Havi of the Earth Kingdom

Chapter 15: The Deserter

Havi's Pov

"This should give us a good idea of what's around here," Katara led us to a travel stop's map.

Sokka dumped our empty food bag over his head, "See if you can find a menu. I'm starving."

Aang runs up and points to a poster before announcing, "I'm sure we'll find something to eat here. The fire days festival. Fire nation cultural exhibits, jugglers, benders, magicians," his face glowed with excitement, "This would be a great place for me to study some real firebenders."

"You might want to rethink that," Sokka frowns. I walk over to see what dampened his mood and my eyes widened in surprise, "Look at this."

"Hey, a poster of me!" Aang exclamed.

I stroke my nose, "I mean, you're not wrong but I wouldn't be so excited over this."

"It's a wanted poster," Sokka crosses his arms while Aang grabs the poster from the poster wall, "This is bad."

"I think we better keep moving," Katara says to the airbender.

"I have to learn firebending at some point and this could be my only chance to watch some masters up close."

Katara looks down and I could tell she was being swayed, "I guess we could check it out."

"What?" Sokka asked incredulously.

"No," I shake my head, "This is such a bad idea."

The water tribe boy continues on, "You want to walk into a fire nation town where they're all fired up with all their, you know, fire?"

"We'll wear disguises," Katara tells us like it was no big deal, "and if it looks like trouble, we'll leave."

Aang and Katara walk away and Sokka sighs, "Yeah, because we always leave before we get into trouble."

• • •

We all walked into the fire nation town with cloaks over our clothes, except Aang who didn't really change at all, only pulled up his robes over his arrow. All around there were children laughing and playing and even a giant dragon dancing in the streets. All around us people wore fancy masks and Katara quickly realized we weren't fully prepared for this, "I think we need some new disguises."

"Where are we gonna get masks like that?" Sokka was cut off by a man yelling about his fire festival masks for sale. Oh, how fate can be so kind. "That was surprisingly easy."

All of us run up to the stand and grab a mask. Katara and I both wore one that looked similar to a human face. Aang had a frowning mask and Sokka had one with a big grin. I raised a brow at their selection and quickly swapped their disguises so it would be a bit more realistic. With that squared away, we went on with looking around.

Aang pointed to a vendor, "Hey, there's some food."

"Finally," Sokka's mouth watered as he ran up to the food stand, "What do you have?"

"Flaming fire flakes," The man handed Sokka a bag full of the steaming snack, "best in town."

"I'll take 'em!" He started to shovel the food down his throat and I've got just a tiny gut feeling he'll end up regretting that.

And when am I wrong?

As soon as the thought flashed through my mind, he started yelling like a crazy man, "oh! Hot! Hot!"

I rub my chin, "Flaming fire flakes, hot? Who could've known?" Sokka sent me an annoyed glare.

"Hey, look at this," Aang brought us to a puppet show full of children in the audience.