I Am Not the Last Airbender {ON HOLD}

Chapter Seventeen

“They’re here? Now?!” Macco cried out in astonishment after I quickly explained our predicament.

“Yes, that’s what I just said! Now we need to grab everything and go!” I was frantic. And so confused. Why would the Fire Nation send out war troops after two kids who ran away from home? We were friends of the Fire Lord, after all. Surely Zuko wouldn’t have done this to us. Surely he wouldn’t approve of us being hunted like animals. Surely…

But whatever their reason for being here or their intentions or even their motives, we had to get away from them. All of our stuff was loaded onto Appa within minutes. Using my canteen water, I extinguished our fire and tried to scatter the contents. Maybe they wouldn’t notice…maybe.

“We can’t just fly Appa,” Macco said as I was about to jump aboard.

“Why not?” I asked, irritated. We had to get going!

“They’ll see us sooner, Jay,” he said matter-of-factly. Oh. Yeah.

Begrudgingly, I obliged and we began to sprint father inland, Appa at our side. I felt bad for the big guy, though. It must be harder to maneuver closely congregated trees being of larger size and with a load on your back.

As we ran, it began to drizzle, then shower, then rain, then pour. Just our luck. The ground at our feet became muddy and slick. A few times my foot got stuck in the mud and I had to pause to pull it out. (Macco fell down a few times. Poor kid was covered in mud and wet from head to toe.) Those were agonizing seconds of dread, wondering if they would overtake us. I was sure they were following us. They had to be. With an airbison on land, we were sure to be making a clear path through the forest for them to follow with ease. Not to mention massive footprints.

It felt like we had been running forever. I didn’t know I had that much endurance in me. Oh, what wonders adrenaline can do. Ba Sing Se or some kind of settlement, any sort of population, had to be coming up soon. It seemed like we’d have to run across half of the Earth kingdom before we reached civilization.

Then, all of a sudden, the forest stopped. It just ceased to go on. There was only land before us. Some was dry, some was green. There were some trees, there were some rocks. I can’t exactly put into words how to describe it. It was a blessing to be out of the forest full of obstacles, but at the same time, it was a curse. We were out in the open with almost no place to hide. It was time to get on Appa. Now that I thought about it, why hadn’t we just ridden on Appa while he ran in the first place? It would have been so much faster. (*facepalm*)

“Macco! Let’s get on Appa, now!”

He nodded in reply, breathless. Great, now we were both exhausted. Stupid, Jalia, stupid! (*double facepalm*)

We jumped into the saddle and I lifted the reins with a, “yip, yip! ” Appa was more than ready to take to the air. He sighed as he lifted off the ground, able to again rest his feet. We flew for several minutes. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if we were being followed. There was no sign that the Fire Nation had even left the forest. There were no war balloons in the air that I could see, either.

Twenty minutes passed, and I grew restless. They had to know that we were in the forest. They had to have seen us. They had to be on our trail… I couldn’t stop worrying. Macco was knocked out in the back, the lucky turtleduck.

Suddenly, I heard a noise coming from below. I looked down, suspicious. I’d been looking around ever five seconds, I couldn’t have missed sometime, could I? But low and behold, two mongoose dragons rode below us, silently and quickly, with two familiar passengers in tow.

---

I'm sorry it's really bad and short and has a cliffhanger and is really late. A lot's happened in the past few weeks and I felt that I just needed to upload something for you guys and this is what I had. I hope it will be okay until I can get another chapter up soon. So sorry, everyone.

~Suzanne