Zuko read the note carefully, with Katara reading over his shoulder with some difficulty as he was much taller than her. You could feel the sexual tension rolling off them.

"Why has the author written her note this way?" he wondered huskily.

"Maybe it's because you're so attractive," suggested Katara, attaching herself to his side like some sort of octopus. He quickly arranged his face into angst mode to ensure maximum attractiveness.

"No," the author said, shrugging. "It's just because nobody reads them otherwise."

With that point made, please READ this :P

Guys, I re-read this story and realised something – I ACTUALLY LIKE IT IN THE EARLY BITS. I like what I was doing and how I wrote the characters, but I hate the way the plot went. It just annoyed me, and that's why it ended up dead-ending at about chapter 10 and being given away. However, Iceblossom22, the author I gave it to, doesn't seem to have continued it, so I'm going to reclaim this little relic and give it another go. The quality won't be too different to how it was two years ago when I started, because I'm not scrapping it and starting again, simply editing.

I hope people like it as much as, or more than, they did in the first place!

OOOOOO

Flying high over thick trees, Aang hummed a song to himself while Sokka chewed a piece of grass and Katara draped herself boredly in Appa's saddle – if you could call it that. It was more like a small room. Glancing over at her brother, Katara was forcibly reminded of Jet, which irked her to no end.

It had been an extremely uneventful day, heading towards the Earth Kingdom in search of an Earthbending teacher for Aang. No fireballs hurled at them from below, no red fire balloons chasing them from behind, no pouring rain hammering them from above. At first it had been a nice change, but the three of them were somewhat shocked to realise that there was absolutely no fun or excitement to fill in the long hours of flight when there was no imminent threat of abduction or stranding.

Sitting up finally, Katara twisted, stretching her back.

"I never thought I'd say this," she yawned, "but I miss Zuko."

"I never thought I'd say this," Sokka replied, "but I agree."

"It is kinda boring without something to run from, huh?" beamed Aang over his shoulder, cheerfulness – as always – ready and willing. "But don't worry! I'm sure some kind of danger will show up next time we land! It always does." They lapsed into silence again.

"Ooh, guys, guess what!" said Katara abruptly after a few more minutes of silence, rummaging through her bags. "We're going to have to land before sundown and find some shops. We're out of meat!" She was thrilled at this turn of events, now they had an excuse to go into a town and probably run into trouble.

"WHAT!" cried Sokka, while Katara and Aang did happy dances in their seats. "NO! AANG – LAND!"

"Sokka, we have hours until the sun sets-" began Aang, laughing at Sokka's stricken expression.

"NO! AANG, WE'RE LANDING AT THE NEXT TOWN WE SEE, AND THAT IS FINAL!" Sokka lived in constant fear of going a day without any meat.

"Alright, alright, I'm pretty sure there's one up ahead somewhere, it's been ages since we last flew over civilisation," said Katara, still smirking.

"Good! I'm starving!"

"Sokka, you haven't mentioned your stomach since before lunch – which, incidentally, was only about an hour ago."

"I wasn't hungry before!"

"So you just suddenly decided you were famished once I announced there was no meat?"

"That's the thing, isn't it," said Sokka testily. "If you don't want me to get hungry, DON'T TELL ME THERE'S NO FOOD!"

"We all want what we can't have!" called Aang cheerfully from the front, breaking up the argument before it started, just in case.

"Wrong. We just want meat."

The other two laughed at Sokka, and Katara lay back down. Sokka was still going on about which types of meat he was going to buy, and how he was so hungry, and after a few minutes of non-stop food talk, Momo sank his little teeth into Sokka's arm to keep him quiet.

OOOOOO

Hours later, they were all getting a little worried.

"Is it just me," said Sokka in one of the rare moments of sane seriousness, "or has it been a strangely long time since we last found a town?"

"It's weird," said Katara quietly, leaning over Appa's side as far as she dared. "Night will fall soon. I mean, it's not like it matters that much; we have easily enough non-meat food to keep us going for days-" at this, Sokka groaned, "-but... it just doesn't seem right, does it?"

Aang stayed quiet, troubled eyes looking ahead for a spot to land. Appa had been flying all day and Aang could feel the rumbling of the bison's stomach.

"Well, it's back to nuts and berries, I guess," said Sokka moodily, not complaining too much for once because he was a little more worried about the lack of civilisation.

Momo seemed cheerful about the food idea, at least.

OOOOOO

Zuko was bored out of his mind. All day, there had been peaceful and uninterrupted sailing in the Earth Kingdom waters. Deprived of any recent leads, they were just sailing up the coast in the hopes of spotting the – rather unmistakeable – flying bison, but nothing had happened.

He'd reclined on his bed, had lunch, brooded around the decks, done a little Firebending, and was now back to pacing around his quarters with nothing to do. I'm the Prince of the Fire Nation, and I'm bored. This is ridiculous.

OOOOOO

"I'm SO BORED," said Sokka as they sat around their little campfire. Katara made a non-committal noise that was probably agreement, and Aang just stretched restlessly. "You know what? I'm going to go hunting. We have no meat, and I NEED MEAT. I'm going to go get meat. Anyone wanna come help me get meat? So we can eat meat, because meat is good. And I need meat. We all need meat, so I'm going to go get-"

"Just go already!"

"Fine, fine," he said defensively, voice comically high with his hands up. "Come on, boomerang, let's go get us some REAL food."

Momo, offended, let out a squawky noise and gathered his berries close.

Katara stood up too. "I need to find some water for the skins, and I don't need fresh water for that. We're pretty close to the coast; I'll come with you, Sokka."

"Great!" he said cheerfully. "Aang?"

"Nah, I'm going to stay here and brush Appa. He's starting to shed now because it's warmer than down south where we were before," said Aang, ever present grin on his face. "You two have fun! Don't run into Zuko!"

"We're in the middle of nowhere," giggled Katara. "If he happens to materialise nearby after no sign of him for days, he deserves to catch us."