The Jasmine Dragon
15 Upper Bing Street
13 years ago
Suki carried clenched fists at her side, a frown on her face as she made her was across the small yard in the back of the tea shop. She was flanked by Zuko, his short hair ruffling in the wind, the scar tissue on the side of his face fresh and new.
"You don't have to do this." He coaxed his friend, a frown on his face. "You know you can just walk away."
"I can." She groaned, her face red under her wild auburn hair, "But I won't." She found her target exactly where she thought she would be. She reached out and shoved Azula as hard as she could, the raven haired 12-year-old stumbling forward to keep her balance.
"IF YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY, JUST FUCKING SAY IT!" Suki yelled, her cloudy violet eyes taking on a defiant, angry light.
Azula turned around to face her, thin lips pressed into a line, her own eyes looking like they were on fire. "I have nothing to say to a peasant like you." She spoke in a voice that was way calmer than it should have been, but calmer than Suki was.
"Peasant? PEASANT?!"
"Do you need me to spell it out for you? I doubt your stupid dyslexic brain would be able to understand even if I did."
Zuko had placed himself between them, trying to remember what they were even arguing about, what had started it. He was actually drawing a blank. "No one likes you Azula! Not even your own brother can stand to be around you!" Suki exclaimed.
"You think people want to be around you? Even your mother must be disgusted when she sees your horrid face... she probably can't believe she gave birth to something like that. Got it from your daddy, perhaps?"
"Shut up! You don't even know my parents!"
"Nor do I want to! I don't wanna know your shack living parents, who I can assume dress in rags and eat garbage just like you do! Stupid trailer trash!"
"FUCK YOU!"
She lunged at the girl, Zuko doing his very best to hold the red-head back. Zuko knew that Azula hadn't been in the right when she said that, that she had no right to judge his friend. At the same time Zuko could not help but be a little disappointed in Suki. It wasn't like her to act like this.
"Way to use your extensive language skills, you ugly cow!"
"Azula!"
Everyone froze, looking back over the way that Suki and Zuko had just come from. Lu Ten was standing there, his hands on his hips as she looked at them.
"You know better than to talk to people like that!" He yelled, "What gives you the right to say those things to her?"
"She-"
"I don't care."
Suki's full lips curled up into a smirk.
"You too, Suki!" Lu Ten snapped, "You shouldn't push people."
"She started it!"
"It doesn't matter, you should be a bigger person than to resort to violence. Now go inside, both of you."
Azula and Suki exchanged sharp glared before they marched back into the tea shop, one after the other.
"Ugh, girls are crazy." Zuko mumbled, watching them walk inside. He was worried they were gonna try and kill one another once they were inside, or something.
"It's not that they're crazy… they're just…"
"Just what?"
Lu Ten sighed a bit, "You have to be aware that at any point in time your brain is firing on about 4 levels. Their brain… about 30." Zuko raised an eyebrow. LuTen felt his confusion and thought for a moment, trying to find the right words to explain what he was talking about. "There is so much more going on in their brain than yours, than mine even. So they seem crazy to you, but they are really just confused in their own heads."
Zuko thought about it for a moment before nodding slowly, "I'll keep that in mind."
The Jasmine Dragon
15 Upper Bing Street
Present Day
They stood side by side in the small yard in the back of the tea shop, Suki's barefoot digging into the grass.
"It's been a few weeks since I've been outside."
"Just a few weeks?"
Suki looked at her out of the corner of narrowed eyes, arms crossing over her chest.
"I'm not accusing you of anything, just standing a fact." Azula insisted, looking at the alley the yard faced, "There is no reason to lie about anything Suki, you know that."
"Other than the fact that you're gonna pull the 'You need help' card on my again."
"I only pull it because I love you."
"Love me?" She laughed plopping herself down on the grass at her feet. "Like you would love me, of all people."
"I do." Azula sat down on the grass across from her with a soft frown, "I love you Suki. You were the maid of honor at my wedding, you're the woman who's gonna marry my stupid brother, and you make him happy." Azula reached out and took Suki's hand into hers, "And I'm worried about you."
Suki was actually a bit surprised to hear Azula say it. She wasn't the kind of person who easily dispenses words of comfort like this. So for her to say it, it must have been real. Suki actually felt more disappointed in herself after hearing that, "I don't know what to tell you." Suki sighed, looking at where their hands were connected. "I am trying."
"I know you are." Azula sighed, "But at a certain time you have to know that you're in over your head."
"I know I am."
"Then you need to do something about it." Azula maneuvered herself so that she was sitting next to Suki, holding her hand tight. "Do you remember the fight we had out here?"
Suki giggled to herself, motioning to a rock that was in the small yard, one that had always been there and that was about the size of an adult skull. "I thought about picking that up and killing you with it."
"Ooooh." Azula laughed, "That would have been good material for a TV movie."
Suki rolled her eyes, looking at her would be sister-in-law with a soft grin, "I think it would make a better TV show." Suki leaned in and pressed her lips to Azula's cheek before laying her head on her shoulder, allowing herself to relax against her for once.
"I'm not interrupting am I?"
They both turned around eyes locking on the the old, stout tea maker. He had a tray in his hands, a soft smile on his face.
"I had a feeling tea might help."
"Tea always helps." Azula insisted with a soft shrug.
Iroh placed the tray he had been carrying on the ground with them, his lips curling into a smile as he poured tea from the pot into the three mugs on the tray. "It must feel nice to be outside again, Suki."
She nodded as she took the tea, sipping on it graciously, "It does. I will have to do it more." She paused for a second, sitting her tea on the tray while Azula drank hers, "Iroh, do you think I'm crazy?"
"No." He answered quickly, a soft smile on his face. "I don't think you're crazy Suki, simply lost right now."
Azula nodded from next to him, "We just want you found, for your sake, and everyone else's."
Suki smiled a bit, her auburn hair wild around her head as the wind blew it. She liked the sound of being found, of not being so lost in her own head that she wasn't sure which way was up anymore. She longed for that feeling again, the feeling of being free in her own life.
"Being found would be nice."
Lu Ten Kasai and Kenton LaMarche
268 South Haverhill
He was actually having a hard time believing what he was being told right now. It could have been that she didn't want to believe it or that it was simply too odd.
"After all these years." Zuko mumbled, swirling the wine in his glass. "She just… shows up."
"And tries to get to third base with her son-in-law at that."
Zuko laughed a bit, rolling his eyes. "Do you ever get tired of the gay gynecologist jokes?"
Lu Ten thought about it for a moment, looking into his own wine glass with a serious expression on his face, "You know I do but I still make them every chance I get." They both laughed, drowning out the sound of the show that Lily was watching in front of them. She turned around to face them, holding a finger up to her lips in a hard 'shush'.
"Ok, ok. Sorry."
She went back to her show, a smile on her face.
"Note to self: Do not interrupt Dora and her Explorin'."
"She's crazy about the show. If we talk during it or say anything at all she will get really indignant about it."
Even now Lily looked so entranced, so fascinated by what she was watching that she was likely unaware that Zuko and her father were even in the room.
"Thanks for letting me crash here." The younger of the cousins said after taking a drink of his wine. "I had outstayed my welcome with Toph."
"You were there for one night."
"Which is still too long to be around her." He joked, "Besides, I kinda like your nice guest bed rather than her sofa."
"Who says you get to sleep in the guest bed?"
"Well where else are you gonna stick me?"
"Well there are plenty of lounge chairs out by the pool." Zuko sighed, drinking the rest of his wine in one gulp. "We're actually gonna put in a pool house."
"A pool house?"
"Yeah. Part of it will be a storage thing, then the rest will be kinda like a guest house. Nice bathroom, little kitchen."
Zuko's ears perked in curiosity, "Is there a specific reason that you want this? Or just for?"
"Well… We've been thinking about dad, about him getting older, ya' know? He'll need a place to stay."
The thought of Iroh living in the aforementioned shop make him chuckle, shaking his head a bit, "You really think he's gonna give up the tea shop? Move away into your backyard?"
"Well it's not gonna happen right now, but in the next decade or so we might not have a choice." Lu Ten set his class on the table, looking over at his cousin, "He's always been really independent but he may not be able to stay that way one day."
"Well…" Zuko looked down at the little girl sitting in front of them, noting the way that she was hugging her small dollie close to her chest, "Just don't expect me to be around when you break the news to him."
"Oh you will be." He warned, "Hell you might even end up running the tea shop."
"Because that's exactly what I wanna do with my life." Zuko laughed.
Lu Ten sat his glass down, looking at Zuko with a serious face. "Have you noticed he's put on some weight?"
Zuko shrugged, "It's to be expected. We stopped ordering our cookies and cakes from that mail-order place and went with this new bakery that opened down the road. It's a bit more expensive but the stuff is damn good. I think he's been eating too much of it."
Lu Ten scratched his chin, eyes shifting from side to side, "Yes… cakes."
Aang and Katara Avary
29047 North Madison
Not even the bathroom wasn't safe with a two year old in the house. Katara had to lock the door behind her, leaving Kya screaming on the other side of the wood. She never stopped, even when Katara had clearly had enough. It was a bit daft to expect such a little girl to understand her mother's needs, but still. Even now, with her pants around her ankles, a white pregnacy test in her hands she was simply trying to get a moment.
She had been taking pregnancy tests regularly the past few months, once a week even if it was needed. They'd been trying for months now, hoping that they would add another terror, mood killer and soul sucker to their little lives.
"Why am I doing this to myself?" She mumbled to herself, watching the secondary red line as it materialized in the small window on the strip. "I'm a fucking idiot." She sighed with a smile before tossing it in the garbage.
Aang came home from dinner at his normal time, and was greeted with the news. He hugged his wife with a smile, lifting her up into the air in a tight embrace. Kya was running and jumping around her parents, not really sure what was going on, but just being happy to be part of the situation.
"You're gonna be a big sister." Aang told her, lifting her up in a similar fashion that he just had her mother. "How does that sound?"
Kya shrugged, "Ok, I guess."
