It's three days before Tenzin feels like walking around again, but as soon as he does, he begins gathering flowers, the ones that grow from trees on one side of the island, where his father planted them over thirty years ago. They bloom twice a year, and he is thankful that the season is right as he examines the sky blue buds that grow in giant clumps, five petals on each, white centers peeking out at the sun.
He picks flowers until he fills his cloak, which he then carries back over the island toward the temple. His family is preparing breakfast out of doors, the air being so sweet and healing and the Temple being crowded with so many visitors.
"There you are," says Pema, walking over to him with Rohan on one hip. He bends to kiss her lips. "I was starting to get worried."
"Just enjoying the morning," he responds. But he can see that his wife's face is still sadder than usual, that the stress of the last several days has worn on her. He vows to check in with her regularly as the normal rhythms of life resume.
"What's in your cloak, Daddy?" There is a sharp tug on the gathered hem, and a few blooms come spilling out.
"Careful, Meelo," he says. "These are for something … very special."
Pema looks at the flowers, and her eyebrow quirks up. "I thought we were going to talk about this later," she says. But she is smiling, knowing the delay has always been on his side rather than hers.
"It's time," he says. He scans the group of saffron-clad figures and finds the one he is looking for. Kai is whispering something into her ear, and she has a hand clapped over her mouth in laughter. And though he has his reservations about the boy, Tenzin feels his heart grow warmer. He has marked the signs of maturity appearing daily in his daughter's face, but he is comforted by the fact that for all that she has seen, she still smiles and laughs easily.
Jinora's face turns upward and find's her father's eyes. He watches her appraise him, the giant bundle in his arms, the spilled flowers on the ground. And her mouth falls open in recognition, and she sprints toward the place where he is standing.
When she reaches him, she grasps his robe with both small fists. "Really, Daddy? I mean … Dad? Really?"
Tenzin places his hand on her head and relishes the true pleasure that only comes from giving one's child precisely what they want most in the world.
"You're ready," he nods. "You've more than proven yourself." Her eyes are almost tearful, but they disappear as she presses her face against him and wraps her arms around his waist.
Kai is beaming just a few feet away, probably because Jinora is so happy. It's not clear that he completely understands. "Help me carry these inside," Tenzin says to him, holding the bundle over Jinora's head. "We'll gather more after the meal."
Kai and Jinora, Meelo and Ikki each grab a corner of the cloak and begin walking it inside the main building. They pass acolytes toting dishes and pillows out to the courtyard and finally come to a room full of work tables, bolts of orange and yellow fabric leaning against the walls. They lay the cloak across one of the surfaces, the blooms falling in a loose pile that spills onto the benches and floor.
"Will we really make all the ink ourselves, Daddy?" asks Ikki.
"If we all work together." He knows he could order ink from town, but some traditions are worth preserving. "Back when I became a master, your grandparents and aunt and uncle worked for months to make enough. With the entire Air Nation working together, we can have Jinora's ceremony in a little over a week."
His oldest child is smiling thoughtfully as she runs a hand softly over the blue blossoms that will catalyze her rite of passage.
"They're so beautiful," she says. "We should take some to Korra."
Something inside of Tenzin clenches, and his voice is hoarse when he replies, "Yes, I think that's a lovely idea."
Jinora and Ikki gather several clumps with longer stems into their arms, and Tenzin follows them with Kai and Meelo in tow as they carry them to the kitchen to fill a pitcher full of water and then begin a trek back across the courtyard to the family quarters where Korra convalesces.
The courtyard is full of people now, and trays of food are being brought out from the kitchen. "Mud morrring!" calls Bolin, his mouth full of one of the dumplings from the plate he is setting down. Opal and Mako turn to see who he is calling to.
"We're taking flowers to Korra!" Ikki shouts.
"We want to come!" he calls back, and in an instant, there are eight of them walking inside the house, and Tenzin is worried that this will all be too much. Korra has barely spoken a dozen words since they returned, and she tires easily.
"Can Korra come eat breakfast outside with us?" Meelo asks.
"Maybe in a couple of days, Meelo. She can't leave her bed just yet."
He stands in front of the door once they reach her room and does his best to look stern, but it's difficult. The bruises on his face still smart if he contorts it too much. "I'll let everyone into this room on one condition," he says as if he is talking to an entire group of toddlers. "And that's that everyone stays quiet."
Mako pulls himself up taller, his characteristically solemn expression saying he's 100% on Tenzin's side and doesn't need to be told how to behave. Bolin raises a hand to swear, and Ikki claps both of hers over her mouth. After a few seconds, Tenzin is satisfied.
He knocks on the door softly and hears Asami's voice. He opens it and feels everyone pressing in behind him. Meelo forces his way between his legs, and Tenzin catches him by the collar before he can take a run at the bed.
Tonraq is sitting next to the bed, his back slightly hunched. He smiles when he sees Tenzin and leans down over his daughter. "You have visitors, sweetheart," he whispers in her ear.
The figure in the bed stirs slightly, and Asami swoops in to help her sit up, piling pillows up behind her back and smoothing her hair away from her face. Tonraq stands to let Tenzin assume his chair, for that he is grateful. He has been on his feet since very early in the morning.
"She has more color today," says Tonraq, his face exhausted but full of hope. And Tenzin supposes that he must be right, although Korra still looks like a shadow of herself, her body barely supporting her own weight as she sits awkwardly in bed, the sunken rings around her eyes suggesting a degree of weariness and pain that Tenzin can only begin to guess at.
For a whole minute, everyone holds their breath. It isn't clear that Korra is even aware of them. But then Mako walks across the room and opens the window, allowing the sun and a salt breeze to waft inside. Tenzin sees her face incline slightly toward the light, and the look that comes over her is almost peaceful as she closes her eyes and opens them again.
"What are you all doing here?" she asks, her voice barely audible, and Tenzin wonders if she realizes that in three whole days, they have barely allowed her a second alone. The space she occupies on the bed feels like a world unto itself, cut off from the land of the unbroken.
All of a sudden, Ikki's hands fly from her mouth, where they've been pressed this entire time. "Jinora is getting her tattoos!" she says, the pent up pressure giving way in a sudden burst of chatter.
Tenzin feels Korra make eye contact with him for the first time, her eyebrows raising slightly, and then she finds Jinora, who is perched next to Tenzin's chair, and a tiny smile creeps over her face. "Really?" she says, but it's barely a whisper.
"Really," Jinora beams and holds out the pitcher of flowers she's been holding tightly against her chest. "These are the flowers we use to make the tattoo ink. I thought we should bring you some to brighten up your room."
Korra's hand reaches forward and then pulls back, but not before Tenzin sees the tremor she is trying desperately to conceal. Asami reaches down to take the pitcher and brings the fragrant blooms to Korra's face. They are almost precisely the color of her eyes, which she closes for a second and inhales.
"They're beautiful," says Asami, as if speaking for both of them. Korra nods, and as Asami walks away to place the flowers in the sunlight, Tenzin sees that Jinora has taken the Avatar's trembling hand in both of her own.
…
It takes thousands of small blooms to make enough ink for one airbender's tattoos, but there are many hands to gather them. On the third day of harvesting, Tenzin walks from tree to tree, stopping every few minutes to rest and watch the work take place. Kai is up on a high branch, gathering flowers for his pint-sized bison to carry. Bolin darts about in the shade with Meelo perched on his shoulders, creating earth platforms for acolytes who can't reach once the low hanging branches are harvested. They have a rule never to pick more than two-thirds of the flowers on any given tree.
Tenzin carries bundles back to Pema, who arranges the flowers in the sun for drying. Rohan is suspended from the sling on her back, and Tenzin places a few blooms in her hair as he bends to kiss the top of her head.
In the workshop, Asami is overseeing Ryu, Daw and a handful of others as they crush the dried petals into powder, breaking cells that are too tiny to see in order to release their blue pigment. Ryu tries to look above it all, but the presence of the Sato girl, who expertly mixes the substances that will bind the ink together, clearly motivates him to work a little harder.
"It's sad to be smashing all these flowers," Daw remarks, shaking a hand that is cramping from hours of gripping the pestle.
"Wait until you see the final result," Tenzin assures. Zaheer was right about a few things.
…
When he sets out for the stand of trees again, he sees Mako coming out of the family quarters with Tonraq. And in Mako's arms is a bundle of blankets that Tenzin realizes on closer examination is a person, her head propped listlessly on the young man's shoulder.
"We thought she should see it before you're finished," says Tonraq. "And the fresh air can't hurt."
Tenzin looks at Korra, whose expression is mostly blank. She stares straight back at him, though, focusing better than she has in days, though he can still see the broken capillaries around her eyes and the fading bruises that peek out from under the blankets.
A thought occurs to him out of nowhere. "Where is her polar-bear dog?"
Tonraq whistles, a sharp, piercing sound, and Korra's face lifts up from Mako's shoulder as Naga careens around a corner, and Mako edges backward with trepidation in his eyes to keep from being tackled and yet not drop her.
"Hey girl," Korra whispers, and a shaking hand emerges from the blanket to caress the giant head. They walk that way until they reach the others.
"Korra's here!" Ikki screams, and everyone stops their work to turn and watch. Tenzin looks at her closely and sees her turn her face into Mako's chest, away from the eyes that peer from the trees.
"Back to work!" Tenzin shouts, and the spell is broken. Everyone returns to their gathering, stealing peeks every now and then as Tonraq makes a bed for her underneath a tree and Mako arranges her carefully on the ground and Naga curls up close enough for Korra to keep a hand always against the warm, white fur.
The stand is quieter with her there, everyone working while trying not to disturb the atmosphere around her. Tenzin is tired. His legs ache from too much standing, and he feels an urge to close his eyes.
Jinora tugs on his robe and holds a bundle of blossoms toward him. "Can I give these to her?" she asks warily, clearly sensitive to his protective instinct.
"Of course," he says, and he feels a laugh bubble up from his chest. "But you've already filled her room with them."
"I think it makes her happy," she says, though Tenzin wonders how she can tell.
He follows his daughter over to the tree, and Tonraq makes a space for him next to Korra. Mako has taken Meelo from Bolin's shoulders and lets the little boy direct him to the right branches like a drum major directing a one-man band.
The grass is soft, and Tenzin rests his back against the trunk of the tree as Jinora arranges flowers around Korra's prone form. Ikki follows suit and brings her own to drape over Naga's huge paws. Korra's hands still shake, but she fingers the tiny buds as she looks straight upward into the branches. Her face affectless, but concentrated, and Tenzin wonders what she sees.
He tilts his head upward and sees light and shadow, oblique rays of afternoon sun peeking shyly through the dark branches of the tree. He hears the sounds of quiet talking, of people working together, of the new and the old coming together. And as he closes his eyes, his hand finds the warm shoulder of the woman who was broken for their sake. And he ponders the cost.