Now, I know this isn't entirely accurate, but it is a somewhat shorter version of events, so bear with it. Thanks to all my loyal readers, and a special thanks to those who fav'ed it, put it on story alert, or reviewed it.

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Korra's Point of View

We were hanging out near the coast, traveling north, when Katara found the abandoned ship. According to her, it was a part of the Chief Hakoda's fleet, that meant her father was here at one time. She and Sokka were so excited. We set up camp outside the ship, until we heard footsteps echoing inside the vessel.

"What was that?" Sokka hissed as he reached for his water-tribe club.

"Someone… someone is in the boat," murmured Katara and Aang's eyes went wide in shock and fear.

My hands went to the twin blades at my side, they were useless to me as real swords, but I was half-training with them on Appa's back, just going through some seemingly routine and natural forms. The footsteps grew louder, and I unsheathed the blades, now lovingly named Yue and La, after the Moon and Ocean Spirits. Of course, I didn't voice that out loud, that would be embarrassing. Who names their swords?

With blades drawn, I moved towards the ladder that came down from the boat. It was in shadow, but I could faintly see the outline of a person standing on the top of the boat, one hand on the railing.

"Hello, down there. You can put those weapons down, I mean you no harm," called down a friendly male voice.

"Why don't you come down here, then we'll talk," I called in a faux cheerful voice. "Slowly," to emphasize my point, I hoisted a dao blade up onto my shoulder.

As a response, the shadowy figure turned towards the ladder and began climbing down. His climb was lopsided, he was leaning heavily towards his right, the direction towards me, and I wouldn't have been able to see if he was concealing a weapon with his other hand. I took a step back, gripping my blades tightly at my sides. I glanced back to see Aang and Katara readying themselves into their most comfortable bending stances. Katara's was, as per usual, was too tense and held her body to close together. Sokka was walking up behind me, and I could feel him breathing on my shoulder , his breath was hot and heavy with nerves. The man stepped into the light of the campfire, and Katara gasped.

"Bato!" She called out, and Sokka rushed from behind me to hug the man.

"Wait a second?" He called out confusedly, "Sokka and Katara?"

He hugged Sokka with one arm, wincing as Sokka's body rubbed up against the bandages that he had wrapped around his left arm. "Sokka! Katara!" He called out cheerfully, and after he had hugged Sokka, he moved to me, enveloping me in comfortable hug, despite the arm. "When did you learn to use a sword, Kat?" He pushed me out at arm's length, and looked me straight on in the face. His face was narrow and boney, but not unpleasantly so, with narrow eyebrows that nearly connected in-between his eyes. My eyebrows, on the other hand, were standing straight up on my forehead. "You aren't Katara?"

"Umm. No. Sorry to disappoint." I said a little uncomfortably. I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet and back again as the man, Bato.

"Thanks a million, Bato. Confusing me with her isn't the ideal way to get on my good side," she murmured, but smiled as she said it.

"Hey." I scowled as she and Bato hugged. "Not nice." Aang giggled.

"How did you kids get up here?" Bato asked, "I suppose you don't exactly count as 'kids' anymore, either."

He was smiling and beginning a conversation with Sokka and Katara while Aang and I sat down with them around the campfire. We were a little lost, but were following along decently well.

"We are traveling with Aang" Katara smiled widely and gestured towards the monk, "To the North Pole."

Bato whistled, "The North Pole? Quite a journey from the South. Why there?"

Aang answered that question, "I'm the Avatar. I need to learn waterbending."

Bato turned his head to Aang, and looked him up and down. "The Avatar?"

"Yeah. Long story." Katara smiled uncomfortably, "One mainly involving Sokka pissing me off, and a giant block of ice."

Bato smiled amiably, albeit confusedly, and continued with his story. "Well, I have news. Hakoda is sending word of his location, maybe you guys will be able to catch him before you go on?" he was well-meaning, but he must not have known what kind of a kink he was throwing in our plans. If we waited a week for the information, then had to head south, we would never make it to the North Pole in time to teach Aang and Katara waterbending.

They kept talking until the embers were nearly dead in the fire, while I just lie there, enchanted by their easy conversation with each other. So this was how the Southern Tribe was supposed to be, friends with everyone, can chat about anything. As Avatar, I was set apart from the rest of the tribe, I can remember a sense of loneliness. With that desolate feeling, I went off to sleep.

June's Point of View

The fat guy and the kid from the ship I'd just messed with were in the bar, and I'd have to say they didn't look like they belonged there. Obviously Fire Nation officials, they managed to look disgusted and fascinated at the same time at the grungy bar I now resided at. I've been to some bad and filthy places, and this was one of the worst, but even I didn't look so insulting to the men who made it their regular hangout. The guys were walking towards me, and one of the men at the bar next to me did not seem to like the sneer on the scarred kid's face.

"You wanna go, pretty boy?" It was supposed to be an insult, and the man stood up like he was going to hit the boy, which I knew was a bad idea. Might as well let this play out. He took a final swig of the drink he had in his hand, and slammed it down onto the bar beside me, causing it to spray upwards and drizzle on my arm. Gross, beer and backwash, and judging by the man's slobbering, plenty of the latter. He swung a clumsy punch, the guy must have just been waiting for a fight, and the kid deflected it easily, and kicked the back of the man's knee, causing him to fall to the ground in pain. The fat guy had the decency to look surprised, and the rest of the bar grew quiet.

"Drinks on me!" I called as loud as I could, trying to diffuse the situation, it worked. A huge cheer went up from the corners of the bar, and the bar tender began filling the glasses. There were only ten people or so in the bar, but still, those fire guys were gonna owe me. I turned to them as the bartender tapped my shoulder. "Here, whatever," I spun around and threw my coin purse in the guy's face, "I want change," Turning back to the men in front of me, both completely serious, I asked, "So what exactly is it you want? Last time I saw you, you were screaming at me to get off your ship, and now here you are. Can't get enough of me?" I smirked.

"We need your tracking expertise." The boy spoke and the fat man stayed silent. The kid was kind of cute, in a solemn and angry way.

"Number one, I come with a price," I paused and looked at his face; no reaction. "A large price, and number two, Nyla needs a scent; no scent sample, no tracking." I reached for my drink and took a gulp, the stuff seared down my throat, but I took another one, then looked more closely at the glass. That was a potent drink.

The kid shifted his weight to his other foot, "The price isn't a problem, and I have a scent sample outside." He turned to leave, and I got up an followed, after grabbing my coin purse from where the bartender had dropped it on the table. The guy had better not have cheated me.

Once outside, I approached the boy, who was standing with his back to me. When he turned around he held something out for me to see, "Will this work?"

It was a red mask, a vicious looking thing, but if it had a scent on it… "Nyla! We have work to do.

Korra's Point of View

We spent the next few days practicing waterbending, or at least Aang, Katara, and I did. Sokka and Bato were doing whatever non-benders do. Then I remembered that I am a non-bender now, too. Damn. Bato was giving me some funny looks, too.

"What are you doing?" He asked as Katara and I were going through movements of a basic water-ball.

"What do you think?" I responded evenly, "Katara, loosen up, all that tension is going to kill the bending, too much tension means…"

"to much energy in the water, which causes it to do funky things." She finished the statement I had drilled into here while riding Appa.

"Bingo." I said, "Turn, bring it in, and drop." We finished the sequence before I turned around to face a curious Bato.

"You think you are teaching waterbending? Kat can't waterbend, number one, and number two, neither can you." He snorted. I glared.

"Katara, again, but with water this time." I turned back to her, a pleading look in my eyes. She had to show him, and she knew it. She nodded. "Relax, just let yourself feel the pulse." I took my stance above the water, hands reached out like I was about to complete the completely normal action of plucking the water from beneath me. I remember the feeling of the water pushing and pulling my blood, a feeling only a waterbender can have. My muscles expect the water to follow my hand motions when I go through the exercise, but it doesn't, just like my brain thought. Katara, however, successfully lifted the water into a narrow stream. "Bring it up, turn," I commanded, and we moved identically, the water following her hands and circling her body. "Gather in front of you and hold," I called, and she moved into the position, but she was becoming tense again, she was concentrating too much on what she wanted the water to do, it was being fed too much of her energy, and the water exploded in a giant burst, spraying mainly Katara and I, but some of it got Bato as well. His eyes were wide and shocked, but Katara and I were laughing.

"Next time, I'll relax more during the hold," She smiled.

"Good." I smiled right back, and then we both looked at Bato's flabbergasted face.

"Kat… can… waterbend…"

"Yep." Katara gloated proudly, "Although not very well." The gloating became a little more diminished, but was still there as she told him her level of expertise.

"And you, whatever your name is,"

"Korra."

"You, you teach her… even though you can't bend."

"Yea. That's the gist of it." He just stood and stared at me and Katara for a second or two, then shrugged and sighed.

"I should have seen that coming," Bato said, and he walked on past our little bending area to find Sokka.

Three days into our stay at the coast, Aang's cheery disposition changed from happy-go-lucky to a little more reserved, and he seemed to be over protecting his body; like he had the most important painting in the world stuffed under his shirt and was worried that it was going to get smudged or get a hole in it. Come the fourth day, Bato was becoming worried that the message from Hakoda hadn't come yet, but we all forgot that as soon as he offered to take Sokka ice-dodging.

"Really?" Sokka asked excitedly when Bato offered.

"Well, you didn't exactly get the opportunity to, and we can officially make you and your two friends full members of the Southern Tribe." I was a member of the new Southern Tribe, but we never got to do something fun like this!

Sokka looked at the four of us, all eager and excited to get into the boat and avoid some rocks, and accepted without a second thought.

That is how we found ourselves, twenty minutes later ready to set sail, Sokka at the wheel, Katara working the sails, Aang at the rudder, and me up in the crow's nest (ish) area on the main column.

We set off easily, and my job of watching was easy, until we started speeding up, and I had to start calling down to Sokka the positions of the rock spires, it was up to him to make the decisions, and to tell Katara and Aang what to do. There were a couple close calls, and some sharp turns that nearly knocked me off my perch, but the worst of it came when we hit the current.

We were practically flying through the air, just barely missing rocks on both sides, until we were almost home free. "Rock, left!" I called, "and right, underwater! Watch it, Sokka!" but the boat slammed into the underwater rock, and was sent dangerously off-kilter, tilting over top of the rock to the left of us. In a split-second decision, I jumped up, the top of the mast was nearly touching the rock, and pushed off. The shove I gave it as I jumped and the loss of weight pulling that side down, sent the boat rocking back into the current, and me flying towards a rock.

I didn't die, I did, however, hit my arm and my knee pretty hard. I lie there on that god-forsaken rock for a minute or two, until I heard a cheer from the shore. I groaned and pulled myself up to see what they had succeeded in; they had pulled the small boat onto shore and were calling my name, "Korra!" "Korra!" With another groan, I jumped from the rock into the icy water, and began swimming towards the shore.

A few minutes later, I was standing on the shore, dripping water, and cheering along with everyone else. We had succeeded.

"For Sokka, the Mark of the Wise, for showing intelligence and leadership in the face of danger." Bato dipped his finger in the paste in the shell and scrawled a semi-circle with a dot just below the center. Sokka nodded to the senior tribesman, and beamed.

"For Katara, the Mark of the Brave, for an inspirational display of courage." Bato added a curling crescent moon to her forehead, and Katara smiled proudly.

"For Aang, the outsider, the Mark of the Trusted, you have proven yourself to the Tribe." Bato smiled and put a semi-circle on Aang's smooth forehead. At the mention of the word 'trusted', Aang's face fell slightly. What did that kid do? Oh, for the love of firebenders.

"And for Korra, the Mark of the Selfless, for sacrificing yourself for the sake of the tribe." I really hope that isn't foreshadowing, I don't want to die here, away from everyone and everything familiar. He drew a zig-zag line on my forehead and smiled at us. Aang was looking at the ground shamefully, and then opened his mouth to speak.

"Whatever you did, just get it over with." I stated cleanly, and he turned to me with a look of frustration and confusion. Maybe I should have stayed silent.

He looked uncomfortably up at a now more confused Katara and Sokka, and an mildly curious Bato. "I… I'm sorry. I was afraid you'd just leave me…" He broke off and I gasped. The map to Hakoda came and he just took it? "A messenger came yesterday with this," he reached into his airbender shirt, and pulled out a rolled up sheet of paper. Now Katara and Sokka gasped, and Bato's eyebrows shot up.

"You…" Katara was furious, she was steaming and I could practically see the smoke streaming from out of her ears. "You knew how much seeing my dad meant to us." She was having some difficulty forming the words, and stuttered a little as she spoke them.

"I can't believe this, Aang! You just went and kept this from us?" Sokka cried, astonished, as Katara grabbed the map from Aang's clutching fists.

"The rendezvous is just south of here," she muttered, and Sokka leaned over her shoulder to look at it.

"Go pack your stuff," he told Katara, then called out to Bato, "Wait for us!" They strode off leaving me and a dejected and surprised Aang standing there on the beach with a little boat and blue marks on our foreheads.

"They… they're leaving," he stuttered as he stared off at Katara's fuming form in the distance, packing her sleeping bag.

"That was incredibly stupid of you," I told him. It was. I was looking forward to meeting my tribe, when I wasn't alienated by the fact I was the Avatar. This might have been the only chance I had.

"What?" He turned to me, a crazed look on his face, "I just wanted to stay together."

"And you shouldn't have done that, you knew how much it meant to them."

"But… but…"

"Aang?" I asked.

"Yea?"

"Shut up, I'm going to go pack."

"What?"

"I. am. going. to. go. pack." I put deliberate space between the words, and walked off, leaving him standing there on the beach.

"You… you can't just leave with them!"
I spun around, "It's not just them whom this means a lot to, I kinda wanted to learn something about my tribe, feel what it would feel like to be a part of something like that when I wasn't the oddball Avatar. You'll survive somehow; maybe we'll even meet up at the North Pole." I stated and stalked off, leaving a shocked and alone kid on the shore.

XXXxxxXXXxxxXXX

"Korra." I heard after we had been walking in silence for an hour.

"Yea?" I called back at Katara.

"Why did you leave Aang?"

I took a deep breath, and moved in closer so that Bato wouldn't b e able to make out what we were saying, he was ahead of us by ten or so feet, and if I spoke quietly, he wouldn't learn anything he shouldn't know. "I have been alone in my tribe all my life. When I think back to it, all I can remember of the South Pole is a sense of aloneness, alienation. I was the Avatar, and at a young age everyone knew it. I didn't get to be a full member of the tribe; I was too busy learning to be the Avatar, and I never had any real friends until after I left. I just want to learn how to be a real member of the Southern Water Tribe, without any complications." I finished my little schpeel with a feeling of anticipation, I was going to be a part of my tribe, and not be the odd one out.

Sokka came up behind me, a sad look on his face, one that was nearly matching Katara's. "You felt alone and alienated."

"Yea." I sighed.

"Kind of like Aang probably feels right now," Katara continued, "Not to say that I'm not thoroughly pissed off by the monk, but maybe we overreacted."

I stopped short. Aang probably feels just like I felt, alone, with no one to relate to. No one who knows what he is going through. No one, but the other Avatar. Me. "For the love of flying firebenders." I turned around. "I'm going back." And I turned around and started running, and much to my delight, I could hear Katara and Sokka right on my heels.

"Bye, Bato!"

"Tell Dad 'Hi' from us!"

And we started jogging to our friend, our incredibly stupid, dumb, insane, idiotic friend.

Our jog only lasted for a half an hour until we hear sounds coming from the woods, like a big animal coming towards us. We were almost to the coast, to Aang, and now we were going to be skewered by some crazed boar. Fantastic. Only it wasn't a boar. As it burst from the woods, I caught a glimpse of a rider on its back, a hard-looking woman who looked like she could fight. My blades were on my back, and I was running so hard now I couldn't reach for them. Every step I took sent a jarring thump up my leg and body, I couldn't think, the only thing I could do was run as fast and far as I could. I whip snarled around my ankle, and I fell hard onto the rocky ground, Katara and Sokka far behind me. This thing was hunting me, and me specifiacally. I scrambled around, turning to look the large monster in the face, and it sniffed me experimentally. The woman climbed down from the back of the beast, and she walked up to me.

"What do you want?" I asked. Who was this woman? Why was she after me? And why was that thing smelling me so… weirdly.

"I'm June, the bounty hunter. I don't want anything with you." She said smoothly, and pulled me to my feet. A couple yards behind us, Sokka and Katara were being arrested by several Fire Nation soldiers, some of whom were familiar.

"Chen?" I called.

"Korra! Sorry, orders are orders!" He called as he twisted a squirming Katara's arms behind her back and held them there.

"I'm the one who should be saying hello, but instead I have a question." A chilling voice called from behind me, one that by now I was thoroughly familiar with. Zuko. The Banished Prince. "Where is he?"

"Um… I don't know how to tell you this," I said as I brushed the dust off of the skirt tied around my waist, "But we kinda split up about an hour and a half ago." I looked in his eyes firmly, they were a subtle shade of gold. "Sorry."

"You actually expect me to believe that?" He scoffed, and Iroh waddled up behind him.

"The guards have searched the woods around here, no sign of the Avatar." Iroh paused, then continued, "There is a stream nearby, maybe we could make some tea and wait?"

That was the wrong thing to say, and Iroh knows it. "No! No tea, Uncle!" he spun around and pointed at me, "And you, Korra, are going to help me find him."

I looked up at the sky, a large white cloud was low, nearly touching the trees, and coming towards us. I wish that cloud was Appa. "How 'bout no."

Zuko's eyes narrowed. "I say yes."

The cloud flew lower, and I could see a tiny spot of orange on the front bit, and a large brown thing on the back of the cloud. It was Appa! "I don't think that will be necessary," I said, then leaned forward and kneed him in the groin. He let out a furious gasp, and Aang jumped down from Appa, using his glider to propel himself towards the guards holding Sokka and Katara. One foot hit Chen right in the face, and the other slammed into Hui's breastplate, forcing them away from my friends. Appa landed right beside the mole-monster the bounty hunter was riding, and shocked the thing to its core, it jumped five feet straight into the air. Aang pulled Sokka and Katara up towards Appa, and once they were safely on, he turned towards me.

By now, Zuko had recovered, and I was in the middle of a fearfully good fire fight, where only one of us was using fire. Dodging blasts was burned into my muscles, and I was moving with the punches, slipping and weaving in and out of the flameballs, and I assumed my airbending stance. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Aang's eyes go wide at the familiar stance, and I stepped back with every dodge. Eventually I was close enough to Appa, who was beginning to take off, that I could jump onto his tail, which was exactly what I did.

"Toodloo, Zuko! Ciao!" I could see his frustrations as he punched a tree, and yelled at his men.

The yelling grew fainter as we went up, but after Iroh went and talked to him, I could distinctly hear his furious voice, "NO TEA!"


Whoa! That was a lot longer then expected, and this chapter was supposed to go onto 'The Deserter', too. Thanks to the reviewers, again, cause I love you so much!

The Blind Sniper- Thanks for all the support you've given me since the beginning of the story, and don't worry, I won't tell your girlfriend :P

Vampiregurl11- Wow! Thanks for all the positive enthusiasm :) Thanks for loving the story :)