silver soul | avatar, the last air bender

chapter twelve

Flying with Aang and the rest of the group has been unlike any other experience. Naia learned to love the soft breeze that hit her face while in the air, or how she could see the sky so much better from up high. Naia often found herself learning against the edge of the saddle, staring up at the moon and thinking of Yue.

Just before sunset on the next day, Appa landed in a small clearing in a forest. Naia noticed that Appa was shedding...a lot. White clumps of fur littered the ground and sloughed off of him with every movement he made. Toph jumped off of the saddle and rubbed her bare feet in the fur. "I really like the campsite you guys picked. The grass is so soft."

Naia made a face, but quickly remembered that Toph was blind. Sometimes she forgot Toph couldn't see, because Toph was so independent. "That's not grass, Appa is just shedding a lot," She said.

Katara grimaced. "Oh, gross!"

"It's not gross," Aang said. "It's just a part of spring. You know, flowers, rebirth, and Appa gets a new coat."

Appa sneezed and his fur went everywhere. Naia sighed and started picking his white fur out of her long braid. Katara started coughing and almost gagging.

"It's not that bad, Katara," Sokka said. "Appa's fur makes a great wig!" He joked, piling the white fur on top of his head. Naia rolled her eyes. Aang jumped off of the saddle and placed the fur on his chin to look like a beard. Aang and Sokka laughed boisterously at each other.

"I'm glad we finally have two other girls in the group, because you guys are disgusting," Katara scoffed.

"Boys will be boys," Naia shrugged.

"Does anyone have a razor?" Toph asked. She lifted her arms and placed them behind her head, showing that she placed fur underneath her arms. "Because I have some really hairy pits!" All three of them starting laughing.

Katara and Naia exchanged looks, to which they both giggled lightly. Aang used his air bending to blow the remainder of the fur from the campsite. Once the sun dipped below the horizon, the group started setting up camp. Everyone did some form of work, well...everyone except Toph. Katara clearly seemed a little irked that Toph wasn't helping, but Naia didn't care. On the list of problems she had, Toph not setting up camp was pretty low. Tensions rose between Katara and Toph, especially when Toph was sarcastic with Katara, claiming she already had everything set up.

By the time everyone went to bed, Naia got about fifteen minutes of sleep before being woken up. "There's something coming toward us!" She heard a voice. It was Toph, running out of her rock tent.

"What's happening?" Naia asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"There's something coming towards us, I can feel it," Toph said, placing her hand against the ground. "Something metal."

"We should leave," Aang said. "Better safe then sorry."

They quickly packed up and climbed on top of Appa again. As they flew higher, Naia noticed that about a half mile away, there was something that was causing a huge amount of dust to fly up. She shook her head and tried to make herself feel less worried. Maybe it was nothing?

"I wonder what that is," Naia thought out loud.

Appa flew for a little while longer, probably about a few hours. Naia rested her chin on her hand. She was definitely a little tired. It was the middle of the night after all. Naia already had a tough time falling asleep, so she couldn't lull herself to sleep while flying. Appa finally landed in another clearing.

"Land, sweet land!" Toph cried, jumping down from Appa. "See you guys in the morning."

Naia grabbed her bag, along with Aang and Sokka's sleeping bags in her other hand. She placed all of them on the ground and started unloading. "Actually, can you help us unload?" Katara asked, following Toph.