"Would you sit down?" Sokka tells Aang, getting annoyed at his pacing. "If we hit a bump, you'll go flying off."
"A bump? Sokka, we're FLYING," I tell him.
"What's bugging you anyway?" Sokka continues to ask him, completely dismissing my observation.
"It's what Avatar Roku said. I'm supposed to master all four elements before that comet arrives."
"Well, let's see. You pretty much mastered airbending and that only took you a hundred and twelve years. I'm sure you can master three more elements by next summer," Sokka replies sarcastically.
"I haven't even started waterbending and we're still weeks away from the North Pole. What am I gonna do?"
"Well, I'm not going to lie. It does seem like an impossible mission. But look on the bright side..."
"Which is?" Aang asks curiously.
I raise my hands defensively, giving him an apologetic smile. "I was kind of counting on you to come up with something, being the optimist among the four of us."
"Everyone, calm down. Aang, if you want, I can try to teach you some of the stuff I know," Katara offers. I notice his eyes immediately light up.
"You'd do that?"
"We'll need to find a good source of water first."
"Maybe we can find a puddle for you to splash in," Sokka replies sarcastically.
Boy, does he come to regret it soon after. Somehow, we manage to find an enclosed area with a huge waterfall that ends up in a large river. I can already tell the excitement in Aang and Katara's expression just by their huge smiles, while Sokka seems unamused, frowning as usual.
"Well, this is one good puddle if I've ever seen one," I note.
We watch as Appa immediately throws himself into the river and gets soaked, rolling around happily. Aang attempts to follow behind his bison, quickly making his way toward the water. "Yeah! Don't start without me, boy!"
Katara stops him, raising an eyebrow. "Remember the reason we're here."
"Oh right. Time to practice waterbending."
"Great. So what are Alya and I supposed to do?" Sokka asks, clearly annoyed.
"You could... clean the gunk out of Appa's toes," Aang suggests, handing Sokka a long, bushy branch.
"So, while you guys are playing in the water, we're supposed to be hard at work picking mud out of a giant bison's feet?"
"Well, Alya should be trying to train with her airbending," Katara replies.
"What? Why?" I complain.
"Would you rather clean Appa's feet?" Katara retorts.
"Have fun, Sokka," I tell him, as I quickly head towards an empty area nearby and start practicing the movements Aang has been able to teach me so far.
The hardest part about airbending isn't taking control of the wind, but pulling off the sensory aspect of it. Aang explained to me that the key to airbending is to be flexible and to avoid resistance. The second part has proven to be the most difficult for me, because, as much as I am an Air Nomad, my father was from the Earth Kingdom. Even though I never met him, my mother always told me I inherited his proud and strong spirit.
"Hey, Alya, when you're done with the dancing over there, mind giving me a hand and drying Appa?" Sokka interrupts me, making me frown.
"Airbending is an ancient art—"
"Yeah, yeah, just blow-dry the giant bison for me, thanks."
I don't even get the chance to snap back at him before Aang accidentally waterbends a giant wave right towards him, effectively washing him away. I hold back the urge to laugh, but immediately lose it, as soon as I notice all of our supplies floating far away, down the river.
"Oh, no."
"Looks like I got the hang of that move! What else do you got?" Aang says excitedly to an annoyed Katara.
Katara frowns at him. "That's enough practicing for today."
"Yeah, I'll say!" Sokka protests, pointing at the flowing supplies down the river. "You just 'practiced' our supplies down the river."
"Uh, sorry," Aang smiles nervously. "I'm sure we can find somewhere to replace all this stuff."
"My life was hard enough when you were just an airbender."
***
Thankfully, Aang was right, and we manage to find a city nearby. However, I get the feeling we shouldn't be here, especially after several armed men watch us from afar the whole time. This definitely isn't like the nice little towns we've visited so far.
"We've got exactly three copper pieces left from the money that King Bumi gave us. Let's spend it wisely," Sokka instructs.
The mention of King Bumi brings a smile to my face. I can't pinpoint why, but for some reason, I feel like I'm connected to that crazy old king somehow. He seems to know me a lot better than he let on, and even though I don't understand why, I feel like I know him, too. I play with the lotus necklace he gifted me, wondering what it's supposed to mean.
"Uh, make that two copper pieces, Sokka. I couldn't say no to this whistle!" Aang startles me from my thoughts, as he shows us a white whistle that sort of resembles a bison.
Katara and I exchange knowing looks, silently agreeing that he'd just been scammed.
Aang attempts to blow on it, but when it doesn't work, Momo squawks at him and Sokka loses it. "It doesn't even work. See? Even Momo thinks it's a piece of junk."
"No offense Aang, but I'll hold the money from now on," Katara says, taking the money from him.
We continue walking through the marketplace, until we reach the dock area. This place was sketchy enough back at the market area, but the docks are even sketchier. There's plenty of merchants announcing their shops inside of their ships, and to be honest, I don't know how good of an idea it would be to board a stranger's ship. That's coming from someone who hopped on a flying bison with three other people I never met before.
"Oh! You there, I can see from your clothing that you're world-traveling types. Perhaps I can interest you in some exotic curios?" A man suddenly stops us, clearly attempting to sell us on something.
Of course, Katara, Sokka and I can see the scam from a mile away, but Aang seems genuinely intrigued by what this man has to offer. "Sure! What are curios?"
"I'm not entirely sure. But we got 'em!" The man says, discretely taking Aang along with him back to his ship.
"This is obviously a scam."
"I know, Alya, but we both know we can't leave Aang alone with him," Katara says, and as much as I hate it, I know she is right.
We follow them inside the ship's lower deck, which has been altered into a shop. It's visibly filled with rare items all over its shelves, and even Sokka and Katara feel curious enough to look around. Momo also peeks around from over my shoulder, and we suddenly see a man with a ferocious-looking iguana parrot on his shoulder.
He glances at Momo with interest. "I've never seen such a fine specimen of lemur. That beast would fetch me a hefty sum if you'd be interested in bartering."
"Yeah... Momo isn't really for sale."
"You sure about that? I'd be willing to pay a rather generous amount..."
"How generous are we talking about?" I ask impulsively, before getting a glare from Aang. I then clear my throat awkwardly. "I mean... Sorry. We don't sell our friends."
"Look at this, Aang. It's a waterbending scroll!" Katara calls out to him, and I am grateful that she's distracted him from probably giving me a whole speech on how 'airbenders don't care about money'. "Check out these crazy moves."
Momo, however, gawks at me with his huge orbs and I can't help but feel that he may be judging me for trying to sell him a few moments ago. "Oh, Momo, don't worry. I wasn't actually going to sell you. We're not that desperate for money. Not yet, anyway..."
"Where did you get a waterbending scroll?" Aang asks, as I walk over to them.
"Let's just say I got it up North, at a most reasonable price, free."
I raise an eyebrow. He's got to be the most by-the-book pirate I've ever met. Not that I've met that many pirates.
"Wait a minute..." Sokka gasps. "You guys are pirates!"
"Seriously? What gave it away? The huge ship, the suspiciously acquired merchandise, or the pet iguana parrot on his shoulder?" I retort sarcastically.
"We prefer to think of ourselves as 'high risk traders'," the captain replies.
"How about calling yourselves thieves? Because that's what you guys are."
"Alya!" Katara shuts me up, before turning her attention back to the captain. "So, how much for the, uh, traded scroll?"
"I've already got a buyer, a nobleman in the Earth Kingdom," the captain replies. "Unless of course, you kids have two hundred gold pieces on you right now."
"I know how to deal with these guys, Katara. Pirates love to haggle. Watch and learn," Aang walks over to him and offers him a single copper coin with a confident grin. "Let's say to the price of... one copper piece!"
"The price is two hundred gold pieces," the captain laughs at him. "I don't haggle on items this rare."
"Okay, two copper pieces!"
"It's not as amusing the second time, boy!" the captain warns him, starting to sound irritated.
"Just drop it, guys, it's not worth it," I tell them.
"But it's a waterbending scroll!" Aang replies, and I know why there's such an urgency in his voice. He thinks the scroll can help him learn his waterbending faster.
"Alright... Then, are you still interested in Momo?" I suggest, earning a horrified look from Aang.
"ALYA!"
"Aang, can we get out of here? I feel like we're getting weird looks," Katara pleads.
"Aye, we be casting off now!" Aang replies as we quickly manage to leave the ship, surprisingly, without running into any more trouble.
Once we're outside, I suddenly get the feeling that something's up. Katara is walking unusually fast and is glancing around frantically, as if she were anticipating something.
Aang catches onto that, too. "What was that all about, Katara?"
"Yeah, I was just starting to browse through their boomerang collection," Sokka complains.
"I thought you wanted that scroll," I note.
"I'll just feel a lot better once we get away from here," she replies, holding her arms worriedly.
As if on cue, we are stopped by the voice of the man who got us inside the ship to begin with, who is running towards us in a hurry.
"Hey you! Get back here!"
"Well, well. Look who's come to their senses. Told you the haggling would pay off," Aang says proudly.
As soon as a group of armed pirates rushes out of the ship behind him, I immediately know that this has nothing to do with Aang's nonexistent talents for haggling. "Yeah, Aang, I'm pretty sure they don't want to trade with us."
We quickly start to make a run for it, and I hear the pirates following close behind. As we run into the marketplace, Katara manages to slow some of them off by bending some water and freezing it on the ground, causing them to slip. Soon after, Aang also manages to violently airbend a cart filled with cabbages at the other pirates following us. We soon run into even more of them, until they manage to trap us into a dead end.
"Now, who gets to taste the steel of my blade first?" One of the pirates says mockingly.
"No thanks," Aang replies, before he and I exchange a complicit look. "Alya, now!"
We manage to bend an air swipe strong enough to knock all of the pirates far away from us, before we both open our gliders (which I thankfully carry with me all the time now, mainly because I fear falling off Appa) and get Sokka and Katara to hop on. I struggle a bit, but I manage to follow Aang's lead and get both me and Katara, who is yelling in horror, to safety, somehow getting rid of the pirates in the process.
When we finally arrive back at the waterfall, we are finally able to catch our breath, but I notice that Katara seems off for some reason. As if she's still worried about something.
"I used to kind of look up to pirates, but those guys are terrible," Aang says as he takes a seat on the ground with a sigh.
"Well, real pirates are thieves, Aang. They're not necessarily the fun adventurers you hear about in stories," I note. "What I don't understand, is why they were after us."
"I think I may know," Katara replies, smiling as she pulls out the waterbending scroll from her pocket and shows it to us. "It's because I took this."
"No way!" Aang says, surprised.
"Isn't it great?" Katara asks happily.
"You stole it?" I ask, my eyes widened.
"No wonder they were trying to hack us up!" Sokka agrees.
"I prefer to think of it as high risk trading," Katara retorts playfully.
"Good one, Katara!" Aang laughs.
"Katara, stealing isn't right," I scold her, for once, feeling like the more responsible one.
"Seriously, Alya? You said it yourself! They're thieves! They probably stole it from a waterbender!"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Alya. You put all of our lives in danger just so you could learn some stupid, fancy splashes," Sokka retorts. I'm too upset at Katara right now to even acknowledge the rare occurrence that Sokka and I are actually on the same page about something, for once.
"These are real waterbending forms. You know how crucial it is for Aang to learn waterbending!"
"Whatever," Sokka replies, tired of arguing. He walks away bitterly.
"Come on, Alya. You have to understand."
"I only hope that whatever you can both learn from that scroll is worth almost getting all of us killed."
"You're one to talk! You almost sold Momo back there."
"Don't change the subject."
"Hey, that's enough. What's done is done. We have it, we might as well learn from it," Aang says, as I follow Sokka's lead and walk away, too angry with Katara to even stand being next to her.
I truly care about Katara, even at the times when she's nagging at me about arguing with Sokka. But right now, I feel beyond disappointed in her actions. I just hope that those pirates don't come looking after us anymore.