ATLA:The Survivor (Water Book 1)

Chapter 9: Winter Solstice Part1

Aang's P.O.V

I was hapily flying through the sky, Katara and Ling were chatting happily, Sokka was eating food when Katara said dreamily,"The clouds look so fluffy and white."

"Yeah, it's as if they're made of soft fur and cotton."Ling agreed.

"I wonder if they are? They look like you could reach out and touch them."Sokka thought aloud.

"I'll try it!"I exclaimed grabbing my glider and jumping off Appa's head. A laugh escaped my lips as I dived towards a cloud, wind whipping my face, glider open, heart beating.

I reached out to grab a handful of fluff only to recieve a fistful of waterdroplets. Quickly I closed my eyes as the white enveloped me; the silvery fluff being wrapping it's wet arms around me. The water drenched my clothes and when I exited the cloud all weighted down by water to attempt to Airbend back to Appa I discovered that water was actually very heavy and difficult to fly with.

"Nope. Clouds are actully made of water." I concluded as I landed next to Katara and airbent the water off of me.

"Woah." Ling said in astonishment as she stared down at the ground.

"It looks like a scar."Sokka noticed before me and Katara raced over to see what they were looking at. A lump formed in my throat as I stared at the ground. It was dead.

A giant strip of dead trees and shrubbery made a giant line of black that ran to a river. Surrounding it on either side was a forrest of green healthy life. Oh no. What happened here? It really did look like a scar.

"It's all," I searched for a word,"gone, burnt down." I whispered.

"Appa! Land down there in the big patch of black," Ling said before jumping onto Appa's head and steering us down.

When we landed the view was a million times worst. The scorched lifeless trees bare of their coverings twisted and turned in unatural ways, reforming into the screeming bodies and faces from my past. The earth was a deep black instead of the bright green it might have been. I looked out and watched the pit of fiery death stretched out for miles until it came to a bubbling brook and bright forest, the phantoms of life that haunted that place.

I fell to my knees in despare. How could I have let this happen? Guilt filled me as I was reminded again of my failures to protect the world. Why? Why hadn't I just stayed? Was wanting to stay with Gyatso that bad? Did it really make me selfish? Why did those small actions have to have had such enormous effects on the world.

My heart was a stone and it weighed me to the earth, pupoing me down into the burnt pit of hoplessness.

Aang, its not your fault. Ling prodded through our mental conection.

"Hey Aang, ready to cheered up?"Katara asked.

"Nope." I mumbled my responce. A small hard object collided with my skull and a sharp cry left my lips.

"How was that ment to cheer me up?" I asked annoyedly as I rubbed the spot on my head.

"It sure cheered me up," Sokka laughed before Ling threw an acorn at his head," Yeah, I deserved that."

She came to kneel next to me and she placed a small acorn in my hand,"See these acorns," I nodded, "They're everywhere which means that one day the forest will grow back, you just need to give it time."

I looked up into her blue eyes,"Thanks Katara." She smiled and helped me to my feet when a stick snapping caught our attenttion. I turned around and by instinct moved to a bending poze, every fibre of my being hiped for a fight.