I leaned against the ostrich horse with my arms crossed, staring blankly ahead. Beside me were Zuko and Iroh, with the former pouting as he always did and the latter holding his straw hat out towards the passersby. "Spare coins for weary travelers?" the older man asked. A middle-aged man tossed some copper coins into Iroh's hat, prompting a smile.
"This is humiliating" Zuko growled. "We're royalty. These people should be giving us whatever we want".
I rolled my eyes; the worst thing about my new refugee status, besides being separated from the twins and Takara, was constantly having to deal with Zuko's angry ranting. The teenager threw fits like an infant, and it was seriously grating on my nerves.
"Well guess what", I said, glaring at him, "this is what most people in the world live like. You're upset because you lost your status as a Fire Nation royal? Many of the people in this world have lost everything: their homes, their lives, their families. If you don't like having to live a humble life, then too bad".
"I am the true heir to the Fire Nation" he growled, glaring back at me. "These people should be on their knees before me, giving me whatever I ask".
"They will if you ask nicely" Iroh said. A woman then approached, and he asked "Spare change for a hungry old man?"
"Aw, here you go" the woman said empathetically, dropping a coin into the older man's hat. I could see Zuko bristling at her tone; he probably thought that she was being condescending.
"The coin is appreciated, but not as much as your smile" Iroh said with a coy grin. Zuko groaned in discomfort, causing me to smirk while the woman giggled before walking off. Glancing over at Iroh, I could see that his grey beard was starting to become thicker, now that he wasn't shaving it regularly. I then scratched my own beard; I hadn't shaved since after the North Pole, and now my face was covered in a full, black beard after weeks of growing.
A man with dual swords slung across his back then approached. "How about some entertainment in exchange for… a gold piece?"
"We're not performers" Zuko muttered under his breath.
"Not professional, anyway" Iroh quickly added, placing his hat on the ground and standing up. He then clasped his hands together and started singing in his baritone voice.
It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, but the girls in the city, they look so pretty.
"Come on, we're talking a gold piece here" the man complained. "Let's see some action". He then drew one of his swords, and before I could react, he started swiping them at Iroh's feet, forcing him to move from foot to foot in a sick display.
They kiss so sweet that you really have to meet the girls from Ba Sing Se!
Beside me, Zuko was incredibly tense, and he started to stand up. I held him down, whispering "Just stay calm". He angrily shrugged my hand off, and I watched as the stranger finally stopped swiping his swords at Iroh's feet.
He laughed heartily. "Nothing like a fat man dancing for his dinner" he said derisively. "Here you go". He then tossed the gold coin into Iroh's hat.
"Such a kind man" the older man commented, and I forced myself to take several deep breaths as I gripped my knee tightly.
"Hey, you taking us down for a reason?" Sokka asked. Jin and Li stopped their arm wrestling and looked over the edge of Appa's saddle. They were, indeed, slowly descending, and the Earthbending boys didn't like the look of the ominous swamp they were flying over. The Airbender holding the Bison's saddle didn't answer, and Sokka asked "Aang, why are we going down?"
"What?" Aang asked, looking around. "I didn't even notice".
At this point, they were coming fairly close to the tops of the trees, and Sokka asked sarcastically "Are you noticing now?"
"Is something wrong?" Katara asked, walking up beside her brother. Jin and Li shrugged when she looked over at them.
"I know this is gonna sound weird", Aang said, "but I think the swamp is… calling to me".
"Is it telling you where we can get something to eat?" Sokka asked. The question made the twins' stomachs growl, and they exchanged a glance; they could always go for a decent meal when they could find one.
"No, I… I think it wants us to land there" Aang replied.
"No offense to the swamp, but I don't see any land there to land on". Jin and Li leaned over the edge of Appa's saddle, gazing down at the trees and murky water they were rooted in. They, too, could sense something odd about this place, but they couldn't quite put a finger on what it was.
"I don't know. Bumi said to learn Earthbending, I would have to wait and listen. And now I'm actually hearing the earth. Do you want me to ignore it?"
"Yes" Sokka replied, glancing warily down at the swamp. He then looked over to the twins, who looked a little apprehensive. "See? Even the Earthbenders aren't sure about this place".
"I don't know. There's something ominous about that place" Katara added.
"Okay", Aang relented, "since everyone feels so strongly about this, bye, swamp. Yip, yip". They then started ascending, putting some distance between them and the swamp. Suddenly, a deep rumbling could be heard coming from behind them. Jin and Li turned and saw a massive tornado coming towards them.
Jin tugged on Sokka's sleeve, and the Water Tribe boy turned and saw the tornado. His mouth fell open at the sight of it, and he said to Aang "You better throw in an extra yip. We gotta move!"
Aang then had Appa zigging and zagging in an effort to escape the roaring tornado, but to no avail. The funnel of air seemed to be following them, which only added to the creepy nature of the swamp. Suddenly, Sokka started floating as he was caught in the tornado's pull, and Katara held onto him. Aang then hopped onto the saddle and created a shield of air around the large Bison as they were finally enveloped by the tornado.
The Airbender's face was wrought with tension as he struggled to maintain the shield, but it eventually gave out, and the group was sent flying down towards the swamp.
Jin and Li came crashing down into murky water, managing to soften their landings somewhat by Bending the mud beneath them. They grimaced as they stood up, noticing that the others didn't appear to be hurt. Aang looked around, a sudden worried expression on his face. "Where's Appa and Momo?" he asked.
He then hopped up to the tops of the trees, calling the animals' names. Katara said "Sokka, you've got an elbow leech".
"Where, where?!" he shrieked in distress, flailing about like a panicked octopus.
"Where do you think?" Katara asked sardonically, causing the twins to smile.
"Why do things keep attaching to me?" Sokka asked in frustration as he pried the leech off of his elbow and threw it away. Just then, Aang flew back down on his glider.
"You didn't find them?" Katara asked.
"No. And the tornado, it just disappeared" Aang replied. Jin and Li exchanged a glance; tornadoes didn't just appear and disappear that quick, meaning that something else was at work here, and the Earthbending boys weren't sure as to whether it was hostile or not.
Sokka then drew a machete and started hacking away at some nearby vines. After a few swings, Aang said "Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp".
"Aang, these are just plants" Sokka countered. "Do you want me to say 'please' and 'thank you' as I swing my machete back and forth?"
"Maybe you should listen to Aang" Katara advised. "Something about this place feels… alive". Jin and Li could feel it. They flexed their toes on the soggy ground at their feet; their connection to the earth allowed them to feel something strange about the swamp, something alive and very spiritual.
"I'm sure there are lots of things that are alive here. And if we don't want to wind up getting eaten by them, we need to find Appa as fast as we can". Sokka then resumed hacking away at the vines, and the twins glanced nervously at their surroundings.
A short time later, as the sun was setting, Katara called out Appa's and Momo's names as the group trekked through the forest. "There's no way they can hear us and no way we can see them" Sokka said. "We'll have to make camp for the night".
A small cloud of white gas was then belched from the murky water, and Katara nervously asked "What was that?"
"Nothing, just some swamp gas" Sokka replied calmly. "Look, there's nothing supernatural going on here". The swamp gas then wafted over to where they were standing, and they all plugged their noses at its foul stench. Suddenly, a piercing scream sounded from nearby, causing everyone to hold on tightly to one another in fear.
They glanced around, and eventually saw that a small, puffy white bird was making the scream-like sounds. "I think we should build a fire" Sokka suggested, quickly zipping over to some nearby tree branches and cutting them into pieces.
"Sokka, the longer we're here, the more I think you shouldn't be doing that" Aang said.
"No, I asked the swamp" Sokka sarcastically retorted. "It said this was fine. Right, swamp?" In a squeaky voice, he then said "No problem, Sokka". Jin and Li gave him disapproving glares, but the campfire was soon lit, providing them all with some much-needed warmth.
As Jin and Li absently drew shapes into the ground with sticks, Katara asked "Does anyone else get the feeling that we're being watched?"
"Please, we're all alone out here" Sokka replied. He then started swinging his machete at a buzzing insect, and it suddenly burst into a ball of blinding white light. The ball moved away, illuminating many, many pairs of eyes as it did so.
"Except for them" Aang said.
"Right, except for them" Sokka agreed. Jin and Li then joined the others as they huddled together, clutching together in fright.
Eventually, they all managed to get some sleep. The twins slept on the ground next to each other, and they found their dreams populated by visions of their father. Their eyes slowly opened as they sensed something wrong. They exchanged a glance before feeling slimy vines wrapping around their bodies. They saw vines wrapping around the others as well, but as they couldn't talk, they couldn't warn them.
Suddenly, the vines yanked them all back with unbelievable force. Sokka used his machete in order to anchor himself in place, while Katara used her Waterbending in order to slice herself free. Jin and Li found themselves being dragged away from the others, and they both instinctively summoned earthen restraints on their wrists and ankles in order to secure their bodies.
The vines gripping them pulled and pulled, but it was no use. As they eased their grip slightly, Jin nodded over to Li, and the brothers summoned two rocks from the ground. Trying to replicate how King Bumi was able to Earthbend with only his face, the boys scrunched their faces and imagined the rocks changing.
For a few moments, they only floated in the air, and the twins kept envisioning what they wanted the rocks to do. Suddenly, the rocks morphed into flat disks with sharpened edges, and the twins smiled in triumph.
Using the sharpened rocks to cut apart the vines gripping them, they released their earthen restraints and bid a hasty retreat into the swamp. After running for some time, the twins stopped upon reaching a small clearing, content that they had escaped the mysterious vines.
Suddenly, a giggle drew their attention, and they looked to see several figures in the clearing. A ray of sunlight was shining down on them, and they were clearly illuminated.
There was a boy, looking to be somewhere around five years old, and a man and a woman. The woman sat on a large tree root, while the man chased the five year-old around. Both of them were laughing hysterically, and Jin and Li smiled at the sight. The man looked shockingly like their father, but as far as they knew, he didn't have any children besides them. And based on the woman's appearance, they surmised that it had to be a younger Admiral Zhao.
They had seen the portrait of their father's family when he had been a boy, and the five year-old they beheld must have been him. It was rather surreal, to see Admiral Zhao actually smiling, much less laughing and taking joy in something… normal.
The younger version of their father suddenly stopped running and turned to look at them. Jin and Li exchanged a glance, unsure as to how they should proceed. The younger Admiral Zhao stopped as well, and he stared down at them for a moment before returning his gaze to the small boy. His face then contorted into an expression of pure rage. "TRAITOR!" he roared as he brought his arm down and cast a line of crimson flames down at the small boy.
Jin and Li started to reach out for him, but a moment later, they were gone.
The twins looked around the clearing, checking for any signs of the vision they just witnessed. There was nothing, and the two brothers shrugged in confusion at one another. They then started walking through the swamp, searching for their lost companions. Eventually, they heard a commotion coming from nearby. They ran towards it, thinking that Aang and the others were in some kind of fight.
They then burst through a tangle of vines just as they heard Sokka exclaim "What do you guys think you're doing? I've been looking all over for you!"
The twins suddenly found themselves rolling uncontrollably down a massive tree root before crashing into their Water Tribe companion. The three of them proceeded to stand up and recover from the crash as Katara said "Well, I've been wandering around looking for you guys!"
"I was chasing some girl" Aang said, using his Airbending in order to lift himself onto his feet.
"What girl?" Katara asked.
"I don't know. I heard laughing, and I saw some girl in a fancy dress" he replied as he helped her to stand.
"Well, there must be a tea party here", Sokka sarcastically commented, "and we just didn't get our invitations".
Katara somberly looked down at the ground. "I thought I saw mom".
"Look, we were all just scared and hungry, and our minds were playing tricks on us" Sokka offered in explanation. "That's why we all saw things out here".
"You saw something too?" Katara asked with an arched eyebrow.
"I thought I saw Yue" he muttered, turning to look away.
Jin and Li looked questioningly at Aang, who said "Yue was the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe. She gave her life so that the Moon would come back".
"But that doesn't prove anything" Sokka said. "Look, I think about her all the time. And you saw Mom, someone you miss a lot".
Katara turned to the twins. "Did you guys see someone?" They both nodded somberly, and Jin summoned a rock into his hand that he used to write into the nearest tree root.
"What about me?" Aang asked. "I didn't know the girl I saw. And all our visions led us right here".
"Okay, so where's here, the middle of the swamp?" Katara asked.
The twins looked around, and saw that they were currently in the shadow of a massive tree. The canopy stretched so far that it partially blocked their view of the sky, and the trunk was so thick that they had a hard time seeing around it. "It's the heart of the swamp" Aang commented. "It's been calling us here. I knew it".
"It's just a tree" Sokka countered. "It can't call anyone. For the last time, there's nothing after us, and there's nothing magical happening here".
The Spirits jumped on the opportunity to prove him wrong, for just as he finished saying that, a large monster composed of vines burst from the water directly in front of the group. They all clung to each other and screamed in terror before it attacked.
Everyone split up as one giant arm came crashing down. The creature went after Sokka first, throwing him into the water like a ragdoll while Aang used an Airbending slice in order to sever the arm in half. The creature used its other arm to slap the bald boy away, leaving the twins and Katara to battle it while Sokka struggled against its grip.
While the Waterbender fought it head-on, Jin and Li elected to get around it. They both ran along the tree roots, eventually getting behind the vine creature. They then stretched their arms to the side, gathering a large clump of mud from the bottom of the water. Straining in order to keep the clump together, they launched it at the back of the creature. The mud struck it with a fair amount of force, but other than that the attack had no effect.
The creature then whirled on them, swiping the twins with one of its arms. The vine arm slammed into them with a great amount of force, and they crashed into a tree trunk. Jin and Li fell into the water, and as they stood back up, they saw Aang hopping on top of the creature. He used his Bending to create a small twister, turning the mass of green vines into an ice-cream cone shape.
Katara then formed a ball of ice around Sokka before freeing him from the monster's grasp. Exchanging a glance, Jin and Li kicked spiked rocks from the ground and proceeded to punch them at the creature.
The rocks pierced the vines clean through, and the Earthbending boys thought they could see something inside of it. The creature quickly regenerated the holes, and Katara began bombarding it with a barrage of thin wheels of water which sliced through the vines. This continued for a few moments, and the twins thought that they could see someone inside of the mass of vines.
"There's someone in there" Sokka said. "He's Bending the vines". Katara then sliced clean through the middle of the vines before she was suddenly ensnared. Aang came to her aid and blasted the remaining vines with a powerful gust of air which revealed a man.
"Why did you call me here if you just wanted to kill us?" he demanded.
"Wait" the man said, extricating himself from the vines. He appeared to be middle-aged, with upside down, bowl-shaped grey hair, and he wore nothing more than a loincloth. "I didn't call you here".
The group glanced at each other before Aang explained "We were flying over, and I heard something calling to me, telling me to land".
"He's the Avatar" Sokka elaborated. "Stuff like that happens to us a lot".
"The Avatar?" the man asked in an astounded tone. "Come with me". Jin and Li exchanged a questioning glance before following the others as the strange man led them up the massive roots of the enormous tree they had just finished fighting under.
"So who are you, then?" Aang asked as the group came to a level where they could see across the entirety of the swamp.
"I protect the swamp from folks that want to hurt it" the man explained. "Like this fellow with his big knife".
"See? Completely reasonable" Sokka said smugly. " Not a monster, just a regular guy defending his home. Nothing mystical about it".
"Oh, the swamp is a mystical place, all right" the man replied. "It's sacred. I reached enlightenment right here under the Banyan Grove Tree. I heard it calling me, just like you did".
"Sure you did" Sokka said skeptically. "It seems real chatty".
"See, this whole swamp is actually just one tree spread out over miles. Branches spread and sink and take root and then spread some more; one big, living organism, just like the entire world".
"I get how the tree is one big thing, but the whole world?" Aang asked.
"Sure" the man replied. "You think you're any different from me or your friends or this tree? If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We are all living together even if most folks don't act like it. We all have the same roots, and we are all branches of the same tree".
Jin and Li exchanged a glance. Their father had espoused a similar philosophy in regards to wisdom and knowledge. He believed that, fundamentally, all the peoples of the world were the same, and were thus deserving of all knowledge and ideas despite their loyalty to individual nations.
"But what did our visions mean?" Katara asked.
"In the swamp, we see visions of people we've lost", the older man explained, "people we loved, folks we think are gone. But the swamp tells us they're not. We're still connected to 'em. Time is an illusion, and so is death".
"But what about my vision?" Aang asked. "It was someone I had never met".
"You're the Avatar. You tell me" the older man replied with an arched eyebrow.
"Time is an illusion, so it's someone I will meet".
"Sorry to interrupt the lesson", Sokka spoke up, "but we still need to find Appa and Momo".
"I think I know how to find them" Aang said. He then placed his hand on the tree root and said "Everything is connected". He closed his eyes for several moments, and Jin and Li exchanged a glance. Eventually, the bald boy jumped up and said "Come on, we've gotta hurry!"
The twins, Sokka, and Katara then ran after Aang as he rushed back into the swamp. They ran for some time before they could hear some kind of singing coming from nearby. Just as they came to a thick tangle of vines, Aang fired a powerful Airbending slice forward.
The group emerged through the vines just as the Airbending slice smashed into two canoes. Momo suddenly emerged from a sack and flew over to them as the canoes' occupants defended themselves. "We're under attack!" one of them cried before he Bended a wave at them.
Aang and Katara worked together to dispel the wave, and the Water Tribe girl said "Hey, you guys are Waterbenders".
"You too?" the leaf-covered man asked in surprise. "That means we're kin". Jin and Li caught Katara's scrunched up face just as Sokka and the older man caught up with them. "Hey, Huu" the Waterbender greeted. "How you been?"
"You know, scared some folks, swung some vines… the usual" Huu replied casually.
The group then found themselves dining with the swamp Waterbenders as the sun set. One of them played a banjo, while another asked "How you like that possum chicken?"
"Tastes just like arctic hen" Sokka replied as Jin took a bite out of his serving. "So why were you guys so interested in eating Appa? You've got plenty of those things around" he said, referring to the reptile lying behind the Waterbender.
"You want me to eat ol' Slim?" he asked incredulously. "He's like a member of the family".
Sokka then tossed a piece of meat over at the animal, saying "Nice Slim". The meat bounced off of its nose, and it proceeded to growl, causing the Water Tribe boy to cry in fear.
"Oh, he don't eat no bugs" the Waterbender explained. "That's people food".
"Where'd you say you was from?" another one asked.
"The South Pole" Katara replied.
"Didn't know there was Waterbenders anywhere but here" the leaf-covered man said. "They got a nice swamp there, do they?"
"No, it's all ice and snow" Katara said conversationally.
Jin and Li lightly scowled to each other, remembering the ice and snow of the North Pole. "Mm, no wonder you left" the Waterbender commented.
"Well, I hope you realize now that nothing strange was going on here", Sokka said, taking the opportunity to bask in the glory of being right. "Just a bunch of greasy people living in a swamp".
"What about the visions?" Katara countered.
"I told you: we were hungry" Sokka said, his mouth full of cooked fish. "I'm eating a giant bug!"
"But what about when the tree showed me where Appa and Momo were?" Aang asked.
"That's Avatar stuff; that doesn't count" Sokka muttered. "The only thing I can't figure out is how you made the tornado that sucked us down".
"I can't do anything like that" Huu replied. "I just Bend the water in the plants".
"Well, no accounting for weather. Still, there's absolutely nothing mysterious about the swamp". Jin and Li exchanged a smirk; no matter what he saw, Sokka was determined to be right when claiming that magic had anything to do with what they encountered.
Ah, Sokka. He's like Kate Beckett on 'Castle': he always has to disprove anything that can't be quantified or logically explained.
I'll be skipping 'Avatar Day', as that's just filler, and there's nothing interesting for my characters to do in that bit.
Next: 'The Blind Bandit!'