Avatar: The Last Airbender: Reawakening

11

Sokka awoke the next morning to the sound of Appa's grunting. He rubbed his eyes and sat up straight to find himself on Appa's head, I must have dozed off. After spending a few seconds looking around, Sokka saw why Appa had woken him; Kyoshi Island could be seen off in the distance. They would probably reach it in a few minutes so he climbed up onto the saddle to wake his two companions, who were resting on opposite sides of the saddle.

Sokka sighed as he gently shook Aang awake. The younger boy's eyes shot open as he sat up a looked around, finally setting his eyes on Sokka.

"Hey, what is it?" Aang asked.

"We're close to Kyoshi Island," Sokka explained, "we'll be there in a few minutes."

"Well that's good," Aang said tiredly causing Sokka to look at him skeptically.

"Did you sleep last night?" he asked.

Aang shook his head and rubbed his eyes, "Not much."

Following Aang's comment, an uncomfortable silence hung between the two for a few moments until Sokka finally decided to speak up, "Listen, you guide Appa; I'll wake up and explain things to Katara, okay?"

Aang nodded as he slowly made his way over to Appa's head while Sokka crawled towards the back of the saddle to wake up his sister.

The young Waterbender woke up when she felt him shake her awake and she regarded him speculatively, "Is something wrong?"

Sokka shook his head as Katara sat up, "No, I just thought you should know that we're almost at Kyoshi Island."

"Kyoshi Island?" Katara tilted her head at him.

"Aang and I thought it would be a good idea to stop there to let Appa rest," Sokka explained.

"Right, so Suki has nothing to do with it?" Katara looked at him knowingly.

"No, she's part of the reason to," Sokka shrugged his shoulders, "I just wasn't going to mention it to you."

"You think she'll join us?" Katara asked him.

"If she is ready then I don't see why not," he answered hopefully.

Katara nodded as she looked away from her brother so look around the rest of Appa's saddle, "Where's Aang?"

"Guiding Appa," Sokka jerked his thumb towards Appa's head.

Katara just sat back while crossing her arms as she grunted to let Sokka know that she heard him.

"Are you still mad at him?" he asked.

"Why should I not be?" Katara answered with another question.

Sokka shook his head, why would he expect things to be better between them. It's not like anything happened overnight, "You can't stay mad at him forever you know?"

Katara just looked away thoughtfully, biting her lip while gazing out into the horizon and it took Sokka a few moments to realize that she wasn't going to acknowledge him. There wouldn't have been time to talk anyway as a few seconds later, Sokka heard Aang shout up from Appa's head.

"We're here," he yelled.

Sokka quickly made his way to the front to the saddle to look and sure enough, Appa was slowly descending onto the island where the whole town had gathered to welcome the group.

The sky bison softly landed next to Avatar Kyoshi's statue as the crowd of people cheered and clapped. Aang gave a small smile and waved at the large group of people as Sokka hopped off the saddle along with Katara. After making sure Appa was comfortable, Aang hopped off of Appa as well to join his companions.