If you look at it, this could be a continuance from my earlier oneshot, Home. It'd be awesome if you read it, but it's certainly not needed to understand this oneshot.
I began to write this before the events of episode ten occurred, so I guess this could have happened some time before that. Just to give a time frame. C:
It hasn't been edited or proof-read by anyone, so please excuse any mistakes there might be.
But I hope you like it and please leave a review! Thanks for reading. -VictorianBombshell
The warm, stagnant breeze of summer cascaded through the open windows of the Air Temple.
The inhabitant's bellies were full from the feast they had at dinner – fruits, vegetables, and an array of tofu and rice dishes specially made by Pema. Mountainous amounts of food had piled the table in order to feed all ten inhabitants of the temple. Well, eleven, if the unborn baby in Pema's abdomen was to be counted.
It was one of the first home dinners that the bending brothers had eaten since the disappearance of their parents, and they wholeheartedly welcomed the hospitality and the familiarity of it. Although the meal was absent of meat, a delicacy and rarity to the boys, it was one of the best things that they had ever tasted.
After filling their stomachs to the brim with food, everyone had become sluggish and sleepy and, one by one, retired to their respective bed chambers for the night.
Hours ticked by, each second accounted for by the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the dining room.
And for once, almost each one of the temple's inhabitants was sleeping soundly.
Except Meelo, that is.
Instead of being squished in between his parents while visiting dream land, he had chosen to sleep in his own bed this time. Pema had spoken to him while tucking him in only to discover that he had wanted to appear tougher to the elder teens who now resided in his domain with him.
With a smile, his mother planted a kiss on his forehead and switched off the lights of his small bedroom.
Like usual, the rambunctious five-year-old had fallen asleep immediately once his head hit the pillow, but instead of the sweet, cloud-filled dreams he usually had, monsters and robbers invaded his subconscious.
Meelo fitfully slept, arms flailing and legs kicking in order to evade the beasts. But they just wouldn't leave him alone.
Just as one of the thieves from his father's historical stories was about to hurt him and his family, he woke up with a start and began to scream and cry.
Everyone in the house slightly stirred but knew that Pema would soon resolve the problem, so they chose to fall back asleep into peaceful slumber.
Of course, this left the little boy's mother to wake up and console him in the middle of the night. Pema didn't mind though. If anyone needed help, she would certainly step out of her way to provide it.
The floor creaked as Pema wobbled down the hallway, the baby in her belly adding an extra few pounds to her limber frame. Through his cries, Meelo heard his mother advancing down the wooden floors of the corridor and ever so slightly reduced the volume of his wails.
When she finally rounded the corner and looked into her son's room, the young boy's state momentarily shocked her. Meelo was often so rambunctious and full of cheerfulness that it was peculiar to ever see him wear a frown. Crying was out of the question for Meelo.
And what's worse is that she could hear his cries, which caused her to feel upset, but seeing him actually cry triggered her to feel terrible. And caused maternal instincts to run on overdrive.
"It's okay, sweetie. I'm here now," Pema soothed as she trotted further into the spacious room.
She leaned down to kiss his forehead in reassurance.
"No, Mommy, I want Bolin," Meelo answered, refusing his mother's kiss by pushing her face away with his tiny hands.
Shocked and a little hurt at her son's actions, Pema responded, "O-okay. He might be sleeping, though."
"Can you wake him up, Mommy?" the tiny airbender pleaded. Fresh tears were still streaming down his face and, on occasion, a hiccup escaped his lips.
How could she say no to him now?
Pema sighed in defeat. "Alright, sweetheart," she consoled as she walked out the door towards Bolin's quarters. "I'll get him for you."
A few doors down, she stopped in front of what she remembered to be Bolin's room. She felt guilty about waking him at this late hour, but her son needed him. For which reason why, she did not know. But she knew that he needed the elder boy.
Pema winced as her two knocks reverberated off of the wooden door and decided to travel all about the house.
She could hear crashing and tumbling in the room, as if the inhabitant had somehow fallen out of bed and dragged a lamp off the nightstand with him. Pema forced herself not to exhibit even a ghost of a smile.
A few seconds later, Bolin slowly opened the door.
But when the mother saw the boy's disordered hair from tossing and turning while he slept, the ghost of a smile that she was trying so hard to fight off won over and placed itself on her lips.
Upon seeing that the individual who had knocked on his door was Pema, he politely asked, "Can I help you, ma'am?"
Pema nodded. "I'm sorry to have to wake you up at this late hour, but Meelo woke up crying and won't fall back asleep."
Bolin's eyebrows furrowed in sympathy. "Oh, I'm sorry. Well, is there anything I can do?"
"That's the funny thing," answered Pema. "When I went to console him, he pushed me away. Instead, he asked for you."
Instead of slanting downwards, his eyebrows now quickly shifted into an arch of surprise.
"Me? Well, I'm honored, but why would he choose me?" Bolin wondered aloud.
Pema shook her head in wonder.
"You've been spending a lot of time with the kids, right?" Pema asked. When Bolin nodded, she went on to say, "He's probably becoming attached to you. He tends to get rather… clingy."
Bolin chuckled and nodded in agreement. He had seen how Meelo fastened himself to his father's head and paraded around on his shoulders for the majority of the day.
"Okay," Bolin told the frazzled mother. "I'll help. Don't worry."
Pema let out a breath that she hadn't been aware that she had been holding.
"Thank you so much, Bolin. I don't know how we managed here before without you," Pema told him in a sigh of relief.
She led him down the darkened corridor towards Meelo's room, both of them noting the sniffs and hiccups that seemed to echo from his doorway. Pema decided to remain put and stood in the hallway out of mere maternal curiosity and feeling.
When Bolin finally walked into the five-year-old's quarters, Meelo's face visibly brightened through the haze of drying tears and snot.
"Bolin!" he exclaimed.
Bolin had to chuckle at the child's sudden change of mood.
"Hey there, buddy," the teen grinned as he ruffled Meelo's almost non-existent hair.
Meelo wiped his nose and eyes on the sleeves of his pajamas before letting out a content, "Hi."
The earthbender sat himself upon the corner of the boy's bed. "So I heard you can't sleep?" he asked in curiosity. Meelo nodded his head.
Bolin inquired, "Why is it that you can't sleep, little man?"
"I had a nightmare," the little boy explained, adverting his grey eyes to focus upon the much more interesting patterns of his blanket. "People from daddy's stories tried to rob the house."
Bolin racked his brain for something to say to the boy until he found a method that his big brother had used to console him with when he would wake up from a rather frightening nightmare.
"Don't worry; that won't happen. Your dad's too tough for those thieves. He'd scare them so bad, they'd go running!" Bolin retorted, making sure to wear a reassuring smile and use many gestures to take the boy's mind off the nightmare.
Meelo looked up at the older teen with a hopeful glimmer in his eyes. "You really think so?" he asked.
Bolin shook his head swiftly. "Oh, no. I know so. Your dad is Avatar Aang's son. And you're his grandson. Nobody will even think of stepping foot on this island if they aren't a friend or don't have good intentions. And your family is here to protect you. Plus Avatar Korra is here. And me. And Mako. And Asami. We're all right here really close to you, so if anything ever happens – which is highly unlikely – those crooks won't know what hit 'em."
Meelo giggled and chose to wear a large grin. He felt safe now. Well, safer.
He felt safe while he was awake now, but while he was asleep? The little airbender still feared the images being cast upon his closed eyelids.
Why would he go to sleep if nightmares would be what greeted him?
"I still don't want to go to bed," he reasoned, crossing his arms.
"Hmm. How about I tell you a bedtime story? Would you go to sleep then?" Bolin asked. He didn't know what exactly what answer to expect, but it was worth a try.
Meelo allowed the idea to revolve around in his brain for a while and contemplated it. "Depends on the story," he finally told Bolin, pursing his lips in thought.
The earthbender chuckled. "Well, you'll like it. I swear," he promised, placing a palm over his heart.
"Will I like it?" a girl's shrill voice asked from the hallway. A frustrated groan was heard from a hiding Jinora.
Ikki paraded into the room, her older sister only a few steps behind.
Noting the confused looks on the boy's visages, Jinora chose to explain, "Meelo woke us up."
At this, the boy stuck his tongue out at his two sisters.
She continued, rambling because she was obviously embarrassed, "But we couldn't fall back asleep, so we decided to try to listen in order to see if you were going to tell him a bedtime story or sing a lullaby or at least something, so maybe we'd have an easier time going back to sleep. "
"Well," Bolin responded, "you came at the perfect time. We were just about to start the story."
Much to Meelo's dismay, his sister Ikki took a running start and flopped herself on her brother's bed. Jinora chose to sit in between her younger siblings in order to intently listen to whatever tale would be concocted by the earthbender.
Bolin, feeling overcrowded now as he was nearly toppling off the side of the bed, instead opted to take a cozy orange chair from the corner of the room and brought it up to the side of the bed.
A look of eagerness shone on all of the children's faces, awaiting the tale.
Both Ikki and Jinora's faces lit up as they asked him, "Can it have romance in it?"
"No," Meelo counteracted stubbornly. "It's gotta have a lot of kicking and stuff."
"How about it has both? Is that okay?" he asked them. They nodded as he thought of a story.
The only one that would present itself at first thought was that time when he had taken Korra out for a date and then later found his brother kissing her. Their match, because of this confusion, suffered. Obviously, the three of them were now best friends just like before, but at the time he had wondered if that would ever be possible again.
Bolin decided to run with his idea and tell them the story anyway. A story was a story, and at this late at night, he was going to take whatever he could get. But of course, he would substitute the names of himself and his friends so Jinora and Ikki didn't have a field day later on and cause any ruckus in the household.
So the earthbender began his story. It wasn't too long, but he made sure to keep it interesting by using gestures and sometimes asking the kids questions.
Although he slipped up a few times, referring to his character as 'I', the kids didn't seem to notice or just didn't care and sat listening, their attention undivided.
When Bolin finally finished the story by assuring them that, in no time, the three of them were best friends again and won many probending matches after that, all three of the children were satisfied.
He could see that sleep was tugging at their eyelids, but they didn't want to go to bed just yet. They were waiting for just one more thing.
"Can you sing us a lullaby?" Meelo asked, pleading with his eyes.
The teen's brows burrowed in thought.
Bolin was just about to despondently tell the children that he knew of no lullabies, until his mind raced upon a distant memory.
That lullaby.
The lullaby that his mother used to sing to him on nights like these. Nights when he would wake up with a nightmare and couldn't sleep. Nights when a story and a song were the only things in the world that would coax him to sleep.
Granted, he couldn't sing as well as his brother Mako could. As a toddler, he could remember drifting off to sleep only to hear Mako's voice intermingling with his mother's – a mellifluous sound.
But tonight, as he would be singing the sacred lullaby for the first time since his parent's passing, he'd make sure to get it right.
Bolin warned the children with a chuckle, "Now, I'm not nearly as good as Mako. So I might sound like a screeching hog-monkey."
"We don't mind," the children reassured him sleepily. He couldn't be worse than their father, who had only tried to sing once to each child and have given up all three times. From then on, he gave his wife the job of singing the lullabies that would lull their child into a deep sleep.
A few moments passed as he struggled to remember the lyrics that, just a few nights prior, he had spent a large remainder of a sleepless night trying to recall. He had most of them memorized now, but some of the lyrics in his memories were still a little fuzzy sounding.
Clearing his throat, Bolin began his mother's lullaby.
Despite not using his singing voice for almost ten years, Bolin's singing voice sounded similar to his brother's. Still, not as good, as his singing voice was shaky from inexperience, but it didn't sound horrible like he had expected it to.
"Leaves from the vine, falling so slow," he began, recalling and instantaneously remembering the tune and buried lyrics. "Like fragile, tiny shells drifting in the foam."
And as Bolin's voice resonated from his chest and filled the room, the airbender children's eyes began to slowly droop.
"Little soldier boy," Bolin softly sang, "come marching home."
He remembered Mako, sometimes his father, even, conjoining their voices together with his mother's in a sweet cradlesong. Bolin remembered his father, so strong and comforting, with a voice that matched. He had always thought it was funny when his daddy had sung about soldiers with his mommy, because in the little boy's eyes, he was one.
Almost choking from emotion, he let the last few words of the song escape his lips, "Brave soldier boy… comes marching home."
Looking up with those green eyes, he could see that the children had all fallen asleep once again, but this time they were all stacked on Meelo's bed.
Bolin could feel his eyelids drooping. A lack of sleep over the past week hadn't done him any good. He wanted to get up and meander back to his room, but his legs wouldn't dare to move. He guessed that the chair was a fine replacement for a bed, anyway.
With a small smile, he gazed up towards the heavens.
"Good night, Mom," Bolin whispered before letting long-overdue sleep consume him.
As small snores came from the sleeping inhabitants of the room, Pema smiled in the hallway.
Walking into the room, a very pregnant Pema grabbed a few blankets thrown about her son's room and draped them around the snoring children and teen.
Taking note to ask Bolin the lyrics to that song the following morning, she blew out the light of the candles, leaving only the soft glow of the moon to shine on the sleeper's faces.
As usual, Pema awoke early in the morning with her husband for breakfast. When she ambled into the kitchen, a very tired Korra greeted her with a muttered hello.
The Avatar finished her breakfast as Pema scrambled into the kitchen to prepare a morning meal for the rest of her family and the Air Temple's newest inhabitants.
"So, why are you up so early?" the mother asked in curiosity. Korra shrugged.
"Tenzin wanted me to begin training at dawn for some reason. I think he said it was to 'feel more in tune with the earth and its spirituality'. But I'm guessing it's to beat morning rush hour around here," the girl said with a chuckle over her reference to the shenanigans that the children often got into during the morning hours. Well, any hour, really.
Pema sighed in understanding. "Never seems like you get a break, does it?"
Korra shook her head no vigorously.
"But," the air acolyte interjected. "I did get a break from the kids last night."
The Avatar's eyes furrowed in disbelief. "How did that happen?" she asked incredulously.
Pema's eyes lit up as she explained, "You'd never believe it, but Bolin helped put the kids to bed last night after Meelo had a nightmare. He told a story, sang a lullaby and everything. The whole nine yards."
"He's getting into the grove of things around here, isn't he?" Korra asked.
"Well, he's become one of the family," Pema replied.
Korra beamed. Bolin was finally getting what he wanted all those years.
A family.