Fan Fiction ❯ Her Last Will ❯ Breaking A Barrier ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

(a/n Ok, I don't really have any pairings in mind yet. I just kind of daydreamed this plot up I guess you could say, and Emi practically created herself. So, here it goes! )
(a/n Ok, I don't really have any pairings in mind yet. I just kind of daydreamed this plot up I guess you could say, and Emi practically created herself. So, here it goes! )

Chapter One: Breaking a Barrier

Aang and Katara dragged an injured Sokka along a dark muddy road towards a lit building. It had loud music blaring from an open window, and seemed to be the only inhabited place for miles. They had left Appa in a clearing a few yards back. They finally made it through the front door, and all noise stopped. It seemed to be something of a town dance, and appeared as if everyone from the poor Earth Kingdom village was there, in the best clothes that they could manage. Which were still rags. The people stopped dancing and playing their instruments to look up at them. After a few minutes of this, a middle-aged man whose beard had long since turned white with stress stepped forward.

"Your friend is injured." he stated bluntly stareing at Sokka, blinking a few times. Aang wondered if the man was joking. Katara rolled her eyes.

"Yeah we kind of noticed that, idio-," she started, but Aang cut her off.

"Is there a docter anywhere here that could help him?" Aang asked politely. The rest of the villagers started to show signs of life, looking around and whispering to each other.

"There is." said the man."My name is Hiroshi, but I'm not sure if you'd like her help....." Hiroshi finished in an uncertain voice.

0o0o0o0o0o

The villagers feared her. The girl with the mismatched eyes.The girl who lived by herself in a small hut she had built herself just outside of town. Every time someone from the village made the short journey to her home for anything other than healing, she would just stare at them until they were uncomfortable and went back. Although she was the only one near there who had any knowledge of healing, people would still call her horible things. They were supersticious.

They called her a witch. They called her a satan-worshipper, a shaman, a wicca, a dark sorcerer, and worse. Sometimes they even said she was the one who made them sick in the first place, with black magic. But she was really nothing more than an unsociable doctor.

Emi sat alone on her cot, looking around her home and smiling to herself. It was no wonder people thought she was a witch. She had various bright colored powders hanging in clear pouches on little hooks on the walls. There were shelves going all the way around the circular room with different oils, lotions, and herbs in little clay pots. Over by her crude fireplace were dangerous-looking sharp metal tools, on a small wooden table. There was even a small metal pot, which had been scorched black from use, that could have easily been miss interpreted as a cauldron. She couldn't help but let out a small laugh when looking at it through their point of view.

0o0o0o

Aang and gang (a/n heh heh, that rhymes...sorry 'bout that. I'll shut up now.) made it to the small clearing around sunrise. In the middle of the clearing was a small, circular hut, who's ceiling only came up to about five feet at the highest point. It was crudely made out of sticks, bamboo, and large leaves. The very center of the roof had a hole cut in it from which a wisp of odd smelling, purple smoke rose. Katara went up and attempted to knock on the door, that was made of a thin strip of tree bark. Needless to say, she accidently put a rather large hole in the flimsy door. But it got Emi's attention right away.

Two seconds after Katara's failed attempts at knocking on Emi's door, a girl with long golden hair and miss-matched eyes opened it, holding a spear at Katara's throat. When she saw Katara wasn't an immediate threat, she reluctantly lowered her spear.

"My brother got shot by an arrow....," Katara started nervously. She could now understand why the villagers had refered to her as 'different.' Both of Emi's eyes were almond shaped, but while her left eye was a murky, deep blue, her right one was a brilliant emerald green. She wore tattered brown rags, and her waist-length hair was unbrushed. "The people from the town said someone named Emi could help."

Emi nodded her head and motioned for them to come in, but she still didn't put down her spear; you couldn't trust anyone anymore. Aang somehow managed to drag Sokka inside, all the time complaining about how heavy he was.

"How long ago was he shot, and by what type of arrow?," Emi asked while tying her hair up. All business.

"Um....type of arrow? I don't know," replied Katara. She hadn't known that mattered, and had just pulled it out without glancing at it. "But he was shot about six hours ago now."

Aang had now laid Sokka down on the cot, and Emi nodded in response while taking Sokka's shirt off. The wound had turned a nasty greenish color by now, and part of the arrow head was still in it.

"My name is Aang," said the energetic twelve year old."And this is Katara!," he said, gesturing over to Katara.

Emi nodded, and hesitated before saying," My name is Emi Takahashi." Then she went back to searching the shelves for alcohol and lavender oil.

Aang and Katara looked over to each other, and Aang shrugged.

0o0o0o

The next few days passed by slowly, with Emi frequently giving orders to Aang and Katara like 'go down to the stream and bring me back two pot fulls of water' or 'boil me three-and-a half pints of' said 'water, and add in two pinch-fulls of basil.' She was an incredibily bossy person by nature, and besides that it really helped having two other people there to bring her stuff.

One day, while Emi was changing Sokka's bandages and Katara was sitting on her pallet sewing, Sokka woke up.

"What happened...?," he asked groggily. Then on seeing Emi he tried to sit up a little."Who are you?!," he asked, slightly alarmed now.

"Sokka!," Katara shrieked, jumping up and running over to Sokka, her sewing long forgotten.

"Lie down," Emi commanded as Sokka tried harder to sit up. Katara stopped short of hugging Sokka when she remembered he still had a pretty nasty gash on his stomach; it had healed up fairly nicely, though, with Emi's constant care.

Just then, Aang walked through the open doorway (they had given up all hope of repairing the door, and had just ripped the whole thing off) and his face lit up. Emi's expression softened a bit when Aang entered the room; he reminded her of what she guessed her own little brother would be like about now if it weren't for....

Aang made an air ball and hopped onto it, soaring above Sokkas head and staying there. "You really ARE still alive!," joked Aang.

"Ha ha. Very funny," replied Sokka sarcastically. "Now would you mind telling me where we are and who she is?," asked Sokka, refering to Emi.

"This," Aang started while hopping off of the airball, which then evaporated, and holding his arms up in a square over Emi's face as a girl on Jepardy would to display a prize," is Emi." Aang finished, beaming. Katara and Emi burst into giggles.

0o0o0o0o

Over the next week, Sokka got better and better. Two days after he woke up he could sit up without Emi biting his head off. Two days after THAT he could walk. And now, today, the arrow-wound was almost completely healed up, just a small pink mark right above his belly button. (a/n -slaps silly fangirls who are dreaming about Sokka's belly button upside the head- heh, sorry, had to do that. You can hit me next time)

It was dinner time now, and they were all sitting around a fire just outside the hut. "I suppose you guys will probably be able to leave tommorrow," said Emi sadly, picking at her chicken. (a/n I like chicken! -gets hit over the head repeatedly-) She had never grown so attached to any of her patients before; she was certainly attached to Aang and Katara.

Katara picked up on the tone in Emi's voice, and looked over to Aang who nodded vigorously. Sokka continued to devour his meal.

"Maybe you could come-," started Katara, but she was cut off by a rustle in the trees. She faintly saw the outline of a red outfit, and slowly started to be able to pick out more; twelve more. Aang, Emi, and even Sokka picked up on Katara's pause, and looked over in the same direction as her. They all jumped up at the same time the firebenders attacked.

Emi ran into her hut to grab a sword, or any kind of weapon, for that matter, while Sokka, Aang, and Katara continued to fight. She quickly grabbed her spear and ran back out. As soon as she stepped foot back outside, a tall boy, around her and Sokka's age, stepped out from the shadows and grabbed her by the throat. Shocked, Emi did the stupidest thing she could have possibly done at the moment. She dropped the spear. Emi was a healer, not a fighter. While she had weapons stashed all over her house, she never bothered practicing with them. Emi couldn't fight worth crap. But she could do one thing.

After being suspended in the air by her throat for a few seconds, Emi came to her senses. She quickly grabbed Zuko's (a/n Oh come on! You just knew it was him the whole time! -runs from readers wrath-) hand and bit down on it, hard. A small trickle of blood ran down his wrist, and he dropped Emi immedeately.

Meanwhile, the others had taken out the rest of the fire benders, and Aang had noticed Emi's dilemma. Sokka and Katara motioned for Emi to come with them from behind a tree. Just before Emi turned a corner, she saw Aang fighting with Zuko. They were both amazing! The fight went so fast that Emi had trouble following it, and after a few seconds Sokka turned back around and dragged Emi off to where Appa was.

0o0o0o
Five minutes later, Aang ran into the clearing and hopped onto Appa.

"Yip, yip!," he called hurriedly. The flying bison was suddenly fifty feet in the air, high enough for them to see what had happened to the village; and now Emi's hut. Or not be able to see. A huge forest fire had been started, and it was spreading fast. They could barely see two feet in front of them through the thick smoke. After half an hour of steady flying, they finally made it out of the smoke. Only Aang noticed Emi crying.

0o0o0o0o
So what do you think? Any comments, suggestions, tell me! Don't you just love my random author notes? >_< -runs from the tomatoes that are now being thrown at her-


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