The team and I were searching the vast sand ocean in all directions for Appa, as Toph had explained that the sandbenders had taken him away.
Aang turns around to face Toph angrily. "How could you let them take Appa? Why didn't you stop them?!"
"I couldn't!" Toph defensively shouts. "The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-"
Aang interrupts Toph as he walks over to her. "You could've come to get us. I could've saved him!"
Toph turns to face him slightly. "I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sandbenders snuck up on me and there wasn't time for –"
Aang snaps at Toph in a harsh way. "You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone!"
My eyes widen. I felt a little frightened by the small monk now.
Aang looks extremely furious at Toph as Katara walks over to him. She puts her hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down. "Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives."
Sokka was still looking out into the desert. "Who's going to save our lives now? We'll never make it out of here."
Aang irately walks away from the rest of us. "That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"
"We're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now."
"I'm going after Appa." Aang says in a cold, hard tone.
Aang flies off. Katara calls after him, running to the place he took off. "Aang, wait!"
I walked over to Katara and placed my chin on her shoulder as I hugged her from behind. "We better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse."
Katara nods her head. "Venus is right, we have to get that information to Ba Sing Se."
We all start walking in the same direction, Aang took off to, with Katara leading the way, followed by Toph, Sokka and I.
"You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give us a ride?"
I stopped dead in my tracks, causing Sokka to run into me. "Sokka, it's no time for jokes right now. Read the room."
"Sorry." He lowly murmurs.
I give Sokka a small smile, before grabbing his hand and dragging him along with me.
Katara, Sokka, Toph and I were all exhausted and dehydrated, still wandering through the desert. Sokka stops to take Momo off his back and use his wings to create some shade, causing Toph to crash into him.
"Can't you watch where you're..." Sokka's eyes widen in comprehension as he sees who bumped into him.
"No." Toph replies.
"Right. Sorry."
Katara turns around to encourage the two. "Come on guys, we've got to stick together."
Sokka's clothes stick to Toph. He tries to free himself by pushing her away. "If I sweat anymore, I don't think sticking together will be a problem."
An irritated Toph places her hand on Sokka's face and pushes him to the ground, freeing them both. "Katara, can I have some more water?"
"Okay, but we've got to try to conserve it."
"I'll be fine," I murmured. "You can give it to them."
"Are you sure?" Katara asks.
I nod my head.
Katara proceeds to bend three small blobs of water out of her pouch and into the mouths of Sokka, Toph and Momo. Sokka circulates the water in his mouth before swallowing it.
Sokka points to his mouth. "We're drinking your bending water." He tries to define the taste of the water, smacking his lips. Disgustedly he exclaims. "You used this on the swamp guy! Urch!"
"It does taste swampy." Toph comments.
I frown lightly. Thank spirits, I didn't drink any of that.
Momo lets out a sad cry in protest of the water's flavor, after also smacking his lips. Katara sadly puts the cork back on her water sack.
"I'm sorry, it's all we have." She says sadly.
"Not anymore! Look!"
I look in the direction Sokka's pointing. He walks over to a cactus and cuts off a piece with his machete. He happily drinks the fluid that's inside while Momo crawls over to him.
"Sokka!" I scream as I notice what he was drinking.
He cuts open another part of the cactus, excitedly offering it to me.
I smack the cactus out of his hand. "Sokka, don't be drinking that, it's not good for you!"
Cactus juice is dripping off the corner of his mouth. "What, why? It's very thirst quenching."
I watch as his left eye pupil dilates rapidly. He tries to shake off the feeling by rapidly shaking his head. He starts to trip.
"Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya! Nothing's quenchier." He crawls over the ground as a caterpillar before jumping back to the front, pushing his face toward mine with a big smile. "It's the quenchiest!"
I shut my eyes in shame, thinking about how I've always wanted to try cactus juice back in the day.
This shit was next level drugs.
Katara gives Sokka a very weird look. She grabs his cactus juice and pours it away. "Okay, I think you've had enough."
"Who lit Toph on fire?"
Katara wants to react on Sokka's comment, but is distracted by a sound in the sky. She looks up to see Momo flying around in circles, increasing his speed, before plummeting into the ground, head first. Katara picks up and cradles the unconscious animal.
I wanted to tell everyone about the cactus juice, but I too embarrassed to talk about my drug use in front of Toph, because she hadn't met me when the others did.
"Can I get some of that cactus?" Toph asks.
"I don't think that's a good idea." I reply as I observe Sokka.
Katara wraps her arm around Toph's shoulders. "Come on, we need to find Aang."
Katara leads Toph away as I follow. Sokka stays behind, staring blankly at the sky. I retrace my steps and pull Sokka along by his arms.
"How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean?" Sokka awes looking into the sky.
"Venus, can you please watch Sokka while I take care of Toph?"
I give Katara a little salute. "I'm already on it."
As we climb over a dune, we all feel a large gust of sand blow over us. We all turned to see a large mushroom-shaped cloud of sand from the far distance.
"What is that?" I ask, raising my arm out to shield myself from the sand.
"What? What is what?" Toph asked.
"It's a giant mushroom!" Sokka gets very excited. "Maybe it's friendly!"
"Let's just keep moving. I hope Aang's okay..."
As Katara leads Toph away, Sokka starts to worship the mushroom by waving his arms up and down, back and forth. "Friendly mushroom! Mushy giant friend!"
I watched him for a while before taking his arm and walking behind Toph and Katara.
Sokka lightly jerks his hand away from me, holding his wrist and examining my face. "Who are you, sexy sandbender lady?"
My cheeks fluster from his comment. "Sokka, it's me, Venus."
Sokka lightly bit his lip as he brushed the hair that was slowly falling out of his ponytail. "Oh, Venus! I didn't know you were a sandbender. Let me see you bend."
I tried to not get annoyed with the boy, because I knew he was high off his mind right now and it wasn't his fault. "It's just an outfit I borrowed, I'm not a sandbender."
"So why are you wearing it?" The boy began to rant. "I mean, I don't mind, because it's a very attractive outfit and you are a very attractive gal so I think..." Sokka paused for a moment before he looked down at his pants.
I looked at him confused and concerned. "Sokka, are you alright?"
The boy looked from his pants and up to me. "Uh..I think my pp is broken."
A loud gasp escaped my throat as I knew exactly what he was talking about.
After a few seconds, I regained my voice. "Um.. Sokka please. Let's just go."
"Anything you say, mamas."
I let in a long inhale and exhaled slowly. It's just the catus juice talking. It's just the catus juice.
"Sokka, please stop talking and just hold my hand and shush. Please...for me?"
The boys eyes widen as if he were going to cry, but he nods his head holding my hand.
After a while of walking, Sokka began to speak again. "Are you mad at me?"
I peer my head over my shoulder to look at him. "No, Sokka, I'm not mad at you."
"Are you upset, that my pp broke because of you?"
What?!
I let out a sigh. "No, Sokka."
"Did I make you uncomfortable?"
For someone who was high off cactus juice, he seemed really concerned.
"No, you didn't Sokka. I'm just tired, that's all." I reply with a slight smile.
"Okay," the boy perked. "Will you be my girlfriend?"
It really took Sokka to be drunk off his behind to ask me to be his girlfriend?
I shook my head. "Sok, we will talk about it, when you aren't high, okay?"
"Okay, mamas."
✼ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ✼
It is nearly twilight and we are still walking in a single file through the desert. A shadow passes over our heads and Aang lands behind us, kicking up a small cloud of sand. As the sand clears, Aang is still down.
"I'm sorry, Aang. I know it's hard for you right now but...we need to focus on getting out of here." Katara walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He pulls away.
"What's the difference?" Aang hopelessly says. "We won't survive without Appa. We all know it."
"Come on, Aang." Katara encourages. "We can do this if we work together. Right Toph?"
"As far as I can feel, we're trapped in a giant bowl of sand pudding." Toph kicks her feet in the sand. "I got nothin."
Katara turns to her brother in hopefulness. "Sokka? Any ideas how to find Ba Sing Se?"
I looked over at Sokka and Momo laying side by side on their backs, arms and legs stretched out. Sokka smiles blissfully. He points up at the sky. "Why don't we ask the circle birds?"
Katara and I direct our gaze to the sky and see four buzzard wasps circling above our heads.
Katara locked eyes with me as we looked at every other member on the team. Aang still sits down sulking and Toph staggers a bit. Sokka chuckles a bit while Momo lazily claws at the buzzard wasps.
Katara grabs her head in annoyance. "Ugh...We're getting out of this desert, and we're going to do it together!"
I nod my head, agreeing with her. "Aang, get up. Everybody, hold hands."
"We can do this. We have to." Katara takes one more look at the buzzard wasps in the sky before pulling Aang along by his staff. Aang holds onto Toph's hand and she holds onto Sokka's as he held onto mine.
After a while, the sun was setting as we all stagger up a large dune, everyone began to break apart as we all began to grow tired.
"Katara," I suggested as I looked at the kids surrounding us. "I think we should stop for the night."
As I said so the rest of the kids sigh and fall down of exhaustion.
"Is there any more water?" Toph coughs out.
"This is the last of it. Everyone can have a little drink."
Sokka crawls toward Katara with Momo riding on his back when she begins to bend the water out of her pouch. Momo leaps forward at the water, causing it to fall in the sand.
Sokka theatrically panics, grabbing his head in despair. "Momo, no! You've killed us all!"
"No, he hasn't." Katara calmly holds her hand over the moist spot of sand and begins to bend the water back into her pouch, before giving it to Toph to drink.
"Sokka, let me see the things you got from the library."
He immediately backs away and defensively grabs his back full of scrolls. "What?! I didn't steal anything! Who told you that?" Sokka points an accusing finger at Momo. "It was you! You ratted me out!"
I blink my eyes at Sokka. "I was there."
I take the bag from Sokka and start to examine the scrolls with Katara.
"It doesn't matter." Aang sadly says. "None of those will tell us where Appa is."
"No," Katara answers, "but we can find out which way Ba Sing Se is. We can use the stars to guide us."
I pull out a map of the stars. "That way we can travel at night when it's cool and rest during the day."
Katara nods her head. She turns around and sighs at the sight of the rest of the group. They are all lying there, exhausted from the long walk and their grief for the loss of Appa.
"Just try to get some sleep. We'll start again in a few hours."
I sigh lying my head on Katara's shoulder.
After a couple of hours, Katara had shaken me awake. She begins to wake up the others as I approached Sokka.
Momo is patting the sand he used to cover up Sokka while he is sleeping. He jumps away when he sees me approach Sokka. "Hey, Sok, wake up, we've gotta go."
Sokka drowsily sits up and smiles like a drunken idiot.
Aang and Katara spot something large in the sky. A bison shaped object is floating by the bright, full moon. Aang's expression brightens up in an instant. "Appa!"
"Appa? But why would Princess Yue need him? She's the moon!" Sokka grabs my hand and uses it to rub his cheek. "She flies by herself!"
The closer the floating object get its revealed that it is just a small desert cloud. "It's just a cloud." I murmur.
"Wait, a cloud?!" Katara offers her pouch to Aang. "Here, fly up and bend the water from that cloud into my pouch."
Aang gives Katara an angry look before snatching the offered water pouch out of her hands. The group gazes at him as he quickly passes two times over the cloud. The few remains of the cloud evaporate.
He throws the pouch at Katara when he lands and she peeks in. "Wow...there's hardly any in here."
"I'm sorry, okay!" Aang lashes out. "It's a desert cloud; I did all I could! What's anyone else doing?!"He points his staff at Katara. "What are you doing?!"
She returns his attack with a shocked look on her face. "Trying to keep everyone together. Let's just get moving. We need to head this direction."
Katara looks at her charts once more and leads the group in the chosen direction. We were walking silently through the desert, until Toph trips and falls flat on her face.
Aang, Katara and I are looking at Toph, while Sokka and Momo just stand there, staring blankly to the sky.
Toph sits up and rubs her right foot. "Ow! Crud! I am so sick of not feeling where I'm going!" She points toward the little rocklike shaped object she tripped over. "And what idiot buried a boat in the middle of the desert?"
My nose slightly twitched. "A boat?" I run over to inspect the object.
"Believe me, I kicked it hard enough to feel plenty of vibrations."
Sokka turns around, swinging like a string puppet, to see what I'm babbling about. I begin to rub of the sand of the object that appears to be made of wood. Aang steps forward, suggestively holding up his staff. As soon as I back away, Aang swings his staff around, creating a mighty gust of wind, revealing a boat of some sort. I crawl aboard and examine it.
"It's one of the gliders the sandbenders use and its got some kind of compass on it."
Katara runs over tapping the compass. "I bet it can point us out of here! Aang, you can bend a breeze so we can sail it. We're going to make it!"
Everyone boarded the boat. Katara and I navigate the sand sailor through the desert, while Aang's driving it forward using strong gusts of wind.
"The needle on this compass doesn't seem to be pointing north according to my charts." Katara places her charts over the compass. Sokka sits beside her, dangling his legs over the edge and holding Momo by the tail, who glides in the opposite direction.
"Take it easy little lady." Sokka dreamily says. "I'm sure the sand folks who built this baby know how to get around here."
Katara and I look annoyed at Sokka. When we focus our attention back toward the horizon in front of us, Katara gasps in comprehension when she sees a giant rock in the distance.
"That's what the compass is pointing to! That giant rock! It must be the magnetic center of the desert."
"A rock?!" Toph ecstatically says. "Yes! Let's go!"
"Maybe we can find some water there!" Katara cheers.
"Maybe we can find some sandbenders." Aang darkly says.
I looked around my surroundings to see if the others had heard what Aang had said, but no one else seemed to notice.
Aang continues to send gusts of wind into the sails of the glider, directing it toward the rock. Once we had made it to the top of the rock, the sun's already rising.
"Ahhh...Finally! Solid ground!" Toph happily lets herself drop flat on her back, moving her arms and legs back and forth, creating a rock angel. After she is done, the group starts to explore the caves that decorate the top of the rock. We enter a round tunnel. The cave's surface is covered with a yellow, gooey substance.
Sokka breathes in deeply. "I think my head is starting to clear out the cactus juice. And look!"
Sokka dips his hand in the yellow goo and tastes it, sharing his find with Momo. They both spit it out and Sokka makes a disgusted gagging noise. "Tastes like rotten penguin meat! Awww, I feel woozy."
I look at Sokka annoyed. "You've been hallucinating on cactus juice all day and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave? I wonder why I like you sometimes."
"You like me because of my natural curiosity." Sokka looks at me with a smirk plastered on his lips.
I playfully roll my eyes at him, pushing his shoulder slightly.
"I don't think this is a normal cave. This was carved by something." Toph says feeling around the cave.
"Yeah..." Aang breathes out, "look at the shape."
"There's something buzzing in here. Something that's coming for us!"
We immediately run out the cave, back into the open. Toph and Aang scream as buzzard wasp emerges. Aang pulls Toph down as it flies over their heads.
A giant rock from a distance, followed by more buzzard wasps swarm out and surround us. Aang blasts the first wasp away with a strong air current.
A second wasp lands on a nearby rock. The moment it touches it, Toph turns around to send the wasp flying again, shooting up the rock from underneath it.
Another buzzard wasp flies between Sokka and Toph. She hears it fly behind her so she lifts the rock beside her and throws it in the general direction of the sound. The giant rock is only inches apart from crushing Sokka.
"What are you doing?!" I scream shocked. "That rock almost crushed Sokka!"
"Sorry, I can't tell where they are in the air!"
A loud buzzing signals the passing of another wasp. Sokka pulls out my war fans and runs after it. "I got this one."
He ferociously swings my weapon back and forth.
"Sokka, there's nothing there!" I exclaim.
He lowers my fans, looking around in search for his imagined foe. "I guess my head's not as clear as I thought."
I run over to him grabbing my war fans. "How did you?...My fans...you found them?"
Sokka lightly shrugged. "I may have taken them back from the giant owl. It looks like he does give out returns."
I smile, jumping into Sokka's arms. He holds me tight as he takes a long whiff into my hair. "Wow! That perfume is strong. I think my heads clear. I'm okay now."
A buzzard wasp swoops in from the sky and snatches up a screeching Momo as it flies away from the hive and the rest of us.
"Momo! I'm not losing anyone else out here." Full of anger, Aang takes off on his glider in hot pursuit of Momo and the wasp. Katara and Sokka watch him go.
"Come on, we're going down." The rest of us descend along a narrow ledge. I lead Toph by hand.
"Toph, shoot a rock right there." I place Toph in the right direction. Toph kicks up some rocks and shoots them forward. The incoming buzzard wasp is shot down, taking several blows to the head. Sokka cheers, swinging his machete in the air.
"Yeah! You got it! She got it, right?"
"Yes," Katara answers her brother. "Now, let's move."
As we continue running down the ledge, more wasps begin to appear.
Katara looks over Toph's shoulder, acting as her eyes. "On your left!"
Toph reacts immediately and shoots a rock at her left. The buzzard wasp takes the rock full in the chest, shrieking on impact before tumbling down.
Suddenly, gigantic pillars of sand rise from the ground and scare off the swarm. Sokka wraps his arms and protects my body, shielding me from the sand.
As the wind blows the dust away. It reveals several sandbenders. Aang lands before Katara, Sokka, Toph and I ready to face the sandbenders.
"What are you doing in our land with our sandbender and sandbender sailer? From the looks of it, you stole it from the Hami tribe."
"We found the sailer abandoned in the desert. We're traveling with the Avatar." Katara gestures at Aang. The leader's eyes widen a bit at this information. "Our bison was stolen and we have to get to Ba Sing Se."
A young man to the right of the leader takes a step forward and aggressively addresses Katara. "You dare accuse our people of theft while you ride in on a stolen sand sailer and kidnap our people."
"Kidnap?"
"Quiet, Ghashiun. No one accused our people of anything. If what they say is true, we must give them hospitality." The leader spoke.
"Sorry, father."
"I recognize the son's voice." Toph whispers. "He's the one that stole Appa."
"Are you sure?" Katara whispered back.
"I never forget a voice."
Aang's tunic flutters around him as he charges forward, threateningly brandishing his staff toward the son. "You stole Appa! Where is he? What did you do to him?"
Ghashiun cowers back. "They're lying! They're the thieves! They took our sandbender." He comes forward to grab me, but Aang points his glider in his face, making the son back up.
"You get away from her!" With an angry frown and a growl of frustration, Aang smacks his staff on the ground, obliterating one of the sandbender's sailers with a powerful blade of air.
"Where is my bison? You tell me where he is now!"
To emphasize his order, Aang sends a strong blast of air toward another sailer. The sandbenders watch in shock as it blows up.
"What did you do?" The leader asks his son.
"I-It wasn't me!"
"You said to put a muzzle on him!" Toph shouts.
"You muzzled Appa?" Aang's eyes and tattoos start to glow as he enters the Avatar State. With a swing of his staff, he destroys the last of the sandbender's sailers.
"I'm sorry! I didn't know that it belonged to the Avatar!" Ghashiun pleaded.
"Tell me where Appa is!" Aang's voice was distorted as he spoke.
"I traded him! To some merchants!" Ghashiun confessed frightened. "He's probably in Ba Sing Se by now! They were going to sell him there!" The sandbenders raise their hands as if to ward off the Avatar's bright, angry glare. "Please! We'll escort you out of the desert! We'll help however we can!"
The wind around Aang starts the swirl, as his anger is reaching its peak. Sokka pull Toph and I along with him as he starts to make a break for it, running away from his enraged friend. "Just get out of here, run!"
Aang drops his staff. The wind around him forms a fast moving sphere, knocking up sand high into the sky. As everyone runs away, Katara stays put, staring sadly at the ground. The sandstorm engulfs her and Aang completely, obscuring them from the sight of the others. Everyone braced themselves as the whirlwind swoops over.
Aang's air sphere slowly lifts him up in the air, his teeth clenched and his hands cramped with rage. Katara grabs his right arm, preventing him from rising any further. The terrible face of an outraged Avatar looks down upon her, only to be met by Katara's sincere, sad expression. She pulls him back to the ground and presses him close against her chest.
The air sphere slowly dissolves away as Aang leaves the Avatar state. His rage subsides to make room for pure, heartbreaking sadness.
Tears begin to prickle my own face, lightly as I hold onto Sokka's as tight as possible.