A Joke
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Avatar: Awakened Gamer
🕑 Added 2021-11-20 16:05:52 +0000 UTCChapter 55
***
Aunt Wu narrowed her eyes as she glanced at Sokka, seeing the young man act so uninterested made it clear that he didn't believe in her ability. But that didn't bother her, because Aunt Wu knew her ability to predict the future was right and very accurate. She had learned and cataloged everything that would show her the future and what it meant.
As the world's best future reader, Aunt Wu felt quite proud of the abilities she had spent so much time trying to perfect. "If you don't want to be here, no one's forcing you to stay."
He shrugged. "Sorry if I sent the wrong message. I am just waiting for my sister to get her future read. I meant no disrespect to you in any way, I'm just very tired due to the journey."
Aunt Wu didn't say anything and just stared at him for around a dozen seconds before turning back to Katara.
**
Sokka, though he glanced at her every now and then, could see that Aunt Wu was just waiting for him to say something. She was already ready to get into an argument with him.
But in the end, Sokka didn't like arguing with delusional people. In his eyes, Aunt Wu was just like that, someone with no such thing as the ability to read someone's future.
Seeing the patience of the young man, Aunt Wu too decided to drop the matter and not pick a fight here. "So, what was your question again, young girl?
Katara excitedly smiled and said. "Who will I marry?"
Aunt Wu almost sighs in boredom at such a simple question. But that would be unprofessional, and she didn't want to give Sokka a reason to hate her. Just by the look in his eyes, she could tell that he was very protective of his little sister.
"Come to my room, I will tell you," Aunt Wu mentioned with her hand for Katara to follow.
Sokka was calm, outwardly, but internally he was fuming. He didn't want Katara's mind to be poisoned by thoughts of the future. Thinking about the future too much would make someone forget to live in the present.
Since she was at a young and impressionable age. Katara was quite... open-minded, at things like this. So Sokka was worried that his sister might get too addicted to these fate-predicting things. The feeling of knowing the future can be quite intoxicating. Worse than any drug.
**
Katara and Wu enter her room, and the young waterbender looks around in curiosity. There were many things in here, but quite a lot less than expected. There was a low hanging table in the room, so they had to sit on the floor.
Aunt Wu seemed to think and gazed at the items around her room. They all seemed like things that one would predict the future with.
In the end, she chooses a deck of cards and puts them all face down on the table. "Pick two of them."
Katara was nervous and took a deep breath, picking one and flipping it over. It was a crude drawing of a man standing on the moon. "What does this mean?"
"Your love will be a great bender, who will be a lonely man who likes standing in the world with his own two feet," the elderly woman explained with a frown. This was a rare card to pull, and not many in the village had been able to do so. Aunt Wu could see that Katara was dissatisfied and with a sigh, decided to let her pull another one. "Do one more."
The next card Katara pulled over showed a man with two swords in his hand and a spear on the ground. Aunt Wu glanced at the card with a surprised look on her face. "Oh? This is quite surprising, he will be a great warrior too. Pulling those two cards together usually means that your love is some great general, commander, or a weapons master."
Katara was still curious as this said nothing about when she would meet her destined love or anything like that. For a girl her age, it was quite normal to be impatient.
But Aunt Wu knew that the third card would be one that revealed a bad trait about their future love. During this reading, she could pull out five cards. But the 3rd, 4th, and 5th revealed bad or horrendous things. So it was better to not know about them at all.
But without Aunt Wu even looking, Katara went and flipped the 3rd card, before the fate reader could stop her. It showed a woman clutching at her heart while kneeling on the ground with tears in her eyes. While a man walked away emotionlessly.
'This is the card of heartbreak and unrequited love. The man she will fall in love with won't return her feelings.' - Aung Wu felt a little pity towards Katara and smiled sadly. "He will be involved in a huge war with the possibility of death."
She didn't say anything about what she saw and instead decided to not crush the young girl's dreams. Still, she said something bad so at least there was still some hope. Sometimes people had to take fate into their own hands and build it themselves.
"Anyway, that's it now, go and bring on the next customers. The one with the arrow tattoos on his body." Aunt Wu advised Katara while shooing her away.
As she left, Aunt Wu looked at the cards curiously. She pulled another card, to see how Katara's future love might be and saw that it was a man with a mask, he had a frowny mask on his face, while holding another mask with a smile on his face.
"She really is unlucky, that girl."
***
As Katara walked out, she was annoyed at what she had just heard and it was apparent on her face. At least it seemed so to Sokka, who kept staring at her with a nonchalant look while munching on some crackers. "Hmmm~ troubles in love town?"
She manipulated the tea on the cup in front of him to hit his face, and it did so. "Hey! That could have been hot tea!"
"You don't like your tea too hot, and there was no steam coming out of it. So stop being a baby," Katara reasoned, and this distracted her from the prediction she just got.
***
-Sokka POV-
I decided to let her hit me in the face with the tea. This was so my naive little sister would finally stop worrying about such things as the future. People make their own fate, and knowledge of the future doesn't mean that it makes it set in stone. Especially with such a bad fate reader.
Aang looked a little down from what he had just heard. Hm? Did Katara's fate reading involve more than the original timeline? Oh well, it doesn't matter.
Damn, this place just brought down the morale of both Aang and Katara. Well, the Airbender kinda got what he had coming to him since he was peeking in during Katara's fate reading.
After Aang goes to Aunt Wu, I decided to console my sister and put an arm around her. Rubbing my cheek that was drenched in tea against her cheek. Normally this would be nice, except the sugary tea that would make her face all sticky.
"Sokka!" She yelled out, annoyed.
Well better be annoyed than sad. Ah~ the trouble I go to for my sibling, and she will never know this.
Aang comes back and he is disappointed. Damn, this place sucks.
"So what did you get?" I asked him, and before he could answer I gave him my prediction. "I bet she said something like; You will fight in a war that will decide the fate of the world."
"Huh? How did you know?" He got a confused look on his face. "That's what she said, though Aunt Wu used different words, saying that I will be involved in a great battle between the forces of good and evil, which will determine the fate of the whole world."
Sokka chuckled, having already predicted this. "Well, let's get out of here then."
"You aren't going to Aunt Wu? Don't you want to know your future?" Inquired Aang, surprised at Sokka's decision.
"Huh? I don't trust someone else telling me my future," I stated, looking at the avatar intently. "The only one who decides my fate is me."
Also, Aunt Wu was a sham, so I wouldn't believe whatever crap comes out of her mouth anyway. Since she knew that Aang was the Avatar, anyone could have concluded that he would be fighting in a war that will decide the fate of the world.
Well, it's time I put my charms to work and distract these two knuckleheads from what they heard.
***
Sokka ruffled his sister's hair and said. "Don't worry Katara. Whatever you heard from her, it probably doesn't mean anything."
At first, she didn't pay attention to him and just stared at the ground, which made him ruffle her hair even harder, messing it all up to the point that it annoyed her.
Suddenly the villagers started gathering towards the center of the village. Sokka saw this and his eyes turned cold for a split second. But then he was back to all smiles and acting like his usual self.
He went towards one of the villagers and asked them. "Excuse me, but why is everyone gathering towards the center of the village? Is it some kind of festival?"
The man in question smiled back at the friendly-looking Sokka, his smile was contagious. "Yes, Aunt Wu will read the clouds and read the fate of the village."
"Thanks, this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us." Sokka smiled in excitement. Which made the villager man even happier, as sometimes outsiders would act rude and doubt Aunt Wu's predictions.
But as Sokka turned around the excitement slipped out of him. He knew that even if he saved them today, their people were naive and couldn't be saved from their stupidity.
Their belief in Aunt Wu's predictions was absolute. Sokka contemplated just leaving this village to their demise, there wasn't anything beneficial from it. Sometimes events like this were just survival of the fittest. Mother nature eliminates those unfit to live, that was the natural law of the world.
But as Sokka saw children running happily while holding their parents' hands. He sighed, children had no sin, and images of them burning on lava wasn't something he wanted in his memory. So with a sigh, he decided.
"Well, time to fight against a volcano."
Ding!
[You have got a new Quest]
