Title: I Wish I Was the Moon
Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender (ATLA)
Rating: G
Characters: Katara, Sokka
Length: 1153
Tags: Family, Inuit Water Tribe, Moon, Cooking Together
Author notes: The moon is so cool, y'all should listen to the Ologies Podcast, Selenology episode.
Summary: Katara and Sokka go back home and cook together. Sokka is still mooning over his girlfriend.


“Sometimes I wish I was the moon.”

Katara looked at her brother. He was gazing outside the window with that stupid look in his eyes, all soft and mushy and he looked two seconds away from sighing. The moonlight was reflecting on the snow on the ground and Katara should have found it beautiful, really. But Sokka had ruined the moon for her with his endless mooning and she resented him for it.

“You don’t want to be the moon, don’t be stupid.”

She pushed her ulu in his hand and shoved him away from the blinds so he could actually stop and be helpful instead of mooning away (again). He reluctantly followed her, neck twisted away until the moon was literally blocked by the edge of the window. Katara sighed. She couldn’t even appreciate the fact that he’d listened to her by reflex, because he wasn’t in a state for her gloating to have any effect.

“You don’t know that,” he said eventually, sitting on the stool next to their kitchen counter and putting his elbows on the counter to better support his face with his hands. Katara hadn’t paid attention to where the moon was exactly, but she was pretty sure he was peering at it with his eyes through the wall, if only with less focus. He nearly nicked himself with the ulu too, as though he’d forgotten he was holding it. As good a hunter as Sokka was, no one would ever believe it if they saw him outside of nature. She would trust him with a bow, a hatchet, a lance even.

Katara would not trust him with a knife, and only trusted him with her ulu because she knew he would injure himself with it before he damaged it.

“The moon is so beautiful and mysterious,” he sighed. “I could be beautiful and mysterious.”

Katara sighed louder this time, making sure Sokka could hear it. He still wasn’t paying attention though, and she dropped the caribou meat on the counter so a bit of the juices splashed on Sokka’s arms.

“You’re only saying that because your girlfriend loves the moon more than you,” she taunted. “Now get to cutting, mom and dad did not hunt this caribou so you could moon at the moon and destroy the fruit of their labour because you were too busy staring up to cut it right.”

This seemed to jolt Sokka out of his contemplation, and his elbows slid out from under him as he moved too fast to glare at her. He would have face smashed into the caribou if Katara hadn’t shoved a hand on his forehead to push him back. “Focus,” she ordered. “And cut.”

He did listen to her even though he was muttering under his breath and that made a smile of satisfaction rise on Katara’s face.

He must have been practicing what he was going to say, because after a short while of cutting the meat (when Katara glanced at them, the pieces were even, which meant he’d improved somehow), he spoke louder. “She doesn’t love the moon more than me,” he insisted.

Katara thought that sounded like denial, but she wasn’t about to break his fantasy. Her face must have betrayed her though, because Sokka frowned and insisted. He pointed the ulu at her threateningly, the effect somewhat lessened by the round edge of it. “She doesn’t! She has a lot of room in her heart and is able to love multiple things equally. And people,” he added somewhat belatedly.

“Did Yue tell you that?” Katara teased. She chopped the vegetables with a practiced hand, looking down only periodically to make sure she wasn’t chopping her fingers. “Because that sounded like a quote, not like something that came out of your head.”

Sokka lowered his head so his hair could hide his cheek and Katara knew she was right. Yue was so much fun and gave Sokka the best quotes.

“Where is she by the way?” Katara asked. “Was she supposed to come this weekend, or is it next month?”

Sokka muttered something and lowered his head even more, looking far too focused on cutting the meat to be credible. Katara stopped and peered at him, sensing something interesting was afoot.

“What was that?” she asked, a smile growing slowly on her lips.

Sokka sighed, then shook his hair back and looked at her with a dull face, as though resigned to her reaction.

“She. Is. On. The Moon,” he answered, enunciating each word individually.

It took a moment for Katara to register the words. And then she was glad she’d finished cutting the vegetables because she erupted in peals of laughter.

Sokka had put the ulu down too and was helplessly attempting to justify himself.

“She’s an astronaut! And a moon geologist! She’s allowed to be on the moon!” He was gesticulating, pacing back and forth and almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “She named a cool new moon rock after my favourite sled dog and she said it was so I could look up there and know that he’s watching over me the way I watched over him when he was alive, and-“

He stopped himself, and Katara had stopped laughing too because that was far too cute and sounded way too romantic.
Sokka let himself fall down on his stool. “Fuck, I love her so much.”

Katara didn’t want to be mushy with her brother, but truly, there was no way she could make light of such a declaration of intent. “Yeah, that’s really romantic,” she agreed.

They remained silent for a moment, both leaning slightly to stare at the moon like they could somehow see Yue on there. Katara suddenly longed for a love that could make her sigh like Sokka’s, someone who would think about her even in the midst of a career-important discovery and name something after a childhood memory she couldn’t quite forget. Yue must’ve seen Sokka crying about that dog, the baby, probably buried under a pile of puppies even when he was supposed to be training them.

She must have carried that memory with her, maybe was even carrying it with her right now, as she headed towards the moon (one of her passions) while leaving another passion behind. She must have seen something of Sokka in that rock, in that moon and smiled as she picked up, and smiled even more as she offered it that name. Katara didn’t know much about moon-naming conventions, but all the names she’d heard in the zeitgeist had been either numbers, boring, or dead scientists, so that choice had sure been purposeful.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m the one mooning about your relationship with your girlfriend now,” she complained, picking up a pot so she could start preparing something else. “You’ve infected me, now finish up chopping the caribou before your mooning spreads any more.”