The Thief |Sokka

TWENTY-ONE

The night had been restless and sleep had eluded Jaya until the early hours of the morning, when she had finally managed to fall asleep. She had recognised the slow ascend of the sun but she had paid no mind to it save for the brief turn of her back to the window so she could keep on sleeping in the side with the less light. Fate though had other plans, and it was not meant for her to sleep in a bit on this day. She had been a light sleeper even before she had been forced to live in the wilderness and now that had not changed. So she did hear it when the door to her room opened. In the midst of her sleepy haze, she elected to ignore it. Until the person that came inside decided she deserved to lay in peace no more.

"Up you go, Jaya," Sokka's voice was heard clearly, not even bothering to keep quiet as if the rest of the house wasn't deathly silent. She could sense the tendrils of sleep weighing her down slipping away as he spoke again. "It's morning, time to meet the Earth King."

He flopped down on the bed beside her, the movement jostling her. Unwillingly, her eyes opened for a moment before they closed once again. Sokka saw it.

"Come on, I saw you."

"It's too early to move," she rasped. Sokka's answering laugh made her scowl.

"Get up. You'll sleep afterwards."

"You're a liar."

"I see it's not too early to hurt my feelings," he huffed, gently nudged her in retaliation. "Get up, Jaya." She sighed, turned on her back and after a few tries, brought herself to open her eyes. She had to blink a couple of times to get used to the light, and then turned to face Sokka. His smile was bright. "Hello, beautiful."

It was too early in the morning for her to pay any heed to the compliment. Never mind she was annoyed she had woken up this early. "Couldn't you have woken up someone else?"

"No," he cheekily replied, "I wanted to see you first thing in the morning. I'll view it as a sign of good luck."

Jaya was rather more awake now – obviously enough so that she could send him a look at his grin. He had the good sense to laugh as she brought herself to stand up with a sigh. "Who needs to wake up?"

"All of them," he admitted, "I'll let you handle Aang. I'll go to Toph. You should be thanking me."

Jaya was slow to leave her bed but she managed in the end. A moment later, she heard Sokka stand up as well. Before she could turn to look where he was, she felt him kiss her cheek. He was gone as quickly as he had reached her, already standing by the door when she turned to look. He sent her a soft smile on any other day she would find endearing and now despite her mild annoyance at being woken up early she still found sweet.

"I'll see you later."

She barely had the chance to mumble back his farewell before he was leaving. Mechanically she got dressed. She had just finished brushing her hair when she heard Sokka's voice from somewhere in the house, and even though his words were unintelligible she could still tell he was trying to wake up Toph. She was unsure whether his method was actually working at all. She winced when she left her room and the volume of his voice automatically rose. She left, headed to where she knew Aang's room was, not all that far away from her own. She stopped by his door, knocked, and got inside. He was already up.

"What's Sokka yelling for?" he complained the moment he saw her. Jaya couldn't help but smile as Aang slowly started putting on his shirt. 

"I think I heard him say something about punctuality, but he's talking to Toph so-"

"So this has no use," Aang finished for her with a chuckle. "Are you ready for today?"

"I'd love to get this over with," she admitted, already heading to the door. "I see you are awake. Since Sokka's not yet done I'll go wake up Zuko."