Fan Fiction ❯ Finally Woken ❯ Flying Bison, Flying Lemurs, and Sokka's Heart Attack ( Chapter 2 )

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

Jaded: Alrighty! Chapter Two up and ready to go! And thanks for stickin' with me, Saka! The reviews are much appreciated, as always. ^_^

Raven: *rolls eyes* Get on with it already.

Jaded: Right! *clears throat importantly* Disclaimer: I do not now, nor will I ever own 'Avatar, The Last Airbender'. Enjoy, folks! Oh, and by the way, anyone who figured out that Lucien's math teacher's name means "drone" in Italian (Mr. Ronzio =Italian word 'Ronzio' = 'Drone' in English) gets a cookie! *passes out cookies*

Momo: *nibbles on a chocolate chip in the background*

Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Adventure / Comedy | Type: Self Insertion | Uploaded On: 05.16.2005 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 250 | Status: Work In Progress

Lucien's head was pounding again. And something was grunting loudly. And the wind was blowing annoyingly in his ears. And “The Boy,” “The Girl,” and “That Arrow-headed Kid” who called himself Aang were talking. About him.

He didn't open his eyes at first; listening hard and hoping his headache would go away soon.

The first to speak was “The Boy.”

“Are you sure he's safe to bring along? I mean, look at him. He's freaky! Why's his hair all curly like that, and what the hell happened to his clothes?!”

“Aw, c'mon Sokka, he saved Katara's life! I don't think he'd go to all the trouble of saving one of us if he was just going to attack us later,” Aang replied cajolingly.

“Yeah, besides, if he's not trustworthy, we could just push him over Appa's side!” The Girl laughed lightly, but Lucien could hear `Sokka,' as Aang called him, grumbling.

“Who the fuck is Appa…?” Lucien croaked, sitting up, eyes still closed. Whatever-It-Was that insisted on making those awful grunts made a sound halfway between a growl and a groan, and all three kids gasped at his sudden signs of life.

“Well, him, of course!” Aang exclaimed cheerfully, motioning toward the front of… Wait a second… Was that…

“A CLOUD?!” Lucien yelped, scrambling away from the fluffy and harmless vapour. The other three gazed at him oddly, eyebrows raised.

“Um, duh.”

Sokka again. Lucien glared at him moodily, then the Whatever-It-Was that kept grunting made another noise and the little sandbox-like thing they where all sitting in jounced. Lucien clutched the edge, white-faced, and then the tiny amount of colour remaining in his face drained from it.

“Wait… We're RIDING something? Like, an animal? But nothing that big can fly!”

“Well, Appa can!” Aang replied proudly. Lucien twitched.

“WHO THE FLYING FUCK IS APPA?!”

“The giant flying bison, of course!”

He sighed. “Of course… Wait… You said `giant flying bison,' right?”

“Yeah… Why?” Aang's eyes were fixed worriedly on the weird new boy's face, his eyebrows knitting with confusion as a look of comprehension crossed the strange boy's face. Then he seemed to lose it. He started laughing hysterically.

Tears streamed down Lucien's face, and he couldn't stop laughing. Oh, man. This was just too rich. He was in a TV show! He fell on his back, howling with mirth. The other three, whom he now recognized as Aang the Avatar, Sokka of the Water Tribe, and Katara the waterbender, backed away, their eyes wide. Over the maniacal sounds of his own laughter, he could hear Sokka whisper to the other two, “Can I push him off now?”

He wiped the tears from his features and sat up again, still giggling insanely. Then something hard jabbed him in the ribs and he yelped. “Ow! What the- What are you doing?” Sokka was poking him with his boomerang. Lucien swatted his hand aside with a growl, and Sokka leapt backward, watching him warily.

“Are you… Okay?” Katara crept forward slowly her big blue eyes gazing at him with concern.

“Oh, I'm just peachy! So… How close are we to the North Pole then, and how long have I been unconscious?”

They all stared at him.

“How'd you know we were heading to the North Pole?” asked Katara, her cerulean eyes growing even wider.

Hmmm… They didn't know they were characters on a television show. Which meant they'd think he was nuts if he asked how to get back to his world and time. Perhaps he needed to approach this a different way…

“Um, well… I dunno. I just kinda… Know.” He shrugged, not meeting any of their eyes. “I can't really remember much of anything before I met you guys. I woke up in a clearing, heard you guys coming, saw you (he nodded to Katara, pretending not to know her name) get attacked, and you guys know the rest.” He shrugged again, looking innocently around at them all.

“Uh-huuuuh…” Sokka didn't sound at all convinced. There was another long moment of silence and then the teenager broke the silence again, his voice decisive, his arms crossed.

“I still say we push him overboard.”

Yet another long silence. Then Lucien stood up, bounced forward onto Appa's head, and plopped down cross-legged by Aang. “So,” he started cheerfully. “How do ya fly this thing?”

Aang's face lit up and he exclaimed excitedly, “Wanna try?”

“Sure! I've never flown a bison before.”

“Okay, just hold onto the reins to steer, and when you want to go faster, say…” Aang bent closer and whispered so that Appa couldn't hear, “Yip yip.”

“Cool! So, like this?” Lucien straightened up, lifting the reins in faux-snobbery and cried imperiously, whilst flicking the loop of leather tied to the bison's horns, “Yip yip!”

Appa lurched forward, and, under Lucien's enthusiastic hand, did several spectacular loop-the-loops before going into a nosedive.

Katara and Sokka screamed with fright, Katara's braided hair streaming out behind her, while Aang and Lucien whooped and shouted with elation. The bison streaked toward the water below, but as his reflection became life-size, Lucien pulled the reins and the giant beast soared smoothly upward again, waving his huge beaver's tail for lift. One of his enormous feet trailed in the glassy aqua for a moment before he flew up into the clouds.

“That was GREAT!” Both Lucien and Aang were laughing their little jokester-asses off on the bison's head, while Katara regained her balance and Sokka clutched at his chest, his eyes huge and his short brown hair on end.

“So,” Aang finally managed after their laughter had died down some. “What's your name?”

Lucien stopped chuckling at once and cast around frantically for inspiration. His real name wasn't exactly `Avatar The Last Airbender' material.

“Erm… I don't remember?” he tried weakly, giving Aang a pathetic smile.

“Oh! Hm… Well, we can think of a name for you! You've got to have a name, after all!” The kid beamed, and Lucien grinned back at him. “Oh yeah, that's Katara and Sokka. And you already know me!”

“Hey!” Sokka shouted when the threat of heart attack from their daredevil tricks had finally passed, “How do we know we can trust him? He might be Fire Nation! He might be a spy! He might be… Oh, I don't know! Who cares! The point is that we can't trust him! We don't even know his name! Ouch!”

Katara had smacked her brother around the head and scowled at him, then turned and smiled apologetically to Lucien. “Ignore him. He's paranoid. It's nice to meet you.”

Lucien felt himself blushing under the scrutiny of her warm sapphire gaze, and grinned back with a charmingly lopsided smile. Aang seemed to think that anyone who could steer a flying bison properly must be okay and had gone back to trying to figure out where they were on the parchment map.

As Lucien scrambled back into the saddle attached to Appa's back, a small and fuzzy white something flew into his face and made a small and inquisitive purring noise as it regarded him curiously with enormous green eyes. “Whoa, cool. A flying lemur,” was all he could think of to say as the creature began to tug at his shirt, apparently searching for food. Then he bellowed, “WHOA!” as it scrambled down into his T-shirt in its quest for grub. Sokka, Katara, and Aang enjoyed some quality entertainment as Lucien danced around, snatching wildly at the ever-moving ball of fluff in his shirt and shouting insanely.

Eventually Momo realized that he didn't have any food hidden in his odd clothing and crept out of the back of his shirt to rest on his shoulders, and Lucien dropped onto the saddle floor, looking like he was trying his hardest to be disgruntled, but couldn't help a small smile when the little animal curled up around his neck, wrapped its long thin tail around his collarbone, and fell asleep with its little black nose buried in the collar of his shirt.

Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad after all.