ATLA: Book Three: Fire [Makki]

Chapter Three

"I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic," said Sokka. "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 exclaimed as she covered Sokka's mouth. "Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about taking out the Fire Lord."

"Come on, Katara, be reasonable about this," Sokka continued once his mouth was uncovered. "You know our mission has to come first."

"...I guess so," Katara said reluctantly.

"Let's just get what we need and go," Aang smiled, trying to make Katara feel better.

Together, we walked our way into the center of the town where we found one small merchant shop that sold food. Sokka rang the bell on the counter and Dock appeared, ready to serve us what we needed.

"Hey, Dock, you work here too?" Sokka asked.

"I'm not Dock, I'm Xu," 'Xu' corrected. "Dock's my brother."

...But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

"But we just saw you," said Aang. "You're even wearing the same clothes. The only difference is your hat."

"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'," Xu explained.

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

"Me neither," Xu smiled before he brought a large crate up onto the counter. "What can I get you?"

Inside the crate was a large amount of seemingly unfresh fish and clams.

"Hey, I'll give you a special deal," said Xu. "If you buy three fish, I'll throw in a clam for free."

Sokka pushed down onto a clam which caused the clam to spit out polluted water from the river. Katara, Aang, and I all shot back in disgust.

"We'll just take the fish," said Sokka. "Mind telling your brother we need a ride back to shore?"

Xu quickly wrapped up our fish and handed it to Katara before ducking under the counter and changing back into Dock.

"Hey, Colonials," Dock greeted. "My brother says you need a lift."

Dock hopped over the counter of his 'brother's' shop to lead the way to the docks, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young boy approach Katara. I stopped and watched their interaction.

"Can you spare some food?" the boy asked.

Katara knelt down and handed the boy one of our fish, "I wish I could help more."

The boy bowed happily to Katara before rushing over to a sick woman lying in a bed. Katara stared for a moment before turning to see that I had been watching.

"...Please don't tell Sokka," she said.

"Oh, I won't," I said before placing a hand on her shoulder. "And I know how much you want to help these people. Sometimes little things are all that we can give."

Katara nodded before taking one last glance at the sick woman.

[~][~][~]

After dinner, we started to clean some of the water from the river to use as our drinking and bathing water for later. Aang and Toph bended the water and dirt apart while Katara and I bended the unmuddied water into a large pot above a fire to boil.

"Our detour into town today has completely thrown off our schedule," Sokka complained. "It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track."