"patterns of ink and metal"
+cycles+
Summer:
It is the season of heat, gold air and parched shadows, clogged streets and noise (though when is this city, jewel of the nation's crown, quiet? A silent fire is dead.) In this season lives danger, the risk of plague roaming overheated alleys and rooms, looking for a face to lick.
Not surprising then, that Katara's first encounter with a Fire summer keeps her in bed and Iroh in worry. Often, he sits within her darkened room, waiting for each bout of dizziness and shivering to pass. During these periods, Katara jerks between trembling wakefulness and fevered dreaming—though it is a crime to call this dreaming; a dream should never pour such terror into a child's face or voice. Awake, she struggles to stomach soft rice and ginger broth, consuming glass after glass of cold, sour juice. Iroh is used to relying on the body's power to exercise and strengthen, to heal through a faster pulse and warmer muscles: the physician forbids this. ("She isn't a Fire child, Iroh," Shuang forewarns, more waspish on land than he is at sea. "Let the waters settle before rushing them to flow.") But Iroh watches the girl's face wane and droop, stagnating amidst forced comforts, and mounts a campaign to fight the crash.
He tells her stories, new and old, true and fantastic, long and short. Their telling makes Iroh realize two things; his tales are many, and similar enough to be one. She listens with an interest that outshines her delicacy. He brings her tea and small, red oranges, skirting Shuang's orders in his mission to tempt her appetite; unlike before, Katara accepts the treats with all the willingness her health can muster. He fills her room with toys, games, picture books, jade carvings tiny enough to palm, silk figurines with fairy faces, lacquer combs with silver teeth, and scrolls of words she needs help reading. Once, he brings a cricket in a painted bamboo cage but the next morning the cage is empty and Katara is happier; Iroh takes the hint and commits it resolutely to memory. For now, her happiness is a tentative thing, evanescent like dew; Iroh invites nothing to impede its roots.
Weakened though she is, Katara's nature refuses to be weak; it's not long before her stubbornness finds opportunity to growl. Upon discovering her evening soup laced with a sleeping draught (to drown the nightmares), she retaliates by using the broth to water Iroh's azaleas. Luckily, a compromise is reached quickly: Katara will accept the drug but only when brought openly and upon her request. Already, Iroh knows her enough to accept the deal without further haggling. Out of water or not, his little fish remains her own animal.
The days melt by, their scent full of spice and sunlight; somehow, Iroh begins finding it easier to breath when entering the blue-eyed girl's dusky quarters. The sight of a brown hand resting limply on a silken bedspread quits inspiring the chocking fear of endings, a worry fueled by the memories of ocean air and silence.
One morning he enters the room expecting to find a tired face and closed eyes, testimony of another harsh night, and shadows. Instead, sunshine spills on the floors and walls, a sweet glaze. Katara sits on the threshold between the room and the veranda, the undyed fabric of her sleeping robes a bland contrast to the colors of the garden beyond. She answers Iroh's greeting with a smile he's never met before.
"The flowers smelled so good when I woke up, I wanted to see what they looked like while the ground was still damp," she says. "It's nice, isn't it?"
And for the moment, it is.
Autumn:
It is the season of rain, of clear damp mornings and melancholy themes, cooler nights. Nature's late colors staff the garden, the sap of every green soul rushing forward like blood suffusing a shy beauty's cheek in the first moments of romance: beautiful, but fleeting.
The cooler weather is a balm to Katara, who rustles through the ornamental grasses for hours before finally returning inside with damp socks and seed speckled hems. The changing plant life fascinates her; every flower and weed is a wonder to find and pet. She studies the stem of a lily like a scholar deciphering the lines of a classic or the mystery of poem. Iroh marvels at so much potent concentration being stored in such a small container. But more marvelous is the quickness of her mind, a current refusing to be dammed, regardless the size of the challenge. Her literacy grows daily; it is flint in her hands, eager for tinder to feed its spark.
Katara's aptitude for calligraphy is a surprise to her tutors; her immediate fondness of the art is a surprise to Iroh. ("One would swear it's magic more than talent, my lord; her brush doesn't spill a drop of ink!" While the instructor laughs, Iroh smiles and subtly changes the subject.) Yet this new aspect of her is not without its shadows; Katara's expression changes when she lowers brush to paper, delight tempered by an emotion Iroh hesitates to name. Introspection, perhaps, if not judgment: it is a strange, occasionally unsettling, breed of thought to note flitting across a child's face. Iroh, with his appreciation for the uncommon, is steadfastly drawn to the tilt of Katara's head when she finishes reading a passage, or the sudden pensive reveries that pause her brush halfway through a sutra.
She has made it her mission to learn. Of what teacher, he cannot be sure.
Winter:
It is the season of twilight, of bare branches and moss, of warm kettles softening the presence of longer nights. The capital lies too far south to suffer the stiff freezing of its urban brethren, but it still submits to the brisker sea winds and paler sun.
Katara is incredulous when Iroh grumbles about the arriving cold; she doesn't understand the complaining. It is amusing, he supposes, to a mind born in the Southern tundra and accustomed to being dwarfed by icebergs. But she passes him the teacup with genuine sympathy, her sense of irony (a skill growing daily more acute) momentarily overshadowed by her kind nature. Together they drink tea and eat small, dry cakes shaped like lotuses; the sweetness lingers in Iroh's mouth, pleasure bolstered by conversation. No longer satisfied with only ink, Katara's liquid intuition and curiosity has progressed to include blends and brews; her tongue and nose easily distinguish the subtleties of one aftertaste from another, or deciphering the marriage of ginseng and ginger. Likewise, her eyes and fingertips catalogue the flaws and perfections on the skin of an antique kettle or the glazed lip of a cup. In the mottled pattern of every varnish, she finds a story.
Lately, as the garden grows sparse, more and more scrolls tend to vanish from Iroh's library. Their eventual return is as smooth and imperceptible as their departure. Iroh answers the phenomenon by purchasing longer volumes and keeping a carved pine stool to help her reach the higher shelves.
Though she has teachers aplenty, Katara brings the majority of her questions to Iroh. Frequently, what she asks to be explained would be considered too plain or simple, too obvious, to require scrutiny. (Or perhaps it is because they are conventions too deeply buried in the clay of his culture for even a man like Iroh to consider questioning; more and more often, Iroh ponders this.) The architecture of romance in a poem, the names of the herbs in their soup, the histories of cities she's never seen—Katara's curiosity is without prejudice.
But no matter how varied the topics, one thing remains constant: underneath their every exchange, runs a thin river of subjects they do not touch. Because she is still too young and he is already too tired.
Spring:
It is the season of change, of winds turninging soft and happy, of birds returning to familiar gardens. Again, everything is new and ready to don fresh robes of life and vigor; every cup brims with potential.
Katara's latest hobby is the acquisition and emulation of court speech. She juggles euphemisms and symbols, courtesy and wit, procedure and frivolity, and treats a century of standards like tiles in a game; Iroh can't decide whether to be impressed by the girl's dexterity or worried over the scorn threading its glibness. Ultimately, he offers careful warnings but forbids nothing; already it's becoming clear that his little fish cannot stay a secret. Over the course of the year, people have noticed the Dragon's odd companion and curiosity has bloomed; though there are few that know her face, there are many who know her name.
Does Katara know this?
Yes.
Does it worry her?
Time will tell.
Draped in pale robes of blue, soft fabric subtly marked in a wave-and-shell pattern, a coral comb in her hair, Katara sits on the veranda and rolls a slim brush between her fingers. Wherever her thoughts, they've clearly abandoned the milkweed colored paper askew on the writing desk. The paper is not unmarked; Iroh edges closer to glimpse a line of poetry skittering across the sheet.
And I remember the moon like smoke on the river… The characters slant beautifully, their richness exemplary despite their maker's apparent lack of interest. Katara's calligraphy has progressed at a remarkable pace; what were once the pretty efforts of a child have matured into works of grace. Iroh proudly keeps one ofher renditions, an autumn passage about lanterns and fog, displayed in his quarters. Her skill, he knows, is not common in a child this young. More specifically, her skill is not common, period. Iroh only has to remember the grumbling efforts of his nephew, and the pained expressions of his nephew's harried tutors, to understand how much of a daily struggle the lessons are becoming. Poor Zuko. The boy tries hard but who could blame him for losing patience with a task he has no interest in, especially when forced to suffer the company of bland scholars who offer nothing to tempt the imagination—Iroh stops, startled by the plan suddenly blooming in his mind. It is a simple plan, little more than an idea, really, but…
He thinks of his nephew, the young prince locked in a castle, learning nothing new. Slowly, he turns to look again at his ward, foreign and gifted, sitting alone with her thoughts. Iroh thinks about changes.
"Katara? Gather your pens and inks, little fish; we are going on a little trip today. It might seem a bit strange to you at first but—well, I think it is time for you to meet someone. Someone special." Iroh smiles.
"His name is Zuko…"
Author's Note: Katara's poem comes from T'ang Shih San Pai Shou or Three Hundred T'ang Poems, an anthology of Chinese poetry compiled in the 18th century. The complete poem, written by Du Mu, is as follows:
A NIGHT AT A TAVERN
Solitary at the tavern,
I am shut in with loneliness and grief.
Under the cold lamp, I brood on the past;
I am kept awake by a lost wildgoose.
...Roused at dawn from a misty dream,
I read, a year late, news from home --
And I remember the moon like smoke on the river
And a fisher-boat moored there, under my door.