Bella [AANGXOC]

Chapter 79: Hope

Katara only let us rest for a couple hours; since the plan was to keep the precious cold hours of the night for walking, and the exhausting heated hours of the day to rest.

Which meant less time for walking and more time for resting, but because of the effect the sun had on us, we'd probably make more progress during the night.

"We need to go," Katara said softly as she woke each one of us up.

"Yesterday my mouth tasted like mud, now it just tastes like sand. I never thought I'd miss the taste of mud so much," Toph wondered out loud as she smacked her lips together.

Katara went to wake up Aang, but before she could do it, he said, "I'm awake. I couldn't sleep."

"Well, we need to get moving if we want to get out of this sand pit."

They stood up, and Aang's eyes shot towards the sky. The moon was right above us, and some shape was passing over it, giving it a silhouette.

The shape looked kinda like--

"Appa!" Aang yelled, the happiest I'd seen him in hours.

But the shape was moving weirdly, and oddly too fluffy.

"It's just a cloud," Katara said.

Aang sunk back down again.

"Wait! A cloud! Here," Katara handed Aang her water pouch, "Fly up and bend the water from that cloud into my pouch."

Aang looked annoyed but he took the pouch and shot off from the ground extra aggressively.

He tore the water away from the cloud until it shriveled up into nothingness and then landed back where he was standing.

He tossed the pouch back to Katara, she looked into it, "Wow, there's hardly any in here."

Aang broke again, "I'm sorry okay! It's a desert could, I did all I could! What's anyone else doing!? What are you doing!?"

He pointed to Katara.

She hung her head, "Trying to keep everyone together."

I felt a pang of sympathy for her. We were definitely being less than cooperative with her, while she tried to save our lives.

"Let's just get moving," she held up her star chart, "We need to head in this direction."

~

We were walking for a while in silence. Not because of the heat or the pain in our feet like last time, but because of the tension between Aang and everybody. He was just hurting from losing Appa, so it's understandable. As soon as we're out of the desert we're going to go looking for him. And if Katara, Toph and Sokka have to get to Ba Sing Se to plan an invasion instead, then Aang and I will go alone.

"Ow!"

I turned around to see Toph on the ground, holding her foot. "I am so sick of not feeling where I'm going! And what idiot buried a boat in the middle of the desert!?" Toph yelled.

Boat?

Next to her, was a small little wooden corner poking out of the ground.

"A boat?" Katara asked her, seeing the same lonely wooden corner that I was.

"Believe me, I kicked it hard enough to feel plenty of vibrations."

We all stepped back except for Aang. He had his staff in his hands and was ready to uncover it. Once we were far enough back, he whipped the sand from the ground, leveling out a mound and revealing a sand sailor.