𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍, sokka

thirteen.

"it's just a tree," sokka says exasperatedly. "it can't call anyone. there's nothing magical happening here, and there's nothing after us."

as soon as sokka finishes speaking, what seems to be a monster made of seaweed jumps out at them from the water. the gang all starts to run in different directions.

kierah sees the monster start to attack sokka, but aang comes to his rescue. the monster changes directions and goes after aang next, and aang is thrown backward into the trees. the monster turns back around and grabs sokka again. kierah and katara both attack the monster, slicing at it with their waterbending. they get it to release sokka, but they are both thrown back almost immediately after.

kierah gets back up from where the monster threw her to see sokka being sucked inside the middle of the monster. she runs back to the monster and starts slicing rapidly with waterbending. katara joins her, and together they get the monster to release sokka. they also open a gaping hole where the vines the monster was made of couldn't regenerate fast enough.

"there's a person in there!" sokka yells. "i think he's bending the vines!"

katara and kierah slice at the monster's face, and the top half of the monster falls apart. this doesn't stop the monster, though, and more vines spring out of the swamp, trapping kierah and katara and raising them high up on a pillar.

aang rips apart the monster with his airbending. "why did you call us here just to kill us?" he demands.

"wait!" a voice comes from inside the vines. the vines then fall to reveal an old man wearing a loincloth. "i didn't call you here!" he says.

"what?" aang says, confused. "but we were flying over this swamp and i heard something calling to me, telling me to land here."

"he's the avatar," sokka adds. "stuff like that happens to us a lot."

"the avatar?" the man says. "come with me." he motions for them to follow him to the large tree.

"my name is huu," he says. "i protect this swamp from folks who want to hurt it, like the guy with his big knife." he gestures to sokka, who then finally puts away his machete.

"see," sokka says. "a completely reasonable explanation. no monster, nothing mystical going on here, just a regular guy defending his home."

"oh, no, the swamp is a mystical place." huu sits down under the tree. "i heard it calling me, just like you did."

"sure you did. it seems real chatty," sokka says sarcastically.

kierah elbows him in the side.

"this whole swamp is actually just one big tree, spread out over miles," huu continues. "one living organism, much like the world."

"I understand how the tree is one big thing, but the entire world?" aang says skeptically as they all sit down, listening to huu.

"sure," huu says. "you're not any different from your friends or this tree. we're all living together, even if sometimes we don't act like it. we're all branches of the same tree."

"what about the visions we had?" katara asks. "what did they mean?"

"the swamp shows us visions of people we loved, people that we lost and think are gone. but the swamp is telling us that they're not. we're still connected to them. time is an illusion, and so is death."

"but what about mine and kierah's visions? we'd never met those people," aang says.

"you're the avatar," huu says cryptically. "you tell me."