Chapter 24: When The World Needed Him Most Part 15

With his sleep already ruined, Kel decided there was no point going back to sleep. 'Great, another day in the frozen hellhole,' he thought, stretching and yawning. A she did this, he realized he had no water again. 'Never thought I'd miss a good old shower.'

With a sigh he grabbed the empty pot and headed outside, spotting a few kids playing in the snow. 'Time to put these minions to work.'

"Hey, you guys!" Kel called out, waving the pot. "Come here for a sec."

The kids looked up, pausing their play, and scurried over. "What is it, Sokka?" one of them asked.

Kel held out the pot. "I need you to get some water for me."

The kids exchanged skeptical glances. "What are you going to give us?" another asked, arms crossed.

Kel grinned. "No training for the day."

Their eyes lit up, and they quickly grabbed the pot, racing off to fetch the water. 'Ah, the power of delegation.'

Once they returned with the water, Kel took a quick bath, shivering in the cold. 'Why would anyone choose to live here?' he wondered, rubbing his arms to warm up. After drying off and dressing, he decided it was time to explore.

After stepping out of his igloo though, he ran into Gran Gran, who looked at him with a knowing expression. "What did you do to make Katara so upset?" she asked in a stern tone.

Kel though feigned ignorance. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Gran Gran."

She shook her head. "Go make her feel better. She's by the boats. Are you feeling better now?"

Kel sighed inwardly but flexed his arms, trying to look impressive. "I'm all better, see?"

Gran Gran just sighed, her expression unimpressed. "Just go, Sokka."

'No respect for the gains.' He sighed to himself and began making his way to the shore, thinking, 'Leaving girls upset with you is how you get cucked so might as well.'

Arriving at the boats, he found Katara struggling to untie one, mumbling hateful things about him under her breath. He approached her, raising an eyebrow. "What are you up to?"

Katara didn't look up at him, instead continuing to mutter as if she was talking to herself. "Did you hear that? Sounds like an ungrateful brother."

Kel rolled his eyes. 'Wow she's petty.' 

"Come on, Katara, let me help," he offered, stepping closer.

As Kel stepped closer to Katara, she immediately turned away from him and walked over to the boat she had just finished untying. "I don't need your help. Since you're fine, you go do your warrior things. I'm going to collect more sea prunes on my own." 

Kel inwardly sighed. 'Dammit, why is she such a brat?' On the surface, he followed behind her as she approached the boat, ready to enter.

"Oh, come on, Katara. Are you really going to stay mad at your best brother ever?"

Katara glared his way and pointed a finger right at his forehead while yelling, "If you really were the best brother ever, you wouldn't be such a jerk!"

After saying that, she hopped into the boat and grabbed the stick used to push the boat away from the shore. But before she could use it, Kel approached the boat and hopped in.

"Hey, I didn't say you could come!" Katara snapped.

Kel simply shrugged his shoulders at this. "Well, you didn't say I couldn't." By this time, the boat had already begun drifting away from the shore. 

Katara glared at him, "Sokka, give me the paddle right now. You can have the boat, I'll stay."

Kel was currently near the boat's paddles and shook his head, crossing his arms. "Nope. You said you're not talking to me, so I don't have to do anything."

"Sokka, you're impossible!" Katara yelled, causing the boat to wobble as she involuntarily used water bending.

"Careful, Katara! You're going to cause us to capsize," Kel warned. But Katara still looked incredibly angry, so he felt he had to lay off teasing her so she could calm down. "Okay, fine, fine. If you want to do it so bad, I'll let you rub my injuries later tonight. How's that?"

Katara eased up upon hearing this but still maintained a frown and crossed her arms. "What makes you think I even want to rub your stupid injuries?"

Kel gave a slight shrug. "Well, you sort of caused them, so it's sort of your responsibility."

"No, it's not!" Katara immediately argued.

Kel inwardly sighed. 'You're angry because I didn't let you rub my injuries, now you're angry that I want you to rub my injuries. Women, man,' he thought. 

On the surface, he continued to act like he wanted to diffuse the situation. "Okay then, what do you want? I already said I'm sorry. I said you can give me a massage later, or if you want, I can give you one. But you're still angry, fine. Here are the paddles. Take me back to shore and I'll just get another boat since you clearly don't want me here."

This time, Kel took on a slightly angry tone, and serious at that, which was incredibly rare for Sokka. Most times, he was never serious with Katara, even when he was, it was over silly things like building a fort around the village and mandatory village training and drills.

Seeing Kel become so angry, Katara's frown was replaced with worry, thinking that she had perhaps gone too far and that Kel was done with her. "Sokka, I didn't mean it like that."

"Then what did you mean?" Kel inquired, maintaining the false angry expression.

This time, Katara nervously placed one hand on her other arm and couldn't even meet Kel's gaze as she revealed in a whisper, "I was embarrassed about last night, so I wanted to get you back so we could be even."

"What's there to be embarrassed about?" Kel nonchalantly asked.

Katara blushed immensely as she revealed, "I-I you know… peed-."

Before she could even moderate her words, she became more angry and caused the boat to shake once again. "You know what I mean. It was embarrassing, Sokka!"

Kel picked up on what she meant, and he didn't push her to say more. "Oh, that. It's just a natural body reaction, Katara. Even guys have their own thing."

"What thing?" Katara asked.

Kel just shrugged his shoulders and reached for the paddles. "Well, now that we got that out of the way, let's focus on collecting sea prunes," he suggested, trying to make Katara think he was trying to change the topic, which would in fact only make her more curious.

"Hey, Sokka, explain what thing guys have. You already saw and even touched my embarrassing thing. It's only fair I know," she argued.

Kel pretended to sigh in resignation. "You're really not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope," Katara added, but this was exactly what he was hoping for.

"Fine, Katara, but right here, right now, you're going to have to make a promise with me," Kel said.

Katara narrowed her eyes and was a bit suspicious of what Kel would ask but was still intrigued. "What kind of promise?"

"That you won't tell a single person the skills I show you or what I let you practice on me. A warrior has to keep his reputation," Kel added, trying to make it seem like it was a light promise to make.

Katara scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Sure, Sokka, I promise not to tell anyone about your oh-so-precious secret skills," she added before giggling a bit, the tense situation now diffused.

However, while they were talking, both had ignored the fact that no one was rowing. Katara was facing the front of the boat, so she saw something Kel didn't. "Sokka, watch out!" she exclaimed.

Kel looked back and noticed they were heading for numerous chunks of ice in the water. "Shit!" Kel immediately thought before grabbing the paddles to try and control the boat. 

However, it was too late as they immediately collided with one such chunk of ice, which in turn caused them to collide with another. 

At this point, Kel knew it was pointless trying to direct the boat and simply turned to Katara. "Here. Help me stop the boat from hitting the chunks of ice directly."

Katara didn't hesitate to retrieve the paddle, and together they began stopping the boat every time it wanted to collide with a chunk of ice by pushing the paddle against the chunk of ice first. This technique worked, but it caused them to have little to no control over their destination.

Eventually, as they were passing beside one particularly large chunk of ice, they found there was an even larger one right behind it, one they couldn't avoid. The boat smashed into this larger chunk, the front immediately getting damaged, forcing both Kel and Katara to be launched forward as they fell onto the floating piece of ice.

"Oh no, the boat!" Katara cried out.

Shortly after falling onto this piece of ice, what was left of their boat was dragged away by the water before it hit some other chunks of ice and got destroyed completely. 

Remembering a similar scene, Kel turned around to better inspect the chunk of ice they had landed on. Sure enough, it had a huge, weird-looking circular sphere of ice at its center.

'Welp, looks like it's time we meet our reincarnator.'