Lay Me Down

Way Up High

I left before any of them had woken up that morning. Before pulling myself up through the hatch I bended the chest holding all my belongings into the ground, where it could not be rifled through by thieving Freedom Fighters. They had left during the night, and I wasn't sure why or when they came back, but they had all been exhausted. Jet was much paler, leaning against Longshot for help, and for a moment I worried that I should see if they needed help. But I was tired and needed to wake up early that morning. So if no one was dying, I was going to continue sleeping. The stray cats circled around my feet while I walked through alleyways to the market, reminding me that at some point today I had to buy more milk. The sun was almost up, so people had already started their days. Jet had never been one for early rising. I had a visit with the Avatar today in search for his bison, then I would have to go to the farm. When I had passed through the two gates and stood before the door to the beautiful guest home, I listened for heartbeats. They were all still moving rhythmically in time together to the same beat, slow and separated. But before I could sit down to wait for them to wake up, a giant fluffy beast I knew all too well bounded around the corner of the building and shoved me down to the ground with a magnificent roar of happiness. Those heartbeats weren't slow anymore.

"Hey big guy," I said, petting his massive head with the hand that wasn't trapped under a furry white body. He licked my face in response and roared again, his eyes squinting in delight. Ugh, he smelled like a wet wool blanket. My legs started to ache under the immense pressure. "Let me up, man." I bended myself out from under him, but almost immediately he barreled into my chest head-first and shoved me against the wall. A huge, pink, slimy tongue slid up my body relentlessly. "Hey!" I pushed against the arrow-headed skybison- experiencing a bit of claustrophobia- to no avail. I bended him away from me and created a ledge on the wall for me to sit on. He roared unhappily, planting himself under the ledge.

"Seems like Appa likes you." Katara tossed the bison an apple, which he caught haphazardly while still staring at me.

"A little too much," I grumbled, crossing my legs. This attention is very disliked. "Where'd you guys find him?"

The avatar stumbled out of the house along with a bed-headed Toph, who scowled at me while she rubbed at her eyes. It's already late into the morning. Laziness is not something I appreciate. It's haughty and allows for either the growth of pride or apathy and mental deterioration. "The king's advisor was working behind the king's back with the Dai-li doing all kinds of awful stuff. One of them was stealing Appa, so we couldn't leave. They were pretending there's no war, or something. We lost a friend while getting Appa back..." Here everyone kind of quieted down solemnly.

I shook my head. "I'd only heard about this. It's not too enforced in the lower ring, because there are just so many people. And the outer wall was just busted through the other day, so... Everybody down here is pretty much up-to-date on the situation, whether they like it or not. I'm sorry about your friend." I scratched the back of my head and glared back down at the earth bender. What's up her butt? She keeps frowning at me, like I'm the devil or something. And then I watched her pick her nose and flick the contents up at me. I stopped it no problem with some dust particles and shot it back onto her forehead. The smirk fell off her face pretty quick. "I'm not here for this," I sighed, jumping off my perch to the hard dirt below. I don't think anyone else knew what had just happened, judging by the confused looks on their faces, but I didn't care. It's too early for this stuff.