Aang and Katara - A Wedding Tale

Chaper 12: The Necklace Part 3

Aang's Point of View
After telling Katara about our run in with the criminals at the store - but not why we were there obviously - then dropped them off at an Earth Kingdom prison, we finally had some alone time. We talked about everything. We talked about nothing. We joked. We laughed. We teased. We sat in silence. We enjoyed each others company. We ate. We snuggled. And it was perfect. The chaos of the day was almost forgotten under the bliss of the night with Katara. Almost. We still had that mess to sort out later, but for now I had some time off and I wanted to enjoy it.

It was past 11pm by the time we ended up going to bed after feeding Appa of course. We were both knackered and as soon as our heads hit the pillows our eyes stuck shut, not to open until the wee hours of the morning.

I always wake up earlier than Katara, to meditate and sort out odd jobs before the day started. Today I would first go check on Appa, give him hay and water; go for a brisk walk around the city, I loved this as it was always so peaceful this time in the morning; make a start on Katara's necklace; then sort out some breakfast just before she wakes up.

I had decided just to do a lap of the street this morning, it would be about  a mile and take around half an hour. As Iroh had done very well as a tea salesman, he lived in one of the most fancy and well look after street in Ba Sing Say. We were staying a couple streets away from it but even here was modestly posh: well manicured lawns, bold colours from none native flowers and intricate mosaics. It was always nice to see the little nature people brought into the cities, even if it was unnatural in the environment. The last house on the street even had a panda lilly, from Aunt Wu's village. I pulled out the creamy blue rock and began fiddling with it. Something about it was just mesmerizing to look at. Slowly my mind wandered back to Katara, as I turned to head back. Aunt Wu definitely had a gift, her 6 year old prediction was about to come true. Well that was the idea.

The sun was just starting to rise as I reentered the barn conversion we were staying in. I grabbed some ribbon I had got earlier. It was a deep blue, with golden thread embellishments in little patterns it was also typically longer than other betrothal necklaces as I wanted Katara to still be able to ware her mother's necklace. Using my earthbending, only with my pinky finger, I cut a small hole in the top of the rock to thread a pin through to allow it to be clipped on the ribbon. For the entirety of the process, my hand was shaking: it was such a delicate rock and I didn't want to muck up on the first hurdle.

The next step was to actually carve into the thing. I have never tried to carve anything in my life, the closest I have come is watch a monk carve an air symbol in their glider. But that was in wood. And technically 109 years ago, even though it feels like only 9 - its still a long time ago. As I reached for the carving knife, I could see my hand trembling - not the best idea when holding a knife to possibly the most important rock in my life.

The sun light crept up my back, gently tickling my spine, eventually resting its hand on my shoulder. It stared down on the rock, highlighting the  crevices and making the golden thread shine. It seemed to smile down on my efforts. It seemed proud.

I certainly was chuffed. I had the air and water symbol merged on the little rock, with a personal message on the back. For a novice, it wasn't too bad, it had one small chip on one of the waves and the lines weren't all perfectly uniform, but other than that it was quite good.

Katara is going to love it.

I couldn't wait to present it too her. But for now all I can do is give her some breakfast, her favourite pancakes with fresh fruit.

Authors Note:
Sorry this is short I didn't really know what to do for this bit but I needed to get it in. But the next part is going to be better (hopefully).

Anyways the next update may not come out soon as I want to do it justice, turns out my writing goal for Christmas was a bit unreasonable and I got far to carried away with my other book Avatar: Avengers Edition and could not stay focused on this book. Oh how i miss the days when i churned out a chapter in less than a day. But I will try to update regularly in the feature.