2. Smell
Sometimes in a battle smell is all you have. The first thing you learn as a warrior is to utilize all your senses. Every one of them must be strong so you are never left vulnerable if one is taken away from you. If your enemy takes away your sight, your hearing must be good enough to see him. But all warriors know the strength that lies in senses, and thus all of them try and take it away. A quick dash of sand to your opponent's eyes to leave them blind. A loud crash near their ears to leave their hearing impaired for a while. A jab to the jaw to make sure the only taste they have is of sweat and maybe blood. Then all you have left is the feel of the weapon in your hand and your smell. You have to be able to smell the sweat and violence and, possibly, fear of your opponent. You must be able to smell everything, or you are doomed.
It's because of this training that I can pick up every person's unique smell with ease. For instance, I can smell Sokka from about a mile away. Although that might just be saying something about his lack of hygiene. But most days he smells faintly of the fat the Water Tribe people use to keep their weapons from rusting, cooked meat and his own personal body scent which I can't describe and which actually smells a whole lot better than it sounds. And, just like with Sokka, I know the smell of every member of my little adopted family. Not only does this help me in battles or training exercises but it also makes me feel… safe. Like the smell of the Kyoshi Warrior's facepaint used to in the old days. Their smells are the smells of home and love and safety.
That's one of the reasons I feel so unsettled when they change their smells. Even though the war is over we're traveling around a lot and although I'm not scared or worried about the new places we go to it's so much nicer when the things that make you feel at home remain constant. The first person to change her smell was, surprisingly, Toph. It's surprising because for as long as I've known her she's never been cleaner than a moderate patch of earth. And so she's always smelled of earth; dirt, soil, fallen rubble and leaves. Until she was set to reunite with her family. Then she smelled of expensive soap and new clothes and some very odd perfume and new leather shoes. Her new getup didn't stop her from attacking Sokka when he burst out laughing but it felt… wrong to see such a prissily dressed rich girl pummeling my boyfriend.
And her change in smell upset all of us; none of us really knew how to act around the sweetly scented, smartly dressed, polite Miss Bei Fong. Luckily she lasted only three days before cracking, laying down the 'I am who I am' law to her parents and returning to her earth-caked green getup. And so balance was restored. For a while.
Next to change was Aang. This time I'd seen it coming, though, so I wasn't so completely thrown. With Sokka things flowed naturally from stage to stage; not too fast, but not painfully slow. He and I got to know each other's body language and life rhythms and although he can be really dense sometimes (bless him) and rather annoying (to be fair I have my faults as well) we've always sorted things out quickly and just… moved closer together. But Aang and Katara never really seemed to have this luck. Their kiss at Ba Sing Se was magical and just right and it promised to be the beginning of something that was always meant to be.
But it never got passed the beginning stage. Somehow the sense of awkwardness stayed between them. They never really got their rhythms to match. And they stayed at the I'm-awkwardly-crushing-on-you stage; a mix between young, rash love and family affection. Aang became rather desperate and began looking to Sokka and Toph for help. I don't think I need to explain what an idiotic move that was. But he learnt his lesson. The hard way. Katara spent most of the time trying to avoid him when he started sloshing on copious amounts of the sweet-smelling nectar old, perverted and lonely men wore down at the clubs no decent person went to. Finally I could take his nose intrusion no longer and I gently told him to wash off the ridiculous smell. He looked very dejected, but he followed my advice, thank the spirits. The next day he was back to smelling like soft dust and cloudy days. Although it didn't do anything to make him and Katara take the next relationship step up. This worried me for a while because I thought maybe she would try the same thing and start wearing perfume to try and impress him. But she proved to have more sense and stayed smelling (and looking and acting) exactly the way she always did.
Actually… No… That's not quite right… Now that I think about it, I do remember a time when I was sure Katara's smell changed a bit. At the time I thought I was just being ridiculous. Actually, I'm still very sure I was imagining things. It must have been because Zuko was visiting us en route to King Bumi for more post-war negotiations that I thought it up. But for a second back then I was so sure that Katara smelled of Zuko. Spicy, warm and… Zuko-ish. But, like I said, it was just because he was around that I made the mistake.
Because why on earth would Katara smell like Zuko? He'd have to have held her all night or something like that...