Chapter 3-The River Spirit
Master list. ATLA series master list
After our leave from the island in the Fire Nation homeland, we found ourselves flying above a disgustingly polluted river. It was actually at a good time, though, because Appa needed some rest from flying and the river allowed him to easily swim. And Aang, being who he is, wanted to also swim in the river, have some fun while we followed Sokka's strict schedule he made that would end with the invasion plan.
"Hey, guys, I think this river's polluted," Aang frowned after he hopped back onto Appa's saddle.
"You think?" I asked after Aang sprayed the pollution all over us.
"Well, that explains why I can't catch a fish around here," Sokka complained. "Because normally my fishing skills are... off the hook... Get it? Like a fishing hook?"
"Too bad your skills aren't on the hook," Toph joked and we all laughed; well, except for Sokka.
"It looks like we'll need to go somewhere else to get food," said Katara. "...Assuming that'll fit into Sokka's master schedule."
"Hmm... it's doable," Sokka deemed as he stared at his schedule. "But that means only two potty breaks today."
"Hey, maybe we can get food there," Aang pointed.
All of us followed Aang's finger to see a sad, rundown river town just sitting in the middle of the pollution. Since it seemed that it was our only option for food, we decided to park Appa in the vegetation beside the river before making our way over to the town.
"There. Now you look just like a little hill with horns," Aang smiled after placing a blanket of moss over Appa. "Bye, buddy!"
"...I don't feel anything," Toph said as we marched to the edge of the rocks we were on that were beside the town. "Where is this village?"
"It's in the middle of the river, surrounded by water," I explained to the blind girl.
We all looked down the side of the rocks to see an old Fire Nation man on top of a crude raft.
"My name's Dock," he greeted happily. "Mind if I ask who you are?"
"We're, um, from the Earth Kingdom colonies," Katara lied.
"Wow, colonials," Dock awed. "Hop on, I'll give you a ride into town."
Agreeing on the idea, we all nodded to each other and made our way down the side of the rocks to take Dock up on his offer.
"Why do you guys live on the river?" Katara asked as Dock rowed the raft along with a stick.
"Because we're a fishing town. At least, that's how it was before the factory moved in," Dock explained as the factory, a few ways away, came into view. "Army makes their metal there. Moved in a few years ago and started gunking up our river. For now, our little village is struggling to survive."
"Thanks for the ride," Aang waved as we hopped off Dock's raft.
Upon our arrival into the river town, we noticed how depressed and gloomy, not only the town was, but the people too. Everyone was just lying about, saying and doing nothing.
These poor people. The Fire Nation is even cruel to their own people.
"Look at this place," said Katara. "It's so sad. We have to do something to help."
"No, we can't waste our time here," Sokka argued. "We have a bigger mission that we need to stay focused on. These people are on their own."
"These people are starving, but you turn your back on them?" Katara stomped up to Sokka. "How can you be so cold and heartless?"
"I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic," said Sokka. "We can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into. We'll be helping them all by taking out the Fire Lord."
"Hey, Loudmouth..!" Toph exclaimed as she covered Sokka's mouth. "Maybe we should be a little quieter when we talk about taking out the Fire Lord."
"Come on, Katara, be reasonable about this," Sokka continued once his mouth was uncovered. "You know our mission has to come first."
"...I guess so," Katara said reluctantly.
"Let's just get what we need and go," Aang smiled, trying to make Katara feel better.
Together, we walked our way into the center of the town where we found one small merchant shop that sold food. Sokka rang the bell on the counter and Dock appeared, ready to serve us what we needed.
"Hey, Dock, you work here too?" Sokka asked.
"I'm not Dock, I'm Xu," 'Xu' corrected. "Dock's my brother."
...But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
"But we just saw you," said Aang. "You're even wearing the same clothes. The only difference is your hat."
"Dock works on the docks, that's why they call him 'Dock'. And I work in the shop, that's why they call me 'Xu'," Xu explained.
"I... don't get it," said Aang.
"Me neither," Xu smiled before he brought a large crate up onto the counter. "What can I get you?"
Inside the crate was a large amount of seemingly unfresh fish and clams.
"Hey, I'll give you a special deal," said Xu. "If you buy three fish, I'll throw in a clam for free."
Sokka pushed down onto a clam which caused the clam to spit out polluted water from the river. Katara, Aang, and I all shot back in disgust.
"We'll just take the fish," said Sokka. "Mind telling your brother we need a ride back to shore?"
Xu quickly wrapped up our fish and handed it to Katara before ducking under the counter and changing back into Dock.
"Hey, Colonials," Dock greeted. "My brother says you need a lift."
Dock hopped over the counter of his 'brother's' shop to lead the way to the docks, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young boy approach Katara. I stopped and watched their interaction.
"Can you spare some food?" the boy asked.
Katara knelt down and handed the boy one of our fish, "I wish I could help more."
The boy bowed happily to Katara before rushing over to a sick woman lying in a bed. Katara stared for a moment before turning to see that I had been watching.
"...Please don't tell Sokka," she said.
"Oh, I won't," I said before placing a hand on her shoulder. "And I know how much you want to help these people. Sometimes little things are all that we can give."
Katara nodded before taking one last glance at the sick woman.
After dinner, we started to clean some of the water from the river to use as our drinking and bathing water for later. Aang and Toph bended the water and dirt apart while Katara and I bended the unmuddied water into a large pot above a fire to boil.
"Our detour into town today has completely thrown off our schedule," Sokka complained. "It's gonna take some serious finagling to get us back on track."
"Finagle away o schedule master," Toph frowned.
We all began to surround Sokka and his schedule as he explained what needed to be done to fix it.
"Well, for starters, it looks like we'll need to wake up forty-three minutes earlier every day."
"Forty-three minutes?" Katara questioned as she handed out cups of water.
"Look, we only have a few weeks to get to the Fire Lord in time for the invasion and the eclipse which, by the way, only lasts for eight minutes. And we just lost a whole day. So if we want to make up the time and stay on schedule we have to wake up early."
"Well, I'm not waking up early," Toph stated as she lied back.
"Or we could just cut out all of our eating breaks," Sokka pouted.
"...I got it, how's this?" said Sokka. "From now on, we'll take food breaks and potty breaks at the same time."
We all immediately dejected the idea.
"Hey, it might be gross but it's efficient. Either way, we have to leave here first thing tomorrow morning."
"I, um, I got you something."
He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small, thin, green box. He awkwardly handed it to me and I gladly accepted it. I slowly took the top off the box to see that inside was a blue ribbon necklace with a golden crescent moon pendant. I stared at it, a bit in shock, before looking up at him with a smile.
"I know you said that you didn't want anything but... I remembered your mother's necklace and how much it meant to you, so I thought that maybe this could, uhβ"
"...I love it," I whispered. "Could you help me put it on?"
He nodded as he grabbed the necklace from the box. I turned around and parted the back of my hair so that he could easily tie the necklace. I sat for a few seconds, waiting to feel the ribbon lightly wrap around my neck. But it didn't happen.
"Kailea, it took me long to realize it, but..."
Curious at what was taking so long, I turned and found him standing right in front of me with his arm straight out, dangling the necklace in my face.
The whole world around me went completely dark. I couldn't see anything until the necklace caught fire within his grip and quickly turned to ash. With the last amount of fire illuminating a small circle of light around us, I turned and ran away in fear. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my ears which blended with the sound of my ragged breaths. When I ran into darkness and couldn't see anything, I stopped. I placed my hands on my knees and took a moment to catch my breath.
I sharply inhaled as his figure was in front of me again, now illuminated by lighting that flowed out of his fingertips as he charged the strike. I felt myself completely freeze, unable to act, or even scream. He outstretched his arm, fingertips pointed at me. Lightning shot out of them. Its sharp, piercing light highlighting its path as it hitβ
I softly gasped as my eyes shot open. I awoke with a start but I stayed in my position of lying down in my sleeping bag. Cold sweat cooled my body and made my sleeping back stick to me.
Every night... I get scared by a different nightmare but they all end the same...
I slowly arose, letting my skin breathe by removing some of my sleeping bag. From my upright position, I noticed a figuring slowly trying to sneak into an empty sleeping bag. Their long hair gave them away.
I saw her figure jolt in surprise before sharply turning to face me. She gave me an awkward smile as she stood by her sleeping bag.
"Hey, Kailea. Sorry if I woke you up," she whispered back, still wearing an awkward smile.
"What're you doing up? It's really late."
"I just... uh," she drawled. "Had to... Had to pee..! You know, it suddenly woke me up. Kind of an emergency..."
"...Uh-huh," I nodded with slight suspicion.
"Well, now I'm just gonna go back to sleep," Katara said as she wiggled into her sleeping bag. "Good night."
"Night," I shrugged before lying back down.
The next morning, everyone woke up to a sick Appa, lying on his side.
"I think Appa's sick," Katara stated.
"What? Appa's sick? That's awful!" Sokka exclaimed.
"Wow, Sokka, I didn't realize you cared so much," said Toph.
"Of course I care," said Sokka. "I might as well just throw our schedule away now."
We all turned to him and glared in disappointment at his lack of sympathy for Appa's health. Noticing our glares, Sokka quickly ran up to Appa and lightly pet him.
"And I'm concerned because my big, furry friend doesn't feel well."
"He must've gotten sick from being in the polluted water," Toph suggested.
"He doesn't look sick," said Aang. "Are you okay, buddy?"
As a response, Appa opened his mouth with a weak roar to reveal his tongue.
"His tongue is purple," Aang said as he dragged Appa's tongue out. "That can't be good. Katara, can you heal him?"
"It looks like he needs some medicine," said Katara. "Maybe we can find the right herbs in town."
Hitching another ride from Dock, we made it back to the river town and started to make our way to Xu's store. But something was weird. Today, the people of the town were more lively and they were moving around. They all seemed to be in better spirits for some reason.
"Is it just me, or does this place seem different?" Toph asked.
"This place is definitely different," I said. "What do you think happened?"
Everyone shrugged at my question before continuing to head towards the store.
"Hey, Xu, what's going on with everyone today?" Sokka asked.
"Ah, something amazing happened last night," Xu smiled. "Food was delivered by a mysterious and wonderful person. The Painted Lady."
"The painted who now?" Katara asked.
"The Painted Lady," Xu repeated as he placed a small wooden statuette of a woman with red body markings and pale brown drapes on the counter. "She's part of our town's lore. They say she's a river spirit who watches over our town in times of need. I always thought she was just a legend. Until now."
Xu motioned to the happy people of the river town.
"See, we don't need to help these people, they already have someone to help them," Sokka told Katara before turning back to Xu. "All we need is medicine for our sick friend."
"Medicine? Sorry, all the medicine we have goes to the factory," said Xu. "That's why there's so many sick people in our village."
"Looks like we need to stay another night so Appa can rest," said Katara.
"I guess you're right," Sokka sighed. "You got any more food to sell?"
Xu ducked down quickly before popping back up with a fish in each hand.
"Would you like the one-headed fish or the two-headed fish?" Xu asked.
I don't think the second option is natural...
"Two-headed," Sokka grabbed it from Xu.
We all looked at Sokka with disgust and slight concern.
"What, you get more for your money that way," Sokka held the fish up to us and we all sweatdropped.
"We need to leave before Sokka kills us," I said and we all took off running.
That night, I tossed and turned. I wasn't able to fall asleep at all. At times, I would space out and hope that my mind would eventually give in, but it didn't.
I guess I'm just too scared to relive anything right now...
I ultimately got so tired that I wasn't tired anymore and thought about going for a short walk. When I made it to the edge of the rocks, I looked out at the river town and noticed a large amount of fog that surrounded it.
Whoa... Did I actually fall asleep?
As I watched the fog drift around the town, a bright blue light caught my attention. The light pulsed within a small shack that was in the river town and stopped once a draped figure came out of it.
Is that the Painted Lady? She's real..?
The Painted Lady paused for a moment before jumping into the river and disappearing. I continued to stare at the town as I watched the fog slowly disappear. Once all of the fog was gone, I decided to head back to the group and try to fall asleep again, until out of the corner of my eye, I caught the Painted Lady appearing at the crude dock that Dock worked at. I watched as the Painted Lady removed her hat that was covered with drapes and revealed herself.
I quickly covered my mouth, regretting my impulsive action. She shot her head up at me before running up the inclined rocks to get to me.
"You're the Painted Lady?" I immediately questioned her. "You've tricked these people into thinking you're their savior?"
"No, not at all, it's not like that," Katara quickly denied. "Look, I felt so bad for these people that I helped them the other night. But when Xu mentioned the Painted Lady, I thought... I thought that I should take up the part..."
Katara glanced at me and noticed my shocked and slightly disapproving expression.
"You know these people need help," said Katara. "And we can't do anything for them right now because they think we're Fire Nation. I can't heal anyone without suspicion unless I'm the Painted Lady. This was the only way."
I lightly rubbed my eyes before sighing.
"Katara, I understand that this pose is the only way you can heal these people but..." I paused. "But it's not the only way you can help them. If they find out that you've been impersonating their guardian spirit... they won't be very pleased."
"Please, Kailea, a couple more nights. These people need the Painted Lady," Katara begged.
"...Fine. But only a couple more nights. We need to be leaving soon. You know Sokka and his schedule," I said.
Katara happily smiled before tightly embracing me.
"You won't tell anyone?" she asked.
"Hi, Dock, is Xu around?" Sokka greeted once we made it back into town.
"Let me check," Dock said before running around and coming back as Xu. "Hey there, back again, are you?"
"We need more food," Toph pushed Sokka out of the way. "Our friend is still sick and we can't leave until he's better."
Toph placed some coins on the counter and Xu replaced them with clams.
"Did you make Appa sick, by the way?" I whispered to Katara.
"I just gave him some berries that dyed his tongue purple," Katara whispered back.
"Oh, well, that's too bad," said Xu. "Maybe if you guys are lucky, the Painted Lady will visit you in the night and heal your friend."
"And maybe she'll cook us a midnight snack and we'll all have a sing-along," Sokka responded sarcastically.
"Yeah, maybe," Xu smiled. "You know, last night she visited us again. Healed most of our sick folks."
"Is that why this place seems so festive?" Aang asked.
"Yep, it's all because of the Painted Lady," Xu explained as we watched some men erect a statue of the spirit.
"Can you believe how much an entire village can be affected by one lady?" Katara asked. "I mean, spirit?"
"Well, I hope she returns every night," said Sokka. "Otherwise this place would go right back to the way it was."
"Why would you say that?" Katara glared. "Look how much better off these people are."
"Yeah, now. But without her, they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves," Sokka argued. "If she really wanted to help she would use her spirit magic to blow up that factory."
Sokka waved his arms around as he imitated a spirit and then finished with an explosion sound effect.
"Spirit magic doesn't work that way, Sokka," Aang said. "It's more like..."
Aang did his own imitation of a spirit exploding something before the two joined together to laugh.
That night, still not being able to sleep, I helped Katara get ready to become the Painted Lady. She dressed herself in flowing drapes while I applied her red body paint according to the Painted Lady statuette. When Katara was ready, she started her way towards the river town while I headed back to my sleeping bag for another night of spacing out.
"Hello, Painted Lady spirit!"
I stopped just by my sleeping bag when Aang shouted at Katara's fading figure. I noticed that Katara started to run faster and before Aang could run after her, I quickly grabbed his arm.
"I-I don't think the Painted Lady wants to be bothered right now..." I tried to stop him.
"This'll only take a second," Aang smiled. "We need her to heal Appa and then she can continue back to helping the town."
Aang freed himself from my grasp and sprinted towards the Painted Lady. I sighed to myself before running after both of them
"Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you," Aang said as we chased Katara up some rocks. "But my friend's sick and we're on kind of a tight schedule."
I continued to run just a few meters from Aang as he chased after the fake spirit as she made it to the river.
"Wait, but I'm the great bridge between your world and mine," Aang explained to her.
Aang and I made it to the shore where we both used our water bending to follow her to the river town.
"I know Hei Bai, we're close friends," Aang added.
Aang continued to chase after Katara while I continued to chase after Aang. We followed after one another all the way to the other edge of the river, past the town. Aang eventually caught up to Katara and she did her best to hide her face with her hat.
"My name's Aang. I'm the Avatar," Aang greeted as he showed his arrow.
"Well, hello Avatar," Katara said in a strange voice that almost made me laugh. "I wish I could talk, but I am very busy."
"Yeah, me too. I hate that," said Aang. "You know, you're really pretty for a spirit. I don't get to meet too many spirits, but the ones I do meet... not very attractive."
"You seem familiar, too," said Aang.
"Aang, I think the Painted Lady has to go," I urged. "She said she's really busy."
"No, but she really seems familiar," Aang insisted.
"Look, I really should get going," Katara went to run away until Aang air bended her hat off.
"Hi, Aang," Katara sighed.
"You're the Painted Lady? But how?" Aang pointed.
"I wasn't at first, I was just trying to help the village," Katara explained. "But since everyone thought that's who I was anyway... I guess I just kind of became her."
"So you've been sneaking out at night?" Aang asked. "Wait, is Appa even sick?"
"He might be sick of the purple berries I've been feeding him, but other than that, he's fine," Katara admitted.
"And, did you know about this?" Aang turned to me.
"Only for a day," I shrugged. "I interrogated her about it, too, but I also promised to keep it a secret for her."
"I can't believe you lied to everyone so you could help these people," Aang frowned at Katara.
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have."
"No, I think it's great," said Aang. "You're like a secret hero."
"Well, if you want to help... there's one more thing I have to do," Katara explained.
Katara explained to me and Aang that she wanted to destroy the factory that polluted the river. With all of the things that Dock/Xu explained about the factory, I had no problem with agreeing to do it.
"You want to destroy this factory?" Aang clarified as we stood just outside of it.
"Yes, Sokka was just kidding, but he was right," said Katara. "Getting rid of this factory is the only way to help these people permanently.
The three of us ran inside and immediately split up. Katara cut the chains of buckets to make lava spill and collect. Aang dumped the larger buckets onto the mess that was already made by Katara. And I bended a large wave of water from the river onto the lava inside the factory to put it all out of use. When the factory started to explode from malfunction, we decided to leave. By the time we made it back to the others and got Katara out of her Painted Lady disguise, the sun was above the horizon.
"Shh, we don't want to wake Sokka," Katara said to Aang as he just finished making exploding noises.
Much to our surprise, both Sokka and Toph were already up and waiting for us.
"Hi... Sokka," Katara greeted. "We were just out on a morning walk."
"Oh, really?" Sokka frowned. "A morning walk?"
Sokka quickly pulled Katara's sleeping bag out from behind him and dumped out the moss that was stuffed inside of it. Katara, Aang, and I hung our heads in guilt.
"I know you're the Painted Lady," Sokka pointed. "I know you've been sneaking out at night. And I know you've been lying about Appa and feeding him purple-izing-tongue berries."
Sokka pointed to Toph who stuck out her own purple tongue as she held up the bag of berries.
"Katara, what you did put our whole mission in jeopardy. We're leaving right now."
Dejectedly, Katara began to walk towards her stuff to pack it up.
"And how long have you two known about this?" Sokka asked me and Aang.
"Hey, I just found out this morning," Aang said before taking off.
"I found out the other night," I told him.
"And you didn't bother to tell me?"
"No," I stated simply before walking away.
I heard Sokka exclaim in extreme annoyance at my unwillingness to do what he wants. I smiled at myself, pleased that I have bothered him once again as a sibling.
The sound of dangerous motors pulled us all out of our actions of packing up. We all rushed to the edge of the rocks to look at the people from the factory coming into town.
"What's going on?" Toph asked.
"Fire Nation soldiers are heading to the village," Aang explained.
"What did you do?" Sokka shot at Katara.
"...I kind of destroyed their factory."
"You what?" Sokka yelled.
"It was your idea," Katara shot.
"I was joking! I also said to use spirit magic and made funny noises," Sokka facepalmed. "Did you even think this through? The army's gonna blame the villagers. They're headed there right now to get revenge."
"Well, what was I supposed to do?"
"...No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!"
Sokka backed up a small bit at Katara's outburst.
"I'm going down to the village. And I am gonna do whatever I can."
Katara started to march down to the village by herself. I glanced at Sokka as he stared down for a moment.
"She can't do this by herself, you know that," I told him.
Sokka gave me a quick look before running after Katara.
"Wait, I'm coming too," Sokka told her.
"I thought you didn't want to help," said Katara.
"You need me, and I will never turn my back on you."
"Sokka, you really do have a heart," Katara teased before they shared a hug.
"He really does have a heart, doesn't he?" Aang cried as he looked to me and Toph for a hug.
Quickly, Toph elbowed him and made him tumble to the ground.
"And you really have an empty hole in there, don't you?" I teased Toph.
"Yep!" she smiled. "You know me so well."
"All right, so, here's the plan," said Sokka. "Toph, Kailea, and I will all stay back here while Aang and Katara head towards the town. Toph, you're just going to continuously smash a rock on the ground to create a beat while Appa and I make some eerie sounds to accompany it. Kailea, you're going to use your water bending to create fog for Katara but also a smokescreen to cover me and Toph. While we're setting the tone, Katara will go in as the Painted Lady and use her water bending to defend the town while Aang will hide and also defend the town with his air bending. Everyone understand their roles?"
Sokka looked in between all of us to see us nodding our heads.
We all rushed to get into position. Lucky for us, we moved just quickly enough to get Katara to the town before the soldiers did any harm to the town's folks. I watched from afar as Katara used her water bending to throw some of the soldiers' motorboats into the rocks to destroy them. In fear, all but the soldiers' leader fled. The leader stood ready to fight and bended some fire at Katara. To dodge, Aang helped Katara fly straight up into the air before using his air bending to skip the leader like a stone in the polluted river.
"Leave this village and never come back," Katara warned the soldier before he was picked up by someone on a motorboat, and they sped away.
Once the fight was done, Sokka, Toph, and I rowed into the town to join Katara and Aang.
"Thank you," Dock approached Katara.
"Painted Lady, you're the best!"
"Me and my brothers really owe you a lot," Dock smiled. "...Hey, wait a minute. I know you. You're not the Painted Lady. You're that colonial girl."
Katara brought a hand to her face to see that her red body paint was rubbing off.
"Yeah, you're the lady that gave me a fish," the little boy from day one said.
"You've been tricking us. You're a water bender," said Dock.
"How dare you act like our Painted Lady?"
The crowd began to shout angrily at Katara until Sokka stepped in front of her.
"Maybe she is a water bender, but she was just trying to help you," Sokka shouted over them. "Because of her, that factory won't be polluting your river and the army is gone. You should be down on your knees, thanking her."
"Sokka, it's okay," said Katara. "I shouldn't have acted like someone I wasn't and I shouldn't have tricked you. But I felt like I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the Painted Lady is real or not. Because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can't wait around for someone to help you. You have to help yourself."
"She's right, but, what should we do?" Dock asked.
"Maybe we can clean the river," Toph and I said together from the crowd.
"Yeah, we can clean the river."
The crowd began to cheer before heading off to begin their start of cleaning.
"Thank you," said Dock. "You know, you're not so bad for a water bender."
"You wouldn't mind keeping that a secret, by the way, would you?" Sokka asked.
"No problem. Keeping my mouth shut is my personal specialty," Dock smiled. "My brother Xu, on the other hand, ho, he's a blabbermouth."
"So, then, will you hide this from Xu?" I ask.
Sokka facepalmed at the man with many identities.
"So, Dock, are you gonna help us clean?" Katara asked.
"No, ma'am, I'm going to get my other brother, Bushi. He loves cleaning rivers," Dock simply took off his hat to reveal a straw one that hid inside. "All right, I'm Bushi. Let's get some river cleaning done."
"Aha, I knew it. I knew you were the same guy," Aang pointed at Bushi. "You're the shop owner and the boat guy."
"Oh, you must be talking about my brothers, Dock and Xu," said Bushi.
"No, I just saw you," Aang frowned. "You switched hats and called yourself a different name."
"Oh, you know who does that? My brother Dock. He's crazy."
Lucky for us, it only took one day to completely clean the river. And by the next day, we were ready to continue on with Sokka's new and improved schedule.
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