12 Days of Writing

Snuggling By the Fireplace

Summary: Aang and Katara snuggle by the warm fire. Fluffy fluff fluff.

It was cold. Like, really cold. It didn't help that they had to sleep outside in the middle of a wind storm, smack dab in the center of the south pole.

"I'm g-g-g-g-gonna go fi-i-i-ind Zuk-k-k-k-ko," Sokka's teeth chattered as he spoke. "M-m-m-mab-bye he can l-light-t a f-f-fire."

Aang and Katara nodded, huddled together in warm clothes. Toph stood up with Sokka, a small hand wrapped around his arm. With her feet in actual shoes (for once), she couldn't sense where she was going; or, at least, not that well.

They stomped off, leaving Aang and Katara alone. After some silence, Katara asked, "Are you sure you can't firebend yet?"

"Well," Aang shrugged. "I can, but . . . not very well . . ."

Katara frowned. "Why don't you start a fire, then?"

Aang shifted nervously. "Remember that time when I burned you . . .?"

Katara sighed. "That was a long time ago, Aang."

"Yeah, but--"

Katara put her arms around the shorter boy, effectively shutting him up. "Just light a fire."

Aang blushed and set his hand alight, shoving it down on the frozen blocks of wood. It wasn't long before a merry little fire was going, and both kids huddled in closer to feel it's warmth.

"You know . . . " Aang begins. "If it wasn't so cold out, we could be penguin sledding."

Katara was reminded of the first time they met, where the boy had asked if they could penguin sled together. The memory brought a smile to her lips. 

"And after that, we could have the fire nation attack my home," Katara replayed the memory. The mention of the sour part of the memory brought a small grimace from Aang, making Katara laugh.

"That wasn't very funny," Aang said. "You should take lessons from Sokka."

Katara raised a brow, "Sokka's jokes are terrible."

"I know, but they just make you laugh," Aang chuckled.

Katara smiled. "Yeah, you're right, he's a total cheese."

The two laughed about Sokka's stupid jokes, reciting a few they knew by heart. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, arms entwined and snuggling close by the fire.

"This reminds me of something we used to do a hundred years ago," Aang said, breaking the silence. "Around this time, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Aang shifted. "We used to sit around this really big fireplace and sing songs and talk about what presents we might get the next morning."

"Why would you be getting presents?"

Aang's face was animated as he explained. "Well, there was this really cool tradition the air benders did once each year, where we celebrate the gift of giving and give each other gifts. And then we'd eat a lot of food, and we'd play games and stuff." He sighed. "It was a lot of fun."

Katara could tell he was reminiscing and grieving his past life, so she decided to bring his smile back. She started to sing an old tribal song.

Aang looked up at her in surprise. "What are you doing?"

She paused and said, "You said you used to sing songs in front of the fireplace, so I'm singing a song. This is a fire, and we're in a place. Fireplace."

Aang smiled warmly and Katara continued singing.

They sang back and forth for a while before falling asleep next to each other by the blazing embers.

*/\*

The others came back to the sight of Aang and Katara, arms wrapped around one another as they snuggled by the warm fire.