Author's Note: Once again, still very new at this, so be patient! Thank you to all who reviewed, this is the first time my writing has been read, so I can't express how much it means to me! All characters, world, etc belong to the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
After: The Fortune Teller
Katara reached deep into the canvas sack that held their provisions. The people of the village had been generous after she, Aang, and Sokka had saved them from the volcano five days before, donating rolls of bread, cheeses, dried meat, and many fruits and vegetables for their travels. They'd donated money, too, which would come in handy soon at the next market, as they'd eaten most of the food already. Katara's arm was cast into the sack up to her elbow, and finally her hand closed around a hard loaf of bread. She pulled it out, squeezing it experimentally to see how stale it was. She almost groaned. Very stale.
She reached in again to grab some blocks of cheese. Another plain dinner. It wasn't that she minded, precisely. Katara knew that she was helping Aang on one of the most important missions in the world right now. Still, a hot meal in a safe town wouldn't be amiss right now.
Was that last village even all that safe, she thought? A giant volcanic eruption was just as likely to burn her as a group of Fire Nation soldiers. If Aang hadn't stopped it, the town would be melted under ten feet of lava, and its inhabitants would have become yet another tributary in the never-ending flow of displaced refugees on pilgrimages to Ba Sing Se. Katara did not want to imagine what would have happened if Aang and Sokka had never journeyed to the rim of the volcano.
Once again, a small surge of curiosity jolted through her. What had they been doing up at the top of the volcano in the first place? When she had asked them about it, Sokka had told her to be grateful that they had been up there at all, then given her an ear-full about the failings of 'simpletons' relying on false predictions. Katara had quickly changed the subject. Aang's answer to the same question had been even less informative. He had blushed brightly and stammered a few evasive words about flowers before spinning away on an air scooter, mumbling about needing to feed Momo.
Katara reached into the canvas sack again to grab a bruised pear for Aang. They had probably been doing something silly, like seeing how far they could throw rocks from the volcano's great height. Although she wouldn't put it past Sokka to have led Aang up there to check the volcano level, just on the off-chance that Aunt Wu had been wrong. Regardless, she was grateful that they had seen what they had seen.
She fought off the urge to shudder. If they hadn't, everyone would be dead.
Behind her, she heard a loud clatter. She whipped around to see Sokka on his back on the ground, struggling to move a large load of firewood off his chest. He had clearly fallen while carrying their kindling.
"A little help, here," Sokka asked Aang, who sat on Appa's giant tail nearby. "Or are you just gonna stand there giggling all night?"
"Sorry," said Aang, bent over with laughter. "It was funny, though, like something from a play. Your feet went up over your head."
"I'm sure I'll have a good chuckle about it once these logs stop crushing my ribcage," Sokka deadpanned.
Still grinning, Aang nimbly spun and thrust his hands forward, sending a blast of air rushing over Sokka. The logs rolled up and over him, but the air caught his tunic and flung it over his head. Katara stifled a laugh as Sokka groaned and set about righting himself.
Once his tunic was hanging properly, Sokka stood and brushed himself off. "Thanks, I think. Just helping me up would have worked, though. You nearly blasted me back to that backwater village." He bent down to start picking up the scattered firewood. "You don't need to use your crazy Avatar strength for everything."
"I can't always help it." Aang said, shrugging good-naturedly before spinning himself ten feet into the air to settle between Appa's horns.
Katara watched him, chewing on her lower lip in speculation. Although Sokka and Aang's discovery had certainly saved dozens of lives, deep in her heart, Katara believed that Aang would have been able to save that village regardless. She had seen him do such incredible things, even outside of the Avatar state. Watching him bend the air so powerfully that he stopped an entire volcano's worth of lava flow had been eye-opening for her. She had always known he was a strong bender. He was the Avatar. But to see such an awesome display of power…
Power. A little jolt of electricity coursed through her. 'I forget what a powerful bender that kid is,' Sokka had said. The sentence had struck her as almost ironic. She and Sokka had been surrounded by flowing lava, its heat stinging their skin as it burned its way past the village, and yet all she could think when Sokka spoke those words was how Aunt Wu had told her only the day before that she would marry a powerful bender.
Maybe Sokka was right, and Aunt Wu was simply reading too much into signs that weren't there. But Katara knew that there were things in this world that couldn't simply be explained away. While Aunt Wu's prediction didn't necessarily mean it would be Aang that she would marry, it still struck her as more than a simple coincidence that Sokka had described Aang with the exact same phrase Aunt Wu had used to describe Katara's future husband.
She shook her head. Aang? Her husband?
Katara watched him as he hung upside down by the legs from one of Appa's horns. It was hard to imagine him as anyone's husband, let alone hers. He was still so very young in so very many ways. And yet… there were times when he stepped so decisively into roles of leadership and strength that no one would dream of calling him just a kid. In those moments, it was easy to see the kind of man he would be become; kind, compassionate, a patient, tender Avatar. A true, loving, and wholesome being. Inexplicably, Katara felt a warmth inside her chest, a warmth of pride and affection and maybe a little of something else that she couldn't quite name. A smile crept across her lips as she watched him.
"What are you thinking about, Katara?" Aang asked, still upside down. "You have a funny look on your face."
"Nothing," she answered hastily, turning back to her bag of food. "Just some things Aunt Wu said."
She was focused so intently on their food that she missed the smug look fixed on Aang's features.
"Can we never speak of Aunt Wu again?" Sokka complained.