The rain went on for hours, even after the storm had reduced itself to a wind. There was no use in trying to get dry. It wouldn't even last a second. They had tried to find shelter underneath the trees, but it was of little use. Katara and Aang were too tired to bend them a shelter. Causing gigantic waves to tip over ships obviously was no easy task. Zuko remembered those storms. As a kid he had stared out the windows, watching the rain build puddles in the grass and on the walkways and listening to the constant drumming on the roof until his mother had sent him to bed. His mother… He remembered that she had left them. She had left the night that his grandfather, Firelord Azulon, had passed away mysteriously. No one ever had told him why she had left. No one ever had mentioned her after that night ever again. Except for Azula, who would taunt him with their mother no longer being there to protect him from her constant acts of terror…
Back when he was a child, the sound of the rain on their roof would lull him into sleep. Now he could not even close his eyes. The constant dripping, his wet clothes and hair clinging to his skin and the cool night-air kept him awake. But except from Sokka, no one was able to sleep. Obviously Sokka could fall asleep everywhere. Even if it was in the middle of a dark forest, during pouring rain combined with cool winds. Zuko was sure that Sokka wouldn't be able to survive alone for even one day.
As the rain finally stopped it was way past midnight. Zuko used his firebending to dry himself up immediately, as did Iroh and Lu Ten. Aang and Katara did the same with their bending. Then the benders dried up all the non-benders as well as Appa and Momo. Sokka was still asleep. He didn't even awake, as Aang dry-blowed him with airbending. Zuko then dried the ground of their camping-spot up using firebending and let himself drop back to the now dry forest-floor. He simply felt exhausted. "The floor's really warm now…" Katara stated, placing her hands on the ground "Almost like a fur-covered bed at home…" Aang rolled himself together at the floor and started to purr like a kittenbird. Toph used her bending to bend herself a blanket out of the ground and went to sleep. "Sparky, I'll wake you, if I get cold again." She yawned.
They slept until late morning. A warm summer-sun stretched beams of light through the tree-tops and painted warm freckles on their faces. The thunderstorm of last night was forgotten as the life of the island awoke. Sokka awoke with a scream, as a turtle-monkey tried to taste his toe. His scream woke the rest of them. Zuko was up to his feet and pulled Sokka's boomerang out of the other boy's hands, for the water-tribe boy was aiming at the turtle-monkey with it. "Hey, what are you doing?" Sokka complained at once "It tried to eat me!" "Turtle-monkeys don't eat humans…" Zuko sighed "And it's not eatable, so no need to kill it…" Sokka snatched his boomerang back from him. "It bit me." He insisted. "Then it most likely thought you are a nut." Katara suggested. Sokka looked daggers upon her.