Hey! Look what I learned to do!
Aang glides over the snow, aiming for the iron ship held out of the ocean by a spiky wave of ice. At the foot of the slope, five young women stand facing a single older woman, all of them dressed in shades of blue. They move slowly through a kata, their concentration on their form. Aang pulls up and lands a few meters from the leader. Twitching his glider, it collapses into a staff and he takes a deep breath.
"Hey, Ka-TAR-"
Katara opens one eye, glaring at Aang and motions him to silence with a severe chop of her wrist.
"-a" Aang finishes weakly. He pulls himself up short, bowing to Katara before sitting down in a meditation position. He frowns for a moment before releasing the emotion and clearing his mind, settling in to wait for Katara's lesson to be done.
Katara closes her eye and continues with the lesson. Slowly and deliberately, she leads her young students through the form. They end the form and Katara smiles at her class.
"Well done, students. Now, form a circle and practice passing this water around. Remember to feel the water as much as you watch the water and let it flow - flow is very important."
Katara gently moves her hands in two small circles, drawing up a chunk of ice and snow that melts quickly into a globe of water. She begins the flowing motion, moving the water around herself as her students form a loose circle then passes the water to her first student.
The student catches the water with a wobble, then regaining her composure, begins the exercise by moving the water around herself once before passing it to the next student. The exercise under way, Katara walks over to Aang who pops an eye open at her approach, then bows to him as he had to her before.
"Greetings, Avatar. What brings you to class? Feeling rusty?"
Aang stands, returning the bow and adopting a haughty expression that doesn't fool his past teacher.
"Not at all, Sifu Katara. I simply came to observe, in case you needed some pointers with your form."
Katara and Aang stare at each other for three beats, before they both crack smiles. Katara takes the last steps towards Aang and he pulls her into a warm embrace. He tilts her head back slightly, enjoying her beauty for a moment, before bending down to place a short, gentle kiss on her lips.
Katara steps back, her hands reaching up slightly to rest on Aang's shoulders as she passes her gaze over him and grins.
"It's been too long, Aang - let me look at you. You've grown quite a bit in the last couple of years. I missed you."
Aang grins, enjoying the attention.
"I shot up 3 feet in the second year after the war - I even had to visit Teo's Dad so he could adjust the glider." Aang flicks his glider open to demonstrate, then flicks it closed again. "And I got new clothes..." Aang steps back and spins, showing off his new outfit. "And-" Aang steps forward and embraces Katara again. "-I missed you, too. A lot."
Aang lays his head on Katara's shoulder for a moment, his eyes tearing up. Then he claps Katara on the back and steps away, turning around while surreptitiously running his sleeve across his eyes. He places his hands on his hips and makes a show of inspecting the horizon.
"I'm only here for a couple weeks - for when the Fire Nation army gets here for training. Then I have to return to the Fire Nation myself to help rebuild Roku's temple. After that I have to go back to the New Central Air Temple to continue training the new recruits."
Katara steps forward and lays a hand on Aang's shoulder to comfort him. "I hope you find some students who can Airbend, Aang."
Aang nods, still not looking back, but places a hand on Katara's. "Me too, Katara - Me too."
Zuko sits heavily in an over sized, over-upholstered chair, still massaging the bridge of his nose. He sighs heavily, and Mai gently bats his hand away from his nose.
"Stop. You'll rub it off - and we can't have a Fire Lord without a nose."
Zuko grins, catching Mai's hand in his and bringing it gently to his lips. Mai grins back as she turns to walk into an adjoining room.
"I'm going to help Ty Lee in the kitchen. You had better have a nose when I get back. How did the meeting go?"
Zuko sighs again. "As well as can be expected. No one is happy with the post-war arraignments - even eight years later, we still don't have enough arable land to support ourselves, so our peasantry are still indentured to the Earth Kingdom - raising food in the land we took over to split between giving away to the locals and sending back home for our own use."
"Our soldiers are employed working to tear down the factories and reclaim what we can - but 100 years of industrialisation funded by war-based income and supported by captured land has left scars that will be a long time in healing. And while a majority of our 'troops' have gladly turned their swords into ploughshares, there are groups building in strength that want to return to an 'easier life'.
"Our generals tell me that moving them around has helped keep them from inciting things overly much - but they also tell me its going to start getting worse. They complain that our coffers are emptying out at an alarming rate and warn that the reparations will bankrupt our nation, and no soldier will want to do anything if they cannot be paid.
"Now, on top of all of this - I'm getting reports of attacks on villages and travellers in the Earth Kingdom territory that used to be captured Fire Nation. It's looking like random banditry - but some of the attacks as described have had an almost military precision to them. The Earth Kingdom is blaming Fire Nation deserters - they're not saying anything, of course, but that's what they mean behind all the- what did Sokka call it? Politicianese?
"Anyway, they're blaming us but we brought all our military home - unless groups of soldiers reported in dead when it came time to muster. I can't see our peasants, who were horrified once Dear Old Dad's propaganda machine turned off, turning to crime - especially against themselves. The Fire Nation people have always been honorable - even when that honor was hijacked for a century by madmen.
Mai walks back into the room with a glass in her hand. The glass contains a brown liquid and condensation collects on it. She hands the glass to Zuko, who is surprised by it's cold temperature then lays a hand comfortingly on his shoulder.
"We'll make it through this, Zuko. This is a treat Ty Lee brought back with her when she split from the Kyoshi Warriors in the Southern Sea. Sokka came to meet Suki and Katara came with him and wanted Ty Lee to bring it back for you. She froze a block of ice around a barrel of the drink and Ty Lee just cracked the seal. What do you think?
Zuko sipped cautiously from the glass, tasting the drink. He found the initial flavor quite sour, but the taste mellowed as he held it in his mouth to a light sweetness. Zuko pursed his lips in surprise, then took another sip.
"It's not bad - what is it?"
"It's Iced Sea Plum Tea"
Zuko grinned. "Iced Tea, eh? Don't tell my uncle about it - I don't even want to think about the consequences." Zuko took a long swig. "Although, I must say that the temperature is quite refreshing - what do you think of it?"
"Ty Lee said she wanted you to try it first - now that you're not dead, she and I will try some too."
"Glad to see you care, Mai." Zuko winked, draining his glass. "Bring me another while you're in there?" Mai reached for his glass but Zuko captured her hand and placed a kiss on it before releasing it so she could continue.
"A girl has to have her priorities, doesn't she, Zuko?" Mai cracked as much of a smile as she ever does and Zuko grins after her as she walks to get refills, his worries forgotten - if only for the moment.
Toph walked along the rough, narrow path carved into the mountainside. She hold a stick in on hand, resting on her shoulder with a bag tied to the far end containing he few possessions. She stops, stomping her foot and a small cascade of pebbles falls down from the bottom of the portion of the path she is standing on.
Toph frowns and raises her right hand slowly. She bends rock from below the path to shore up a weak point she has detected. Grinning, satisfied with her work, she continues whistling a tuneless, happy song. She rounds a bed, following the contour of the mountain and continues walking.
Across a chasm, a mountain stands nearly separated from the range save for a winding path that climbs through the mist surrounding the base. The top half is carved into 5 turrets, the widest and tallest in the center, with four smaller ones arrayed around it in the cardinal directions. It's lower surface is rougher and covered in scaffolding, while small specks scurry across it's face, working to pull form from rock.
As Toph approaches the proto-temple, the specks working on the temple wave and yell greeting to her. She waves in the general direction she hears greeting from and pauses in the doorway. Taking a deep breath, she grins. "Home at last."
She waves for attention and only wait a few moments before she feels someone approach. "How have you been, Toph? Did you get the bandits?"
Toph's smile fades a little, worried. "Some of them, yeah. But they weren't the leaders. Their fighting was familiar, though I couldn't place where I'd fought them before." She shakes her head, throwing off the puzzle for later thought. "Anyways, where's Old Boney at?"
Toph feels the worker's discomfort at her use of the pet name which only serves to increase her pleasant buzz. "Guru Pathik is meditating in the courtyard, Toph. He's been expecting you back."
Toph nods. "That's Old Boney for ya. You'll need to send some people out to work on the road. I cleared a few rock-slides, no problem, but there were a couple spots where the support was getting pretty crumbly. I shored up what I could and left markers." Toph feels the worker nod and he scurries off to see to Toph's instructions. Toph adjusts her bindle and sets off to find Pathik.
She walks through the as yet unadorned compound, consisting so far of just the shelters needed to house and support the workers while the temple is built. What her feet show her, however, makes her smile. The plan that Aang worked out is slowly taking root inside the rock of the mountain, partly thanks to her efforts and partly to the efforts of the small community that sprung up around Aang after the war.
