The Undiscovered Girl (Avatar: the Last Airbender; Book 2: Earth)

The Desert

Aya's POV

"How could you let them take Appa?! ‌Why didn't you stop them‌?!"

Sandbenders had taken Appa and Toph couldn't stop them because she was busy keeping the library from sinking. Aang was enraged by what just happened and I've never seen him this angry before. I hated it.

"I couldn't! The library was sinking! You guys were still inside and-"

Aang walks up to Toph, interrupting her.

"You could've come to get us. I could've saved him!"

"I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sandbenders snuck up on me and there wasn't time for—"

"You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone!"

Hearing Aang snap like that shocked me. This seriously took a toll on him and he is furious.

Katara approaches Aang to console him. "Aang, stop it. You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives."

As brave as I am, seeing Aang like this frightened me. I love him but if he gets more emotional and angry he will activate the Avatar State.

"Who's going to save our lives now?" Sokka suddenly asked, looking out at the sea of sand that surrounds us. "We'll never make it out of here."

Aang marched irately away from us.

"That's all any of you guys care about, yourselves! You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!"

"Aang, that's not true." I argued, holding Bubbles in my arms. She was scared of Aang's behavior. "We are all concerned but we can't afford to be fighting right now."

Aang replied in a cold tone. "I'm going after Appa."

Aang opens his glider and flies off. I attempt to chase him but I stopped and called after him.

"Aang! Wait!"

Aang ignored my calls and my shoulders hunched over with sadness. I've never seen Aang like this, he went from a bright, fun loving kid to this dark, angry soul. Losing Appa destroyed him.

"Aya." Katara approached me, touching my shoulder. "We'd better start walking."

I turned to her and walked passed her without speaking. Seeing Aang this way has taken a toll on me and it's affected me immensely.

"We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se." Katara continued and we all started to trudged along the sand in front of us.

"You think if we dig out the giant owl, he'll give us a ride?"

——

We've been walking for a good period of time and all of us got tired and dehydrated. The sun was beating down on us causing all of us to get exhausted and hot and I was not doing good. None of us were. Bubbles was doing awful, she is normally from the Water Tribe, not the dry, hot desert.

I heard a thud and turned to see that Toph had bumped into Sokka.

"Can't you watch where you're-" He stops when he see that Toph had bumped into him.

"No!"

"Right. Sorry."

"Come on guys, we've got to stick together." Katara turned to us with encouragement and I gave her a weary expression.

"If I sweat anymore, I don't think sticking together will be a problem."

I turned to Sokka and saw that him and Toph were stuck together due to the sweat that was coming off them. I grimaced lightly at this.