Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish, but they aren't.
AN: New cartoon eh? I'm in LOVE with it. Honestly. I'm loving Korra's attitude, her overall strength (compared to Aang's peaceful ways – sometimes it bugged me, I'll admit) and I'm loving the new take on the world, the story so far…
What I do not love is the Katara/ Aang shipping-stuff. Blah. I'm such a hardcore Katara/ Zuko shipper it's almost sad.
So, this piece, is more or less a nice spicing up of the "canon" we see in the cartoon (old and new) and paying a bit of homage to the Katara/Zuko angle. There aren't any major spoilers in case no one has seen the new cartoon, but some nice helpings of what ifs. Sound good? Okay.
Enjoy!
When Love Overcomes Duty
Her first child is born in the ice and cold and snow of her homeland. Her father's hut – much larger and grander than it was in her childhood and teen years before the war's end – surrounds her and protects her as her stomach contracts. Warm pelts and furs cover the firm bed and floors, warming the room and air as she breathes.
A fire in the distance crackles as Suki and Gran-Gran wipe sweat from her brow. Her body aches, her feet have gone numb and her stomach is cringing in pain, but she holds it together and pushes.
It takes ten hours of hard labor to birth her first child – a daughter. Suki holds her hand as Gran-Gran cleans the babe. Toph has been in and out of the room, unable to stay long – though she is blind she is still skittish with the idea of childbirth – and stays with the men in the other room.
Her brother is there, with her father, Bato, Pakku (who she hears over the loud clapping has brought Moonshine), Aang, General Iroh and Fire Lord Zuko. All are sitting in the room, tense with wait before Toph breaks into the room and whoops loudly – followed by Sokka's cry of relief and her father's harsh sigh of old age. Katara is barely aware of all this, through the haze of pain and aches that seem to be still running in her veins.
Gran-Gran says it is normal; but she is Water Tribe. She says women of her people have been strong in childbirth and this will pass in time. Katara refuses the usage of herbs that Suki tries to offer her – Kyoshi Island and inhabitants believe in the survival of their race, but not in the pain women must endure to bring it – and she watches as Gran-Gran brings the child– her daughter – to her outstretched arms.
Within moments the pain has subsided, her arms are heavy with fatigue but also with her daughter's lean weight as she holds her closely. She is dark skinned like her, with rich dark chocolate brown curls tussled on top of her skull. Her mouth is thin – she thinks too thin to be her own – and her eyes are shut tightly. She wraps her snuggly into the warm white cloth and feels unexplainable joy surrounding her heart.
Her daughter.Her child.
Suki coos after the babe, smoothing back her unruly locks as Gran-Gran looks on. Her face is a picture of serene calm in weathered wrinkles. Moving gently over to her granddaughter and great-granddaughter, she smiles. "She is beautiful Katara. Your mother would be quite proud."
Katara grins a watery smile, her oceanic eyes tearing despite her self control. Suki wraps an arm around her shoulder – her sister in marriage since a year after the war's end and hugs her comfortably. "Have you decided on a name yet?"
"It would be honorable to name her after someone important to you. Perhaps Toph or Suki who has fought in the war with you?" Gran-Gran suggests kindly. Suki blushes at the thought.
Katara sighs and laughs as her daughter stirs in her sleep, soft lids beginning to open in curiosity. "I want to name her after mom."
Both women smile as Katara hugs her daughter closer and feels a sense of peace comfort her as Kya digs deeper into her warmth. Kya opens her eyes and that peace is shattered.
"Katara – how?"
"Her eyes are gold." Aang says from the doorway, staff in his limp hand as all three women turn to the Avatar, various shades of shock coloring their faces.
It is then that Katara realizes where Kya gets her thin lips from, her lean and willowy frame, her golden eyes that burn in the darkness of the hut like a tiger-lion on the prowl, and why her locks are so much darker than her own. Or Aangs. Confusion, guilt and shame all war in her heart as Aang's young face – though he has grown and matured over the last decade – shatters into uncontrollable sadness.
But he doesn't cry. And Katara gathers strength from that.
"She's Zuko's isn't she?" He asks quietly as the other women in the bedroom make space for him at his companion's side. They are not married but have been together since the end of the war. Aang and Katara travelled the world, helping people, bringing peace back to the lands of a scarred and hurt world.
Aang had been following his Avatar path, and Katara had been following him.
"Aang, I – "
"Does he know?" He whispers and Katara bites her bottom lip; she never meant to hurt him.
It fact, she never meant to do anything to Aang. It had been a spur of the moment, feelings bubbling up out of the blue, from years of ignoring them, of ignoring what they could have been; they had come out in the midst of their hunt for Zuko's mother Ursa. They had been caught, trapped by rebels, those wanting Ozai back on the throne and Zuko in chains and they had thought they were going to die in the end…
They had fought together. Katara healed Zuko after he took hits that were meant for her. They had worked together so well, yin and yang, fire and water…
Katara had been so careful to drink the special herbs after returning home.
But it hadn't been soon enough.
"He might. I never told him." Her blue eyes find Aang in the dim light and she feels the wetness of tears rolling down her cheeks. She is torn; torn between what is right and wrong, what feels right but shouldn't be. She grips her daughter closer to her chest and watches, waits for Aang to come to terms with everything.
It doesn't take long.
Aang nods, his head still bald and reflecting the harsh lights. "He should know. But I will still raise her as my daughter. And maybe, we can try again?"
At his hopeful tone, Katara beams, the guilt and shame floating away to relief. She briefly wonders how he can forgive her, but she knows it is in his nature. Aang loves her, has loved her since she saved him from the iceberg. She was scared he would leave her; without him, she does not have a duty, a path, a life, a will. But he will not leave her. He doesn't hate her. He's willing to forgive her. He's willing to try again at a perfect life; the one he promised her at the end of the war.
Carefully the Avatar sits next to his partner, as the Fire Lord looks on from the doorway in silence.
Almost two years later, Katara is called to the Fire Nation to heal a sickness that stumps even the most experienced of doctors. It sweeps through the islands, small children, weakened adults, and the elderly falling to the illness. She is there for five months – and takes to not only saving the Fire Nation people with her waterbending healing techniques but inventing an antidote to give to those she cannot reach. The people slowly bounce back.
She is there when Fire Lady Mai takes ill with her unborn child – thought to be a male - and is there when nothing can save either of them. The sickness is strong, and Mai is already fragile from a difficult pregnancy.
Katara is there for their funeral; she watches a somber and depressed Fire Lord lights the pyre that will send their souls to Agni, and live in peace and wait for his death. She is there when Zuko cannot move from his desk, papers mount up around him, aides falling into melancholy because their leader will not lead. She nurses him, cajoles him, grieves with him (for even though Katara and Zuko have a child together and strangely enough no one in their small knit group of friends makes comments on it – except Sokka, Fire Lady Mai and Katara have become close friends with a mutual understanding. Both would kill and die for Zuko) and she bullies him into eating and going on with life. She is the reason for his return to the throne and Ursa applauds her touch.
It takes weeks for him to return to something normal of himself and it pleases Katara. But also, she understands it isn't because he is a close friend and confident, a man who gave her a daughter; but she cares for him. Deeply. The feelings she had for him two years prior, which came out under the danger of almost certain death, have been there all along. They were not forced out due to her apparent death, the adrenaline of a battle, or the fear of the unknown; but because Katara really does care for Zuko.
Perhaps she even loves him, has loved him since Ba Sing See, since she saw him not as a spoiled brat but as a lost compassionate young man. Maybe she has loved him since he helped her find her mother's killer; or perhaps shortly thereafter when she didn't take his life but wanted to – and he understood her. Even when Aang did not.
It breaks her heart to know this. It breaks her heart because she still loves Aang; but she loves Zuko deeper, more still.
And the night before she returns to her partner, who she swore she would remain loyal to and try to have the perfect life he has always wanted with the woman he always loved; to the man and the world's last hope who she gave her life to. She lets the Fire Lord take her into his bed. And they remain together until the first rays of dawn break over the Fire Nation islands. She doesn't rise when the sun does, but instead buries herself into the Fire Lord's chest, inhaling his scent. Never before in her life has Katara felt at once comfort and horror in her life.
Her second child – a boy – is born not in her homeland, or in the air temples like Aang had hoped, but in the forest of a forgotten town, war torn and brittle from fighting. She and Aang has been in deliberations all day (and in fact almost all year), trying to end the fighting between old warlords from the "disgraced" Fire Nation – Katara scoffs at the idea of the Fire Nation being anything but as Zuko has worked hard to create power in his lands – and between the stubborn farming families who see them as still the enemies.
She had arrived a few months pregnant and now is giving birth on a patch of dried wooden reeds woven together with two green pillows propped behind her. Her brother and his wife are not there (she vaguely thinks Suki and Sokka are training their oldest in the ways of Kyoshi battle techniques), her father is expanding the trade of the Southern Water Tribe, Toph is two towns away teaching metalbending to the law enforcements and Aang is trapped in a peace negotiation that could very well end the fighting.
Only Fire Lord Zuko and General Iroh are with her when she pushes and heaves – having been brought into the final moments to end the fighting in the small town and to sign on the simple treaty. Her daughter, Kya (the very picture of Katara with golden eyes and a kind heart but enough energy to make even Sokka proud) sits beside her mother, only two, and uses a damp rag to wipe sweat from her cheeks and neck. She is excited and nervous, wanting to nurture and care for her mother – Toph teases her best friend for raising another her – but she sits quietly and patiently as her mother delivers her sibling.
This time the labor is not as long, a mere four hours but tough, before the loud wailing of a cry pierces the dead forest. Zuko is the one to cut the child from her womb and wrap him in his cloak – blood red yet befitting because this child is also Zuko's, there is no doubt in Katara's mind – and he is the one to give the child to Katara with strong and sure hands.
She hugs him close, still covered in post birth debris and Kya sits next to her, face pinched as she studies the new sibling. In those rare moments, she can see Azula in her face and Katara hugs her close, determined never to let her little girl become like her biological aunt.
"He is healthy and strong Katara, " Iroh says from her side, hands folded into his long sleeves. He is much older, his hair almost snow white but his eyes still twinkle in happiness. "A strong male to carry on the line." Then his smile turns warm as he pats Kya's head. "Though we have already been blessed that our heir is quite strong and able and very beautiful already."
Zuko nods with a smirk on his face as Kya curls into his lap with a cute and beaming grin. Katara and Aang never told Kya that Zuko was her father, but the child is smart and observant; Katara fears sometimes a little too smart (and again is reminded that she has both Sokka and Azula's blood in her veins). Kya has bonded with Zuko though it does not mean she doesn't still care for Aang.
Her daughter understands the complicated situation even if Katara cannot understand what is happening in her life. Kya is very smart indeed.
"What will you name him?" Zuko asks, their daughter sitting under his chin as if it was the most normal thing to do. Katara is at once warmed and sickened by the picture.
"Aang wanted to name him Bumi, in honor of his oldest and dearest friend." She also thinks silently, it was because he thought this child would finally be his. But Katara cannot find fault in the name though – even if Bumi the king was not sane, he was intelligent, kind, and a fierce defender of his city during the war. She finds that her son could draw from the man's spirit in which he was named for, and hopefully become an honorable man such as the deceased king.
"King Bumi died just last year," Iroh says softly, sorrow tainting his kind voice. He is echoing her thoughts. "He would be greatly honored."
Katara nods as Kya wraps the cloak tighter around her baby brother. He is pale, with soft black locks, and when he yawns, his eyes are a stark shade of blue, mirroring his mother's. But he is lean, even more so than Kya was when she was born, with long limbs; he is the spitting image of Zuko.
"There will be no way to hide this," Iroh says as if reading both parents' thoughts. Strangely he does not seem as disappointed as Katara had feared. In fact, he seems wistful and hopeful. It is no secret of Iroh's thoughts on his nephew and the waterbending Master. "Aang will know Zuko is the father of your second child as well."
Katara sighs, tucking the child into her side, almost as if protecting him from an unseen danger. Though she feels guilty, and feels terrible for Aang, she is not sorry her son is of Zuko's blood. "I'm not sure if I want to hide it," Katara whispers, gazing at her son, and her daughter in turn. Zuko remains silent.
Three years after the birth of Bumi, Katara stands on the edge of the island deemed a sanctuary for all Air Nomads and their lifestyle. The small baby – another boy, Tenzin named this time by Aang and delivered by the same man – sleeps in her arms, wrapped in soft oranges. This child is tiny and thin, with wide almond light blue eyes (very similar to her father's orbs) and sharp brown hair.
He is Aang's son. And she can already tell that he will be an Airbender from the ease in which he was born and delivered. He had given her butterflies since the moment he was conceived.
In the background she can hear her other children playing – Kya is a quick agile girl of five, with a compassionate side coupled with a temper only rivaled by her father – or her aunt's. She is a Firebender, and is as passionate and fierce as one would expect from the Fire Lord's blood (though her friends joke that maybe her passions do not come from Zuko but Katara's side). She chases Bumi – a lanky child with a loud laugh and an amazing intelligence; he is a Waterbender, though he prefers to invent, and is more clumsy than even her brother could manage. He is honorable though and brave, with an air of arrogance that is wholly Zuko's persona.
Tenzin stirs in Katara's arms but remains sleeping, ignoring the noises of his older siblings easily. Quietly, Aang approaches Katara side, glider in his hands as a slight crutch. Though he is only in his late forties, her Avatar has seen more, experienced more than most humans or Avatars should. His age is shown in his eyes and she wishes she could take away what the years have done to him.
"'Tara," he begins softly. "He's an Airbender. My only one." His gaze turns sad but not unkind.
"He will be a strong Airbender. Something about him tells me that," she says, pride coloring her words. Finally she had given Aang an Airbender. Finally, she has done something right for him.
"He'll live here, and train with me to perfect his talents. And hopefully he will have a big family with more Airbenders when he gets older."
He gazes at his partner as his eyes turn troubled and miserable. "Katara, I know you gave me this son out of respect and duty. It's always been a duty to be with me." His voice cracks and Katara cannot do anything to comfort him. Her own eyes water. He only speaks the truth though even now Katara won't believe it. "You've been with me since I was twelve. We have one child together. And you have two with the man you really love." He walks closer, hand on her shoulder; he's now a head taller than her and she has to look up. "I'm releasing you from your duty."
"You're what?" She shakes her head. "Aang I love you; I made a promise to you." Duty or not, Katara does not simply stop because she wants to; there is more for her to accomplish, to do with the Avatar, to help him do…
"You also are not in love with me. You love me, yes." He smiles this time, a twitch of the lips suppressed by pain. "But you are not in love with me. You love him more. And he loves you. But he would never take you from me; Zuko believes he has taken too much of me and my people already, atoning for his ancestors' sins. So I'm letting you go.
He moves away from her, his eyes lingering on her face, then at the playing children behind them. "It's not fair to have you give up everything for a cause. That is my job in this world. I had been selfish to think I could be the Avatar and a simple man with a loving wife." His smile is sad but determined. "But I did. I had your support. I had your love, for however brief a time. Monk Gyatso would say it is 'better to have enjoyed something you loved, than to have never experienced it.' And I think he would be right."
Katara shakes her head; her mouth is trembling and tears are flowing freely down her face. It hurts hearing him say this, it hurts knowing she is the reason for this. But she cannot help how she feels; how the spirits have allowed her to feel. "But the children know you as their father," she pleads, trying one last time to make the feelings for Zuko be for Aang. She knows it is a losing battle. "You want to make them be with another man, and call him father?"
"Kya knows Zuko is her father; she already spends her summers with him." And it is true. They've made it no secret that Kya and Zuko are close; Katara believes it has to do with his fathering side and his want to nurture the girl that has his little sister's blood in her veins. Since he and Azula were never close, Zuko is quite protective of Kya. "And though Bumi spends time with Sokka and Suki during the summers, he and Zuko write frequently. I think as he gets older, he'll be just as close, if not more so with him." Aang chuckles but it is not the light voice that Katara knows. It is heavy and burdened, aged. "Tenzin will live with you, and when he shows signs of being an Airbender, he will come to train with me."
"And if he doesn't become an Airbender?" Her voice is tiny, so unlike her strong confident timber.
"Then you and Zuko will have a large family. And I only hope I will be able to visit when time allows it."
Taking the boy – now man – into her arms, she hugs him tightly. Tears leak on to his orange robes, and his gentle hands – loving, kind but cool and detached hands – pull her close. She feels as if she is losing him again; like in Ba Sing See, like the day before the Sozin's comet. But something in her heart is opening, freeing her.
She had stayed with Aang because he had needed her; because of her duty to stand by his side and help people that she couldn't let suffer. But now he was letting her chose her own path, not simply follow his.
Katara pulls back, wiping tears from his grey compassionate eyes, and for the first time in seventeen years, really smiles.
It is on a hot summer day, the clouds have let the sun shine down on them as a large crowd of people gathers. Katara stands behind the large podium, red curtains falling behind her with wisps of incense drifting throughout the air. Red silk drapes her form and instantly she is reminded of her own crowning as Fire Lady.
Her daughter stands proudly in front of the crowd, eyes ahead, shoulders back just like her father taught her. Her long chocolate curls are draped across her shoulders – only half her hair is put up and two red beads dangle on the left side of her angular face – as she bows before the Fire Sages.
She is lean and willowy like her father's family, but proud of her Water Tribe Heritage as shown in the beads she wears like her mother behind her, like the chisled chin that is Sokka's, or in the wide stance she always seems to drift to – too much like Katara's father that she can't help but smile. Kya accepts the five pointed golden Fire Lord Crown; the blood red cloak is put on to her shoulders and Katara feels a tear leek from her blue orbs.
Zuko died not more than twelve days before; Kya was raised from the age of five to become his successor. Now she stands tall, face composed if not saddened for she is taking the throne because her father is dead, and faces her people. She raises her hands and begins to speak.
Bumi stands beside his mother, fists clenched at his sides; not in anger but in pain. He misses his father dearly; and looks almost like a mirror image of him with blazing blue eyes that twinkle in merriment or burn in pain. Tenzin is beside him, draped in oranges and yellows with years old bright blue tattoos etched on to this light skin. He and Bumi look similar, both with traces of their father's in their faces but Katara's presence dominates both. The boys are close, Kya a watchful protector over them since they were both children.
Tenzin is a calming presence in the storm that her other children are feeling; he has always been the quiet and calm one of the three of them. Katara attributes it to Aang's spiritual side that gives me an inner calm that Kya and Bumi have difficulty achieving.
Katara glances at Bumi than Tenzin. He misses his own father but also Zuko who raised him for years as his own blood (and who until his deathbed claimed him, considered still his son and was left as the royal title of Prince should he ever want it) before training with Aang to learn his talents. Zuko never held animosity toward Aang or Tenzin; and neither did Aang toward the other children, or Zuko.
In fact, they lived in harmony with their lives, understanding Katara's choices even if she still didn't, after all the years of living her life.
Katara sighs, feeling sweat trickle down her back; again she is reminded of her times in the public eye, standing beside Zuko and their people. She glances at her children in turn. Her children are grown, and married (Tenzin found a woman in the Republic City Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko built not ten years earlier), Bumi is engaged to marry a Water Tribe woman, Kya has yet to find a husband (and much like her own mother, will most likely take her time and devote herself to her people and cause first before herself) and Katara feels age set into her bones.
Her love is gone and so is the Avatar not one year earlier. Her brother is fading and Suki has been gone for two years; their children are grown and leading their own respective tribes. Toph is still around but Katara knows it will not be long before she passes; her eldest daughter has just taken command of the police force at the Republic City with just as tough an attitude as her mother before her. Lives continue on, and so must she.
Soon Katara will depart for the stronghold Aang built to the next Avatar as a Waterbending Master and trainer when they are discovered. It is a training area that he – or she – will learn the four elements; Aang wanted to provide a safe environment for the next Avatar and make learning easier on his next self, not harder like it had been for him during the Great War.
He built it before his time came to an end, and he did it in the Southern Water territories as ode to a lost love.
Katara watches as Kya bows before her people, pledging them her life and honor to lead them into the future and it is not without a cracked voice that she vows to be as good as a ruler as her father before her was. The crowd erupts.
Stepping on to the cold snow, Katara feels a soft ache feel her bones. She is old, weathered and the cold seems to seep into her bones more now than she was a young child. She traded her Fire Crown for her blue beads, and red silk for soft white and blue furs. The snow calls to her, the water in the air hums against her skin in anticipation. The area before her is barren dirt, imported from the Earth Kingdom as a small girl of ten stands before her.
She is of the Southern Water Tribe. Katara told her stories when she had returned to her homeland two years after Kya took the throne in the Fire Nation. Bumi resides in the Southern Pole (to be near his mother in her old age – she knows this even if he doesn't say it. His bond with his mother is similar to his father's bond with his mother); he leads the smaller fraction of the Tribe while her nephew, Sokka's boy Nuka (a tall, pale skinned male that resembles Suki more so than her brother) is leading her old tribe. Together they help each other and help her people and she knows her father and brother would be quite proud.
The girl before her, Korra, is sturdy, and compact like people of her tribe. Her hair is dark and coarse, and the blue beads in her hair are darker and newer than the ones Katara sports. She bows in the traditional way of the Water Tribe people and her wide blue eyes are fierce. "I am ready to learn Sifu Katara."
Katara smiles; it has been a long time since she was a Sifu again. She was a daughter, a teen, a war hero and mother and partner and wife; Sifu is foreign but not unwelcomed. Images of her time in a pond with Aang by her side flood her; water dancing in the sky, a hurricane on the seas, stopping rain with her pain, and controlling bodies against their will… her smile falters.
She knows Korra deserves the best from her. She knows she must know everything in order to be a fluid and great Water Bender and eventually a great Avatar; Katara is put again into a position of duty to the newest Avatar. But there are some things she will keep to herself and not let shape the young girl in front of her.
Se could not protect Aang from the way; she could not protect him from his duties and the experiences he had to endure for the sake of world. But she hopes she can at least buffer some from the young girl in front of her.
After all, Aang had been twelve when he had been told of his path and was to begin training in the other elements. Korra is younger, but eager; and as Sifu Katara hopes to steer her well into the world as her first trainer and sponsor.
Lifting snow from the ground, melting it and refreezing it into sheer ice, she bends the ice into coating her fingers like diamonded nails. Korra's eyes turn wide with impression and awe. Thankfully she does not see fear; uncomfortably Katara remembers another old woman doing the same thing, and she cannot help the shudder that attacks her spine.
Katara is reminded again of Aang as Korra looks on determinedly; of a child not yet ready to be a man, and the ice melts into dancing balls of water. "The first thing an Avatar must learn is their place in the world, Korra. How about we start with a game of Water Ball fight?"
The young girl looks confused if not smiling. Katara smirks kindly. "But I'm here to learn. Mom and Dad said it would be hard and tough and-"
"Korra," Katara interrupts patiently. The girl stops shortly. "You are the Avatar. The Avatar before you, do you know who it was?"
"Avatar Aang," she replies quickly. The cold around them bites at their exposed flesh. "The Great Avatar that ended the Hundred Years' War."
"Yes," Katara nods. "And I trained him. He learned he was to be the Avatar long before he was supposed to be told due to the Great War's beginning. Because of this, it caused untold problems for the world; including the near extinction of his people." Her blue eyes turn soft with remorse. "When he became the Avatar and took on the responsibilities and duties of his path, he lost his childhood. He did not get to enjoy it like someone so young should."
Korra bows again, though her brow is furrowed. "Yes Sifi."
Katara changes the globe of water into soft snow. "What I am telling you Korra, is to enjoy your youthfulness. Enjoy being you, before you enjoy being the Avatar. It is the one piece of advice I wish I could have given Aang but circumstances prevented this." She tosses the snow at the young girl who jumps in fright. Within seconds her hands are up, controlling the snowball with amazement on her face. "Now, shall we play?"
The smile she receives is bright and a bit dangerous; Katara automatically likes the girl and watches as she heaves the ball back with spilt second reflexes.
AN: A couple of things:
The whole point of Katara and Aang's relationship here was more or less based off of a follower/leader type of thing – like a prophet and his followers. I almost feel like Katara was with Aang because of her caring nature, and her want to help Aang in his path; because of this Katara didn't follow her path after the war, but Aang's. Hence why she "loves" him but isn't in love with him and why she feels a duty to him.
I used a few bits from the cartoon here – like why Kya and Bumi have such higher energy levels like Katara comments to Tenzin's wife is because they have Sokka and Azula's genes in them; Tenzin has just Aang and Katara. Just a little bit of play to fit my Zuko/ Katara angle.
And why didn't I put any real thought behind Zuko? Trust me I could. But it was hard writing something that had infidelity so intricate to this plot, and have Katara in my head; add in Zuko and it'd never get written. I wanted to show a Zuko/ Katara angle without overdoing the emotional side. I wanted to show a backstory, not dissect their relationship.
Phew. How was it? Leave a line or two.
Peace
