343Inside a standard Fire Navy cruiser, Prince Zuko, the banished Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, meditated in his room. As he continued to exhale and inhale peacefully, the candles in front of him calmly expanded before shrinking with every breath.
This was one of the few times one would find the banished prince without his typical scowl; instead, the scarred young man had a peaceful if not relaxed appearance, something rare for the hot-headed teen.
Suddenly the quiet was gone at the screech of the metal door opening, his Uncle Iroh poked his head in. Zuko continued to sit in his meditative position, his eyes never leaving the candles. "If the only reason you are interrupting me, Uncle. It better be news about the Avatar." The scarred prince said calmly, never once glancing at his Uncle.
Iroh opened the door all the way, making it screech louder, but it did nothing to displease the calmed prince. "I have news Prince Zuko, but you may not like it." The aged General glanced down at the scroll in his hand containing said news. "Don't get too upset," the teen's Uncle advised.
Zuko merely continued to gaze at the four candles before him, the small fire burning slow and calmly. "Uncle, you taught me that keeping a level head is a sign of a great leader. Now whatever you have to report, I'm sure I can handle it."
Iroh didn't hide his surprised face; perhaps his nephew had finally understood that someone should always be calm in any given situation.
Seeing his nephew's calm exterior, Iroh decided not to beat around the bush and instead spit it out. "Okay, we have no idea where he is." He answered truthfully.
"WHAT"
The small balls of fire ignited on the candles immediately grew in size and ferocity; in a matter of seconds, it had transformed into a violent inferno as Zuko's anger got the best of him.
The famed Dragon of the West didn't even blink even when the fire threatened to burn him; instead, the older man merely brought out a fan from within the pockets of his robes and started to fan himself. "You should really open a window in here," the man suggested while Zuko got up from his meditative pose and opted to grab the scroll out of his mentor's hands.
"Let me see the map!" Zuko snapped at his Uncle before opening the scroll, revealing a world map, including some of the minor islands. There were dotted lines that showed the Avatar was heading, but instead of staying in one direction, the boy had instead flown in a zig-zap pattern, leaving any patterns untraceable.
"There have been multiple sightings of the Avatar, but he is impossible to track down," Iroh explained while still fanning himself with the bright red fan.
With his traditional scowl in place, Zuko's gold eyes looked at the map and the Avatar's path, trying to figure out where he would appear next to no avail. "How am I going to find him, uncle?" Zuko asked his firebending teacher. "He is clearly a master of evasive maneuvers."
Team Avatar
On Appa's saddle, Sokka was looking at the same map as Zuko but didn't have their path inscribed. Glancing at the young Avatar who was flying and guiding the giant bison, Sokka had to ask, "You have no idea where you're going, do you?"
Aang took a second to consider Sokka's question before answering truthfully, "Well, I know it's near water."
Sokka looked around him to see endless water for miles ahead.
"We should be close then," Sokka said with sarcasm.
Sokka looked at the map before looking at the Avatar. "Aang... do you even have a compass?"
"No, why?"
"Then how do you know we're nearly there!?" Sokka exclaimed.
"Sokka, calm down," Katara told her brother while she continued to hem the boy's pants. "Aang's been to this place before; I'm sure he knows which way to go."
Aang beamed at the waterbender; The young Avatar looked at Momo, who was perched on his shoulders. "Momo, marbles, please."
The flying lemur chittered in reply before diving into the Avatar's shirt, before remerging with said marbles in his paws and plopping them into Aang's outstretched hands.
"Hey, Katara. Check this out!" Aang held out his hands, and immediately the marbles started to spin rapidly in a circular motion, making the dark marbles blur, all the while with a cheesy smile as he tried to impress the Water Tribe girl.
Katara hadn't even looked up from her sewing, "that's great, Aang." She said, disinterested, still not looking up.
Aang's grin soon fell apart when Katara didn't notice nor was impressed by his airbending move. He stopped channeling wind in his palm, making the marbles fall into his hand. "You didn't even look."
Katara glanced up for a single second, "that's great."
"But I'm not doing it anymore," Aang said, disheartened.
"Don't worry, Aang," Sokka said as he leaned casually against the saddle. "Girls need their space when they are sewing."
Katara, who had gone back to sewing Sokka pants, immediately stopped and whipped her head towards her older brother. "What does me being a girl have to do with sewing?" She asked, looking ready to stab her brother with her needle.
"Simple, girls are better are at fixing pants than guys. And guys are better at hunting and fighting and stuff like that." Sokka explained as though it was obvious. "It's the natural order of things."
The waterbender had a mocking smile as she held up Sokka's half-fixed pants. "All done with your pants!" She said mockingly, "and look at what a great job I did!" She held the pants even closer to Sokka, making sure to point out the large hole in his pants before throwing them across the saddle and right into Sokka's face.
"Wait!" Sokka tried to say as he attempted to get the pants out of his face; he looked rather dumb, wearing nothing but his underwear and upper coat with his pants stuck on his head. "I'm sorry!" The Water Tribe boy tried to say as he finally managed to untangle himself from the pants. "I was just kidding, Katara, please!" Sokka stuck his hand through the hole as though justifying that he needed his pants sewn.
"Relax, Sokka. Where we're going, we won't need any pants!" Aang exclaimed from Appa's head.
For the next hour or so, there was nothing new besides the soft growls of Appa or the chitters of Momo; even the loud snores of Sokka did little to change the scene.
Squinting his eyes, he could make out the faint outline of mountains and tall pine trees. "Land!" Sokka called out to Aang, who had been fast asleep on Appa's head even though he should have been awake to guide Appa and not crash them into the ocean.
Katara crawled over to the side. "We made it, wherever we are anyway."
As they got closer, Sokka and the others noticed that the island was fairly small and was shaped like a rugged crescent moon.
Aang guided Appa to land on the shore; immediately, the bald monk jumped off the bison and ran towards the shore, gazing at the ocean with childish glee.
"Aren't we supposed to be heading to the North Pole?" Sokka asked the Avatar. "With all the pit stops you've been stopping at, we won't be there until I'm one hundred and twelve."
Aang, who had been peering at the ocean as though looking for something, ignored the sarcastic warrior and instead gasped and pointed out something on the horizon. "Look!"
Suddenly a large Koi fish, easily the size of a small hill, leaped out of the ocean and seemed to hang in the air, the sunlight glinting off its golden scales, before crashing back into the seawater with a large splash.
"That's... a massive fish,"
"That's why we're here." Aang explained as he started to undress, "to ride the elephant koi!"
"Wait, so we flew here to rid fish?" Katara asked in disbelief.
Aang nodded his head and grinned.
"Cold!" The two siblings still on a beach had time to see Aang jump up from the freezing cold ocean, but he continued to swim out into deeper waters.
Sokka and Katara watched on and waited for him to come back up; the water he had been started to bubble, and then one massive koi fish emerged from the deep ocean.
When someone meant big to describe these fish, they meant easily fifty times bigger than Appa, who was a full-grown Sky Bison. Aang was holding on to the large dorsal fin. Katara smiled when she heard Aang cheering the Koi on
On the other hand, Sokka just continued to sit on the beach with the same bored and gloomy expression.
Even from across the small bay, Katara could still see Aang beaming at them, the thought of him trying to impress her never seemed to catch her mind, Katara started to cheer for him as the Koi began to leap and swim with surprising speed and agility.
Sokka gave her an exasperated look, complete with a roll of his eyes. "Why are you cheering him on? The fish are doing all the work!"
Aang saw schools of normal-sized fish around him, darting around the reef and some even swimming along.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something. Something big, dark, and alien, something that shouldn't be there. But when he turned back, he saw nothing, and by the time he had realized most of the small fish were gone, the golden Koi he was riding had finally returned to the surface.
Aang didn't seem to notice his friend's distress; he merely beamed and waved at them.
"What was that thing!?" Katara exclaimed as the four watched the large fin disappear into the murky deep.
Aang was putting on his clothes, "I don't know." He said as he stared at the spot where the monster had disappeared with wariness in his smoky grey eyes. "But whatever that thing is, I really don't want to find out."
Sokka rubbed his hands together before gesturing to Appa with his thumb jerk. "Well, whatever that thing is, it can remain unknown to us. Aang, you've had your fun; now it's time to take to the sky and get off this stupid island."
It seemed that fate had something else for the three young travelers, or maybe the spirits just loved to scorn Sokka.
All Sokka saw was a flash of dark green and gold before someone grabbed him from behind. The young teen fought against the grip, but he felt something hard hit his temple.
Stars flashed through his field of vision, and he could barely resist when he was bound and flung to the ground, quickly following the others. They had even bound Momo!
"or we could stay awhile." Before darkness overtook him.
"Aang, wake up!"
Aang groaned and leaned back; his head bumped into something that did not help his headache. He was quick to notice, even in his pained state, that he had been bound to a large wooden pole with the others; other than that, he did not know. Whoever had kidnapped him had blindfolded the Airbender.
"You three have some explaining to do..." A voice that was obviously a man, perhaps a more older man judging by his voice, said to the bound travelers menacingly.
"And if you don't answer our questions, we'll throw you into the bay to feed the Unagi." Whoever spoke know was obviously a woman, but something told Katara that you didn't want to piss her off.
"Show yourselves, cowards!"
And there goes Sokka, Katara thought with a small sigh. Always one to jump the catapult.
The blindfold was ripped off, allowing Aang and the others to see. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized he was surrounded by women wearing forest green robes, and their faces were covered in pure white makeup with red eye shadow.
"Who are you? Where are the men who captured us?" Sokka demanded.
The woman who had spoken earlier, the leader, Aang realized, spoke again. "There were no men; we captured you!" The leader, who looked a little older than Sokka, gestured towards the women in the green robes.
Sokka snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, right, like a bunch of girls took us down."
That wasn't the right thing to say, primarily since they were being held prisoner by said women who did look happy at Sokka's little comment.
The leader strode up to the young Southern Water Tribe warrior and grabbed the boy by the shirt. "A bunch of girls, huh? The Unagi will eat well tonight." She threatened, looking well prepared to throw the teen to the Unagi, whatever that was. Aang was hoping they wouldn't have to stick around to find out.
"Wait, don't hurt him! My brother's just an idiot sometimes." Katara said in hopes that they wouldn't harm her boneheaded big brother.
"It's my fault," Aang said somberly, a rare frown adorning his boyish features. "I just wanted to ride the elephant koi."
"How do we know that you're not Fire Nation spies?" The older man asked suspiciously as he looked at Aang. "Kyoshi has stayed neutral in the war so far, and we intend to keep it that way."
"Stop, They are not enemies" the team turned to see someone walking towards them. Katara immediately noticed his spiky blonde hair and ... whiskers?
The team found his appearance strange, but before they could ask who he was.
"Naruto, Why should we let them go?" The woman said with a softer tone before turning and glaring at the group.
"Because the bald one is The Avatar."