Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or anything associated with it except my fanfiction
I don't really have the ideas I had last year... Someone outta do the Cave of Two Lovers, eh? I refuse to do that scene, though.
Wait. Got one.
Telltale Craziness
Toph stared at the crevice in the ceiling of her stone tent, almost seeing the crease in her temporary base even with the utter darkness within and the added impediment of her lack of sight.
She was used to it. All her other senses were heightened. She could literally discern how tall her friends were by smell alone. How? She didn't know exactly how to explain it. She just did. Of course, it did spice up her life a little whenever she had to produce it as a party trick or a gambling deal-maker.
There was also touch, of course. And it was an augmented, ethereal touch, able to pinpoint certain traces of certain earthen materials from many meters away. Her skills - thanks to the guidance of the badger-moles - had been honed and refined far beyond the scope of even those who could consider themselves great earthbenders. This, naturally, made her the best earthbender alive, if not the best earthbender of all time. Heck, she even wondered if the Avatar could hold a candle to her prowess. This last part was meant purely in jest. For the time being...
Hearing. Obviously. Tasting. Unfortunately so (if there was one thing she would have lauded her parents for [not that she would ever be inclined to do such a thing], it was spoiling her with decently palatable cuisine almost all the time, and also teaching her how to force down less desirable edibles). But then there were also earth-oriented abilities that fed her so much more sensory information. Seismic sense let her smack Sokka with a rock every time he got near her (although she certainly did regret his yelps of pain sometimes). And speaking of seismic sense, there was pulse detections.
Oh boy. Pulse detection.
It was one thing to be able to recognize lying and telltale giveaways of the heart. It was another thing to have it in a camp with the ability firing off every two seconds.
First, there was the morning. First thing whoever got up first would wake the other. Screw Sokka. Screw Suki when she was with them. They always gravitated towards each others' tents, no matter if it was raining - in fact, raining made it worse. Ugh! There was a reason she taught Sokka the word "oogy" - it was a way of venting the sheer repulsiveness of the lovebirds. Seriously. Forget age and complications and all. She swore that whatever Spirit was curling Aang and Katara around their little finger really had it out for them!
The awkward stares. The accidental brushes that weren't meant (there were plenty more that were... hugs and, Spirits forbid, kisses). Their heartrates were in combat mode all the damn time, and Toph was slowly being driven crazy by it.
But heck, they were kind of cute. The awkward stares. The accidental brushes that weren't meant. The apologies after each and every trivial action they did for each other. They were genuinely... Toph could barely stand to think it... cute. No matter how much they drove her crazy, they were almost a couple she could secretly root for. Unlike Sokka, those two together were a possibility... Katara the mother who occasionally learned to loosen up and learn how to have fun. Aang the child who rarely shirked his duty when push really came to shove. It was a pity the Avatar hadn't fully taken her lessons to heart - tackling the infatuation head-on would have certainly helped a ton.
For the time being, however, Toph was relegated to being forced to listen to their sleeping heartbeats, which - surprise, surprise - beat as one. Yuck.
The Bet
It took them a while to figure out that Aang and Katara had left.
As soon as the word spread around, not a shy amount of coins were thrown into a ring for an elaborate bet - Toph moderated the gambling and made sure everyone backed their claims and provided legitimate currency.
Sokka, of course, bet everything on at least a kiss. "What? Just because I might hate it doesn't mean I can't ignore what's definitely going to happen," he complained. Mai also threw in a bet for a kiss. Suki was on the hook but ended up putting a marginal bet on anything but a kiss. Iroh simply chuckled. Zuko almost placed his entire inheritance into the bet before Mai slapped his face and told him he acted too much like Sokka in that moment, to everyone's laughter. Except Sokka's, of course. Zuko admitted he only threw in so much for the laughs.
"It's good to laugh and not have Loser Lord on our mind," Zuko said, earning a cheer of agreement from everyone. "Still don't trust that Katara will go willy-nilly into -"
"Thrusting her tongue into Aang's needy mouth, yeah," Toph said, earning a chorus of groans from everyone except Zuko, who looked as though he were a pacified Hei Bai. "Let's... just keep Zuko in the dark about this," Toph said.
Zuko spluttered in protest. "Hey. Wait a minute! I want to know! I need to know! I have quite a few crowns hanging in limbo, and if what you just said will cost me - "
"You'll always still have your Firelord crown," Mai deadpanned. It was hard to keep one's face straight in that room - the laughter was contagious.
"Hear, hear. And I still got my earthbending, so I can call out any cheaters. Too bad I can't place money since that would be cheating, and I never cheat -" Sokka coughed loudly then choked on the air. "Thank you, Sokka. Like I said, I never cheat, so I can't really enter myself into this. I'd definitely say... at least a kiss, based on my keen observations of tremors that may or may not include heartbeats," Toph said smugly as a chorus of groans went up.
"I think a peck would be cute too, though! But a kiss - squee!" Ty Lee chirped, putting in her hairband. Mai rolled her eyes. "What's we're putting valuables in to the ring, aren't we? Oh, if only someone had a ring to toss in!"
"Ugh. Be glad there's no Azula and Ozai to temper you down, and that I'm feeling generous enough to let you prattle on," Mai groaned.
"Did I just hear that because Azula and Ozai are gone, I can give you all the hugs I want?" Ty Lee squealed. Mai could not even sputter out a no before Ty Lee, a full two heads shorter than Mai, nearly knocked the latter over.
"Is this how they usually act?" Suki asked, a twitch threatening at the corner of her mouth.
"Pretty much," was Zuko's response. Just at that moment, Aang and Katara came bursting into the room, panting and faces beet red.
"Hi guys!" Aang's voice was higher-pitched than ever. "Don't worry. Nothing happened while we were gone!"
"Nothing at all!" Katara hastily backed up Aang's claim. "Just watched the sunset... wait. You guys didn't watch the sunset? It was really nice." Katara blushed so fiercely that her cheek's colors had to become the new red of the Fire Nation.
"Well, we didn't want to disturb you, since you practically snuck out of the room, Katara," Sokka said snidely. He clappe his hands, snapped his fingers, and motioned towards the others by brushing his thumb against the tips of his fingers, then opened them, palms up, expectantly.
"Not so fast, Watertribe peasant scum," Mai said in a playfully haughty fashion. "You weren't the only one who placed down a bet." Sokka scowled as Mai collected her dues, as did Zuko until she bent over his ear and whispered "What do you think happens to the money you lost to me? Idiot."
Sokka still pouted, although it ostentatiously lessened when he swept the table nearly clean of his dues. "Good transaction, good transaction," he said heartily as Suki rolled her eyes.
Toph snorted. Meanwhile, Ty Lee reached in for her hairband, and held it up like a trophy. "Yay! I win!" Before anyone could point out that it was only a hairband, Ty Lee swiftly undid the tie completely, showcasing - much to everyone's surprise - several shiny crowns.
"Since Toph wasn't playing, she ever so kindly taught me a trick of hers," Ty Lee said jubilantly. "Now, Sokka? Mai? A fairer distribution?" She winked daringly at Sokka and stared at Mai with wide, pleading eyes. Reluctantly, the two reached for their stashes and tumbled out the few crowns Ty Lee had merited.
Meanwhile Aang and Katara were staring, absolutely dumbfounded and lost in the new landscape they had been dropped into. "W-what just happened. Why were you guys passing around money? Why is Ty Lee holding a headband full of crowns? Why does Mai look like she wants to cut down the entire room?"
"Ah, the confusions of life, love, laughter, and liberal amounts of value circulation," quipped Iroh, and they all laughed.
Anniversary
Aang laced his finger through Katara's as they stared out into the brilliant Ba Sing Se sunset.
The past year was one of very many significant anniversaries, and they took especial care to give one last, formal acknowledgement to them and their contributions to the world, as a brief reprieve from the long begun reconstruction of the world that would never truly be completed. It was such a weight on everyone's chests.
So, they sought a temporary escape.
Firstly, they silently paid homage to the day Aang succumbed to the storm, visiting the Southern Air Temple. They then made their way to the South Pole, in an attempt to find the iceberg that once held the Avatar for a century. Fortunately, the telltale unnaturally green-blue sheen that stood out from the pure blue of the waters around showed them a large, mostly intact piece of the iceberg. Meditating for a short while in it, Aang marveled at how the South Pole was cold enough to retain its ice for so long - albeit very much altered after a decade.
They did an impromptu retracing of their trip, meeting new people, greeting familiar ones, until finally - after marking the last stretch of where Aang found the Lion Turtle, which had mysteriously disappeared - they ended up at the pillars where Aang had his fateful fight against Ozai.
"You know how I told you that I couldn't let you go for the final chakra?" Aang said, staring at one particular cluster of rocks that appeared to have been blown apart and whittled down by the scourges of time.
"Yes, you have," Katara said patiently. It was a sobering moment for Katara, for her to realize that potentially the Avatar almost was not able to save the world because of an attachment to her. But they were, at least, standing there, discussing the past that had ended in their favor, in a world that could finally rise from the ashes of the murderous actions of the Fire Nation for one hundred years.
"That pile over there -" Aang said, pointing to where he had been staring at. "Ozai had me cornered. I packed myself up into a little ball of rock. Ozai tried blasting me with fire, and my shield didn't last. I flew into the wall, and Ozai kept pushing. He kept blasting me beneath the rubble, forcing me closer and closer to the wall... until a jagged spike from the rock stabbed me in my back... right where Azula struck it."
Katara winced. "That must have hurt."
"Yes. But that was the thing. After that hurt... thinking I was about to die, letting go all my attachments to you as well as triggering the emergency state and destroying the physical and mental block to my thought chakra, I was able to access the Avatar State. But then, the energy bending..." he faltered. "The stronger character would win that fight. I almost lost. Ozai's willpower to have his evil last the world for ages after almost overpowered me. I tried thinking of everything. World, friends, fallen allies, Air Nomads. You know what brought me back from the brink?" Aang looked at her expectantly.
"Am I..." Katara said tentatively, laughing nervously. "Not supposed to know the answer to that question?"
"I loaded it, fair enough," Aang said, raising his hands up in surrender. "But on the other hand... when was the answer not you?"
"Who was the dumbest person on Team Avatar?" quipped Katara, raising her eyebrows.
Aang sighed. "Once again, you beat me. You'd think I'd learn, honestly..." He froze, then quickly pecked Katara on the cheek. "At least I have you," he said with a tender smile gracing his lips.
Katara found herself likewise, brushing her cheek where Aang had kissed it.
And so finally, they ended up at the end, where they relaxed in Ba Sing Se, the calm before the new storm that engulfed the world now. But those thoughts were for another time. As they stared into the sunlight, they responded, to some hidden cue, to gaze into each other's eyes, marvel at the wonderful world they shared together, and then - together, as one - they leaned inwards.
They were sitting, and so even though Aang was taller then Katara, nothing could have hindered their enjoyment and their love.
It.
Was.
Spectacular.
Last one a bit dubious, but I had fun writing this. Thank you all for giving me a chance!
