Stratus | Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Chapter Eleven | Desert

Kumo emerged from the library, yanking her hood back over her head to avoid the sun.

"Your friends have encountered some trouble." Toph glanced up, tilting her head at the lack of disguise over the girl's voice. "They know it's me now."

"Did you-"

"Course not, Wan Shi Tong doesn't like it when humans use his library for bad, avatar or not." Kumo grunted, slipping a violet-coloured scroll into her pouch. "There's not much we can do, if you or I go down, we'll become enemies to the spirits- my people- and you'll die, and Appa's too big to go anyway. All we can do is wait."

"But-"

"Aang is the avatar, he's already learned three of the four elements, he is capable."

Sulking slightly, Toph slumped down by Appa, who grunted anxiously. A few minutes passed, with Toph and Kumo sat playing twenty questions, when the ground began to shake beneath them, and the tower began to sink.

"The library's sinking." Kumo breathed, and Toph shot up off the sand, slamming both fists into the side of the tower, desperately to raise it up. With world peace at stake, Kumo launched into action, using wind to push the inside of the tower up, and together, it began to sink slower. "Keep holding it."

"I am!" Toph cried, screwing her eyes shut as Appa paced anxiously behind them, before letting out a growl. Kumo raised her hands higher, as Toph turned to glance at Appa. "What?"

A dull buzzing got louder, and this warranted Kumo to tilt her head slightly.

"It's sand benders. Ah, I swear, why is everything so dangerous with you people?"

"It's not my fault."

"They're after Appa! You keep this tower up, I'll deal with them, okay?" Toph opened her mouth to protest, but assumed Kumo would be more useful in fighting them off, since the sand essentially made her blinder than she usually was.

Kumo leapt towards the sand benders, brandishing her knives as she began to counteract their bending with her wind. Darting towards the ones to her left, she spun round, knocking them back with a powerful gust before slicing through the ropes they were using to tie Appa down. A hand encased her forearm and she was dragged backwards, sinking unusually fast into the sand. Wind whirred round her legs, trying to keep herself up as she knocked the sand benders back, only to have the sand constrict around her, compacting and dragging her further down. A yell escaped her mouth before she was fully submerged, eyes screwed shut. It was cooler under the sand, but silent. All she could hear was a low rumbling of the sinking library, and the thumping of heart. If she couldn't get out soon, she'd suffocate.

There was a final tremor, and she felt the tower be submerged completely, the undertow dragging her further down as the hot, heavy sand weighed her down. There was a moment of complete silence and she was sure she was going to die, until something grabbed her wrist and heaved her up onto the surface, where she lay, panting and delirious from lack of oxygen. Her vision spotted as she felt something cool drop into her mouth, and gulped down the water gratefully.

"Where's Appa?" Toph looked up at Aang, shaking her head, before glancing to Kumo, who sat up, helped- surprisingly- by Katara.

"Sand benders, their ships... they're too fast."

Once again, a heavy silence returned to the group, before Aang broke out in rage.

"How could you let them take Appa?" His rage was mainly directed at Toph, which Kumo found unfair, but she guessed most of them had forgotten about her in the silence and Aang's rage. "You could've helped him!"