A/N: An old ficlet that I found from wayyyy back in 2013. Enjoy. It's halfway decent, even for back then.
"Seriously? Katara how many times do I have to tell you? Breakfast is a meal, not a snack. How can you expect us to kick the Fire Lord's butt if we're slumped over from exhaustion?" Sokka's voice rose over the quiet murmurs of just-waking voices. Katara looked up from her bowl of soupy, mushed oats to look over at her complaining brother. She was tired. Tired and hungry and cranky. "I mean, what does a guy have to do to get some hot fish or smoked fire nation dragon-hawk?" Sokka continued to drawl on about his hunger growling within him like a howler-monkey.
Katara stared back groggily at her soupy excuse for breakfast, letting her brother's words flow around her, trying her best to ignore them. "And you know what's really sad? I'll bet if we were in the Fire Nation they've got piles of meat just sitting around. All those firebenders could just go poof!-" he tossed a hunk of bread in the air "-and that delicious skewer of crocodile-beaver would be smoked just to perfection." The bread landed right back in his hand and Sokka stared longingly at it. "Perfectly delicious in its meaty, wonderful meat-ness."
Katara ground her teeth, slamming her spoon down into the earthenware bowl. But even before she could yell out to her brother what she'd been holding in for the past ten minutes, a spur of earth stabbed up and knocked the bread clean from his hand to Toph's open one. "Yeah, yeah. Meat, meat, meat. Why don't you shut you yap and be grateful we're even eating? I don't see you getting up to try and cook every morning, Snoozles," Toph snapped, stuffing the bread into her mouth. Through a mouthful of breadstuffs she added, "I'm surprised Katara hasn't left us all to starve just to teach you a lesson."
Sokka stared at the blind girl, now devouring his bread chunk. With a shake and a complaint about his hand, he resumed shoveling the watered oats into his mouth. Katara exhaled slowly, returning to her food as well, though with significantly less vigor as her brother.
He was right though, in a way. Food at the Western Air Temple was not something to write to the tribe about. Time to go out and get food was tight, between Katara, Toph, and the former prince Zuko having to teach Aang how to master all four elements. Sokka and The Duke took on the task of hunting and gathering, but they still had to do other chores to keep the Temple in working order and working on the master plan. Teo couldn't help much either, being constrained to his wheelchair, however he did help with the continued efforts to create blasting jelly and other unique weapons for the invasion. The little food that was gathered had to be rationed and the usage carefully planned.
Katara slurped the last of her food down and stood to start the rest of the morning's routine. A familiar bubbly presence followed her as she went to gather the dishes from the day before to wash. "Hi Aang," Katara greeted, not turning around in her walk to the small room that served as a kitchen. "Don't you have training? Rising with the sun and all that?" she asked.
The air nomad trailed after Katara, his light footsteps following after her brisk, determined ones. "Oh, well Zuko said that I should switch up training with you today because he had something he needed to do," Aang said brightly. "And I think that the change should be interesting, you know? We're getting pretty set in schedule so change is a nice thing."
Of course he would think change is good, Katara thought helplessly, he's an airbender. No roots to cling to. She roughly shoved the pile of bowls and plates as she cleared out the sink. "Well maybe you can tell Zuko," she growled, "that whatever he has to do will have to be done later because I'm busy right now and you still need training." She roughly bent up a stream of water from a pool into the sink, splashing some of it on her and Aang's faces by accident.
He wiped the drops off with his arm, frowning. "Yeah, Katara, I do need training and right now you're the only trainer I have available."
She whirled around finally looking at the boy. "No, Aang, I am not. I'm doing chores, which I do every single day! I'm not just gallivanting off to do something or playing with blasting jelly, I'm working!" She exclaimed, throwing the plate she held into the water, causing another splash. "When someone else decides to take over cleaning and cooking and everything, then I can just change up whatever time I want to train with you."
Aang scowled, his boy-ish features twisting in a grimace. "And I suppose you have a person in mind that you think isn't working? Katara, we're all working here."
"Not as much as I am!" she said, putting more dishes into the sink. "I always work the hardest, always! Ever since we left from the North Pole, even. I've always been the one working to keep clothes clean, dishes washed, food cooked, and everyone warm and dry, and none of you ever even realize that you could do more to help out." She began to fiercely scrub soap on a bowl, ignoring the icy cold water. "So if you want me to train you Aang, then be prepared to have no lunch and dirty dishes."
Katara could tell that the boy was taken aback by her ferocity, but she ignored the nagging feeling. Everything she had said was true. Aang couldn't dispute that she'd always done the lion-bear's share of the work.
The airbender stood rooted to the ground, glaring at the back of Katara's head. "What am I supposed to do then? I need to master the four elements!"
"I don't know," Katara said coolly. "Ask Toph or go train by yourself. I'm busy." She hated shoving the boy off, but he needed to understand her point of view. She waited until she heard his footsteps pad away before she let out a frustrated groan. She stopped her frenzied scrubbing of the dishes to angrily stare at the air in front of her. Why couldn't she get anyone to acknowledge that someone needed to step up to help her out? Toph couldn't, but certainly one of the others could help her out somehow. Stupid boys, she thought angrily, pushing her sleeves up further to get down to business.
Lunchtime was tense, with Zuko missing and Aang and Katara not talking directly to each other. Toph seemed indifferent with the whole proceedings, distracted by Momo, who was trying to sneak up on her pile of moon peaches. Sokka had apologized to Katara in his own way by volunteering to catch fish for dinner that night. The Duke and Teo took their lunch with them, mumbling something about needing to observe the blasting jelly they were currently experimenting on.
As they sat in quasi-silence, Aang asked Toph loudly what they were planning on doing in training after lunch, forcing Katara to grind her teeth in frustration. "Twinkletoes, trust me, we're going to have fun today. I figured since you're not always going to have Sugar Queen to help you, we're going to work on having you bending mud all by yourself." She slapped away Momo's prying fingers to grab another moon peach and stuff it in her mouth. "I'm going to feel bad for your tunic though, Aang."
Katara mentally sighed. Laundry from earthbending was one of the worst chores to do. The dirt had to be beaten out, which tired Katara's already exhausted arms. Toph seemed to sense Katara's sigh and her mouth twitched, a pang of sympathy. After everyone had cleaned up -handing the dirty bowls to Katara to bring to the kitchen- Toph lingered behind, following the older girl as she walked again to the miniscule kitchen.
"Katara," Toph said, feeling the older girl stop her movement. Toph paused, unsure how to say what she wanted to say. "Do you…I mean, does it take a long time to do the chores?" She held her breath, feeling with her feet to sense how Katara was reacting.
Katara stared at the blind girl, blinking in slight dismay. "Oh, well," she said airily, "it's not so bad. I don't expect you to do much in the realm of chores and whatnot, Toph. Being blind makes doing laundry a bit harder." She looked at the small earthbender. "You do enough of your share."
Toph frowned, crossing her arms. "Are you sure? Because I'm pretty sure that earlier today you were really mad that people weren't helping you to do chores and I thought you meant me."
Katara blinked in surprise. "You heard that?"
"Sugar Queen, I'm pretty sure that even Appa heard that over in the Bison Stable."
He face flushed bright red and Katara mumbled "Oh. Well, I didn't mean you, Toph. So, don't worry about it," she finished lamely, turning back to the stack of dishes.
Toph sighed, knowing that she was being dismissed, but for once she didn't want to shout out the retort she had burning in her throat. "Fine. I guess I'll see you at dinner then," she said, turning on her heel and leaving before Katara could reply.
Katara wasn't quite sure what to think. She didn't want Toph to be angry at her, which she probably was, even if only a little bit. But at the same time, she didn't want for her concerns about the lack of help she was getting to be ignored for fear of treading on a few toes.
With a sigh, she left the small kitchen and settled into her room to start the mending before the sun set too far for the rays to illuminate her bone-needle and thread.
It wasn't until the very last vestiges of sunlight were fading from the orange sky that Zuko finally returned to the group. They were gathered loosely about the cook-fire, waiting for dinner.
"Sifu hotman," Aang called out in greeting. "Did you finish what you set out to do?"
"Don't call me that," Zuko said automatically, though much more wearily than usual. "And not quite. I think I'll need one more day to finish up." He sank heavily onto the edge of the fountain, running a hand through his hair. "They're so much harder to track than I'd thought," he muttered to himself, resting his back on one of the stone pillars.
"What are hard to track?" Toph asked, looking up from what she'd been doing -metalbending her meteor bracelet to crawl about crab-cat style after Momo.
Zuko turned his head slightly towards the short girl. "You'll find out soon enough."
"What are we finding out soon enough?" Katara asked, walking into the rough circle, balancing a large bowl on her hip and carrying the line of fish that Sokka had caught during the afternoon. Her eyes shot over to Zuko, still holding on to the vestiges of anger and distrust, though it was much more subdued than before.
Zuko met her glare with a level gaze of his own. "I've got a small surprise for you guys. It'll be done before tomorrow night, hopefully," he said slowly, watching for her reaction carefully. He still didn't know ever how she was going to react- if she was going to completely go into a rage at him or just say-
"Oh, okay. Sounds great," she said, a wide bright smile plastered on her face. She turned and frowned at the cook-fire. "Do we have any more wood for the fire? I can't cook much more than stew on that flame."
Sokka groaned. "Stew? But I'm so sick of stew…"
There were sounds of agreement and even Katara had to agree with them. Stew was definitely the easiest food to prepare on the go, but it wasn't that great. It was about at exciting as this morning's oatmeal, in fact.
"Well unless someone wants to help me gather wood," she began, only to be cut off by Zuko.
"I'll go do it," he said sharply. His piercing golden eyes met Katara's for a moment, before flashing and locking on Aang. "Aang, you're coming too. I'll show you how to cut down dead branches with fire daggers." The boy propelled himself up with a blast of air, battering the already-weak flames of the fire to extinction. Katara only rubbed her forehead in anguish. Thank La they had two firebenders to get the fire going again later, or else she would have had an even more difficult time getting dinner ready.
As Aang ran to his room to grab his glider, Katara started for the fountain to get some water to boil. As she passed the scarred boy, she tapped Zuko on the shoulder. "Thanks," she muttered, "for volunteering and everything."
His mouth twitched in what one could call a smile and he muttered in reply, "No problem, Katara."
And then he was gone, and she was gone, each to their separate tasks.