Avatar the Last Airbender Fic: Scenes from the Everyday (Pairing: Aang/Katara)
Title: Scenes from the Everyday
Genre: Family
Word Count: ~3,300
Rating: PG
Pairings: Aang/Katara
Warnings: None
Summary: Written for rusting_roses. Merry Christmas my dear! Tag to the series finale. Aang has watched the Water, Earth, and Fire Nations rebuild after the war. He's been waiting years ffor this, the opportunity to rebuild the culture of his own people.
Author's Note: This piece is currently unbetaed. All errors are my own.
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Scenes from the Everyday
Their morning began with the sound of a clay pot clattering to the ground somewhere outside their bedroom. Katara peeked one eye open at the noise, sighing. As usual, Aang's unparalleled ability to sleep through just about anything worked in his favor. She rolled over to face him, giving a silent chuckle under her breath at the bit of drool hanging in the corner of his open mouth. "Aang," she whispered.
He snored on.
She sighed, shaking her head. "AANG!"
He woke with a jolt, his eyes snapping open.
She addressed him again. "The kids are up. Well, at least one of them is, and from the sounds of it, they are currently causing mayhem in the kitchen." If she had to bet who the perpetrator was, it was probably Tenzin. He stood little higher than her knees, but was so much trouble in such a small package.
Aang groaned, pulling the pillow down over his head. "Can you-"
With a smile, she pulled the pillow away and deposited it safely behind her back and beyond his reach. "No, I put them down for sleep last night. It's your turn."
Raising a hand to scrub at his eyes, he wearily sat up.
There was the sound giggling and the sound of another dish breaking. "Look what I can do Tenzin!" a high-pitched voice squealed in excitement.
Katara gave Aang a slight push toward the edge of the bed. "I think the mischief just doubled, maybe get out there before they find the cutlery?"
The thought of his children chasing one another with forks, or worse, knives, got him up and out of bed and moving. She chuckled to see that he left in just his pants, forgetting so much as a shirt to ward against the coolness of a morning at the South Pole.
Laying back down and burrowing back under the covers, she resolved to give herself another five minutes. Ok, maybe ten.
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It had started with a single drip from the ceiling of their hut. Katara hadn't really worried about it, it was a simple flick of the wrist and she could solidify a layer of ice over the small hole.
Since then, it had been a month of blizzards. By her current estimate, there was a good two feet of snow on their roof. Their vented fireplace was great for keeping their domicile warm; it was equally as potent in melting some of the snow on the roof. Last week they had been up to anywhere between five and ten contiguous drips from the ceiling.
Aang had not so much as an ounce of resistance in him to those pleading eyes of their children. They got a real kick out of the drips, whether it be pushing one another under them in hopes of getting them wet, conducting an imaginary symphony between the off-beat sounds of the water drops hitting their floor, or begging Katara to freeze the water on the floor so they could go ice skating inside. Because ice skating under a roof was so much different than doing it out on one of the glaciers, at least as far as her three children were concerned. Those smiles and their giggles, she'd admit, they were potent things.
When they weren't ice skating inside, they had the drips collecting in pots that had been positioned under each one. When they'd sailed past ten pots strategically positioned around the main room of their home and were headed up towards fifteen, she'd begun pestering Aang about getting up there to fix the holes. They couldn't go on like this lest they be sprouting a lawn of pots across the floor of their main room.
She balanced the basket of laundry on one hip as she sidestepped one of the pots. She hissed and dropped her basket as she stubbed her toe on another that she had forgotten about just to the left of door. Grumbling, Katara looked down at the pot. It was almost full and she gave a silent thanks that the water hadn't sloshed out across the floor.
This was the last straw.
An hour later she had pulled off her heavy outer jacket and dropped it over the edge of the roof and to the ground below, her exertions providing ample body heat to keep her warm enough. She had used her bending to pile all of the snow to one half of the roof, exposing the thatching on the other side. There she knelt on hand and knee, examining one of the coin-sized holes that she'd found.
"Mommy! We caught three fish today!" Rayden called up from below. She paused in her administrations, looking over to where Aang was leading the three kids up along the path.
She smiled. "We'll cook them up for supper tonight."
"I'm get the big one since I caught it!" Brynna called as she raced ahead into the hut, fish in tow.
"No fair! That was my fish. You were just holding my pole while I was buttoning my jacket!" Tenzin shot back, chasing after her. Not to be left out of the action, Rayden joined in.
Aang paused below by the doorway, letting the kids race ahead, momentarily granting them a moment alone together.
"So the fishing spot Sokka recommended worked well I take it?" Katara asked.
He nodded. "Very much so. I'll take over one of the fish later to thank him. How was your day?"
She brushed a bit of snow off her pants and quirked an eyebrow. A quick movement of her hands sent the snow cascading off the roof, completely burying her husband beneath the pile, dressing him as a human snowman. She giggled at the sight of the snow shifting with his movements as he tried to free himself.
A waterbending motion of his own had him uncovered, although he'd missed a bit of snow on top of his hat. "What was that for?" he asked.
She laughed once more. "For making your poor wife get up here and patch the roof herself. Now come on up here and give me a hand, will you my dear?"
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It was an afternoon in early spring where they had finished their chores early and Aang and Katara had decided to take the children penguin sledding for the first time. Aang had been wanting to do it for a few years now, but she made him wait until Tenzin was a bit older. When he stood as tall as one of the penguins, she had told Aang each and every time he asked. At least then she wouldn't have to worry about losing their youngest in the midst of a gaggle of the birds.
So they'd packed up the kids and taken them out onto the ice flows. Aang had scouted overhead on his glider looking for a black cluster on the otherwise white landscape below that would indicate their presence. It was Rayden's turn to ride on his back in the harness they had rigged up as Aang did so, the kids were known to fight bitterly over who would get to fly with their father next. She could just barely pick them out, a small silhouette against the sun. They grew bigger as she watched, lowering in altitude until Aang finally landed.
"They're just over the next ridge," he said, a grin plastered across his face.
Katara had walked up to join the two of them, Tenzin in one arm and Brynna hanging on her skirt. "To the flows we go, then," she suggested.
They taught the kids how to avoid the penguins that had chicks and how to grab one set of flippers and use them to steer the penguin as they sledded down what inclines they could find. As expected, the kids took to it like ducks to water, going again and again until the smarter penguins fled when the children started after them for another run.
It was as Tenzin started to doze off in her arms that Katara proclaimed it time to go. She passed Tenzin over into Aang's arms as she gathered the other two and they started toward home.
A good ten minutes later Katara began to get an inkling that something was up. Rayden kept sneaking a glance over his shoulder as if expecting something to be behind them. The first time Katara had followed his gaze with her own, all she saw was the barren landscape behind them.
The second time she did so, there were a pair of penguins waddling after them. Shrugging it off as their natural curiosity, they had continued on.
The third time it happened, they were just outside the village and there were at least six penguins behind them, this time close enough to hear them honking at one another. She shot Aang a questioning look.
"Don't look at me," he replied, shifting a slumbering Tenzin from one arm to the other, "I have no idea."
Their procession earned them more than a few funny looks as they passed through the village. Brynna was out ahead of Aang and Katara, wanting to be the first one as always. Rayden was lagging a bit behind, grinning ear to ear at the line of penguins that was clustered close behind him, waddling and flapping their flippers as they went.
She pulled them up short of the hut when they got near. "I hope you don't intend to bring your new pals inside, Rayden," she said.
"They're my friends, though," he argued. "They look cold. Couldn't they just come in for a bit and sit by the fire?"
Aang gave a quiet chuckle. "They're penguins, Rayden. They thrive in this type of weather. Although I'm not sure why they followed us this far. They usually shy away from the village."
Brynna had skipped back to join their gathering, skidding to a stop beside Rayden and bumping into him slightly.
"Hey!" he muttered.
"Look!" she said, raising a small fish in her hand. "Rayden was feeding them all the way home!"
"Give it back you tattle-tail!" Rayden shot back, reaching for the fish. All bundled up in their parkas as they were, their little dance was more awkward than graceful. A year older, Brynna had a few inches on him and Rayden's struggle was of no use.
Katara crossed over to them, taking the fish herself. "Rayden, what are we going to do with these guys now?"
He shrugged, kicking a toe at the ground sheepishly, hands tucked behind his back. "I don't know. Keep them as pets, maybe?" he said, a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Later that night Aang chased the birds away from right outside their door with a kettle and a spoon, making a racket all the way. For the night, it worked. For the rest of that winter, though, the occasional penguin would stand outside the door honking until they offered it a fish and it would waddle away satisfied.
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It was a quiet evening when the world changed. Aang was kneeling next to their fireplace, carefully arranging some cut wood into a pyramid structure while Brynna and Rayden watched on curiously.
"See, you have to make sure that the central log is well placed or the whole thing will fall over," he instructed them as he worked. Placing the final log, he set to work trying to coax a fire into existence with flint and steel.
From the table, Sokka laughed at his ministrations over the edge of his mug of tea. "You know you would get a lot further just using your firebending," he offered. "I thought I was coming over to eat dinner, not turn into a human icicle."
Aang tried a few more times before rocking back on his heels, rubbing the back of his head. "I'll get it; just give me a few more minutes I guess."
The corner of Katara's lip curved up as she watched them out of the corner of her eye. Most of her attention was focused on cutting up the meat for their stew, but the boys always made for good entertainment.
As for the lack of bending, they had made a conscious effort to not rely on their bending to solve life's simple problems. The children would have to rely on more mundane methods of completing these tasks and they wanted to foster the learning of such skills as they grew up.
Five minutes later Sokka had flipped up his hood and donned his mittens, chilled. He stood up, trudging over to Aang and pushing him aside. "The only thing you are teaching these kids is how not to start a fire. Let a real man show them how it's done," he proclaimed as he pulled the flint and steel from Aang's hands.
"I can do it," Aang protested.
"Sure, you can," Sokka said, focusing on the fire.
Aang mumbled something under his breath but moved back from the fireplace and sat down in Sokka's now vacated seat, pouting. Her boys, children and men alike, were something else sometimes.
Aang raised a hand to his face and a clattering caught Katara's attention near the fireplace. The pyramid of wood had collapsed.
"Hey! I saw you do that, Aang!" Sokka objected.
"I was scratching my nose!" Aang protested. "You were probably clumsy, as usual, and bumped it."
"Calm down both of you," Katara offered. "Right now the kids are setting the only mature example in this household," she suggested, nodding to where Rayden and Brynna were picking up the few logs that had rolled out of the fireplace.
She smirked as blushes rose on both Aang's and Sokka's faces. There were grumbled apologies and Sokka's expert hands quickly reassembled the wood. A few strikes of flint against steel later had sparks flying onto the base of the kindling. One finally took, smoke blossoming into the air and rising through the open vent in the roof.
"Now we may finally be able to get some dinner on," she suggested, dumping the chopped meat and vegetables from her cutting board into the large pot she'd hang over the fire.
A quick gust of air sent the flames flickering and then sputtering to a premature death. "Aang, I thought we were done with that! I actually want to eat," Sokka said.
Aang frowned. "It wasn't me. I'm just as hungry as you," he said, rubbing a hand against his growling stomach.
A giggle broke the sudden silence, attracting all eyes in the room to where Tenzin was playing on a rug in the corner of the hut. His small wooden plane made lazy loops through the air. Momo shadowed it as it flew, entertaining himself.
Katara took a shuddering breath. "Aang...Are you doing that?"
"No...I'm not."
As Tenzin became aware that he was the sole object of everyone's attention, his attention became divided between them and his plane. The toy began rocking back and forth unsteadily before dropping out the air and skidding across the floor to a halt.
"Airbending," Katara said softly, tears glistening at the corner of her eyes. Aang had come around the table and stood next to her in the span of a breath. She took his hand in her own. "Aang, he's airbending."
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It was a crisp morning when they assembled on the edge of the village, the entire Southern Water tribe having shown up to send them off. Katara, Aang, and their children had spent years in the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, and most recently the Water Tribe. As the Avatar, Aang could never totally disappear from the public's eye. It was largely through his efforts that they had made so much progress in reversing what one hundred years of war had to upset the natural balance of things. The longest time had been spent in the Fire Nation, solidifying and backing Zuko's rule against those who might wish to overthrow him. After a stint in the Earth Kingdom, Katara had been more than ready to return to her own home. Aang too, seemed grateful for the opportunity to live with a bit more privacy. The smaller community had granted them that much, fewer grand public appearances before the assembled populace, more stopping for a chat in the village with their neighbors.
In the absence of war, the Southern Water Tribe had thrived. Their numbers had more than quadrupled in the years since the war and continued to grow. Aang had done much for the world, and though an Avatar's job was never totally done, the time had finally come for him to dedicate himself to his own pursuits.
Airbenders were all but extinct. He had been the last of his line and all that was left of his people. Each and every time they'd had a child, she had seen his excitement grow with the possibility of another airbender coming into the world. Each and every time she'd comforted him through the bitter disappointment when the skill hadn't manifested itself in their children. Over the years Aang had resigned himself to the possibility that he would truly be the Last Airbender.
Until a small wooden plane had changed all of that. Tenzin was an airbender and the world had opened before them.
Aang had taken to telling their children of the Southern Air Temple that very night, of the airball courts and the blue spires that climbed into the sky and were the first thing you saw from a distance when approaching from the air. Katara had gotten five years amongst her tribe now, had seen them grow and prosper. It was time for her to grant Aang the same opportunity.
Thus had begun preparations for their journey. Sokka would be traveling with them along with a small group of Water Tribe families and a few younger members of the tribe whose eyes glistened with wonder at the possibility of getting out to explore the world a bit.
Two airbenders did not a community make. It was a start, a start more promising that she had dared hope for. Their small village here was getting crowded anyways and more than one family had volunteered for the expedition.
The next few weeks had passed in a flurry with discussions of trip provisions and travel arrangements. Travel had been the biggest question, but it was resolved easily enough. Years earlier they had made the discovery of a small population of air buffalo at the abandoned Eastern Temple, which had given them the ability to start a breeding population right outside the village. Half of the herd would be going with them.
All of that had brought them to this very moment at the edge of the village where all of her people had assembled. Her father was there, hair tinged grey at the edges of his hairline but standing strong and proud before his people as always. There was a longing in his eyes, a sadness at the thought that his two children would be going off into the world this time and leaving him behind to lead their people.
The colonizers were assembled to her and Aang's backs in a loose crescent arrangement. They were mounted on their air bison, supplies solidly secured and waiting on Aang's signal for their departure.
Aang looked back from where he was perched on Appa's head, Momo sat on his shoulder chattering excitedly. "Are you ready?" he asked.
Katara gathered her children a bit closer, hugging them in her arms. She nodded.
A breathless smile crossed Aang's face. Looking forward, he gave a snap of his wrist and a shake of the reins. With a few bounding leaps forward, the ground gave way beneath them. Over the wind in her ears, she heard Aang speak. "Yip, yip, Appa. We're finally going home."
--THE END--
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Genre: Family
Word Count: ~3,300
Rating: PG
Pairings: Aang/Katara
Warnings: None
Summary: Written for rusting_roses. Merry Christmas my dear! Tag to the series finale. Aang has watched the Water, Earth, and Fire Nations rebuild after the war. He's been waiting years ffor this, the opportunity to rebuild the culture of his own people.
Author's Note: This piece is currently unbetaed. All errors are my own.
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Scenes from the Everyday
Their morning began with the sound of a clay pot clattering to the ground somewhere outside their bedroom. Katara peeked one eye open at the noise, sighing. As usual, Aang's unparalleled ability to sleep through just about anything worked in his favor. She rolled over to face him, giving a silent chuckle under her breath at the bit of drool hanging in the corner of his open mouth. "Aang," she whispered.
He snored on.
She sighed, shaking her head. "AANG!"
He woke with a jolt, his eyes snapping open.
She addressed him again. "The kids are up. Well, at least one of them is, and from the sounds of it, they are currently causing mayhem in the kitchen." If she had to bet who the perpetrator was, it was probably Tenzin. He stood little higher than her knees, but was so much trouble in such a small package.
Aang groaned, pulling the pillow down over his head. "Can you-"
With a smile, she pulled the pillow away and deposited it safely behind her back and beyond his reach. "No, I put them down for sleep last night. It's your turn."
Raising a hand to scrub at his eyes, he wearily sat up.
There was the sound giggling and the sound of another dish breaking. "Look what I can do Tenzin!" a high-pitched voice squealed in excitement.
Katara gave Aang a slight push toward the edge of the bed. "I think the mischief just doubled, maybe get out there before they find the cutlery?"
The thought of his children chasing one another with forks, or worse, knives, got him up and out of bed and moving. She chuckled to see that he left in just his pants, forgetting so much as a shirt to ward against the coolness of a morning at the South Pole.
Laying back down and burrowing back under the covers, she resolved to give herself another five minutes. Ok, maybe ten.
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It had started with a single drip from the ceiling of their hut. Katara hadn't really worried about it, it was a simple flick of the wrist and she could solidify a layer of ice over the small hole.
Since then, it had been a month of blizzards. By her current estimate, there was a good two feet of snow on their roof. Their vented fireplace was great for keeping their domicile warm; it was equally as potent in melting some of the snow on the roof. Last week they had been up to anywhere between five and ten contiguous drips from the ceiling.
Aang had not so much as an ounce of resistance in him to those pleading eyes of their children. They got a real kick out of the drips, whether it be pushing one another under them in hopes of getting them wet, conducting an imaginary symphony between the off-beat sounds of the water drops hitting their floor, or begging Katara to freeze the water on the floor so they could go ice skating inside. Because ice skating under a roof was so much different than doing it out on one of the glaciers, at least as far as her three children were concerned. Those smiles and their giggles, she'd admit, they were potent things.
When they weren't ice skating inside, they had the drips collecting in pots that had been positioned under each one. When they'd sailed past ten pots strategically positioned around the main room of their home and were headed up towards fifteen, she'd begun pestering Aang about getting up there to fix the holes. They couldn't go on like this lest they be sprouting a lawn of pots across the floor of their main room.
She balanced the basket of laundry on one hip as she sidestepped one of the pots. She hissed and dropped her basket as she stubbed her toe on another that she had forgotten about just to the left of door. Grumbling, Katara looked down at the pot. It was almost full and she gave a silent thanks that the water hadn't sloshed out across the floor.
This was the last straw.
An hour later she had pulled off her heavy outer jacket and dropped it over the edge of the roof and to the ground below, her exertions providing ample body heat to keep her warm enough. She had used her bending to pile all of the snow to one half of the roof, exposing the thatching on the other side. There she knelt on hand and knee, examining one of the coin-sized holes that she'd found.
"Mommy! We caught three fish today!" Rayden called up from below. She paused in her administrations, looking over to where Aang was leading the three kids up along the path.
She smiled. "We'll cook them up for supper tonight."
"I'm get the big one since I caught it!" Brynna called as she raced ahead into the hut, fish in tow.
"No fair! That was my fish. You were just holding my pole while I was buttoning my jacket!" Tenzin shot back, chasing after her. Not to be left out of the action, Rayden joined in.
Aang paused below by the doorway, letting the kids race ahead, momentarily granting them a moment alone together.
"So the fishing spot Sokka recommended worked well I take it?" Katara asked.
He nodded. "Very much so. I'll take over one of the fish later to thank him. How was your day?"
She brushed a bit of snow off her pants and quirked an eyebrow. A quick movement of her hands sent the snow cascading off the roof, completely burying her husband beneath the pile, dressing him as a human snowman. She giggled at the sight of the snow shifting with his movements as he tried to free himself.
A waterbending motion of his own had him uncovered, although he'd missed a bit of snow on top of his hat. "What was that for?" he asked.
She laughed once more. "For making your poor wife get up here and patch the roof herself. Now come on up here and give me a hand, will you my dear?"
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It was an afternoon in early spring where they had finished their chores early and Aang and Katara had decided to take the children penguin sledding for the first time. Aang had been wanting to do it for a few years now, but she made him wait until Tenzin was a bit older. When he stood as tall as one of the penguins, she had told Aang each and every time he asked. At least then she wouldn't have to worry about losing their youngest in the midst of a gaggle of the birds.
So they'd packed up the kids and taken them out onto the ice flows. Aang had scouted overhead on his glider looking for a black cluster on the otherwise white landscape below that would indicate their presence. It was Rayden's turn to ride on his back in the harness they had rigged up as Aang did so, the kids were known to fight bitterly over who would get to fly with their father next. She could just barely pick them out, a small silhouette against the sun. They grew bigger as she watched, lowering in altitude until Aang finally landed.
"They're just over the next ridge," he said, a grin plastered across his face.
Katara had walked up to join the two of them, Tenzin in one arm and Brynna hanging on her skirt. "To the flows we go, then," she suggested.
They taught the kids how to avoid the penguins that had chicks and how to grab one set of flippers and use them to steer the penguin as they sledded down what inclines they could find. As expected, the kids took to it like ducks to water, going again and again until the smarter penguins fled when the children started after them for another run.
It was as Tenzin started to doze off in her arms that Katara proclaimed it time to go. She passed Tenzin over into Aang's arms as she gathered the other two and they started toward home.
A good ten minutes later Katara began to get an inkling that something was up. Rayden kept sneaking a glance over his shoulder as if expecting something to be behind them. The first time Katara had followed his gaze with her own, all she saw was the barren landscape behind them.
The second time she did so, there were a pair of penguins waddling after them. Shrugging it off as their natural curiosity, they had continued on.
The third time it happened, they were just outside the village and there were at least six penguins behind them, this time close enough to hear them honking at one another. She shot Aang a questioning look.
"Don't look at me," he replied, shifting a slumbering Tenzin from one arm to the other, "I have no idea."
Their procession earned them more than a few funny looks as they passed through the village. Brynna was out ahead of Aang and Katara, wanting to be the first one as always. Rayden was lagging a bit behind, grinning ear to ear at the line of penguins that was clustered close behind him, waddling and flapping their flippers as they went.
She pulled them up short of the hut when they got near. "I hope you don't intend to bring your new pals inside, Rayden," she said.
"They're my friends, though," he argued. "They look cold. Couldn't they just come in for a bit and sit by the fire?"
Aang gave a quiet chuckle. "They're penguins, Rayden. They thrive in this type of weather. Although I'm not sure why they followed us this far. They usually shy away from the village."
Brynna had skipped back to join their gathering, skidding to a stop beside Rayden and bumping into him slightly.
"Hey!" he muttered.
"Look!" she said, raising a small fish in her hand. "Rayden was feeding them all the way home!"
"Give it back you tattle-tail!" Rayden shot back, reaching for the fish. All bundled up in their parkas as they were, their little dance was more awkward than graceful. A year older, Brynna had a few inches on him and Rayden's struggle was of no use.
Katara crossed over to them, taking the fish herself. "Rayden, what are we going to do with these guys now?"
He shrugged, kicking a toe at the ground sheepishly, hands tucked behind his back. "I don't know. Keep them as pets, maybe?" he said, a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Later that night Aang chased the birds away from right outside their door with a kettle and a spoon, making a racket all the way. For the night, it worked. For the rest of that winter, though, the occasional penguin would stand outside the door honking until they offered it a fish and it would waddle away satisfied.
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It was a quiet evening when the world changed. Aang was kneeling next to their fireplace, carefully arranging some cut wood into a pyramid structure while Brynna and Rayden watched on curiously.
"See, you have to make sure that the central log is well placed or the whole thing will fall over," he instructed them as he worked. Placing the final log, he set to work trying to coax a fire into existence with flint and steel.
From the table, Sokka laughed at his ministrations over the edge of his mug of tea. "You know you would get a lot further just using your firebending," he offered. "I thought I was coming over to eat dinner, not turn into a human icicle."
Aang tried a few more times before rocking back on his heels, rubbing the back of his head. "I'll get it; just give me a few more minutes I guess."
The corner of Katara's lip curved up as she watched them out of the corner of her eye. Most of her attention was focused on cutting up the meat for their stew, but the boys always made for good entertainment.
As for the lack of bending, they had made a conscious effort to not rely on their bending to solve life's simple problems. The children would have to rely on more mundane methods of completing these tasks and they wanted to foster the learning of such skills as they grew up.
Five minutes later Sokka had flipped up his hood and donned his mittens, chilled. He stood up, trudging over to Aang and pushing him aside. "The only thing you are teaching these kids is how not to start a fire. Let a real man show them how it's done," he proclaimed as he pulled the flint and steel from Aang's hands.
"I can do it," Aang protested.
"Sure, you can," Sokka said, focusing on the fire.
Aang mumbled something under his breath but moved back from the fireplace and sat down in Sokka's now vacated seat, pouting. Her boys, children and men alike, were something else sometimes.
Aang raised a hand to his face and a clattering caught Katara's attention near the fireplace. The pyramid of wood had collapsed.
"Hey! I saw you do that, Aang!" Sokka objected.
"I was scratching my nose!" Aang protested. "You were probably clumsy, as usual, and bumped it."
"Calm down both of you," Katara offered. "Right now the kids are setting the only mature example in this household," she suggested, nodding to where Rayden and Brynna were picking up the few logs that had rolled out of the fireplace.
She smirked as blushes rose on both Aang's and Sokka's faces. There were grumbled apologies and Sokka's expert hands quickly reassembled the wood. A few strikes of flint against steel later had sparks flying onto the base of the kindling. One finally took, smoke blossoming into the air and rising through the open vent in the roof.
"Now we may finally be able to get some dinner on," she suggested, dumping the chopped meat and vegetables from her cutting board into the large pot she'd hang over the fire.
A quick gust of air sent the flames flickering and then sputtering to a premature death. "Aang, I thought we were done with that! I actually want to eat," Sokka said.
Aang frowned. "It wasn't me. I'm just as hungry as you," he said, rubbing a hand against his growling stomach.
A giggle broke the sudden silence, attracting all eyes in the room to where Tenzin was playing on a rug in the corner of the hut. His small wooden plane made lazy loops through the air. Momo shadowed it as it flew, entertaining himself.
Katara took a shuddering breath. "Aang...Are you doing that?"
"No...I'm not."
As Tenzin became aware that he was the sole object of everyone's attention, his attention became divided between them and his plane. The toy began rocking back and forth unsteadily before dropping out the air and skidding across the floor to a halt.
"Airbending," Katara said softly, tears glistening at the corner of her eyes. Aang had come around the table and stood next to her in the span of a breath. She took his hand in her own. "Aang, he's airbending."
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It was a crisp morning when they assembled on the edge of the village, the entire Southern Water tribe having shown up to send them off. Katara, Aang, and their children had spent years in the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, and most recently the Water Tribe. As the Avatar, Aang could never totally disappear from the public's eye. It was largely through his efforts that they had made so much progress in reversing what one hundred years of war had to upset the natural balance of things. The longest time had been spent in the Fire Nation, solidifying and backing Zuko's rule against those who might wish to overthrow him. After a stint in the Earth Kingdom, Katara had been more than ready to return to her own home. Aang too, seemed grateful for the opportunity to live with a bit more privacy. The smaller community had granted them that much, fewer grand public appearances before the assembled populace, more stopping for a chat in the village with their neighbors.
In the absence of war, the Southern Water Tribe had thrived. Their numbers had more than quadrupled in the years since the war and continued to grow. Aang had done much for the world, and though an Avatar's job was never totally done, the time had finally come for him to dedicate himself to his own pursuits.
Airbenders were all but extinct. He had been the last of his line and all that was left of his people. Each and every time they'd had a child, she had seen his excitement grow with the possibility of another airbender coming into the world. Each and every time she'd comforted him through the bitter disappointment when the skill hadn't manifested itself in their children. Over the years Aang had resigned himself to the possibility that he would truly be the Last Airbender.
Until a small wooden plane had changed all of that. Tenzin was an airbender and the world had opened before them.
Aang had taken to telling their children of the Southern Air Temple that very night, of the airball courts and the blue spires that climbed into the sky and were the first thing you saw from a distance when approaching from the air. Katara had gotten five years amongst her tribe now, had seen them grow and prosper. It was time for her to grant Aang the same opportunity.
Thus had begun preparations for their journey. Sokka would be traveling with them along with a small group of Water Tribe families and a few younger members of the tribe whose eyes glistened with wonder at the possibility of getting out to explore the world a bit.
Two airbenders did not a community make. It was a start, a start more promising that she had dared hope for. Their small village here was getting crowded anyways and more than one family had volunteered for the expedition.
The next few weeks had passed in a flurry with discussions of trip provisions and travel arrangements. Travel had been the biggest question, but it was resolved easily enough. Years earlier they had made the discovery of a small population of air buffalo at the abandoned Eastern Temple, which had given them the ability to start a breeding population right outside the village. Half of the herd would be going with them.
All of that had brought them to this very moment at the edge of the village where all of her people had assembled. Her father was there, hair tinged grey at the edges of his hairline but standing strong and proud before his people as always. There was a longing in his eyes, a sadness at the thought that his two children would be going off into the world this time and leaving him behind to lead their people.
The colonizers were assembled to her and Aang's backs in a loose crescent arrangement. They were mounted on their air bison, supplies solidly secured and waiting on Aang's signal for their departure.
Aang looked back from where he was perched on Appa's head, Momo sat on his shoulder chattering excitedly. "Are you ready?" he asked.
Katara gathered her children a bit closer, hugging them in her arms. She nodded.
A breathless smile crossed Aang's face. Looking forward, he gave a snap of his wrist and a shake of the reins. With a few bounding leaps forward, the ground gave way beneath them. Over the wind in her ears, she heard Aang speak. "Yip, yip, Appa. We're finally going home."
--THE END--
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