Push and Pull
Awakening
Disclaimer: I own literally nothing.
Katara's POV
She woke up floating on the water.
Katara opened her eyes and gasped, reeling back into the cool, murky water, splashing and struggling to her feet. She whirled around, her eyes falling on the unfamiliar, swamp like surroundings with a small measure of panic. Where in the world was she?
The trees were the first things she noticed: enormous, veiny things that stood rooted in the water, dotting the mystical swamp. Even standing inside the water, she could smell them, the wet, pungent scent of vegetation rolling off the tree bark. The trunks of the trees had twisted themselves in impossible ways as they grew; their branches were shaped similarly, warped with dips and bends as they reached across the sky. She could hear the quiet chirps of birds somewhere near the top, and the rapid flutter of wings as they flew from one branch to another. Thick and wiry roots peeked out of the water near the bottom, only to reach down deep into the wet earth underwater. Long and heavy foliage hung down from the branches above her head, waving in the wind and dripping water down into the swamp.
A drop fell on Katara's cheek and she jerked back in surprise, her feet sinking into the earth underwater as she stepped back. She wiped the drop away and looked down at the water that swirled around her knees. The swamp was not deep; she could see the algae and mud that covered the bottom and turned the water into a green-ish color. Wisps of fog floated over the water and through the trees, giving her an eerie feel. Weak light filtered through the veil of clouds that hid the sky, striking the swamp with dim, hazy light.
Her eyes caught sight of a small wooden platform that stood raised above the water a few meters away from her. She moved towards the dry landing automatically, gazing up at the curved wooden arch that stood on it. She couldn't help thinking that the platform looked familiar somehow, though she knew she'd never been in a place like this before. Katara dragged herself through the water, so focused on reaching the platform and remembering where she'd seen it before that she almost didn't see a body floating on the water to the side of it.
"Zuko!" Katara scrambled to the landing and pulled herself onto it, her dress and shoes dripping water. She ran to the edge of the platform and looked over at his still body, his eyes closed as he drifted on the water. He was too far for her to reach. She called out to him again. "Zuko!"
He didn't move. Katara lifted her arms and began to push and pull the water, lulling Zuko closer until she could hook her arms under his shoulders and drag him onto the platform. He was heavier than she thought, and she bumped his body against the side of the landing a few times, but she managed to pull him on next to her. She dropped to her knees and looked at him.
He was soaking wet like she was, but unlike her he was shivering. Small cuts marked his pale skin: three scratches above his only eyebrow, a small cut and bruise near the corner of his eye, a cut across the bridge of his nose, and two slashes pulling up the right corner of his lip. An ugly looking burn stuck out near his left jaw.
I didn't give him those, did I? Katara thought, trying to remember what he'd looked like before they'd started fighting. She hadn't been paying attention, too distracted by his sudden appearance and how he always managed to find them. Surely I didn't burn him.
She reached out to him without thinking, pulling water from the swamp to envelop her hand, and pressed her fingers gently against the cuts on his forehead. She'd barely begun healing him when he jolted awake, reaching out to catch her wrist before his eyes had even fully opened. She lurched back, startled, but his hand on her wrist only tightened painfully, and the water she'd bended around her hand dropped to ground.
"What happened?" Zuko demanded, his voice rough. He pushed her hand away, and she fell back on her hands as he scrambled to his feet. He took in his surroundings quickly, and whirled around to face her, a look of outrage on his face. "Where are we?" he spat down at her. "Why did you bring me here?"
"I didn't bring you here," she snapped, and then sighed, willing herself to calm down. There would be no use in yelling back at him. "I don't where we are. I just woke up a few minutes ago."
"You pushed me into the pond," he recalled suddenly, his tone accusatory. "I don't remember anything after that. What happened? Why am I here?"
"I don't know," Katara pushed herself up to her feet and shrugged. "I got pulled into the pond too. And I didn't push you in."
"Don't lie to me. I saw you bending the water."
Katara struggled to keep her temper. Something about his voice always made it seem like he was yelling, even when he wasn't. The fact that they'd been hurling fire and water at each other a little while back didn't help. She tried not to let that irritate her, since she had a feeling they'd have to stick together.
"I didn't push you in," Katara began, patiently. "I did bend water at you, but I was just trying to knock you backward, away from Aang. Something—" she hesitated, suddenly unsure, "—took over the water and pushed you in. It pulled me in the water too."
She shivered as she remembered how easily her bending had been overpowered. Something had taken control of the water, something powerful enough that it could control several pockets of water at the same time, and all before she'd even had time to react. All it had done was push and pull them into the Spirit Pond, but a worrisome thought nagged at the back of her head: What if it had hurt Aang?
"We have to get out of here," Katara proclaimed decisively, and looked up at Zuko. He was staring off somewhere in the distance, his golden eyes narrowed. He didn't seem to be paying attention to her.
"I think Aang could be in trouble," she continued, stepping closer, though why she thought he'd care she didn't know. "He's still in the Spirit World so his body—" she broke off abruptly and gasped as realization hit.
Zuko started at her gasp and finally looked back at her. "What?"
"I think we're in the Spirit World," she breathed, and he looked at her with furrowed brows. Katara explained to him in a rush, her voice growing louder as she grew more agitated. "Princess Yue told me that the Spirit Oasis was the most spiritual place in the North Pole! I bet when we fell in, we crossed over. And Aang was able to cross over so easily before too, ugh, I should've realized sooner—"
"We can't be in the Spirit World," he interrupted shortly. "I studied it when I started hunting the Avatar. It's supposed to take years of meditation and enlightenment to be able to get there. We wouldn't have been able to cross over."
"I don't know, but… I think something wanted us to come here." Katara frowned, and looked out across the eerie swamp. It had grown strangely quiet, the birds and water still and silent, as if the whole swamp was listening to them. "A little while ago we visited a village where people had been kidnapped by an angry spirit. My brother got taken too, and Aang had to cross over into the Spirit World to bring them all back. I bet a spirit brought us here too."
"Why would it want us?" Zuko demanded.
She shrugged helplessly. How was she supposed to know? "I guess we angered it."
"How?" When he saw that she was about to shrug again, he shook his head, resigned. "Never mind. What do we do now?"
Katara was about to shrug again, just to spite him, but then her face lit up. "Aang!" Of course!
"What?" He sounded frustrated, but she brushed it off.
"Aang is here in the Spirit World with us," she explained quickly. "He crossed over just before you showed up. We just have to find him, and I bet he'll know how to get us out."
"And if we can't find him?" Zuko challenged, gesturing to the trees and water, the swamp's inhabitants and landscape as foreign and unknown to them as them working together was. "Or if you're wrong and he can't help us?"
Katara was losing her patience. She glared up at him and crossed her arms. "Then we find the spirit who brought us here and convince it to send us back or we're stuck here forever."
He glowered back at her for a moment before nodding briskly. "Fine. Let's find the Avatar." Zuko turned back to where he'd been looking before she'd interrupted him, his golden eyes blazing. "And I know where to start looking."
Katara leaned closer and followed his line of sight, her eyes widening when she caught sight of the figure sitting underneath a stone arch in the distance. He was dressed in the attire of a sage, with a brown shawl draped over his body and a string of what looked like flowers handing from his neck. He was deep in meditation, sitting as still as the stones around him. And he was a monkey.
lolololol monkey sage cracked me up in the series, so I had to bring him back.
Phew. I figured I should hurry up and update the next chapter since my prologue was so skimpy. Thank you so much to those who followed and the beautiful person who wrote the first review! Avatar Roxas, I hope I didn't keep you waiting long!
I'll explain how the Spirit Oasis-Spirit World transport system works. In Escape from the Spirit World, a canon online game thing set between the events of Book Two and Book Three, Aang meets his past lives and meets Avatar Kuruk (the coolio waterbender avatar). He tells Aang about how he was going to marry his lover at the Spirit Oasis, but Koh the meanie Facestealer pulled her in and took her off into the Spirit World, body and all. (Avatar Kuruk is the one who tried to kill Koh, and the pretty lady's face Koh stole was Kuruk's lover's.) So spirits dragging Zuko and Katara in through the Spirit Oasis can probably happen. Maybe.
Reviews are much appreciated!