Katara

Katara wriggled back and forth unable to find comfort in the plush, green linens of her large bedroll at her Ba Sing Se home. She stared at the wood paneled ceiling begging sleep to come, but finding little relief. Their group, or, as named by Sokka, "Team Avatar", entered their second week in Ba Sing Se the next morning. Katara dreaded the rising sun since it was bound to remind her of their continued failure to alert the Earth king of the upcoming solar eclipse. Possibly, the only day to ever exist that would offer the Earth Kingdom the opportunity to take back and win this war against the Fire Nation.

Katara released an audible groan before snapping her mouth shut again, hoping she hadn't woke her housemates. But Sokka's rhythmic snores continued the next room over and silence in the direction of Aang and Toph's rooms assured her of their slumber.

Just as she managed to close her eyes, a small warm figure landed heavily on her stomach. She sat upright in bed, reaching instinctively for the water canteen kept on the floor by her side. Momo's huge, green eyes reflected her own as the creature blinked sadly down at her. She let the canteen drop to the floor and collapsed onto her back again.

"Sorry, Momo, you scared me." Momo responded with a small chortle. It sounded like a sad sound to Katara. The creature usually slept with Aang, but her groan of frustration must have woken him. Instead, he curled up at her side with his tail wrapped over her stomach.

"I know you must miss him," Katara sympathized, speaking of Appa, their lost flying bison. She rubbed behind Momo's large ears. His warm presence actually provided her comfort and she managed to, at last, close her eyes and find sleep.

Sokka, Aang and Katara stood shoulder to shoulder the next morning in front of the rectangular mirror in their large bathroom. Sokka made eyes at the new mustache forming across his upper lip looking more than a bit pleased with himself while Aang shaved his head and rubbed his hand across the blue arrow on top of his head. Katara fixed her hair humming to herself lightly as she carefully placed the distinct water tribe ringlets on either side of her face.

"Toph! Aren't you going to get ready for the day?" She called out.

Toph emerged from her room with a long, sleepy yawn and Katara couldn't help, but jump at the sight of her. She looked suspiciously like one of the swamp monsters they'd encountered some weeks ago, covered in dirt and grim with her hair flying in all directions.

Even Aang, who would be the last to judge a person by their outward appearance winced, "Erm, good morning, Toph!" He attempted brightly.

"Good morning yourself, Twinkletoes", she responded none to kindly. "Seven days in this spirits forsaken place and we're no step closer to seeing the Earth King and defeating the fire nation or finding Appa!"

Katara watched Aang wince out of the corner of her eye at the mention of Appa.

"Hey!" Said Sokka indignantly, "We did make it into that rich people party! At least now we have a better idea of what's going on in this city!"

"And what a success that was," Toph responded rolling her eyes.

Katara winced again her mind flashing back to the disaster that had been the Earth King's dinner party. Not only had they failed to see the Earth King, they'd discovered he controlled very little of his own city and earned themselves a new watchful tail of Dai Li officers. The Dai Li remained at a distance and rarely interfered with the group's day to day activities, but their mere presence put everyone on edge and hindered any plans to rally the Earth Kingdom against the Fire Nation in anticipation for the solar eclipse.

Katara strove to end the tension between the group. "I'm headed down to the Lower Ring to help in the medical tents. Toph, why don't you join me for the day?"

Toph snorted, "What use am I healing soldiers and refuges?"

"I'm sure many people in the Lower Ring would benefit from your, er, positivity," Katara attempted with a hesitant smile.

"I know when you're lying, remember?" Toph scoffed. "But fine."

Surprised by her success and a little nervous to spend the day with an angry earthbender, Katara left the room to pack her supplies for what she presumed would be a rigorous day.

"Toph, water! Ok, bandages…er, no the longer ones, yes, thanks!" Katara held her hand over the festering wound of an earthbender refuge attempting to drive out the infection growing within the wound.

"Your, Highness," Toph muttered so only Katara would hear passing her the indicated bandages. Katara shot her a stern look, but pressed her lips together. Despite Toph's attitude that morning, she'd been helpful throughout the day in the Lower Ring assisting Katara in healing soldiers and refuges alike. In fact, though Katara worried about Toph's brash attitude, it turned out to be exactly what many of the earthbender soldiers needed to cheer up. They traded earthbending stories with Toph and laughed at her reiterations of fighting as the Blind Bandit back in Gaoling.

Katara watched one soldier, fresh from a foot amputation due to a nasty burn smile for the first time in, most likely, weeks as Toph demonstrated one of her favorite fighting stances.

The green medic tents had taken over portions of Ba Sing Se's Lower Ring neighborhoods converting abandoned and dilapidated houses into much needed medical centers with entire streets blocked off to allow healers to work undisturbed with the injured and sick. Katara discovered the medic tents the day after the disastrous dinner party at the urging of their "host". She suspected it was more of a plan to keep at least one of them busy and unable to plot a way to get to the Earth King, however, Katara took to the job with gusto. She felt needed and important when a child recovered from a nasty whooping cough at her hands, parents smiling as they moved to thank her. Or when a soldier came back with a life-threatening burn at the hands of the fire nation, the kind which would never heal properly on its own, but with help from her waterbending all that remained was a small scar.

The Ba Sing Se healers revered her having never witnessed a waterbender heal before. They brought to her the sickest patients and most challenging cases. Katara refused to let them down.

She felt a bit guilty for neglecting Aang and his waterbending training, but, as the first element he learned apart from airbending, he'd nearly mastered all, but the most advanced forms. Instead, most of Aang's time divided between searching for Appa and training with Toph in one of the many Inner Ring earthbending gardens.

Noting the darkening sky, Katara called to Toph. Toph nodded and hurried over to her, "Time to head back?" She guessed.

"Let's get going," Katara agreed.

Packing up their medical supplies the two girls began the long trek back to the Inner Ring.

Only fifteen minutes later and still deep within the Lower Ring, Toph and Katara grumbled to each other about burning calves and sore thighs. Katara reflected that, after months of travel, she should really be more conditioned to a strenuous lifestyle, but walking with Toph provided too good of an opportunity to complain.

They momentarily halted in their grievances as the sound of a woman's scream assaulted their ears.

"Come on!" Toph shouted a step ahead of Katara as they ran toward the source of the scream. For the millionth time, Katara was grateful for Toph's rare ability to use her earthbending to "see" vibrations around her which also allowed her to locate the source of a loud sound quicker than most people.

The woman screamed again and Katara felt in her gut she and her friend would be too late to stop whatever harm befell the woman. She followed panting behind Toph.

"She's in the next alley over!" Toph shouted, "It will take too long to go around all these buildings." Toph stopped abruptly and Katara nearly crashed into her back.

Toph approached the wall of one of the simple, multi-level houses of the Lower Ring. She touched the wall, "Clay!" She exclaimed triumphantly.

Using her earthbending, Toph molded handholds into the side of the building. Feeling slightly guilty for the destruction of property, Katara followed Toph also taking advantage of the earthbended handholds.

Climbing onto the triangle thatched roof, Toph and Katara crawled so they could look down on the other side. Katara realized, just as they looked, the woman was no longer screaming.

Katara made a sound of surprise when she took in the site below her. Said woman stood back up against the side of one of the houses, arms crossed protectively around her swollen belly. In front of her a battle took place. Five large men wearing brown tank tops and ripped pants brandished various size knives and circled around a long figure wearing all black and a blue mask holding dual swords in front of him. They lunged as one but the figure leapt into the air and spun disarming half the men in one swipe of his swords.

"We need to help!" Katara exclaimed. Toph grabbed her arm to hold her back. "Hang on," Said Toph, "Give someone else the chance to play hero. If it goes wrong I'll slide right down this roof."

"Well, so will I," Katara grumbled, but she fixed her eyes back on the fight below her.

The masked figure succeeded in defeating and tying up all but one man. The last man Katara presumed to be the leader of gang and he had more skill with the knife than the others. To her shock, the large man angrily threw his knife on the ground.

"Nice sword dancing, stranger," he growled, "How will you deal with this!" The man kicked into the ground uprooting the earth their and tossing the newly formed boulder at the masked man. Taken by surprise, the masked man didn't move fast enough to block the boulder.

"Oh no!" Katara shouted moving to slide down the roof not caring about the two story fall. She'd barely pulled herself over the edge when the speeding boulder split in half in a blazing explosion of fire.

Katara and Toph's stunned expressions matched that of the gang leader. The masked figure moved smoothly like a ghost between the split boulder capturing the large earthbender's wrists and twisting them behind his back before he could move. The figure then sheathed his swords and turned to the woman.

The woman stuttered with the shock of her savior being a firebender. After a few long seconds she breathed out, "Thank you…."

The blue mask tilted forward in acknowledgment.

Beginning to recover from her shock, a brilliant idea lit up in Katara's head. "Hey!" Katara shouted sliding on her bottom down the roof toward the woman and masked stranger.

The blue mask turned in her direction and, not a moment later, the man disappeared down the alley. Forced to sit on the edge of the thatched roof so as not to break her legs, Katara called after him, "Hey, wait, I just want to talk to you!"

Taking longer to recover from her shock, Toph slid down on her feet to the spot where Katara sat and earthbended a portion of the floor of the alley up towards them. Katara leapt onto the island of land beside Toph who lowered them into the alley.

"Toph! Help me catch him!" She called to her friend as she took off after the masked figure.

The friends sprinted down the alley. "I can't see him anywhere!" Katara scanned the T in the road they'd come to.

"Left!" Toph shouted in response not missing a beat. They ran about five minutes longer Katara now following behind Toph who threw directions over her shoulder as they went.

"Ugh, for the spirits' sake!" Toph stopped and let out a frustrated growl. "I lost him."

"How?" Katara demanded sounding harsher than she'd meant.

"He's jumping between buildings making it harder to track him, I can't see the air."

Katara sighed, disappointed. "Katara, why did we go after this guy in the first place? He's a firebender if you didn't notice."

"Exactly!" Katara responded excitedly.

Toph gave her a blank look "Care to explain, Sugar Queen, I'm not following."

"There's a firebender in Ba Sing Se! That must mean he's not with the Fire Nation, he's probably hiding from them same as everyone here!"

"Or he's a spy," Toph continued skeptically.

"I don't think so," Katara continued, "I don't think a spy would waste his time saving people in the dead of night."

Realization began to dawn across Toph's face. "So if this guy is a firebender and he isn't with the Fire Nation then…"

Katara grinned triumphantly, "We found Aang a firebending teacher."