THE OTHER AIRBENDER (Book 2)

(XX) Water

"We found a printer to make our posters!" Katara announces cheerfully, making me smile.

"Hey, I thought designing the lost Appa poster was my job. I've been working all day on my Appa!" Sokka complains, before showing us his rather mediocre sketch of the bison.

I roll my eyes. "Do you really want to find Appa or find a... Whatever that thing is!"

"Sokka, the arrow is on Appa's head," Aang retorts with a frown.

"This is his head."

"Why are feet coming out of it?" Katara frowns.

"Those are his horns," Sokka defends. "I haven't seen him in a while, okay?"

"It looks just like him to me!" Toph says mockingly.

"Thank you, I worked really—" Sokka stops himself mid-sentence as he remembers that Toph is, in fact, blind. "Why do you feel the need to do that?"

"Let's just stick with the professional version," Katara offers.

Sokka complains a bit more before we take all the flyers and head out. While Katara, Sokka and Toph take care of placing the flyers all over town, Aang and I take care of the sky. Flying over the city with our gliders, we release thousands of flyers with information about the missing bison throughout the entire city. Hopefully enough people will see them, and if they catch anything that could lead to us finding out lost friend, that'd be fantastic.

After a while we head back to the residence to meet up with the others.

"We just finished dropping all of the flyers. Hopefully someone will have some useful intel on how to find Appa," I announce, in a significantly better mood than I've been in the entire time we've been in Ba Sing Se.

"That's great. Now we just have to be patient, okay?" Katara says, probably noting how anxious Aang and I are.

Someone suddenly knocks on the door. I immediately jump to my feet, thinking it could be someone with information about Appa. However, when I open the door, I gasp in surprise when I see Joo Dee standing on the other side, her forced, creepy smile plastered on her face as usual.

"Joo Dee?"

"What happened to you? Did the Dai Li throw you in jail?" Sokka questions, clearly as taken aback as me.

"What? Jail? Of course not. The Dai Li are the protectors of our cultural heritage."

"But you disappeared at the Earth King's party," Toph retorts.

"Oh, I simply took a short vacation to Lake Laogai, out in the country. It was quite relaxing."

"But then they replaced you with some other woman who also said her name was Joo Dee," Katara notes.

"I'm Joo Dee."

"Why are you here?" Aang snaps at her.

"Dropping fliers and putting up posters isn't permitted within the city. Not without proper clearance."

"Let me guess. An authorization for that would take six-to-eight weeks to be approved?" I raise an eyebrow accusingly.

"You are absolutely forbidden by the rules of the city to continue putting up posters."

This time, it's Aang that loses it first. "We don't care about the rules and we're not asking permission! We're finding Appa on our own and you should just stay out of our way!"

He then smacks the door on her face, effectively kicking her out. I have to admit, even though I understand Aang's anger completely, Ba Sing Se doesn't seem like the kind of city that allows any kind of rebellion or disobedience.