"This is crazy," Katara cut in. "I'm leaving!"

"Suit yourself," her brother replied. "Do it, Toph!"

"Oh, for the love of—" Kouji began.

"I'll tell you what's in the box," Hama said from behind him.

Kouji shrieked and darted forward to join the others.  Stupid stupid wood!

Sokka sheepishly handed her the box. She opened it and withdrew the only object inside — a blue and white comb.

"An old comb?" Sokka cried, disappointed.

Kouji's eyes narrowed.  "It isn't Fire Nation."

"It's my greatest treasure," Hama agreed. "It's the last thing I own from growing up in the Southern Water Tribe."

Kouji was just as stunned as the others.

"You're from the Southern Water Tribe?" Katara yelped.

"Just like you," Hama said, replacing the comb in the box.

"How did you know?"

"I heard you talking around your campfire."

"But why didn't you tell us?" Sokka asked.

"I wanted to surprise you," Hama admitted. "I bought all this food today so I could fix you a big Water Tribe dinner. Of course, I can't get all the ingredients I need here, but ocean kumquats are a lot like sea prunes if you stew them long enough."

Aang made a face. "Great..."

Slowly, Kouji relaxed.  Those ghost stories last night really had gotten to him.

"I knew I felt a bond with you right away!" Katara said.

"And I knew you were keeping a secret!" Sokka added, smirking at his sister. "So I guess we're both right." She hit him. "But I'm sorry we were sneaking around," he finished, rubbing his arm.

"Apology accepted," Hama said. "Now let's get cooking!"

Kouji was very quickly banished from the kitchen to get him out from underfoot; he wasn't displeased by this and instead joined Appa and Momo in a storage room.  Shortly after dark, Aang came out to feed the animals and fetch Kouji for dinner.  He wound up having to wake the younger boy, who'd passed out on Appa's tail.

"Dinner's ready. I'd stay away from the stewed sea prunes." He pulled another face.

"You shouldn't turn your nose up at food when it's available," Kouji scolded him lightly.  "You never know when you'll eat again."

"Trust me," Aang said ominously. "They're nasty."

"Try starving for awhile.  You'll understand."  Kouji slipped out to the inn.

The others were all gathering around the table. Aang delivered his warning to Toph, too, who pointed out that they weren't even sea prunes.

"Who wants five flavour soup?" Hama asked. When everyone volunteered, she portioned it off with bending.

"You're a waterbender!" Katara said, practically bouncing up and down in her excitement. "I've never met another waterbender from our tribe!"

Kouji squirmed in his seat.  He knew the history there; Iroh had explained it to him when he'd asked why Katara's waterbending had been so unexpected last winter. 

Hama got a dark look on her face. "That's because the Fire Nation wiped them all out. I was the last one."

"So how did you end up out here?" Sokka asked.

"I was stolen from my home," she replied, then went to tell the story of how all the waterbenders in her tribe had been taken out.  Kouji's squirming only got worse; this was the first time he'd heard this story from the waterbenders' point of view.

"How did you get away?" Sokka asked, when she was done. "And why did you stay in the Fire Nation?"

"I'm sorry," Hama said, shaking her head. "It's too painful to talk about anymore."

"We completely understand," Katara said. "We lost our mother in a raid."

"Oh, you poor things..." Hama said, patting Katara's hand on her shoulder.

"I can't tell you what it means to meet you. It's an honour. You're a hero."

Hama smiled up at her. "I never thought I'd meet another Southern waterbender. I'd like to teach you what I know, so you can carry on the Southern tradition when I'm gone."

"Yes!" Katara said excitedly. "Yes, of course! To learn about my heritage… it would mean everything to me."

Kouji quietly left the table, returning to Appa and Momo.  "No wonder she hates me," he said softly to them, rubbing Appa's fur and sliding down to sit in the dirt.

The next day, Katara and Hama went off early, and Toph came to fetch him.

"There's breakfast left over. We're gonna go try and figure out why people are disappearing. Want to come?"

"Yeah," the boy said softly.

"Then let's go," she said.

He got up and followed her, first to breakfast and then out to the village, quieter than he'd been for some time.

"This has got to be the nicest natural setting in the Fire Nation," Aang asked after a while, slightly bewildered. "I don't see anything that would make a spirit mad around here."

"Maybe the moon spirit just turned mean," Toph suggested, pissing Sokka right off.

"The moon spirit is a gentle, loving lady! She rules the sky with compassion and… lunar goodness!"

Kouji edged slightly away from the older boy.  "Not to mention it’s the ocean spirit who gets cranky…"

A villager passed behind them and Aang ran up to him before the others could respond to Kouji.

"Excuse me, sir? Can you tell us anything about the spirit that's been stealing people?"

"Only one man ever saw it and lived," he replied, "and that's Old Man Ding.

"Where does Old Man Ding live?" Toph asked, tugging on his sleeve.

"On the edge of town," he replied, then gave them directions.

"I hope we can fix this up," Kouji said on the way there.

"Me, too," Aang agreed fervently.

The sun had set by the time they found the old man, boarding up his house.

"Old Man Ding?" Aang asked.

Annoyed, he turned to face them. "What? Can'tcha see I'm busy? Got a full moon rising! And why does everyone call me that? I'm not that old!" He bent down to pick up a board, straining. "...Well, I'm young at heart?" Aang went to help with the board while the old man prattled on. "Not ready to get snapped up by some moon monster yet, at least!"

Kouji shuddered again, looking up towards the sky.

"We wanted to ask you about that," Sokka jumped in.

"Did you get a good look at the spirit that took you?" Aang asked, helping to hold the board while Sokka hammered it into place.

"Didn't see no spirit," Old Man Ding said. "Just felt something come over me, like I was possessed. Forced me to start walking toward the mountain! I tried to fight it, but I couldn't control my own limbs! It just about had me into a cave up there, and I looked up at the moon, for what I thought would be my last glimpse of light… but then, the sun started to rise, and I got control of myself again! I just high-tailed it away from that mountain as quick as I could!"

"…I've got a bad feeling about this," Kouji whispered, his eyes wide.  There was something there he was missing, but what was it?

"Why would a spirit want to take people to a mountain?" Sokka asked.

"Oh no!" Toph cried, before Aang could answer. "I did hear people screaming under the mountain! The missing villagers must still be there!"

"Then let's go!" Kouji yelled, grabbing her wrist and running off that way.  He didn't bother to see if Sokka and Aang were following.

Toph paused when they got to their campsite from the other night. "I can hear them! They're this way!" She shot off again, this time dragging Kouji behind her, Aang and Sokka following.  As they drew closer, Kouji whispered, "I can hear them too…."

Toph skidded to a halt at the entrance to a cave. "This is the place."

"I can't see anything down there," Sokka said.

"That's why you have me," Toph replied, for once not condescendingly. "Let's go." She took Sokka's and Aang's hands, and Aang grabbed onto Kouji, and they jumped.  Once they'd landed, they started running again, the two earthbenders in the lead.  It didn't take very long for them to find a door lit by torches.

Toph shoved the metal panel aside, and Sokka grabbed one of the torches, and they ran some more, finally finding the cavern where the missing villagers were chained up.

"We're saved!" one of them cried.

"My gods," Kouji said, his eyes wide.

"I didn't know spirits made prisons like this," Aang said, as Toph once again turned her bracelet into a key to start freeing the prisoners. "Who brought you here?"

"It was no spirit," a chained woman informed them bitterly.

"It was a witch!" one of the men added.

"A witch?" Sokka asked. "What do you mean?"

"She seems like a normal old woman," the woman who'd spoken before said, "but she controls people, like some dark puppetmaster."

It clicked for Kouji and Sokka simultaneously.  "Hama!"

"Yes! The innkeeper!" another prisoner confirmed.

"I knew there was something creepy about her!" Sokka yelled.

"We have to stop Hama!" Aang cried.

"Kouji and I will get these people out of here," Toph said. "You go!"

Aang and Sokka needed no further encouragement. They bolted. 

Kouji made his own key out of the stone and joined in unlocking the people, but halfway through, he froze.  "Hey, Toph…?" he said, uneasy.

"What?"

"Isn't blood a liquid?"

Toph tilted her head, then shook it. "Try not to think about it."

"Too late."  He remained where he was, however, helping free the last of the Fire Nation prisoners.

Between the two of them, they managed to unlock the prisoners. "Let's go back the others up," Toph said, when she finished the last one.

"Wait," one of the prisoners said, frowning at them. "You're earthbenders. I saw you make those keys. Why are you helping?"

"I'm Fire Nation," Kouji replied.  "And none of you did anything wrong."

"But… you're an earthbender..." he said, incredulously.

"Fascinating, innit?" Toph said. "Now, in the spirit of helping one another out..."

"We won't say anything," the woman from before said. "Agreed?"

The other prisoners nodded.

"And people wonder why I don't bring it up," Kouji muttered.  "Let's go, Toph."  He grabbed the other torch and led the way out.

When they got to where the others were fighting, Katara had Hama down, with Aang and Sokka also standing over her.

The former prisoners quickly secured the old woman. "You're going to be locked away forever," one of the men said.

"My work is done," Hama said, quietly. She paused, and looked over her shoulder. "Congratulations, Katara. You're a bloodbender."

The teenager started crying as the crazy woman was led away, laughing.

Kouji's hands curled into fists, but he didn't speak. 

Sokka and Aang tried to comfort Katara, while Toph quietly slipped back to the village to retrieve their animal friends.  Kouji quickly ran after Toph.  "Are we walking or flying Appa to the others?" he asked her.

"Walking," she replied quietly. "That suspends disbelief better and their gratitude might not extend all the way to Twinkletoes, if they find out who he is."

Kouji sighed.  "I guess so."

They retrieved Appa and Momo without difficulty, and returned to the others. Katara had cried herself to sleep, with Aang still holding her hand.  Kouji looked down at the waterbender with some sympathy, but then his face hardened and he turned away.  "Let's go," he said.  Aang nodded. Toph boosted the sleeping waterbender up onto the bison, and they quietly took off.

Current Location: my bed
Current Mood: freaked out
Current Music: Galway Races
Tags: au, avatar, fanfic, sf gaangline, small flame