6---

Mikado was slightly disappointed he had not seen Suki today. At the very least he wanted to apologize to her for what he did. He assumed that he had shocked or disgusted her so much that she took refuge in the dojo all day and did not exit for fear of seeing him.

The more he thought about it the more he discredited it. Suki was a warrior, as fierce as a lioness. If she didn't like what he had done to her, she would find him and reprimand him, maybe even punish him with a slap across the face. She would not withdraw from him and be shy. It didn't match her fiery personality.

As he closed up shop, Kareem having left early again, he resolved to go out of his way and stop by the Kyoshi warrior's dojo to see her. He didn't quite know what he would say to the girl, and he spent most of the time walking up the road mulling it over. An apology would probably be appropriate, he thought, but if she reacts before he says it, he might not get the chance. Also, if he found her in a different mood, an apology wouldn't be needed. But then what would he say? I love you? No, that would be corny; he was almost guaranteed to be laughed out of the building.

As he approached the illuminated hut he got cold feet. Not more than ten paces from the threshold he found that he could not go any further. He grumbled at himself, he could not let his feelings stop him from this.

He tried to take a step forward again but found that he could not. Not a mental type of can't, but he physically couldn't move.

Mikado glanced down to try to coax his legs into moving, but to his astonishment found that they were mired up to the knee in hard rock. It seems his emotional subconscious bent the dirt beneath him to anchor himself to the spot.

"Damnit, what in the hell?" he cursed quietly, well aware of how close he was to the dojo.

He calmed down and patted his emotion on the head, like a boy would a dog, and firmly tied it to the deepest part of his mind. The earthbender tensed his arms and pushed them down in a forceful motion, sending his rocky shackles back into the ground.

With a grim look on his face he marched up to the door of the hut, raised his hand to knock, turned, and marched straight back down the road.

He sighed as he entered the old man's home. Not even the meal of warm shellfish and the continuing story of the siege of Ba Sing Se (which Kareem put his heart into) could raise the young man's spirits.

Seeing his guest was gloomy, the old geezer took it upon himself to cheer the boy up. "Hey, c'mon. I wanna show ya something." He grabbed Mikado's wrist and, pulling him in tow, left the house and yanked him down the street.

The earthbender had found out that the best way through these situations was to humor the old man. Most of the time they turned out quite fun and amusing. "Alright I'm coming, you don't have to pull my hand off!" He said playfully as they passed the last building and all that surrounded them was trees.

Kareem did not release his powerful grip on the boy, but he did slow his pace for the kid's benefit. Theses youngsters aren't as fit as they were back in my day, he chuckled to himself.

It wasn't a terribly long walk, just long enough that Mikado could wonder where they were going. Then they were there. The gasp of amazement that Mikado let out was very audible and the expression on his face could have been seen by a blind earthbender a mile away (as the saying went.)

Kareem just stepped back and smiled his toothless smile at the boy. "Well? Whaddya think?" he asked.

Mikado attempted to form words, but they escaped him. Finally, after a few tries, he managed a response. "It's… Wonderful!"

Kareem had taken Mikado on a roundabout path on the island to the opposite shore. The path up the mountain behind the town and back down the other side was steep and dangerous, but this little-used game trail fixed that problem perfectly. They stood atop a cliff above the placid waters in the Kyoshi straight, the path of water that separated Kyoshi island from the rest of the continent. But it wasn't the water or the distant shore that amazed him.

It was the blue-white glow of hundreds of turtle-whales. Very few sailors had the chance to see turtle-whales in their mating season, but the sight was said to render even the hardest pirate speechless. The large denizens of the sea were known to use a light that stemmed from their eyes to attract their mates. Each whale mated for life, and the exact hue of the glow allowed the males and females, who had been apart for a full year, to find each other once again.

Now, gathered in a large pod just off the coast of Kyoshi, were hundreds of these creatures. Every one of them emitted two shining lights, and the combination of so many lit up the ocean as the stars did the sky.

"How… what… wow…" was all Mikado could utter while staring at the calm, radiant waters.

Kareem just smiled, and after regarding the stunned young man replied, "They gather here every year, though very few people know it. The females come down from the icy northern waters, and the males swim up from the south pole to meet. Each whale has its own unique glow, and they use it to find their mates." He stuck his hands in his pockets and stared out to sea.

After a few minutes of the two men standing in silence, Kareem broke the serenity of the moment with a mischievous grin and similar tone, "Ya know, they're only gonna be here for another few days. Then they'll be gone for a whole year. If someone was to bring another person up here, say someone special to them, they'd have to do it tomorrow night or the night after."

Mikado tore his gaze away from the sea to look at the old man. "What do you mean?" his eyes narrowed as he sensed that the geezer knew more than he was letting on.

"Ohh nothing, it's just me and Misty used to come up here every year to watch the turtle-whales and their astounding light show. 'Twas our little secret." He winked at the younger man and, grinning his wide grin, turned and walked down the path.

Mikado knew what the old man was talking about. But how he found out about Suki was beyond him. Glancing one last time at the whales, he sighed and followed Kareem down the trail. The old geezer was right; this would be a perfect place to bring her.

"Damn! That old man is good!" he smiled at the crazy antics of the elderly and, with a spring in his step, walked back to town.