After riding Appa for a while, we stopped at a valley with a small river. We got settled in, and then we all rushed to the river. Aang and Katara started practicing waterbending, Sokka somehow found a huge leaf and was resting on it and I was sitting on the edge of the river, slowly kicking my feet around to make ripples.
I looked at Sokka. His hair was down and in his eyes, and his chest was bare. He was so cute like that. I mean, as far as cute goes. Which wasn't very far... I mean... Nevermind.
I closed my eyes and took some time to bathe in the sun.
Time skip - 1 hour
"You guys are going to be done soon, right? We have a lot of ground to cover if we're going to make it to Omashu today." Asked Sokka.
Katara got up and turned to Sokka. "What? Like you're ready to go right now, naked guy?"
"I could be ready in two minutes. Seriously, whenever." He said, pulling the hair from his eyes.
"So you were showing me the octopus form?" Said Aang.
"Right, let me see your stance."
Aang got into a stance, and Katara walked toward him to fix it.
"Your arms are too far apart. See, if you move them closer together, you protect your center. You got it?" She said, touching his arms to guide them in the right stance. If I didn't know better, I'd say she had a crush on him. They would go well together.
"Oh, thanks" Said Aang.
"Okay, let's see what you got."
Aang made 8 tentacles. He cast away the ice pieces Katara threw at him. Then he grabbed Katara's leg and pulled on it.
"You make a fine octopus, Pupil Aang." Katara said.
"Hey Y/N, look at this!"
I turned to look at Aang, who was wiggling inside an octopus made with the water. I laughed.
In the distance I heard some music. Before long, we saw some nomads playing music and singing a song I had never heard before.
"Da da da. Don't fall in love with the traveling girl. She'll leave you broke and brokenhearted."
The one with the dramyin (It's Chong) came up to us and said. "Hey, river people!"
"We're not river people." Katara replied.
"You're not? Well then what kind of people are you?"
"Just ... people." Aang said, confused.
"Aren't we all, brother?"
"Who are you?" Said Sokka,
"I'm Chong and this is my wife, Lily. We're nomads, happy to go wherever the wind takes us!"
Chong then took and position like a rock star and strummed his dramyin.
"You guys are nomads? That's great! I'm a nomad!" Said Aang excitedly.
"Hey me too!" Said Chong, on the same tone as Aang.
"I know... you just said that."
"Oh."
Chong took a look at Sokka and said. "Nice underwear."
Sokka grabbed Momo, the lemur of the group, placed him in front of his underwear and scurried away.
We got settled on Appa with the nomads. Katara was getting her hair braided by Lily, and one of the others was placing little pink flowers in my hair, like the ones on Zuri's stone.
"Hey, Sokka, you should hear some of these stories. These guys have been everywhere!" Said Aang.
"Well not everywhere, Little Arrowhead. But where we haven't been, we've heard about through stories and songs." Said Chong.
"They said they'll take us to see a giant night crawler!"
"On the way, there's a waterfall that creates a never-ending rainbow!" Said Moku, one of the nomads.
"Look, I hate to be the wet blanket here, but since Katara is busy, I guess it's up to me." Said Sokka, earning a glare from Katara. "We need to get to Omashu. No sidetracks, no worms and definitely no rainbows."
"Wow, sounds like someone has a case of destination fever." Said Chong, chuckling. "You're worried too much about where you're going."
"You got to focus less on the "where" and more on the "going"." Lily said.
"O. Ma. Shu!"
"Sokka's right. We need to find King Bumi, so Aang can learn earthbending somewhere safe." I said.
"Sounds like you're headed to Omashu." Said Chong.
Sokka smacked his forehead.
"There's an old story about a secret pass right through the mountains."
"Is this real or a legend?" I asked skeptically.
"Oh, it's a real legend. And it's as old as earthbending itself." Chong said, strumming his dramyin. "Two lovers, forbidden from one another, the war divides their people and the mountain divides them apart! Built a path to be together!" Chong paused the music, and said. "Yeah, I forget the next couple of lines, but then it goes... Secret tunnel! Secret tunnel! Through the mountains, secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel! Yeah!"
"I think we'll just stick with flying. We've dealt with the Fire Nation before. We'll be fine." Said Sokka.
"Yeah, thanks for the help, but Appa hates going underground. And we need to do whatever makes Appa most comfortable ..."
We all hopped on Appa, said goodbye to the nomads and started flying. As we tried to get over the mountain, we were intercepted by fire nation soldiers, who fired on us. Luckily, we managed to come back to the river relatively unharmed.
"Secret love cave, let's go." Said Sokka.
"All right!" Said Chong.
He led us to the cave. "How far are we from the tunnel?" Asked Sokka.
"Actually, it's not just one tunnel. The lovers didn't want anyone to find out about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth!"
"Labyrinth?"
"Oh, I'm sure we'll figure it out." Said Chong nonchalantly.
"All you need to do is trust in love... according to the curse." Said Lily.
"Curse?"
Lily nodded. We continued our journey to the caves.
Time skip - 30 minutes
"Hey-hey! We're here!" Said Chong
"What exactly is this curse?" Asked Sokka.
"The curse says that only those who trust in love can make it through the caves. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in them forever."
"And die." Added Lily.
"Oh yeah, and die. Hey, I just remembered the rest of that song!" He strummed his dramyin and said in a very dramatic voice. "And die."
"That's it! There's no way we're going through some cursed hole!"
"Hey, someone's making a big campfire!" Said Moku.
"That's no campfire." Said Katara.
"It's Fire Nation." He said, with a look in my direction. "They're tracking us."
"So all you need to do is trust in love to get through these caves?" Asked Aang
"That is correct, Master Arrowhead."
Aang turned to look at me, though I didn't notice because I had cast a look at Sokka, who was observing the cave entrance.
"We can make it." Said Aang confidently.
"Everyone into the hole!" Said Sokka.
Appa grunted. "It's okay, Appa. We'll be fine. I hope."
"We will be fine. All we need is a plan. Chong, how long do those torches last?"
"Uh, about two hours each."
"And we have five torches, so that's ten hours!" Said Lily, lighting all five torches at once.
"It doesn't work like that if they're all lit at the same time!" Said an annoyed Sokka. I giggled.
"Oh, right."
"I'm going to make a map to keep track of exactly where we've been. Then we should be able to solve it like a maze and get through."
We continued moving through the tunnels as Sokka drew our passage. He kept on leading us to dead ends.
"Sokka, this is the tenth dead end you've led us to." Whined Katara.
"This doesn't make sense. We already came through this way."
"We don't need a map. We just need love. The little guy knows it." Said Chong.
"Yeah, but I wouldn't mind a map also." Replied Aang.
"There's something strange here. There's only one explanation." Sokka said, pensive. "The tunnels are changing."
As Sokka said that, the tunnels started shaking. "The tunnels, they're a-changin'. It must be the curse! I knew we shouldn't have come down here!" Chong panicked.
"Right. If only we listened to you."
"Everyone be quiet. Listen." I said.
We all waited. Suddenly, a screeching wolfbat emerged form the darkness. It flew over us, then landed.
"It's a giant flying thing with teeth!" Panicked Chong.
"No. It's a wolfbat." Said Moku.
The wolfbat rose again. Sokka tried to fend it off with his torch, sending cinders on Appa's fur. Appa roared and ran around the cave, bumping into the walls as he went. One of the walls started to crumble. Sokka ran towards Katara, and Aang pushed me to the ground. Once the worst was over, I rose to find that we were separated from the nomads. I looked around in the tunnels. There was Appa, Katara, Aang, Sokka and I. We only had one torch left, since Lily was carrying all of the unlit ones. We found a large rock door, and Appa charged into it, causing it to break.
We ran into the room, but it wasn't an exit.
"This isn't the exit." Katara said.
"No. It's a tomb." Said Aang.
"It must be the two lovers from the legend; that's who's buried here." I said.
"These pictures tell their story."
Katara pointed to some pictures and told us the story about the two lovers. She then pointed at an inscription and read. "Love is brightest in the dark."
"How are we going to find our way out of these tunnels?" Sokka whined.
"I have a crazy idea." Katara said, glancing at Aang.
"What?" I asked.
"Never mind. It's too crazy."
"Katara, what is it?" Asked Aang.
"I was thinking ... the curse says we'll be trapped in here forever unless we trust in love..."
"Right" Said Sokka.
"And here it says, 'Love is brightest in the dark' and has a picture of them kissing."
"Get to the point Katara..." Said Sokka.
"Well..." She said looking at Aang. "What if we... kissed?"
Sokka's jaw dropped to the ground.
"Us... kissing?" Aang said.
"No no no." Said Sokka. "No way are you kissing my sister."
"Yeah, I guess it was a crazy idea after all." Said Katara. Poor her. I wish Sokka wasn't here. She obviously has a crush on Aang.
We all shut up for a while, because of the awkwardness of the situation. We all walked around the tunnels aimlessly.
Aang was the first to break the silence. "We're going to run out of light any second now, aren't we?"
"I think so." I said.
We all stared at the torch, as it's flame got closer to Sokka's hand. When it went out, I heard Sokka through the torch away. We all waited in the dark. I could have conjured a flame, but Sokka seemed the firebender hater type. He was to my right. I thought about what Katara had said earlier. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him the tiniest kiss on his cheek.
Aang's POV
We were in the dark. I always hated the dark. I reached over to grab Y/N's hand, which I squeezed. Her hand was soft and warm. It made me feel safe.
Katara's POV
I couldn't believe how I messed up earlier. And it was all Sokka's fault! If he hadn't intervened, maybe Aang would have kissed me. I heard Aang's breathing next to me. I leaned in towards him and gave him a hug. He smelled good, like forest air and soap.
Sokka's POV
I'm pretty sure that was Y/N who just kissed me. I touched my cheek. Then, out of instinct alone, I bent over and kissed her nose. I felt my heart beat out of my chest and my cheeks redden. What had I just done? She was from the fire nation. I didn't even love her. But my instinct was telling me to kiss her again. I bit my lip and waited in the dark.
Y/N's POV
I held my breath. Then, out of nowhere, Aang grabbed my hand. It was awkward, considering I had just kissed Sokka, but I told myself he was doing this out of kindness, not anything else. He was probably also holding Katara's hand. While I was thinking about that, I felt someone kiss my nose. Then, the cave lights lit up. I looked over at Sokka, who was biting his lip and blushing. Could it have been him who kissed me? I saw Katara let go of Aang. I also noticed Aang wasn't holding Katara's hand. Weird.
"They're made of some kind of crystal. They must only light up in the dark." Said Aang.
"That's how the two lovers found each other. They just put out their lights and followed the crystals." She looked around, then found the exit. "That must be the way out!"
"So, uh..." Said Aang, looking towards me.
"Let's go!" Said Sokka excitedly.
We all rushed towards the exit. The outside light blinded me, but when I got used to it I saw Appa rolling around on the ground. I guess he really hates caves.
"Wait, where are the nomads and Momo?" Asked Aang.
As if he had summoned them, the nomads emerge form the cave, riding badgermoles.
"Hello down there!" Yelled Chong, as he and the others slipped down the badgermoles and Momo scurried towards Aang. "How did you get here?"
"We let love lead the way." Said Aang, making me blush.
"So are you guys going to come to Omashu with us?" He asked.
"Nope." Answered Moku.
"Okay. Thanks for everything, Moku."
"Bye then." Said Chong, starting to strum his dramyin. " Even if you're lost, you can't lose the love because it's in your heart. Da, da, da..."
We started heading up the mountain.
"The journey was long and annoying, but now you get to see what it's really about: the destination." Said Sokka as he pointed in front of him. "I present to you the Earth Kingdom city of O-" He stopped.
I looked at where he was pointing, and saw the entrance to the city covered up with a fire nation flag.
"Oh no..." I whispered. From the corner of my eye I saw Sokka glaring at me.
"That's right." He said with an emotion that I couldn't describe. Was it hate, anger, pride, sadness? "Oh no."
That's the end of this chapter!
And if you thought that I would be satisfied with a love triangle, you were mistaken. That's why I made a love square!
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!