Chapter 10: A Normal Life

Aang, Katara, Zuko and Toph walked their way back to the house in Ember Island that served as their temporary hideout in the Fire Nation. They had just spent the entire day training together, at Katara's suggestion that Aang should get accustomed to use all of the elements at the same time. Though an undeniably good idea, she really just wanted to do some waterbending for a change. They decided to go look for a more open area to accommodate all four benders, and after a lot of walking settled for a clearing close to the beach. The small journey would be a lot faster with Appa, but Zuko insisted that it was too dangerous to fly with the bison, at risk of being spotted.

Though the group marching in the early hours of the night was composed by the Avatar and his three bending sifus, all renowned master of their own elements, a less informed observer would only see two goofy kids trying to lick their elbows while making "ahhhh" sounds, as an slightly older girl who watched with an amused smile and an even older boy followed behind with much less amusement.

"See? I told you." Aang said, with his tongue still out. "It can't be done. Not by us simple humans."

"I don't see, actually." Toph retorted. "But it's so frustrating! Now I can't stop thinking about it."

"I know how you feel. There was this one kid back at the Air temple, Genzo. He could do it. Bragged about it all the time."

"Somehow, I don't believe in you." Doubted the ever-cynical Zuko.

"But it is true! You can ask Toph if I'm lying!" Zuko didn't, but the earthbender still shook her head negatively, indicating that he was really telling the truth. "And it was more than just having a long tongue and really elastic arms, though he had that too. There was this whole technique to it that he mastered. He tried to teach it to me, but my body just can't do it. Even after I learned I was the Avatar, I still felt less special than Genzo." This made Katara giggle, which in turn put a satisfied smirk on Aang's face. "What about you Katara? Can you do it?" He asked, as they arrived in the courtyard of the house, where Zuko usually trains him.

"Nah. Sokka and I already had this whole fascination and disappointment with the elbow licking phenomenon." She tried to demonstrate it herself, but turned her head too fast and her hair got in the way. She ended up with loose swaths of hair in her tongue. "Argh! My hair is just so big! It's a mess. I desperately need a haircut." Katara then proceeded to undo heir braids in order to fix them up again.

"Yeah, a mess…" Aang caught himself admiring how beautiful his best friend looked with her hair down. And he wasn't the only one. Ever since the Invasion, Katara has been much more aware of his gaze on her. She couldn't decide if it was flattering or disconcerting.

"I'm uh, going to look for a comb." She quickly made her way into the house, glad to have made up a decent excuse to hide her blush.

"What about you, Sparky? Can you do it?" Toph asked, drawing Aang's attention back to the elbow situation. "It might just be your secret talent."

"I have talents!" Zuko defended himself, typically moody.

"Eh. Nothing unique. If you can lick your elbow, it means you're able to do something the Avatar himself cannot."

"My greatest regret." Aang lamented.

"I can't lick my own elbow, Toph."

"How can you know that if you haven't tried yet?"

"I don't have to try it!" Despite what he just said, the firebender got his tongue out and tried to stick it into his elbow. "Whatever Aang's friend did was a trick, because it is anatomically impossible to…" He stopped talking when he realized that his tongue was just a few inches away from reaching his elbow. In shock, Zuko widened his eyes to Aang, who stared at him with both hand on his head.

"You're… you're the one." The airbender stated, the emotion clear in his voice.

"What? Did he do it!?" Toph was in disbelief.

"No, but he's so close!"

"What do I do? I can't get any closer!" Zuko's words almost intelligible, between him having his tongue out and being somewhat desperate.

"Zuko, I need you to listen to me very carefully. The next few steps are crucial." The Fire Prince was dutifully listening on Aang's every word, while the airbender tried to remember the instructions his friend passed on to him a hundred years ago. "My whole life has been leading to this very moment. Now, try to move your arm slightly to the-"

"SOKKA! HOW CAN YOU BE SO INCONSIDERATE!" Katara's anger-fueled screams cut out Aang explanation, and made Zuko jump in reaction, losing his pose.

"No…" Aang lamented.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DONE THIS! WHERE ARE YOU?" The waterbender continued, her heavy steps through the house audible even from the courtyard.

Curious, Toph slammed her feet on the ground and let out a snide laugh at what she "saw."

"Oh, she's not going to like it when she finds him."

On cue, they heard the sound of a door opening, immediately followed by a lot of horrified screaming, as Momo flew away from the house in fear.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" That was definitely Sokka.

"WHAT AM I DOING- WHY ARE YOU SHIRTLESS!?" Katara screamed back, and soon their voices blended into indistinct yelling.

"Oh no." Aang realized. He's with Suki, isn't he?" The blind girl confirmed through more laughing. "The poor girl."

"Should we do something?" Like in most social situations, Zuko had absolutely no idea what to do.

"Nah, they have a fight like this at least once a week."

"What we should do is guess what made Sugar Queen angry this time." Toph suggested. "Twinkle Toes, what do you got?"

"I don't know. She was talking about looking for a comb earlier. Maybe Sokka broke it?"

"Do you really think she would be acting like this over a broken comb?" Zuko asked.

"Pff." Toph disdained. "Once, she yelled at me during an entire night because I didn't want to help set up camp."

Aang shook his head at Zuko, trying to communicate that it was way more justifiable than Toph made it out to be.

"Actually, I'm going to side with Katara on this one, Toph. It was a crazy night."

"Whatever. Zuko, you have a sister. What's your guess?"

The Fire Prince looked a little distraught with the question, and sat down in the steps leading to the house to answer.

"When we fought, I was always the one doing the yelling, and it was usually because she was planning something mean to me. I don't think Sokka and Katara have this kind of relationship, so I can't really say."

"Well Zuko, I don't think we can say that anyone has a relationship with their sibling quite like the one you and Azula have." Aang noted, shaking his head.

"That's fair. Though if I'm being honest, before I joined, I expected Sokka and Katara to be more normal."

"Right?" Toph agreed. "I always thought having a sibling would involve more fun and pranks, instead of the bickering and fighting that Katara and Sokka are always up to."

"Well, that's because you guys have weird lives and don't know any other siblings." Aang said, while sticking his staff standing up in the ground with earthbending, then leaning against it. "Katara and Sokka have a perfectly normal relationship, every sibling is like this."

"We're the weird ones? You're a monk!" Toph kicked his staff away, but instead of falling to the ground like she expected, the boy simply used airbending to keep his balance.

"Yeah, Toph's right." Zuko added. "How do you know what a sibling relationship is supposed to look like if you didn't even have a normal family?"

"I might be a monk, but I'm also a nomad. I travelled the world and met different people, many of which were siblings who acted just like Sokka and Katara. See, this is the kind of information you collect when you actually know how to make friends."

Before either of the social outcast could think of something to answer, they heard the fight between the siblings escalate to the courtyard.

"I don't understand why you're so upset!" Sokka was following Katara, who was making her way to the other side of the house, holding something on her hand that appeared to be broken. "It's just a stupid comb!"

"Told you." Aang whispered smugly to his friends.

"It doesn't count, she told you about it." Toph whispered back.

"It's not just a stupid comb." Katara answered without even looking back. "It's the stupid comb. As in, THE ONLY ONE AROUND. Now how am I supposed to brush my hair? Oh, but what I am saying? I'm sure you don't care about that."

"This is so unfair! You don't even know that it was me who broke it. You just jump to accuse me, like always!"

This made Katara stop in her tracks and finally turn around to face her brother.

"Oh man, rant time." Toph announced, excited.

"I don't?" Just the sheer coldness in her voice already made Sokka regret challenging her. "Ok, let's make a rundown. Toph would not braid her hair to save her own life. Aang is bald. Zuko is too scared of me to even touch something he thinks belongs to me." She got a little closer to her brother with each example.

"It's true." Without missing a beat, Zuko confirmed it.

"And do you want to know how I know that it wasn't Suki?" She was in Sokka's face now, completely intimidating the otherwise hardened warrior. "Because Suki actually respects me. When Suki needed a comb, she asked me for one. And I gladly offered mine. Because she asked for it. She understood that I am my own person that she needs to treat on the same level. You don't understand that. You need a comb, you just go ahead and take mine, and then somehow manage to break it! You see me practicing waterbending and you make fun of it! You rip open your pants because of some dumb stunt that you pulled, and just toss it over to me! You never, ever respected me, and I am sick of it!"

"Wow, that's a lot of baggage." Zuko commented.

"Right? She goes deep." Toph was enjoying every second of it.

"Okay, now that is really, really unfair." It was Sokka' turn to make his case. "I've made a lot of progress on all the things that you mentioned. It makes no sense to bring all of this up out of nowhere. The problem here is not that I broke your comb, its that you have no patience with me." Katara scoffed, but he kept going. "Yes, I broke it, but let's pretend for a moment that it wasn't me. Let's pretend that it was Aang that needed your comb. No, actually, let's remember the time Aang needed a comb for the first in his life, just a little while ago."

"Wait, you had hair?" Zuko asked.

"Being unconscious for a few weeks kind of limits your grooming capabilities." Aang deadpanned.

"Sorry about that."

"Now, when Aang had hair, he didn't even need to ask you for a comb. No, the first thing you did when he realized that he would need to brush his hair was OFFER TO DO IT FOR HIM. Imagine if I had asked for such a thing."

"Oh so I should be doing your hair for you, is that what you're saying?"

"You know that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that with Aang, you have all the patience in the world, and with me, you snap at everything!"

"This is ridiculous!" Katara yelled, completely flustered. "Leave Aang out of this, he has nothing to do with it!"

"You're right. I'm sorry, that was my bad." Sokka genuinely apologized, then turned around to where the rest of his friends where not very discreetly listening in on their fight. "I'm sorry Aang!"

"It's okay!" The airbender answered, which made Katara's face even more red. He tried to look at her, but she immediately looked away.

"Look, I'm sorry about the comb, really." Sokka continued, seizing the moment that his sister was a little in the defensive. "I wanted to look nice for Suki, and Momo was around, we started playing with it. Next thing I knew, he was flying around with it, and just let go. Like an idiot."

Katara raised an outraged eyebrow at her brother.

"Oh so you were playing around with it? Okay." She started making her way back to Sokka's room. "Let's see how you like if I play around with something of yours."
"What do you mean by that-" Sokka's face went from confusion to horror in a spam of seconds when he realized what she meant. "KATARA DON'T!" He ran after her, but she already had a head start.

"He's right, you know." Toph commented to Aang after the siblings disappeared inside the house. "She never yells at you."

"That's not true." The airbender protested, though secretly very pleased with himself. "This one time when we were trying to learn waterbending together, she got really angry at me. Said a lot of hurtful stuff."

"That's it? She yelled at you one time?"

"There were other times. I just can't remember it right now."

"She yelled at me four times just last week." Zuko crossed his arms. "And that was after saying she forgives me."

Laughing a bit nervously, Aang was about to ask his friends if they thought this meant something, but before he had the chance, Suki appeared before the trio.

"Can I hide out here with you guys?" She asked,her eyes fixed on the ground with embarrassment.

"Sure." Zuko answered. Not three seconds of silence passed before he felt the need to break it. "So were you guys…?"

"No!" Suki immediately cut him down. Why did he of all people had to bring it up? "I mean, kind of. We were… there… and then… You know what, I don't want to talk about it. Can someone please talk about any other subject?"

"What was Momo doing in there?" Toph completely ignored her request.

"THE SUBJECT, PLEASE."

"Ok!" Aang was already on it. "Actually, I think you can be a great help to us Suki. Can you, as a normal person, explain to these two that Sokka and Katara are normal siblings?"

The Kyoshi Warrior considered his question for a moment.

"Yeah, they're normal siblings, but they're not, you know, normal people. I'm the only normal person around here."

"Hey!" Aang and Zuko protested in unison, but Toph seemed pretty okay with the statement.

"What? It's true. You are the Avatar and the Banished Prince! That's not normal." Suki then pointed at Toph. "She invented a new type of bending at the age of twelve."

"And I'm blind." The metalbender added.

"And she's blind!" Suki agreed. "As for Katara, I saw her split open a lake then fight off a giant serpent. That is not normal by any standard."

"Yeah, that was amazing wasn't it?" Aang had that characteristic lovesick look as he admired Katara's feats, not acknowledging that he was there doing the same thing.

"What about Sokka?" Zuko asked. "He's pretty a normal guy."

"Sokka's weird, but in a different way." Suki had the same look as Aang as she admired her own, at the moment much more successful, love interest. "He's that charming, funny and daring sort of weird, you know?"

"Nope." Aang deadpanned.

"Nuh-uh." Zuko agreed.

"Yeah…" Toph caught herself daydreaming, before immediately realizing what she was doing. "I mean, no. It's gross. Sokka's gross!" Somehow feeling all the eyes of the group on her, the earthbender was relieved when she felt two frenetic pairs of footsteps coming out of the house again. "Look, they're back." She pointed towards the house.

"Katara, be reasonable, this is not a toy!" Sokka pleaded to his sister, trying to follow her. She was holding his boomerang, and judging by their breathing and overall messiness, they clearly had some kind of scuffle for the weapon, which Katara had apparently won.

"I'm just going to play around with it for a bit, I don't see the problem!" The waterbender answered, adjusting her body into a throwing stance. "And if it somehow breaks, it's just a stupid boomerang!"

"This comparison makes NO SENSE!" Sokka lunged at her just before she threw the boomerang with a grunt of effort. Everyone, except for Toph, watched as it flew a few yards at most, before flatly falling on the ground, to the disappointment of some in the group, and the relief of others.

As her intention was clearly to have thrown the weapon as far away as possible, Katara was steaming with anger, while Sokka laughed exaggeratedly in disdain.

"This is what you get for making dumb, unfair comparisons." He walked towards the boomerang to pick it up, satisfied with himself. So satisfied, in fact, that he did not notice Aang looking at him desperadly while rubbing his finger though his neck, indicating that Sokka should stop poking the moose-lion with a stick. "It's like I said, little sis. It's not a toy. You need to be very careful and talented to…" Sokka stopped in his tracks when he bent down to pick up the boomerang and noticed it wasn't there. True to Aang's not heeded warning, Katara stood in a waterbenderding pose. Above them, she controlled the boomerang, completely enveloping it with water from her waterskin and making it float.

"ARGH!" With this loud grunt, she lunged both of her arms forward, putting all of her anger into the body of water surrounding the boomerang. The water obeyed her comands, and soon Sokka's favorite weapon was flying away into the horizon, quickly becoming smaller and smaller in their view as it approached the woods surrounding the house. This time, Katara had the smugly satisfied look on her face, while her brother ran after his boomerang, screaming for it come back. As for the rest of the group, Aang and Zuko looked at each other, at a loss of what to do. Toph, having deduced what had happened by Sokka's screams was having the time of her life. Suki just sighed.

"I should go help him look for it." She said, walking resignedly towards her boyfriend, who was still running.

"Now do you think we should do something?" Zuko asked Aang.

"Yeah. We should talk to her." Although there was a silent agreement between all three of them, Zuko and Toph were waiting on Aang, both a little afraid to approach Katara, explosive as she currently was. Noticing this reluctance from his friends, the airbender rolled his eyes. "C'mon guys. Just follow my lead."

Aang walked towards Katara, leading his friends who were carefully following him. She was sitting in the steps in front of the house, and her best friend naturally sat beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, a gesture they had done for each other so many other times. Katara immediately recognized the confort in his silent reaffirmation of companionship, and felt her shoulders less tense, her breathing more stable and her heartrate slower.

Feeling a little encouraged by seeing Katara visibly calm down, Zuko also sat down, though a little farther away from her.

"You know we can go into town tomorrow and buy another comb, right?" His intentions were great, but his words had the opposite intended effect on the waterbender.

"It's not just about the comb, Zuko!" She complained, and Toph subtly kicked Zuko without Katara noticing, communicating that he should let Aang handle it. The airbender, still with his hand on the shoulder of her friend, squeezed it a little to call her attention.

"Katara…" He started, patiently planning a longer speech, but just upon making eye contact with him and hearing him say her name, Katara was already sighing defeatedly.

"I know, I shouldn't have thrown away his boomerang." She rolled her eyes. "That was one step too far and out of line." Her tone and demeanor showed that she was very annoyed to have to admit to being wrong.

Aang laughed a bit at this reaction, and he could see just the flicker of a smile forming on her lips as well.

"It's a really important boomerang to him." He commented, lightheartedly.

"He defeated combustion man with it!" Toph added.

"That's not his name." Zuko corrected her, and the blind girl blew a raspberry to him. Ignoring her, he turned to Katara, trying to conjure up as most kindness as he could. "But don't worry Katara. You were just a little angry. It happens. Siblings fight." Behind her, Aang smirked proudly, and Zuko ignored that too. "Let's just go find Sokka's boomerang before it gets too dark." This time she seemed to listen to him, and the Fire Prince let out a small sigh of relief.

Standing up, Aang offered his hand to Katara, non-verbally echoing Zuko's words. She hesitated for a bit before taking it, and when she did, Aang pulled her up with a little more force than necessary, purposefully making her laugh. He spent the whole way to the woods cheering her up in the little ways only he knew how, while Zuko and Toph followed them a few steps back.

"He's good, isn't he?" Zuko noted in a low whisper to his blind friend.

"At what? Conflict resolution? It's kind of his thing. But don't worry. You're getting the hang of it too." That wasn't exactly what Zuko had in mind when watching the two friends laugh together, but he still appreciated the anwser, especially since it came with a free compliment from Toph of all people.

The four friends quickly caught up to Sokka and Suki, and the whole group spent a few hours looking for a small boomerang in a big island. Sokka climbed on every tree to see if it was stuck in one of them. Aang and Momo surveyed through the skies, and ocassionaly the Avatar would come down to, alongisde Zuko, offer a light to his friend with firebending. It ended up not being necessary for, despite all her nagging about being blind and therefore useless in this situation, it was Toph who eventually found it, using her seismic sense.

"You're welcome, by the way." She quipped as Sokka hugged his weapon crying, as if reuniting with a long lost lover. Though still finding his reaction a bit ridiculous, Suki had a caring hand in his shoulder. Once he was done with his little show, the rest of the group, again, made their way back to the house, this time in subdued silence. Everyone was tired, and the tension between the siblings still lingered on the air.

"So... how was training today?" Suki tried to break the ice. She only got mumbles saying that it was fine. "Nothing interesting happened?"

"Oh!" Aang remembered, excited. "We discovered Zuko can lick his own elbow!"

"What? That's impossible."

"He can! Zuko, show it to them!"

"Well, i can't really lick it." Zuko explained, a little timidly. "It's just really close." He proceeded to try again to touch his elbow with his tongue, but upon looking at the group's reaction, no one seemed impressed.

"That's not even remotely close to your elbow." Suki raised an eyebrow. Zuko allowed his eyes to look down, and noticed that it was indeed much farther away than last time.

"I knew they had to be exaggerating." Toph mocked, with a mix of disdain and disappointment, making Suki laugh.

"No, he can do it!" Aang wa desperately arguing for his friend. "You just gotta push it a little further, Zuko."

"I'M TRYING!"

Sokka and Katara found themselves side-by-side, watching their friends yell at and mock each other. Even though the four of them were not siblings, they both saw a little bit of their own relationship in that clash of personalities, and shared a small smile.

"I'm sorry for breaking your comb." Sokka said, simply. "And i'm sorry for not making you feel respected."

"I'm sorry for throwing away your boomerang. And for not having patience with you."

Sokka looked over to their friends, where Toph and Suki were laughing at Aang's frantic attempts to coordinate Zuko's tongue, and gestured towards them to his sister.

"Truce, and make fun of Zuko?"

Katara's grin widened, most of the anger now gone. It was just a dumb comb, she could get another one.

"Truce."

End

Author's Notes

This one is way less on the heartwarming and character study side, and way more on the funny and chaotic vibe. I just had this idea of Sokka and Katara fighting over something stupid, and Aang trying to teach Zuko how to lick his elbow, and had to turn it into a story. Is it great? No. Is it funny? I hope so.

Next Week: Still in the air, but probably my take on a classic Kataang concept.