Avatar: The Last Airbender: Reawakening

25

"There it is," Ryu stated, slowing down the airship a little as they moved closer to their destination, "The Southern Air Temple."

Tau and Sorin looked up from their seats, seeing the temple appear out of the mists of the mountains, and both of their mouths fell open in awe. It wasn't everyday someone saw one of the Air Temples and Tau had to admit, it was very impressive.

Part of Tau wished he had seen the temple before the airbenders had been cut down to all but one. The place must have been a beautiful thing to see back in that time. Sure, it was still a wonderful site to behold but the temple clearly had war written all over it. It looked like it went through...well, exactly what it had gone through. It looked, dull, barren, but majestic at the same time.

Tau found it hard to believe that humans alone could have built something like this thousands of years ago, especially so high up in the Patola Mountain Range. Part of him wondered if there were some other forces at play that led to the air temple's construction. He was even a little curious now as to what the other air temples looked like.

Still, once he got passed the site of the Air Temple, Tau remembered the secret it held: the Yanari.

He was sure that the Avatar didn't tell him everything, only what he needed to. The things that the Avatar held back from him were obvious however. Clearly, part of the reason this temple was built was to hide the Yanari from everyone. Tau knew that much. He was sure there were some other details that he was missing that the Avatar had been told but he found that irrelevant. He knew what he needed to know.

"Wow, I didn't expect anything quite like this," Sorin spoke up at last.

"What were you expecting then?" Ryu breathed in a deep sigh, clearly not really fascinated with the temple as much as his two companions were, "It's just a large building on a mountain."

"Honestly, I was expecting a pile of rubble," Sorin answered, eyes still on the temple in front of them as the airship continued closer.

"Well we better hope all of it is in decent shape, at least the top of the central spire," Tau finally spoke up, "If that's gone we've reached a dead end."

"Well the spire looks intact," Ryu said, his eyes squinting slightly as he tried to look closer, "As long as the inside of the spire isn't damaged I would say that we have nothing to worry about."

"I'm more worried about finding that dumb necklace," Sorin rolled his eyes, "Didn't every monk have one of those things?"

"The elder ones at least, why?" Tau asked.

"Well they're just a pile of bones now," Sorin explained, "How do we know which is the guy that wears this magical necklace that we need?"

"Well, for one," Tau started, "The necklace isn't 'magical. Most likely it is just holding something inside of it and we could easily cut through the necklace with our bending to get to it," Tau waved his hand briefly in front of him to mimic a waterbending motion, "And two, the Avatar said the body was at the base of the air temple...so that narrows down the search a little bit at least."

"So we're still going to have to dig through a whole bunch of bones," Sorin deadpanned.

"Probably," Tau shrugged.

Sorin sighed, and rested his head on one of his hands, elbow resting on his chairs armrest as sarcasm dripped from his voice, "Great."

"Well we are nearly at the temple," Ryu interjected in the conversation, "Tau, where do you want me to land this thing?"

Tau was quite for a few moments as he stood up from his chair, walked over to the window and regarded the temple in front of him speculatively, "See if you can dock us on the top of the central spire. We don't know if there is a staircase going up there."