Yes. Me. Yeah. Not AU. So. Gotta get that going on said AU. I don't like meself when I say I'll do something, and then don't. So I will. Hopefully sometime this year. Ugh.
Feel free to bug me bout it.

Inspired by: Avatar
Also: Our traditional apple pie-making process. Always a highlight during the fall season.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar.

Being Inventive

"I don't get how you could possibly like cooking. It's boring." Katara told the airbender matter-of-factly. She should know: she'd been cooking for their little gang for about a year, not to mention helping Gran-Gran in the kitchen back home. The food was great, sure. Cooking in itself? Hardly.

"I refuse to believe that."

Katara rolled her eyes, shifting from a sitting position to lying down on the blanket. What could possibly be interesting about cooking? It was a day-to-day thing; a necessity and nothing more, no matter how much Sokka said otherwise. So why was Aang making such a big deal over it? She wondered if her brother had finally gotten to the fourteen-year-old airbender.

"Sokka gotten to you already?"

Aang turned around to face her and frowned. "Hardly the point, Katara."

"What is it then?" Katara asked, bored. "Why is cooking, of all things, so great?"

"Well..." Aang began as he turned his body around to face her, and Katara smirked at his lack of words. Aang glanced at her. "Cooking is creativity." Aang told her, and when he saw that she was still unimpressed, he continued, racking his brains: "It lets you make something unique, and have fun while doing it... It lets you be, shall we say...inventive." He looked at her. "Satisfied?"

Katara shook her head, smiling as she idly drummed her fingers on the floor. "Not really, no."

"Well it's not something you can really explain, I suppose..." Aang said.

"Obviously not."

"So I guess I'll just have to show you."

"What?" Katara asked, dropping the superior facade as she sat up again.

"Katara." Aang said, standing up and placing his hands on his hips. "I think it's time that you learned how to make a fruit pie!"

Folding her arms as she arched one eyebrow over the other, she repeated dully, "A fruit pie?"

Aang bobbed his head up and down eagerly.

"Sokka really has gotten to you, hasn't he?" Rolling his eyes, Aang pulled her upright.

"Nope. C'mon, I'll show you how."

Katara stared at him for a moment before sighing. "If I must, I must..." She said, shaking her head. Even as she said it, a smile curled the edges of her lips.

"Great!" Grabbing her by the hand, Aang dragged her down to the Air Temple kitchens. Or clay-brick ovens, as it were... Upon letting go of her hand, the airbender scrambled back and forth, gathering pots and pans, spoons and ladles, and everything else it seemed. Katara simply watched, bemused at his efforts.

"Aang..." Katara said, but he didn't notice. "Aa-Aang..." She repeated in a sing-song voice. "Aang!" And she grabbed his collar, successfully stopping him. He looked at her. "Want some help?" She asked.

"Sure! You know how to bake?"

"I've been cooking for all of us this past year Aang, of course I know how to bake!" She replied indignantly.

"Good." He replied, promptly shoving a bowl filled with ingredients into her hands. "Stir that."

Looking down into the bowl, Katara realized that she didn't even know what "that" was. It certainly promised to be an interesting "Invention", as Aang called it. Pulling one of the many spoons out of the bowls stacked up, she began to mix.

"Oh, here, you'll need this," Aang told her, tossing a waterskin at her as he spoke. She caught it deftly in her hand. "It's milk." He told her, turning back to his work.

"Where on earth did you get milk?"

"Oh, y'know, flying fire-breathing hippo-cows." Aang replied nonchalantly, and she laughed. "There's a herd of koala-goats up on the plateau above the temple. We saw some, remember?" Katara nodded. The funny, bleating animals with horns, huge ears, and hoofs were hard to forget. She turned back to her mixing.

"So where is this recipe?" She asked.

"In here." Aang knocked once on his bald skull. Katara looked over at him. He grinned sheepishly. "And I'm kinda making it up as I go..."

"Ahh, inventing, yes..."Katara said, smirking. "Not very reliable."She commented, sticking a finger in the batter and licking it. So far so good; perhaps being "inventive" wasn't so bad after all.

"So you had a recipe for everything that you cooked over this past year." Aang replied, taking out a huge, bulging bag.

"No." She said. "But we had an old cookbook back at the South Pole. It's basically how I learned to read." Katara added.

"Clever." He commented.

"Boring." She corrected. "No plot whatsoever."

Aang laughed, opening the bag. Inside the burlap sack were mango-apples, or mangapples as they were often called, fresh and juicy and just slightly bruised. In other words, perfect. Katara looked up at him, wondering where he had gotten all these ingredients so suddenly. Noticing her stare, Aang shrugged. "What?" He said. "Everything for making fruit pies was grown or collected right near the Air Temples. Here at the Western Air Temple, the nuns made the best pies around, what with all the perfect soil. We made our own; it's not like we could just fly over to the local market every time we wanted some pies."

"No, no, just thinking. Didn't you tell me yesterday up on the plateau that koala-goats must be a species born in the last hundred years, because they didn't exist when you were a kid?" Katara asked him.

"That's right."Aang said, grabbing the mangapples and setting them down.

"So what did you milk?"

"The female bison." He told her. "But since Appa's male, I doubt he'd want anyone to milk him." And they both laughed.

"Here," Aang said, picking up a mangapple in one hand a beckoning her with the other. "I wanna show you something." Curious, Katara set down her bowl and walked over to him.

"Check this out."He said quietly, twirling his fingers around and around the fruit. Using his bending, it became a miniature whirlwind of air. When he stopped, one long, thin, curled peeling slid off the fruit. Aang caught it in his hand. "Pretty neat, huh?" Aang said, and Katara nodded, impressed.

"Here's the best part though..." The airbender continued eagerly, straightening out the thin peeling with both hands, the mangapple tossed casually into one of the bowls. "Take that end." Aang told her, and Katara complied, watching as Aang walked away from her, holding the other end of the peeling. "We invented this game back at the Southern Air Temple. It was so much fun." The peeling's slack let up a bit as he walked, but not enough to break it.

"So here's how it works." Aang told her. "We both start eating at the same time until it's all gone. No using your hands. Whoever eats the mos wins. Put the end in your mouth." Aang said, placing his own end in his mouth.

"What?"

"Puh et en you mouf!"Aang repeated, refusing to take the peeling end out of his mouth.

"Ugh, fine!" Katara said, placing the peeling in her mouth. It was juicy, sweet, and tangy, a combination Katara rather liked, and her tongue rolled easily over the smooth peeling end.

"Weady..." Aang said, struggling to speak with his mouth occupied. "Go!" And they began eating.

It was more complicated than Katara had originally thought. You had to make sure that you didn't cut the peeling with your teeth, but you had to chew and swallow as well. And all the while doing it as fast as you could.

Aang was gaining on her, she could tell. He probably already passed the midway point (wherever it was in the first place), and he smirked while he chowed down. Finally, Aang yanked on the peeling with his mouth, cutting it at Katara's teeth. The peeling swinging from his mouth, Aang shouted triumphantly.

"I won! Yesss!" He cried, jumping up high in the air as if he had won a world race. As he began his descent. Katara decided to...inventively...set his ego straight.

Grabbing his collar and pulling him down forcefully, Katara kissed him. Instantly his demeanor changed from glee to surprise. Smirking, Katara only increased the pressure, pulling him down so hard they toppled. Katara felt Aang slurp the rest of the peeling up into his mouth, still shocked and out of it. As she licked the airbender's lips however, he responded.

She tasted him: exactly like mangapples, juicy, sweet, tangy, with just a hint of some taste that she figured must be Aang's. The overall result was wonderful, and she grabbed at his collar, wanting more. Then and there, Katara decided that mangapples were her new favorite fruit; much better than papaya, anyways. Fantastic. Delightfully exotic. Delicious. And it seemed as though it would remind her of Aang from then on.

Both were breathing hard as they finally broke away from each other, the fruit pie almost forgotten entirely.

"And that was...?" Aang asked, smiling with a slightly dazed look.

Katara smiled. "That was me being inventive."

"The mangapples?" Aang questioned.

"Mmmm....fruit pies in general." Katara replied, bending down to lick his lips again.

"Good" The airbender replied. "We'll have to make them more often."

Katara still didn't like cooking too much. Yet she agreed with Aang on one point: cooking was certainly creative, and definitely inventive.

Like it? Hate it? Please comment!

Yeah, that AU? Not coming along. Haven't been able to work on it much. And it's killing me. It has GOT to see the light of day! I insist! Argh!
Again, feel free to bug me.