Avatar: The Last Airbender: Reawakening

28

When they arrived back at the palace, things seemed a lot more crowded than they had been before. Various soldiers from each of the three nations mingled around and Katara was having a hard time walking through them all. She made sure that she kept hold of Aang's hand as they walked through the crowded hallways of the massive palace. If they got separated, she wasn't sure if they'd find each other again. Besides, the meeting was going to start in a few minutes so they had to get there as quick as possible.

Qin had long left the two of them alone. After they had left the archives, he had once again resumed his position as the commander of the place's security. She assumed that was why all the soldiers were here. Only the higher ranking members of each nation would be attending the meeting itself so everyone else must just be here for securities sake. One thing was sure; the Earth Kingdom wasn't risking anymore assassination attempts. She was sure Kuei's murder would be remembered for quite a long time and that the Earth Kingdom will step up its security force in the future.

Still though, part of her didn't want to go to the meeting. Part of her wanted to mingle around in the archives for a little while longer. If they had been hiding information on the Yanari...what else was the Earth Kingdom hiding? Katara wasn't even completely sure if she wanted to know the answer to that. Besides, even if there was no meeting and she and Aang would have had time to stay in the archives, she was sure Qin would have stopped them from doing so.

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as she and Aang finally came to the doors leading into the meeting room. They walked in, seeing that everyone else already seemed to be there. The room was quite large and there was a big oval like table in the center of the room with dozens of chairs pulled up to it. Many people were already sitting comfortable in their seats while a few others just mingled around the room talking to each other.

She wasn't surprised to see that Sokka and Suki were among those few and that they were talking to Zuko and Mai off to the side. She felt Aang give her a gentle tug on the hand and she allowed him to lead her over to their group of friends.

"Aang, Katara," Zuko perked up once he saw them, walking over to them with Mai in tow, "You two really are okay," Zuko paused before adding sarcastically, "Thanks for stopping by and letting us know earlier. We were very worried about you...even if Mai won't admit it."

Mai casted him a quick glare before Aang spoke up, "Well we had some things to do. We would've stopped by to see you earlier otherwise, you know that."

"What could you possibly need to do after barely surviving being stranded in the desert?" Zuko asked and upon seeing the shocked look on the young couple's faces he quickly added, "Sokka was just explaining to me what happened."

"Oh right," Katara let out a small laugh, "That makes sense."

"We had to find some more information," Aang explained, "We found something that we might be able to take advantage of."

"I'm going to go ahead and assume that you were finding some more stuff about these Yanari things?" Mai raised one eyebrow with a bored expression since she already knew the answer.

"Yeah," Katara answered simply with a small shrug.

Zuko was about to open his mouth to say something when a louder voice stopped him.

"May I have everyone's attention?"

The four looked in the direction that the voice came from to see General Howe standing at the head of the large table and all of the chatter in the room died down.

"I'd like to get started as soon as possible," he announced, "So if everyone's ready, I would like to ask that you all take your seats and we can begin."