Aang and Katara - A Wedding Tale

Chapter 10: The Necklace Part 1

Aang's Point of View
It was about midnight when we finally got back. It had been a long day, catching up with everyone, the nerves, the anger and confusion, the running away...

Why do I always do that? I'm the Avatar I need to get better at handling these types if things. What if something happened while I was off? What if something happened to Katara? What if Sokka and Toph hadn't come to find me? Would I have stayed there all night? What if I had gone into the Avatar state the second Sokka refused to give me his blessing? How much damage could I have done? What if I hurt Toph or Sokka in the Avatar State?

What if... What if...

I can't keep thinking like that.

I need to focus on the positives. Sokka gave me his blessing.

I can actually marry Katara.

Wow.

I can actually do that. I get to spend the rest of my life with Katara, the most beautiful, smart, loyal woman I have ever met. She loves Aang. Not the Avatar. That's why she's so special. I can feel my face going red just thinking about. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with her.

"Aang? Where were you last night?" Katara said scattering my thoughts. Her eyes were red rimmed and the dark circles made them seem like they were set deeper into her face. A pang of guilt stuck me in my chest, more painful than any lighting: this was because of me and my stupid, selfish behaviour. "Katara," I began, wanting nothing more than to give her the biggest hug and confess to everything. But I can't. Not yet. "I'm so so sorry. Yesterday I really messed up and I know I made everything worse and I see I've hurt you which I promise I never ment to do." I replied gently.
"That's not an answer though, is it? Where were you? What happened? You came back late, upset, and didn't come to bed at all. I was worried."

What do I say? I can't tell her I asked Sokka for his blessing, he said no, I threw a hissy fit and ran away. Oh spirits I'm screwed. Ummm. What if I tell her a version of the truth? Oh I don't know! She's staring at me harder now. Her expression growing more concerned and hurt as I scramble for an answer. Quick say something! Rubbing my neck with my hand and clearly growing more flustered, I could feel all my past lives scolding me. Ummm. Ummmm.

"Its a secrete."

Her features dropped. Her face growing more confused and panicked. "One I will absolutely share with you in just a few days time. I just need to get a few things sorted. I promise." I added more hastily. It did little to quell the confusion still evident on her face, but it wasn't a lie. Anything was better than lying to her.

"Okay..." She still looked confused, "But this is really odd Aang. The second you feel you can share this with me the better. A problem shared is a problems halved." I could tell she didn't understand, but it ment a lot that she trusted me regardless.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise." I leaned in and kissed her forehead. Pulling away but still resting my hands on her shoulders, "But not right now. I need to pop into the city to get something." She sent me a look.
"Sorry another secrete." I booped her noise, "Guess I owe you double now." She still looked a little concerned at my secrecy, but had enough faith that I would explain everything as soon as I could. "You remember that later." She teased.

It was me Toph and Sokka who left Iroh's on our quest to find the perfect stone for the necklace. Sokka obviously to help me keep with water tribe customs. Toph because a) she likes quests, b) she can feel the stones for impurities better than I can without any glowing white business, c) she kinda just tagged along and we can't not let her come.

Oh well. Many hands make light work I guess.

The sun was half way across the sky and sending a beam of light down on the creamy blue stone. Sokka held a peace of glass to it, magnifying it to see if it was good enough. "Hmmm. Hummmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmm." Racing his eyebrows with each additional hm. Toph was losing patients. This was the 27th stone.
"Spirits Sokka! What's wrong with this one?"
"It's not quite the right colour."
"What difference does it make!?"
"Come on Toph, Sokka is the water tribe expert. We need to trust his opinion." I interjected.
"Thank you Aang." He continued peering at the stone. "No. No. Its not right."

That was the last blue stone that vender had. "Oh this is hopeless. Your never going to find the perfect stone Sokka! We're in Ba Sing Say Snoozels, there's no blue rocks!"
"Well that's not my fault! If anything its Aang's for choosing to propose to my sister in the Earth Kingdom!"
"What's wrong with the Earth Kingdom!?"

I pinched the top of my nose and sighed: this yelling match was getting us nowhere and drawing attention to us. "Cheers Sokka now all of Ba Sing Say knows about my relationship. Look there's one more shop we can go to just around the corner. Then if we can't find anything we'll call it quits for they day and try again later. Does that seem fair?" They both nodded.

The last shop was owned by the newly founded Cabbage Corps, it had the strangest variety of things: watches to waste coats, food to fancy paper sets, and luckily for me crafting stones. It was a large two story stone building, in the Earth kingdom colours of course. The largest shop all under one roof in the whole Earth Kingdom, potentially the world. Some were even calling it a super market.

We entered the store and made our way to the back corner on the second floor. The store, for being one of the largest and most popular seemed eerily quiet: there must have been about four other groups shopping with a handful of staff working at the tills and stocking the shelf's.

Still we continued on our quest to find the perfect stone for Katara's necklace, not deterred by the quietness of the building. Toph even suggested it might make this quicker and easier if we weren't interrupted by fans. Sokka picked up the first stone and began his in depth study of the rock.

Quite murmuring could be heard through the store. "Hmm. What about this?" A female voice asked from a few isles off.
"No Li wouldn't want that." Replied another girl. "He's a sweet, romantic guy, try more - oh I don't know - more genuine?"

Sokka moved on to the next stone: that one was too white.

"This then?" Then second girl burst out laughing, "Oh spirits no! That's what you think of when I say more genuine? What guys have you been with!?"
"Oh wouldn't you like to know? But how do you know your mystery guy isn't like them, you've met him twice!"

Another stone was rejected: it was too chalky.

"He's different and besides I've seen him more than that. He may look like a bad boy but really he's a softy at heart."
"Oh come on. What did he even look like? I'd guess he had a black jacket on, your so innocent, he can't have been that tough looking?"

Sokka discarded another stone - too thin.

"No. Nothing like that. He did have a huge battle scar on his face though."
"Oo. What type? Cut, burn, thin, wide? I need details. How did he get it?"
"He never told me how but it was a-"

Sokka set down another stone - too clear.

A quiet humming drifted across the store, slowly and eerily like a fog on a cool autumn night. It was hard to tell if it was new or had always been there but was muffled out by the sound of people. Weird. No one was talking.

"Sh. I'm going to go and see what's going on." The others nodded and I headed off. Using my airbending I managed to creep across the store, down onto the ground floor without being seen or heard, and eventually made it to the door. A thick, heavy metal chain tied around the inside door knobs prohibited the doors from moving. Fear of being heard stopped me from bending the chains apart, whoever did this was still inside. And knew what they were doing.

We were trapped.

Authors Note:
I'm sorry this seemed a bit boring in places but next time you get a bit of action. And I know I taged this as fluff and I've noticed I have very little Kataang in this book but there will be more later on, I just need to get the foundations down before I build the house. There will be more fluff, just hang in there.

Anyways this has a large Brooklyn 99 link so did you get it? Hint Toph (Gina), Aang (Jake) and Sokka (Charles) are going shopping for a gift (technically) for Katara (Amy).
Again if you haven't watched it its fine, just my inspiration at the end of the day, but if you haven't this is a reference on top of a reference so you may know the film Die Hard - I have personally never watched it but get the vague idea if the plot from Brooklyn 99.