"Hello, Sangok! It's so good to see you again! I love the betrothal necklace you made for me! How was your day?" Katara sweetly asked, then leaned in to kiss her intended on the lips.
She was followed by her brother, Sokka...
"Yo, Sangok!" he happily bellowed. "How goes the preparations for my North Pole wedding to your cousin?"
...and their friend, Toph. (A shoe-wearing Toph, no less! Well, shoes with holes in them, but they're still shoes.)
"Wow! Sokka's getting married! That will be so much fun! Chaste, non-romatic love is so much better than the hot & heavy, yucky kind!" she cheered. "Not to mention, a lot less messy!"
Not a dream!
Not a hoax!
Not an imaginary story!
To find out what happened, read on!
Chapter 4: There's Something About Katara (& Sokka)
Deftly moving his head, Sangok avoided Katara's promised liplock, leaving her with naught but a cheek to plant her kiss on. "Preparations for your wedding are moving ahead, Sokka." the North Pole Water Tribesman flatly informed his future brother-in-law. "Your father will be there, as well."
"That's good." Sokka responded. "And your cousin, Anyu? What does she look like?"
"She's my second cousin. And her appearance is not important." Sangok blithely said. "Only your duty to your people matters."
"Yes. Of course. Sorry, Sangok." Sokka apologized.
"That's alright. But you will be pleased to hear that although the wedding will be at the North Pole, you will be allowed to live with Anyu at the South Pole." Sangok added.
"Wow! That is good news! Thank you, Sangok!" replied the grateful Southern Tribesman, who hugged the Northern Water Tribe teen.
Then Sokka spied his sister, who nervously stood next to her husband-to-be and avoided making eye contact with her brother.
"What about you and Katara?" Sokka inquired. "Will you two move to the South Pole after you get married?"
"That...has yet to be decided." Sangok said. "The wedding is...in the distant future, after all."
"Oh, sure. Of course. Never mind, then. I'm sure it'll be alright."
Sokka then exited the room to take care of some personal business, but not before noticing Katara dispassionately tending to household chores, with Sangok saying not one word to her.
Meanwhile, Toph took care of her own business.
"Mmm! I just love food!" she announced as she gobbled up meats and sausages (very phallic-looking sausages, that is!) "So much better than yucky, icky sex! Yummm!"
"Sangok, your tunic is dirty!" Katara helpfully said to her betrothed. "Take it off so I can wash it."
"That will not be necessary." Sangok coolly replied.
"I, I don't understand, Sangok! Have I done something to displease you?" a sad Katara asked her future hubby.
"No. It is not you. I...I have things I must do. I will be be back later. Why don't you practice your water healing until I return?" Then Sangok put on his wide-brimmed hat and left the apartment.
"But...It's raining! At least take this parasol! Sangok!" Katara called after him.
But he was already gone.
Walking down the street, paying no heed to the rain that constantly pelted him, thoughts of the recent past bombarded Sangok's mind...
"Why can't we lock her up and throw away the key, as was done with female mouthbenders in the past?" an annoyed Sangok asked his superior.
"They are friends of the Avatar, so we must proceed very carefully. We must not give him or the Earth King any reason to suspect our involvement." the Dai Li leader said.
"And you are sure this will work? This...thing you do with the lights?" Sangok inquired of the Dai Li's hypnosis techniques.
"Yes. As long as the scenario we institute for the subjects is properly reinforced."
"Meaning?"
"You will have to stay in close proximity to the waterbending girl so she does not recover her previous identity."
"But how will I...?"
"Sacrifices will have to be made, Sangok. Personal...sacrifices."
"I understand, sir." he said, then bowed respectfully.
"Oh, Sangok!" the laughing girl of the North smiled at him as they romped in the snow-covered fields of their home.
"Do I amuse you, Anyu?" Sangok asked.
"Very much so." she replied. "Come here and I will show you how much."
Back at their residence, Sokka, finding Katara all alone, led her to a private room (away from Toph) so they could talk.
"Katara, I don't think Sangok is right for you."
"Sokka, he may be a little quiet, but he does care for me."
"He doesn't talk to you, he doesn't even say one word to you! He doesn't care anything about you!"
"Sokka...Sangok may not love me now, but he'll...grow into it."
"I don't think so. In fact, I think this whole arranged marriage thing is wrong!"
"Sokka!" Katara gasped. "Think of our family, our people! This is what they want for us! How can we defy them?"
"I know, I know! It's important to bring our two tribes together, so we'll be stronger in the future and no one will be able to wipe us out! And as the children of the Chief of our Tribe, we have an even bigger responsibility! But even with all that, I can't help but feel it's just not right!"
"Is this about Suki?"
"No. Yes. Maybe."
"Sokka, you know a relationship with an Earth Kingdom girl couldn't last! We're Water Tribe! It never would have worked!"
"I know that! But I thought there was a chance..."
"You know it's true! Inter-nation love affairs are a bad idea! That's why I broke it off with Aang."
"Yes, and how did he react? Not well, as I recall!"
"No, he didn't. Aang's just a boy. He doesn't...understand these things like we do. Sokka, we couldn't follow the Avatar around for the rest of our lives! At some point, we had to realize we need to settle down and support our people."
"You're right...Katara, I'm skipping this marriage to Sangok's cousin and going back to the South Pole!"
"But, Sokka..."
"And I want you to come with me."
"Sokka, I can't..."
"Katara, I can't bear to see you trapped in a loveless marriage! I..."
Sokka thought of saying 'I love you too much', but stopped himself. Instead, teary-eyed, he said "...I can't allow you to do that to yourself."
"Sokka, what about our duty to our people? I know what you mean, what you're asking...but I can't..."
"What about your duty to yourself?" Sokka forcefully made his point. "Katara, I'm going! Will you come with?"
Katara looked her brother in the eye, the same brother she'd been with her entire life. Then she averted her gaze and stammered "I, I don't know. I have duties...Responsibilities..."
"Katara..." Sokka firmly held out his hand. "...Let's go."
Taking his offered palm, Katara had one final question.
"What about Toph?"
"We'll take her with us. That food obsession she's developed is definitely unhealthy! New surroundings would do Toph a world of good! Now let's hurry! I want to get well out of town before Sangok gets back!"
"Why can't we explain our decision to Sangok? I'm sure he'd understand."
"No. Something tells me that'd be a real bad idea!"
"Poor Sangok. I should..." Katara began, and placed her hands around her neck to remove the betrothal necklace the Northern Tribe teen had given her.
Then the girl from the South Pole changed her mind.
"No. I, I should give it back in person. He deserves that much."
"If we ever see him again!" Sokka commented.
As the trio left their temporary home and stepped into the rain-whipped night, Sokka said "Man! I wish we didn't have to travel in this downpour! It's too bad I'm not a waterbender!"
"I know what you mean." Katara commisserated. "It's too bad girls are only allowed to be water healers." Then she looked up as clouds passed the nearly full moon.
"What is it?" Sokka asked.
"Nothing. Thought I felt something odd, but...it's nothing."
"Maybe it was dinner?" Toph suggested. "There was all kinds of tasty stuff for dinner! Chicken Pig's ears...Koala Sheep bladders...Bull Antelope testi-"
"Toph! That's enough! No more food talk!" Sokka bellowed. "You'll make me hungry again!"
As the three made their way out of town, probing eyes followed their every move.
Later, Sangok returned to the home he was temporaily sharing with his future wife, plus her brother and friend. Ostensibly, the four lived together in the residence to facilitate preparations for the upcoming marriage of Sokka and Anyu, but in reality it was a 'halfway house', a place used to reinforce the new lives the Dai Li had programmed into the brains of the three heroes before they left for the North Pole. Katara was made to forget she was a waterbender, and was convinced she had broken up with Aang, while Sokka was brainwashed into thinking his relationship with Suki was over. This was done so both Water Tribe siblings would accept their 'duty' to their people and the accompanying arranged marriages. Katara's marriage to Sangok was necessary so he could ensure Katara did not remember she was a waterbender, and a mouthbender. Sokka's nuptials were thrown in so he did not object to Katara's situation. And Toph? Her sexual cravings were readily apparent, and deemed a threat to the type of love-free, responsibility-rich relationships the Dai Li wanted the two Water Tribers to experience, so her feelings for sex were hypnotically transferred to food.
However, when Sangok found the house empty, he knew something was wrong, and quickly raised the alarm with his Dai Li associates.
Scouring the city for the wayward teens, Sangok and the stealthy earthbenders found them in a warehouse guarded by mobsters. The Dai Li easily dispatched the guards and moved in to liberate Katara, Sokka and Toph...but ran into another contingent of gangsters, who were even more sneaky, and fought way dirtier, than the Dai Li.
"Ohhhhh!" Sangok rolled his throbbing head, and struggled to open his eyes.
"Sangok? Are you okay?" the girl's concerned voice called out to him.
It was Katara.
Peering around his immediate location as much as his recovering eyes could manage, Sangok noted she, her brother Sokka, and the Dai Li agents were all tied up in a large wooden room, while Toph the master earthbender was suspended above the floor by means of ropes.
"Sangok! These men are crazy! They keep on saying they want me to mouthbend!" Katara cried. "And, and that I'm a waterbender!"
"Quiet, you!" one of the crooks angrily barked.
"I don't know what to do! Help me, Sangok!" she sobbed, the tears running down her face. "Or, or they'll hurt Sokka and Toph!"
"I said, no crying!" a hulking tough yelled at the girl.
Then he raised his club and struck Katara upside her head!
"Unhhhh!"
"Katara!" Sangok and Sokka screamed.
"I'm sorry." a defeated Katara croaked. "I'll do anything you want. Just don't hurt my friends."
Sangok felt a twinge of guilt. The proud waterbender and fighter he once knew had been reduced to a quivering mass of helplessness. But he remembered his duty, and held to that to gain the strength he needed to endure.
"What is going on here?" the one who had be the leader of the group of felons demanded. "I was told you had a mouthbender! It's the only reason I came to your Spiritforsaken town, but this girl hasn't bent so much as a drop! And why are the Dai Li involved?"
"She is a mouthbender, and a waterbender! We've seen it!" replied a member of the motley crew, who had somehow gotten out of jail (probably by bribery).
"You saw her mouthbend?" the gangleader quizzed his underling.
"Well...no." he admitted. "But we know she is!"
"And the Dai Li?"
"Ah...They only appear when there's a mouthbender around, according to our legends."
"Is that right, hat man?" the mob boss interrogated one of the Dai Li. "You here for the mouthbender?"
But the follower of Avatar Kyoshi wouldn't say a word to, or even deign to make eye contact with, such a common thug.
"We can prove it!" the street level gangster declared. "We'll make her mouthbend!"
"Anyone can be forced to suck a cock!" the skeptical mob major domo stated. "How can you prove she's a mouthbender?"
"Easy! She'll bend the cum out of her mouth, without using her hands! That'll prove it for sure!"
"Hmmm...That would do it. But who will she demonstrate these skills on?"
There had been stories, myths really, in the Water Tribes about unusually satisfying oral sex performed by female waterbenders over the years, but as the focus during these encounters was typically on salacious actions, and not on moving fluids inside the body, the link to waterbending hadn't been discovered, and the stories were written off as sexual boasting.
Until a group of female benders found themselves trapped with their partners.
Until necessity, the very mother-loving founder of invention.
However, Sangok couldn't count on necessity to save his ass this time.
"This is bad." Sangok whispered to his Dai Li contact. "When they find out Katara can't waterbend, let alone mouthbend, they'll kill her...and us!"
"What would you have us do?"
"We must tell her the code phrase."
"Sangok...Those words are only to be used during the hypnosis process, to strip away false memories so new ones can be instituted. It is not for this! You would undo our work?"
"I would like to stay alive. Katara's a master waterbender! We need her to escape...We can always hypnotize her again afterwards."
"It is not the way we do things...But your plan has merit. Proceed."
"Katara..." Sangok whispered to the sad girl beside him. "...Firelady Azula is a good person."
"What? What did you say? Sangok? What are you, we, doing here? Where are we?...Oh no."
Recognition of the danger they were in hit Katara like a glacial wall of ice calving into the sea.
Meanwhile, the gangsters had been debating who would be the sap, I mean lucky recipient, of Katara's mouth favors.
Ordinarily, the crooks would be fighting each other to receive the blowjob of a lifetime, but Katara's special abilities gave them pause. After seeing the waterbender fight, they feared she could do the same to their equipment. Heck, a penis encased in ice is enough to give any man pause!
Besides, their interest in the girl was strictly financial; that is, how much they could sell her special services to the highest bidder, and not their own demented desires. They had plenty of regular whores they used for that purpose.
"Look, why don't whoever she mouthbended before volunteer this time?" the exasperated mob boss suggested to his reluctant hoods.
"It wasn't me!"
"Don't look at me! I didn't do it!"
"If it wasn't any of you...who did she mouthbend?"
"It musta been her boyfriend!"
"Yeah! That guy there! They were tied up together, and he was the only man around!"
"It was you?" a stunned Sangok exclaimed. "Katara mouthbended...you?"
"Errr..." Sokka stammered.
"Sangok...I had no choice...It was either that...Or they would have killed Sokka, Toph and me. I couldn't let that happen!..." Katara weepily whispered to the Northern Water Tribe teen.
"Don't say another word to me, waterbending trash! Spirits! You're even more foul than the mouthbenders of old! How could I think you were any different?"
"Alright, babe!" the brutal whoremaster shoved Katara, who had her hands tied behind her back, toward Sokka, who was now bound to a table, spreadeagle. "Time to get to work! Prove you're a mouthbender, or..."
"I know! Or you'll kill us! You don't have to spell it out! I know what your kind wants!" Katara said, the defiance in her voice due to her newly restored waterbending, which gave her confidence.
A confidence that lasted only as long as it took her to gaze at her mouthbending 'subject'.
"Sokka...I'm so sorry!"
"It's not your fault, Katara...No matter what happens, I'll always love you."
"I love you, too." she said, and gave her brother a sad, brief kiss on his trembling lips that was meant to comfort them both.
"Oh my! Muh spies in th' underwworld were raght!" said a woman watching the horrible drama play out through a telescope stuck through a skylight. "Katara's got herself in quite th' sitch, and me wit'out reinforcements ta stage a rescue! So's ah might as wahl use it! Pay attention, Meng! Ya got another chance ta learn mouthbendin'!"
"Yes, ma'am!" the girl replied, and accepted the telescope from Boni Su.
Bending to her hated task, Katara slowly worked her mouth into her brother's trousers...and received the surprise of a lifetime!
"What the?"
Shocked at what she found, Katara bit down with her teeth, retracted her head from Sokka's pants...and sprayed liquid all over the table!
"What the hell?" many of those present uttered at the odd sight of Katara with a sausage in her mouth, a sausage plucked from Sokka's breeches, squirting meat juice all over the place!
Realizing, a split second before her captors, the advantage she had, Katara nimbly moved the fingers behind her back to bend the meaty fluids into a whip targeted at the Dai Li!
"Get her!" the gangsters yelled! "She's bending it with her hands somehow!"
The waterwhip snapped at Sangok and the Dai Li a moment before rough, meaty paws grabbed Katara's hands, holding them in an unbreakable grip, causing the whip to dissolve into a watery mess on the wooden floor.
But the thugs were too late; the Dai Li were free!
However, stuck in a wooden room, what could they do?
"The coal in the furnace!" Katara screamed, right before her abductors gagged her. "You can mphh!"
Quickly motioning with their hands in an earthbending stance, the Dai Li levitated the coal from the boiler and made ready to launch it at their opponents.
Yet, before that could happen...
"STOP!"
...Fate intervened.
"There's no reason for us to fight!" the mob chieftain proclaimed. "This girl isn't a mouthbender!"
Seeing the stunned looks on the faces of the combatants (the crooks and the Dai Li both), the leader of the felons explained himself.
"Look at what she did! The waterbender got water from the meat, then used her hands to bend it! That's not mouthbending! Let them go!" he ordered his underlings.
"But...how did she escape the first time?" one of the hoodlums wondered.
"Let me ask you something, kid...you keep sausages in your pants a lot?" the gangleader quizzed the freed Sokka, who was now standing up and removing the last of the ropes from his wrists..
"Welll...I have to hide my meat from Toph, or else she'd eat it all up on me!" he cautiously answered.
"Good one, Snoozles! You know I'd never look there!" said Toph, released from her bonds and lowered to the floor, touching it for the first time. "Wood? Awww! Seriously, you guys thought Katara was a 'mouthbender'? That's a joke I made up after Katara guzzled the juice out of Sokka's sausage the first time these guys captured us!" Toph added, her memories skewed due to the brainwashing she suffered at the hands of the Dai Li. "Katara would never suck Sokka's cock! They're brother and sister!"
"Yeah!" Sokka responded, casting a nervous glance at Katara. "I mean, my sister? Eww gross!"
"Double, no, triple ewww!" Katara joined in as she anxiously looked at her brother, worried that this latest scam wouldn't work.
"But, then why did they act all lovey-dovey the last time we had 'em?" a smuggler inquired.
"You mean, when they tricked us with that boomerang?" his fellow crook snapped.
"Yeahhhh. It was all a trick, wasn't it? Man, that kid keeps the darnedest things down there!"
"Did you know about this, Sangok?" the peeved Dai Li leader questioned the young man from the North Pole.
"I'm sorry, master. I heard the little one say 'mouthbender', and assumed Katara had done the foul deed on one of the felons. Forgive me. It was all my fault."
"So it was all a misunderstanding!" The gregarious criminal kingpin put his arm around the head honcho of the Dai Li. "And everyone can go on their way!" he added with a smile. The mobster knew his gang had lost the advantage when Katara freed the Dai Li and wanted to quickly resolve the matter. Then he whispered something to the Dai Li master.
"Sangok...Thank you." Katara told her former fiance. "Here. I guess you'll want this back." she said, handing him the betrothal necklace he had given her.
"Keep it. I want nothing from you!" he screeched. "I know what you are!"
"But then, why did you...?"
"That...is not your concern. Consider this a second chance."
"I don't understand, Sokka. He let us go, even though he knows what happened." Katara said to her brother.
"Let's not question our good fortune, Katara." Then Sokka saw Toph tearing into the sausage Katara had fished out of his pants.
"Um, excuse me, Sangok? A little help here."
"Hmmm? Oh. Very well! 'Firelady Azula is a good person'."
"Huh? No, she's not!" Toph responded, reverting to her former self. "Hey. Why am I eating this, when there's so many better sausages around?" she panted, noting the number of hunky Dai Li nearby. Then the sightless girl, her special senses dulled by the inhospitable environment, doffed her holey shoes and began following what she believed to be one of the Dai Li agents around, except it was really one of the crooks, until Sokka grabbed her and dragged her back.
"So sorry for the error on my aide's part, miss!" the smarmy black marketer oozed with an oily charm. "I like the way you handled yourself! See me in a few years. I think I have just the job for someone of your skills!"
Katara was dumbstruck by the unexpected offer.
"Umm, that's, uh, very generous of you, but, you see..."
"Stay away from my sister!" Sokka yelled. "She's not interested in being a whore in any of your whorehouses!"
"I was thinking of having her do security for me." the gangster retorted. "But now that I see the situation...over-protective brother...I bet you can't wait to get out on your own! And men do pay extra for that exotic look! See ya, doll!"
"Go, Katara!" Sokka ordered. "If I spend any more time here, I'm liable to go to war against these guys all by myself!"
"Hey! I'm going, okay? You don't have to push me!" Katara yelped as her brother used one hand to 'escort' (shove) her sister out of the mob warehouse and the other hand to lead the blind Toph out of the wooden structure.
"So that's it, ma'am? Since Katara's not really a mouthbender, our mission is over?" Meng asked, as Boni Su watched the dramatic proceedings with her telescope. "Katara must have scammed us that night and pretended to mouthbend, probably hoping to get rid of us! The floozy!"
"Not so fast, Meng!" Boni told her young assistant. "We've been scammed all right, but it ain't whut yew think! Heh! Th' girl's good! But ah know how ta handle her now. We're gonna need help! And yew get ta use more'a yore skills!"
Our little group dodged the dagger this time!
But Sangok knows the truth, and Boni Su is still after her,
so what will Katara do next?
Would you believe she visits a special place (read: whorehouse) to be instructed in the ways of mouthbending?
I wonder what will Sokka think about that?
He wouldn't be first in line, would he?
Nah, that's crazy!
Plus:
Boni Su strikes, and gets the surprise of a lifetime!
But then Boni surprises us!
Wait'll you see what she does!
(Or, rather, who she gets to help her!)
Lots more fun in our next chapter!
Notes
Anyu is Inuit for "snow used for a specific purpose". (Also written as 'aniu', meaning packed snow).
Sokka didn't need the code phrase because he had already broken free of his programming when he refused to go along with his arranged marriage. (His love for Katara was stronger than his sense of duty). Or maybe he heard it when Sangok said it to Katara.