ZW 2016 Day 3: Memories

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Decisions, Decisions

Tenzin suffers great bafflement as his mother's memory loss progresses.

All things turn grey and white, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Tenzin had spent a few years tugging the white hairs out of his beard in a potentially misguided attempt to never look older than his late father, but he's since given up. His beard is as white as the tundra. Mother used to comment on it, chuckling that Bumi was the youngest of anyone, if hair was anything to go by. She doesn't talk like that anymore; barely recognizes them when they come to see her.

Just the same, she's doing all right for a woman over a hundred. Even if she won't stop babbling about Ember Island Players and tearbending.

"I'm just really confused right now," she confides one night, sitting in a reclining chair on Tenzin's porch. Tenzin, for his part, is desperately trying to meditate (which would be a lot easier if they could stop going around in circles about how long ago the war ended). "We're in the middle of a war."

Tenzin smothers a groan. "Mother, the war ended ninety-two years ago."

Bewildered, Katara gapes at him. "Mother? I'm fourteen years old! What's wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry," Tenzin stammers. "Do you know who I am?"

"Tenzin," she answers immediately.

"Yes, but, who is Tenzin?" Katara frowns at him, as if part unsure what exactly he's getting at and part unsure who he is. He should be used to this by now. Shouldn't push her like this. "What are you confused about, Katara?"

"Aang kissed me last night."

Well, this just got interesting. "Isn't that a good thing?" Love at first sight, Dad always said.

Katara groans and buries her face in her hands. "It's just, I don't know if I feel the same way about him."

Tenzin gasps in a way that he will later admit to Pema was a bit theatric.

"I know, I know, he's the Avatar, he's a powerful bender, he's probably going to get taller. I just don't feel that way about him. I don't picture myself kissing him. I picture-" She claps both hands over her mouth.

Tenzin flies up from his lotus position on the ground, giving up meditating entirely. "Who? Who is it?" This can't be. Mom and Dad never had eyes for anyone else, not now, not ever.

His mother smiles softly. "It doesn't matter. We'd never work out. You're right, Tenzin; I'm destined to be with Aang. Once he defeats the Fire Lord, I'll tell him."

Tenzin struggles to keep his forehead from turning purple. His thinning skin, Ikki tells him, has been making the veins in his forehead look scary. "Do you not love him?"

Guilt shadows his mother's eyes. "I don't know. I'm fourteen. How am I supposed to know that?" She sighs deeply. "How is he supposed to know that about me? He's…twelve. Just twelve." Her eyes widen as she breathes the number, twelve, in and back out.

Tenzin fidgets violently. "Well as long as you're not deeply in love with Lord Zuko, there's no need for panic. I'm sure you and Aang will work everything out." The sun is setting against his back, casting everything in orange light and deep shadow.

But Katara has gone scarlet, the flush spreading from her cheeks to her ears, so bright that Tenzin can see it even as the sky goes dark. "No! Of course not! I hate him. He's Fire Nation. How could you say that, Toph?"

"I'm not Toph."

"No," she smiles. There is a long pause. "You're Tenzin." He can feel the moon as its light touches his face. "My son."

"Yes, Mother."

"Tenzin, I think it's time for bed."

"Yes. Yes, I think you're right."

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A/N: Dedicated to my grandma, who, in the last year or so of his life, would forget who my grandpa was and announce to anyone who would listen that she really needed a boyfriend. He took it with reasonably good humor, bless him. After he died, she thought he was her dad and now that her dad was gone, she really needed a boyfriend. I offered to set up a Tinder for her, but she wasn't too sure about that.

Dementia is a nasty beast, isn't it?