"Aren't there too many of us on top of Appa?" asked Katara to Aang, who was sitting on the head of his animal companion, with Shisui next to him, who seemed to have no fear of falling off.
"No, Appa is a big, strong boy, aren't you, Appa?" Aang rubbed his hands in Appa's fur, causing Appa to grunt happily.
"Flying Bisons like Appa can carry a lot of weight, you know, it is said that even a few can carry entire communities on long journeys, remember, I am a nomad," Aang pointed out that all his people did not have 'Nomad' in their name just for the sake of it.
Though they had fixed places to live, the Air Nomads occasionally made journeys, not only as a spiritual pilgrimage, but also to help others whenever they could.
Of course, there were always those among their people who did not respect these rules, but in general, the Air Nomads were welcome everywhere because of their kindness and the help they gave.
Although Aang was young at the time, he remembered traveling not only through the Fire Nation, where he met Kuzon, but also through the Earth Kingdom, where he met another of his friends, Bumi.
Not only was he on that trip, but he was surprised to see that a single Flying Bison could carry so many things without actually getting tired, so he knew firsthand the incredible power of these magnificent creatures.
Remembering his past put Aang in a somewhat melancholy emotional state, but he quickly recovered, even though he knew he had lost much and could not get it back; he knew he now had things he wanted to protect.
Aang looked at the young men who seemed to be in awe of Appa as they mounted him, and he didn't feel so alone anymore. Even though he had a smile on his face all the time, the feeling of loneliness was quite strong.
That was why he wanted to sit on Appa's head, but Shisui, noticing that Aang was not feeling well, cheekily joined him. Aang stuck his face into Appa's body before shouting.
"Appa! Yip, yip!" With these strange words, a strong wind came out of nowhere and covered the Flying Bison's body as it roared.
"What happened?" asked Azula, noticing that the wind was acting strangely as it hovered over Appa.
"Appa does that to protect us from the wind and cold in the sky," Aang replied, hesitating for a moment before continuing.
"It inspired me to create the Air Scooter." The words reminded the others of what that Airbending technique looked like, giving them a picture of what Appa was doing right now.
"Appa's elemental control is excellent." Shisui was in awe of what the Flying Bison had just done, and shortly after, the Flying Bison took off, leaving the open field of the Southern Water Tribe behind.
But except for the gentle breeze, Shisui could feel nothing else. Even the temperature felt quite pleasant, even though they had even overtaken the clouds at this point, indicating that Appa's Air Sphere was working, and working quite well.
"I love this!" shouted Ty Lee excitedly, looking up at the clouds below Appa's massive body.
"I hate this!" shouted Toph for her part... She felt disoriented and disturbed in the air, not that she couldn't use the vibrations to locate herself, but Appa was a huge creature, and every action of the creature disturbed the vibrations Toph used to perceive the world.
In addition to being unusually close to her element, she felt a certain aversion to flying, but she joined the group because she didn't want to be the only one left on the cold ground of the South Pole while the others were having fun.
"It took me a while to get used to it, to relax, it will pass," said Petra, who could understand a bit of Toph's instinctive discomfort, all because, technically, the air element and the earth element were opposites.
"This is an interesting view," Zuko said, looking at the sun in the sky, feeling quite comfortable, and to share this moment, he had Mai quite close to his body, admiring the celestial landscape.
Azula, a little envious of her brother's actions, approached Shisui, although she had a little instinctive fear of falling due to the precarious situation, she was able to sit behind her fiancé and hug him tightly while resting her head on his back.
Sokka was scared; it was his first time flying, and he held onto his spear as if it could provide the security he needed. Unlike Katara, who watched the nearby clouds with interest, feeling like she could try something with them.
"Do you think I can do Waterbending with the clouds?" Although Katara already knew the answer, she wanted to start a conversation with her brother, who was making her uncomfortable because of his nerves.
Even though she was scared too, she was more used to being in the air than Sokka was; after all, she had taken a few secret rides with Aang, and even though they didn't go very high, it allowed her to adapt much faster than her older brother.
"I think you can," Sokka replied, trying to appear more confident in front of his younger sister, who was getting used to the heights as time went on.
"I'll try." Katara wasted no time, proving herself to be one of the most talented Waterbenders of this generation. She pulled a large white cloud they had just passed through toward Appa.
With ease, she separated the water vapor from the ice crystals in the cloud, then melted and condensed them in equal parts, doing so simultaneously.
"How cool!" As if brought by a gust of wind, Aang suddenly approached Katara and watched with interest what the girl had done!
Not only were her movements smooth and subtle, but she was doing two things at once with relative ease, indicating that her waterbending skills had grown quite a bit in the past few days of practice.
Aang's comment made Katara blush and lower her head, which Sokka saw, but before he acted impulsively, she thought about Shisui's words, about the potential danger of an Airbender, and relaxed.
'If they want to flirt, let them,' Sokka mentally concluded before sitting back to admire the scenery, not wanting to miss the opportunity.
"I've tried hard enough to get better, look," Katara manipulated the two streams of water, causing them to twist and vaguely take on two shapes, only when they froze could Aang better understand what he was seeing.
They were two replicas of Aang and Appa. Under Katara's direction, the Aang replica moved stiffly but with effort, putting on a little puppet show in which the iced Aang climbed on the back of Appa, who spun around and caught everyone's attention except Toph, who didn't understand what was going on.
"Hey! You seem to be taking it easy on him," Ty Lee said, watching the ice-formed Appa's actions with interest.
"Reminds me of our childhood," Zuko remembered the little tricks Shisui used to do when they were kids, similar to what Katara was doing now.
"But she's doing quite well, I don't notice any trembling," Azula commented before looking down at her hands for a moment, a little idea that had been in her head for days now seemed to gain much more strength.
"And your copy is quite good, at least Aang's, with a lot of detail," Shisui paid more attention to Aang's figure, which was indeed detailed, too detailed.
Shisui's words disturbed Katara's control a bit, causing the ice Appa to wobble in the air; the girl was quite embarrassed by this comment, because she had really been paying attention to Aang lately, maybe too much attention.
So her impressions of Aang were portrayed in her Waterbending, so much so that even Shisui was interested. To change the subject, she brought the ice Appa in front of the real Appa, who looked at the small replica made of him with wide eyes.
Although Appa didn't understand what he was seeing at first, he soon realized that it seemed to be himself carrying his friend as he had always done, only he had never seen this scenario from another point of view, so he felt lost at first.
But he was happy about what he was seeing, so he let out a great roar. His voice echoed through the open sky, and perhaps because of his excitement, he unconsciously made Airbender, pushing all the clouds around him.
From below, it seemed as if the sky had suddenly opened up, completely clearing the sky. Many people who were at the South Pole looked up into the air and watched the scene in amazement.
They had never seen such a sight before! Many people began to talk about it, and even though it was very early in the morning, there were many people who were awake to witness it, so soon the whole village heard about what had happened.
"Looks like the big boy got excited about what you did," Toph said, a little uncomfortable because she could not understand what had attracted so much interest, so much so that even Appa roared so loudly.
"You want to see what it looks like? Just touch it," Petra suggested, causing Toph's head to shake wildly as she stared at Petra with a big smile on her face.
"That's right! Let me feel what you've done, Katara!" ordered Toph, who was used to such commands due to her status as a noble and leader of a group of 'bandits'.
"You can say please," Katara complained, but politely pulled the floating Appa toward the outstretched hands of Toph, who began to pat the ice figures.
"You didn't tell me it was so cold!" growled Toph as she felt her fingers going numb from the cold, but Katara simply lifted her chin in a dismissive gesture, too bad it didn't work on Toph because she was blind.
"That's because you didn't ask," realizing that her actions weren't as effective against Toph, Katara simply replied with obvious dryness, making Toph understand her state of mind.
"Hey, I didn't see the big guy carrying us, but from what I can sense, it's cool what you did." Knowing she had done something wrong but not wanting to apologize, Toph took the secondary route of praising Katara,
"Oh, thank you," Katara's response was much softer this time, and as a gesture of kindness, she transformed Aang's figure into Toph's, then gently placed it in the young Earthbender's hands.
"Hmm, this is me! Cooler than usual, though," Toph quickly realized that the ice figure she was holding was based on her, and she smiled.
"What are we looking at, Mai?" asked Ty Lee softly to her friend, only her whispered question was too loud and invaded Mai's personal space.
Mai, who rolled her eyes at Ty Lee's amused attitude, could only shake her head before placing her hand on her friend's forehead and nudging her to give her some personal space.
"This is how normal people make friends, Ty Lee, not by throwing snakes at others," Mai complained, remembering the first time she met Ty Lee, who threw a snake at her just because it was funny.
Funny to Ty Lee. The girl seemed to have no fear of bugs or animals that people generally avoided touching, and the memory of that particular moment caused her to burst out laughing as she leaned her body against Petra's, allowing her to look up at the open sky.
"So we're all friends? That's good," Ty Lee murmured, happy as ever.
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AN: 16k collections! Wooo!