The Traitor Princess

Chapter 24 - The Waterbending Master

"I'm not one to complain–"

"You're literally always complaining, Sokka."

"Shut up, Eziri. Can't Appa fly any higher?"

"I have an idea! Why don't we all get on your back and you could fly us to the North Pole!?" Aang said angrily.

"I'd love to." Sokka stood up and leaned over. "Climb on everyone," He shook his butt. "Sokka's ready for take off." Eziri shot a small burst of fire at Sokka's butt, causing him to fall flat on his face and shriek in fear. She sent him a smug smile.

"Look, we're all just a little tired and cranky because we've been flying for two days straight." Katara reasoned. She was right, everyone seemed to be a bit irritable.

"And for what? We can't even find the Northern Water Tribe. There's nothing up here." Sokka whined.

"Shouldn't you know where this place is? It's your sister tribe for spirits' sake." Eziri complained.

"It's not like we're down the road from each other! It's on the other side of the world!"

Eziri huffed and plopped her chin onto her palm. Suddenly, the sound of rushing water met their ears and the water in front of Appa rose up into ice spikes. Aang quickly steered Appa out of the way but more ice rose up from the water. Aang tried to dodge and weave all the attacks but Appa fell to the water. He was quickly encased in ice. Their attackers appeared around them on Water Tribe boats.

"They're waterbenders! We found the Northern Water Tribe!"

Ice shot up to the saddle and onto Eziri. Her wrists were encased in ice handcuffs before she even realized what was happening. She quickly heated up her hands and melted the water around them.

"Hey! What the hell?" She shouted. More bursts of water were shot up at her and she was pulled off the saddle by a water whip. "Ahhhh!" She screamed as the water benders pulled her onto one of the boats.

"Stop! What are you doing? She's with us!" Aang cried.

"We saw her fire bend at that boy!" One of the waterbenders shouted.

"Yeah because he was being annoying!" Eziri protested. One of the waterbenders placed a whale tooth sword against her neck.

"Not helping, Eziri." Aang muttered.

"Please, she's not dangerous. She's teaching the Avatar firebending." Katara explained.

"Is that true?" One of the waterbenders asked Eziri.

"Well, how would you define teaching? I mean I haven't actually had a lesson with him in a while so like..no? But we've had a couple lessons so I guess you could say that I am his teacher. To be fair, we haven't exactly had a whole lot of time to work on it. At some point we'll–"

"Silence!" The waterbender shouted.

"Jeez." Eziri muttered.

Aang stood up and faced the water benders. "It's true. Eziri is traveling with us to teach me firebending. She's not dangerous. She's our friend."

The waterbender eyed Eziri suspiciously and then sighed. "Whatever. She's just a little girl anyway. Let her go."

"Excuse me?!" Eziri's head started to steam as her anger rose.

"But no firebending! We'll bring you to the chief and he'll decide what to do with you." The man made a small ice bridge connecting the boat to Appa's saddle and gestured for Eziri to go. She glared at him as she passed and plopped back down next to her friends. Her eye was twitching with irritation.