A special task

A brief stop for my fanclub

Katara woke up before me. I was usually an early riser, but I didn't sleep at all the night before. Thankfully the few hours I did sleep didn't include any nightmares. I woke up to her staring down at me with concern, lightly shaking me.

"I'm sorry I had to awake you. I didn't want to be late."

She walked away gathering more supplies. Three days ago, or even yesterday morning if you had told me Katara was going to act professional, and that we would stop fighting, I would've been the happiest air bender out there. Now it just felt off. I don't miss her picking fights, or being so uptight, or mothering me...

Well I guess having her worry about me wasn't such a bad thing. I mean she could take it too far, but she was just making sure I was alright. Now she was just..being neutral? This was what we needed to successfully complete this mission but, why did I hate it?

I followed her outside the cave where she was on Appa, sitting near the reigns.

"You've been steering Appa this whole time, I can do it now."

"You can like sleep- or whatever.." she said quickly.

"Thanks." I said completely bewildered. I air bended myself up trying to get rid of the blush spreading across my face. She cleared her throat and we took off.

I did end up sleeping, Katara was right, I needed it. When I woke up Katara was circling the city.

"So where should I land?"

"Uh on air temple island." She bit her lip and started flying in the opposite direction, I could tell she was lost.

"Here I know where it is."

I sat next to her up front. She flinched at my touch. I took the reigns from her hands and steered her over to air temple island. As soon as we landed we were instantly swarmed by acolytes. I looked over nervously at Katara, knowing exactly how she felt about my fan clubs.

"Oh.. Master Katara." I winced as Padma helped her down. Padma was by far Katara's least favorite air acolyte ( not that she actually liked any of them).

Katara returned a curt smile.
"Thank you I'll be fine." She said slapping her away her hand.

"Have you and Lady Katara come to stay?" Said Anyu.

He nervously glanced between Katara and I, considering he was there when we broke up. Katara's expression softened when she saw the old man.

"It's good to see you again Anyu. I think we're just dropping Appa and Momo off here. We have to do something."

"Where will you be?"

"A vacation." I lied.
"Katara and I are just going to relax by ourselves for a while."

There was a murmur amongst the air acolytes, and Katara looked sternly at me.

"Very well, we'll take good care of them in your absence. When will you be back?"

I glanced at Katara.

"We'll just return when we're ready to come back."

Anyu nodded slowly, probably still confused by my completely vague answer. From now on Katara and I would be on foot. She grabbed my arm and pulled me aside, no doubt triggering whispers between the acolytes.

"Aang how are we going to get to the actual city from here? On boat?"

"We could. Or we could go the fun away."

   Water sprayed my face and I couldn't help but break into a smile. As much as I love air bending, water bending was exhilarating. I looked over to see Katara hiding a faint smile. We zipped through the waves getting closer and closer to Republic City shores. I was actually surprised Katara agreed to water-bend ourselves there, I was sure she would fight me on it. I looked over at her and she seemed to be pretty..happy? Then I heard it; her laugh. I tried to think of the last time I had heard her laugh, and not some snarky you're-an-idiot-I'm-better-than-you laugh, a genuine laugh.

     Her voice was obviously different than it was at fourteen, but her laugh was so familiar. I used to hear it all the time, back when we we're together. Her calling me a goofy kid used to not be an insult, it was nice. I felt my limbs start to get tired after bending the water for so long. I looked over at Katara and she also looked tired. Finally we made it onto the docks.

Her smile had vanished, and she removed the straps of her sack off her shoulder, where I saw marks. I should've carried more, I didn't realize it was so heavy. I realized now making her water bend herself from air temple island to Republic City may not have been the smartest decision.

"We should've taken a boat." She muttered under her breath. 

I felt eyes on us from the docks. I ignored her comment once again, and grabbed her arm.

"C'mon we need to change into something so they can't recognize us."

She nodded and followed me. I knew there was an abandoned store.

Two months ago Toph and I shut down an illegal Hawk-fighting rink. I couldn't believe people were so cruel to strap knives onto these poor animals. The worst part it was it was in the back of an old bakery. A nice old lady owned it and denied knowing anything about the ring, and I believed her.

That was until I came to her house offering her back her bakery, and stumbled across a hawk fight in her own living room. You'd think after Hama I'd learn not to trust nice old ladies but I guess I don't have it in me to disrespect the elderly. I led Katara into that same abandoned bakery.

From my sack I pulled out the few things I had packed. A wig, fire nation attire, a rock bracelet Toph made me ( yes it's jewelry, yes she made fun of me) and my appa whistle in case things got bad. I awkwardly excused myself and went behind the former bakery counter and got dressed into a fire nation disguise.

When I came out I saw Katara had changed her hair. It was back in a braid, kind of like how she had it when we were kids. She still had a blue outfit on, but rather than a dress it was blue tank top and pants, oddly enough like Sokka's usual outfit.

I pulled the itchy black wig further down my face making sure my arrows weren't visible. Finally she spoke.

"Okay let's go save our friends."

I nodded.

"Let's go join a gang."