Chapter 16: Setting up Camp

They kept waking along, as Koro insisted putting as much distance between them and the Amorache Tribe as possible. Luckily it was only the early evening, so they wouldn't have to stop and set up camp for a while.

Misty was still a bit in shock. She hadn't told the others - and they hadn't heard - but Tsovo had told Misty the same thing Achak had told her before the tortoise's death.

"Seek safety."

How did Tsovo know? Did he spy during Achak and Misty's conversation? That had to be the only way he could find out. Misty decided not to think on it too much; she was never going to see Tsovo again. Or Adonael, she added. Or Ferrum, or Ebony...or any of those Tribe members. 

She pushed the thoughts away. No; those were the animals who tried to have her imprisoned. She couldn't feel sad about never seeing them again. We're going to run into plenty more animals, she told herself, and you won't see them again, either. You can't grow attached to anyone not in The Bending Tower.
The thought of home made her nearly stop in her tracks. Home. The Bending Tower felt like lifetimes ago. In fact, it seemed to distant that Misty was beginning to think they'd never come home. Would they? We've got to, she insisted to herself. But she knew she was clinging onto false hope.
"Why do you look so depressed?" asked Campbell, falling back to walk beside Misty.
Misty sighed. "We're never gonna go home."
Campbell looked at the distance - which was still a bunch of trees, as they weren't out of the woods yet - and seemed to be considering Misty's words. "Maybe. Maybe not."
"How can you be so laid-back about it? Our family, our old friends..." Misty murmured. "Gone."
"Because there's a lot of things I'm not laid-back about," Campbell muttered. "Like the fact that I feel like I'm not appreciated."
"You are. You're my best friend," Misty insisted.
"I know. I feel like I'm not, though. It always seems like..." she then sighed. "All my life, Misty, whenever something needed to be done, animals always seemed to want to turn to my sister rather than me. And in this group, no one seems to want to turn to me either...I mean, Koro's a leader who keeps everyone together, Rhett's a good fighter, Lilypaka's a genius, Ophir's fast, Bracken's always super-happy, everyone loves Adele, you tend to keep everyone straight when we get confused...and heck, Lephos and Sidew break any tension we ever have with their jokes. And then there's me," she added, head drooped slightly. "I'm useless, and I'm positive you're the only one in this group who may actually like me."
Misty felt taken aback, not too sure how to respond. "Yeah but...you're someone. I honestly think that's all that matters." She looked up at the night sky. "Before we...left...my mother used to tell me that all animals were put on this world for a reason. She said that we all have purposes, no matter how small or insignificant we may seem." She studied stars sparkling in the sky, the moon that was illuminating the area. "Come to think of it...I think my mother just was trying to keep me from ever thinking the opposite. Because there are a lot of great animals at The Bending Tower. It's easy to feel alone and worthless when you're there."
There was silence between the two before Campbell spoke up again. "Do you think they miss us?"
"Who? The Bending Tower?" Misty said.
Campbell glanced at Misty and gave a slight nod in confirmation.
"Of course they are," Misty insisted. "Everyone at The Bending Tower probably does. They're all family."
"I...always like to think," Campbell began, "that they're still searching for me...for us. That they haven't moved on, hadn't lost hope. It's one of the only things that keep me going. And if we do manage to get back, I think they'd be really happy. Like, crying-level happy. Or at least...I hope so," she sighed. "Maybe they've been too busy training Liberty to be an amazing Bender to even think about me. Or us."
"I want to go back," said Misty in agreement. "I can't stand to think that we may never return." She considered her own words. What if they never would? How far away was Yin and Yang? Would Misty be old and dying by the time they got there? It seemed so distant.
"There are some animals I miss," Campbell admitted, "but they never seemed to care for me anyway. I hope they do. But maybe not returning won't be so bad. I mean, for me, anyway. I don't think I'd fit in if I'd stay there. What with having an amazing sister like Liberty..."
"I've never heard you so willing to talk about problems like this before," remarked Misty.
"Well, I'm tired. You act all weird when you're tired," Campbell pointed out.
They were quiet for not much more longer before Koro spoke up. "We'll rest here."
"Oh, thank Lifebreeze! I thought we'd be walking forever!" shouted Rhett.
"Who's Lifebreeze?" Ophir frowned.
"Leader of the Peacebenders," Rhett explained.
"The what?" Ophir frowned.
Tiggerpaka chuckled. "There there, naive Offer. I shall inform you of what these Peacebenders are that my minion Rat speaks of."
"No, you won't," Lilypaka insisted.
"Look, the Peacebenders are what's believed to be the spirits of dead animals," said Koro to Ophir. "Where animals - Benders, anyway - go when they die. It's what most of our place where we came from believes in."
"Benders. What's that?" Ophir asked.
"You have got to be the slowest animal I've ever met," snorted Campbell, back to her cranky self.
"That's not what you said...'Ophir's fast. I'm just useless'," he said in a high-pitched voice.
"You were eavesdropping?" Campbell snarled, about to storm up to him, but Misty bit lightly on her tail.
"Don't attack him. Not worth it," Misty insisted when Campbell turned to look at her.
"He was listening in on our--!"
"Anyway, Benders are animals who can control either the earth, air, fire or water," spoke up Koro, casting wary glances at Campbell. "All of us are Benders."
"Lemme see," Ophir insisted.
"I'll demonstrate," Sidew said. He started to move his paw but when he did, he collapsed.
"Sidew!" Lephos yelped, running over to his brother.
"What happened?" Lilypaka demanded.
"Starvation, thirst, who knows?" snorted Tiggerpaka as he grabbed a grub out of a hole in a nearby tree, obviously not at all worried about the situation. "Or cares?"
"I do!" snarled Lephos.
"Lephos-and-nothing, I do believe you need to calm down. You mustn't be yelling at your leader, or you'll get demoted to 'basic minion'," Tiggerpaka said, popping the grub in his mouth.
Lephos jumped at Tiggerpaka but was quickly knocked aside by Rhett. "Calm down!" he exclaimed.
"Get off of me!" Lephos yelled, kicking Rhett off. "My brother might be dead!"
"Hey!" Lilypaka spoke up. "He still has a pulse! He's fine."
"Ya happy now?" Rhett growled.
"See? This is why we get nothing accomplished! We fight among ourselves every day!" Bracken protested. "We need to stop!"
"What do you know? You're one of the tiniest ones here!" Campbell growled.
"And you're very mean!" Bracken exclaimed. "Why do you hate me?"
"She hates everyone Bracken," Ophir snorted. "Don't feel like you're the only one."
"Someone wake my brother up!" Lephos insisted. "Get him up, do something!"
"He's alive! That's all you need!" Rhett growled.
"I don't wanna see him looking like he's dead!" Lephos snarled.
"He has to wake up in his own time!" Lilypaka protested. "I learned that in--"
"Oh, Lilypaka, thinking you're so smart," Tiggerpaka said with the roll of his eyes. He grabbed a stick. "I say we stab him until he wakes up!" He started towards the knocked out Collie.
"No!" Lilypaka yelped, pushing on her brother.
Practically everyone in the group was bickering and growling at each other, the tension getting higher and higher. Misty glanced at her sister, Adele, who was laying down among the fallen leaves. She brushed her ear with her left paw, and Misty understood right away.
Get them to stop fighting.
She didn't even have time to feel excited about the fact that her sister had - kind of - spoken to her for the first time. "Hey!" Misty shouted. "STOP IT!"
Everyone fell silent. "Thank you! You're upsetting my sister," Misty glared.
"How can we upset her? She's deaf!" Rhett pointed out.
Misty growled. "She can still have feelings, bug-brain!"
"How could you tell if she can't speak?" Koro asked.
Misty turned to look at her mentor. "Siblings can sometimes feel things about each other if they're close enough. I can feel things about my sister. And she was asking me to get you guys to shut up." She glanced at Adele, who merely blinked back in response.
"Wha' happ'ned?" asked a voice.
Sidew was awake.
"You fainted, that's what!" Lephos exclaimed. "Are you okay?"
Sidew got to his paws. "Of course I'm okay. What happened?" he repeated.
"You tried to do this 'Bending', and fainted," Lilypaka explained, "before you got the chance to."
"I could try again," Sidew said. Before anyone could stop him, he tried to do the same motion as before but collapsed again.
"Idiot!" Lephos shouted, despite Sidew definitely couldn't hear him.
"Does it happen to everyone?" Rhett wondered aloud. He tried moving his own paws in attempts to do Bending but collapsed as well.
There was silence in the group for a bit.
"What's going on then?" Bracken asked.
"I don't know," spoke up Koro, "but I don't think we should try Bending again anytime soon. Just in case, and at least until we figure out what's going on."
More silence. Misty kept expecting for Rhett to make a sarcastic remark - as he always seemed to do when his brother carried out orders - but she had to remind herself that he was passed out on the ground.
"Alright then...so let's set up camp for the night. Lephos, Bracken and Campbell, I want you guys hunting," Koro ordered.
"Not without Si," growled Lephos.
"He'll be fine here," Koro insisted. "You can leave him for a little bit. The rest of us can get settled, but we're not going to sleep until the prey comes back and we have something to eat."
The hunting patrol left the area, and Misty sat down next to Adele and looked down at her. Can you say anything else to me? Misty wondered.
Adele looked at Misty but didn't do anything more. She must not have anything to say, Misty concluded.
"Wake up, minions!" Tiggerpaka shouted to Rhett and Sidew, who were still passed out with Lilypaka sitting in between them.
"Tiggerpaka! You can't force them awake!" Lilypaka protested.
"Ha! Watch me," Tiggerpaka insisted, grabbing a stick and poking Sidew in the eye.
Immediately Sidew shot up. "Dang it, it happened again!" he exclaimed, knocking Tiggerpaka away as he stood up, making the meerkat go tumbling.
Misty couldn't help but chuckle and she glanced at Adele, who smiled and brushed her paw against her muzzle.
Excitement filled Misty and she grinned at her sister. "Yeah, it is pretty funny," she said aloud, but then immediately felt stupid for trying to respond to her.
"Where's Leph?" Sidew asked.
"Went hunting," Koro replied. "We're setting up camp for the night."
"Ah. Okay," Sidew said.
Rhett then got up. "Bending's not working," he commented.
"We figured that out, genius," Sidew snorted.
Campbell sat next to Misty. "So you can somehow communicate with your sister."
"Yeah," Misty nodded.
"Ophir's gotten to be really annoying," commented Campbell. "He's an arrogant jerk."
"Yeah," Misty repeated. "I don't even know why he's with us."
"Agreed," Campbell snorted.
She kept talking, but Misty was looking at Koro. He was sitting with Rhett, who was talking and Koro was nodding every once in a while, listening to him. From what Misty could hear, Rhett was telling something about the Amorache Tribe.
"You like Koro, don't you?"
Misty turned to see Campbell had spoken up. "No," he said right away.
"Oh yeah. And rabbits fly," Campbell sneered.
"You tell anyone and I'll start spreading rumors about you liking Lephos," Misty retorted.
"Don't do that!" Campbell protested.
"Then don't tell anyone," Misty insisted.
"I won't," Campbell promised.
"Someone's coming!" exclaimed Sidew.
Misty looked around and sniffed the air. Indeed, a new scent was heading in their direction. "But who is it?" she wondered aloud.
"Ha! I shall take care of them!" Tiggerpaka declared, grabbing his stick.
That was when a dark wolf came into their camp. "Oh! Sorry. I wasn't aware this was someone's territory," he apologized. "I'll...I'll leave--"
"Who are you?" Koro asked.
Misty looked at the newcomer. He had dark fur with sky blue eyes, and white paws. "I'm Moonshadow. I'm a loner, I just kinda...y'know...wander...around. Yeah. But...I'll leave, I don't wanna--"
"We're loners too," Rhett spoke up. "Well...kind of. I guess."
"Oh," Moonshadow echoed.
"You look pretty beat up. You can stay here if you'd like," said Koro.
"Thank you," Moonshadow said, sounding grateful.
"Um...we don't know this guy. Should we let him stay here?" Rhett asked.
"What's he gonna do? We outnumber him," Koro pointed out.
"Oh boy. Wonder if he's gonna end up coming along with us too," Campbell muttered. "By the time this journey ends we'll have the equivalent of the Firebender army..."

Author's Note:
Sorry for not posting all week! D: Stuff happened and...yeah.
Have a long chapter to make up for it. :^)
Moonshadow was made by A01315. Thanks for the character!