Waited
posted December 29, 2009
The days passed slowly, pleasantly, the weather growing colder, and Zuko spent as much time in Wolf-Howls-At-The-Moon House carving mountain sheep horn as in the canoe shed. Around him, the Water Tribe engaged themselves in craft as men shaped horn or spear points and women wove and spun. Each night, they danced and sang, ballads Zuko began to recognize as tales of time past and newer verses, describing summer's work and winter's contemplation.
Aang frequently danced with them, occasionally alone or with a single partner; he sometimes sang, too, in both Inland Water Tribe and the lilting, foreign tones of the Air languages. He settled beside Zuko after a particularly energetic dance, grinning hugely, and elbowed him in the ribs. "You could dance, too, you know."
"I don't dance."
Aang's grin only widened. "Right. Fire Nation." He elbowed Zuko again. "Everyone in the Water Tribe dances."
Zuko batted his arm away irritably. "I'm not Water Tribe!"
Aang just tipped his head, laughter in his wide grey eyes, and Zuko scowled.
"Well – I don't dance!"
The women disappeared again one blustery day, and Zuko returned from the canoe shed to find the great house quiet and nearly empty.
"Oh, moon time again," Aang said from behind him, and Zuko turned.
"What is moon time?" he asked irritably.
"I don't really know." Aang shrugged. "One of the first things the Order teaches us before traveling is to never ask what women do in private."
That evening, Aang told Tahnra and Akiak a story, illustrating his words with gestures and little gusts of wind that ruffled the children's hair. Tahnra clapped her hands in delight while Akiak sucked his fingers, and Zuko watched, an odd feeling of discontent rippling through him.
Sokka plunked down beside him, still chewing a strip of salmon. "Envy?" he asked, pushing Zuko's shoulder affectionately.
Zuko scowled and turned away. "I'm not jealous," he hissed in High Fire Nation. Sokka just chuckled, clearly understanding the meaning if not the words. Zuko huffed in annoyance, allowing steam to escape with his breath, and retreated to his sleeping platform; he sat in meditation to calm his mind, feeling the fire burn into coals and allowing it to pulse gently with every inhale and exhale.
His mood didn't improve, though, until a commotion interrupted the breathing exercise and Tahnra and Akiak clamored up beside him, dragging blankets and furs. Their sleepy murmurs and small weight soothed his temper like warm water, and Zuko felt the irritation slip away.
The women returned soon and most immediately retreated to the dye shed with baskets and baskets of mountain sheep fleece. Zuko and Aang helped prepare the vats, pulling air from them and heating them at Katara's direction; she seemed to be everywhere at once, barking orders and stirring vats and sampling shades with hanks of yarn or unspun wool until they met her satisfaction.
Aang lingered to watch the dyeing process and so Zuko did as well, standing out of the way as women carefully submerged bundles of wool into the vats. Waterbenders stirred each gently before other women pulled them from the dye to hold them dripping over empty vats as they slowly changed color. Soon bundles of fleece hung from lines and hooks throughout the dyeing shed, each a subtly different color in the chilly air. Katara inspected them all, fingering some and shaking her head at others; many were placed in the vats again and her hands had turned a deep blue by the time evening descended.
She inspected them again the next morning, nodding in satisfaction at many of the bundles and sending a group of young women to wash them in the creek while the process continued. Zuko crossed the distance between canoe shed and dyeing shed many times that day and the next, re-heating vats and watching as baskets of creamy white and brown fleece dwindled.
Katara indeed proved a dyeing master, producing deep blues and light blues and variegated blues, a dark purplish color from the darker brown wools and a faintly green color from the rare yellowish ones. Her forehead, too, was marked with dye, a long smudge as if she had wiped sweat from her brow with pigmented hands, but her posture radiated satisfaction as she surveyed the products of her labor on the third evening.
"Good?" Zuko asked quietly from where he stood with arms folded, and she turned with a tired smile.
"Good," she repeated. "… craft, you, it – luck, you. Over horizon. More good – this, blue, ever… I, make." She fingered a bundle hanging beside her. "Good for finished, now… year, this, I glad."
Zuko nodded carefully, trying to remember Aang's teaching, trying to make sense of her words. Your luck, he thought as Katara turned back to the other women and he walked back to the canoe shed. Extends beyond… your craft. This – these – are… more good – better – best? – blues I make. He frowned to himself. These are the best blues I've ever made?
Later, after Zuko lay down his adze for the day, he met Katara on the beach, damp from the sea and wringing water from her hair. She gave him a tired smile and they walked together in companionable silence back to Wolf-Howls-At-The-Moon House.
Piercing cold set back in soon after the dyeing was complete and the Water Tribe retreated to the great houses again, and Zuko concentrated on the mountain sheep horn in his hand. Sokka sat beside him in the family's space, working on his own carving and coaching Zuko. "Open out, horn… shape – dream-thought, tool, you, not hand, you."
Let the shape… emerge, Zuko thought, nodding. Let your – imagination – guide the tool, not your hand.
Below them, Aang sat by the fire with Tahnra and several of the Wolf-Howls-At-The-Moon House's children, teaching them how to count in Western Earth Kingdom and as the afternoon wore on, telling stories of flying bison and hidden temples. Momo scrambled about their circle, holding the children's attention as much as the tales, and at length Aang stood, stretching. "How – around, water bitter-sweet?" he asked.
How about some tea? Zuko realized with a pang; he watched as Aang boiled water, measured out leaves. Much of the house declined, some wrinkling their noses with an air of experience, but many accepted and soon Aang handed Zuko a steaming cup; he grinned as he turned away and Zuko inhaled deeply.
It was a sharply spiced blend, common in the Air territories and rare outside them, but the smell struck Zuko so sharply tears welled in his eyes. He could hear his uncle's voice, see his hands carefully preparing tea, pouring from his favorite jade-green pot. I miss you, Uncle, he thought, ducking his head.
Katara watched him from where she sat nearby and Zuko carefully avoided her eyes as he blinked hard and drank his tea; her children and Sokka talked with Aang, laughing and cheerful, almost overwhelming Katara's soft words. Zuko distracted himself by deciphering them, searching for the structure, the meaning. I… sadness… You. Want? Look… knowledge – knowing…
The meaning hit him as sharply as the tea had. I wish I knew what made you look so sad.
He glanced up, met her eyes and looked away just as quickly, but the compassion in her expression lingered in his memory, soothing the ache of loneliness.
Aang departed as the solstice drew near. "The wind's changed," he said one afternoon. "It's going to snow, soon." He turned to Katara where she stood on the beach beside them. "I'm going to the Mouth-Of-The-World Village, next, and it's a long ride even on Appa." He smiled, the expression sad and hopeful at once. "I'll be back, next year."
The dance that evening held the same sadness and hope. Aang and Katara danced opposite each other for a time, air and water suggesting the open seas, and Tahnra curled up between Aang and her mother when they finally left the stage.
He left early the next morning, much of the tribe rising with Zuko to see him off and bundle gifts into Appa's saddle. Sokka helped Aang secure them with lengths of line, then both men slid down Appa's shoulder as the tribe pushed in to touch his shoulders or hug him. Aang smiled and laughed and seemed to bid farewell to each individually as Zuko watched, arms folded, from the edge of the crowd. He stooped to hug Tahnra and ruffle Akiak's hair, then stood again to hold Katara close for a long moment; Zuko saw his mouth move but his words were only for Katara.
Aang stepped forward, then, his eyes searching the crowd until he found Zuko's; his sad smile brightened into a grin before he bowed, palm-against-palm in the Air style. Zuko bowed in return, fist-under-hand; he caught Aang's eye and nodded as he straightened and Aang grinned again and scrambled back up Appa's shoulder.
The Water Tribe stood together to watch as the great sky-bison leapt into the air, Aang's small figure waving as they flew into the distance.
True to Aang's prediction, snow soon fell, blanketing the ground around Wolf-Howls-At-The-Moon House and muffling the sound of waves on the beach. The sight enchanted Zuko despite himself and he allowed Tahnra to drag him outside to watch it fall. Remember to thank Tua again, he thought, grateful that his feet were protected against the cold as Tahnra pulled him towards creek, chatting constantly as Zuko listened, the meaning finally clear.
"Do they have snow where you come from? You make fire, so it's probably hot where you're from, so maybe you don't have snow."
He smiled at her cheerful tone, remembering the rare winters when snow fell on the great port cities, perfect and icy until the sun rose the next morning. Tahnra continued, her words punctuated by her small hops forward to make prints in the snow.
"Mama says you can't really understand me, but that's okay, I like talking to you anyway, and I like it when you talk to me, even if I can't really understand you."
At that, something in Zuko melted like those distant snows; he pulled his hand free of Tahnra's and scooped her up as she shrieked in delight. "Your mother doesn't know everything," he said softly.
Her gray eyes widened, her mouth forming an "O" of surprise. "You talked!"
He grinned, boosting her up onto his shoulders to walk back to the great houses. "I've been known to do so."
Katara sat down beside him during that evening's dance, her expression a smirk. "So," she said, watching him closely. "Tahnra tells me you speak Inland Water Tribe now."
Zuko shrugged. "Aang taught me."
Her voice softened as she turned to watch the dancers, a faint smile on her lips. "He would."
Zuko bristled despite himself. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Katara blinked in surprise. "That he's a teacher." She shrugged and said no more, joining instead in the singing and later the dance. As she moved with the other dancers, Zuko watched her, feeling questions he couldn't put into any language.
The weather turned brutally cold with the winter solstice, snow deep on the ground and sky clear overhead, and the Water Tribe again drew back to the great houses. Firelight made the mountain sheep horn suggest sinuous, twisting forms, dragons emerging from a dark brown sky, and Zuko tried to let that vision guide his tool as he carved.
The songs and dances that evening seemed to ignore the shortest day, when winter's dark nearly drove the sun from the sky; instead they described wolves in the forest and whales in the sea, frequent subjects of performance. Eventually the singing gave way to the soft sounds of night and Zuko sat alone, watching the fire, remembering the vigils of past solstices, the quiet, joyous day after when the Fire Nation celebrated the end of that longest night.
He stared into the flames, remembering, until he finally forced himself to rise; he made his way carefully to Katara's sleeping platform, called softly. She wakened easily, or perhaps she was already awake, and Zuko crouched on the floor beside her. "I need a… lamp."
She propped herself up on one elbow, quirked her brow in question. "A what?"
"A…" He gestured awkwardly. "A lamp – something to hold fire in. Something small."
She stared at him for a long moment, her expression critical, or sleepy, or both, as he struggled to explain.
"The solstice… it's… The longest night – the sun's absence… in my… where I come from, for firebenders…"
"Your hand," she said suddenly
"… What?"
"Your hand." She reached out to take his hand, turn it palm-up. "I've seen you hold fire in your hand." She looked up again, no trace of mockery in her eyes. "Will that work?"
Zuko stared at her, then his hand; he called fire slowly and it flared to life in his palm. He glanced up to see her smile, then leaned back against the platform and watched the flame cradled between his hands.
"Thank you," he finally whispered, and heard her smile in the darkness; they sat together through that longest night, until the sun rose the next morning.