw Appa arrive here this afternoon."

"This changes things, guys." Sokka pulled out his map, with a trail plotted that Jung assumed was the path they would be taking to infiltrate the Northern Water Tribe. "Give me a night to think about this, I'm going to have to draw up a whole new route for you guys to take. You were supposed to be flying as far as the Northern Air Temple at least, but that's far too visible now. I don't know if you'll even be able to stop by and see Teo and the gang up there."

"So, I have to leave the big guy behind?" The airbender was obviously opposed to this idea from the start.

"At least for the time being, yeah. And you certainly don't get to do any flying without a war balloon."

"Hmm, I guess if it has to be done." Jung slouched down into her chair and diligently set to work on her dinner. After a momentary, heavy silence, Katara walked into the dining room beaming. Zuko, right behind her, seemed unnerved.

"So, I guess Katara won the argument, then?" A sense of laughter echoed through Suki's words.

"I guess you could call it that." Zuko spat in defiance.

"Ohh? And what would you call it, your highness?"

Zuko turned on Katara, trying to bore holes through her skull with his eyes. "I'd call it a night of a full moon, and an instinct for self-preservation."

Everybody laughed, except Sokka, who merely nodded his agreement with the wise decision (Sokka took much longer to learn that lesson than the prince did), and Jung, who was too busy stirring her food around in its bowl with chopsticks.

Katara sat down beside her young friend, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "What's wrong little arrow-head?"

"Nothing. Just, I know it's silly, but, being with Appa, makes me feel like I never lost my dad. I just wonder what he's doing, you know?"

Katara looked around the table, seeking some sort of explanation for the Appa talk. By the time it was explained to her, Jung's sorrow made sense, but Jung had managed to quietly escape the crowded table, and disappear onto the vast grounds of the palace.

--

Far away, in the frozen north, a three year old boy sat in his room alone with nothing but the few toys he was allowed. His favorite was the drum, with its handle and two beads that beat on the skins when he spun it between his palms. It reminded him of the sounds of the festival drums that leaked in from the main halls of the palace he was kept in whenever they had a party.

Today, however, all of the child's toys were left unattended in his closet. He just stared out the window at the full moon over head. He wanted out, but he didn't know how. He couldn't reach the window, and if he could, there were bars made of ice, too close together for even his slight little body to squeeze through. Plus, if he got through those, how high up was he? No way to tell. He walked around the palace before, but never was able to determine what floor he was on, or even if the palace had more than one floor, though he assumed it had to. Tonight seemed like the right night to try. The moon looked so welcoming, so caring. He thought he saw it smiling at him more than once.

Very little noise came from the small bed being shoved across the snow to a position under the window. The boy stood up on the head board, but was still a little too short to reach the bars. He jumped up, barely missing the ledge and fell back onto his mattress. "I can reach it," the child thought to himself as he stood back up and took his position. "I can reach it." This time it was a whisper. Repeating the sounds in his head like his new mantra, he bent his knees and threw himself at the window again. He felt his right hand grab hold of something solid and cold. It had to be one of the bars. He struggled to get his left hand up to join it, and, using his legs against the solid ice wall, he pulled himself up to the ledge. He looked outside, and found himself in luck. Soft powder was piled up about six feet below him. He was on the bottom floor. All he had to do was get through the bars and he could explore as much as he liked for one night. He grabbed hold of two bars in his hands and looked up at the full moon again. He didn't notice the ice in his hands change shape as he smiled up at his unknown guardian. It wasn't until his fists were balled up with nothing in them that he realized he was free. He almost fell backwards in shock – how did this happen… did I do this somehow? were other people aware that this could be done? – he caught his balance enough to redirect his motion. He dove, head first, out of the window, not knowing how he'd get back inside later. More importantly, though, he was free. He ran as fast as his feet would carry him in the first direction he was facing when he stood up, and he didn't stop until he came to an amazing sight; the very end of a canal. He had seen water, of course, but he had never seen it move like this. In and out, as though it couldn't decide where it wanted to be. Splashing past its banks like a wash basin in the shaky hands of a frightened or tired servant. Somehow, though, he didn't just see it. He could feel it.

--

Back at the Fire Palace, Jung was perched on one of the golden corner pieces over-looking the turtle-duck pond. It had been a long day, and she wanted sleep, but she knew that if she were to lie down in bed right now sleep would not come. The bruise that covered most of the left-side of her face wouldn't help, nor would the inability to lift her left arm above her head, but what really hurt was the feeling of weakness she felt. Her blind right-eye was a weakness, and it cost her. Leitha chattered quietly on her shoulder. "I mean, at least I'm still alive and free and all that, but that's really only because Katara was there. What if it had cost me my life, or even worse if it had cost the life of one of my friends?" Leitha, ever the sympathetic conversation partner, chattered a bit more and leaned in to sniff Jung's cheek. In the midst of her brooding conversation with her lemur, she lost her hold on her staff, and heard a soft, girly "ouch" emanate from below. She jumped back out of sigh, hoping to avoid company, but it wasn't long before the former head of the Kyoshi Warriors had scaled the walls, holding out the momentarily lost glider to the airbender.

"Is this about the whole Appa thing, still?" Suki said sweetly, taking a seat next to the nomad.

"Partially. It's more about the whole, I'm-half-blind-just-attack-from-my-right, thing. Mom would be pissed if I ever let it be an excuse, but… I mean, what if Katara wasn't there? What if my dad's best friend, hadn't shown up riding on my dad's other best friend, at just the right time like some watery spiritus ex machina in a crazy fictional story?" Jung sighed heavily.

"Of course your mom wouldn't accept it as an excuse. She has no eyes and can see better than anybody. Have you tried, well, seeing with airbending, like Toph does with her earthbending?"

"I've tried. Ohh, lord have I tried. The mechanics just don't work that well." The airbender rested her hand on top of her head, feeling the slight difference in texture from scalp to tattoo underneath the short spiky hair that resided there. "I mean, it works fine if the wind is coming at me from the right, but it takes a lot of concentration at all times. And even then, I can't tell shapes and sizes all that well. You know, a week into trying to train it on the roads around Gaoling I accidentally blew a fly into a spider's web because I thought somebody was earthbending at me?" The girls both chuckled before Jung continued.

"And then, if the wind isn't blowing in the right direction, the only way I can get anything from it is by constantly circulating the air to my right with my bending. That gets tiring really, really fast, let me tell you."

"Hehe, I can imagine." Suki smiled at her friend's annoyance, knowing that the girl wouldn't take it the wrong way. She may have Toph's skin and hair (in fact, aside from the tattoos and the tall slender frame she looked exactly like her mother) but she definitely did not have Toph's attitude. Well, most of the time. Suki's sweet, girlish giggle actually made Jung a little bit happier even. A smile was starting to tug at the corners of her lips. "Just so you know, Sokka finished reworking the plan. It sounds really good, too, and I'm not just saying that because of his sexy voice."

"Eww, you really are a Fan Girl, aren't you? Trust me, I've heard some sexy masculine voices in my travels. Sokka's? Not even close." Both girls laughed at the man's expense, a common pastime among the group, dating back to the last days of the Great War.

"Alright, but it looks like you're not planning on sleeping anytime soon, so you might as well come on down and learn the plan."

Jung relented, and casually stood back up. "Ok, get up and hold on tight."

"Umm, what?"

"Come on, now. Airbender, glider" Jung pointed from herself to her staff in order to illustrate her words. "Might as well make a flashy reentrance."

"Ok, but I've never flown this way before. Be gentle, please."

"You mean, Aang never brought you along on his glider? From how I hear it there wasn't a girl he met between the iceberg and his wedding that didn't get the opportunity."

"Yeah, well, I was sort of committed to Sokka for the vast majority of that time. Not to mention, Toph and I had some issues for a while over my choice in mates. If I were to do anything like that with Aang, she would've killed me. No questions asked."

"Whoa, my mom had a thing for Sokka?! Weird." The girl shook her head wildly to clear out the images it was producing. "Well, you're in for a treat. Hold on tight." Jung flicked the glider open, while Suki clung as tightly to the tall, seemingly frail girl as she was comfortable with. When they left the ground, however, the grip increased in intensity ten times over.

Within moments the two ladies crashed through a window directly into the room where everybody was gathered, tumbling along the floor in decidedly ungraceful fashion, laughing their heads off. It took a moment for everybody to figure out that they weren't under attack and relax into their seats again.

"So, idea guy! What's the new plan?" Jung shouted out after dusting off her silken orange robes and taking her seat next to Katara.

"Alright, so Appa's going to run a distraction for us. Suki and I are going to hop on him, and fly him back to the Southern Air Temple. Right after we leave, you guys are going to board a ship that will be taking you to the Earth Kingdom. If Suki and I can lose any tails that we will certainly have on us, we will be meeting up with you guys to return Appa to you, here." Sokka reached out and pointed to a small town near the western shores of the Earth Kingdom on the maps spread out in front of him. He then unrolled another map that he had previously sat on the table in front of him. "This map is your's. You, Katara and Zuko will be following the path charted out on this map in order to get you to the North Pole."

"Wait, Katara and Zuko are both coming?" Jung's smile could have made all the candles and lanterns in the Fire Nation superfluous, had it not been for the counter-acting glares from the Fire Prince and Waterbending Master.

"Please, don't get them started again. Yes, they're both going. You're going to need them." Sokka cleared his throat before continuing on with his directions. "Now, weakest defense at any entrance is going to be from the south, here."

"Sokka, we've already told you, every entrance to the North Pole is going to be from the South."

"Excuse me, that's why I'm pointing at the map, Jerkbender. Now, the entrance from the tundra here is going to lead you into the Spirit Oasis. There are cave along the way that will give you protection. Zuko, I'm sure, remembers the location of at least one of these."

Both of the water tribe siblings here made a show of glaring heatedly at the prince. Zuko, in turn, ducked his head and mumbled something that sounded like an apology.

"What, in the name of Oma, is that look all about?" Jung whispered across the table to Suki. Suki, looking just as puzzled as the airbender, simply shrugged her shoulders and yawned.

--

Footsteps in the snow echoed off the ice walls of the capitol city. Knowing it had to be guards who would not be happy to see him, the newly realized waterbending child ran towards the closest wall he could find. There were ice bars in the wall, just like on those that used to trap him inside his room at all hours of the day. Using his new found talent, the child piled snow up to the window, climbed toward it, and removed the bars to get inside. He leveled the ground outside again before jumping down inside the strange unfurnished room. Looking around he noticed a woman lying restlessly on a bed made of ice, with little cushioning between herself and the frozen construct.

"Is somebody there?" the woman asked, surprisingly calmly.

"Shh! Guards outside."

"Sorry." The woman was whispering now. "Why are you out so late?"

"I'm not sure… I think the moon wanted me to." The boy seemed genuinely confused about his own motives now. "Did you know people could make water move by asking it to?"

The woman chuckled a little to herself, quietly. "What's your name?" she whispered.

"I'm Darru." The boy slowly approached and sat on the edge of the bed next to his new friend. "What's wrong with your eyes?" he asked.

"I'm blind."

"Ohh. That must not be fun."

"Actually, most of the time, it's pretty awesome. I just have to see differently than most people." She turned her head to finally gaze blindly in the direction of the child next to her. "I'm Toph by the way."

"Ohh, nice to meet you. I should get back home, though, before they notice I'm gone."

"Ok. You need help getting back out?"

"Yeah, I think so." Toph stood up, and walked slowly over to where she knew the window to her cell was located. She then picked up the pint sized Avatar, and helped him up to the ledge. "Think I can come visit again some time?" he asked.

Toph smiled at the small child and nodded. "Whenever you want, Soggy."

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Yay! Another chapter

I'll try not to make you all wait so long for the next one. Love you all!