I'll Walk You Home pt 3
Chapter 2
Part 1
Ulu
Ty Lee hated doing chores. She had been raised in a wealthy family and had servants for all the menial tasks around the house, and even with five identical sisters, none of them had had to do any cleaning or cooking. Her time in prison had been a revelation to both Mai and herself, and she did not enjoy it.
She was helping Katara wash vegetables for dinner when Sokka walked into the kitchen. He had his leg brace on and was still limping slightly when he came in, but he looked much better, having washed off all the makeup, dirt, blood, and sweat. He had changed into his blue, sleeveless watertribe wrap-around-top and his blue, drawstring pants; he had not bothered with his arm wraps and Ty Lee was mesmerized by the expanse of warm, brown skinned, well muscled arms that she was suddenly exposed to.
"Meat!" was all he said, while he tied his hair back into his traditional wolf's tail.
Katara looked up but before she could start issuing instructions, there was a chiterring from the window and a streak of white and brown flew through the air and landed on the young man's head.
"Hey, little buddy" Sokka greeted the lemur.
The giant eared, flying beast looked down into the tribesman's face and then began to pull on his robe obviously looking for something. Momo climbed down inside Sokka's top looking for any treats the boy may have been hiding.
"Sorry buddy, not this time maybe later." He told the little beast.
Eventually Momo climbed out of the young man's clothes and hanging on his chest looked the pony tailed one in the eye and began an unhappy series of chirps and barks. Sokka responded in his own series of sounds mimicking the lemur's and eventually the boy pointed to the window. The pet sounded disappointed but then flapped his wings and flew over to sit on the sill, looking expectantly at his friend.
"Grrrereap chit chip." was all the tribesman said.
Ty Lee watched, giggling the entire time. She thought it was a little creepy to have an animal crawling around inside your clothes, but Sokka and Momo looked so cute that she couldn't help but enjoy their antics.
Katara was not amused. She pointed to a table by the stove where she had laid out a series of bowls containing eggs, vegetables, cold rice, and one containing a piece of some animal.
"There are the ingredients, and you can use that wok. Make fried rice, you shouldn't ruin something as simple as that."
"Aye, Aye sister dear." he replied and took his station by the table.
Katara criticized her brother's cooking more out of habit than out of need. In the last few weeks she had forced him to do more of the cooking by insisting that he cook any meat dishes, so necessity forced him into the kitchen, whining the whole way. He learned quickly and was able to make simple dishes and was actually beginning to experiment with more complex and creative receipts and not doing a bad job.
"knife?... knife? I need a knife ...there was something about a knife,,, A Knife!"
Sokka's voice went from: searching, to questioning, to introspective, to discovery as he said the word over and over. Finally, he looked in a leather bound note pad he had created by sewing (after the pants incident early in their travels, he had been forced to learn how to sew) together a sheaf of papers that he had cut up for the purpose. The pad was tied to his belt and he was constantly making notations in it as ideas struck him. He had invented a device he called a "charcoal pen" just for writing on this pad.
"I am such an idiot!" He said with a note of revelation.
"I think we are all well aware of that." Snarked Katara.
"I'll be right back!" her brother shouted as he ran out of the kitchen.
Momo chirruped and flew after him. The two girls looked at one another questioningly but both turned towards the door as they heard a loud thump followed by an informational,
"Ow"
From the next room, then more running and chirruping.
Katara had noticed that recently Sokka no longer complained about pain, probably because he experienced so much of it. He seemed to feel that there really was no point in complaining, but he also must have felt it was his duty to inform the rest of them that he was experiencing it. So his "ows" had become not so much exclamations as they were now more informational statements made in passing.
The waterbender and the acrobat returned to washing vegetables and after about a minute they heard another informational,
"Ow"
From the next room, then a confused and questioning
"Who keeps moving this table?"
Finally, Sokka reappeared in the door, with the lemur on his shoulder, its tail wrapped around his neck as if an adjunct to the ivory choker that the tribesman habitually wore, on his long sensual neck iStop that!/i Ty lee told herself.
In his hands Sokka was carrying a package wrapped in a roll of cloth. Momo chittered expectantly but the boy said,
"Not for you buddy, back to the window."
Momo disappointedly flew back to his spot on the sill.
The young man approached his sister, unwrapping the bundle as he went, and offered her something Ty Lee could not see.
"I finished this for you just yesterday, and forgot to give it to you. I wanted you to have it before I left with Suki and Ty Lee for Kyoshi Island."
Katara took the proffered item and in a quiet, almost sad voice said,
"Oh, Sokka. It's beautiful!"
The waterbender held the item up for Ty Lee to finally see. To "Pinkle toes" it was not particularly beautiful but looked like a rather crude hunk of metal that had been cut out of a circle of steel and then had had a handle riveted onto the smaller side of it.
"It's an ulu." Katara explained to the acrobat.
She turned it over in her hands as she examined it,
"I lost mine long ago in our travels. I never thought I would have another one until I got back home."
The young woman handed the ulu to Ty Lee so she could get a better look at it. As the young Kyoshi Warrior examined the "knife", (she wasn't sure if you could call it a knife. She had seen a lot of knives in her young life, many of them going past her head, thanks to Mai and her practicing.) but she had never seen anything like this before.
As Ty Lee looked it over closely she realized her first assessment was very wrong. In its simplicity and curves it really was beautiful. The steel that comprised the blade had dark wavy lines running through it that paralleled the arc of the blade. She traced one with her finger, they really looked like… well waves on the sea.
Sokka noticed her moving finger and explained.
"That is called the water pattern, according to the blade smith who showed me how to fold and weld the steel. I ruined a lot of billets to get it right."
"You made this yourself?" Katara asked her brother.
"Well kind of," the boy explained, "I asked a blade smith to make it for me but he said he couldn't understand my drawings, so he said he would show me how to make it instead. I think it got reversed at some point. He helped so much that I think it ended up with him making it and me helping him, but any way here it is. Oh, and I made a scabbard for it too."
With this last Sokka handed his sister a leather scabbard with a long strap of leather attached so she could wear it around her neck.
"Yeah... I was going to use ivory for the ulu, just like back home, but everything here is backwards. You can't find any ivory but they have plenty of metal, so I made it out of that. I hope you like it."
Katara pulled Sokka into a fierce hug telling him in a tear choked voice,
"I love it! You're the best big brother ever!"
Ty Lee looked at the brother and sister hugging and felt tightness in her own chest. She had never gotten along with her own sisters, in fact she had run away to the circus to get away from her own family, but right now she wished she had a big brother who went to all the trouble of learning a new skill just to make his sister a present.
To Be Continued
Disclaimer : "Avatar the Last Airbender" the characters and the world were created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and owned by Nickelodeon and Viacom or Paramount or some huge corporation. This is purely a work of fan fiction because I wanted to play in their world and I love the characters that they created.
New Note: Once again updated thanks to all the hard work of Vox Populi. (Sorry I like had so much. Oh, the "Pants Incident" is at the start of "Kyoshi Warriors".)
Comments: This part got too long so I had to break it up. This seemed like the best place to make the break, the next part should be up soon.
All comments are more than welcome.
Hope you like it.