"Wow, this is amazing to watch," Katara says as we all stared at the meteor shower, even Toph.
"Kind of makes you realize how insignificant we are."
"Eh," Toph shrugs. "You've seen nothing once, you've seen it 1,000 times."
"Oooh." we all gasp.
"Oh, man," Sokka says. "You've never not seen anything like this."
One meteorite falls and impacts close by, starting a forest fire near a village.
We fly over to the fire.
"The fire is gonna destroy that town," Katara says. "Soul, do something."
"Katara," I shriek. "Do you see how big that fire is? I don't think I can burn it down myself."
"Aren't you like the second most powerful bender?" Sokka asks.
"I haven't gotten that far in the book yet." I whine.
I began to die down the fire as Toph and Aang began to build trenches around it, while Katara flied on Appa to a nearby creek from which she waterbended to dispose the fire.
The next day we went out in town for dinner.
Aang and I came back with our meal as we sat at the table.
"These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted last night."
"Yeah, the worst thing about being in disguise is we don't get the hero worship anymore," Toph says. "I miss the love."
"Boo-hoo, poor heroes."
We all turn our gaze to Sokka.
"What's your problem?" Katara says.
"Yeah," I add. "You haven't even touched your smoke sea slug."
"It's just, all you guys can do this awesome bending stuff like putting out forest fires, and flying around, and making other stuff fly around. I can't fly around, ok? I can't do anything." My poor baby :((
My heart sank. Is this how he really feels?
"That's not true," I sulk.
"No one can read a map like you," Katara adds.
"I can't read at all," Toph adds.
"Yeah," Aang says. "And who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time? I mean, look at Katara's hair, right? What's up with that?"
I tried to keep in my laugh.
"What?" Katara says touching her hair. "What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing, I was just trying to..."
"Look," Sokka says. "I appreciate the effort, but the fact is each of you is so amazing and so special, and I'm not. I'm just the guy in the group who's regular."
I walk over and sat next to Sokka, resting my head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you're feeling so down, but I hope you know none of us see you that way."
He looked away from me. "I know something that's going to make you feel better."
"You do?" Sokka asked.
*ೃ༄ *ೃ༄ *ೃ༄
"Shopping," Sokka clapped his hands, running over to the weapons.
"So tempting," I say reaching my hand out to grab a weapon.
"Soul," Katara scolds. "Don't even dare. You know Sokka's going to be upset when you start showing off."
"You're right, you right, sorry." I say walking over to Sokka.
Sokka played around with different weapons, failing each time to use.
"Um..Sokka, I think that's enou-"
"Ooh," Sokka says walking over to the sword display case. "That's what Sokka's talking about."
"You have a good eye," a man with a broom says. "That's an original from Piandao, The greatest swords master and sword maker in Fire Nation history. He lives in the big castle up the road from here."
"That's it," Aang says. "That's what you needed all along, Sokka."
"A sword?" Sokka responds.
"Not the sword. A master. We've all had masters to help us get better. You should see if you can study with Piandao."
"But I'm technically a master in swords, I can teach Sokk-"
"That's a great idea," Katara says elbowing me in the stomach, shutting me up.
"I could've never gotten to where I am without Master Pakku. Everyone needs a teacher."
"I learned from badger moles," Toph says. "They don't talk but they're still good teachers."
"And I'm self taught," I say flipping my hair over my shoulder.
"But who taught you how to use your Katana swords, bow and arrow, and fight close combat." Katara says.
"The masters at the North Pole," I mumble. "And for your information, I was talking about my firebending." I huff walking over to examine more weapons.
The same day Sokka went over to Master Piandao castle as the rest of us stayed in our little hideout.
"What should we do today?" Aang asks.
"I'm tapped out," Toph huffs. "I've already picked my toes, twice."
I winced. "Twice?"
"The first time was for cleaning, the second time's just for the sweet picking sensation."
I stand up. "Aang, I have to teach you firebending."
"I don't know," Aang scratches his neck.
"Oh, come on, I'm not even a bad firebender."
"You're not, not at all, it's just last time I firebended, I hurt Katara."
"Oh, well second lucks a charm, come on." I say grabbing his wrist as I pull him away from Katara and Toph.
I pulled out some candles from my bag.
"Why you staring at me like that?" I ask Aang.
"Oh, nothing, maybe because you carry candles around?"
"I mean it did come in handy. We're using it right now."
"Okay," I say placing the candles in a circle around Aang and I. "Today we will be learning three basic steps."
I lit up the candles and sat infront of Aang. "In order to extinguish a flame, you must sense the heat-"
"Plus, it's so hot today," Toph says from afar.
"How hot is it?" Aang yells.
"I don't know. Real hot?" She responds.
"It's so hot, it's so hot, Momo is shedding like Appa," Katara laughs.
"I guess the jokes don't run in the family." Aang replies running back to Katara and Toph.
"Aang! Come back." I shout.
I plumping down back on the ground. "I miss Sokka."
After a while. I joined back the group, but totally ignored Aang. He really left our training because he burnt Katara, last time. He's gotta learn firebending eventually and I'm the only person to teach him, unless Zuko joins the group. But that would never happen, right?
We were all laying on the ground resting when Toph shouted. "Sokka's coming."
We all gasp.
"Hey guys," Sokka says. "What are you doing?"
"Sokka!" I shout, jumping on him, wrapping my legs around his waist.
The rest of the guys follow as well all have a group hug.
"You're back," Toph says.
Katara, Aang, and Toph pulled away from the hug but I was still strapped around Sokka, he gave me a little squeeze.
"We missed you so much." I say kissing his cheek.
"Say something funny," Aang smiled.
"Funny how?"
Katara and Aang laughed.
"What's their deal?" Sokka asks Toph.
"I don't know," she turns around. "They missed you or something. I didn't care."
"Thanks," Sokka responds. "That warms my heart. Anways I need some help."
He took us to the meteor rock and we helped him drag it over to Pianadao front door.
Sokka banged on the door aggressively.
The door opened. "Who's this?"
"Oh, these are my friends," Sokka responds. "Just other good Fire Nation folks."
Master Pianadao bows at us.
Mhmm, he looks familiar I think to myself.
I saw him eye me a little too.
"Do you think we can make a sword out of meteorite?" Sokka asks.
"We'll make a sword unlike any other in the world." Pianadao replies.
Katara, Aang, and I peeked through the back door to see how Sokka was doing.
After a while I went back to check on Sokka. I saw him taking a break. I quickly walked over to him, handing him a glass of water and kissing his forehead. Right after he went right back to work, shoving the coal into the boiler's firebox.
After Sokka was finished with his sword we all sat down behind him as he was going to be presented his beautiful sword, he had made.
I looked around the castle to see a painting of a little girl. "Is that me." I gasp.
"Sokka, when you first arrived, you were so unsure. You even seemed down on yourself. But I saw something in you right away. I saw heart as strong as a lion turtle, and twice as big and as we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me. No, it certainly wasn't your skills."
Sokka looks down slightly.
"Hey, don-"
Before I could get another word out, Katara quickly covered my mouth with her hand.
"You showed me something beyond that," Pianadao says. "Creativity, versatility, intelligence."
I let out a sigh. "Thank spirits, he wasn't talking smack about my mans like that, I would have beat his ass."
Toph let out a snicker.
I smile as my eyes go back to the painting of the little girl. That's literally me, what am I doing on Master Pianadao wall?
I get up getting a closer look at the painting. After a bit it hit me, Master Pianadao was my teacher when he visited the Northern Water Tribe when I was eight. My father felt bad that I couldn't use my firebending, so he had gotten me one of the best teachers he could find. I never knew his name was Master Pianadao, I could never pronounce it as a child, I always called him Master P.
I turned around to notice that everyone was gone. "Mhm that's strange." I say walking around the castle and making it to the back of the yard, seeing Master Pianadao and Sokka fighting.
"What's going on?" I ask the group.
"Master Pianadao, found out Sokka wasn't Fire Nation and started to fight him," Katara casually says.
"And why aren't you guys helping him?"
"He said it was his fight." Aang responds.
I look back at Master Pianadao and Sokka as I see Sokka hit the ground.
The gaang and I quickly run over to them.
"Excellent work, Sokka. I think I'm a little old to be fighting the Avatar and Princess, I trained."
"How did you know?" Aang and I both say.
"Oh, I've been around a while. You pick things up. Of course, I knew from the beginning that Sokka was water tribe. You might want to think of a better Fire Nation cover name. Try Lee, there's a million Lees."
"But why would you agree to train someone from the water tribe?" Katara asks.
"The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. Knowledge of the arts belong to us all," Pianadao picks up Sokka's sword handing it to him. "Sokka, you must continue your training with Soul."
"Soul?" Sokka asked confused.
"Oh, about that when Soul was younger, her father convinced me to come out to the North Pole and train her for a bit. Remember that painting I showed you of my two best students. Soul was one of them."
I smiled.
"Wow." Sokka gasps.
"Sokka, if you stay on this path, I know that one day you will become an even greater master than I am."
"Of course, he will," I say sliding over to Sokka and wrapping my arms around his waist. "He's got me."
"Yes, of course," Master Pianadao chuckles. "It's good to see you again, Princess, you've grown up to be a beautiful young lady." He bows.
"Thank you and it's nice to see you again too." I bow.
Sokka and Pianadao then bow to each other as we started walking out for only the butler to stop us.
"Wait," he calls out. "The master wanted you to have this, as something to remember him bye." He says handing Sokka a pouch. We all bowed as he headed inside.
Sokka opened the pouch. "It's a Pai Sho Tile."
"The White Lotus," Aang reads. "Hm."
"What does it mean?" Katara asks.
"I have no idea," Sokka responds.
"Oh that remind me. Toph, I thought you might like this." Sokka says handing her a piece of the meteorite.
"Sweet," Toph replies. "Check this out." She says bending the rock.
"And what did you get me?" I ask crossing my arms.
"Me back!" Sokka says kissing my lips.
"You know," Katara says. "I don't think there's such a thing as Space Earth. If it's from space, then it's not really Earth."
"Must you ruin everything?" Sokka says.
"I can't believe I missed you."