After shopping, Katara and I took a bath in one of those open bath houses. We're currently walking back to our room to sort out the supplies we bought and pack them away properly. On our way back, we pass by the Kyoshi dojo.
"Hey, is that..."Katara trails off as she squints her eyes, trying to get a better look inside the dojo.
I follow her eyes but couldn't figure out what she is looking for. That is, until I noticed the ponytail.
"Sokka?" I breathe out.
Even though I have said the name softly, Sokka have manage to hear me and turn around to look at the caller of his name. The moment he sees us, his curious expression has morph into one of horror and embarrassment. Oh, how he move his head left and right, as if trying to find a place to hide but clearly there is none. He is right in the middle of the dojo.
Gotta admit, his squirming is quite adorable.
Katara and I try to suppress our snickering by using our hands to keep it in our mouth.
"Don't you say 'Nice dress'! It is an honourable uniform! Not a 'dress!'"Sokka cries out as he gestures to his current...outfit, trying to protect his pride.
"Fine! Nice make up, Sokka! How come you didn't tell me you knew how to apply make up? We could have exchanged tips." Katara teases and the effect of it are my hands squeezing the area of my mouth harder to suppress the laugh that is about to break through.
Oh my God, I'm about to bust a gut!
"Haha! Very funny! We'll see who gets the last laugh when I'M the one who gets to learn from the Kyoshi warriors!"Sokka retorts and lift his nose high into the air with pride as he folds his arms.
This news stir an interest inside of me that allows me to remove my hands from my mouth without breaking into laughter.
"Wait! You get to learn from them? I want to learn too!" I exclaim as I jog up to the dojo.
"Sorry, kid but we don't teach outsiders. Your friend here is an exception." A young lady comes up to the entrance with a hand up to stop me from entering. It's the one with the nicer head piece.
My shoulders slumps as I look up at her pitifully, "Why?"
"Because this training will not be easy. We allowed Sokka because he's already a warrior in his home tribe so he should be able to handle this training." She quickly spins her head to the boy, predicting that this would inflate his ego.
It did.
"Should." She emphasizes. Sokka quickly lowers his puffed out chest and stand still.
Turning back to me, she sees I am still looking quite dejected. She lays a hand on my shoulder and speak in a less stricter tone, "From what we heard about you from Sokka while we were getting him into the uniform, you have no fighting experience. We don't have the time to train you because it will take longer for you to learn compared to Sokka. And I don't think you and your friends have that much time left before you leave."
I hang my head. It is the truth and I don't have anything to argue back with. I look up, trying to keep the conversation going because I just don't want to leave on such a low note. "He talked about me?"
"Yeah. He talked about all of you."
I stare straight into her eyes, waiting for her to continue but she didn't have anything else to say. As she looks into my eyes, she eventually makes a decision.
"Tell you what. If you come back after the north pole and have some fighting experience, we'll teach you some moves, alright?"
I brighten up immediately and say, "Okay!"
The offer lifts me with joy. My back straighten and my shoulders have risen from the slumping. I'm now on my toes, slightly doing a happy dance by standing with one foot and switching to the other.
The warrior smiled and lifted her hand from my shoulder. With the same hand, she hovered it in front of me and introduced herself, "My name is Suki. "
"I'm Wan!" I grabbed her extended hand and shook. Once our hands disconnected, Suki extended her hand to Katara. I turned around and noticed that she was right behind me. I didn't even notice!
"My name is Katara. Sokka's sister."
"The waterbender, right?" Suki asks to confirm her facts.
"Yup!" Katara chirps happily. Once they have retracted their hands, Katara holds my wrist gently and starts to pull me away. "Come on, let's go. They look like they have other important things to do."
I nod and follow obediently. Katara aimes her next words to Suki, "It was nice meeting you, Suki. See you later!"
I follow Katara's example and say with a wave, "Bye bye!"
Suki replies with a wave, "It was nice meeting the both of you too. We hope to see you again."
And with that, we go our different ways.
Katara is back in our room, training her waterbending with a bowl of water on the table.
After we packed the stuff away, Katara thought that she should train too like her brother. I didn't know what to do and Katara gave me some advice to try and train as well. Do some exercise to build up some body strength.
But I just bathed...
And that's how I end up looking through my bags, seeing what kind of things did my mother pack into my bag.
The only thing out of place is that there is a book. Apparently, it was my mother's book that she wrote on her own. There's just a bunch of stuff like plants to look out for, bugs to look out for, how rich is a person by their walk, clothes, and manner of speaking. The front cover ss written, 'Mommy's survival guide for her baby.'
God dammit, mommy...
It looks worn and there are stains here and there on some pages . I swear, my mother is getting weirder the more I learn about her.
I hear footstep coming closer and entering the room. Turning to see who it is, I'm surprise to see Aang. I expected him to be with the girls all day!
"So...Wan, want to see me ride the unagi?"
I quickly rise up from the ground eagerly, "Yeah!" I shove the book back into the bag and close it.
Finally, I get to see this unagi! I'm practically the only one who doesn't know what this unagi looks like!
Running to his side, Aang turns to Katara with his hands behind his back. As I am standing beside him, I can see his thumb nervously rub the palm of his other hand.
"What about you, Katara? Want to join?"Aang asks.
"No thanks." She answers while keeping focus on keeping the blob of water afloat in the air.
Aang twitches away as if he is blown away by her quick rejection. I watch him pause as he tries to cook up another bait to lure Katara.
"It's going to be dangerous."
Oh, tapping into Katara's protective nature, huh.
Good thinking.
"Then be careful, oh mighty Avatar."Katara says as her fingers stress to try and maintain her hold on the water.
Or not...
Even the water hovering in front of Katara has started to steam a little.
"You're not going to stop me?"
"Wan will be with you so I'm sure you'll be fine." Katara answers forcefully as she struggles to remain focused.
Clearly, Aang couldn't see that Katara has no interest in stopping her training so I grab his wrist and drag him outside.
"Wan, wait! What are you doing?" Aang objects as he tries to free himself but I respond by tightening my grip.
"Come on, Aang. The unagi doesn't have all day and Katara is clearly busy." I bluntly say as I continue to drag a struggling Aang further away from the house, unaware of what I'm doing to him.
"Wan, you're hurting me!" Aang hisses as he try to pull my fingers off his wrist.
Only then did I turn around and quickly release my hold. I retract my hand with such speed that it was as if I was the one who got hurt instead of Aang. Aang snatches his wrist to his chest and gingerly rub the white area that has the shape of my hand imprinted on it.
"S...Sorry..." I breathe as my hand hovered in front of me. I want to reach out and gently lay my hand on him to show that I didn't mean to hurt him, that I can be gentle.
I choose not to.
It would be awkward and I would feel like I'm pushing it. So instead, I just keep my distance and wait for Aang's reaction.
Once Aang is done massaging his wrist, he removes his hand to see if my hand print is still there.
It is. Just a little. But instead of white, it is now a little red. Looking closely, I could also see the indention of my fingernails.
I anxiously stay quiet as I watch him look at me. I am almost afraid that he would get angry with me but instead he look down at my outstretched hand.
Aang can sense it. My regret that I accidentally hurt him. He can also see it in my eyes. To show that he holds no grudge or was afraid that I would accidentally hurt him again, he reaches out his hand.
After a small pause of hesitation.
It is the same hand with the pinkish imprint of my fingers slowly fading away.
Aang gently lowers my hand down and says. "Don't worry about it."
Seeing his small reassuring smile, I lower my tense shoulders and smile back. A small one like his but with a lot more force.
"But you probably need to learn how to control your strength."
I chuckled weakly, "Yeah."
I take my offending right hand into my left, rubbing the palm to test out the force of my strength while Aang turns behind him.
"Why wouldn't Katara come with me?" Aang asks out loud.
I thought he's just asking a rhetorical question because how could I know the answer? But the longer he stays silent, the more I'm convince that he is asking for my opinion.
"She's just busy. I'm sure she would join you next time."
I try to keep a positive attitude but when he turns to look at me with such disappointment in his eyes, it fell.
"Why next time? Again? I already asked her before if she wanted to ride Appa with me. And you said next time! So when you said that you'll come with me to see me ride the unagi I thought..." Aang trails off and starts to walk away from the house instead of continuing his sentence, finally accepting his defeat.
I quickly walk up to his side as I take a moment of silence to think. "Ah...um..."
Aang watches me as I struggles to find my words.
"...I'm here?" I weakly offer.
Wow, I really feel like such a failure right now. I can't even come up with some words that can make my friend happy!
But the weak attempt manage to attract a small smile from Aang.
"Yeah, at least one of my friends are here."
Only when I hear this sentence did I realize why he wanted Katara to come. Or at least, that's what I think it is. He wants to spend time with his friends in the best way that he could come up with, right? Sokka is busy with training so Aang knows that Sokka would reject his offer. It is only me and Katara left and he wants to spend time with us.
Oh damn.
"Are you okay?" Aang asks with concern as he stares at my face as it is frozen with dumbfounded-ness.
"Oh yeah, it's nothing! Don't worry, Aang! We're gonna have lots of fun with the unagi! Then next time, Sokka and Katara would definitely beg to join us!" I cheer as I lay an arm over his shoulder. I can't believe it took me took long to realize it so now I'm going to do my best to cheer him up!
Aang is surprised by the sudden cheeriness from his littler companion, and a little confused, but allowed my grin to infect him. Soon, he shines a bright grin as he also lays an arm over my shoulders.
"Yeah! Let's ride the unagi together!" Aang cheers as he pumps a fist into the air with his other arm.
"No way!" I reject with an equally cheerful tone that mirrors Aang's, "Just you! I just took a bath and I'm not looking forward to another one."
I got to chat with the girls for a while. The crowd that I had seen at the beginning of the day have shrunk into a small group. Just 6 of them left. It was a short conversation since they were only interested in Aang and since I only just joined his team, I didn't have much to say.
The only thing I said were pretty much lies since I don't want them to know about Aang's...er...bad first impression back in my home island. I just told the girls that everyone's reaction back home was the same as here.
All of us sat on the ground as we watch Aang float in the sea. Some even got bored of looking at him and started drawing circles on the snow around us.
"What's taking so long?" A girl named Koko whines.
"I'm sure it will be here any second!" Aang reassures them but none of the girls seem convinced.
"What did you do last time to attract it's attention?" I ask in an effort to try and help him.
"I was swimming and the unagi just came after me. It was much quicker last time." Aang answers.
"But where is it now? It's getting late." Koko asks as she gets off the ground, bringing everyone attention to the time of the day.
The sky is getting orange. It almost made me feel like a lot of time have been wasted. Almost though since there are parts of today that I wam glad that it happened.
The girls, realizing that their family must be wondering where they are right now, get off the ground and start to leave. I get off the ground as well. I am a little worried that I might accidentally get kicked or something.
"Wait, where are going? Don't leave!" Aang requests as he tries to wave for their attention.
"Sorry, Aang. Maybe next time." Koko replies as she and the girls leave.
Once the girls have left, I turn to Aang to see how is he doing. Aang looks at me dejectedly before turning his gaze to the waters. I watch him remain in the waters, reluctant to leave. With such forlorn expression, he looks even more lonely out there with so much space around him.
I take off my shoes.
Hearing the sound of water splashing, Aang rises his head in curiosity and is shock to see me struggling to get deeper into the waters.
"Aaah, cold! Cold! Cold!" I hisses at the cold waves as more and more of my skin are touched by the pulling and pushing of the sea. I struggle to keep myself upright as I walk deeper into the sea, my toes sinking slightly as the waves pushed the sand to cover my toes. The legs of my green pants start to get heavy as it absorbs more weight of the water but soon it didn't matter as I now have to float off the ground.
"Wan, I thought you said you weren't going to ride the unagi with me?" Aang asks as he swam a little closer.
"Yeah, but since it isn't here, I don't mind coming into the water with you." I reply as I stop swimming. The long, wide sleeves of my green shirt with yellow hems are making it a little difficult to swim. It's not as thick as Katara's or Sokka's winter wear because I like the cold but now I wish I have something like that waiting for me on shore. I just know that the moment I leave the sea, I will be absolutely freezing. I fold the sleeves until the length is above the elbows and continue to swim.
"What about your bath?" Aang asks as he stop swimming, letting me come closer to him.
"I can always get another." I say with a reassuring grin.
Finally reaching to Aang, I scatter droplets of water into the air as I raise my arms above me and cheer, "Ta-daa~!"
Aang chuckles as my silliness, "Now what?"
With a finger on my cold, wet cheek, I ponder on Aang's question until an idea pop into my head. I remove my finger from my cheek and let the hand touch the waters to initiate my plan.
And I flick some water to his face.
"Ah! Hey!" Aang protests but when he met my mischievous grin, he responded with his own and position his arms in the water. "Oh, it's on."
Splashes and laughter ensues as we splash each other and easily fail at dodging or blocking each other's attacks. Amid the sounds of water splashing, we barely register a stray splash not too far away from us. It is only when a shadow loom over the two of us did we realize we're not alone. Although the source of the shadow is already sinking back into the sea, it is unmistakable that it is a part of a dorsal fin.
I would have been frozen stiff from fear but the cold air made me shiver and instead assisted the fear to spread down my spine. Despite expecting its presence, dread has manage to surface on Aang's expression. When the waves start to shift only did we manage to register how much danger we are currently in.
"Aang?" I whimper as I force myself to swim against the wave that is rising and pushing me away, forcing me to lose sight of Aang. I am frantically trying to balance myself as not to sink into water.
"I'm over here!" I hear Aang call out and I desperately swim towards the direction of his voice. I am granted a shred of relief once I manage to see Aang trying to swim to my direction as well but before we could reach to each other, I feel something slimy grazing my toes. I screech as my legs freeze, refusing to move out of fear of the unknown. Aang screams in panic as he frantically tries to escape a sudden push raising him from below, causing more waves to rise.
"Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!" I hiss hysterically, trying to balance myself as the slimy feeling spread to my legs and lift Aang and I out of the water. It is so slimy and slippery that I struggle to crawl to Aang's side. He tightly grabs my arms and I grab onto his, making sure I'm not holding too tightly this time but I'm pretty sure I still am. I'm too scared of accidentally being separated from Aang again, leaving me alone in danger that I just want to hold onto him as tightly as I could.
"What is this!?" I ask as I frantically scan over the surface that we are currently on.
I knew. Oh, I knew but I still hope that it is not what I am thinking. Sadly, any hope I have attempted to gather manage to slip through my fingers so easily as a tall shadow grow larger and larger.
"The Unagi..." Aang breathes, noting his tone of how he said the Unagi's name.
A head lifts itself to high that it blocks the sun from our point of view. It darkly snarles at us as the shadow gives his green-eyed glare an extra edge. Water leaks down from his mouth like a waterfall, as if he is slobbering at the sight of us. My petrified eyes stare up at what I could only call a monster. The world suddenly feels so small that it assures me no matter how hard if I am to run or hide, I will surely be found very quickly.
I feel myself being pulled deeper into my petrified state when the monster raises its head and opens its jaws.
"Hold on!" Aang screams as I feel him let go of me. I quickly obey and wrap my arms around him as I brace myself for the worst.
I feel the Unagi's body beneath us shifting as it sends a powerful jet of water towards us. I shut my eyes tightly and hold my breath so I don't accidentally inhale any of the disgusting water.
I pray with my all that we would be okay.
I feel the warm winds attempting to push us away from the dorsal fin that we are hiding behind, trying to push us off the Unagi's body when the water could not. The jet of water starts to lose it's power and the warm water mixed with the saliva and stench of the Unagi washes over our body.
We both gasp in new breath of air as we turn to anticipate what the Unagi would do next. The Unagi positions its head as its body coil itself. Its jaws open and ready to snatch us off his body. I feel a hand on my back as Aang positions himself to avoid the Unagi's incoming attack. I instantly copy him and focus all of my energy into my legs.
And we scream as we shoot ourselves high into the air.
"Aaaah! I didn't mean to go this high!" Aang exclaims as we stare down the Unagi watching us from below.
The Unagi's body starts to coil and pushes itself high into the air with its jaws open, awaiting for its preys to just fall in.
"Do something!" I scream as our fall slowly increase its speed.
And we enter the jaws of the Unagi.
Author's note: So, I went back to my old chapters and re-read it to find that there were a lot of mistakes.
I was completely shocked because I was sure I had read through them more than once! I realized that maybe because the story was still in my head, I could easily miss errors and connect the story just fine in my head.
So I decided that after every few chapters, I would go back and re-read it again for errors.
*sigh* I am so disappointed in myself at missing so many mistakes! I feel bad for the readers having to go through that.
I'm sorry and I hope it's better to read now.
Thank you, Readers!