Koete ↠ Sokka

Chapter 5: Hei Bai - Part 1

Charlie wrestled with her sleeping bag in attempts to stuff it back into its case. "Ugh, why is this so difficult?" she complained, using her fist to push the remainder of the fabric in the unproportionally-sized holder.

"Maybe—and this is just a guess—you're supposed to fold the sleeping bag, instead of trying to—" Sokka paused, watching the girl put all of her body weight into pressing down the string that tied it all together. "—Murder it?"

"It fit before!" she refuted, throwing the half-stuffed case to the ground. It rolled over to Sokka's feet, so with an exaggerated sigh, he leant down to pick it up. Pulling the sleeping bag out of the case with a tug, he gave it a strong shake to flatten it again.

"Watch and learn, Charlie. This is how it's done." She raised an eyebrow at his boastful tone, watching as he folded it in half before flattening and rolling the fabric, slipping it easily into its case.

"Wow, that was really amazing," she drawled out, clapping her hands lightly three times.

"Yeah, I'm pretty humble about it so you don't need to thank me."

"Good. I wasn't gonna."

"Wha—That doesn't mean I don't want to hear it!"

"You're so modest, Sokka" she said dryly with a chuckle. "If you're this good at packing up, you should do my share from now on!"

"Hey, that was a one-off thing. You're on your own now."

"Sure, until the next time my inability to fold gets in the way of us leaving."

Katara and Aang, already on Appa, looked down at the two. "You guys are getting along better today," Katara pointed out, hanging over the saddle.

Charlie looked over at Sokka, and they shared a look, followed by a simultaneous shrug. "What can I say, we did a lot of talking in that cave yesterday."

"Yeah, turns out it was just a misunderstanding," Sokka continued with a smile. Katara held out her hand to him and helped pull her brother up onto the saddle, where he tied down Charlie's wrapped-up sleeping bag.

"So, you guys won't be arguing anymore?" Aang asked from the reigns, using a short blast of airbending to lift Charlie onto the saddle.

She let out a small yelp, but otherwise landed safely between the siblings. "Oh, no I'm naturally argumentative, that's not changing."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me," Sokka joked, settling down against the supplies.

After a few boring hours in the air, Charlie looked over to Sokka, who was flicking shavings off a piece of wood with his machete. "What're you making?" she asked, tilting her head back further. She'd been lying on her back, staring up at the moving clouds with her hands cushioning her head, and one knee raised when she noticed the pale curled shavings starting to pile up next to her. Sokka was on her left, but sat upright as he whittled away at the small block of wood.

"I'm not sure yet," he admitted, taking a moment to stop and look at her. "I'm just making it up as I go." Charlie nodded, accepting his answer, but Katara wasn't as easy to sway.

"Please, you're only saying that because it's going to look terrible," she said, looking over her shoulder. She'd been lying on her stomach with her hands propping up her head, starting out at the view.

"You don't know that!" Sokka argued, his voice cracking slightly.

"Don't you remember the time you tried making a buffalo yack for Gran-Gran—"

"It was a wolf,"

"It looked nothing like a wolf!"

"You were just looking at it wrong," Sokka muttered, stripping another shaving with his machete. While the siblings continued to bicker, Charlie looked out over the edge of Appa's saddle at the clouds. Tinted pink from the light of the afternoon sun, they flew slowly, as if gliding through the air. She crawled over to Aang, who laid comfortably on the groove of Appa's neck. He was relaxing with his legs overlapping and closed eyes, letting the gentle breeze brush over him. Charlie leant over and tapped him twice on the head to capture his attention.