the wind in my sails | aang x oc

twelve

when liara awoke the next morning, she silently got dressed and styled her hair into a bun, with some pieces out to frame her face.

she then headed out to help the others pack, but once they were done, she noticed that she hadn't seen aang all morning.

"where's aang?" she asked her friends, who immediately set off to search for him.

he was nowhere in the house, and he left his staff. Momo was missing too.

while checking the beach, they found aang's footprints leading into the water.

"maybe he ran away again?" toph suggested, which seemed plausible. he was one to run away from his problems.

Liara sighed, maybe she shouldn't have told him. maybe he'd still be here if she never said anything.

"no way," sokka countered, "he left his staff and appa. he's definitely on some spirit world journey."

okay, that makes more sense.

"wouldn't his body still be here?"

nevermind

the group split up to look for aang around the island. sokka searched the perimeter, suki and katara searched in town, toph and zuko searched by the beaches and Liara searched in the forest.

"aang! I'm sorry! please can we talk about this!?" liara yelled through the forest. it was just the last bit and she didn't find him, so she opened her glider and flew home.

when she got there, everyone looked deflated, so she assumed that they got nothing.

the airbender sighed, "there has to be a way to find him..."

Zuko's face seemed to light up, "there is!"

~

a shirshu. the animal with a sense of smell so good that it can find something from a continent away.

there were  many wild shirshu in the earth kingdom when she was little, and they were very hard to tame.

june was the lady who had tamed this shirshu. she was flawless and had a bad ass attitude, liara liked her.

"do you have something with the avatar's scent on it?" June asked, petting the shirshu. liara stepped forward and handed aang's staff to the woman.

the shirshu sniffled at the staff, then it walked around in a single circle before laying on the ground and covering his nose.

"what does that mean?" sokka asked staring at the animal.

"it means your friend's gone." June stated, gaining the shirshu a piece of meat.

"like dead?" liara questioned.

"like gone, gone. he doesn't exist." the beautiful lady replied.

"how's that possible?" sokka s
asked and Liara shrugged.

"wait, I have one more person who can defeat the fire lord." zuko said and went to rummage through his bag on appa. he then pulled out a musty old sandal.

"ew, you kept your uncle's dirty old sandal?!" sokka cringed taking a step away from zuko.

"I think it sweet," toph grinned, almost making liara gag.

once the shirshu got zuko's uncle's scent, it almost ran forward at full speed, with June, toph, suki and sokka in its back.

Liara and katara mounted appa and flew after. liara kept silent for most of the ride, but around two hours in, katara had enough and joined the airbender on appa's head.

"is everything okay?" she asked, and was met with a silent nod. katara raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.

Liara sighed. "I'm scared that it's my fault that aang is missing."

katara felt anger bubble inside of her but took a breath to calm herself. "what do you mean?"

"well, aang came to my room last night to ask me what he should do about the fire lord, and he said that he didn't want to kill. and somehow that escalated into me telling him the whole story of what happened at the genocide."

that was a lot of information.

katara was now calm, no anger whatsoever, "how did he take it?"

"not well," liara huffed, "he almost immediately left my room saying that he needed to think."

oh.

"I think he'll forgive you." katara stated rather quickly, "he's a conciderate kid. he'll forgive you."

Liara looked off to the west, where the sun hung a bit low in the sky. "I dunno. but I'll see where the wind takes us."

katara smiled at the girl and appa descended, landing by the others.

"we'll camp here for the night, then we'll find zuko's uncle in the morning." sokka stated, placing his sleeping bag down on the ground.

after they had finished setting up camp, the group went to sleep in their respective sleeping bags. but liara stayed awake and took her glider and flew up to the top of the wall and stood there, looking at the stars.

"you better be safe, aang."