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Appa flies over a swamp Sokka sharpens his sword, Katara reads her book and Hope meditates. Her recent dabbling in blood bend has left her fighting with her own mind.
Her father said it was dangerous and she didn't listen she used blood bending and she didn't want to stop. She promised herself that she would only use it if they were in danger.
Unexpectedly she feels Appa start flying down towards the swamp and everyone looks at Aang "Hey, you taking us down for a reason?..." Aang doesn't answer "...Aang why are we going down?"
Aang looks around confused and Hope takes the time to see how close to the ground they are "What? I didn't even notice"
Appa starts going down once again and Hope speaks up "Aang are you noticing it now?"
Appa keeps flying down making Katara move towards Aang and sitting next to him "Is something wrong?"
Aang seems in trace while looking at the swamp "I know this is going to sound weird, but I think the swamp is calling to me"
Sokka holds his stomach and Hope already knows what he's going to say " Is it telling you where we can get something to eat?"
There was a 50-50 chance of what comes out of Sokka's mouth and it was ether about food or nonsense "I don't know, Bumi said to learn earthbending I would have to wait and listen, and now I'm actually hearing the earth, Do you want me to ignore it?"
Hope, Sokka, Katara and Momo all look down at the forest and they all can feel the eerie atmosphere. Hope knew this was important "I think you should listen to it"
Sokka gives Hope a dumbfounded look "You want to go into this creepy looking swamp?"
Hope looks down again and grimaces before looking back to Sokka with a fake smile "If that's where Aang is being called to then yes"
"I don't know, There's something ominous about that place"
Momo comes and hides in Hope's bag and Appa groans gently "See, even Appa and Momo don't like it here"
Aang sighs in defeat "Okay, since everyone feels so strongly about this, bye swamp..." Aang manoeuvres the saddle handles "Yip! Yip!"
Appa starts flying away and Hope is grateful that Aang didn't listen to her input and go into the swamp. Hope starts feeling more wind but thinks it's because of the flying but Sokka speaks up "You better throw in an extra "yip"! We gotta move!"
They all turn and see a tornado coming straight for them making Appa fly faster but isn't fast enough. The tornado starts sucking him in and Sokka is nearly blown off the saddle until Hope grabs onto him.
Aang comes and uses his air bending to protect the group but it's not enough and they are stuck in. Everyone falls to the ground with a bit of a this but thankfully the group are uninjured "Where's Appa and Momo?"
Aang jumps up into a tree to look for them as the trip look around "Sokka, you've got an elbow leech"
Sokka starts panicking while trying to look for it "Where? Where?"
Hope and Katara smirks at the boy "Where do you think?"
The boy quickly rips the leech off his elbow with a frustrated huff "Why do things keep attaching to me?!"
Hope looks around and her smiles drops as she doesn't see the tornado "Guys where did the tornado go"
Aang jumps back down from the trees "It's gone and so are Momo and Appa, we have to find them"
The group nods and they start going through the forest with Sokka cutting through the vines with a machete. Aang watches him conflicted "Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp"
Sokka keeps cutting the vines as they all walk through "Aang, these are just plants. Do you want me to say "please" and "thank you" as I swing my machete back and forth?"
Katara looks around at the forest suspiciously "Maybe you should listen to Aang, Something about this place feels ... alive"
Hope grimaces as she looks around at the forest "Do you think that alive thing is the being that's speaking to Aang?"
Aang gives the forest a questioning glance before Sokka speaks up "I'm sure there are lots of things that are alive here and if we don't wanna wind up getting eaten by them, we need to find Appa as fast as we can"
The group continue through the swamp with Sokka cutting any vines in the way but Hope couldn't help the feeling of being watched.
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Hope is suddenly yanked out of her sleep making the girl scream as she is dragged through the swamp. Hope looks down and sees a vine gripped onto her ankle and uses bending to make a blade of ice.
The blade cuts through the vines and thankfully she didn't go too far away from the little camp they made. Unfortunately, she didn't see the gang but did see similar trail marks like they had been dragged away.
Hope didn't panic, they could look after themselves...maybe not Sokka but she was sure Aang and Katara could. Hope decides to try and find Sokka first and starts following after his trail.
She was feeling uneasy as she followed it making sure to look around for any sign of life or her friend. She decided to stay quiet she definitely felt like she was being watched early and she didn't want to attract attention.
She continues moving until she sees a man with dark hair and in the North Pole tribe clothes. Hope blinked a few times in confusion, this must be the gases that meant it wasn't real.
He turns slowly and Hope sees that it's who she thought it was, her father "You didn't listen to me"
The figure was on the trail that Hope needed to follow so she ignored him and put her head down as she kept going "You disobeyed me, you are dabbling in evil you don't understand"
Hope jeeps ignoring him trying her hardest to not let the words get to her but the next words do "You are a disgrace to our family, you are a disgrace to your tribe, you are a disgrace to me, you are no daughter of mine"
Tears started flowing because it was all true she had used blood bending something evil and it was affecting her. Hope didn't look back she focused on the trail unto she saw Sokka holding his machete up "Sokka!"
The boy looks like he comes out of a trance and looks at Hope who is running over to him and helping him up "Hope! We need to find Aang and Katara"
Hope quickly nods and looks around and for some reason something was calling to her and she decides to follow it. Sokka looks at her confused and follows after "Okay I guess we are going this way"
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Thankfully it doesn't take much longer for the gang to meet up "I thought I saw Mom"
Sokka is the first to speak and look to Katara "Look, we were all just scared and hungry and our minds were playing tricks on us that's why we all saw things out here"
Hope wonders for a moment if the swamp was what she had learnt about in the North pole but decided against saying anything. "Hope?"
Hope looks to Katara and notices they was all looking at her "Yes?"
"Are you okay? Did you see anything?"
She didn't know what they would do if they found out about her blood bending it is supposed to be evil "No I didn't I'm just tired"
Katara didn't believe the girl but doesn't push her to say anything else "The centre... it's the heart of the swamp it's been calling us here, I knew it"
They all look at the massive tree and it didn't seem like anything special "It's just a tree it can't call anyone, For the last time, there's nothing after us and there's nothing magical happening here"
As Sokka finishes a seaweed monster comes from behind the tree and the gang is quick to scream. They all separate as it begins to attack and it first grabs Sokka and starts spinning him around.
Aang uses his airbending to get Sokka out of the monster's grip making him land on the ground. Hope raises her hands and uses water to slice one of the monsters arms off while Katara does the same.
The monster arms simply grew back and Hope was confused since she had never heard about this type of monster in her studies. The monster flicks Katara and Hope away but Hope is quick to get back up and help Katara.
Sokka is trying to slash at the vines but it's don g little to nothing so Aang uses his Air bending to push it back. Hope catches onto something inside the monster and then a heart beat "Katara! Aang keep slicing at it!"
The two nod and all three of them start slicing at the monster and it reveals a man "There's someone in there! He's bending the vines!"
The keep slicing until the mask is sliced ing half and they can clearly see the man but Katara is captured by the vines. Hope sees no other option so she focuses her mind and the man starts coming out of the vines "What is happening to me!?"
The man drops into the water below him releasing Katara and Aang goes over to him "Why did you call me here if you just wanted to kill us!?"
The man stands up confused from his last motions and then the accusations that was being thrown at him "Wait! I didn't call you here"
The gang all look at each other confused and still in an offensive stance "We were flying over and I heard something calling to me, telling me to land"
"He's the Avatar, stuff like that happens to us a lot"
Hope was still trying to process to repercussions for using blood bending or rather psychic blood bending. Hope was so in her head that she missed that they all started following this man.
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Next thing the gang was start around a fire speaking with Huu, Due and Tho the people who live in the swamp "How you like that possum chicken?"
Hope is first to speak up wanting to be nice for them showing hospitality "It tastes great you cooked it to perfection"
Tho smiles at the girl and gestures to his friend "Huu here is the best cook in the world"
Sokka was chewing on the food as he spoke "Tastes just like an arctic hen, So why were you guys so interested in eating Appa? You've got plenty of those big things wandering around"
"You want me to eat old Slim? He's like a member of the family"
The man grabs a fish and throws it to slim who eats the whole thing "Nice Slim!"
Sokka picks up a bug and throws it at him and it bounces off his head making him growl at Sokka. "Oh, he don't eat no bugs! That's people food"
Sokka cowers and Hope and Katara was stiffling giggles at the scene "Where'd you say you was from?"
"Sokka and Katara are from the South Pole I'm from the North Pole"
Tho scratches his head in confusion which Hope notices happens a lot "Didn't know there was waterbenders anywhere but here. They got a nice swamp there, do they?"
"No, it's all ice and snow"
The man goes back to his food taking a bite "Hmm, no wonder you left"
Katara and Hope look at each other with raised eyebrows before Sokka speaks up as he gestures to the swamp "Well, I hope you realize now that nothing strange was going on here just a bunch of greasy people living in a swamp"
"What about the visions?"
This is where Hope becomes quiet again if her father could react like that then they would be worse "I told you, we were hungry. I'm eating a giant bug!"
Sokka bites into the bug and chews for a little while before forcing it down and then sticking out his tongue "You really can eat anything"
Sokka shrugs and takes another bite "It's a great gift"
There is a moment of silence before Aang speaks while feeding Momo " But what about when the tree showed me where Appa and Momo were?"
"That's Avatar stuff, that doesn't count the only thing I can't figure out is how you made that tornado that sucked us down"
Only airbenders could do that and Aang was the only one left "I can't do anything like that I just bend the water in the plants"
Sokka shrugs once again at Huu's words "Well, no accounting for weather, Still, there's absolutely nothing mysterious about the swamp"
Hope looks out to the swamp in suspicion she highly doubts that is the case.
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