Gyatso and Kara: Prodigies of an Avatar

Chapter 26: The Shortcut

Kara of the Water Tribe sat on Appa awaiting the coming rain. Water always made her feel better than she was, it reminded her of brother and when there was peace in the world. No more petty fights or deranged princesses who wanted to cause tyranny between the nations. She lay back on her spot in the saddle and closed her eyes recalling their memories.

Her long, wavy, brown hair blew to the left with the wind and hit her face softly. She brushed it back instead of just moving the wind back as she usually did because of a ridiculous pact that she had made with Topaz. There was to be no bending at all until they found the boys.

"Daddy always said that there was more to having a gift than using it," She reassured herself halting her biting urge to bend.

"Wanna bend, Kara?" Topaz climbed onto Appa smiling at her friend, breaking the teen's concentration.

"Yes, I do, Topaz. Does that give you some sick little pleasure or something?" Kara rolled her grey eyes and crossed her legs, ready to have some sort of chat with her friend.

"So what is it?" She asked fidgeting with the new dress that she had gotten from a local store. The dress was all white with red lining and a sash covering her stomach with a lotus design in the middle. It blew with the wind, but was made for everyday wear from dancing to battle.

"I think that Li and Kyoshi are almost over their stupid little fight."

"Well, that's good. I don't see how Li was flirting with Fen, I mean, he wasn't like 'Fen, wanna go to Appa . . . alone' , right? There was no reason to fret."

"Oh, well . . . you know what I just remembered, Kara?"

"I'm supposed to answer that?" Kara answered dryly as Topaz would usually answer to her rhetorical questions, but with a smile.

"No, smart-mouth, you aren't supposed to answer that. But, anyways, I was drawing yesterday purely from memory and half asleep and look at what I came up with."

Topaz pulled out a long scroll with ink all over it. It was beautiful even though it was only black and white. The picture showed a young Iroh, Kara, and a very small Roku. The scene was during the day that they left for their separate ways. Kara held a small piece of paper in her hand, and looked more depressed than she had ever been, but yet . . . looking at the picture, she felt nostalgic.

"I remember that day, Paz, it was the best and worst day of my life so far. . ." A single tear fell down Kara's cheek, but she wiped it quickly and replaced it with a solemn smile. She caressed the page before her and closed her eyes recalling the memory. The girl didn't want to open them after that.

"Kara, I want to ask you something." Topaz whispered taking her friend's hand softly. "You are like a sister to me, and I want you to be good and careful when we go to the swamp this afternoon. Will you promise me something?"

"Yes, I'll promise you anything, Topaz." Kara opened her eyes and nodded closing the scroll.

"Promise to be careful when we get there, promise not to follow something because you see someone or something that you love, okay?"

"I promise."

That Night

"Are we ready for the Swamp, kids?" Katara said with an excited but worried tone. She held her smallest son in her arms as he was asleep and took the reins of Appa.

"Yes, we're ready, Aunt Katara." Kyoshi said with her eyes flickering up to her boyfriend, and then quickly away. She had finally realized that she had gotten angry for nothing, and couldn't come to face him. Her pride owned her, as it did for many Earth Kingdom people, and it was extremely hard for her to get through it.

"Well, I want to place some ground rules for our trip."

"That seems fair enough given your history with the swamp." Kara said nodding her head. She remembered all of the fables that her parents had told her about the swamp and shuddered. Seeing things that pulled heart strings was not a history that she wanted to live.

"Rule one," Katara started looking everybody strait in the eye. Her light blue eyes bore into every child's eyes and scared them. "no wandering off. Rule number two, if you do wander off- Topaz- don't wander off alone, and that doesn't mean with one other person. Rule number three and final, anything that you see is not real unless it touches you itself. I don't have to explain how many hearts have been broken, and minds crazed by the swamp, and I don't want those things to happen to you. Got it?"

"Got it." Everyone said simultaneously nodding their heads in agreement.

With that, Katara turned and took the reins from her son's hands and ordered Appa to fly with two simple words "Yip, yip!"

After a couple of hours, Appa was already hovering over the swamp aimlessly. The sky was an ominous gray, and cold raindrops fell on the group. It was almost time for a pit-stop if Katara remembered correctly.

"Get ready for a big drop, everybody." She warned pulling Kuzon closely to her stomach.

"Mama, I don't like the sound of big drops." The boy whimpered squirming closer to his mother. Ever since the fall, and his horrible nightmare, he had so many questions to ask. Who was the monster ever changing face? Who was the girl named Kya, and what did she have to with anything?

"I'm not gonna let you fall, Kuzon." Katara reassured her baby stroking his arms softly. "Just hold on to me and you won't fall, alright, hon?"

"Okay, Mama." Kuzon sighed closing his eyes and holding TWS close to his heart. The lion-fox purred against the little boy's cheek, calming his nerves.

"Here we go!" Topaz smiled looking up at the tornado forming below them. She loved the chill that she got jumping off of glaciers and cliffs at home-on the eve and during the war. Yet, she was still afraid of what was to happen when they actually got to the swamp. Nobody knew what was to happen.

Just as she said that, the terrifying tornado below them sucked them in violently. The air was so thin, that even Kara could barely breathe. Every time someone would try to inhale, the air would be so thin that they would wheeze. All they could do was close their eyes and shiver from the cold swamp water that drenched them in the tornado.

"Whoo-hoo!" Topaz laughed spitting water out of her mouth and opening her eyes to look at everybody. She saw nothing. Nothing but dark, gray water.

"Aunt Katara, Li, Kara, Kyoshi! Are you there?" She asked, suddenly frightened.

"Yes," Said a wheezy voice that belonged to Li, "We're here, now shut up so that I can breathe."

"Sorry," Topaz whispered quietly and closed her dark green eyes again.

Everything was silent except for the roaring waters until the wind blew, signaling the end of the tornado. When everyone looked up, they were surrounded by dark green and brown vegetation.

"Mom, when you and Dad told me stories of the swamp, you didn't mention the smell." Kara covered her nose and tried to think of flowers and perfumes-it didn't work.

"We did that because the moral of the story wasn't about the smell, it was about the reason that we came to the swamp."

"I know, Mom. Everything is connected; I've heard the story a thousand times."

"No, Kara, that is only a part of the story. The other half that you missed was that everything comes to the swamp for a reason, but nobody knows why until they leave it." Katara sighed putting Kuzon into Kara's arms, and taking a step into the swamp mud.

"Here we go."

YESS!!! I finally got to update! I am soooo sorry for not updating, so much has happened and I want to finish this one so that I can start up another. The next chapter will be called The Swamp and be extra long (as I originally wrote it out). I am getting so bored with writing all of these emotional pieces like "Oh, ever since the war started..." I mean, WHO CARES ANYMORE!!! I want to write some ACTION (Romantically or Bending) between characters. I want to be unrealistic. MORE SPIRIT-WORLD WARS!!!!! I CANNOT WAIT!

God Bless,

Leelee488512