Bending the Legend

The Storyteller

"Are you sure about this?" Kopaka heard Katara ask her brother.

A frowning Sokka walked in front, having been splashed earlier and now soaked in the rain. He surprisingly kept silent until after Appa flew across the water and brought them all to a hill near the town Kopaka had spotted. "Well, we don't have much of a choice. We need him around in case we find Tahu again, and he'll just stand out, so..." Sokka said and gestured to Kopaka.

Katara eyed Sokka's work, then Sokka. "But it's kinda short on him, don't you think?"

Wearing Katara's coat, Kopaka agreed. Sokka had thrown it on him as a "disguise." Kopaka felt ridiculous in it. Since the coat barely reached past his waist, anyone would easily see his legs, then the sword and shield on his back. Appa had been left under some trees at the next hill over.

Sokka, thinking differently, walked down the hill towards the town with a bag atop his head. "Hey, we just need to hide his face from everybody else. No one's going to look at his legs! Besides, we still have some things we can haggle with, which means we can get some food and money!" Sokka eyed Kopaka. "And a bigger coat."

"I don't know..." said a skeptical Katara.

"Look, it's raining so not many people will be out. We get in there, buy what we need, then get out. Now, c'mon!"

Kopaka shared a glance with Katara. Given their lack of supplies, they followed Sokka towards the beachside town. The town itself, its wooden buildings stretching from one end of the tiny beach to the other, had been a bit bigger than the tribe at the South Pole, but still small. Kopaka said nothing about the black ship he spotted on its docks, not wanting to repeat another failed attempt.

Sokka had been right about the people since only a few ran around the narrowed streets. Kopaka, keeping a little behind, found no one watching him. Too busy to stare or tell any nearby soldiers, perhaps. To be safe, he also tried to pull the hood of Katara's coat over his head without pushing off his mask. Meanwhile, Katara and Sokka talked with the town's natives and bartered with its vendors at small stalls holding round-shaped fruits or loaves of bread.

"Alright, alright, we're going!" Sokka said after being turned away again. "Sheesh, I didn't think it would be hard to get some extra bread!"

"I'm not sure if we have anything worth trading," Katara said. She held Kopaka's shield over hers and Sokka's head instead of bending the rain, probably to hide her abilities.

Something turned Kopaka from Sokka storing the food in the small and damp bag. He almost tensed after his mask followed a wispy trail of hot energy to a figure across the street. Try as that figure might, he or she couldn't hide their bizarre and eerily familiar fiery signature from his mask's telescopes, even if they wore a mere oversized coat.

"We can't live off this," Sokka said, bringing Kopaka back to him and his sister.

"There has to be somebody else we can try. Here, I think I see another–" Katara began, but Kopaka grabbed his shield to stop her. "Kopaka?"

Kopaka pulled Katara aside, her brother following them towards the hidden corner of a nearby building. "What is it?" Sokka asked, and Kopaka pointed a free finger across the street...

... at nobody, as his plain eye saw.

"I don't see anything. Is someone watching us?" Katara said after taking a peak.

Sokka, taking a peek, said, "I don't see anyone, and I'm pretty sure there isn't anyone around who would want to. Well, aside from Tahu and those crazy firebenders. But there's no way they could have spotted us."

"What makes you think they haven't already?"

"It's raining, duh! No way they would want to be in it. You of all people should know this!"