The Awakening (SpawnofSatan)

What Happened?

~Na li~

I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. All I wanted was to go see Aang, and of course figure out why the heck we were on a Fire Nation ship. But apparently, I couldn't do either.

When I regained consciousness, Jey had tried explaining what happened to me, but she didn't get very far. As soon as I saw Aang, who was walking towards the door with help from Katara, something in me told me to go to him. My dragoness instincts kicked in and all hell broke loose.

My wings grew out of my shoulder blades accidentally, and I charged. I tried to run to Aang, but Sokka and Toph got in front of me and held me back, trying to block my way. Jey grabbed my arm to hold me back. Even though I knew that when a phoenix gets a hold of something it never lets go until he very last moment, I was still bound and determined to get away from her and get to Aang. When Katara came over to stop the commotion, I lashed out. I bit, scratched, clawed, kicked and shoved at all of them. I didn't know it, but the scales that were steadily becoming visible on my skin began to burn. Eventually, everyone released me and I ran to Aang.

As soon as I got to him, I wrapped my arms around him in a hug. I think I knocked the wind out of him, judging by the OOF! sound and the way he almost fell off of Appa's foot. Once I felt the warmth of his arms around me, I relaxed and my wings folded back into my body.

"Nal," Aang started. I loved hearing his voice again, but there was something different about it. It sounded strained, "I'm really happy to see you, but--"

"Hold that thought," I said, cutting him off. I pulled out of the hug and turned around to apologize to everyone, and that's when I should have just grabbed Aang's hand and bolted.

Sokka and Toph were panting on the floor, their hands red from burns and their faces scratched. Katara was nowhere to be seen, and as much as I would have normally liked the competition out of the way, that worried me. Jey was sitting on the floor surrounded by feathers, which indicated that she had grown her wings at some point when she was holding me back. There were little scratches on her face and hands (since fire didn't affect her, she was immune to the burning intensity of my scales) and she clearly was not happy about that. She walked over to me and slapped me across the face without even saying a word. Her hair smoked and ignited and little flames danced up her arms as she stormed off down the hall.

Now I was starting to realize exactly what had happened when I broke loose, and it was not good at all. "Umm..." I looked back at Aang. "What on earth did I do?"

"NA LI YOU NEED TO LEARN TO CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS!!!" Katara yelled as she came out of the hallway. I jumped and looked over at her. She had a small bucket of water with her and shot me a look as she passed me, making her way over to her brother and Toph. Jey was behind her, a few vials of phoenix tears in her hands. She followed Katara, shooting me a look similar to the Waterbender's, and started rubbing the tears on her cuts, which consequently started to heal.

"Sorry," I said, knowing that they were still mad.

"You little--" Jey started.

"Please can we not cuss at each other?" Aang said before Jey could finish. He still sounded like he was using all of his willpower to not pass out, and that worried me a bit. Still, I was happy that he succeeded in shutting Jey up; the phoenix girl had gone over to Sokka and Toph to help Katara heal them.

"Thanks for that," I said, turning back to Aang. Then my heart dropped into my stomach. "You. Have. Hair." My expression must have been pretty hilarious, because Aang couldn't seem to hold back a crooked smirk as he reached up and rubbed the back of his head. The moment was short-lived, however, for less than a second later he winced and his hand flew across his chest. My own body jerked in sync with him as I felt something literally spark between my shoulder blades.