Havi's pov
Of course, the next morning we woke up and Appa still wasn't feeling well. After a slight hissy fit from Sokka, we decided it was best to head back to the village. A short trip later, we end up at the same old man's shop. "Hi, Dock. Is Shoe around?" Sokka asks him.
"Let me check," Dock runs around the counter to change his hat before returning, "Hey, there! Back again, are you?"
"We need more food," Toph explains, "Our friend is still sick and we can't leave until he's better."
Shoe takes out some coins and places four clams on the counter, "Oh well, that's too bad. Maybe if you guys are lucky, the painted lady will visit you in the night and heal your friend."
"And maybe she'll cook us a midnight snack and we'll all have a sing-along," I smack Sokka for being sarcastic but Shoe didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah, maybe. You know, last night she visited us again. Healed most of our sick folks."
"Is that why this place seems so festive?" I ask, watching them put up a large statue of the spirit.
"Yup, it's all because of the painted lady."
Katara wows, "Can you believe how much an entire village can be affected by one lady-? I mean, spirit."
"Well, I hope she returns every night otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was," Sokka explains.
Sometimes his bad attitude got under my skin, "Why would you say that?"
"Yeah, look how much better off these people are," Katara adds.
He defends, "yeah, now, but without her they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves. If she really wanted to help she would use her spirit magic to blow up that factory," Sokka begins to make weird noises and imitate an explosion.
"Spirit magic doesn't work that way, Sokka. It's more like....," Aang starts to make other strange noises and a different explosion impression. Those two are something else. I continue to watch as Katara storms away and looks oddly reflective into the distance.
Something ain't right here..
• • •
The next morning was just as chaotic as yesterday. I woke up to quiet bickering, "What do you mean she's not here?"
"I mean, her sleeping bag is empty, Toph. Can't you se- feel it?"
"No, actually I couldn't. I was too busy not caring."
I sit up and yawn, "What's going on?"
"Katara has been lying about Appa being sick," Sokka tells me.
"How do you know?"
"Toph, stick out your tongue," She does as she's told and it's all purple, just like Appa's! "See? And now both Katara and Aang are missing. I bet she's been pretending to be that spirit this whole time."
"Sokka, calm down. It's gonna be okay. Plus, even if she was, isn't that a good thing? She helped all those people... isn't that our whole purpose?" He just huffs as footsteps come closer.
"Shh, we don't want to wake Sokka," Katara walks out from behind a rock and jumps when she sees us, "Oh- Hi.. Sokka. We were just out on a.. uh.. morning walk."
"Oh, really? A morning walk?" He dumps moss from her sleeping bag to the ground, "I know you're the painted lady. I know you've been sneaking out at night, and I know you've been lying about Appa and feeding him purple-izing tongue berries!" Toph sticks out her purple tongue as evidence, "Katara, what you did put our whole mission in jeopardy. We're leaving right now. And how long did you know about this?"
Sokka squared in on Aang who puts his hands up, "Hey, I just found out this morning."
The atmosphere got slightly tense after Katara's actions were revealed. Everyone was slightly wound up whether that be with anger, disappointment, or annoyance.
As we all begin to pack our things and leave, a bunch of men gliding over the water on two-person boats catch our attention. They were fire nation and speeding for the small town. Our attention is grabbed immediately. "What's going on?" Toph asks when noticing out movement.
"Fire nation soldiers are heading to the village," I explain.
Sokka snaps at his sister, "what did you do?"
"I kind of destroyed their factory," She whispers.
"You what?!"
"It was your idea!"
"I was joking! I also said to use spirit magic and made funny noises," he facepalms, "Did you even think this through? The army's gonna blame the villagers. They're headed there right now to get revenge."
"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Katara defends herself.
"Leave! Do nothing."
It's quiet for a moment and I anticipate the explosion building from the sister, "No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me! I'm going down to the village and I'm going to do whatever I can."
Katara storms off and I'm not sure exactly what to do. Aang, Toph and I just kind of stayed to the side awkwardly as Sokka stops her, "Wait..! I'm coming too."
"I thought you didn't want to help."
"Well, you need me, and I will never turn my back on you." Okay, damn, that was cute.
"Sokka, you really do have a heart," the siblings hug.
Aang wipes away a tear, "He really does have a heart, doesn't he?" Toph just punches and knocks him over.
I step forward, "Sorry to break up this touching moment but a bunch of firebenders are still after those innocent people. Let's go."
With a plan in place, our group stands on a cliffside, close enough to hear a soldier talk, "I thought we could live as neighbors in peace but I guess I was wrong. You steal our food, our medicine, and then you destroy our factory."
"We didn't do any of that," someone says but I can't see who.
"Yeah, the painted lady brought us food. She's the one that healed our sick, not your medicine."
"Oh, right, the mysterious painted lady did it," the soldier mocked, "and I suppose she drew the army emblem on your containers too. This is a town of thieves and liars." The man fire bends the people's boats to destroy them.
Okay, enough watching we got to get this show on the road.
I head back to the village to protect the people while Toph stays back and uses a giant boulder to create an ominous stomping noise. Appa growled in the background as well just to add on an extra spooky vibe. Near the cave Toph was in, Sokka played a flute while Aang and Katara created large amounts of fog over the water.
From this point of view, it was pretty freaky and I could tell the soldiers thought so too.
"What is that sound?"
"Maybe it is her."
In the distance, the fog opened up to show Katara in full painted lady gear; meaning the makeup, the outfit, everything. Suddenly, she flies forward over the water and towards the village. Once in close enough range, she jumps into the air and lands directly infront of the soldiers.
"Do something!" The leader shouted and pushed two others who were under his command forward. As they cautiously approached Katara, she looks up, and from below, air blows at them. Aang was hidden beneath the boards to do just that. As the two who were "attacked" by air ran away, mr. leader man gives an order, "stand your ground!"
Katara steps forward. In the blink of an eye, she had one of their water vehicles launched in the air with her bending and shoved into a cliff nearby. As she raised her hands again, all the soldiers fled to escape safety. Judging by his face, the commander was pretty fed up.
"I'll take care of you myself!" The commander shouts. He gets into bending stance and waits for the right moment. With the flick of his hands, he sends a wave of fire at Katara and for a moment I worried she would actually be hit but at the last second, she's sent into the air and the man is knocked into the water.
"Leave this village and never come back," she orders him and he just swims away before being rescued by one of his fire nation puppets.
As people, including myself, begin cheering, Sokka, Toph and Aang rejoin us on the docks. "I knew you'd come," the little boy from before says to the disguised Katara.
"Thank you, me and my brothers really owe you a lot," Shoe says but his tone slowly drifts, "Hey, wait a minute. I know you. You're not the painted lady. You're that colonial girl and you've been tricking us! You're a waterbender!"
"She's a waterbender?"
"How dare you act like our painted lady?" The crowd begins to get angry and shout. Their voices quickly become overwhelming. You could see it in Katara's eyes.
"Maybe she is a waterbender but she was just trying to help you," Sokka stepped in. I love when he goes all 'protective brother mode', "because of her that factory won't be polluting your river and the army is gone! You should be down on your knees thanking her."
"Sokka, it's okay," Katara interrupts. She steps forward, "I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't and I shouldn't have tricked you, but I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the painted lady is real or not because your problems are real and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself."
"She's right, but what should we do?" Shoe asks.
I suggest from the crowd, "Maybe we can clean the river."
"Yeah, we can clean the river!" The crowd cheers but swiftly disperses. Shoe approached Katara, "Thank you. You know, you're not so bad for a waterbender."
"You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, by the way, would you?" Sokka asks.
"No problem, keeping my mouth shut is a personal specialty. My brother Shoe on the other hand, ho, he's a blabbermouth."
Wait, this is Dock? I shake my head and get back on topic.
"So, Dock, are you gonna help us clean?" I ask.
"No, ma'am. I'm going to get my other brother Bushi. He loves cleaning rivers." Dock changes his hat right in front of us, "alright, I'm Bushi. Let's get some river cleaning done."
Aang cheers, "ah-ha! I knew it! I knew you were the same guy. You're the shop owner and the boat guy."
"Oh, you must be talking about my brothers, Dock and Shoe"
"No, I just saw you," Aang pushed, "you switched your hats and called yourself a different name"
"Oh, you know who does that? My brother Dock. He's crazy!"