Chapter 12:
Aang and Katara ran up the sides of the tree root as Sokka jumped into the water and ran away from the vine monster screaming. Freya jumped as the thing swung at her and she reached out for water to grab her wrist and send her towards a tree branch above the thing to land on.
It's arm shot out at Sokka and the length of the vines grew before they wound their way around Sokka's legs, arms and body, raising him up from the ground. It slammed him down as Aang turned to him and Sokka was waved around in the air.
Aang shot his hands forwards and a blade of air cut Sokka free from the vines. In response Aang was sent flying off his feet and into the trees. Sokka cut himself free of the roots but they began to rise up beside him and he looked open mouthed as the vines reattached to the monster behind him. Freya crouched on the tree as Sokka was recaptured by the monster and she went flying at the water only for it to form a wave and catch her. The monster began to slide off over the water and Freya chased after it as Katara joined her, bending the water around her in the same manner. The two shared a look before they swung their hands and the water cut through both shoulders of the vines. Katara took her stance as it stumbled backwards and the vines threaded back over the cuts. The two girls skidded out of the way to avoid an arm before they spun around in unison and a wave knocked the thing from it's feet. Sokka went flying, crying out as he did as the thing crashed into a root.
Freya raised her arms and several tentacles shot out and began to wrap around the thing as Katara moved the water from her path to let her run better. Freya had the arms tied up but Katara was shot backwards as vines shot from the thing's stomach. Aang watched Katara fly past him before he was sent flying himself.
Freya jumped to avoid those that shot at her and she landed on the arm before her fist flared and she dove her hand into the vines below her. With a breath Freya's eyes changed and fire swirled all around the vines before she fell to the ground in a heap of charred plants. She jumped out of the way, summersaulting through the water as Sokka was being drawn into the things stomach and tied into place.
"Katara!" Freya shouted as she jumped before she was tangled in the vines. Freya gasped before she went flying through the air and the thing began to stalk after her.
Freya pulled the water from her pouch and it enveloped her hand before circling a tree and yanking her towards it. Freya grabbed it with her hands before pulling herself up onto it as the thing walked towards her.
Aang appeared on his air scooter and he travelled over the water and avoided the things arms to appear on it's back. He wrapped the entire thing in a cylinder of air and twisted it around. Katara jumped in front of it and with a breath she froze Sokka in a circle of ice with the vines.
Freya waved her hands and the water launched behind her before shooting her forwards. Freya crashed into Sokka, she removed the ice and the two went flying out the other side of the plant to land in the water.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was after you." Freya snapped at the boy as she turned back to see the thing filling up it's hole with more vines.
The monster began to stalk towards the two before Aang came and with a cry smashed it's face down into the water. Aang landed before it and then went flying as the thing hit him with it's arm of vines.
Freya huffed and she raised her arms and ice ran it's way up the vines sides. Katara began to swing her arms and blades of water rose out to cut through the monster as it tugged at the ice. A slice went through and Freya looked surprised as she thought she saw a person inside as Katara continued to cut off the arms and it struggled in its frozen place. It began to fall apart and Sokka noticed the face of a man with straw like grey hair.
"There's someone in there! He's bending the vines!" he shouted
"Then let's get him out!" Freya decided. She shot her hand forwards and a spout of water shot through the vines and grabbed the man's wrist as Katara spun around and she cut straight through the wooden face on the vines. The thing paused for a minute before Katara was completely tangled in the vines. Freya pulled and Aang dropped down from above as he blew the vines off of the man Freya pulled from the mess.
"Why did you call me here if you just wanted to kill us?" Aang demanded angrily as Freya yanked the man and he went sliding through the water towards the bender.
He instantly held his hands up.
"Wait! I didn't call you here." he confessed. He was rather round and wore only leave and vines around his junk. Freya tilted her head as the man sort of reminded her of Iroh.
Sokka and Aang shared a look as the older boy had his machete raised.
"We were flying over and I heard something calling to me, telling me to land." Aang admitted
"He's the Avatar. Stuff like that happens to us — a lot." Sokka explained
"The Avatar! Come with me." he decided. Freya released her water on the man and the three around her dropped their stance as he got to his feet. The four turned and followed the man as he walked up the roots and towards the base of the trunk of the giant tree in the centre of the swamp.
"So, who are you then?" Katara wondered
"I protect the swamp from folks that want to hurt it." He moved a vine that was in their way before letting Freya, Aang and Katara walk past him first. He turned to Sokka who was behind them. "Like this fellow with his big knife."
"See? Completely reasonable." Sokka agreed as he followed the three, sheathing his machete before he followed them up the next root. "Not a monster, just a regular guy defending his home. Nothing mystical about it."
"Oh, the swamp is a mystical place, all right. It's sacred." the man disagreed "I reached enlightenment right here under the banion grove tree." he sat down at its base "I hear it callin' me, just like you did."
"Sure ya did. It seems real chatty." Sokka said sarcastically
"See, this whole swamp is actually just one tree spread out over miles…" The four turned to look at the green that met the horizon far off behind them.
"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 wondered
"Sure. You think you're any different from me? Or your friends? Or this tree?" he wondered
"Everyone probably originally came from the same place." Freya said "And then they just spread, making homes as they did. Some travelled a little ways, others travelled further until we were everywhere." Freya said as she looked around. "We started at one tree and then spread out from it and took root elsewhere." Aang looked at the three surprised as Sokka still looked out over the swamp.
"You think that actually happened?" Aang asked her
"Well you think we all just popped up all over the world randomly?" Freya wondered grinning.
"If you listen hard enough you can hear every living thing breathing together, you can feel everything growing. We're all livin' 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." Freya smiled at Aang as he smiled back, the four of them taking a seat opposite the man.
"But what did our visions mean?" Katara wondered
"In the swamp we see visions of people we've lost, 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? It was someone I had never met." Aang admitted
"You're the Avatar. You tell me." He smiled
"Time is an illusion…" he thought carefully "So, it's… someone I will meet?" he wondered and he nodded in response.
Sokka got to his feet and stretched his back, twisting it.
"Sorry to interrupt the lesson, but we still need to find Appa and Momo." he reminded them
"I think I know how to find them." Aang put his hand on the tree root below him and closed his eyes. "Everything is connected." Aang's arrow on his hand glowed and the three watched him before he jumped up.
"Come on! We've got to hurry!" the four, followed by the man, ran from the tree after Aang. Katara, Sokka and Freya all shared an unsure look but followed through the swamp after Aang, who somehow lead the way to find Appa and Momo.
"Set my lines by the river bed!" Freya held up her hand and they all paused to listen before the two girls crept forwards to follow the singing. "Caught ten fish and I killed'em dead! Cut'em and gut'em and I tossed the heads in the water to keep them cat gators dead." The girls shared a nod before they waved their arms and a streak of water shot off towards the boats sitting on the other side of the tree roots. Appa was tied up in a net being pulled along behind a boat and after them as four people stood on two boats, Momo was in a bag, his tail poking out the end.
The water stream cut through one of the boots before Aang landed on a tree branch.
"Appa!" he called. Katara and Freya walked up beside him as Aang blew one of the men off of his boat and he released the sack that held Momo. The lemur flew out and away as Freya jumped off the tree root and surfed around the last boat to Appa.
"We're under attack!" Freya ducked under the water stream the man created to reach the bison as a wall of water was created. Katara and Aang waved the water towards the swamp guy who waved it back at them, causing the water to go no where.
"Hey, you guys are waterbenders!" Katara realised
"You too? That means we're kin!" the man grinned and Katara grimaced at the thought before the water fell down between them. Sokka and the man ran to join Katara and Aang, who now had Momo on his shoulder as Freya cut the bison free only to have him launch on top of her and lick her.
"Appa!" she complained
"Hey, Hue! How you been?" he asked the man beside Sokka.
"You know, scared some folks, swung some vines, the usual." Hue replied sheepishly.
"Hue?" Sokka asked as he, Katara and Aang looked at the man as Freya got to her feet.
The four were invited to the swamp men's village which consisted of a few huts on stilts as they started a fire and cooked some food. They stirred it with water bending to cook the creatures of the swamp as the four sat around the fire with Hue, Appa behind them calmly.
"How you like that possum chicken?" Due wondered as he sat down with another kebab.
"Tastes just like arctic hen." Sokka admitted "So why were you guys so interested in eating Appa?" he wondered before he pointed at the catfish crocodile behind Due and Tho. "You've got plenty of those big things wandering around."
"You want me to eat old Slim? He's like a member of the family!" Due admitted as he turned to feed the monster a fish from his kebab.
"Nice slim." Sokka tried to feed the animal but it hit his nose and the boy gasped as he was growled at.
"Oh, he don't eat no bugs! That's people food." Due believed laughing.
"Where d'you say you're from?"
"The South Pole." Katara returned
"Didn't know there was waterbenders anywhere but here. They got a nice swamp there, do they?" he wondered
"No, it's all ice and snow." the two looked at her shocked, their eyes and mouth hanging open.
"Hmm. No wonder you left." Tho believed.
"Well, I hope you realise now that nothing strange was going on here. Just a bunch of greasy people living in a swamp." Sokka said turning to his sister. Freya rolled her eyes at the boy as she took a bite of her kebab.
"What about the visions?" Katara wondered
"I told you, we were hungry. I'm eating a giant bug!" he reminded her before he ate the end off it. He swallowed it and pulled a face.
"Sokka I bet you'd eat anything as long as someone called it food." Freya admitted
"But what about when the tree showed me where Appa and Momo were?" Aang wondered
"That's Avatar stuff, that doesn't count." Sokka believed before he turned to Hue "The only thing I can't figure out is how you made that tornado that sucked us down."
"I can't do anything like that. I just bender the water in the plants." Hue admitted
"Well, no accounting for weather. Still, there's absolutely nothing mysterious about the swamp." He decided
"What about the trance it sent Aang and I into. That wasn't just avatar stuff." Freya said
"Sure it is, you and Aang have this weird connection. That's why you can see him in the spirit world." The two benders shared a look.
"And how is that not mystical?" Freya asked
"You were stuck in blocks of ice for a century of course weird things are going to happen to you." Sokka waved it away.
Freya and Katara shared a look before they rolled their eyes at the boy.
"One day Sokka. One day something's going to happen to make you question your logic." Freya decided.