The Story of Aya: Book 2~Earth

Secret Tunnel

I sighed as I relaxed into the water, leaving only my head visible. I was wearing just my under clothes like everyone else: a black bandeau and black shorts. I had my short hair tied up into a small bun. We were resting near a small river, taking a small morning break after all the events of yesterday.

At least, I was trying to take a break. 

"You guys are gonna be done soon, right?" Sokka asked as he floated by on a leaf, half-naked, with Momo sleeping on top of him. "We've got a lot of ground to cover if we want to make it to Omashu today."

"What, like you're ready to go right now, naked guy?" Katara remarked as she turned to him with a smirk. She and Aang were busy practicing their waterbending.

"I could be ready in two minutes. Seriously. Whenever." Sokka lifted his hair to look at Katara for a second before relaxing back into his leaf. 

I settled back down with a sigh and closed my eyes. Breaks were nice, I could be here all day and it would be magical.

Unfortunately, my peace was disturbed yet again when music started playing, and it seemed to be getting closer. 

"Don't fall in love with a traveling girl~ She'll leave you broke and broken-hearrrrrted."

Sokka suddenly screamed and fell in the water as five people came into sight, and the music stopped.

One was a man with a dramyin, a guitar-like instrument, there was a woman with a flute, and then the other three, two women and a guy, were dancing along. 

"Hey hey! River people!" The man with the dramyin pointed out.

"We're not river people." Katara said, confused.

"You're not?" The man squinted quizzically at us. "Well, then what kind of people are you?"

"Just...people," Aang shrugged.

The man smiled. "Aren't we all, brother."

Sokka stormed past us all to confront the group. "Who are you?"

"I'm Chong," he introduced himself and pointed at the flute-playing woman to his right. "And this is my wife, Lily. We're nomads. Happy to go wherever the wind takes us!" He quickly strummed his dramyin and started singing gibberish.

"You guys are nomads?" Aang asked with a smile. "That's great! Aya and I are nomads!" Aang pointed to me but I still stayed sunken in the water. 

"Hey! Me, too!" Chong grinned.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "We know. You just said that," I muttered.

"Oh," Chong shrugged, scratching the back of his neck, but he soon focused on something below Sokka's face. "Nice underwear." 

Sokka grabbed Momo from his shoulders and used him to hide his underwear, and scuttled away to where our clothes were. 

I finally left my sanctuary in the river, seeing how none of these people were going to leave. Sokka had walked off somewhere while the rest of us dried off and got dressed. 

The nomads stuck around and ended up trying to braid anything they could find. One of the women got to work braiding pink flowers into Appa's hair, and another was working on Katara's. They had even made Aang a flower crown, and Chong kept strumming his dramyin, making music about the places he's been. 

Chong had also offered us a pipe that smelled weird, but Aang immediately took the pipe as it was handed to me. Something about how the smell reminded him of something his own master had told him to stay away from.