White Hot Flames (ZukoxOC)

25

        A while later, Appa carries them through a river. Rezalia had been trailing her hand through the water until she noticed that it had turned brown. This didn't seem to bother Aang, who was swimming around in it along with Momo. Aang returns to the saddle, brown river sludge hanging off of him. "Hey guys, I think this river's polluted."

As he speaks, he bends the sludge off of himself and consequently onto everyone else. Rezalia wipes some off of her face before Aang sends a blast of air their way, ridding them of the sludge but sending their hair into a frenzy. Rezalia pats hers down and helps Katara untangle her hair loops. Sokka turns around from where he was sitting near Appa's head, fishing pole in hand. "Well, that explains why I can't catch a fish around here. Because normally my fishing skills are... off the hook! Get it? Like a fishing hook?"

Sokka was the only one who found the joke funny. "Too bad your skills aren't on the hook," Toph quips. The others snicker, sans Rezalia who just smiles a bit and Sokka who scowls at them.

"It looks like we'll need to go somewhere else to get food," Katara says. A long scroll unravels in front of her. "Assuming that'll fit into Sokka's master schedule."

Sokka holds the end of the scroll, examining it carefully. "Hm...it's doable. But that means only two potty breaks today!"

Aang leans his upper body outside the saddle as he points. "Hey, maybe we can get food there."

They direct Appa out of the river and up onto a secluded strip of land overlooking the river. Aang covers Appa with a blanket of grass while Rezalia does the same to Momo. "Now you look just like a little hill with horns. Bye buddy!" Appa grumbles in response as they leave.

"I don't feel anything. Where is this village?" Toph asks as they stop at the cliffs over the river.

"It's in the center of the lake. Floating," Rezalia responds.

"Sure is!" A voice calls from below. A man stood there on a dinky next to an equally dinky boat. "My name's Dock. Mind if I ask who you are?"

Katara answers. "We're, um, from the Earth Kingdom colonies."

Dock seemed pleased by this answer. "Wow... colonials! Hop on; I'll give you a ride into town."

Rezalia wasn't sure the boat would hold up, but it did by some miracle. "Why do you guys live on the river?" Katara asks, breaking the silence as Dock brought them to the village.

"Because we're a fishing town. At least that's how it was before the factory moved in." They all turn to look at the factory on the cliff. "Army makes their metal there. Moved in a few years ago and started gunking up our river. Now our little village is struggling to survive."

The boat comes to a stop and Toph is the first person off, followed by Sokka who helps Toph out. "Thanks for the ride!" Aang exclaims.

Looking around, Rezalia could tell that Dock wasn't joking when he said that the village was struggling to survive. There was hardly anyone around and the buildings were broken down. In many of the houses, she could see people who were little more than stick figures, sick and starving. "Look at this place. It's so sad. We have to do something to help," Katara murmurs.

"No, we can't waste our time here! We have a bigger mission that we need to stay focused on. These people are on their own!" Sokka protests. Rezalia scowls at the way his words presented themselves.

Katara gasps.These people are starving, but you turn your back on them?! How can you be so cold and heartless?"

Sokka rolls his eyes. "I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic! We can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into. We'll be helping them all by taking out the Fire Lord!"

"Hey, loudmouth!" Toph snaps, slamming her hand over Sokka's mouth. "Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about taking out the Fire Lord."

Sokka shakes off her hand and speaks again, quietly this time. "Come on, Katara, be reasonable about this. You know our mission has to come first."

"I guess so," Katara mutters reluctantly. Rezalia squeezes her shoulder.

"Let's just get what we need and go," Aang suggests. The others nod and make their way to the food stall. Dock poops up from behind the barrier with a different hat.

Sokka blinks at him. "Hey, Dock. You work here too?"

"I'm not Dock, I'm Xu. Dock's my brother," Dock - Xu? - replies. Rezalia furrows her eyebrow at him.

"We literally just saw you like, ten seconds ago. All you did is change your hat. I'm not a moron," she tells him, a little offended that he thought she was so stupid.

Dock-Xu shakes his head. "Dock works on the docks, that's why they call him 'Dock', and I work in the shop, that's why they call me 'Xu'."

"I don't get it," Aang admits.

"Me neither," Dock-Xu agrees as he pulls out a crate of food that looked to be three years past its expiration date. "What can I getcha? Hey, I'll give you a special deal. If you buy three fish, I'll throw in a clam for free."

As he speaks, the clams ooze out a brown sludge that seemed a bit thicker than the river sludge. Rezalia pushes down the urge to gag and backs away slightly. Sokka takes the lead as he was the second least revolted. Toph was first as she couldn't see the offending item. "We'll just take the fish. Mind telling your brother we need a ride back to shore?"

Dock-Xu ducks down before reappearing in his original hat. "Hey, colonials. My brother says you need a lift." Rezalia's eye twitches as she and the others follow the crazy man back to his boat. Katara gets stopped for a moment by a little boy who requests food.

She kneels down and unwraps their package, handing him one of their fish. "I wish I could spare more." The boy didn't seem to care that it wasn't much, beaming and rushing off to give the food to his mother who appeared to be sick. Katara watches them until Rezalia gently pulls her along.

Back at their campsite, Katara and Aang bend the pollution out of the water they would use to cook. Rezalia doubted that it would make the fish taste any better. Meanwhile, Sokka was pouring over his schedule. "Our detour into town today has completely thrown off our schedule. It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track."

"Finagle away, O' schedule master," Toph says sarcastically. Rezalia snorts.

Sokka mutters a bit to himself, working out the math and adjusting things to fix what he deemed a problem. "Well, for starters, it looks like we'll need to wake up forty-three minutes earlier every day."

"Absolutely not. You can carry my dead weight if that's the route you wanna go. I'm not getting up that early," Rezalia protests. "You're lucky I get up when I do now."

Sokka scowls at her. "Look, we only have a few weeks to get to the Fire Lord in time for the invasion and the eclipse - which, by the way, only lasts for eight minutes. And we just lost a whole day. So if we want to make up the time and stay on schedule, we have to wake up early!"

"Again - you can carry me," Rezalia shoots back stubbornly.

"Or we could just cut out all of our eating breaks," Sokka suggests, only to be met with even more protests as all of them pitched in to shoot him down this time. "I got it, how's this From now on, we'll take food breaks and potty breaks at the same time."

"That's fucking disgusting," Rezalia says at the same time that Aang mutters an "Ew."

Sokka shrugs. "Hey, it might be gross, but it's efficient. Either way, we have to leave here first thing tomorrow morning."

Rezalia catches Katara's eye and mentally sighs. Sokka was going to kill them.