The accidents begin later than Iroh expects.
First come the spills. A plague of incompetence sweeps over the house's pots and kettles; puddles of soup and wine and tea seem to cause a fall a day. The kitchen staff despairs over the likelihood of ever finding a sane container again until, suddenly, the spilling comes to an end as unexplainable as its beginning.
Next comes the cold. This is a happier oddity and few seem to notice, though the cook does remark, with vague happy satisfaction, that the food storage is in especially fine condition despite the hotness of the season, and barrels of wine emerge from the cellar cold. But when someone finds a layer of frost on a melon suspicion stirs. The cold vanishes the same week the melon is discovered. Afterwards, no one bothers with the subject.
Well, almost no one.
Iroh remembers, with fond amusement, that when his nephew turned five there was a sudden rash of singed tapestries throughout the palace. And that nobody ever did figure what happened to the carpets in the west pavilion, though the servants spent a week grumbling about the soot.
Iroh summons Katara.
She arrives promptly, a lacquered tray of tea ready in her hands, and she does not look guilty. Just very, very wary.
"I was wondering," Iroh says after the tea is poured and the two are settled, "if there is something you would like to tell me."
"About what, Master Iroh?"
"Oh. Well." He sets his cup down and waves a vague hand through the air. "How old are you now, little one?"
"Ten, Master Iroh."
"Ten. That's an impressive number. A person builds up a lot of questions over ten years, I should think."
Katara's hands fold neatly in her lap. "Questions about what, Master Iroh?"
"The world in general, perhaps. Or the body in particular." He raises his cup to take another sip of tea. It is, of course, excellently prepared. "Sooner or later, a body begins to undergo certain peculiar changes and I thought we might have a talk about some of them. It happened to me too, you know."
"Is this about the moon and the river and avoiding pale colors at the end of the month? Because Kozue, the head maid, already talked to me about that." Her brows knit together, puzzled. "Wait. It does happen to boys?"
Iroh coughs tea up his throat. "Ah. No, not that talk."
"Is it about the eel?"
"…Eel?"
"Like how a boy has an eel and a girl has a flower, though when I asked what sort of flower, Kozue wouldn't tell me; she just said it's a closed flower and that it has to stay under wraps even if the eel has handsome legs. Except I've never seen an eel with legs and why would I wrap flowers?"
"No." Iroh sets down his cup. This might be more difficult than he originally thought. "This definitely isn't that talk, either."
"Then what is it about?"
Sometimes honesty works best. "Bending, maybe?"
Katara's hands freeze in her lap, blue eyes wide. Still, she remains silent.
"Katara, I understand that it is not your fault."
Her eyes widen even more. She moves forwards so suddenly that the edge of her knee bumps the tray and tea flows in a flat, low arc across the floor. Before Iroh can open his mouth to say anything, anything at all, footsteps sound from the outside and the tearoom door flies open.
"I did it," says Prince Zuko, face flushed from his sprint.
"You did?" Iroh asks, still shaking tea from his sleeve.
"He didn't!" Katara shouts, jumping to her feet.
"Yes, I did." Zuko says to Iroh. To Katara, "Shut up."
Iroh looks from one to the other, an ironic scenario unfolding in his understanding. "And what exactly did you do?"
The twelve-year old straightens, every inch a prince and nervous all the same. "I taught her."
"Taught her…?"
"Bending."
"Ah. That." Iroh wrings the last bit of tea out his sleeve. "I see."
Silence stretches among the three, Zuko standing, Iroh sitting, and Katara kneeling to mop the spill. She speaks without looking up. "I didn't mean to freeze the melons. It was an accident. I won't do it again."
"Well, that's good news," Iroh nods. "I like melon. And the spills?"
Zuko starts before Katara can. "She didn't have any control then. That's how I found out, by walking in when she was trying to get water to rise out of a jug."
"I just wanted to see if I could do it," Katara whispers.
Iroh looks at her. "Can you?"
Slowly, the girl raises her face from the floor, eyes flickering from uncle to nephew. Zuko nods. Biting her lip, she raises a hand to hold over the wet floor. At first there is nothing, not a ripple, and then a golden length of tea begins to spiral upwards. It wavers like a stalk of transparent grass, and then collapses, spraying Iroh's sleeve once more.
"Sorry," the girl, the Waterbender, mutters.
"She's not very good," Zuko explains without tact. Katara's answering glare is motivated by habit more than anger. Both children turn to look at Iroh with identical expressions of worry. Worlds of possibility spin through Iroh's mind.
"Well," he says. "Let us see where we can go from here."