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"Oh, Toph! I'm so bored…I would kill for a computer right now…" I moaned and flopped onto my back. "I need technology!"
Toph ignored me, as was the custom when I started talking about future things, and continued sharpening a stick with a knife. I didn't know she even had one. I wasn't worried at all about her slipping and cutting her finger though, I knew she would be fine. I would be more likely to cut myself than anyone else in this campsite.
I rolled over onto my stomach, not caring if I got covered in dirt, and rested my head on my arms. I imagined I was back home relaxing in the front yard. Y foster dad Rick had always thought it was weird that I could lie down and do nothing for an hour, but it was just something that came easily to me. I called it my meditation time. I groaned in comfort and smiled to myself. Today was perfect. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the air smelled like wildflowers.
"I still don't think we should set up camp yet." Came a bored drawl from somewhere to my left.
"No one asked you, Lee…" I mumbled, but I was sure he could hear me. His ears were as good as Toph's.
I heard him do some of those slow and relaxing deep breath exercises. "Don't you think it's too early to stop walking?" He asked, forcing himself to sound polite.
"No." I answered simply.
He groaned in frustration. "We're never going to get to the Avatar…"
I opened my eyes and turned my head towards Lee. "Feel free to leave and find him yourself…"
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Fine, but we have to make up the distance tomorrow."
"We'll try."
"Try?" he asked.
"Yes…try. Its going to rain pretty soon, that's why we've stopped, so if its too wet and muddy to make it far tomorrow…" I sat up and stared at him.
"Its perfectly sunny right now, how do you know it's going to rain?" He challenged.
"Waterbender. Duh." I shrugged my shoulders.
He rolled his eyes. "You've only been bending for a few days; you can barely call yourself a bender."
"Shut up. I barely found out I could even bend!" I yelled without even thinking.
Lee opened his mouth again but was shut out by Toph.
"Will you two please shut up? You're giving me a headache." Toph yelled, brandishing her now pointy stick at us threateningly.
I grunted lazily and lay back down. Today had been horribly long and all I wanted to do was relax and watch T.V., but right now, that was impossible. I couldn't wait until I found the Avatar and returned home. First thing I would do is crawl into my bed, take a long nap, and then order a large pepperoni pizza that I would eat all my myself.
"I still don't think it's going to rain…" Lee crossed his arms over his chest.
Suddenly, as if in answer to my prayer, a crack of thunder sounded from over the tree line. "Ha!" I shouted loudly and sprung back up. "Told you." I said smugly, albeit a little childishly.
"Well, forgive me if I don't trust you." He said through clenched teeth. "If I recall correctly, you had Toph tie me up the first time we met, so don't be surprised that I'm a little skeptical…"
"You scared me!" I yelled indignantly, stepping up so that I was face to face with him.
"Oh yes, and tying a person up is a completely natural reaction." Sarcasm was dripping from his voice as he stared me down.
"Didn't I tell you two to shut up?!" Toph yelled, throwing her stick at us. It bounced harmlessly off of my leg and landed on the ground.
I turned to Toph. "Be nice, Rambo."
"Rambo? Looks like you finally came up with that nickname you promised me."
I glanced back at Lee. "This isn't over."
His glare could have set me on fire. "I think I'm going out hunting." He turned swiftly and stalked out of the campsite without another glance.
"I hope he gets rained on…" I said to no one in particular, and turned back towards Toph.
She smiled at me. "It's worth having him here if only for the meat."
I snorted in laughter. "Lets make an earth tent, its starting to get dark and I'd love to actually get some sleep!"
"I may be blind, but I know its not near dark yet. We can't go to sleep before its dark. What are we…Ten years old?"
I chose not to mention the fact that she's only twelve. "Fine, then what do you suggest we do until dark, which probably won't be long considering that there are probably some rain clouds forming." I shivered slightly from the rapidly cooling air and thanked god I hadn't traded my jacket.
"Laze around and eat?" Toph was completely serious. "I hope Lee brings back something good."
"I hope be brings back something at all. He's still mad; he might want me to starve."
Toph scoffed. "Are you kidding me? He brings back better stuff when he's mad. I love it when you fight before dinner!"
I smiled at her and shook my head. "You're welcome, then."
She scoffed. "Whatever."
I smiled at the striking resemblance between Toph and Tina. Both were stubborn and had enough wit to make a grumpy old man laugh. "You need to make some shelter for us so we don't get rained on. Can you manage?"
"You need to remember who you're talking to…" In less than a second, the ground was rumbling as Toph placed both her hands on the ground. With one pull upwards, walls rose from the ground and connected up at the top in some kind of teepee imitation. "Piece of cake."
"Wow… Thanks." I smiled. "Perfect, now all we need is a door, so Lee can't get in."
Toph shook her head. "That would be nice except for the fact that I don't think he's all that bad."
"Really?" I squinted my eyes at her. "I think he's a freak."
She raised her eyebrows. "Lee has done nothing wrong to me, and I think he actually has reason to be a jerk to you… You did hold him hostage for a whole night."
"Ok, change of subject!" I pleaded.
Toph walked up next to me and put an arm around my shoulder, pulling me down to her height. "Perfect, because I feel the need to tell you something that's pretty important…"
"What?" I questioned.
"Yesterday, I could tell you slipped a few times and mentioned a few things from your time. Then I got to thinking. It's time for a history lesson." Toph gripped my shoulder tightly and dragged me into the earth tent. "I can't have you slipping up and giving yourself away so soon. That would take the fun out of everything!"
I almost felt pleased that she didn't want me to give myself away… That was until she said how funny she was expecting it to actually be. "A history lesson?"
"Yeah, you know nothing about my world." She stated as if it was obvious.
"That's actually a good idea." My voice was met with a really close sounding clap of thunder.
"Sit down." Toph 'asked politely'.
I nodded and did what I was told. "Ok, lay it on me, I want to know everything."
"I'm not going to tell you everything… Just the important parts." She cracked her knuckled and rested her head on her hand. "There are a few things I think you need to know."
"What is that?" I asked.
She pursed her lips. "We are in a war right now."
"A war?" I asked, getting a little nervous.
She nodded. "It's been going on for about one hundred years."
"One hundred years?" I shouted.
"It all started when the power hungry Fire Nation wanted to get rid of the Avatar so they could take over the world."
"The Avatar?"
"Only he can control all four elements." She plowed through, ignoring me.
"Wait, the Avatar? He's still alive after one hundred years?" I started to get really confused.
"Yes. Now are you going to let me finish?"
"Go on, please."
"Only he can control all four elements." Se repeated. "That gives him the power to be the mediator and protector for all four nations. With him gone, there would be nothing to stop the Fire Nation from taking over the nations."
"Oh."
"Well, he's an airbender, so they attacked the Air Temples first, but they couldn't find him. No one knows where he was between then and when he popped out of nowhere recently." She finished.
"He was gone that whole time?"
"I guess, and they've been hunting him down ever since."
"And the firebenders raged war on everyone while he was gone?"
She nodded.
"That's horrible!" I yelled.
"Yes, it is…but the firebenders were never known to be very nice…"
"Have they attacked your town?"
"No, but a few towns near us have been attacked."
"W-what happened to them?"
"They burned down the town, and many were killed." Toph rolled away from me, signaling that part of the conversation was over.
"You know what the worst part is?" she began again. "The fire lord isn't even looking for the Avatar himself, he sent his son to find him. How pathetic is that?"
"That sucks…why isn't the fire lord doing it?"
"The politics are screwed up over there, there's no way of telling…I think he was banished too…like I said: Firebenders are screwballs." She mad a small noise of approval at her own comment.
I sat for a few minutes, mulling over my thoughts, when Lee decided it was finally time to come back.
"Hey Lee! We were just talking about you!" Toph laughed.
"What?" he turned towards us.
"Just kidding, we were talking about the Fire Nation prince…I think his name was Zuko…or something like that." Toph appeared to be thoughtful for a moment before her gaze shifted to Lee. "Your heart beat sped up, is someone afraid of the big bad prince?" she laughed again.
"Why was he banished?" I asked.
"I don't know. Maybe he was too evil even for the firebenders." She shrugged her shoulders.
"I wonder what he's doing right now…maybe we'll find him. He's after the avatar, right? Maybe we'll meet him along the way! That'd be crazy!" I yelled with a smile half smile.
"Who knows…you'd know him is you saw him though. Rumor is that he's huge, like a monster. His eyes are told to me red, and he has a giant scar covering his whole face- geez Lee, if this subject frightens you so much, I'll drop it. I don't want you wetting your pants." Toph snickered at him and sighed in contentment.
I glanced over at Lee and almost gaped in surprise. His face was a pale, ashen white, he looked about to be sick. From his reaction, I guessed that he's come across the prince before; after all, they are looking for the same person.
"Did you catch anything?" I asked gently, trying to distract his thoughts.
"Here." He shoved a bundle into my hands and stalked to the corner of the earth tent.
"Thank you." I mumbled and looked down at the banana leaf-wrapped meat that was so rudely shoved into my hands. But hey, at least he wrapped it first. "Ok…I'm going to go get fire wood." I glanced at lee once more before I left.
Just as I was gathering my first pieces of wood, the raindrops fell. They were light at first, but by the time I had enough wood to last the night, I was soaked to the bone. Thanking the gods (oh no, now I'm starting to sound like them) that I could easily bend the water off of me, I ran into the earth tent faster than I knew possible. With a moan, I realized that I still had to get all of our things out of the rain, so I doubled back and grabbed my tote, Toph's surprisingly heavy bag, and Lee's bag-o-crap.
My clothes clung to my body and made an annoying squish sound every time I moved, but the worse thing was the water squishing around in my shoes. With no grace whatsoever, I dumped my armful of sticks in the middle of the small room and pulled the water out of my hair and clothes.
Thankfully, in this world there was never a shortage of good cooking rocks, so I was able to quickly find one and clean it off.
"Luckily for you guys, when I was thrown into this wo-" I cut myself off and glanced at Lee. "When I got here, I had the crap already. So guess what? We're having s'mores!" I yelled, deciding to sacrifice my greatest treasures so that lee would be back to his annoying self.
"What are you going on about?" Lee asked, and for the first time since I got back, I looked at him. In his eyes, there was a hint of sadness and hurt that I could not explain.
"What are s'mores?" Toph asked drawing my attention away from lee.
"Oh… You'll find out." I smiled mischievously. No one in this world has had the yummy goodness that is s'mores yet, but I would change that. I could still remember the first s'more I bit into… Marshmallow was stuck to my face and chocolate was places I had never had chocolate before, but I didn't care. They were heaven.
"This sounds stupid already…" Lee drawled.
"I'm tired…" Toph yawned.
"Can we just get this over with?" Lee asked in a monotone.
I grunted in annoyance. "Will you two just shut up?"
Lee rolled his eyes and looked towards the fire while Toph just smiled back at me.
"Lee, since you're obviously so excited, I'm giving you the opportunity to start the fire." I bent the water out of the wood with a smile. That boring jerk was back to himself already. Good.
I watched Lee with satisfaction as he struggled to light the fire with a flint, but that smile faded when the fire actually caught. It was bigger than one I could have made, and a pang of jealousy ran through me.
"Thank you, Lee." I grumbled and tossed the meat on the stone that Lee had placed on the fire.
With that ready and cooking, there was nothing to keep the silence out of our tent while we waited.
Surprisingly, it was finally broken by Toph. "So… How has your bending been coming along?" she asked me.
"Fine…" I glanced at Lee. "He's taught me some pretty cool moves."
Lee grunted in response and it was quiet again.
I got up and flipped the meat. "This looks yummy, what is it?" I asked Lee.
"It was a moose lion."
"A moose lion?! Cool!" Toph gave me a look that clearly said: I told you so. "How big was it?"
He gestured that it was about 4 feet tall.
"What did you do with the rest?" she asked in disbelief.
"Left it for the rest of the forest." He answered.
"This is great! I haven't had moose lion for months!" Toph yelled.
"Yes, thank you." I said as graciously as I could.
A few minutes later, I took the food off of the heat and passed it out. After I bit into it, I could tell why Toph had been so excited. The meat was delicious and juicy, better than any steak I ever had.
After dinner, I broke out the good stuff. I put the marshmallows on a stick and roasted them to a nice golden brown, then prepared each s'more delicately before I handed it to them.
Lee glanced at Toph once before they both bit in and began to chew.
"Oh my gods above… This is the best thing I have ever tasted..." Toph moaned through a mouthful of food.
Even Lee, who usually eats so dainty and properly was shoveling it down quickly like it would disappear any second. "This…" he finally spoke up after his s'more was gone. "Is good."
I smiled at the compliment. He had never complimented something I've made before. Usually it's just a grunt I assumed to mean 'thank you', or a frown of confusion that I took to mean 'I'm surprised this is edible,' but never a straight out compliment. I found myself blushing at his metaphorical pat on the back.
I stood up and folded my arms. "Good, now that both of you are full of sugar… Its time for bed."
Toph chuckled, "Good night then."
"You're serious?" Lee asked.
"You want to get a head start tomorrow, right?" I asked him.
"Yeah." His brows creased.
I pulled my jacked out of my bag and pulled it on, it would be perfect in keeping me warm tonight. "Then good night."
Lee sighed and pulled out his blanket. "We're waking up early then…"
I flopped onto the blanket and turned away from him. "If it's not still raining…"
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Sleep refused to come to me; I had too many things running through my mind. The Avatar would only take a few more days to find, but what then? He has been hunted down like an animal before, would he trust us? Would he believe me when I told him of the two spirits that told me to find him? What would I do when I actually got to him…they never told me what would happen after I found him. Would I know, or would I be stuck here forever?
No. They promised me I would go home. They had to take me home.
My mind was currently a mess of thoughts, a war between thoughts of the Avatar, thoughts of home, and the Fire Nation.
The Fire Nation tried to take over the entire world through violence and death. The Avatar probably wouldn't trust anyone, let alone me. In his old age, he would have seen plenty of people try and befriend him, but end up betraying him anyway.
They were savages; they had to be.
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