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31. Secret Love Tunnel

KATARA LOOKED SKEPTICAL.

"Is this real or a legend?" she asked.

"Oh, it's a real legend! And it's as old as earth bending itself." Chong took out his guitar and started strumming.

"Two lovers, forbidden from one another

A war divides their people, and a mountain divides them apart

Built a path to be together.... I forgot the next couple of lines but, uh, it goes...

Secret tunnel

Secret tunnel

Through the mountain

Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel! Yeah!" The others, except Sokka and I, all clapped politely.

"I could sing better than that." I mumbled under my breath cheekily. Sokka said flatly, "Yeah...We'll just stick to flying. We've dealt with the Fire Nation before. We'll be fine."

"Yeah, thanks for the help but Appa hates going underground. And we need to do whatever makes Appa comfortable." Aang got up begrudgingly.

-

Yeah, flying was a bad idea. Two lines of Fire Nation catapults ambushed us on the way, and even more were approaching, the ammunition being flung at us rapidly that Appa had a difficult time maneuvering. We dodged the fireballs barely and unhappily walked back.

"Secret love cave. Let's go." Sokka sighed at the nomads.

-

Sokka pushes past us to go talk to Chong, "How far are we from the tunnel?"

Chong looks back at him with his five mile stare, "Actually, it's not just one tunnel. The lovers didn't want anyone to find out about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth."

Sokka turns to look at Chong and stops the group, "LABYRINTH?!"

"I'm sure we'll figure it out." Chong brushes it off. Sokka lets out a sigh and turns around to walk again.

"All you need to do is trust in love. According to the curse." Lily says moving again with the rest of the group. Sokka stops again and gets left behind.

"Curse?" he mumbles out softly.

I smile and grab onto his shoulder to keep him moving. "It's gonna be fine, Sokka. There's no such things as curses. Don't tell me you believe in that junk!" I rolled my eyes as I dragged him to the rest of the group.

The cave ahead us was dimly lit and walking closer felt like walking to an abandoned asylum.

Vines and moss hung overhead covering the top of the cave and most of the roof in the cave. Small bugs were wiggling around casually and some flew out of the cave.

"This cave looks like it will crumble down soon... you sure, it's a good idea?" Katara asks. She was right, it looked like it was gonna collapse soon.

"What actually is the curse?" Sokka asks anxiously.

"The curse says the only those who trust in love can make it through the caves. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in there forever!" Chong said.

"And die!" Lily adds for Chong.

"Oh, yeah and die. Hey, I just remembered the rest of the song."

Chong strums his instrument once letting it echo through the cave. "And die!"

Moku points back to a tower of smoke. "Hey, someone's making a big campfire."  he says happily.

"That's no campfire, Moku." Katara said darkly. "That's the Fire Nation. They're tracking us." Sokka said.