Appa was flying through some mountains while Aang paced back and forth on the saddle as he panted and looked around.
"Would you sit down!?" Sokka said from on top of Appa's head while holding onto the reins, "if we hit a bump, you'll go flying off! What's bugging you anyway?"
"It's what avatar Roku said! I'm supposed to master all 4 elements before that comet arrives." He said as he recalled his conversation with Roku.
"Well, let's see. You pretty much mastered airbending and that only took you 112 years. I'm sure you can master 3 more elements by next summer." He said as he glanced back at Aang.
I silently laughed at the 112 years comment and nudged Sokka, "you're not helping." I whispered to him since I was sitting beside him.
"I haven't even started waterbending, and we're still weeks away from the North Pole." Aang said as he continued to stress walk around the saddle, "what am I gonna do!?"
"Calm down." Katara grabbed Aang's wrist and got him to sit down in front of her, "it's gonna be okay. If you want, I can try and teach you some of the stuff I know."
I looked down at the scenery and tuned out the rest of their conversation and sighed. "What's got you sighing now?" Sokka sarcastically commented.
I smiled and turned to him, "if we survive the comet that's coming up then maybe I'll actually enjoy my birthday for once."
"When's your birthday?"
"It's on b/d, but I don't celebrate it."
"Huh!?" Sokka gasped, "why not??? It's a day for celebration!" He quietly shouted.
"What am I celebrating? The fact that I'm one year closer to my death?" 'And since I got sent back in time, I'm not really counting on making it past my 30s'
"No! It's a day to celebrate that you're alive and if we survive the comet, I'll personally bake you a cake." He smiled.
"As much as I appreciate the thought, I'll rather not die of food poisoning on my birthday." I laughed which made Sokka laugh as well.
"We'll need to find a good source of water first." Katara said which made me tune in into their conversation.
"Maybe we can find a puddle for you to splash in." Sokka replied.
"Orrrr maybe we could land over there." I pointed towards the waterfall that we were approaching."
"That's a perfect source of water!" Katara said as she looked down from the saddle towards the waterfall.
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"Nice puddle." Sokka said as he looked at the waterfall. As soon as we got off of Appa and took off his saddle, he jumped into the water.
"Yeah! Don't start without me, boy!" Aang said as he took off his clothes, but before he could jump into the water, Katara stopped him.
"Remember the reason we're here." she reminded him.
"Oh right, time to practice waterbending." He said as he put his clothes back on.
"Great. So what are we supposed to do?" Sokka said.
"We? I'll be practicing my airbending, see ya!" I said as I ran towards an isolated place that was close enough to hear the rest of the group if they called me. 'sorry Sokka, but i don't want to be stuck on Appa cleaning duty.'
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I inhaled a big amount of air and pointed my head towards the floor. I exhaled an air jet strong enough for me to land on one of the tree's top branches. I grabbed onto the tree trunk and looked towards the rest of the group. I watched as Aang got the hang of all of Katara's waterbending moves easily. 'guess that's the perk of being the avatar.' I laughed when Aang waterbended a big wave that splashed on top of Sokka and Appa. I jumped from tree to tree until I reached the rest of the group.
"You just practiced our supplies down the river." I heard Sokka say which made me look back and watch as the supplies continued to flow down the river.
"Aang.." I groaned.
"Oh, sorry." He apologized.
"It's whatever, I'm sure we can find some way to replace all this stuff." I said.
"My life was hard enough when you were just an airbender." Sokka sighed and submerged under water.
I walked towards the edge of the shore and crouched down to get a hold of Sokka's arm, so I could pull him to the surface of the water. "C'mon, we're gonna go see if we can replace our supplies.
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We walked into the marketplace and looked around the shops.
"We got exactly 3 copper pieces left from the money that King Bumi gave us. Let's spend it wisely." Sokka stated.
"Uh.. make that two copper pieces, Sokka. I couldn't say no to this whistle." Aang said as he showed us the bison whistle he bought and blew on it.
"It doesn't even work." Sokka sighed, unimpressed. Momo squealed at Aang, "see, even Momo thinks it's a piece of junk."
"No offense Aang, but I'll hold the money from now on." Katara added.
"It doesn't work cause it's a bison whistle, meaning only bisons can hear the whistle, but yeah I think Katara should hold the money from now on." I said as I watched Aang hand over the rest of the money to Katara.
"Why do we need a bison whistle if we can just call Appa reguarly." Sokka replied.
"It'll be more useful than it seems, trust me." I said as I continued to walk towards the rest of the shops. 'i'm pretty sure that same whistle saved the gaang from tight situations multiple times.'
We continued to look around for supplies to replace the ones we lost, but so far, we couldn't find anything. "You there!" A vender approached us, "I can see from your clothing that you're world traveling types. Perhaps I can interest you in some exotic curios?"
"Sure!" Aang answered, "what are curios?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but we got 'em." The vender said as he guided Aang towards a ship. I sighed as the rest of us followed Aang, 'I feel like we're about to get scammed.'
We walked into the ship and surprisingly, it had a lot of stuff from different places. "I've never seen such a fine specimen of lemur." A voice from the back of the ship interrupted us as we were looking at the merchandise. "That beast would fetch me a hefty sum if you'd be interested in bartering."
Momo jumped into my arms as he hissed at the man, "That 'beast' is our friend, so no. I wouldn't be interested in bartering."
"Too bad, you could've gotten something valuable in return." The man chuckled in reply.
"Look at this guys." Katara said, "It's a waterbending scroll. Check out these crazy moves." We approached her and looked down at the scroll.
"Where did you get a waterbending scroll?" Aang asked the man who wanted to have Momo.
"Let's just say I got it up North at a most reasonable price--free." He said as he snatched it from Katara's hands and rolled it back up.
"Wait a minute. Sea-loving traders, with suspiciously acquired merchandise and pet reptile birds? You guys are pirates!" Sokka shouted at them.
"We prefer to think of ourselves as high-risk traders." The original vender said as he wrapped his arm around Sokka. I walked towards him and forcefully removed his arm from Sokka. I grabbed Sokka's hand and walked towards Aang and Katara.
"Thanks" Sokka said, a bit flustered and I nodded in return.
"So, how much for the traded scroll?" Katara asked.
"I've already got a buyer--a nobleman in the earth kingdom--unless, of course, you kids have 200 gold pieces on you right now." The other vender said, who appeared to be the captain of these pirates.
"I know how to deal with this, guys." Aang whispered to us, "Pirates love to haggle." He said as he extended his hand. Katara handed him the 2 copper pieces we had left, "Watch and learn."
"What say ye to the price of one copper piece?" Aang offered the pirate which made him laugh at Aang's offer.
"The price is 200 gold pieces." The pirate said bluntly. "I don't haggle on items this rare."
"Ok, two copper pieces." Aang continued.
"It's not as amusing the second time, boy."
"Aang, can we get out of here? I feel like we're getting weird looks." Katara said as she glanced at the two venders.
"Aye! We be casting off now!" Aang said before we all started walking out of the ship. "What was that all about, Katara?"
"Yeah, I was just starting to browse through their boomerang collection." Sokka added.
"I'll just feel a lot better once we get away from here." Katara replied.
"Hey, you!" The original vender from before yelled at us, "get back here!"
"Well, well, look who's come to their senses. Told you the haggling would pay off." Aang said and right after, multiple pirates jumped down from the ship and got in a fighting stance.
"There they are!"
"Get 'em!"
"Nobody's going anywhere." Multiple pirates from the crowd spoke in an ominous tone.
"I don't think these pirates are here to trade with us." Katara said as she started to back away. We started running away and the group of pirates started to chase after us. Katara waterbended water onto the floor and froze it which made one of the pirates slip, but the rest just jumped to avoid the ice.
"Sorry!" I said as I bumped into the carriage of cabbages that was blocking the way.
"My cabbages!" Was what the cabbage vender said when Aang airbended the carriage towards the pirates to stop them. The carriage successfully got the pirates behind us to stop chasing us, but before we could make it out of the marketplace, we got cut off by some of the pirates that separated from the group in the beginning. We turned around and started running towards the opposite direction, however, we ran into a deadend.
"Now, who gets to taste the steel of my blades first?"
"That's a very tempting offer, but I'll have to refuse." I looked at Aang and nodded. I grabbed my staff and slammed it onto the floor, creating a burst of air mixed with dust that temporarily blinded the pirates.
"Grabbed on tight!" Both me and Aang said as we opened our gliders, Sokka grabbed onto the end of my glider and Katara to Aang's, we flew past the pirates while stepping on their heads as a boost to fly higher in the sky. We continued flying until we reached the waterfall where we left Appa at.
"I used to kind of look up to pirates, but those guys are terrible." Aang said after we landed.
"I know. That's why I took this." Katara said as she pulled out the waterbending scroll from before out of her sleeves.
"No way!" Aang said. 'No way indeed, how could I forget that Katara was going to steal... well I can't really say anything since I have stolen in my previous life.'
"No wonder they were trying to hack us up. You stole their waterbending scroll." Sokka stated.
"I prefer to think of it as high-risk trading." Katara replied. Aang and I giggled at her replied, "good one Katara." Aang said.
"Sokka, where do you think they got it? They stole it from a waterbender." She continued.
"It doesn't matter. You put all of our lives at risk just so you could learn some stupid, fancy splashes."
"These are real waterbending forms. You know how crucial it is for Aang to learn waterbending."
"Whatever." Sokka sighed and started walking away. I followed after him, "you okay?"
"It's not that I don't know that Aang needs to learn how to waterbend, it's just I don't want her to think that having a reason justifies a wrong-doing."
"I'm not trying to say it's okay, but I'm sure this was a one-time thing, after all Katara is pretty sensible."
"I hope you're right." Sokka said as he turned around and started to walk back to the group with me. Sokka sat on a rock, watching as Katara and Aang looked at the scroll. I sat down on a rock next to Sokka and also watched as Katara started to try to waterbend a whip. She failed and accidentally smacked her forehead with the whip.
"HAHAHA!" Sokka laughed.
"What's so funny?" Katara asked Sokka in an annoyed tone.
"Im sorry, but you deserved that." He told Katara, "you've been duped." He turned to Aang, "she's only interested in teaching herself."
"Aang will get his turn once I figure out how to water whip." Katara said as she tried to water whip once again, this time accidentally hitting Momo. "Ugh! Why can't I get this stupid move!?" She asked, getting more frustrated by the second.
"You'll get it." Aang said as he put the waterscroll down on a tree stump and water towards the water. "You just gotta shift your weight through the stances." He said as he successfully managed to water whip in one try, "there. See? The key to bending is—"
"Will you please shut your air hole!" Katara interrupted Aang before he could finish. "Believe it or not, your infinite wisdom gets a little old sometimes! Why don't we just throw the scroll away since you're so naturally gifted!?" I looked at Katara with a bothered face and she turned to face me, "what!?"
I looked at Aang and saw that he was near tears from Katara's outburst. "Just because you couldn't get it in your first 50 tries, doesn't mean you should take it out on other people for trying to help you."
She looked at me with a sour face before turning to Aang and seeing that he was still holding back his tears, "oh my gosh, Aang, I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me."
"Maybe it's that waterbending scroll, after all, it was stolen twice, I wouldn't be surprised if it carried some bad mojo with it."
"You're right, and it won't happen again." She walked towards the tree stump and grabbed the waterbending scroll, "here, you can keep this and do whatever you want with it. I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore." She said as she handed over the scroll to Aang.
"It's ok, Katara." Aang replied.
"What about Momo?" Sokka asked, "He's the real victim here." Katara crouched down and apologized to Momo while patting him. "And what about me? There was that time that you—"
"No more apologies." Katara cut him off before he could finish which made me silently laugh.
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"Where did she go? I don't believe it." I heard Sokka say as I started to wake up.
I sat up and yawned, "what's wrong."
"She took the scroll." Sokka stated as he looked through our supply bag. "She's obsessed with that thing. It's just a matter of time before she gets us all in deep—whoa!" Sokka stopped mid sentence as a rope captured both his wrists and he was dragged forward a bit. The person on the other side of the rope was a pirate, he pulled back his rope which had a steel ball at the end. He swung his rope and aimed it to hit Sokka, but Sokka avoided the hit and quickly stood up. Sokka pulled out his club and ran towards the pirate. I saw another pirate emerging from the side and started to stand up to fight him, however, while I was standing up I was caught in a net with Aang. I looked back and saw a 3rd pirate who had a net thrower, 'oh'.
The pirate I was getting ready to fight grabbed the top of the net and started to drag us to some place. "I got them, c'mon!" He said as he started to run away with the pirate Sokka was fighting.
"Oh, what? I'm not good enough to kidnap?" I heard Sokka complain from a distance before he was caught in a net and dragged towards the same place as us. Before long, we reached the shore and a pirate manhandled us out of the nets and tied tight ropes around our wrists. He shoved us towards the rest of the pirates who were standing near Zuko. I sighed at the sight of him and rolled my eyes. I looked behind him and saw Katara tied up to a tree.
"Nice work." He said as held the water scroll in his hands.
"Aang, this is all my fault." Katara confessed.
"No, Katara, it isn't." Aang replied.
"Yeah, it kind of is." An old looking man who was wearing fire nation clothing stated. 'Uncle Iroh..?'
"Give me the boy." Zuko demanded.
"You give us the scroll." The pirate captain replied.
"You're really gonna hand over the avatar for a stupid piece of parchment?" Sokka said trying to stir trouble between both trading parties.
"Don't listen to him. He's trying to turn us against each other." Zuko shouted.
"Your friend is the avatar?" The captain said, ignoring Zuko as he looked at Aang.
"Sure is." Sokka and I replied simultaneously. "Not only that, I'm his guardian, meaning, we're the only two air benders left." I continued.
"And I bet they'll fetch a lot more on the black market than that fancy scroll." Sokka added.
"Shut your mouth, you water tribe peasant!" Zuko shouted.
"Yeah, Sokka, you really should shut your mouth. You too Y/N." Aang said as he glanced at us.
"We're just saying, it's bad business sense." I said.
"Just imagine how much the fire lord would pay for the avatar and his guardian." Sokka added, "you guys would be set for life." The pirates looked at each other and considered what Sokka and I were saying.
"Keep the scroll." The captain said, "we can buy a 100 with the reward we'll get for these two."
"You'll regret breaking a deal with me." Zuko said before shooting fire towards the pirates. The pirates threw smoke bombs at the fire nation soldiers and ran towards them to attack them. Some fire nation soldiers started to run at us with spears but before the could reach us, pirates surrounded us and threw smoke bombs at the floor. I stood up and started dodging the sharp weapons being thrown around. I grabbed a dagger from the floor and broke my ropes.
"Hey! You guys, are you there?" Sokka yelled, not being able to see us because of the smoke.
"I'm over here, follow my voice." Aang said. He tried airbend the smoke out of the way, but noticed all the soldiers and pirates surrounding him and air bender the smoke back, "never mind, I'll find you guys!"
I crawled on the floor until I reached the end of the smoke and stood up. "Run!" Aang said from behind me as him and Sokka were getting out of the smoke. I ran and saw Katara near the pirate ship, trying to push it back into the water.
"Katara you're ok." I said as we started to approach her.
"Help me get this boat back in the water, so we can get out of here." She said as she continued to struggle to push the boat back into the water. We started pushing with her, but the boat wouldn't budge.
"We need a team of rhinos to budge this thing." Sokka commented.
"A team of rhinos.... or two waterbenders." Aang said as he looked at Katara. Katara paused for a second before nodding and getting into position. They started waterbending and eventually got the boat back into the water.
"Everybody in!" I shouted as I started to climb the ladder to get on the ship. After the rest of the gaang got on, Sokka turned the ship and set sail.
"Sokka, can't you make it go faster?" Aang asked as he glanced at the pirates that were following behind us on Zuko's ship.
"I don't know how! This thing wasn't made by the water tribe." Sokka replied. Eventually some pirates managed the get onboard. Aang bended water on board the ship to try and flush the pirates off the ship. One pirate remained onboard and Katara successfully water whipped the pirate off the ship.
"Hey, you did the water whip!" Aang said enthusiastically.
"I couldn't have done it without your help." Katara replied.
"Uh- guys... we have a major problem." Sokka said, turning our attention towards him. We walked towards the front of the ship and saw that we were approaching the waterfall.
"Oh no..." Aang mumbled. He took out his bison whistle and blew on it.
"Have you lost your mind? This is no time for flute practice!" Sokka shouted.
"We can stop the boat, Aang, push and pull the water." Katara instructed as she began to waterbend and Aang followed behind her.
"It's working, it's slowing down!" Katara stated as they managed to stop the boat from falling down the waterfall.
"But we have another problem." I said as I looked at the approaching ship behind us. The ship crashed into us and caused Aang and Katara to stop waterbending, making us fall down the waterfall. "Jump!" I shouted as we all held hands and jumped off the ship together. Mid-fall Appa came and caught us.
"I knew a bison whistle would come in handy, thanks Appa." Aang stated.
"Thanks, Appa." I thanked him as I sighed and started to get comfortable in the saddle.
"Yeah, we owe you one." Sokka said. Appa grunted in return and continued to fly.
"Aang, I still owe you an apology. You were just so good at waterbending without really trying, I got so competitive that I put us all in danger." Katara confessed, "I'm sorry."
"That's ok, Katara." Aang replied.
"Besides, who needs that stupid scroll anyway." She added.
"Is that really how you feel?" Sokka interrupted the conversation and showed them the water scroll.
"The scroll!" Katara gasped as she leaned forward to grab it.
"First, what did you learn?" Sokka asked as he pulled the scroll away from Katara.
"Stealing is wrong." She replied as she grabbed the scroll from Sokka's hand, "unless it's from pirates."
"Good one Katara." Aang giggled at her reply. I smiled and crawled over to Sokka and laid my head on his lap. He started to gently rub and play with my hair which made me smile before I fell asleep.