Aboard the Avatar In Which The Two Encounter, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters nor do I own the Titanic and its storyline.

Summary: AU. Tokka. Based loosely off the Titanic. On the maiden voyage of the Avatar, two very different people fall in love. But society as well as luck is against them as they try to cope with it all.

I forgot to mention before, Suki is really OOC because I didn't want to make an original character for this story.

As the Avatar started lurching forward again, Sokka stumbled and tripped, a loud, echoing sound that caused everyone's gaze to focus on him. Thankfully, however, there was only one other person in the room: Suki. His face flushed a deep crimson color, similar to that of the Fire Nation, and he put on a small smile. "This room is extremely nice, isn't it?" The exaggeration was on the 'extremely' for no apparent reason, though, and both parties, including himself, had no idea what he was talking about.

Suki shook her head in disgust, but a grin was finding its way onto her face. "That was ridiculous, you know that?" She turned to face the vanity mirror by the wall. She leaned forward and squinted her eyes. A slender, gloved finger poked at her heavily made-up cheek. Frowning, she shook her head again."Dear, dear. Does my face look a little pale to you?"

He stared at her face. Her large gray eyes were wide and demanding, surrounded by enough eye paint to make them pop out of her face. Surrounding them was a melon-colored paint that stretched across her face, almost like the mask he himself would have liked to wear. The rest of her face was covered in pale white powder. With her make-up on, she kind of reminded him of the acrobat-clown from the circuses he and his sister used to attend together. . . Well, before the marriage, anyway. She was like the acrobat lady they had met there, the one with the long chestnut-brown braid and the sparkling eyes.

Without her make-up on, Sokka thought that Suki was one of the most beautiful women around. Her eyes would shine and glitter with the light, darken with anger when she was frustrated, and seem larger than her make-up could ever fake. Her face was also viewable. He loved being able to see when she blushed or when she was angry. Her face was like a portal to it. Her face without the make-up was one of the factors that had helped him originally fall in love with her.

"A little pale?" he repeated slowly, making it seem like he was still comprehending the question. Hell, yeah! He wanted to shout. Take off all that damned make-up and look at me like you did a year ago! Act like my lover, not my mother! "No, way!" he decided upon instead, smiling at her with false adoration in his eyes. "You are just too beautiful."

"I know, but are you sure?" she question, turning to face the mirror once more. Sometimes it seemed that she thrived on compliments. There were never enough, just always too little.

"Positive," he said again, wrapping his arms around her waist. The forest green skirt she wore practically wrapped itself around his hands, strangling them, almost. Her perfume was choking him, it was so heavily scented and used, and after a moment of mental arguing, he released her to allow himself the fresh air to breathe.

As soon as he let go, Suki let her posture stiffen again and smoothed out her skirt, almost like a goody-two-shoes-Avatar-impersonator would do in their school days after being caught committing a wrong deed. She ran her fingers through her hair, and, with a flourish, flipped it behind her head. Sokka had the urge to tell her that hair cut over the shoulders did not flip, but kept his mouth shut, feeling confined, like a prisoner from his own thoughts.

Walking around the room as if an examiner, she announced, "This room is too small. The accommodations are grand, but this room isn't suitable for people of our wealth and class."

For a second he almost believed her, she said it with so much conviction. But, after he surveyed the room himself, fingering the intricately fine detail of the craved wooden bed post and tilting his head to the side to make sure the proportions of everything were correct, he had the need to contradict. "No it isn't. This room is the finest in quality compared to all the other ships we've been on." And it was. Not only that, but it was the finest room on the entire Avatar as well.

"Don't disagree. I think that we should go file a complaint to the captain. What do you say?" she stared at him with a look clearly stating, 'I'm right and you know it. Agree with me and let's go.'

Pretending not to hear her, Sokka started to saunter out to the deck. He sometimes felt like Suki was a chain to him. He was being held down from doing what he wanted to do and having to help her with her needs or answer her silly questions and becoming her show-bison. It was supposed to be the other way around, or better yet, in the way that they were both equal and free, like his sister and her nomadic husband. Sighing, he leaned out onto the iron railing and stared at the turquoise water, the shade his eyes were supposed to be, but weren't because of the anger and deceit he felt.

"Where's Iroh?" the man in the room continued to repeat. He had a large beard and a thick Fire-Nation accent, though it seemed wore out by time and age.

"Yes, and where's Zuko?" the other one pestered, probably just to mimic the first man. He had the same build and eyes as that first man, so Toph guessed, or rather, deducted, that they were related, most likely father and son.

Groaning because her mind couldn't conjure up a story that quickly, especially with two insufferable baboons for roomates, she muttered a bunch of inaudible swear words mixed in with gibberish, trying to make it seem like she was a foreigner. The pressure she was feeling after but a minute on board was making her question why she had even bothered coming on. All it really did up until that point was drive her mad and give her a major migraine. The only thing she felt like doing was lying down and closing her eyes and never waking up.

"Where's Iroh?" the man asked her again, leaning close enough to her face to cause her to choke at his pipe-like smell.

"Yes, and Zuko, too!" the younger one repeated.

Could they just shut up? Was it that hard to understand? Plopping onto the bottom bunk of the bunk bed closest to her and the circular window, she buried her head into the stale and stinky pillow. Her eyes were closed, and she was so close to the silence and rest she desired. . .

. . . But the silence was nauseating. Actually, it wasn't the silence so much as the constant rocking of the ship, and the fact that she was in the third-class bottom part of it didn't do much to ease her troubles. And she could bet that the silence wasn't even going to last long. All she needed to do was use it to her advantage. Thinking as swiftly as her formally educated mind could muster, she tried to come up with a good excuse as to why the two losers from the card game couldn't come abroad.

"Where's Iroh?" the first man shouted like he thought she was deaf, or, all Avatars forbid, even mentally slow.

"And Zuko!" the second added in.

Well, at least the silence had lasted for some small moments. Realizing that she would have to answer at one point or another, she felt her heart hammer loudly in her chest as she sat up. Sweat dotting her forehead, Toph finally opened her mouth to answer, "Iroh, erm, told me to take his place because, umm, he needed to help his—" she choked as she tried to remember the relationship between the two people, "—so. . . nephew! Help his nephew. . . Umm. . . get a girl! Yeah, that's it, get a girl." She could almost feel her heartbeat slowing because that part of the conversation was over.

"I see," the older man nodded slowly, his fingers on his chin thoughtfully.

Mimicking the movements of his father, the younger one nodded as well, "Yes, I see. . . ."

"Good," Toph told them tiredly, waving them away. "Now go 'see' over there." She pointed at the door while she re-plopped onto the bed again.

There was another silence. The sound of footsteps. The sound of the door opening, then closing. And then. . .

"Where's Iroh?"

Suki pointed to another couple passing by, "Isn't that couple so adorable together?"

"Yes," he muttered obediently, feeling like a lion-pup following his master. It was the ninth, or was it tenth, time that she had pointed out an 'adorable couple' and that he had to agree with her. His voice almost sounded mechanical at that point.

Her gloved finger found its way across the room to point at another couple, "Oh, and aren't they the most adorable couple ever?"

"Yes," he murmured, thinking that his mind was lost.

After four other groups of 'adorable' lovers made their way into the dining room, Katara and Aang finally showed up at their scheduled meeting place—at the foot of the marble stairs and grandeur oak clock.

"Doesn't Katara look ravishing tonight?" Aang said as the opening line when they met up. His eyebrows wiggled up and down in a flirtatious manner as he watched Katara's face heat up and blush.

"Yes, yes," Suki hastily agreed in a tone similar to that of Sokka's earlier one. Sokka made no comment other than the nauseous, vomiting look he threw at his sister. She frowned and glared, knowing fully well that her overprotective older brother would never be comfortable with the idea of her having a husband. "Let's just go to dinner," Suki added, linking her arm with her fiancée's and leading the group into the glass-doored room.

The large, over-expensive light fixtures blinded Sokka as he entered, and he had to blink at least a dozen times rapidly before he finally felt at ease in the room. The scents of freshly cooked meats and soups filled his nostrils as he felt his stomach rumble with anticipation. Unfortunately, the stomach-rumble was a bit loud, and he had no control over Katara's insane giggling and the glare of his wife-to-be that followed.

Frowning because the momentary happy mood was lost, he finally did the leading and hurriedly led Suki and his sister and her husband to the nearest elegantly-set-up-table.

"Well, this is a nice setup," Katara commented with a polite smile, her blue eyes bright and shining because of all the light fixtures.

"Yeah. . . ." Aang muttered, staring at her as he answered, making it even more obvious that he wasn't even paying attention to anything but her.

A large, bulky man found his way to their table, a towel in his hand and a paper in the other. His grin, though real, was not contagious, and somehow dampened the moods of everyone at the table. "What would you like to eat?" he asked with a larger smile. "We have—" Before he could rattle off a long list of possible dinners, Suki interrupted.

"I will be having a platter of vegetables," she announced loudly. Sokka opened his mouth to place an order as she continued, "And my husband-to-be will be having the same." She smirked at him while the waiter hastily wrote down the orders. "Because we want to watch our health and figures and are really against eating any animals."

"Mmm hmm, right," Sokka muttered mindlessly in agreement, before realizing what he was agreeing to. He nearly jumped up to protest, but remembered his father and the money problem and stayed put.

Katara stared at the two with a look of disdain on her face, before turning to face the waiter and placing her order, then protectively placing her arm around Aang while he ordered the platter of vegetables as well.

Sokka watched as a meat cart rolled away, anger and sadness mixed in his eyes as it suddenly dawned on him that he probably wouldn't be eating them again.