Chapter 19: The Victory Tour Begins
The Avatar Victory Tour took off ceremonially early the next morning. Aang and his friends mounted Appa in the palace courtyard and flew to the harbor, where they observed the rededication of the ships from the air. Hakoda and Zuko gave speeches and embraced, then the chief walked the gangplank onto his new vessel. The Fire Lord and Mai waved from the dock until they couldn't see their friends anymore.
Aang flew from Appa's head to the saddle, landing with his legs splayed on either side of Katara. "Let the Avatar victory tour officially begin!" He cried triumphantly.
The girls cheered.
"I have a feeling this is going to be much better than team Avatar's first trip around the world." Toph remarked. "After all, I'll be here for the whole ride."
"Well, in addition to the early shortage of sassy earth bending masters, there was some stuff about that year that was seriously not fun." Aang pointed out.
"But now, there's no ponytail Prince Zuko stalking us, no Admiral Zhao or Azula terrorizing us." Katara listed the villains they'd redeemed, evaded, and defeated.
"No climactic battle hanging over our heads." Aang put in gratefully.
"No scrimping, scavenging, or scamming for food." Katara was especially thankful for the work and worry Zuko's generosity was going to spare her.
"And before, I just wanted to kiss Katara all the time, and now I actually get to do it!" The air bender squeezed his girlfriend around the middle.
"Aw, sweetie," Katara leaned to the side and they shared a soft peck.
Suki chimed in with her own "Aw."
"You think it's cute, I think it's pathetic." Sokka said dismissively.
"Hey!" Katara objected.
"Huh?" Aang was confused and taken aback.
"What? I'm not wrong. His lovesick act was pitiful." Sokka asserted. "Watching this guy nurse a hopeless crush for a year was downright painful."
"It couldn't have been all that hopeless if we're dating now, could it?" Aang retorted. "Besides, you're the one who told me to wait and let her make a move. If you had better advice than that, why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Your problem wasn't that you needed advice. It was that you were going after a girl who was not interested, and way out of your league."
"I'm interested now!" Katara snapped.
Sokka rolled his eyes. "Yeah, after he saved the world. Now that he literally has a fan club."
"I am not some fangirl." Katara had true menace in her voice. If she'd had her water pouch with her, she would have already flicked open the lid and started making threatening shapes with the water. "I have been with Aang every step of the way. Don't you dare belittle our relationship."
"You keep acting like this is the greatest love story of all time. You're just children!"
"I'm older than you, Sokka." Aang replied mildly.
"I don't think that's the card you want to play here, buddy." The taller boy chuckled. "If you say you're 113, that makes you a dirty old man dating a teenager."
"He's got you there, Twinkletoes!" Toph cracked up.
"And to think I was glad I got stuck in an iceberg because it meant I got to meet you!" Aang yelled. "And, yes, my amazing girlfriend!"
"Stop pretending this is some epic romance." Sokka spat. "You just imprinted on the first girl you saw, like a confused little turtle-duck."
By this time, Sokka and Aang were both standing up on Appa's back, their posture threatening.
Katara got between them. "Break it up, you two."
"Stop acting like our mom!" Sokka yelled at his sister. Then he paused and snickered. "He probably likes it. Tie my shoe, Katara! Feed me, Katara! Sleep with me, Katara, I had a nightmare!" The whiny baby voice he put on made the insults even more hurtful.
Everyone stared at Sokka in shocked silence for a minute.
Aang moved to Appa's head and turned the sky bison to the side to descend.
Toph was the first to speak up. "Snoozles, I get as annoyed as you do by sensing their racing hearts and hearing their smoochies, but that was just mean. I'd kick you off myself if Aang didn't have the guts, but I think for once he does."
Appa landed on the ship and Sokka jumped down before anyone could order him to.
Aang was about to take off again, when Suki cried, "Wait!" As she climbed down, she whispered to Katara, "I'll talk to him."
"Hey, me too," said Toph, and she slid down Appa's tail.
"Really, Toph?" Aang asked. He looked a little hurt.
"Sorry, Twinkletoes. I'm on your side this time, but you know I don't really like being in the air. A metal ship isn't as comfortable as good solid ground, but it's better than hurtling through empty space. No offense, Appa." She patted the sky bison's side.
Aang and Katara looked at each other, dumbfounded and abandoned. For a second, she thought he was afraid that she would jump down as well.
"See you at lunch." Katara said to Toph, and turned away from her friends on the boat.
When Appa reached his cruising altitude, Aang climbed back into the saddle next to his girlfriend.
"Well, that was a great way to start our big trip around the world." she remarked sarcastically.
"Yeah. This sucks." Aang's knees were drawn up, and he looked sadder than she'd seen him since before the comet. She wondered if there was a part of him that had believed Sokka's insinuations.
Katara scooted closer to her boyfriend. "You know he's wrong, right? About basically everything he said?"
"Yeah, I know," he conceded, still somewhat dejected.
"He made it seem like I only wanted to be with you because you suddenly became a hero and a celebrity. Tell me you know that's not true."
"Of course. It was great how you defended us. For a second I thought you might hit him. He just knows us so well, he can strike right where it hurts." Aang looked down. "I always thought you were out of my league."
His dispirited tone made her heart hurt, and she took his hand. "Shouldn't I get to decide that? I think we're exactly in the same league, and always have been. If anything, you're out of my league now, O Savior of the Earth Kingdom." She tried to lighten his mood and make a joke of it all. "Maybe I should be an Avatar fangirl. I could wear a shirt with your face on it and lead the convention. I'm sure the other fangirls would be interested to know what a great kisser you are. Actually, it would probably be mean of me to tease them like that." He still wasn't quite cheered up. Katara nudged his shoulder with hers. "The other night you were saying you were glad it happened between us the way it did."
"Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't let him twist our story and make me pathetic." He smiled brightly at her. "I actually do think it's the greatest love story of all time. The beginning of it, anyway."
When he said things like that, it took her breath away. She took a moment to recover.
"I didn't know Sokka gave you advice about me." she prodded.
"Yeah. After the stupid play. It was really good advice." Aang admitted. "But maybe he thought it would take a lot longer to pay off than it did."
"He thought I'd keep you waiting for years?"
"Probably. I did too, for a while."
"Well, if it was Sokka's goal to break us up, then making sure that we had lots of time alone up here was a really dumb way to do it." she pointed out flirtatiously. "I can't imagine what we could possibly do up here all by ourselves. Do you have any ideas?"
She reached for his face, and began trailing kisses along his cheek and jaw. When she nibbled his earlobe a little, he gasped and seized her. Then his lips were on hers and they were flying.
When Aang and Katara landed on Hakoda's ship for lunch, Sokka came right over to them, his head down in shame.
"I'm sorry." he told his sister and best friend. "I shouldn't have said any of that stuff. I know I crossed a line. Several lines. It's just—look. Aang, you're like a brother to me. And now you're kissing on my sister. Can't you see why I'd think that's gross?"
"Ok. I understand that." Aang replied, as diplomatically as possible. "But you've also got to understand that it doesn't feel that way to us."
"You're the one who said to him, we're your family now." Sokka accused Katara.
She shrugged. "Maybe I didn't know it at the time, but this might have been exactly what I meant. I need you to answer me honestly, Sokka. Is that all there was to this morning's blow up? What else is going on with you?"
Sokka took a deep breath. "Look, for a long time it was just the three of us. You two always had your own connection, but it was...under the surface. Now it's all up in my face, and I just feel...inessential. Irrelevant. It's like you're so wrapped up in each other, you don't need or want the rest of us around anymore. I just don't want to be pushed to the side. And Suki and Toph too. Maybe especially Toph. With you two paired off, it's upset the whole team dynamic." He sighed, and suddenly looked really sad. "And I already miss my fire bro, and honestly, this whole tour is just delaying the inevitable: the breakup of team Avatar. I can't stop you guys from growing up, but I just want us all to be kids together for a while."
"I'm sorry if we've made you feel that way. Maybe we have been kind of caught up in each other and oblivious to you, and the others." Katara admitted.
"Like when you two skipped our victory tour planning session last night just to fly around on your glider?" Sokka crossed his arms and glowered at them.
"You're right, we totally forgot!" Aang smacked himself in the forehead. "I'm sorry, Sokka!"
"You know you're really important to us, Sokka." Katara told her brother.
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, maybe it will be good for all of us if we can just give each other a little space right now. You can get all this out of your system far away from the rest of us. I won't be riding on Appa anymore, until we leave the South Pole. Dad made me captain of the second ship."
"That's wonderful, Sokka!" Katara exclaimed.
"Well, Bato told him how you guys helped me pass the ice-dodging test, and he said that meant I could handle it." Sokka modestly shared his honor with them.
"Congratulations!" Aang said. He exchanged a quick glance with Katara, who seemed to have made the same calculation he had. "But, uh, I'm still going to have to take Appa up for his exercise."
"And he's going to need some company." Katara put in.
"So we won't be able to hang out with you on the ship all day." Aang finished her thought.
"We'll miss you." Katara fibbed. "It's not the same up there without you."
"Don't bullshit me, you two. You can barely contain your excitement at the thought of making out for hours in the clouds." Sokka closed his eyes and shuddered.
Katara and Aang were both blushing, and determinedly avoiding each other's eyes. It was as good as an acknowledgement that Sokka was right.
"We're ok, then?" Katara asked.
"Yeah, we're fine. Come here, you lovebirds." Sokka hugged them both, one under each arm. "Now it's time to eat!"
It was probably the best—certainly the freshest—meal of the journey, with bread baked that morning, and fruit straight from the capital's markets, not a single thing from a can or sack. After lunch the group of teens sat around on the deck, talking and joking. Some of the sailors joined them and asked to hear the stories of the final battles, and they had to oblige. After the story circle broke up, Aang and Katara dropped the others on Sokka's ship so that he could take command, and then took Appa back up and flew above the ships until dinner.
When night fell, Aang used Appa to ferry Katara, Suki, and Toph from Sokka's ship back to Hakoda's. Katara had rolled her eyes when she heard that her father had assigned sleeping quarters this way: with boys and girls on two entirely different ships. The other arrangements made more sense to her: Bato's ship held most of the cargo and luggage, while Sokka's needed extra space for Appa to sleep on board.
The next morning, Aang and Katara held the first regatta. Suki flew ahead on Appa to make a kind of finish line. The waterbenders created strong currents to push their ship ahead of the other's, while the rest of the crew tried to make sure their ship was making the most of their bender's propulsion. Sokka's ship had an advantage because it was lighter without Appa on board. As the journey went on, their speed improved as Sokka and Toph worked together on engineering improvements to the ship. The problem was that on the open sea it was hard to tell who won. Only a couple times was the winner clear, and that was when Aang admitted to using air bending too. After the race, he and Katara had to fly back to the third ship on the glider and work together to help it catch up.
By the time Bato's ship was near the others, it would be time for lunch. The young people shared their meals on Sokka's ship, and then in the afternoon, Aang and Katara took off on Appa. After all, the sky bison couldn't just sit on the ship all day.
Years later, Katara and Aang looked back on that part of the victory tour as the time when they grew comfortable with each other physically and taught each other to kiss. It was amazing how many different kinds of kisses there could be. They experimented with all variations of speed, area, position, firmness, rhythm, voice, mood, duration, intensity. They developed a style, a grammar for this new language. They kissed until their jaws ached and the skin around their mouths felt raw and numb. By the time they reached the South Pole, they both felt like they'd mastered a new kind of bending.
Author's Note:
I did steal one line from the graphic novel The Search: "I always wanted to kiss Katara and now I actually get to do it."
Next chapter: What that last paragraph summed up, I wrote a few random scenes. Basically Aang and Katara discovering the joys of making out while flying on Appa. As sexy as you can get without removing clothes.