Being with the air benders was a lot more fun now that Tenzin had loosened the reins a little, and being with my family was as great as always, though I was still a little freaked out with how weird my mom was acting. She'd ask me how things were going, sticking to general small talk conversation like the weather before then leaving me alone. She didn't try to get into anymore deep, meaningful talks about how she wanted to do better and how she regretted not being a better mother, she just…started being normal. It was weird.
For a while I just couldn't make any sense of it, and most of the time I was so taken aback by how casual she was being that I ended up responding to her without even thinking. Like this morning, she came back with a bunch of fruits she'd picked and she just tossed one over to me, making me catch it before it could hit me in the face and she said she knew I liked them so had grabbed a couple. Then later, when I was practicing my water bending forms, she'd stopped to watch and told me that I'd find transitioning much easier if I pivoted my balance rather than trying to turn from foot to foot before then carrying on with her walk.
It was driving me nuts trying to figure out what she was up to, but when I thought about it, I kind of admitted that it wasn't all bad. She wasn't trying overly hard anymore, joking around at dinner with Bumi and teasing Tenzin which made me laugh along with the others, like she'd finally clicked that if I was ever going to accept her back into my life properly, she needed to give me space. I bet Bumi talked to her. That was the only thing I could think of for this sudden change in behaviour. Hanging out in one of the trees which overhung the mountain with a sheer drop beneath me, I watched the world go by and admired the view until I heard my mom call out. "What'cha up to kiddo?"
"Nothing." I answered simply, since that was the truth and there really wasn't anything else to it.
"Wow, this is a great view. Is that the bison herd down there?"
"I've been keeping an eye on them since those poachers came by the other day, just to be precautious." I said to her as she came over and stood at the tree trunk, looking over the valley with me for a moment. We just kept our silence then, a seemingly easy stillness following which wasn't exactly comfortable, but it wasn't tense and fractious like it used to be. "So…what have you been doing?" Testing the waters gingerly, I decided to open with a general question to see how it went.
"Oh nothing much, mostly torturing my little brother, nothing exciting." Mom answered then seemed to think about something before she looked up at me. "Do you ever wish you had siblings Kanna? I've wondered about it from time to time."
"Siblings?" Gaping at her for a moment I quickly clamped my mouth shut and looked away, stiffening slightly out of habit but answered her all the same. "I didn't need siblings since I had Korra growing up, so I was never lonely. Sometimes I thought it would have been nice to have younger brothers and sisters, but then I see how you and my uncles argue, and how Jinora, Ikki and Meelo fight and I change my mind." This made mom laugh, unable to deny that having brothers and sisters was a tough job.
"I just wondered, you know, as one of those things." Shrugging like I didn't care, I went back to looking at the view until Jinora flew by on her glider.
"We've got another air bender coming in, let's go say hi!" Oh that's right, I remember Tenzin mentioning someone new was coming, and more importantly, it was someone I knew. Or at least, I knew her grandmother. It was Toph Beifong's daughter, a girl named Opal. It was so exciting to think that Toph, who had been friends with my grandfather, would later have a granddaughter who would turn out to be an air bender. What a crazy small world.
Getting ahead of myself, I eagerly turned in order to jump out of the tree, moving back towards solid ground but at the last second my foot slipped as I missed the stronger branch and stepped on a slimmer one, barely more than a twig which snapped and threw me off balance. "Kanna!" Mom yelled in fear and lunged for me as I felt myself drop, stomach leaping up to my throat until my mom grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the ledge, quickly dragging me into her arms to hold me. "Be careful! You could have fallen and what if no one had been around to catch you?!" Taken aback by how panicked she was, I stayed still for a moment before beginning to squirm.
"Mom I'm fine, I just got a little excited that's all and lost my footing. Besides if I fell then I'd just make a snow blanket down on the ground by pulling water out the ground, or water whip something to grab hold. I'd have figured it out." Mom seemed like she wanted to argue, having more to say but she swallowed it back and let me go, nodding her head with a forced smile as I saw a few tears gathering at her eyes from genuine fear.
"You're right, I'm sorry. I just panicked that's all. Try to be more careful next time, okay?" Then she let me go and left, leaving me stunned once more. The hell? She wasn't going to go all motherly on me and tell me never to climb trees again, never to do something so reckless and berate me until the sun goes down? Mothers are just so…weird. I don't get them at all. Shaking it off, I went over to meet the newest air bender, who introduced herself as Opal Beifong.
"Welcome Opal, it's an honour to have you here with us." Tenzin was saying to her as he bowed in greeting and Opal smiled. She was pretty, especially her jade green eyes as bright as jewels. When she looked around and saw me, the only other girl here around her age, those jewel like eyes brightened and near enough sparkled at me.
"You must be Kanna! Korra said I'd meet you here, you're Avatar Aang's and Katara's granddaughter, right? Kya's daughter? It's so great to meet you, it's a little crazy isn't it? My grandmother being Toph Beifong and our parents being friends. I hope we can be friends too." I've already decided. I like this girl. She was so sweet and bubbly, but bashful as well since she blushed and ducked her head with embarrassment. "Oh, I'm sorry. I got carried away. I'm just a little nervous but excited as well."
"That's great, we're glad you're excited to be here Opal." I smiled to her, stretching out a hand to welcome her to the Northern Air Temple. "Hopefully you'll soon feel right at home, and I'd love to be friends. You know, you should meet my cousins. I think you'll like them, though Meelo is a bit intense but don't worry about it, I'll keep him from doing too crazy. You probably want a tour too, or do you want to get settled in first? Tell me about your grandmother, what's she like? Also I didn't know Lin had a sister until my uncle mentioned it the other day when Korra radioed us to tell us you were coming…" And just like that we got talking, and before you knew it Opal and I felt like we'd known each other for years.
We had a lot of similar interests and characteristics, though she was a lot softer than I was as I was more used to being around Korra, which meant being blunt, straight laced and in on the action. Whilst she was settling in, she happened to mention Bolin, then she mentioned him again, and again, until that was all she could talk about. "You seem to have gotten along with Bolin really well." I noted to her with a light tease to my voice as I showed her around the temple so that she could familiarise herself with the place.
"Yeah, he's really sweet and funny. I liked him a lot." She blushed and I felt like teasing her a little more, so I smirked and folded my arms.
"You know I had a crush on Bolin when I first met him." Instantly she gasped, hands jumping to her mouth as her eyes widened at me like she'd done something wrong.
"Really? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean…" I started laughing humorously.
"You don't need to panic Opal, there's nothing going on between us. We're just good friends that's all. I confessed my feelings but he rejected me because he was interested in Korra at the time, who was interested in Mako who was dating Asami. Wow, I've only just realised how that all circled around. Crazy huh?" Relaxing a little, Opal smiled to me.
"So you liked Bolin too? What did you like about him?"
"Same as you, he made me laugh and he was just so sweet, cute and loveable, and he's really kind." I listed off, recalling all the reasons I'd developed a crush on him in the first place. "Also I really liked his hair and the colour of his eyes. I hadn't really met all that many guys before I'd gone to Republic City with Korra, not even in the Southern Water Tribe, so I guess I was a little star struck back then. Now Bolin and I are great friends, and although our friendship group got a little complicated at one point, things all worked out in the end." Opal then asked me what I meant by complicated, so I explained to her how Mako left Asami after realising his feelings for Korra and started dating her, but then they broke up and Mako started seeing Asami again, but then Korra lost some of her memories and forgot that she and Mako broke up and they started dating again until they broke up for good.
"That's…intense."
"Oh yeah, it was a rough couple of weeks." I agreed before waving my arm. "Come on, I'll show you the bison. You're gonna love Oogie." So I spent the rest of the day with Opal, introducing her to everyone and we started hanging out after her training sessions, which were coming along great. She showed great progress in just a few short days, according to Jinora. I wish grandpa were still alive so I could tell him all about this. He'd be so thrilled. Still, I guess he must be seeing everything through Korra. Even though she'd lost her connection to the previous Avatar's, I think that they were still there, and through her eyes, Aang was seeing everything that we were trying to build, and I bet he was loving every minute of it.
