The Swampbenders

Katara picked herself up from the swampwater and saw Appa caught in a dozen or so vines above her.

"Hang on Appa, I'll get you out of there." She said, swiftly slicing the vines apart using her waterbending. The sky bison carefully landed beside her. "Where do you think Aang and Sokka are?" She said as she stroked the fur inbetween his eyes. He grumbled.

"Well, we'd better start looking for them." She went to get up onto the saddle but looked up to the sky, or she would've done if the trees weren't almost completely covered in vines. "On second thought, I think it's best we stay on the ground, don't want to get tangled again and I doubt we'll be able to see anything from up there anyway. Come on, boy."

The two set off in a random direction trying to find their friends. The swamp was usually abuzz with the sounds of bugs and frogs fluttering and croaking, but now it was eerily quiet. Katara felt very uneasy as she looked into the surrounding mists. Just then, almost instantenously Katara found herself wrapped in vines. "Hey. What's going on? Let me go." She yelled.

"Quiet now, missy. We're only looking to eats your big furry friend over here. We'll lets you go right quick. Just promise not to do something silly." She heard a woman say.

"Fine." Katara replied. The vines went limp and fell into the water. She saw a young woman standing in front of her and a small group of men and women surrounding them. She was shocked to see that they were all completely naked. "Uh, where are your clothes?" she asked them.

"We don't need no clothes around here." a young man replied.

Katara caught her eyes wandering over the man's body and... down there. She remembered why she was here in the first place "Hey, you're waterbenders, huh? Me too. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe. Do you think you could maybe help me look for my friends, they're lost in the swamp and I don't know where they are."

"Sure can, miss. Let's head back to camp first and tell the rest of our lil tribe. Only about 30 of us around these parts, a few hours to the west is the Vahrani tribe though, they've got over 200 people living there." he said.

"So uh, are they naked too?" Katara felt embarrassed asking.

"Sure are. Every tribe in the swamp is like that. Come to think of it, we're getting close to our camp so you'd better take off those clothes."

"What? Are you serious?"

"Sure am, miss. We don't wear clothes in the tribal lands."

"But-" she started, but was interrupted by the woman from before.

"Don't worry about it, it's normal around here, nobody is gonna touch ya or look at ya funny or nothin like that."

"Alright then, I guess if it's normal, then it's okay." She hopped onto Appa and stored her clothes in her bag. She looked down at her naked body, this is so weird, she thought. She turned and saw the camp. It was quite small but there was a big hut in the centre which must be the house of the chief, she thought.

"Come on down now, little lady. We have to go talk to the chief and see if we can get a search party together to find your friends."

"One more minute." she said. Nobody had ever seen her naked before, but from the top of Appa she could see that everyone in the camp was naked, the women and the men. This would be fine, nobody would care anyway, it's normal here. She finished reassuring herself and hopped down from Appa.

"Alright, this way, miss. My name's Honuk in case you were wondering." He said.

"I'm Katara. It's very nice to meet you Honuk." She said, she couldn't help glancing at his butt as she followed him to the chief's house. Unexpectedly, Honuk turned around to face her and she found her eyes staring at his penis. She looked up to meet his gaze. Her cheeks were bright red.

"Before we go in there, you need to know some things. You're an outside so you're gonna have to show respect to the chief. You can't just walk in and say hi. That's not how we do things around these parts."

"Oh." Katara said. "I understand. So what do I need to do?"

"We'll walk up to the chief, I'll introduce you, and then you have to get down on your knees and touch the ground with your forehead. I suppose it might be a bit embarrassing for you but it shows that your willingness to fully submit to him. Don't worry though, it's just our culture. You're not going to become his **** or anything like that. The chief will then walk around you and quickly examine you. He'll let you know when you can stand up. It's easy."

"I think I've got it. Not too difficult. Let's go."

They entered the chief's hut and there he was in the centre of the room, with two foreign women kneeling beside him, also naked, of course. Without clothes it was hard for her to tell what nation they were from. They didn't seem like they were from the Swamp Tribes though.

Katara and Honuk walked up to the chief, he was a large and overweight man. He seemed to be the only one in the entire tribe who wore any form of clothing, a tall hat adorned with leaves, a crown of sorts. Perhaps this was to show his status.

"Greetings, Chief. This is the outsider, Katara. She comes to us to ask for help."

The chief carefully looked her up and down. Katara stood there, although it was normal here she was still embarrassed to be naked in front of strangers like this. She looked at the chief, and then at Honuk. "Oh." She realized she had forgotten and carefully got down onto her knees and leaning forward she pressed her head against the ground and placed her hands on the ground on either side. This position left her feeling very exposed and she could only imagine what anyone standing behind her could see just now. The chief then began walking around her. Oh no, I hope he doesn't look back there, she thought.