"So are you guys ready for the latest and greatest winter tradition?"

"Ready as we'll ever be." Mai sighed and shifted her position on the large mass of pelts, blankets, and rugs that made for furniture in Pakku and Kanna's hearth room.

Ty Lee's bottom lip quivered in its first pout of the morning. "Mai, be nice."

"I'm always nice."

"Can we hurry this along?" Pakku drained the last of his breakfast's cod cow stew from its bowl. The hearty meal was doing nothing to improve his disposition. "Some of us have work to do today."

Kanna nudged him in the small of his back with her foot as she took dishes from the igluvijaq's hearth room to its kitchen. Ty Lee scampered up to help. "Oh hush. Let the young man say his piece."

"Gotta side with Grampakku on this one, Mat." Sokka lounged on a pelt next to the central hearth. "We're burning valuable daylight."

Next to him, Suki spoke over Pakku's angry, "Will you stop calling me that!"

"Isn't that what your lemon lamps are for?" She asked.

"Sure, but lemons don't just grow on trees, babe."

Katara raised an eyebrow. "Care to run through that sentence again, Sokka?"

"You know what I mean."

"Anyways," Aang's deepening baritone interjected before another sibling squabble could pick up steam. "What's the tradition, Mat?"

"Yes, please tell us," groggy amusement was obvious in Zuko's tone as he pulled the kettle off the central hearth and filled several whale-tooth mugs with tea. "We're all on pins and needles."

"Not right now, but I bet you are when the sun goes down, right Mai?" Ty Lee's comment could be heard through the thick curtain that separated the two rooms. Zuko, on his way around the hearth with the tray of mugs, seemed to choke on his own tongue and very nearly spilled the tea. An arm shot out of a person-sized pile of blankets to grab the back of his shirt as he tripped, steadying him.

"Okay... well, moving on and forgetting that ever happened." Mat continued as Ty Lee poked her head back in the room, eyebrows wagging, and sokka howled with laughter. "Here we go." with a flourish the young itinerant brought his hand behind his back and produced a sprig of leaves, dotted here and there with small, white berries.

"Tah dah!"

"Someone wanna tell me what we're all staring at?" a voice mumbled from the heap of blankets.

Mat was undeterred. "It's mistletoe!"

"What's mistletoe?"

"It's a parasitic plant that grows on bushes and trees," Katara said, "The leaves are good for healing teas, poultices, and lowering blood pressure, but the berries can only be crushed and used to bind bandages or minor wounds. They're deeply poisonous if ingested."

"So what's the tradition," suki asked, "we poison each other?"

"That sounds like a lot of Fire Nation traditions, actually." Zuko collapsed next to Mai with a cup of tea, suitably recovered.

"No no no, no poisoning. See, we hang the mistletoe up, like on the archway leading into the house." Mat brought the small branch up above his head, pantomiming it's position. "And whenever two people pass or stand underneath it at the same time, they kiss!"

Pakku looked skeptical. "...That's it?"

"That's it."

Suki raised her hand. "Okay, I don't get it. How does a poisonous, life sapping, parasite plant get associated with a tradition about romance?"

Mai looked at her. "You mean besides the obvious?"

"I remember the monks teaching me about some of the more rural earth kingdom villages," Aang put in, "apparently they'd use mistletoe as an aphrodisiac."

Beside him, Katara snorted. "Yeah, because excessive vomiting and incontinence is so incredibly sexy." Aang just shrugged, and she narrowed her eyes as a thought crossed her mind. "Wait... you had to have been under twelve back then. Why were air monks talking to you about aphrodisiacs?"

Aang chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his neck. "Uh...I was kind of a curious kid."

"It's not a romance tradition," Mat broke in, before pausing to reconsider. "At least, not all the time. I guess it all depends on who you're under the mistletoe with."

"Well if it's not all about steamy make-outs," Sokka asked, "what's the point?"

"To spread warmth and holiday cheer!" Again Mat paused, this time a little embarrassed. "I think. Look, it's something I remember my folks doing at parties and stuff when I was young. I figured since you guys have been teaching me so much about your solstice celebration stuff, I'd share a holiday tradition of my own."

"Well I think it's a great idea!" Ty Lee said as she entered the room, wiping the remnants of dishwater off her hands. Kanna followed, nodding in agreement.

"Of course you do," Mai intoned dryly, "it involves kissing."

Ty Lee stuck her tongue out. She promptly stuck it back in when the last two inches of her pony tail was sheered off and stuck to the igluvijaq's ice hewn wall by a stiletto.

Sokka grinned as Ty Lee shrieked and ducked behind Suki for protection."Now that I think about it, some winter cheer might be a good idea."

"I agree," Kanna nodded. "This late in the season, the cold temperatures and long nights can make some people a bit..." She looked to her husband, "Snippy."

Pakku scoffed and rose from the pelts. "If I'm 'snippy' it's because we're sharing the home I bent with my own two hands, for just my wife and myself, with an overcrowding of hyperactive teenagers!"

"Well then, that's exactly why we need it." Mat said, "it's a mood improving tradition!"

Katara rose as well, stretching in preparation for a day the day of construction ahead. "I'm willing to try anything that might cheer up our little Grumpy-Gopher." She patted the heap of blankets and furs affectionately.

The heap rustled. "Mmmkn s'lest."

"What was that?"

A ebony locked head poked out of it's cocoon of warmth, and sightless, dull-green eyes glared up at Katara. "I said, 'I'm making a list.' a list of everyone who pokes fun at the blind earthbender girl while out here on a dumb floating hunk of ice. I'm making a list, and I'll be checking it twice just to make sure I got everyone. And when spring comes, and I'm on solid earth again..." Toph burrowed back underneath her furs and the room, the house, the whole iceberg, seemed to suddenly rise and drop several feet. "...There'll be a reckoning."

The group was silent as they recovered from the tremor. Sokka spoke first.

"Did anyone else just feel the sea floor shake?"

Aang turned to Mat. "Better get that mood improver up. Like, now."

"I'm on it."

...\/...\/...\/...

So here it is, the start of my winter request series. Over on my DA page, I asked for prompts people wanted me to fufill, and the first was, "Where Mat tries to explain the concept of the mistletoe to the gang and it just gets cute and ridiculous and nobody gets it?"

I'll be throwing it up in segments, either one a day or one every other day, depending on what you guys want. So...leave a comment and let me know!