THE SPIRIT [ATLA]

🔥 3 - Trouble

There is only one person in the world who we know has previous experience with Avatar State situations, and unluckily for us, we have absolutely no idea of where to find him. It has been eight years since Aang last encountered Guru Pathik, and honestly, there is no way to know whether he's still alive or not.

My mother was not happy to hear that we are leaving after I literally just got here, but thankfully, Hakoda managed to convince her that this was the right thing to do. I did have to promise that I'd be back before the baby arrives, though, a promise that I have no idea how I'll manage to uphold when this baby could come at any moment now. Hopefully we'll be able to find Guru Pathik quickly and get back to make good on my promise.

"So... You have your own bison now," Sokka observes, narrowing his eyes as he inspects Lotus carefully. "Interesting. He looks like Appa but there's something off..."

"That's because Lotus is a female," I reply with a sigh. "And she's also a hundred years younger."

Lotus, however, doesn't seem to mind Sokka's offenses, because she proceeds to lick Sokka with her giant tongue in a display of affection that she hasn't even shown me yet. Sokka complains loudly, making his sister laugh.

"Aw, look! She likes you!"

"Why are sky bison so gross?" Sokka whines once again, cleaning the slobber off his face.

"I'm not sure where we can start our search, if I'm honest. The last time I saw Guru Pathik, we were at Eastern Air Temple, but that was almost ten years ago. I'm not sure if we'll find him there."

"It's worth giving it a shot. Besides, the temple isn't too far from here. We can get there by sundown if we leave now," I tell him, making him nod in agreement.

"Have you gone there before, Alya?" Katara asks, and I nod.

"I've visited all of the temples quite a few times, actually. But when I went to the Eastern Temple, I didn't see Pathik there. Maybe he was on vacation?"

"Maybe. There's only one way to find out for sure," Aang says, as he climbs onto Appa and grabs the reins, while I do the same with Lotus. Katara and Sokka decide to hop onto Appa's saddle like the old times, and we give the bison the direction for lift off. "Yip-yip!"

It feels very good to be flying with the three of them once again. Not to brag or anything, but now that I am finally able to do a live comparison of my and Aang's bison riding skills, I can confidently say that I'm far better at it than he is. Either that or Aang seems very distracted today. Appa has to constantly warn him about incoming obstacles, and it feels like he is not looking the right way half of the time, unable to maintain a constant elevation. Needless to say, it may very well just mean that something is troubling the Avatar. A part of me wants to ask him what is going on, but I also feel awkward doing so when I know we haven't seen each other in so long. Would he even feel comfortable telling me?

"Uh... Guys, there's something else you should know about before we get to the temple," Aang suddenly breaks the ruling silence among all of us. We are close enough to the temple that I can see it in the distance. "Now, I don't want you guys to panic, but the temple may not look like you remember."

"Were you here recently?" Katara asks him.

"Yeah. This isn't the first time I've tried to come visit Pathik. And let's just say that my last visit wasn't very productive."

"What do you mean?" I ask him.

"Well... I tried to figure out the Avatar State problem by myself, but things didn't exactly work out as planned and it got a little messy. I would never hurt anyone with the Avatar State on purpose, but I'm glad that the temple was uninhabited that day, because it got pretty bad."