MAYA [Book 1 - Water]

Chapter 51 - Fire Day's Festival

-Maya's Point of View-

"This sign should give us a good idea of what's around here," Katara said, walking towards a square post filled with posters.

"See if you could find a place to eat. I'm starving!" Sokka demanded as he emptied the last sack of food we had.

We currently took a pit stop somewhere in the middle of the woods after a day of flying, and eventually, we were forced to roam around when we realized we had no food left.

Right now, we're searching for a village or a nearby market.

"I bet we'll find something to eat here!" Aang exclaimed as he pointed at one of the posters. "The Fire Day's Festival," he continued.

Right... Another one of those Fire Nation colonies.

"Fire Nation cultural exhibits, jugglers, benders, magicians—this will be a great place for me to study some real firebenders!" Aang exclaimed. 

"You might want to rethink that. Look at this," Sokka suddenly said from the other side of the post. We all went to where he was and there we saw another large poster with Aang's whole body portrait on it.

"Hey! A poster of me!" he exclaimed, and then he ripped it from the post.

"A wanted poster," Sokka clarified.

"This is bad," Katara took the poster from Aang and studied the words written on it. "I think we better keep moving," she suddenly suggested.

"I have to learn firebending at some point, and this could be my only chance to watch some masters up close!" Aang argued with them.

As much as I would like to agree with the siblings, Aang is right. So far, none from the Fire Nation will be willing to teach Aang firebending. This could be his only chance to witness some firebending techniques up close from experienced benders.

I took the poster from Katara and read some parts of it. "I guess we could go check it out," I said.

"What?! You wanna walk into a Fire Nation town when they're all fired up with all their—you know, FIRE?" Sokka strongly disagreed.

"He's right Maya. We might get caught in there?" Katara agreed with his brother.

"That won't be a problem. We'll wear disguises! And if things start to look like trouble, we'll leave," I tried to convince them.

"Right... because we always leave before we get into trouble..." Sokka sarcastically agreed.

"Come on guys, Aang does need to learn firebending," I said once more hoping that it would convince them this time.

"Okay, let's go," Katara smiled at Aang and me. "But we can't stay for long, we still need to get Aang to the North Pole," Katara reminded.

"Yeehaaw! Let's get flamin'!" Aang exclaimed as he walked towards the town's direction.

When we were able to see the town from afar, we stopped for the meantime in the middle of the forest.

"You guys stay out of sight here while we go to the festival," Aang said to Momo and Appa.

Momo hid behind one of the bushes and Appa tried to do so as well. He looked so cute trying to hide his ginormous body.

"Ready disguises!" Aang bowed down to fix his disguise.

Sokka used the black hood I borrowed from him back at the ruins of Taku. Katara also had a black hood that she brought from the South Pole.