Yeah, it sounded better in his head before he said it aloud.
Veering back to make room for the sudden outburst of his sister’s anger, he tries but can’t hide the flinch that twitches across his features. Ah, the sweet smell of Watertribe rage. Her words, posture and body language are drowning in it. Accustomed to this kind of treatment – especially from the women in his life – Sokka uses that brain of his to stay back and give the girl some space.
“I’m sure they’ll wait for us…”
He’s in trouble and he knows it, but his sister’s lack of faith in his ’specially trained warrior abilities’ means Sokka must find a way prove himself to fix the situation. He doesn’t have bending on his side, yet his skills lie in strategy, invention, creativity and on a normal day, his sense of direction. Today; however, is not his best day. Though, if he gives up now, he’s certain to remain caught under Katara’s ridicule and disdain until they actually find a way out or until Aang somehow comes to the rescue.
“We could retrace our steps,” whipping around to look in every direction, all he sees are trees and leaves. Yet with his eyes squinted, he spots something – something that could help their chances of getting out of this mess and fixing his mistake. “Or we could follow that!” Following the sight down his pointed finger is a pair of animal tracks indented in the dirt leading further into the woods. “It could take us to a stream and a stream could take us to the town.”Or it could take them to some hungry animal’s den.
{ ●•۰•☯•۰•● }
Katara makes sure to be prepared for most things, but today she’d somehow neglected to be prepared for… well, this. The map is stuffed under her arm and hands meet her forehead, running backwards into her hair as she thought. She closes her eyes and exhales, opening them once again to look around one more time.
“ Of course, they’ll wait for us, it’s not like they’d leave us ! ” she says, voice reaching level of stress to make her sound like she’s yelling. (she takes another deep breath because panic is setting in and what if they actually do leave them?) Somehow she knows Aang and Toph won’t miraculously swoop in and save them this time, (she never counts on it, especially not for silly stuff like this) so she decides they must come up with some sort of plan before it starts getting dark. Hands go on her hips and she whips out the map again, hoping Sokka will forgive her for her outburst(s) and go along with whatever they decide.
She almost feels bad for him, getting stuck all the way out here with her – someone not as easy going as Toph or Aang (though Aang tended to stray towards the worrying side) – someone he’s had to deal with his entire life (but that she’s thankful for, out of the entire group they know each other the best). Katara glances up at him as he speaks his mind, and she glances over to the animal tracks, bottom lip pouted in thought. Water, typically, meant safety when Katara was around – perhaps his plan wasn’t so bad– but there is certainly an endless list of things that could go wrong.
Hands go up, a sort of surrender, and she nods. “ Okay. How about this. Follow the tracks, if we don’t see anything helpful in, let’s say,” she glances up at the sun, “thirty minutes, we come back the way we came and trace our steps back to camp. Good plan ?"
