"You know," Pema said looking down at the water, "I don't think I've appreciated how great this koi pond bridge is."
Tenzin, his wife, and Su had taken to standing on the bridge, sipping their sobriety-reducing lubricant of choice.
Su took another sip of wine. "Yeah. I started coming here to avoid awkward situations earlier, but after like the third time I'm amazed at the design of it all."
Tenzin grunted in response, eyeing the koi fish warily. Su laughed at the verbal outburst.
"Oh right, I forgot. You've got that…" Su waved her free hand in the air noncommitedly, "thing with fish."
Pema's head snapped up. "You've got a thing about fish?" she asked, glancing between Tenzin and Suyin confused.
The metalbender's eyes brightened. "Oh-ho-ho, Ten, you haven't told her?"
Tenzin turned a delicate shade of red. "It's a time of my life I'd rather not remember. I'm surprised you remember, to be honest."
A smirk. "We're not all lightweights like you, twinkletoes," Su shot back lightheartedly.
Pema laughed in response. "Lightweight? You do a lot of drinking in college, Tenzin?" she teased.
If Su's eyes could get any brighter, people might have mistaken her as a Firebender. "You're a secretive one aren't you, Mr. Tenzin?" she chuckled and reached into her clutch.
"What do you mea-" the Air Acolyte sputtered, looking at what the Beifong had pulled out. A clear plastic bag, filled with what clearly wasn't oregano. She looked sharply at Tenzin.
He was quickly looking back down at the koi fish, very eager to avert the gaze of his wife.
"Is that? DId you? When did? How could?" The start of a million questions entered her head.
Suyin put the bag back into her clutch. "You can't be that surprised." She started counting off on her fingers. "He's a pacifist. He's vegetarian. He's got full-body tattoos. He meditates… by choice. He's a politician. And his father is probably the most famous person to ever person." Su grinned. "Of course he smokes."
"Used to smoke," corrected Tenzin, eyes still on the large fish circling the pond.
"Pssh, yeah you used to smoke. You still do, but you used to, too."
Pema was still sorting through the questions that popped into her head upon appearance of The Baggie. It may or may not have been a mental malfunction when she voiced the most prominent one in her mind.
"Was that OG Kush?" Pema asked. Su's grin increased to near-demonic levels. She opened her mouth to answer but was suddenly interrupted.
"Smokey Tokey Boom Boom, man," Tenzin clarified. He was finally looking everyone in the eye, the drink in his hand empty. "I didn't know you still grew."
"Please, Ten," Su said slyly, walking off the bridge. "I'm the matriarch of my own city. Of course I still grow." She stopped about five yards away. "You lovebirds gonna join me outside or what?"
Tenzin sighed, and followed along. Pema, slightly dumbstruck at the idea of getting high with her husband watched the two walking towards the backyard for several seconds before letting out a "Hey, wait for me!"
"Well, that was weird," Su breathed out, a smattering of smoke expelled from her lungs.
"They were just sitting there," Pema agreed. She reached for the joint with her free hand. The other was holding a glass bottle of cider from behind the bar. "Those twins seem like the most awkward people in the world." The woman took a drag of the joint and coughed immediately. She looked at the rolled paper with wonder. "Holy shit, that is STRONG."
"Hey Ten, do something about that, will ya?" Su said, a lazy grin forming on her face.
Tenzin closed his eyes and took a breath. With a few subtle hand movements, the air cooled and became a lot more silent.
"What did you-" Pema took another hit, "do?" She blew out smoke, and watched as the smoke hit some sort of barrier.
Su giggled like a schoolgirl. "Ol' boy Tenzin here was a bonafide portable hotbox back in the day," she explained. Tenzin's eyes remained closed, and a grin crept onto his face as well. "You weren't blazin' unless you were with Tenzin. Also, puff puff pass, girly."
"That didn't rhyme thirty years ago, and it doesn't rhyme now," the airbender said calmly, eyes slowly opening. Then he snorted, which grew into an uncharacteristic giggle as he took the joint. "It's true though."
"So tell me about this irrational fear of koi fish," Pema said, breathing in a lungful of "air". "Hehe, koi fish. Are koi fish coy?"
"Not the ones that our favorite monk here experienced while on vacation once," Su elaborated, glancing over at Tenzin taking a deep hit. "He was on break from working on his master's degree with his siblings, me and Lin when it happened."
Pema squinted out of skepticism and the increased difficulty of seeing the Beifong through the smokey air dome. "So Lin knows about this?"
Tenzin hacked a cough, his face turning red. "No," he coughed, "and she never will."
"Yeah, word gets back to her we'll have to kill you," Su noted in a low, menacing voice. The benders looked down at Pema with intense glares, before breaking out into uninhibited laughter.
"Daaamn," Tenzin said, a freeflowing and carefree tone in his voice. "We got you gooood, hun."
"But seriously, don't tell Lin," Su choked out between chortles.
"Koi fish," Pema reminded the two.
"Right," Tenzin said. "Vacation at Kyoshi Island. Lin was a detective at the time and had to do some paperwork or some shit one day-"
"So we snuck out and burned a few one night," Su continued, ashing the joint she received from Tenzin.
"Stayed up all night," the monk said, picking up the thread of the story from his childhood friend. "Bumi serenaded us with his acoustic guitar. We drank a lot."
"Had to if we wanted to get through his fifteenth performance of Hotel California," Su snorted.
"On a dank dessert Aiwei, Cool Whip in the air," Tenzin crooned in a respectable impression of his brother. Su snorted again and took a drag.
"That sounds horrible," chuckled Pema.
"It really wasn't that bad," Suyin replied. "Just not as great after repeated listens."
"We were relaxing on the beach as the sun came up," Tenzin continued, eyes glazed over in remembrance (okay, in being extremely high). "The elephant koi had come into the shallow water of the bay, and I figured I should ride one."
"His exact words," Su corrected, "were 'Check this, motherfuckers. I'ma go ride me an elephant koi.'" She smiled at the memory. "And so he made an air scooter and departed."
"Lemme guess," Pema pondered, a finger tapping her chin. "He fell off immediately. Sorry Ten."
Tenzin scowled. The dome shimmered slightly from the break in concentration, and a little smoke escaped. "Give me more credit than that," he countered embarrassingly. "I never fell off. Not even once."
Su had not stopped laughing. "He didn't," she gasped, "because he couldn't get off."
"Giggity," giggled Pema, joint in hand.
The woman from Zaofu had escalated her laughter to cackles. "He was stuck on that elephant koi for THREE HOURS."
"Two hours and thirty minutes," Tenzin he muttered crossly, though his face was far from cross.
"Long enough," Su said between breaths, "for Bumi to learn a new song on his acoustic."
"Which song?" Pema asked.
Suyin looked at Tenzin, who sighed and put his Bumi voice back on. "Iiiiiiiiiii'm, sailing away… chart an open course for the virgin seaaaaa…"
The three broke into unabashed laughter at the imitation when suddenly…
"What the fuck. I mean. What the fuck."
The laughter stopped and Su turned quickly towards Tenzin. Tenzin nodded, and turned to his wife.
"Take a deep breath," he whispered quickly, hands moving in bending motions once again. "You're welcome and I'm sorry."
"What do you me-ah", Pema was interrupted by a steady stream of air blowing all the smoke, ALL the smoke into her lungs. She shut her mouth at once and understood immediately.
The three slowly stood up and saw Korra, Opal, Bolin, Mako, and Asami staring at them mouths agape. Well shit, thought Su.
The absurdity of it all had piled onto Pema. She couldn't hold it in anymore. The woman coughed and exhaled a great deal of smoke.
"I can explain," Tenzin started.
