fire & lightning

chapter nine

"Look at this!" Aang called out to Sokka. "It's a sword made out of a whale's tooth."

"Let me see it." Sokka took the object out of Aang's hand. "This is a watertribe weapon! See if you can find anything else."

Aang, Katara, Sokka and I began searching through bushes, holes in the ground and tall grass, exploring the place, trying to find anything else watertribe related.

"I found an arrow. It's burned." Sokka turned around and ran his hand through a nearby tree that had scratches in it. "There was a battle. Watertribe warriors ambushed a group of firebenders. The firebenders fought back, but the warriors drove them down this hill." The theorist pointed towards burn marks going down a hill.

We all ran towards that direction, Sokka leading us. He stopped once we reached the shore, looking around for more clues.

"So, then what happened?" Aang stopped in his tracks, almost bumping into Katara.

"I don't know, the trail ends here." Sokka muttered with a disappointed tone.

"Wait, look!" I called out to my friends once i noticed a boat on the shore.

"It's a Watertribe boat!" Sokka confirmed, galloping towards it. Aang, Katara and i quickly followed him.

"Is this dad's boat?" Katara spoke her thoughts out loud.

"No." Sokka denied. "But, it's from his fleet. Dad was here!"

"What should we do?" Aang asked the siblings.

"Nothing to do. It's getting late, so let's camp out by the boat and see if anything happens.

The three of us began unpacking all of our things, placing our roll up beds onto the sand by the boat. Sokka started a fire, and we huddled around it. Aang and Katara ended up falling asleep while Sokka and i were still awake, watching the fire.

"Something on your mind?" I asked my closest friend in the group. It looked like he was thinking about something.

"Just having some flashbacks. When i was just a kid, I always tried joining my dad and the other Watertribe warriors when they had to leave the village to go to war. They never let me, said I was too young. My dad told me I had to stay back and take care of Katara and Gran-Gran. But, I just wanted to be like them. I wanted to be a warrior." Sokka gulped, telling me about his past.

Before I could say anything, rustling was heard in the distance, making me take out my sword.

"Who's there?" Sokka called out, reaching for his boomerang.

"Sokka? Is that you?" A man with long black hair and darker skin approached us, he was covered in bandages and appeared to be middle-aged.

"Bato?" Sokka whispered, shock written all over his face.

"Who the what now?" Aang woke up from the ruckus, Katara doing the same, rubbing her eyes.

"Sokka! Katara!" The man named 'Bato' rejoiced, Katara and Sokka ran up to him, giving him a hug. "It's so good to see you two. You guys have grown so much."

Aang and I looked over at each other, sharing a look of confusion. We walked towards them and interrupted their reunion by introducing ourselves.

"Hi, I'm Aang, and this is Motoko." Aang put his hand on my shoulder and pointed towards me with his other hand. I didn't say anything, I just waved at the man with a small smile on my face.