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Screech! I rubbed open my amber eyes. "What-" I was cut off by another ear-splitting screech. I was up and out of bed in a second. I peered over the teetering edge and to my amazement I saw a giant green serpentine head rushing towards me.
"Serpent!" I yelled. "Rajic, get up!" It was the wrong move. My yelling had attracted the attention of the monster. It swerved its beady black eyes towards me. Each one was easily larger than my head. The giant sea-snake was towering 50 feet over us, and we were 200 feet in the air! I slowly backed away from its bared fangs, saying, "Nice snakey thing! I don't want to hurt you..."
By this time Rajic had finally rubbed the sleep from his eyes and was taking in the situation. Slowly, he began to roll up our supplies. My eyes never left the serpent's. He seemed to be sizing us up for a threat. Apparently, he didn't think much of us because he lunged forward.
"Run!" I seized the horse and dragged her out of the way just in time. Rajic had successfully dodged the enormous mouth as well. Right where we'd been sleeping was a gaping 20 foot hole in the cliffside.
Rajic put our stuff on the horse and tried to airbend a whip at the beast, but it merely glanced off his heavy scales. It hissed out a forked tongue. We would never ride fast enough to escape this thing, especially on a laden horse carrying two people. I knew it was up to me to somehow slow down this thing. And I had an idea. I stepped off the cliff.
I didn't have time to see Rajic's astonished face. I summoned up an enormous wave to catch my fall. The serpent saw me and snapped its huge jaws. Using the momentum of my falling, I transformed the tall wave into a thick rope of water. The water beneath my feet I froze into a type of surfboard. Then, I raced over to the snake's back.
I was too quick and agile for the thing to catch me, but it was very powerful. I could see the large muscles work beneath its scaly skin. Gripping the water-rope tightly in my hands, I lassoed it over the middle of the snake's body. Then I dragged it down.
Plunging into the icy water was hard. Pulling the snake was even harder. I used the currents around me to help pull him down, down, down. My lungs were bursting by this time. Finally, judging that we were far enough away from the isthmus to be safe, I froze the water-rope to an underwater ledge. I made it as strong as I could, but I knew it wouldn't hold for long. I rushed to the surface, gasping in the cool air.
Funny, I thought, how I can be a waterbender and still be so dependant on air to live.
Once I had regained my strength, I rode back on another wave to Rajic.
"You're- you're a waterbender?" He asked warily. "I never imagined- but it makes sense- always asumed it would be fire..."
"Can we leave now?" I asked. We didn't have much time if we were to outrun that thing.
"What? Yes- quickly." He had a funny look on his face, like being a waterbender had somehow changed me. And not exactly for the better.
Fire Princess Kya · Tue Sep 28, 2010 @ 07:48pm · 0 Comments |
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The next morning we got up before dawn with a quick breakfast. Rajic had figured we had a pretty good headstart if my sisters came after me. Which was pretty likely, considering my "vacation" excuse wasn't that great. Around noon we got to our first major obsticle: the Serpent's Pass.
It was our only way across the Great Sea in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. If we took a ferryboat, anyone could track us through their records, and our mission had to be top secret. Rai and Katari would kill me if they found out I was heading towards Empress Reema with an (almost) complete stranger. Putting it that way, it even seemed crazy to myself. But I have to help Rajic rescue his mother.
Eventually we reached the archway warding off travelers from the cursed isthmus. I figured if we kept quiet, we would be fine. Still, the desperate carvings in the archway were pretty creepy...
Rajic and I were riding double on the "borrowed" horse until the first slip. It was a near fall on the narrow path, and only Rajic's airbending saved us from tumbling down the cliff. From then on we walked, leading the mare behind us.
At nightfall it was too dangerous to continue on without any light to see by. We made camp on a slightly wider portion of the path, positioning our sleeping bags as far away from that daunting edge as possible. After a few minutes of lying awake, I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Fire Princess Kya · Tue Sep 28, 2010 @ 01:45am · 0 Comments |
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I reached my destination a few minutes after midnight.
"Where have you been?" Rajic asked. He took in my muddied trousers. Some of the sewer-water had splashed on them. "Oh, I was just- I fell down." I felt guilty about lying to my friend, but something inside told me not to mention my waterbending to him. I'm not entirely sure why.
"Well, we'd best hurry. We need to be out in the countryside by dawn."
Rajic and I got out of the upper ring and were making our way down the city when he realized that we wouldn't get far just on foot. We stopped by a stable to steal a mare. To Rajic's annoyance, I stopped long enough to place some gold pieces in the mare's stall.
~*~
We were well out into the country of Ba Sing Se by dawn, and approaching the outer wall by ten o'clock. By noon we had cautiously exited through the gate, persuading the earthbenders who guarded it that we were going on a trip to see our aunt in a nearby village. Security wasn't too strict, fortunately, on people leaving the city. It was people trying to get in that they were worried about.
When the sun finally touched the horizon, Rajic and I stopped the mare for the night in a small forest. We set up camp and ate a small dinner. Talking to him was so easy. It was like I had finally met a person who understood my thirst for knowledge and who shared my outgoing personality. Eventually our eyelids drooped and we went to sleep, looking forward to tomorrow.
Fire Princess Kya · Tue Sep 28, 2010 @ 12:32am · 0 Comments |
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I brushed my hand against the soft pillows of my bed. I wouldn't be sleeping there for a while. I then checked my sack to be sure I had everything I needed. I'd done seal-hunting expeditions up in the Arctic before, and I knew how prepared you had to be to survive. Hopefully, my expedition wouldn't be that tough.
I quietly opened my door with a soft click. Padding silently to the doors of my sisters' rooms, I placed scrolls informing them of a short "vacation" I was going to take in the countryside. At least I hoped it would be short.
Taking in one last view of my surroundings, I ran down the stairs of the inn and out the door. The clear, crisp night air helped me wake up. I wasn't used to midnight adventures.
No one seemed to be up and about. Keeping to the shadows, I ran. I told Rajic to meet me by a certain fountain Aphrodite had been to. It was about halfway in between our apartments, a fifteen minute walk. But I was not walking tonight.
My footsteps echoed eerily off the narrow streets. The tall buildings somehow were closing in on me. I missed the open Arctic more than ever now. No one could sneak up on me there, unless in a blizzard.
I'm not sure when I became aware that my footsteps weren't the only ones. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I swirled around. I couldn't see them in this murky darkness, but I knew they were there. Thieves.
A tiny voice inside my head was asking what they were doing in the upper ring, but I hushed it. I had to concentrate on the situation at hand. What was that Katari had told me? That's it! Use my surroundings to my advantage. I looked around... the muggers had come out of the shadows by now. There were about eight of them, with black scarves hiding their mouths. They slowly encircled me, and drew out some pretty sharp daggers. I breathed out a breath of rage. I was not about to get stopped by some petty thieves.
Suddenly I spotted something. The gutter! I pulled the drain water out of the smelly sewer and formed it into a ring around me. The shock in the men's faces was a nice feeling. I spread the ring out on the ground and froze the robbers' feet in place.
"Nice knowing ya!" I shouted at them as I raced away towards my friend.
Fire Princess Kya · Mon Sep 27, 2010 @ 11:31pm · 0 Comments |
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