Chapter III

"...So if I can get the other Southern villages on board, and they make floating islands of their own...Gramp-Gramp will totally respect me!"

Suki rolled her eyes and smiled, snuggling closer against her boyfriend's side. "I think the best way to earn Pakku's respect is to stop calling him by all these silly names."

"Nah, that can't be right. He secretly loves it, I'm sure."

Suki just sighed in entertained exasperation, but stopped short and stiffened as they turned the corner.

Sokka stopped too. "What is it?"

"Look." Suki gestured to the roof of the igluvijaq, where smoke was curling lazily out of an opened ceiling vent. "Someone's in the house."

"So?"

"No one was supposed to be there right now, right?"

"Uhh... Sokka rubbed his chin with a mittened hand. "Gran-Gran's at the market. Katara, Aang, and Pakku are working on section twelve-ox of the village. Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee are teaching a Fire Nation culture class, and Mat took Toph ice fishing." His face soured at that. "Which was either a great idea, or a really really bad one. I'm still not sure yet."

"So if nobodies home.." Suki pulled her arm from around Sokka's side and went for her tessen hid beneath her parka. "Then who's home?"

Now it was Sokka's turn to sigh. He knew better than to try and reason with his girlfriend when she had her warrior face on, war paint or no paint. Instead, he stepped to the side and made a sweeping gesture with both arms. "Fine, go ahead. You want me up top?"

Suki nodded once before she crouched low and ducked into the entrance tunnel, noiselessly sliding between the heavy pelt flap and the frozen threshold it covered. Sokka tapped the toe of his boot against the icy hut before jamming his foot into the residence and scrabbling up the curved wall.

He scaled the house easily, the familiar movements ingrained in him since childhood. Reaching the peak of the domed rooftop, he hunkered down next to the ceiling vent and ticked off the seconds until Suki gave a slightly embarrassed, but still very strong, womanly, and independent, "All clear."

What he did not expect to hear was her her startled yelp, and the brief scuffle that ensued. Sokka found his feet in a flash, but froze when her voice was suddenly cut off, muffled by something or someone against her will.

Adrenalin frothed and surged, and Sokka tore the war-club loose from his hip so fast the straps broke. Bringing the heavy sea-stone end up over his head, he pummeled the ice around ceiling vent with a primal urgency. The igluvijaq's roof cracked and splintered, and as he fell into the structure as an instinctual, inarticulate battle-cry leapt from his mouth.

"—wha?"

Sokka blinked once. Then twice. Then just to make sure, three times. He must have fallen on his head and gained a concussion, because from his sprawled location the floor, the scene before him just didn't make sense.

Suki was standing, stock still and war fans raised, while Ty Lee hung from the top of the entrance arch, her feet dug into the wall on either side of the hanging mistletoe. She was bent upside-down and backwards, so her head fell level with her victim's. Her long braid danced and bounced as she made little moan-groan noises and tilted her head for better access. She had rested her hands on either side of Suki's face, either for balance or to hold her still—Sokka wasn't sure.

And Suki, from Sokka's perspective, wasn't putting up nearly as big a fight as she could have been.

Finally, after one last nibble on her upper lip, Ty Lee's hands moved from Suki's flushed cheeks to her quivering shoulders, which beneath the parka were most assuredly flushed as well. She pulled back, opened her eyes, and produced a tiny pout when she finally saw who she was kissing.

"Aww, monkeyfeathers. I thought Sokka was going to come in first." She sighed, but not in any real disappointment. "Oh well."

With a jerk her feet came loose of their holds, and she swung outwards to land lightly on the bamboo mats, her hands never leaving Suki's shoulders. She stood on tip-toe for one last quick peck, then looked over her shoulder at the downed wolf warrior. Her grin looked more at home on the cat owl that caught the canary toad.

"Guess I'll just have to try again." And then she left, hips swaying. Her all-too-sensual giggle echoed back at them through the entrance tunnel, and Suki furiously fought to push down her blush as pulled
Sokka from the pile of snow and up to his feet.

"Was that... I mean...Did I see tongue?" He brushed snow from his shoulders, and to her horror he started to grin. "Two tongues?"

Suki turned on her heel, her face lighting up again.

"You won't be so cocky after you get caught next. Now are you going to help me fix the roof or what?"

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