🔶️♤ Avatar: Fire and Ashes ♤🔶️

🔸Chapter 4🔸

"Its been 6 days since they left.

I don't know how long they're supposed to be gone but...

Something just doesn't feel right"

The swell of the ocean waves rose and fell at his ankles, the image of sand and rocks below being distorted and stretched. A calming breeze gently ruffled through his braids- but Lo'ak felt far from calm.

It felt like a storm was brewing up inside of him- a tornado, to be more exact.

Swirling chaotically inside of his stomach, building and building, gathering worrisome and anxious thoughts into an amalgamation that clouded his thoughts and crawled like insects throughout him.

"The Ash People are dangerous, unpredictable"

He stared blankly across the vast, rolling mass of the ocean- staring, but not seeing anything. He gazed in the vague direction of the island, or, at least, where he thought the island might be. What were they already there? Of course they were, the journey was meant to take half the time they'd been gone. When were they coming back?

His father was strong- the strongest warrior ever seen, as far as the clans thought. So was his mother. They could very well defend themselves against any potential threats.

But those people...

"We really need that medicine, but..."

Dread threaded its way into his mind, worming steadily into his stomach. His tail lashed. The stories he'd heard... Images weaved of words flashed behind his eyes. Pictures of blood and gore, of entire clans- decimated, burned to crisped ashes. Of men - great warriors – captured and enslaved, brought to their lowest in prisons of bedrock and brimstone.

Images of war, of battle, of carnage beyond belief. Of lawlessness and instability.

"but I think they never should've gone"

"Hey, forest freak"

Lo'ak was suddenly snapped out of his anxiety-induced reverie. He blinked- once, twice. Wiping the remnants of his reverie from his pupils.

Aonung's faintly bemused face became clear- he waved a finned hand in Lo'ak's face, effectively waking him up from the dream-like state that had so thoroughly taken him in.

"Wake up"

At first, he just stared. Wondering how on Pandora he had just spawned in front of him- wondering what he was even doing out on the beach in the first place. Then he remembered...

"Oh"

His gaze drifted to his side, where the three other friends he was hanging out with stared back with puzzled frowns.

Sroi, Xolo, Mika'yo and Aonung- he'd tramped out onto the beach together, making good on his bet that he could skip stones farther than any of them combined. The thoughts of his parents and how wrongfully alarming the situation they were heading into felt had utterly consumed him to the point he'd been transported to another place.

He shook his head as if to toss out all his mind's bleariness and apologized.

"Sorry guys, kinda got carried away"

Mika'yo let out a snort, rising up from where he had previously been squatting, combing through the damp sand for the perfect skipping pebble. He stepped back from the shore, the ghost of a disguised smirk twisting his lips.