Note: The prompt for this chapter is Tease.
Tease
There was a balcony that overlooked a sunset. Pink and purple, gentle hues. The sprawling city of Ba Sing Se was beneath it. There was muffled laughter in the background, the scent of freshly brewed tea wafting through the air. The cooling breeze of the beginning of fall and the end of summer was pleasant. The quiet sounds of the streets below the hill on which the Jasmine Dragon teahouse was built were a welcome noise. Not a cacophony, but a silence.
It was just the two of them standing on that balcony: Katara and Aang. Katara held Aang's hand at her side, and it was warm and right. Her cheeks felt flushed, her lips still tingling with the sensation of their kiss.
"This is what we worked for, isn't it?" she asked him. But before she could turn to hear his answer, she blinked, and she was in a different scene.
Katara was back among the swaying grass on an island with hundreds of trees. A tall, rather handsome man led her by the hand. He was wearing flowing, autumn-colored robes, a cape-like piece of auburn fabric rolling from his broad shoulders. She could see just beyond the dark yellow collar he wore, the line of a blue tattoo that that crept up his neck and continued onto the back of his pale shaven head. He carried an empty satchel over his shoulder.
"It's been a long day," he said, his back still to her.
Katara nodded, hobbling over the uneven path with him. "Yes, it has," she replied. "Figuring out where things will go…asking the acolytes to help with the crib…I feel bad that I can't do more."
They stopped at the base of the hill at a fork. To their left was the path to a structure still being built. Scaffolding adorned parts of it. It had white-gray walls awash with the light of the late afternoon sun, its few stories that were already finished were part of a pagoda. The roof tiles had been carefully picked, she remembered. Deep cerulean with borders of gold.
"You've done so much already," said the man. He turned to her now, and he had a soft smile on his face. A beard was growing in along his chin. She thought he was the most magnificent person she had ever seen. "You're doing so much now."
He stooped his head, bowing until his hands caressed her rounded stomach. There was something there in his silvery eyes, something that made Katara's heart flutter with love.
"You're carrying our baby," he said in a soft baritone. He stood to his full height now and she felt a certain calm as he led her to another set of buildings again. It was a cluster of simple, organized structures with clean floors, and cheerful halls.
They walked through what must have been the kitchen. There were leeks ready to be chopped on a countertop, garlic hanging in bunches from the bottom of cabinets, a tin tea set atop a low table, and throughout it all she wondered at the way it made her feel as if she were home.
"I can't believe we're really doing this," she started, "I mean really making a home for ourselves here. It's…wonderful and I—"
They paused at a threshold where a common area split into an outdoor foyer and led to another set of rooms. He took both her hands this time.
"I can," he whispered against her lips, "because it's you."
The ghost of him brushed against her, and he bent forward to kiss her more deeply. His hand pressed against her lower back, gentle and sure. He tasted like sweet mangoes, the ones she had sliced that very afternoon for their picnic on the hill.
It was like kissing a breeze on a summer evening. Warm, inviting, with just enough heat that she wanted more of it. She leaned into him.
"Eugh," someone gagged from somewhere near them. "Please don't let me see that ever again."
Katara and the man leaped from each other with such haste that she hit her elbow on a pillar. She growled, seeing the intruder for the first time. "Sokka! You could've left the room!" she berated, annoyed.
Her brother lifted his arms in defeat. A look of disgust was on his face. "Hey, I didn't come to Air Temple Island just to see you and Aang make out," he said. "I came here to help you two gross lovebirds move in."
"It's not like you haven't seen us kiss before!" she shouted, hands now on her hips. "And it's not like you hear me complaining about you and Suki!" She glared at Aang, gesturing to Sokka. "Well, are you going to say anything to him?"
But as Katara watched this older Aang sputter out an excuse and stutter his way through conversation, a thought came to her that she had not previously recalled. This man was her husband. Her husband whom she loved.
It felt so right, and she could not understand why she had not known before how special he was to her. How perfectly he fit by her side.
"Oh, never mind!" Sokka grumbled, crossing his arms. "This is worse than that time you told me that you used 'So, papaya,' as a pickup line on my sister. Really? That was your definition of aloof after you talked with that crazy fortuneteller?"
Aang smacked his forehead. His already red face was now even redder. "Sokka, I told you that when I was thirteen in confidence," he emphasized. "You were trying to get me to tell you how Katara and I got together. You thought I was going to go back to Makapu Village for Meng," he deadpanned. "Toph heard everything. Instead of making fun of me, she made fun of you because of your obliviousness for days."
"I still resent that!" Sokka protested.
Katara was easily brought out of her reverie by then, now trying and failing to hold in her amusement.
"'So, papaya,' huh?" Katara teased, snorting out laughs. She saw the way Aang's face contorted with a whole host of new emotions. "I never knew that was you trying to flirt with me."
Aang blinked at her now, ignoring her brother. He rubbed the back of his head, yet another sheepish blush rising across his neck and cheeks. "I've learned to not take advice from Sokka," he said. "But I guess it was worth it."
Katara softened. They stared at each other for a moment, lost in the other.
Sokka groaned and rolled his eyes. "Okay, I'm out of here if you're going to continue to flirt." He left them alone in the hall without another word.
In the dimming afternoon light, all Katara saw was Aang. They walked together now in comfortable silence; their fingers entwined. He was a presence at her side that meant happy times and sad times. She wanted to grow old with him through all of it, regardless of era, regardless of place.
As they made their way to their room, as Aang sat her carefully on the bed, as he kneeled beside her to massage her feet—she was grateful. He was the missing piece of her heart that she never knew she wanted.
He looked at her and there was a tug in her spirit. She knew she would do anything for him, and that he would do anything for her.
He opened his mouth to speak, and in a thundering, detached voice that was not his, he said, "We have a deal."
Aang's touch melted away from her, like sand through a sieve. The bedroom split apart into pieces and disintegrated into darkness. All the swirling images fought for prominence in the world she was in, until it settled upon the inside of a tree.
She sat among the bark, imagining the branches outside. She watched as a younger Aang, the one that she knew, vanished, and appeared on the other side of a transparent barrier she had not noticed before. She felt at peace.
Katara closed her eyes.
She only opened them again when the barrier broke.
The sound of it shattering rang, rang, rang, and did not stop. It did not stop as Vaatu's screams howled furiously in her ear, did not stop as light flooded everything from her chest to her hands. She was alone in an expanse, and then she was not.
Images, images. They came and they went. A pair of iguana parrots gliding over a sailboat, an imposing compound with high walls, laughter that was loud and true as the two of them ran through a forest of bamboo.
"You know what to do," said a soft, kind, feminine voice. It reverberated around Katara, through the light that surrounded her, a part of it. "You know how to save him."
Katara saw Aang then on the other side. Threads burst forth from his middle, a rainbow of color and strife. A single red one met her, and oh did she know.
She would weave his soul back together because she was the only one that could do it.
