THE OTHER AIRBENDER (Book 2)

(XIV) Fire

"How could you let them take Appa?! ‌ Why didn't you stop them‌?!" Aang yells at me, and honestly, I can't blame him.

"We couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-" Toph attempts to defend me, but Aang isn't having it.

"You could've come to get us. I could've saved him!" Aang yells at me once again.

"I tried to fight them, but there were too many of them and--" I try to say.

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone!" Aang snaps back once again, making my feel a hundred times worse.

Toph gives me a reassuring shake of her head. "I felt how many of them there were. We're in the desert, they have the upper hand with the environment. You didn't stand a fair chance on your own."

"Aang, stop it. You know Alya and Toph did all they could. Toph saved our lives," Katara scolded him.

"Who's going to save our lives now? We'll never make it out of here," Sokka groans a complaint.

"That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

"That's not true, and you know it," I retort, sniffling away my guilt. "I love Appa. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to save him. I was so useless..."

"No, Alya. Any one of us wouldn't have been able to stop all those sandbenders on our own," Katara reassures me in her usual motherly way. "Aang, we're all concerned, but we can't afford to be fighting now."

"I'm going after Appa," Aang declares coldly.

He then opens his glider and he left without another word. The sandstorm around us keeps getting worse by the second, which worries me even more. Katara feels it, too.

"We'd better start walking. We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se," Katara states with a sigh.

"You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give us a ride?" Sokka suggests, but honestly, I'm not in the mood for his jokes.

***

We've been wandering the desert for hours now. So far, we've gotten nowhere, and the Sun's heat is slowly draining all of our energy. By taking Appa, not only did those thieves steal our furry friend, but they also took all our supplies.

"Ouch! Can't you watch where you're..." Sokka begins complaining after Toph accidentally bumps into him.

"No," she replies simply.

"Right. Sorry."

"Come on guys, we've got to stick together," Katara decides.

"Katara, can I have some more water?" Toph asks.

"Okay, but we've got to try to conserve it," Katara tells her, as she waterbends a gulp to her. She then bends one to me, but I shake my head. "Come on, Alya. You need to stay hydrated."

"It's fine."

She simply sighs. "I know you feel bad about Appa, but we need to get out of here so that we can go look for him."

"What's the point if Aang hates me?"

"Alya, come on, Aang doesn't--" Katara suddenly stops talking as soon as she sees her brother drinking some liquid from a random cactus. "Sokka, wait! You shouldn't be eating strange plants!"

"Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya! Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest!" Sokka replies, clearly affected by something from the cactus juice.