Fic: 50 Sentences (Sokka/Katara), Avatar: tla
Title: 50 Sentences that Sokka and Katara Made for Themselves
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Word Count: 2,400
I've been working on these for the better part of a full year, so they're disjointed and possess varying degrees of talent and style. Done for DL's sentences, and yes, they're INCEST. LALZ, I am predictable. Contains spoilers up through the second episode of season 3, because that's as far as I've watched.
1. dirt
It has never occurred to Katara to register skin color, not until she comes across a definition of 'racism' in some old tome in the library beneath the sand; she tries to tell Sokka, but he waves her off with a "not now" and continues hunting for a way to defeat the Fire Nation.
2. fly
He's ridden on Appa, he's stood on islands that disappeared, and Toph has played enough practical jokes on him, but it isn't until his sister catches herself against him, limbs fitting and warm and her mouth is slightly parted with surprise, does he feel like he's standing on the edge of a precipice.
3. mop
They get wet a lot, and peeling their clothes off is like peeling an apple, Katara says "shhhh," and Sokka says, "I know" and their clothes fall to the dirt with sloppy noises anyway.
4. fish
Katara is all praises, Aang is all red cheeks and trembling wrists, Sokka just stares and grumbles, "Mine's bigger."
5. tag
He touches her all the time; the sudden clutch in the middle of danger as if to make sure she's still there and he hasn't lost her, the hands that are rough on her arms and waist when he yanks her out of harm's way, or up onto Appa's back, turn soft and relieved when he embraces her; yes, Sokka's touch is nothing new, but she never imagined it would be quite like this.
6. water
They all have their own creeds, and Sokka's is this; like tides to the moon, rains and rivers, his sister will always come back to him.
7. ear
He comes in so late he's almost early, and since she's forgotten about him most of the day she's startled silly, but then he whistles some ballad for lovers from home, and she rolls over and dismisses the feeling in her chest as the result of being prudish.
8. eye
There's some saying about beholders that would be relevant here, but all the same, Sokka tries to explain to them that Zuko isn't so different from them, fighting for the approval of a father, and a sudden understanding pity lights his sister's face and Sokka thinks this might backfire on him.
9. quilt
Don't come between a woman and her sewing indeed, huffs Sokka, starting to get the rhythm of it as he drew the needle up and down like a silver fish flashing against a pastel sea, and Katara writes Aang's story (obituary) as fast as she can, book of water, book of earth, folding the pages as soon as the ink's dry and slipping them between the down, and maybe someday, someone will find the truth and read it, but for now all they can do is keep it and hide as the Fire Nation toasts its victory (book of fire.)
10. kite
His sister calls to him, voice delighted -- show me how, Sokka! -- and brings him sharply back to earth, but he takes one look at her face and hands her the twine (years later, her breasts soft against his chest, the words, mumbled, show me how, Sokka, and he grabs her hips and pushes her down and somehow, they're flying.)
11. book
It's a lot harder than she imagined and she needs to pay more attention to her brother than she ever has before to get this right, reading the slightest changes in his face and muscles as she writes on his body with her tongue and hands, but she is learning.
12. victory
They have strange eyes and skin, and they seem so lonely in that cottage by the sea, say the denizens of the Earth Kingdom (but nobody calls it that anymore, not when everything belonged to the Fire Nation), but isn't that the way of warriors and war brides?
13. darkness
This newfound thing with Aang can't be real, Sokka thinks (seventeen); this is just like that time she held her breath until she passed out and he waited, one one-thousand, two one-thousand, until she came back to her senses.
14. pills
Zuko's fingers touch Katara's beneath the table like they think nobody sees them, and is Sokka the only one having trouble swallowing this?
15. sap
He loves to be touched and he loves to be loved, but being with Aang has taught him that he must sacrifice these things to nobler ends, but it doesn't stop him from curling into his sister when she hugs him.
16. attitude
In the beginning, he hadn't wanted this, hadn't wanted Aang, and he'd thought they would all go back home once everything was over and it'd be him and Katara, guarding the North Pole like sheppards -- he alludes to this plan once, and Katara widens her eyes at him in warning, and it's like he swallowed sour milk; they weren't going home for a long time.
17. life
She was red and wrinkly like Gran-Gran's face and Sokka poked at her toes and wrinkled his nose at the smell, and later he'll learn that newborn babies can't see but he could have sworn that his little sister looked right at him with the pupilless blue blue eyes of a brand-new baby and started screaming.
18. death
She was red and shiny with burns, and Sokka couldn't find a place to touch her that wouldn't hurt her, so he just crouched in the dirt next to her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, and it didn't slow, it just stopped, and that might have been when he started screaming.
19. cut
She tries to tug her hand away, she can handle it on her own thank you, and she doesn't know where his mouth has been, but he just laughs at her and raises the gash in her palm to his face and sucks the poison out.
20. glue
When it's hot out, their skin sticks together and peeling them apart is like peeling apart paper made soft by water, and the noises they make are so silly that they're convulsing with quiet laughter, until Sokka pushes down and Katara arches up and there's no breath for laughing.
21. fix
"You can't repopulate the Air Temples on your own," Sokka says like brass, like he's laughing in her face; Katara's eyes go hard and shiny like ice, and she says, "watch me."
22. milk
It comes out in a rush, their mouths tripping over each other, "It comes from penguins --" "--but only during the wet season--" "--and you've got to wear these special gloves to milk them--" "--and watch out because the hatchlings like to bite--" "--and the mom'll realize eventually you're not one of her offspring and drive you off--" "--I miss home--" "--yeah, me too."
23. river
You know what they say about those Water Tribe siblings -- get too deeply involved with them and their passions will sweep you away, striping you bare of everything but your bones.
24. tree
Katara hunts through the branches of her family; surely she and Sokka cannot be the first to be like this, surely it's hereditary, surely they have an excuse?
25. drag
They say all couples need to be raked across the coals once, to test their love; Katara didn't think it needed to be their career.
26. eat
Where Sokka's new bride came from, one was always able to tell who her suitor's ex-lovers were by how he treated their cooking -- she watches her betrothed gag around Katara's stew and has to remind herself that she's his sister.
27. cot
They try to make it work as best they can, but Sokka's elbows keep slipping off the edge and with her thighs hiked up against his hips, he curses and tells her, "Next time, find someone your own size."
28. lollipop
There's no shame in them anymore, lips meeting over spun Fire Nation sugar; after all, if the prince and the princess of the new empire did it, why couldn't they?
29. never
It was a fight like any other fight that siblings have -- Sokka's palms were sweaty and all the water from the basin was coiling behind Katara like a malicious snake, both ready to strike -- except for what they were fighting about ("Oh, sure, Katara, let's go right up and tell him exactly what we did while he was in Omashu, go right ahead!")
30. saw
She always thought that Sokka would have found a nice, pretty girl who couldn't be stirred to temper and built her a house made of whalebone and canvas and maybe a lining of wood to impress her, but he's here, at her side, harping and snarking and mothering so bad it grated on her nerves, and these days, she'll take what she can get.
31. now
Katara gets tired of story-telling; at least with Sokka, she doesn't have to explain, at least with him, she can say, "you were there, you remember," and he just kisses her forehead.
32. then
He was there, he does remember, but what comes to mind first isn't the mystery and the duels and the death, it's the hands and the lips and the dark spaces, the lull, the life drumming on, pulses helter-skelter against the other.
33. front
"You got your wish," she tells him bravely, but his smile is wane -- there is a great difference between dreaming of his father's war and fighting it for him.
34. back
And she doesn't know how to tell him that she's protecting him as much as she's protecting Aang, because now isn't the time for such confessions.
35. side to side
And he doesn't know how to tell her that he knows where she stands and he kind of doesn't want her to leave, because what can she do about it?
36. underline
He waited anxiously by the rocks, but she refused his hug, telling him, "I told you I didn't need you to protect me," like that was all that defined him.
37. overhead
Toph and Sokka both vehemently protested to living so high up -- surely Aang could build a new Air Temple somewhere reasonable, like on solid ground -- and Katara laughed and told them they were both being ridiculous, but he noticed that she didn't look down too often.
38. jump
What came afterwards was too new, too fragile to be called peace, but it was quiet as the midnight sun, and she takes her brother to the edge and tells him that she'll catch him, if they could just live again.
39. dance
He advances on her, curious, wondering if he can make her pant and sweat the way Aang did in the cave with the firebender students.
40. sing
"You'd think," says his sister, as beautiful and influential as the moonlight, "that finding a second husband would be easy; I would like to meet just one that hasn't composed a ballad in my honor," and Sokka thinks he shouldn't tell her about the drinking songs he hears on the open sea, or ask her if what they say about her bosom is true.
41. scream
It started sometime after their mother died; Katara pursed her lips so tightly shut they might as well have been sewn, lifting her arms high, and the tides responded with a cry like the world ending.
42. friends
Katara is pregnant, her belly low and full next to her skinny arms; she's given up the ocean for Aang; Sokka's given up his father for Katara; Toph's given up solid ground for Sokka, because Katara's baby will be an airbender, and Toph's baby will protect it, and Sokka puts his cheek against his sister's stomach and his niece or nephew kicks at him and he laughs and thinks this isn't so bad.
43. enemies
Toph's on her second child and Katara's on her sixth when they find themselves pregnant at the same time; the resulting apocalypse means that Sokka sleeps in the stables with Appa most nights and once every other week Aang joins him, looking visibly frightened, and although Sokka feels for him (he knows his sister) he can't quite resist the urge to say, "I told you so."
44. quit
It's as if the harder he bites his sister's mouth, the more he makes her mewl here, sounds echoing through the Air Temple hallways, the easier it will be to drown out the memory of Aang's voice, wondering if his son will ever learn airbending (and Sokka thinks of the boy's dark, dark skin and blue, blue eyes and doesn't have the heart to tell him, no, not ever.)
45. plow
One day, the truth hits Toph like a temple collapsing; don't let Yue and Suki and Toph herself fool you -- Sokka only has eyes for one girl.
46. tiger
He doesn't like flying; the long times of peace and quiet are therapeutic for Katara and Aang, but to him, they're too exposed, like they're just waiting for something to pounce on them -- "relax," says Katara.
47. monkey
Nara leaves for the Air Temples, and comes back to the South Pole with a sketch of the Last Avatar statues on oil canvas; her son peeps in her satchel and wrinkles his nose, "This can't be the one our ancestors risked their lives to save; he looks like a --" and Nara shushes him.
48. number(ed)
It's easy to ignore what they're racing for; just focus on what needs to be done to help Aang at this moment in time, don't think about that (how many days until the comet hits?)
49. yes
In his imagination, there is no doubt; she will smile that candy-ice smile and she will wear their mother's dress and all their friends will be there and their father will tell them he's proud of them and Aang will marry them and Sokka will be happy, so happy his chest feels like a bucket sloshing back and forth, and Katara will feel his happiness and know she is the cause, and that will make her happy too.
50. no
In his life, his grown-up sister laughs and presses her fish's mouth to his cheek and says, "leave it to us, Sokka, we're the benders, and we can save the world," and then she leaves him, because they are the children of war and that is the way of brothers and sisters; they always leave.
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Word Count: 2,400
I've been working on these for the better part of a full year, so they're disjointed and possess varying degrees of talent and style. Done for DL's sentences, and yes, they're INCEST. LALZ, I am predictable. Contains spoilers up through the second episode of season 3, because that's as far as I've watched.
1. dirt
It has never occurred to Katara to register skin color, not until she comes across a definition of 'racism' in some old tome in the library beneath the sand; she tries to tell Sokka, but he waves her off with a "not now" and continues hunting for a way to defeat the Fire Nation.
2. fly
He's ridden on Appa, he's stood on islands that disappeared, and Toph has played enough practical jokes on him, but it isn't until his sister catches herself against him, limbs fitting and warm and her mouth is slightly parted with surprise, does he feel like he's standing on the edge of a precipice.
3. mop
They get wet a lot, and peeling their clothes off is like peeling an apple, Katara says "shhhh," and Sokka says, "I know" and their clothes fall to the dirt with sloppy noises anyway.
4. fish
Katara is all praises, Aang is all red cheeks and trembling wrists, Sokka just stares and grumbles, "Mine's bigger."
5. tag
He touches her all the time; the sudden clutch in the middle of danger as if to make sure she's still there and he hasn't lost her, the hands that are rough on her arms and waist when he yanks her out of harm's way, or up onto Appa's back, turn soft and relieved when he embraces her; yes, Sokka's touch is nothing new, but she never imagined it would be quite like this.
6. water
They all have their own creeds, and Sokka's is this; like tides to the moon, rains and rivers, his sister will always come back to him.
7. ear
He comes in so late he's almost early, and since she's forgotten about him most of the day she's startled silly, but then he whistles some ballad for lovers from home, and she rolls over and dismisses the feeling in her chest as the result of being prudish.
8. eye
There's some saying about beholders that would be relevant here, but all the same, Sokka tries to explain to them that Zuko isn't so different from them, fighting for the approval of a father, and a sudden understanding pity lights his sister's face and Sokka thinks this might backfire on him.
9. quilt
Don't come between a woman and her sewing indeed, huffs Sokka, starting to get the rhythm of it as he drew the needle up and down like a silver fish flashing against a pastel sea, and Katara writes Aang's story (obituary) as fast as she can, book of water, book of earth, folding the pages as soon as the ink's dry and slipping them between the down, and maybe someday, someone will find the truth and read it, but for now all they can do is keep it and hide as the Fire Nation toasts its victory (book of fire.)
10. kite
His sister calls to him, voice delighted -- show me how, Sokka! -- and brings him sharply back to earth, but he takes one look at her face and hands her the twine (years later, her breasts soft against his chest, the words, mumbled, show me how, Sokka, and he grabs her hips and pushes her down and somehow, they're flying.)
11. book
It's a lot harder than she imagined and she needs to pay more attention to her brother than she ever has before to get this right, reading the slightest changes in his face and muscles as she writes on his body with her tongue and hands, but she is learning.
12. victory
They have strange eyes and skin, and they seem so lonely in that cottage by the sea, say the denizens of the Earth Kingdom (but nobody calls it that anymore, not when everything belonged to the Fire Nation), but isn't that the way of warriors and war brides?
13. darkness
This newfound thing with Aang can't be real, Sokka thinks (seventeen); this is just like that time she held her breath until she passed out and he waited, one one-thousand, two one-thousand, until she came back to her senses.
14. pills
Zuko's fingers touch Katara's beneath the table like they think nobody sees them, and is Sokka the only one having trouble swallowing this?
15. sap
He loves to be touched and he loves to be loved, but being with Aang has taught him that he must sacrifice these things to nobler ends, but it doesn't stop him from curling into his sister when she hugs him.
16. attitude
In the beginning, he hadn't wanted this, hadn't wanted Aang, and he'd thought they would all go back home once everything was over and it'd be him and Katara, guarding the North Pole like sheppards -- he alludes to this plan once, and Katara widens her eyes at him in warning, and it's like he swallowed sour milk; they weren't going home for a long time.
17. life
She was red and wrinkly like Gran-Gran's face and Sokka poked at her toes and wrinkled his nose at the smell, and later he'll learn that newborn babies can't see but he could have sworn that his little sister looked right at him with the pupilless blue blue eyes of a brand-new baby and started screaming.
18. death
She was red and shiny with burns, and Sokka couldn't find a place to touch her that wouldn't hurt her, so he just crouched in the dirt next to her and watched the rise and fall of her chest, and it didn't slow, it just stopped, and that might have been when he started screaming.
19. cut
She tries to tug her hand away, she can handle it on her own thank you, and she doesn't know where his mouth has been, but he just laughs at her and raises the gash in her palm to his face and sucks the poison out.
20. glue
When it's hot out, their skin sticks together and peeling them apart is like peeling apart paper made soft by water, and the noises they make are so silly that they're convulsing with quiet laughter, until Sokka pushes down and Katara arches up and there's no breath for laughing.
21. fix
"You can't repopulate the Air Temples on your own," Sokka says like brass, like he's laughing in her face; Katara's eyes go hard and shiny like ice, and she says, "watch me."
22. milk
It comes out in a rush, their mouths tripping over each other, "It comes from penguins --" "--but only during the wet season--" "--and you've got to wear these special gloves to milk them--" "--and watch out because the hatchlings like to bite--" "--and the mom'll realize eventually you're not one of her offspring and drive you off--" "--I miss home--" "--yeah, me too."
23. river
You know what they say about those Water Tribe siblings -- get too deeply involved with them and their passions will sweep you away, striping you bare of everything but your bones.
24. tree
Katara hunts through the branches of her family; surely she and Sokka cannot be the first to be like this, surely it's hereditary, surely they have an excuse?
25. drag
They say all couples need to be raked across the coals once, to test their love; Katara didn't think it needed to be their career.
26. eat
Where Sokka's new bride came from, one was always able to tell who her suitor's ex-lovers were by how he treated their cooking -- she watches her betrothed gag around Katara's stew and has to remind herself that she's his sister.
27. cot
They try to make it work as best they can, but Sokka's elbows keep slipping off the edge and with her thighs hiked up against his hips, he curses and tells her, "Next time, find someone your own size."
28. lollipop
There's no shame in them anymore, lips meeting over spun Fire Nation sugar; after all, if the prince and the princess of the new empire did it, why couldn't they?
29. never
It was a fight like any other fight that siblings have -- Sokka's palms were sweaty and all the water from the basin was coiling behind Katara like a malicious snake, both ready to strike -- except for what they were fighting about ("Oh, sure, Katara, let's go right up and tell him exactly what we did while he was in Omashu, go right ahead!")
30. saw
She always thought that Sokka would have found a nice, pretty girl who couldn't be stirred to temper and built her a house made of whalebone and canvas and maybe a lining of wood to impress her, but he's here, at her side, harping and snarking and mothering so bad it grated on her nerves, and these days, she'll take what she can get.
31. now
Katara gets tired of story-telling; at least with Sokka, she doesn't have to explain, at least with him, she can say, "you were there, you remember," and he just kisses her forehead.
32. then
He was there, he does remember, but what comes to mind first isn't the mystery and the duels and the death, it's the hands and the lips and the dark spaces, the lull, the life drumming on, pulses helter-skelter against the other.
33. front
"You got your wish," she tells him bravely, but his smile is wane -- there is a great difference between dreaming of his father's war and fighting it for him.
34. back
And she doesn't know how to tell him that she's protecting him as much as she's protecting Aang, because now isn't the time for such confessions.
35. side to side
And he doesn't know how to tell her that he knows where she stands and he kind of doesn't want her to leave, because what can she do about it?
36. underline
He waited anxiously by the rocks, but she refused his hug, telling him, "I told you I didn't need you to protect me," like that was all that defined him.
37. overhead
Toph and Sokka both vehemently protested to living so high up -- surely Aang could build a new Air Temple somewhere reasonable, like on solid ground -- and Katara laughed and told them they were both being ridiculous, but he noticed that she didn't look down too often.
38. jump
What came afterwards was too new, too fragile to be called peace, but it was quiet as the midnight sun, and she takes her brother to the edge and tells him that she'll catch him, if they could just live again.
39. dance
He advances on her, curious, wondering if he can make her pant and sweat the way Aang did in the cave with the firebender students.
40. sing
"You'd think," says his sister, as beautiful and influential as the moonlight, "that finding a second husband would be easy; I would like to meet just one that hasn't composed a ballad in my honor," and Sokka thinks he shouldn't tell her about the drinking songs he hears on the open sea, or ask her if what they say about her bosom is true.
41. scream
It started sometime after their mother died; Katara pursed her lips so tightly shut they might as well have been sewn, lifting her arms high, and the tides responded with a cry like the world ending.
42. friends
Katara is pregnant, her belly low and full next to her skinny arms; she's given up the ocean for Aang; Sokka's given up his father for Katara; Toph's given up solid ground for Sokka, because Katara's baby will be an airbender, and Toph's baby will protect it, and Sokka puts his cheek against his sister's stomach and his niece or nephew kicks at him and he laughs and thinks this isn't so bad.
43. enemies
Toph's on her second child and Katara's on her sixth when they find themselves pregnant at the same time; the resulting apocalypse means that Sokka sleeps in the stables with Appa most nights and once every other week Aang joins him, looking visibly frightened, and although Sokka feels for him (he knows his sister) he can't quite resist the urge to say, "I told you so."
44. quit
It's as if the harder he bites his sister's mouth, the more he makes her mewl here, sounds echoing through the Air Temple hallways, the easier it will be to drown out the memory of Aang's voice, wondering if his son will ever learn airbending (and Sokka thinks of the boy's dark, dark skin and blue, blue eyes and doesn't have the heart to tell him, no, not ever.)
45. plow
One day, the truth hits Toph like a temple collapsing; don't let Yue and Suki and Toph herself fool you -- Sokka only has eyes for one girl.
46. tiger
He doesn't like flying; the long times of peace and quiet are therapeutic for Katara and Aang, but to him, they're too exposed, like they're just waiting for something to pounce on them -- "relax," says Katara.
47. monkey
Nara leaves for the Air Temples, and comes back to the South Pole with a sketch of the Last Avatar statues on oil canvas; her son peeps in her satchel and wrinkles his nose, "This can't be the one our ancestors risked their lives to save; he looks like a --" and Nara shushes him.
48. number(ed)
It's easy to ignore what they're racing for; just focus on what needs to be done to help Aang at this moment in time, don't think about that (how many days until the comet hits?)
49. yes
In his imagination, there is no doubt; she will smile that candy-ice smile and she will wear their mother's dress and all their friends will be there and their father will tell them he's proud of them and Aang will marry them and Sokka will be happy, so happy his chest feels like a bucket sloshing back and forth, and Katara will feel his happiness and know she is the cause, and that will make her happy too.
50. no
In his life, his grown-up sister laughs and presses her fish's mouth to his cheek and says, "leave it to us, Sokka, we're the benders, and we can save the world," and then she leaves him, because they are the children of war and that is the way of brothers and sisters; they always leave.