"I think Appa's getting tired."
"Hmm?" Katara looked up from her reading at the back of her husband's head, the direction from which a noise had pulled her out of a fascinating little book on firebending healing techniques she had "borrowed" from the Fire Palace library. She was curled up on the saddle while he sat on the bison's head, reins loosely in hand, the collar of his robes fluttering in the gentle wind.
"Appa will need to rest soon, we should find somewhere to stop for the night."
They were a few days into their travel toward Ba Sing Se. Neither of them had been particularly happy to leave the Fire Nation, where they had been visiting Zuko and Mai and becoming increasingly besotted with the new baby princess, Izumi. As always, though, duty called—the Earth King had requested Aang's presence at a diplomatic negotiation, and there was a medical conference at Ba Sing Se University that Katara had been invited to speak at.
Katara set down her book and made her way to the front of the saddle, leaning her forearms on the edge. She could see the horizon barely beginning to dim as the sun crept lower behind them.
"Yeah, you're right. We could stand to re-stock on some supplies as well. Do you think we could try to find a town nearby?" She looked at the terrain below, mostly wooded with a stream or two winding through the trees.
"Sure thing," Aang replied. He pulled a well-worn map out of the folds of his robes and examined it. After a few moments, he let out an amused snort.
"What? What's so funny?"
"Katara… the closest village to here is Makapu."
A beat. "Are you serious?"
"Completely. It's just over that way, see that mountain?" he said, pointing.
Come to think of it, that mountain was giving her a strong sense of déjà vu. She suddenly realized it was not just any mountain, but the volcano their little group had prevented from flattening a village several years earlier.
"Wow… it's been… I don't think we've been there since before the war ended," she said.
"That's right, we passed pretty close by a few years ago but Sokka flat-out refused. He said something about preferring to hold onto his sanity at least until he could convince Suki to marry him," Aang said with a grin.
Katara rolled her eyes but chuckled all the same. It had been too long since she'd seen her brother; she made a mental note to invite him and his wife over for dinner as soon as possible. Besides, they needed to get Momo back from him; Sokka occasionally asked to "borrow" the old lemur when Aang and Katara were traveling. They still weren't entirely sure why.
"Well, since Sokka isn't here to complain, let's stop there," Katara decided. "I bet we can find some treats for Appa at the market in the morning. You deserve something nice for working so hard, don't you boy?" She reached down and stroked a tuft of Appa's soft white fur, prompting an assenting grumble from the bison.
Several minutes later they rounded the volcano, revealing the small village at its foot. Katara gasped.
"The lava structure is exactly how you left it, Aang."
It was true. Evidence of the not-so-dormant volcano's eruption remained in a jagged shell around the perimeter of Makapu Village, lava frozen in place by an impressive feat of airbending.
"Woah…" Aang stared down at the structure below them. "I can't believe they never took it down. There were definitely earthbenders living here when we were here last."
"Strange," Katara murmured.
When they landed Appa on the outskirts of the village, the sun was just setting. They walked down the path to the village gates, hand in hand. The fire bugs began to emerge from the grass, and once in a while one would blink lazily past at eye level.
After walking in silence for a while, Katara cleared her throat. Although she was aware he would see right through her, she tried to broach the camelephant in the room as casually as possible: "So… do you think Aunt Wu still lives here?"
They knew each other well enough to know exactly what was running through the other's mind at that moment. They both carried some residual embarrassment around the subject of the fortune-teller. Once, when he was in a late-night nostalgia-fueled truth-telling mood, Aang had admitted to listening in on Katara's fortune-telling session with Aunt Wu. At first, she was indignant, even a little angry ("That was private! How could you do that?") But he had been appropriately contrite and she hadn't been able to hold the grudge for long.
Katara, for her part, cringed inwardly whenever she remembered how she had all but stalked the fortuneteller for the duration of their stay in Makapu Village. Intoxicated by the thought of knowing what lay in her own future, she had pestered Aunt Wu for increasingly mundane details until the poor woman had literally slammed the door in her face.
"I don't know… I mean, it looked like she was doing pretty well for herself here before… and she seemed ancient when we were here as kids but I don't think she was actually that old…" he trailed off.
"If she's still here… do you think you would ask her to do another reading?" Katara asked him.
Aang was quiet for a while, pensive. "Maybe." His expression shifted, and he shot her a wry smile. "But hey, if I have to fight another battle to determine the fate of the world, so be it. I might as well not lose sleep over it in advance." Releasing her hand, he reached down without breaking his stride and plucked a single daisy from the grass. He rolled the stem absently between his fingers. "What about you? You gonna get her to tell you what to eat for breakfast again? Or… no, don't tell me, she'll help you decide which outfit to wear to maximize your chances of meeting your true love?"
Katara let out a mock-offended "uh!" and smacked his shoulder lightly.
"You know I can dress myself perfectly well, thank you very much, and besides, I think my true love usually prefers me wearing nothing at all."
Katara glanced at him sideways, and, satisfied with the feigned look of scandal plastered across his face, pointed her eyes resolutely ahead. She lifted her hand and held out her open palm, facing upward, in front of his chest. After a moment she felt him place something on it. She tucked the daisy into her braid.
When they reached town, they left Appa at the gates with an ear scratch and instructions to stay close and headed straight to where they remembered a small inn lay near the square. The streets were mostly empty along their route; Katara figured the villagers were in their homes preparing the evening meal. This was for the best, she mused—ever since they had played key roles in ending the Hundred Year War, their reputation tended to precede them and a brief stop in a new town could quickly turn into a mob of one sort or another. Aang in particular was hard to miss, with his brightly colored robes and distinctive tattoos.
Aang opened the wooden door to the inn and held it for Katara, gesturing for her to enter with an exaggerated flourish. She blew him a kiss. They both laughed.
The lobby of the inn was small and warm, its dark wood-paneled walls lined with lanterns giving off dim, yellow-tinged light. They found themselves alone in the room at first, but their entry had set off a tinkling bell above the door that soon summoned the innkeeper from a back room.
"Good evening, good evening, what can I do for—" the small man began, before his spectacled eyes focused on the pair of travelers standing in his entryway and widened almost cartoonishly.
"We're just—" Aang tried to cut him off before he could get going.
"Avatar Aang! And, and, Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe!" he stammered. "It is an honor to receive you in my humble inn! I am Lei, the owner of this establishment! I so clearly remember the day you first graced our village with your presence, what was it, seven, eight years ago? Oh, had I known you were coming I would have, I would have…" he trailed off, clearly unable to think of exactly what he would have done had he been alerted to the impending arrival of two of the most influential people in the world. "I knew I should have gone to see Aunt Wu this week, I'm sure she would have told me. But, oh, however can I assist you on this fine evening?"
At the mention of Aunt Wu, Aang and Katara exchanged a look.
Aang started again. "We're just passing through on our way to Ba Sing Se, and we wondered if you had a room available for the night."
"Of course, of course!" the innkeeper replied. "I shall see right to it! Now, should I put you in the Cirrus Room, or the Cumulus Room, or, oh, or the Stratus Room, or…" He had walked behind the lobby desk and was flipping through the inn's booking logs.
"Any room is fine for us, really," Katara said, kindly yet firmly.
"Oh, well, in that case, I'll offer you the Cumulus room. It has the most wonderful view of Mount Makapu, which," Lei paused, seeming to remember suddenly that the people standing before him were very familiar with the volcano, "which, well, is beautiful this time of year," he finished somewhat lamely.
"Thank you, that sounds perfect. What do we owe you?" Katara asked, reaching for her satchel.
The innkeeper gasped. "No, I could never ask for money from you! I wouldn't dream of it!"
"We're more than happy to compensate you. How much do you usually charge for a night?"
Lei just shook his head rapidly back and forth. Katara felt Aang nudge her surreptitiously. She glanced up at him. His expression said, "Let me deal with this one."
With a sigh and a nod, she watched as her husband approached the desk and spoke in low tones with the flustered innkeeper. Before long, the man seemed to calm down and solemnly allowed Aang to place a few coins into his hand.
Katara tried not to smirk. Aang had become suspiciously adept at convincing people to take his money even when they adamantly refused at first. She surmised, from overheard snippets, that on these occasions he was inventing entirely bogus Avatar proverbs about the spiritual virtues of accepting payment for honestly-provided goods and services. It was hard for most people to argue with him when he used his "wise Avatar" voice.
Lei then led the couple to their room, and informed them at the door that dinner would be brought by shortly. He left to return to the lobby with a bow and a disbelieving backwards glance.
Katara and Aang filed into the room and dropped their sparse luggage. Aang lit the wall sconces with a quick bit of firebending. The accommodations were simple yet clean; a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a low table, and in the corner of the room a doorway that looked like it led to a private washroom. A newly-risen moon drew Katara's eye to the window. She could indeed glimpse the peak of Mount Makapu, looming over the frozen wave of lava at the edge of the village, as promised. For a split second she was transported back in time, watching a river of molten rock flow inexorably toward a small, determined boy.
The boy, well, man, in question was now flopping down on the bed, stretching out his long limbs with a grunt. Katara regarded him fondly, then approached the bed and crawled on top of him, prompting a small "oof." She adjusted herself so that their faces were barely a few inches apart.
"Beats camping," she said.
"I like camping," he responded.
"I know, but this place has a real bathroom," Katara pointed out.
Aang sighed and brushed one of her hair loops out of her face. "A couple weeks in the Fire Nation palace and you're already spoiled."
Katara narrowed her eyes at him, but his proximity had already begun to fill her with a warm static and in place of a snarky reply she delivered a gentle kiss to his lips.
He hummed contentedly and wrapped his arms around her. She kissed him again, more deeply. His hands slid from her shoulders to her lower back. She was just starting to run her tongue along the points of his teeth when a knock came at the door. Katara's eyes flew open and she sat up, glanced at the door, and then looked back at Aang with a pout.
He groaned, took a deep breath to collect himself, and tapped her leg indicating for her to get off his lap. Aang then swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, giving Katara a second to perch on the edge of the bed and smooth down her tunic before he reached for the doorknob and opened it.
A stout woman stood in the doorway, her hand gripping a cart piled with small covered containers.
"Dinner is here!" she announced.
"That was fast," Katara muttered under her breath, impressed and annoyed in equal parts.
Aang stepped back to allow the woman into the room and she headed straight for the low table, transferring the contents of the cart onto its surface with practiced efficiency.
"All vegetarian, not to worry," she said as she bustled.
"Oh! Thank you," said Aang.
The woman gave a brisk nod and continued to arrange small dishes on the table.
Katara had a thought. "Um, could – sorry, what was your name?" she asked.
"I am Chun," said the woman, straightening up and surveying her work.
"Chun, we were wondering about this, and – could you tell us why nobody ever removed the lava structure from the edge of the village? It seems like a bit of an eyesore."
"Oh, that! Well, it's simple, you see: Aunt Wu advised against it. Aunt Wu has never been wrong before."
"She… advised against it? Did she say why?"
"It was fate that the Avatar stopped the volcano in that manner," Chun looked pointedly at Aang, "and we have to accept those things we cannot change."
"But you can change it," said Aang. "With earthbending."
The woman tut-tutted at him, waggling a finger, and turned to leave. "Not even the Avatar can meddle with fate. Please, enjoy your meal; I'll be back to collect the dishes when you're finished."
Aang closed the door after her and looked at Katara with a raised eyebrow. "This place is weird."
They settled at the table and investigated the array of little plates and bowls. Neither had realized quite how hungry they were and they ate in a comfortable silence punctuated only by an occasional approving comment about the seasoning of the food.
They had just set down their chopsticks when there was again a crisp knock on the door. Katara, who had been in the process of lowering herself back onto her elbows, started. "How did she know…?" She rolled forward and stood up in one smooth motion, crossing the distance to the door.
The person on the other side of the door was not, however, Chun returning to collect the remnants of their meal. It was a tall, older man, dressed in all black, with a head of shaggy silver hair. Katara stared at him for a full five seconds before recognition hit her.
His next words, spoken in a gravelly baritone, confirmed it.
"Aunt Wu is expecting you."