"That's the worst horror story I have ever heard, did you make that up on the spot?" F/N asked, poking a stick at the fire to make the flames higher. Sokka slumped over, nodding, the group obviously not spooked in the slightest by his haunted sword story.

          They had set up a very small and simple camp. Sokka was tired of working hard on them, only for them to be blown up by "Sparky Sparky Boom Man". No one was exactly tired, and no one felt like setting up the tents, so they stayed up, attempting to scare eachother with the best ghost stories they knew.

          "Cactus juice for a brief moment, Y/N, you remember Nini, right?" Katara asked, and Y/N nodded, leaning in towards the fire, the flames dancing in her eyes. 

          "Oh, of course." She said darkly, trying to get everyone back in the mood after Sokka had absolutely shattered it. 

          "What? Who was Nini?" Toph asked. Y/N stopped tending to the fire, letting it get a little darker. 

          "Katara is better at telling the story, but I guess it's my turn anyways." She leaned on her knees, taking a deep breath. "Nini was only 9 or 10 when she died. Or when we assumed she died, rather. She was a friend of our mother's, and was traveling with a group when a terrible blizzard hit."

          "Hold on, assumed she died?" Aang asked out of nowhere.

         "Shush, let her finish, and that question was so delayed. Also, why have I never heard this one?" Sokka asked, leaning in with the others.

          "She had been holding our mother's hand in the storm," Y/N continued, ignoring the boys. "But she was there one moment, the next, her hand was gone. Our mother called, searched, but there was no response. Nini was gone. In seconds."

          The fire was dying quickly, and Y/N knew she had to start it back up soon, but she decided to finish giving the quick version of the story.

          "They searched for days, but never found her, or the body. Nini had lived with her mother, the two alone in a house together, but only a couple days after the disappearance, her mother vanished too, the only strange thing left behind being something in the fireplace. There was a sculpture there, a perfect ice mold of what a fire in the hearth would look like, almost like the fire itself had been frozen solid."

          "Okay? So a mother and child disappear?" Toph asked.

          "I mean, other than the ice in the fireplace, that's it." Y/N added more wood, stoking up the fire again. The flames illuminated everyone's faces. "We just thought it was weird how smoke kept coming out of the chimney." Everyone but Katara exploded at how casually she had thrown the detail out.

          "Wait— they lived alone, wasn't the house empty?"

          "Who was starting the fires?"

          "Did the mother ever come back?"

          "Couldn't tell you, but wood isn't just wasted like that when you live on a frozen wasteland." Y/N smiled as everyone shivered, huddling closer to the growing fire.

          "I don't know, F/N's a really good storyteller." Katara complimented, laughing at the terrified looks on everyone's faces, mostly Sokka and Aang.

          "I can hear people screaming under the mountain." Toph said suddenly, and everyone went quiet for a moment.

          "Toph, didn't you already go?" F/N asked after a moment, smiling slyly. "You can't fool me." Toph looked at her, making dead, milky gazed eye contact.

          "I'm not kidding."

          "Hello, children." Everyone nearly screamed as an old woman appeared from the shadows. Sokka nearly passed out, falling backwards as Aang moved to catch him.

                              —| § ථ § |—

          "I'm sorry for scaring you lot, that was not my intention." The sweet old woman, Hama, had offered the group a place to stay for the night, saying that people disappeared in the woods around the full moon, and it wasn't safe outside. This didn't make the group any less jumpy, but she assured them they would be safe in the inn for the night.

          She poured them all some tea, F/N sipping hers gratefully. It felt like it had been forever since she'd drank tea. 

             That's why the next day, F/N felt bad about Sokka rummaging around her inn while she was away. 

          "Look, we told the locals we would check the village for any sign of spirits, or anything they might have done to anger them, alright? We won't poke around for too long, she'll probably be back soon." Sokka peered closely at the locked door. "I could pick this."

          They stood in the attic, Katara also protesting against poking around. It was rude to be snooping, but Sokka would be Sokka. F/N looked up at the intricate architecture of the ceiling, studying the rafters with a bored expression.

          "He got it! Let's go in!" Aang opened the door, everyone walking over to the box on the table. Toph quickly morphed her space armband off her arm, forming it into a key that would fit the lock.

          "You managed to get in quickly." Hama observed from the doorway, making everyone jump. "It's alright, just a memento of my past I like to keep safe." She pulled out the real key from her pocket, moving forward and opening the box. 

          It only held one thing: a comb, the material easily recognizable as whale tooth.

          "You're from the Southern Water Tribe too!" Katara voiced F/N's thoughts. Hama nodded with a kind smile, closing the box. 

          "That's right. I've prepared a traditional Water Tribe dinner downstairs as well, I'm sure it will taste like home for the three of us."

                              —| § ථ § |—

          It smelled like home, and F/N was tempted to take down her mask so she could eat, but she knew it wasn't an option. She simply had to watch as Sokka and Katara enjoyed, while Aang and Toph... not so much, but they were pretty polite about it. 

          The first red flags went up the moment after Hama bent their soup into their bowls for them.

          "You're a waterbender as well!" Katara clapped her hands in delight.

          "Yes, dear." Hama smiled at her, then fixed her gaze on F/N. "Are you not going to eat, child? Does the food not meet your taste?"

           "Quite the contrary, ma'am, but I am afraid, for personal reasons, I cannot reveal my face in front of anyone. Might I eat after the others have left?" F/N didn't like the cold, calculating gaze on her. Hama was not just a nice waterbending woman living peacefully in a Fire Nation village. How did she get here? How did she hide her waterbending, and live in enemy territory?

          "Of course." Hama nodded, and Sokka caught the vibe, even if he didn't know what F/N was thinking, asking the question so F/N wouldn't have to.

          "So, a waterbender in a Fire Nation village? How did you get here?" 

          Hama went on to explain her story of how she was captured during endless battles, after the numbers of their warriors had been dwindled to near none. F/N noted that she paused a few times, looking like she was rethinking something. Changing the story? F/N had no clue, but she definitely noticed the absence of the crucial detail of how Hama might have escaped the Fire Nation.

          "I would love to teach you all I know, to pass on the traditions of the southern waterbenders, if you will." Hama offered, and Katara jumped at the opportunity, immediately agreeing to train the next day.

          F/N didn't know why she got the bad vibes from Hama, and she had been wrong before about people. Maybe she was wrong again this time. She chose not to tell Katara anything, she would make it worse if she was wrong.

          Still.

          "Make sure to tell me everything after training tomorrow." F/N said quietly to Katara as they got ready for bed. Katara smiled back.

          "Of course! We can learn together!l

          I've gotten questions about chapter 45. No, it was not a mistake— but maybe an offer to the readers that I forgot to mention in the last chapter.

          Around this time is where we get our beach episode with our four Fire Nation teens. I could've just written more angst, but what's the fun in that? There's plenty to come.

          That's why I'm offering, if you guys want it, to write a beach episode, including all our MC's, for a 200k read special. This episode will not relate to the main story, but be a little AU where they aren't fighting in a war, and all our favorite Avatar teens and Y/N go to the beach, and crash a party.

          Yeah?