Well... Thwarting plans is fun... but... I'm not a huge fan of dying, and it seems that that was what was gonna happen if we stayed in the air. I was clutching the side of the saddle and a carrot I had been munching on earlier.
"This landing is gonna get pretty interesting," I called to the others as the twister sucked us in.
"Define 'interesting'," Katara said.
"'Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?'" I answered in deadpan.
"Just get us on the ground, Aang," Sokka yelled.
"I think that part's pretty certain," I replied.
"This is no time for jokes, Mog!" Sokka groaned. "Even good ones!"
"This is the captain. We're having a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then... explode," I grinned at Sokka.
He just looked rather queasy. And suddenly, there was no time for talking. We all fell from the sky, and I face-planted a couple of trees before finding myself face down in a bog, winded and dying.
"I think I broke something...." I gasped as I rolled over.
My carrot was hanging in half...
I looked up. "More than just something...."
I had pretty much drilled a hole in the swamp's canopy.
"Hey, where's Appa and Momo?" Aang asked.
He jumped up onto a tree and began yelling for them. Then he HAD to go and pull a disappearing act on us.
"Sokka... You got something on your... Um..."
"You have an elbow leech," Katara finished.
"WHERE!!!???"
"Um... On your elbow, maybe?"
"Oh... Why do things keep attaching to me?"
"I'm gonna have to say it's your charm... Things love a handsome man."
Aang came back... Eventually.
"You find them?" Katara asked.
"No, and the tornado... It just vanished," he replied.
"How about we go find them on foot?" I tried to sit up.
I groaned as my feet found solid ground, and I was able to lift myself. My ribs felt like they were on fire, and my head was thumping, but I could stand, and I still had my memories, which was a bonus, considering that the last time I fell from a tree, I forgot everything. To be fair, this time, I had fallen from at least four trees.
After about an hour of trudging through the swamp with Sokka hacking at vines and Katara telling him not to, I decided to speed things up. A blast of fire cut through the thickest part of the vegetation and opened up our path a little more.
"Maybe we should be a little nicer to the swamp," Aang said.
"Aang, these are just plants. Do you want me to say "please" and "thank you" as I swing my machete back and forth?" Sokka replied.
"Maybe you should listen to Aang. Something about this place feels ... alive," Katara worried at her hair, looking around nervously.
"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," Sokka tried to ease her mind.
It didn't work very well. Sokka and I continued to hack and burn our way through the vines, trying to find Appa.
Soon it was pretty dark, and we could hardly see in front of us.
"We'd better stop for the night, guys," I said, clearing a patch of ground to sleep on. "I'll light a fire to keep away the beasties."
Some swamp gas bubbled up, spooking the others. And, woo! Does that stuff stink...
"Let's get that fire going," Sokka said, beginning to hack at some roots.
"Sokka, the longer we're here, the more I think you shouldn't be doing do that," Aang whispered.
"No, I asked the swamp. It said this was fine," Sokka cried out crazily.
He grabbed a nearby root.
"Right, swamp? 'No problem, Sokka!'" He shook the root as if it were speaking.
"Does anyone else feel like they are being watched?" Katara asked.
"Sorry," I said.
"Please, we are all alone out here," Sokka answered, swatting at a moth.
The moth turned into a ball of light and illuminated a million pairs of eyes in the darkness.
"Except for them," Aang exclaimed.
I sent out a jet of flame towards the creatures, which hopefully scared them off more than antagonised them. I was not keen on dying tonight. We all gathered back to back. Katara gripped my arm tightly and pulled herself closer to me. We tried not to fall asleep. Unfortunately, we did.
We all woke up to being dragged away from each other by the vines. So burning them HAD been a bad idea. Oh well... I sent out an orb of flame around me, breaking their hold and making them shrivel up. That was fun. I sent out a wide arc in the direction the vines had come from before hearing a voice.
"Yo Sasha!"
I paused and turned, searching for the source of the voice. That voice meant me... How many names do I have? Lexie, Alex, Mogui, and now Sasha too? I gotta cut down on my aliases... "Well... They... encourage your complete cooperation. Send you roses when they think you need to smile. I can't control myself because I don't know how, and they love me for it; honestly, I'll be here for a while."
A shaft of light flashed through the trees, and I saw a guy with flaming red hair skipping towards me, humming a familiar tune.
"So give them blood, blood, gallons of the stuff! Give them all that they can drink, and it will never be enough. So give them blood, blood, blood. Grab a glass because there's going to be a flood!"
The next thing I noticed...he was freaking tall! Even taller than me! And I was the tallest in the group. He was broader in the shoulders than me and appeared more muscular. Compared to him... I was thin and rather weak looking. But he was skipping, so his badassness was sort of diminished. Still, that hair!