Letters from the Falling Sky
Summary: "Katara felt helpless. Aang didn't know he had a daughter." Things more complex than the war had finally torn them apart. In isolation, they take out their brushes, regret the past, and write. Kataang, Tokka. Rated M.
Author's Note: As always, keep me posted with your opinions. I thank the lot of you that have stayed with me so far. Honestly, without you, this story has no purpose. I write to be read! :)
.16.
It would be a lie to say that Katara wasn't expecting an engagement necklace. She could almost imagine it there in Aang's box—feel the grooves in the ivory, or the sapphire, or whatever other stone Aang had decided to use. But her face dropped when she realized that there wasn't an engagement necklace there at all.
Inside the ornate box Aang had needlessly purchased, there sat an elegant golden ring, inscribed with her name, his name, and another name that Katara had yet to decipher. The ring had a stone there in the center, gleaming back at her—sapphire, like her eyes. And then she noticed that the small golden loop was also bound by a golden chain, so that Katara could wear it like a necklace.
She was so surprised by this turn of events—and also by the quality of the ring and chain—that she covered her mount with her gloved hands and gasped a little.
"Do you like it?" he wanted to know, grinning in earnest.
"It's beautiful," Katara murmured, looking up at him. She watched him remove the ringed necklace from the small pillow. He opened the clamp and then motioned for her to turn around and lift her hair, and Katara did so willingly.
She felt the warmth of his fingers glide over the expanse of her bare neck as he fit the necklace into place, closing the clamp shut. Then he leaned forward and kissed the skin of her shoulders and the back side of her cheeks.
"I made you an engagement necklace," the Avatar continued, speaking more to himself. "It was crafted from the finest stone I could afford. I even bought leather." Katara felt flattered, knowing that it was against Aang's ideals to buy animal products, and yet that he had done so anyway to please her.
"I like this one just as much," Katara returned, holding the ring up to her eyes.
She didn't even bother to ask what had happened to the original just yet—she was too busy adoring Aang's cleverly disguised marriage proposal. When the ring was in proper light, she could read the third name. "Katara—Aang—Kya Lynn." The healer's heart happily leaped into her throat. She felt like laughing and dancing. Like crying. Screaming. Swimming. Anything to get the burning away from her chest—the overwhelming intensity of this new meaning. Soon she could call Aang her husband. Lynnie wouldn't hate her as much anymore. And Gran Gran!
Wherever Gran Gran was, she would be relaxed to know that Katara had finally listened to her tired old advice.
Katara said suddenly, "I love this."
"I'm glad you like it," Aang replied, encasing his arms around her stomach. But then his tone grew a pitch darker. "The engagement necklace was stolen from me shortly after Sokka's intended wedding." He paused suddenly and blinked a strand of Katara's hair out of his face. There was a hollowness in his words—a sort of lost strength. "The box was open," he continued, "but the necklace was gone."
Katara turned to him and pressed her lips against his mouth softly, as she had done so many times before in the past to settle him. "It's okay," she managed to whisper, brushing her lips over his. "It doesn't bother me." Aang felt his skin tighten with wakefulness. He returned her kiss without arguing.
When Katara broke away from him and turned her attention back to the ring, her face lightened with a curious thought. She looked at Aang suspiciously and wondered aloud, "Where did the idea come from?"
"For what? Marriage?"
Katara shook her head. "No, Aang. The ring. Why didn't you carve me another stone?"
"You didn't hear?" Aang asked teasingly. "That's the way they propose in the Fire Nation. They get some sort of metal and then a blacksmith or a jeweler makes them a ring. Must have something to do with the firebending and the melting of the metal, I suppose."
Katara laughed a little at the thought and moved the ring around in her palm, feeling its worth. "Isn't it a little ironic that you proposed with a cultural aspect from the very nation we were fighting to take down ten years ago?" she asked him, raising a brow.
"Oh, quiet!" He kissed her again, drunk with happiness. "You know you love it! You can't complain." And then he dodged his right hand to her side and struck her near the lower ribs—Katara's weakest tickling spot. She squealed and pushed his hand away, laughing with him. Somehow they managed to fall back on Gran Gran's mattress with contented sighs of relief and gratitude.
And the words rang in Aang's head, though he tried hard to ignore them.
The sky falls in pieces. But when the world ends, it happens all at once.
It caused him to shiver. With Katara so close to him, nuzzling her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder, he thought less of the misfortunes of the past and looked toward the happiness he would have in the future.
He pulled her hand up to his mouth then, and kissed it.
Lynnie sat, bored, combing the hair of another Little Miss Mai doll. This was Beach Bum Mai, who sported a full body bathing suit and a looming chest. She also had a paper umbrella that Lynnie found more useful—with her minimal airbending skills, she could make the umbrella jump from her palm into the air, almost touching the ceiling of the igloo.
The other gifts that her Baba had bestowed upon her were nice, but Lynnie was much more attentive to this new feeling in her arms and legs—this lightness. She felt almost as though she could fly, and wanted very dearly to try it, too. But her father and Katara had been out of sight now for a good hour, and she knew better than to go bothering Katara when she wasn't wanted.
"Misses Toph Lady," Lynnie asked from her place on the floor, "where are Mama and Baba?"
"Probably crying like babies about how unfortuante their life is," Toph replied, smirking. Sokka glared at her, but she didn't seem to notice. Lynnie remembered from a few nights before that Toph was blind. She wondered how Toph could move off of the couch and come to sit with Lynnie so accurately. It was as if this woman had super powers.
"What do you mean?" the girl asked. She sent the umbrella for another ride to the ceiling and watched it fall gracefully back to her hand. "Why would they be crying?"
"Don't be stupid, Lynnie," Toph replied with a certain rough gentleness that only she was capable of. "Katara and your Baba are fine. They're probably just tired because it's been a long day."
"Oh."
Toph touched the girl's shoulder. "Besides, now that you're an airbender, they can start figuring out what they're going to teach you, and how it's going to be."
Lynnie clapped with delight and picked up another Little Miss Mai doll—Chef Mai-Mai—and pumped some air from her wrist into the chef's hat, sending the paper accessory flying.
"I can't wait!" Lynnie admitted.
Toph grinned and pulled her knees to her chest. "You'll like being able to bend. And being an airbender is especially nice, because those are few and far between."
"So they're special?"
"Yeah," Toph finished. "You and your Baba are the only airbenders I know."
"Neat," Lynnie chirped.
Sokka, who had been standing at the window of the igloo for some time, came to join them. Toph turned her face away from him when he sat down next to her.
"You don't' have to learn about swords anymore," he joked darkly to his niece, perhaps recalling that fateful day on Black Crane's Rock where he and Lynnie had gotten to be better acquainted.
Lynnie was feeling both important and fairly democratic. "I can still learn swords," she reasoned wisely. "I can learn swords and keep learning maths from Pakku, and Baba can teach me airbending." She paused thoughtfully and added, "And Misses Toph Lady can teach me how to see without opening my eyes."
Toph grinned at this and ruffled Lynnie's hair, noting that it was the same texture as Katara's, and perhaps also the same color. But Sokka made a disturbed expression and asked Lynnie abruptly, "What will you learn from Katara, then, Lynnie?"
Kya Lynn knitted her brows together and reached for School-Day-Mai, removing her school bag and sending it for a ride. "What do you mean, Uncle?"
"You know," Sokka pressed, "Katara, my sister. Your mother. What have you learned from her so far?"
"Sokka—" Toph started.
Sokka ignored this. "Come on, Lynnie. Answer me. What do you think?"
Lynnie shrugged indifferently and grabbed her Fire Lady Mai doll, the most exquisite of the set. She ran her fingers over the doll's ink-black hair and her stiff, painted eyes. "I don't know," the child admitted, holding the doll up for Sokka to see. "Mama's like this Mai doll. Pretty and quiet."
Her uncle's questioning stopped there; he grunted in an unsatisfied manner and leaned back on the side of the hearth in the living chamber.
"What have you learned from your Gran Gran?" Toph asked, countering Sokka's line of inquisition, but also hoping to show him up. "She was closer to you than Katara was, right?"
Toph couldn't see it, but Sokka could—Lynnie's eyes seemed to spark with a dormant life. She smiled contentedly and crossed her arms, as if reciting a fact she had learned in school. "Gran Gran taught me about everything!" she proclaimed. And then added, a little saddened, but not completely depressed, "I miss her lots."
A shuffling the next room shook them from their conversation.
Lynnie ran to Aang when she saw him and Katara emerge from Gran Gran's bed chamber. Katara glanced at the child distractedly and announced the news to the congregation of people in the igloo: She and Aang were getting married.
She showed them the ring, and allowed Toph to inspect it—warning her against using her metalbending for any tricks. And then they all laughed and said that it was too bad Koko wasn't here to join them in the festivities. And Katara recited the things Aang had told her about firebenders and their rings. She slapped Aang's shoulder and said that it wasn't the Aang she knew—not the one she remembered, giving her this Fire Nation proposal. Aang told Sokka and Toph that his engagement necklace had been stolen, and then they all speculated that it very well could have been a poor thief down on his luck, or some star crossed child that had wondered into the hotel room looking for something shiny to play with.
For a short while, as Katara looked about her and observed her friends laughing and chattering happily—as she saw Lynnie cling to Aang's neck, not leaving him for a second—she felt as though nothing had happened to contaminate their past.
It was as if the murders had never existed at all. It relaxed her, but tensely so.
Late that night, thoughts of revenge struck Sokka like shooting stars, and landed firmly in his head, planting ideas.
Look for a line and an orb, Suki had told him. What did that mean? Since when were shapes inclusive in figuring out mysteries?
He lay awake in his cot and listened to Toph's uneven breathing. She had to bunk with him for the night since the healing lodge was off limits—her healing sessions were no longer a daily requirement. Plus, Koko hated her, and Koko spent most of her time in the healing lodge, and so this new sleeping arrangement was for the best.
She had her own cot and thin mattress, and her form moved up and down swiftly in the night, reflecting light shadows on the other end of the wall. Lynnie now had her own room—Gran Gran's old room—and the room that she and Katara had shared was now reserved for the engaged couple, who were—no doubt in Sokka's mind—happily making love at this hour.
He was secretly disgusted with his sister's choices in life, but his hadn't been any better, and he didn't feel like acting hypocritically towards her. He was happy for Katara now. Maybe one day, if Toph ever came to her senses, he would offer her an engagement necklace, and Katara could be happy for him.
"Toph," Sokka whispered loudly, supporting his weight on his elbow. "Toph! Hey—Toph. Toph, wake up."
She rustled around uneasily and then threw an extra pillow at him without turning around.
"I need to ask you something," he begged, dodging the projectile. "Come on. It'll only take a second."
"I was wrong to name you Snoozles all that time ago," she hissed crossly, sitting up and wiping her face. "Do you ever sleep? Or are you just awake all the time?"
"I gotta admit that I enjoy watching you sleep," he teased with a sarcastic air, only this time when Toph threw the pillow, he wasn't able to dodge it fast enough.
She crossed her arms. "What is it?"
"Just a quick question," the warrior promised, also sitting up in the darkness and walking over to her side of the room.
"Shoot."
"Alright." Sokka sat down to her left. "The last chance I had to talk to Suki, she told me that I had to avenge her."
Toph nodded.
"And I'm going to—I mean, I have every intention. But I don't know where to start looking. The resistance isn't exactly organized, you know what I mean? So finding it and then pinpointing the killers is going to be near impossible."
"Okay," Toph grunted, unconvinced. "What do you want me to do about it? I know just as much about the resistance as you know—which isn't much, judging by how far we've gotten already in stopping them."
"Suki gave me a clue," Sokka answered. "Well, a few clues. First she said that it was a man and a woman, and that the woman was younger and that she had been sort of sucked into it.
"Next she said to look for an orb and a line—but that could mean just about anything." Annoyed, Sokka marked off the possibilities on his fingers. "It could mean a map, or it could refer to a part of the world, or it could be the shape of something, or it could just be nothing. I might just be imagining it!"
"Hmph," stated Toph.
"So what do you think?"
"Firstly, I think it was dumb of you to wake me up this late for something that stupid," the girl returned hotly. "Orb and Line probably refer to names."
Sokka made a face when Toph turned around to go back to bed. "What do you mean 'names'?"
The earthbender made another bothered nose from the back of her throat and flipped to her stomach, face turned to Sokka's side on the pillow. "You're an idiot. She told you that there were two people, then gave you two words. If they committed the crime together, then they probably wouldn't be living in separate parts of the word. And they wouldn't be shapes, either. It's important if she mentioned it to you."
Sokka was silent for a long time, contemplating this. In all honesty, he had yet to think of the Orb and the Line as names. In his mind the two shapes came together and formed a sunset shape—the orb was the sun and the line was the horizon. He had thought that maybe this meant he would have to search for them in the west, where the sun set. But could it also be the east, where the sun rose? Maybe this was also true, along with the names.
He had to admit that Toph was clever. She yawned audibly and stretched her legs out under the blankets. Unbeknown to her, that very motion gave Sokka thoughts that he would have rather done without.
"The point is to get to the core of the resistance and find people with names similar to those," Toph finished, yawning again. "And don't wake me up next time for something that dumb. Even Katara's unborn child could have figured that out."
Sokka laughed in a hushed manner. "Oh, please," he whispered back to her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean your sister's pregnant, Snoozles," Toph replied evenly from her spot, not turning to face him. But then she sat up and smirked deviously. "Hey! You don't even have to take my word for it!" She laughed and shrugged. "You'll be able to tell in another four months or so. She'll start showing like some inflated gourd."
"Toph, that's not funny," Sokka stated monotonously. "Katara can't have another child so quickly."
"I don't see why not," the other informed him, playing with her fingernails. "Lynnie's nearly five years old. And Twinkle Puff and Sugar Queen have both been extremely sex deprived without each other. What do you think they're probably doing right now? Why do you think I was moved into your room?" Toph laughed softly again, enjoying the fact that this was making Sokka uncomfortable. "Lynnie's new room is right to the side, so we can stop her if she wonders into the house at night, and happens to interrupt any activity. The healing lodge is too close to Katara's room. I would have heard things, like I did four years ago."
Sokka, who had crossed his arms over his chest in pent-up anger and awkwardness, looked at Toph with a sort of uniform rage. She hadn't changed at all, and neither had he. Even if Katara was 24 years old, and Aang 22, the thought of his baby sister doing things upset him. He was happy for the marriage, yes. But not so much the activities.
"You're a creeper," he told Toph flatly. "I can almost assure you that they aren't doing anything."
"Ha!"
"Toph—stop it!"
"What do you think they're doing?" she repeated. "Come on, Sokka. Tell me. Playing board games? Reciting prayers?"
"Fine! Fine!" His whispers were on the cusp of being too loud for comfort. "I get it! They're getting all of it, and we're not getting any. Is that the point you're making?"
Toph was suddenly quiet. She returned to her mattress without adding to his observation.
"Is that what you mean?" he asked her. Then he sported a laugh himself, and shook his head. "If I didn't know any better, Toph Bei Fong," he started coyly, "then I'd just say that maybe you were jealous."
Her voice exploded like a splitting rock. "What!"
"You heard me! You're jealous."
"Keep your voice down!" Toph hissed, crawling over to him and slapping a finger against his lips. "You're fucking loud, do you know that? And guess what else! You're also fucking out of your mind. Why would I be jealous of Katara? Or Twinkles?"
He didn't answer because he was rather fond of the position Toph had unwillingly bestowed upon him. She had borrowed one of Katara's sleeping gowns—a light blue shade that was plain but form-fitting. It was also a low cut V-neck, displaying a considerable portion of Toph's chest to him as she sat there, holding a warm finger to his mouth. And her knee, while she had crawled to him, had settled there above his thigh, and now rested near his stomach. Her other leg was nearly entirely exposed in the flimsy sleeping attire—white skin glowing against the blackness of the night.
"I hate you," Toph concluded. But then she moved her knee from above his thigh to between his legs, and pressed said knee gently into his groin. There was a supple weight there that made Sokka press his back against the wall he had been propped up against. The gown had risen. She was straddling his thigh.
"I hate you too," he said, reaching his hands to grab her lower back. Then he pulled her nearer to him and felt the contact of her breasts against his chest, nearing to kiss her. Toph stopped him by turning her face to the side and feeling for the frog buttons down the front side of his robe.
When she placed her open palms against his bare chest she mentioned, in a barely audible whisper, "You're just as jealous as I am."