┊𝑰𝒈𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆┊

chapter 26

"Do you know what they're planning?"

"No I don't, young miss. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, thank you anyway."

Mai and Ty Lee walked out of the small shop with disappointing news. The Fire Nation was indeed stationed there, and luckily neither of them heard anything of Azula, so they took it upon themselves to go ahead and get the supplies they needed.. well, as much as they could carry anyway. The town wasn't all that far from where they'd split from the others, but it was still a good distance to walk, especially when you're buried under supplies for 9 people.

"I can't believe this. What's he doing?" Mai's bored voice asked.

"Maybe Firelord Ozai sent him out here to start building a stronger attack on the city since the drill was obviously a failure."

"I heard rumors about that while I was in the castle's dungeon. What happened?"

Ty Lee let out a sigh and a tired smile. "Oh, the Fire Nation built a giant drill to penetrate the outer wall and we destroyed it."

"You helped?"

"Well, kind of. I protected Katara from soldiers while she was bending the wall sludge back into the drill. Sokka and Zuko cut through some of the beams inside and Aang delivered a powerful blow to the top to bring it down. That was all right before Iroh.. um, went down," she finished sadly.

"I wish I could've been there. Maybe things would've happened differently."

They continued down the road in silence and, after a while, noticed the bend in the road ahead. As far as Ty Lee could remember, there was only one bend in the road, meaning they were almost back to the spot. She let out a relieved sigh and started walking faster. By then, the sky was showing faint hints of the orange sunset coming. When they started around the bend, Ty Lee was even more relieved to see Sokka sitting beside the road waiting for them. Even Mai showed a look of gratitude to the boy as he helped unload some of the supplies from their arms.

"Why did you get this stuff already?" he asked as he led them through the woods to their little clearing. "We could've gotten it when we went into the town."

"It's occupied by Fire Nation," Ty Lee explained. "We thought maybe it'd be safer if the Avatar didn't walk right into their arms."

Sokka gave her a look, but didn't argue. He just kept leading them until they got to the campsite, where Katara almost instantly grabbed some of the things from them and started dinner. Alec and Aang were playing a game with what little firebending Aang knew, Toph was still lying about chewing on a piece of grass, and Zuko was teaching Azula how to meditate properly. She figured since he wouldn't teach her to redirect lightening, he could find something to teach her and meditating was the only other thing he knew how to do that she didn't. She actually found it quite relaxing and decided she would've been banished long ago if she'd known how to do that.. then she laughed silently at her own thoughts.

"Dinner is served," Katara finally announced. They all eagerly stood up and rushed over to get the food that smelled so delicious. Before Sokka wolfed it down, Ty Lee laid a hand on his shoulder and her soft smile told him to eat it slower. Katara took her food to the edge of the cliff to eat and watch the sunset before her, Zuko joining her as soon as he got his share of the rather large meal.