Probending Circuit Round 2 - Baby
Write about a funny/loving/touching moment for your characters and their baby
Team: Laogai Lion Vultures
Position: Firebender
Prompts: Medium: (character) Bolin, Easy: (dialogue) "Haven't you ever tried French fries and ice cream?"
Word count: 1641
The French fries hurt a little since they don't fit the Avatarverse at all, but I didn't want to write a Modern AU again. So here we go.
"This better be worth it..." Opal sighs as she leaves the Air Temple, her son Tian on her back. The baby is chewing curiously on a slip of paper, whose saliva-drenched words Opal has memorized beforehand. The note had been left on the dresser of the room she shares with her husband and, since seven months, her son. The message was brief and simple, instructing her to go down to the beach about twenty minutes before dusk, to a certain spot at the back of the temple overlooking Mo Ce Sea.
Her footsteps, usually breezing across the ground, are heavy with exhaustion as Opal trudges through the sand, wondering why in the name of Oma she is here and not in her bed.
Right. To humor her husband. Who called her down to the beach even though he knows that Opal has been over in Republic City all day to lead tourist groups through the Spirit World. With Ryu. And his parents.
Next time, Opal decides, she'll ask to team up with Ikki. The talkative teen has a way with guide assignments.
Opal is ripped out of her musings when Tian loses interest in the taste of paper and ink. His small fingers release the note, and he laughs at the strong ocean winds picking it up to carry it out to sea.
The stressed mother reacts lightning fast and with a swift movement of her arms, the blow-dried paper is sucked back to the beach for Opal to snatch up and store it inside her wing suit. She's in no mood to reprimand her child, but she pulls herself together. When she found out that she was pregnant, she resolved that she would not be a typical Beifong mother. She would not mess up with her son, she would not smother him, and she would not neglect him. No matter how tired she is.
Eyes closed, Opal sighs again. "Tian, we don't throw things away. It makes the birds very sad."
She doesn't know if Tian understands. She doesn't know the first thing about being a mother. Of course, she has her family to back her up. She has a whole nation to back her up. But in moments like this, even that doesn't seem to be enough.
"Let's keep walking, shall we? See what daddy Bolin is up to?"
Tian babbles something incomprehensible and starts tugging at his mother's hair. Opal winces a little, but she tolerates her baby's curiosity and continues at a smart pace. Just a few more steps...
Opal rounds the last corner, and she is greeted by a welcoming sight: A large orange picnic blanket has been spread on the sand, with two stone slabs shaping an arrow around it, providing shelter from the wind without blocking the view of the waves. Bolin is kneeling on the blanket, fidgeting with a picnic basket.
Opal's mood brightens instantly. A smile spreads on her lips and she straightens, realizing only then that she has been walking with a stoop. Her responsibilities weigh heavily on her shoulders, but now Bolin is here to lighten the load.
He doesn't take long to notice his wife and leap to his feet. "Opal!" he calls and runs up to her, radiating pure joy. Opal doesn't even have time to answer before he throws his arms around her, careful not to hurt Tian. The little boy takes the chance to reach up and grab at what happens to be Bolin's ear. Bolin grunts in surprise, but it's quickly replaced by amusement and he grins into Opal's hair.
"By decree of Babylord Tian, I'm afraid we're stuck hugging for a little longer."
Opal chuckles. "What a tragedy!" She pauses and her eyes widen at her own words. "Oh no, it finally happened. Your actor speak is rubbing off."
"Awesome!" Bolin jests. "That means you can't tell me off about it anymore!"
"Oh, I can!"
The couple's laughter resounds along the empty beach, soon joined by the giggling of a baby. Tian lets go of Bolin's ear and the proud father uses his newfound freedom to circle his wife and lift his son out of the baby sling.
"Hey there, young Babylord! Bet you kept Uncle Kai and Auntie Jinora on their toes today," he says, and it sounds suspiciously like praise. Opal is tempted to roll her eyes at her husband's antics, but in the end, she keeps it to a faint snort.
"Well, at least they're over insisting they sleep in different rooms until the baby shock wears off."
While she's been talking, Bolin has buried his nose in Tian's belly. It's a ticklish spot, and Tian won't stop laughing, completely drowning out Bolin's muffled response. However, Opal is pretty sure it's a cheerful "So they've finally realized what they've been missing, huh?" She grins. Either that, or the two teens are simply sick of letting a strange baby keep them from having fun.
While Opal watches her husband entertaining their son, she feels the exhaustion flooding back into her bones and she turns her head at the picnic basket. Bolin, seeing the movement from the corner of his eye, pauses his tickle attack and leans forward to kiss his wife on the nose.
"Let's sit down."
And that's what they do. After carefully lowering Tian onto the blanket, Bolin settles next to the picnic basket and starts rummaging through its contents, placing various smaller baskets, a metal box and a pot of tea between the three of them.
"Fries and ice cream?" Opal asks skeptically when she lifts the lids off a basket and the metal box. Bolin doesn't take offense.
"Yup, quality fast food!" he comments easily. "Korra helped me keep the ice cream frozen, but I don't know how long that'll last, so we may want to hurry. Whoa, Tian! Not the teapot!"
Bolin dives for the offending vessel and yanks it off the blanket, away from his son. But Tian is less than happy with the arrangement. He starts crying and flailing, and in a matter of seconds, the outburst grows into a full-blown temper tantrum. Bolin and Opal share a look, conducting a flash discussion by eye contact.
Give him the teapot!
I can't give him the teapot!
Give him the teapot!
No teapot for my son!
Bolin hastily presses the teapot into Opal's hands and picks up Tian to try and interest him in a fry. The plan backfires; Tian protests against the disagreeable replacement by grabbing a handful of fries and dumping them in the ice cream before continuing to thrash around and roll across the blanket. Opal, by now just short of despairing, puts the teapot aside and whips out Bolin's note she still carries. She hastily crumples the paper and forms it into a ball, then uses her airbending to make it float above Tian's head.
The cries fade as the little boy observes the ball bouncing through the air, intrigued by the new toy. Which actually isn't all that new, but Opal doubts that Tian remembers the last time she made a ball float around him.
She keeps the game up for a little longer, then relinquishes her hold on the air. Tian snatches the ball and grins, thinking he won against his paper enemy. Bolin and Opal heave a sigh of relief in unison.
"Wow, he totally digs the flying paper," Bolin remarks. "We really owe Tenzin for this idea."
"Yeah, we do," Opal agrees and pulls her son into her lap. The little boy is busy asserting his victory by chewing on the paper again, but Opal doesn't mind. She's just happy to hold him. Her baby. Her pudgy, green-eyed, demanding, bright, wonderful little boy.
She strokes his thin hair affectionately before looking up at her husband. "So, what about the food?"
He looks at her with mock consternation. "What, haven't you ever tried fries and ice cream before?"
Opal rolls her eyes, but a telltale smile tugs at her lips. "I've tried fries and ice cream before, but I haven't tried fries with ice cream before."
"Well, then this is a good time to start," Bolin declares and pops the closest ice cream fry into his mouth. He nods approvingly. "Not bad."
Opal isn't sure if she can trust the judgement of a former street urchin, but she tries a fry anyway. It's nothing she'd make a habit of eating, but it's not completely disgusting either. Even Tian crawls off her lap and scoops up the fries to stuff his face with them, having no sense of food weirdness yet.
When the fries are eaten, Bolin reveals he still has steam buns, just in case, and some fruit puree for Tian. But first, he has another plan: He bends their shelter into a backrest facing the ocean. The beach the three family members are at stretches along the west coast of Air Temple Island, and now Opal understands why Bolin insisted on her being there shortly before dusk – the view of the sunset is stunning. And nothing could be more amazing than watching the sunset while leaning on your wonderful husband, having your wonderful child in your lap, and spooning ice cream into your mouth.
Opal is not tired anymore. Spending some time with her family is exactly what she needed. Her and Bolin's jobs hardly allow them a break, the world constantly seems to need something from them, and the worst part is that she got so used to it she didn't even realize how dearly it cost her.
"We should do this more often."
"Yeah, we really should."
Opal smiles and kisses her husband on the cheek. "Thank you."
Family is high-priority, she decides. Sometimes, the world will have to wait.
No interconnected story this time. The baby theme annoyed the heck out of me since my team has a clean 2:2 Zutarian:canon ratio, and I hoped to avoid the shipping talk. But it turned out fine, we're all reasonable people. FictionIsSocialInquiry did the Zutara, misszeldasayre did the Ursai, ManofManyHats did Tonraq/Senna and I did the Bopal. Everyone clear. Still, I can't say I had best writing conditions during those two weeks.
Next round is looking up, though! ^-^