House
A high pitched shriek echoed through a half-finished igloo. In only a few days a young couple from the village would be married, and per tradition, a new home was being built for them to start their life together. But now it sat empty, a gaping hole in the roof leaving it open to the sky but allowing the few short hours of sun to shine in as the young girl took a deep breath and screamed again.
Sokka jerked on the end of her braid cutting the scream off in an 'ack' sound, but Katara stretched one arm out further in front of the two of them, keeping her prize out of her brother's reach, and tried in vain to release her hair from his grip with the other.
It had started innocently enough, with the seven year old girl playing house in the empty cabin, followed by her commissioning Sokka to help build snow furniture. For a while (longer than usual) the siblings worked together, and in only a few minutes Katara had a cooking pot, a clothing chest, and a bedroll.
"What else do you want?" her brother asked, smugly eyeing his snow handiwork.
"Uhhm," the girl thought out loud. "A little table?" Yes. Then she could have something to pretend-cut her 'dinner' on when she 'cooked.' But would they be able to get the legs to stand up?
"A table?" Sokka asked, raising an eyebrow. That would be hard to make out of snow. Maybe we can just make a box? he thought, then shrugged and nodded. Being the only boy his age in the village he didn't have much else to do aside from helping his sister, and this was more fun than helping Mom around their own igloo since their dad had gone fishing without him. Truth be told, Sokka wasn't too upset though; since the days were so short this time of year, Dad wouldn't be gone for long.
"Okay, come on," he waved for her to follow him and stepped outside to gather more building materials; they would get in trouble if they dug up the igloo floor.
Several minutes later the two were sitting on the ground, a small pile of snowballs beside them.
"Do you think this is enough?" Sokka asked. It felt a little strange to him, but he was actually having fun helping his sister with one of her silly games.
Katara answered by plunging her gloves into the snow. "One more," she explained patting together one last snowball to bring inside. As she pulled up the ice, the boy noticed something black and shiny amongst the white background.
"Wait! Look," he exclaimed, reaching up and pulling her hands apart.
"Oooh," the girl breathed, her eyes wide as she pulled out a black spearhead. The two leaned together until their foreheads almost bumped each other to get a closer look at their find.
It was like nothing the two of them had ever seen before. Unlike their tribe's weapons, which were made of bone, a medium that resulted in jagged edges and a light gray color, this spearhead was made of some sort of stone. It was of the darkest black, with smooth sides which reflected the sun and although the edges were almost perfectly sharpened Sokka could faintly make out a swirl pattern where the stone had been cleaved. The tip was still intact and appeared to be razor sharp; if Katara had not been wearing her gloves Sokka realized his sister likely would have sliced her hand.
"Cool! Can I look at it?" the boy asked eagerly, reaching for the stone.
"No!" Katara snapped, pulling the blade close to her chest and cupping it with both hands. It was more out of an automated response to not let her brother have what she had than any real aversion to letting him see the spearhead. "It's mine," she added.
"I saw it first!" Sokka argued, reaching for the blade again, annoyed this time; why did Katara have to ruin literally everything when she was around? The little girl was quick though and jumped to her feet, dodging him.
"But I dug it up," she complained loudly, taking a step backwards as her brother stood up.
"I saw it!" retorted the young man, his voice raising. "You wouldn't even have noticed it if it wasn't for me!"
There was a pause when the siblings both waited for the other to act. Sokka made the first move, lunging towards his sister, who ducked to the side and dashed away leaving him to dive face first into the snow. With the short summer days and long cold nights, the snow had time to build up and the boy sunk into the frozen substance up to his chest, resulting in a wild struggle to extricate himself with nothing to grab onto or push against.
After several seconds of clambering and what Sokka reckoned was a gallon of swallowed snow he freed himself, but it was enough time for Katara to escape. Now he scanned the village with narrowed eyes. Maybe she went home, he wondered as his gaze passed over their own igloo; but it was on the far side of the village so there was no way she could have gotten there in time. As an afterthought the boy glanced down at the ground, but the area was littered with footprints from him and his sister plus the men working on the house; there was basically more trampled snow than fresh.
Sokka sighed, shaking his head. There was really only one place for Katara to hidesince this area of the village was mostly empty, left that way on purpose for new igloos. Dummy… the boy thought with a small smirk and jogged around to the front of the unfinished house. Sure enough once he stepped inside the young man was greeted by his sister trying to charge past him. Before she could muscle past he grabbed the easiest thing to grab: her long braid and used it to hold her back whilst attempting to reach the arm holding the arrowhead. The girl screamed.
The two toppled to the side and slammed against the wall of the igloo entrance, but it was sturdy and didn't wobble or crack and Katara let out another, longer, high pitched shriek. With a wince, Sokka yanked her braid, cutting off the scream.
"Just…let me…see it," he gasped out, extending his arm along with her hair behind him to pull her outstretched hand and the spearhead closer.
"It's mine!" the seven year-old exclaimed with a surprising amount of force for her situation, although there were tears in the corners of her eyes.
"I just want to—ARGH," Sokka started, but it was his turn to get cut off with a shot to the ribs from his sister's elbow. Her bony arm seemed to poke right through his coat and now the boy pulled on Katara's hair with renewed vigor.
The igloo was once again filled with sharp screeching. The two of them stumbled forward, sliding along the wall. In order to avoid another faceplant Sokka released his hold on his sister's hair and extended his hands to catch himself.
Katara, eyes wide, flailed awkwardly and pushed off the wall to avoid being smashed by her brother. During her wild attempt to roll out of the way, her hand caught the ground.
It was only a moment, and the moment happened in a flash, but the boy remembered it vividly even afterwards. Sokka expected for his sister's hand to collide with the ground of the igloo which had been pounded down for building and was now more ice than snow. He was waiting for the cracking sound her knuckles would make, but to both of their astonishment her arm slid right into the ice like it was made of sea prunes.
Then the moment was over and Sokka pushed himself up, shocked and staring at his sister's arm, which had slid almost up to her elbow into the ground. He was no more confused than Katara herself though and she now gasped, whipping her arm out and spraying her brother with droplets of water.
"Did it just…melt?" Sokka asked as his sister removed her sopping wet glove.
Katara's mouth was agape when she answered, "I…guess so." The spearhead lay forgotten beside her feet as they both stared at the four inch wide hole in the ice that now remained.
"How did you…?" but Sokka never finished his question, as their mother appeared in the doorway, looking distraught.
"I heard screaming," she exclaimed, breathing heavily. "Are you alright?"
The children only got as far as to open their mouths before Kya noticed Katara's messed hair, sopping glove and sleeve and their rumpled clothes. "Were you two fighting?" she accused more than asked, the worry on her face quickly dissolving into anger.
"No," they said simultaneously, followed by a glare from their mother. "Yes," they admitted, looking down.
"We were outside getting snow to make furniture," Katara said quickly.
"And then I found this spearhead," Sokka continued, pointing to the item on the floor.
"No, I found it," the girl argued, but Kya had already retrieved it from the ground. She was frowning.
"You should have given this to me or one of the other adults immediately," their mother said sternly. "It's not something to be playing with and you should know better." She was looking at Sokka.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he said, looking at the ground instead of his mother's eyes. Katara frowned, turning her wet glove around in her hands.
"If you want to convince me you're mature enough to go hunting with your father you need to start proving it," Kya brandished the spearhead. "This is Fire Nation, left over from the raids on our village. One of you could have been seriously hurt, it's still sharp."
"Mom?" Katara said softly, interrupting the lecture. "It isn't Sokka's fault. He told me to give it to him but I wouldn't." She clutched her mitten to her chest. Her brother turned to look at her, shocked.
"Is this true, Sokka?" Kya asked, crossing her arms. Katara met his gaze and widened her eyes, encouraging him to go agree. He turned to their mother and nodded. There was a warm spot in his chest and suddenly, even though he had been yanking on her hair moments early, Sokka felt closer to his sister than he ever had before.
Kya blinked, her eyebrows raised in surprised. "Well…Sokka. Dad should be home soon. You should go meet him and help bring in the catch, your sister needs to clean up this 'furniture' and then we need to have a tal—Oh my goodness, what did you do to the floor?"
A/N: Well, here's installment two! The next two chapters will take a bit longer since I made sure I had this one mostly done before posting the last, and I will probably do the same with the next set.
I hope you liked it and once again, I'd love to know what you think! Thank you to everyone to read/reviewed/favorite/alerted the last chapter! (Hearts!)
