Aaay! Back atcha with another story-let.


Day Ten

Heat of the Moment


Katara squealed as a sandball went sailing past her, narrowly missing colliding with her midsection in an explosion of grainy particles. Not that it would've mattered anyway. She, along with the other members of Team Avatar, was already caked in the stuff. Their beach break had quickly devolved into a sandball fight and each and every member was in it to win it. Sand flew left, right, forward, and backward as the group mercilessly pelted each other with hastily formed globs of rock and shell.

Katara laughed and ran at top speed across the beach as sandballs continued to be chucked at her with dangerous accuracy by Suki who had a nice trail of sand down the front of her swimsuit courtesy of one of Katara's own sandballs.

Several meters away, she saw Zuko watching Aang engage in a sandbending war with Toph and made a beeline for him. She took advantage of his distraction to grab hold of his arm and swing him in front of her just as a sandball came flying right at her. Zuko had no time to react and was walloped straight in the chest.

Katara and Suki both burst into laughter as Zuko made a disgruntled noise at being used as a meat shield and wiped off his chest to the best of his ability. It wasn't very effective. He turned around to glare at her and Katara responded by dumping sand over his head and beating a hasty retreat across the beach.

She glanced back over her shoulder to watch him splutter and shake himself off with a self-satisfied grin. To think that mighty and powerful Zuko would be such an easy target. Now that they were friends, she often had to remind herself that he was the same belligerent jerk who had once chased them clear across the globe. He wasn't anywhere near as scary as she'd always thought him to be.

And speaking of differing later impressions, Katara would never admit this to any of her friends, but Zuko was also much handsomer than she'd initially given him credit for. He'd never been a bad-looking guy, but that horrible maroon armor and dumb ponytail had done nothing for him. This new, softer Zuko, however, was awfully easy on the eyes and Katara found herself gravitating toward him more than she probably should. She blamed this on being a healthy teenaged girl with normally functioning biology. It wasn't like she was romantically attracted to him, she assured herself. No, certainly not. He was Zuko, after all.

Although, day by day, it was steadily becoming harder to convince herself of this. Particularly because he had such a gosh darn good personality on top of it all—another unexpected facet of his character. He was honest and easy to talk to and could actually be pretty funny even though he never tried to be. All these things combined drew her to him like a moth to a flame, and even though she tried not to, she found herself occasionally stacking him up against the other males in her life for critical comparison. This too, she blamed on biology.

Katara's attention was pulled away from Zuko when she heard Suki's voice call out to her. "Katara! Watch out!"

It took Katara a moment to figure out what Suki was referring to and by the time she did it was too late to avoid it. Toph had put a pause on her battle with Aang to send a wave of sand rolling across the beach directly toward her and Katara could only "Eep!" in surprise as the wave knocked her onto her butt and then proceeded to swirl around her, encasing her up to her neck. "Hey! No fair!" she called only half-seriously to the grinning earthbender.

"All's fair in sand and war, Sugar Queen!" Toph shouted back smugly.

Knowing that was an argument she would never win, Katara simply focused on freeing herself from her sand prison. By the time she was finally able to pull herself from the wet mound, Suki and Zuko had wandered over and were watching her with amused expressions. "You reap what you sow," Suki said with a snigger as Katara emerged from her entrapment completely coated in yellow sand.

Katara tried in vain to brush the sand from her skin, only succeeding in dislodging the first layer. "I think it's time for a swim," she said, admitting defeat.

Suki and Zuko vocalized their agreement and the three of them began jogging for the water.

Katara couldn't have been more surprised when right as they reached the water's edge a pair of arms hoisted her up and suddenly she was speeding into the water. She barely had time to register that Zuko was the one who grabbed her when she was being tossed bodily into the surf. She yelped in surprise and indignation as her body hit the water and when she resurfaced she found Suki doubled over laughing and Zuko wearing a smug look that rivaled Toph's.

When Suki recovered from her laughing fit, she turned back to the beach to call to the rest of their friends to join them in the ocean. Katara wasn't paying attention to her, though. Using her waterbending, she grabbed a wave and flung it over Zuko, soaking him like a drowned pygmy puma. Before he could recover, she retreated out into deeper water where she would have an edge if he decided to retaliate.

Apparently Zuko wasn't scared of a waterbender in the ocean—that, or he had a stubborn streak as wide as hers—because he followed her without a second thought.

What followed was an all-out water war with her and Zuko at the center. Zuko, as it turned out, was fantastic at holding his breath and he used this skill frequently to torment her from under water. While Aang or Sokka attempted to get splashes in up top, Zuko would launch his assault from below, grabbing her legs and pulling her under.

After several repetitions of this, the next time Zuko went under, Katara dove beneath the waves as well to meet him on his own ground. Rather than looking surprised at finding her there, Zuko locked eyes with her and spread his arms in a 'come at me, bro' sort of gesture. Katara wasn't about to ignore that. She swam straight at him and the two became locked in an underwater wrestling match, both attempting to make the other surface first.

Katara could've easily used waterbending to make an oxygen bubble around her head, but she was determined to beat Zuko on his level. He would regret challenging her to a duel in the water. She would make sure of it.

Zuko, however, was persistent and he very clearly had no intention of admitting defeat. His hands roamed over her sides, attempting to tickle her into surrendering, a tactic which was very cheap in Katara's opinion as she was incredibly ticklish. She squirmed in his grasp, trying in vain to bat his hands away. At this rate, she might actually lose.

That was something she would never allow. She needed to counter; do something back that would ensure her victory. She was running out of air quickly and if she gave in none of her friends would ever let her live it down. Waterbenders didn't lose to firebenders in the ocean.

She wasn't really sure what gave her the idea. Maybe it was the determined look on Zuko's face or the feel of his hands on her bare skin. Perhaps it was just the high of engaging in a competitive battle. Katara couldn't say exactly what it was, but something drove her to grab Zuko's face in both her hands and pull him into a fiery kiss.

The plan worked better than Katara could've imagined. Shocked, Zuko exhaled through his nose, clouding both their vision with bubbles, and was forced to break away to kick desperately to the surface for air.

Katara followed a moment after, surfacing just a few feet away from him. Zuko found her with wide eyes and seeing his absolute shock at what she'd done caused her own actions to properly register. Blood rushed to her face and she quickly attempted to save face by directing his attention to his loss. "T—that'll teach you to mess with a waterbender on her home turf!" She let out a somewhat awkward-sounding triumphant laugh. Before Zuko could ask about the incident, she added, "Well, I'm beat. I think I'll go inside early and, uh, get started on dinner. Later!"

Not wasting a single second, she used her bending to propel herself quickly back to shore. Without looking back, she bent herself dry and began jogging back to the house. Her cheeks were still burning and she had to stop herself from touching them to feel how obvious her blush was. She was never going to mention this to anyone. Not ever.

If Zuko knew what was good for him, he wouldn't either.

oO0Oo


We're officially a third of the way through! Yay for milestones. From here, the stories will largely be much sillier than the ones we've seen so far. More like today's and yesterday's. Anyone who's followed me for a long time knows that I'm partial to humor. That's not to say that there won't be few more serious stories tossed in, of course.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go figure out what in the HFIL to write for tomorrow's prompt.