Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.

Ships: Mostly - Yue/Sokka, Mentions - Suki/Sokka, Implied - Toph/Aang
Warnings: None. :D

Guardian of Young Lovers

"Daaaaaaaaaaad!" I called, walking down into the backyard.

He was working on one of his inventions, sitting in front of his table down by the creek at the bottom of the yard.

"Yuzuki!" He said in surprise, holding the hammer in mid-air.

I giggled. "At least you didn't hammer your thumb like you always do."

He grinned at me. "Of course not. You've snuck up on me so much now that I've learned not to." He shuffled over so I could sit on the bench next to him. "You haven't gone down to the festival yet?"

I shook my head. "I wanted to ask you a question."

He hit the nail once, so it sunk into the wood of...whatever that contraption was. "Shoot," he answered.

Well, poop. I had been thinking in-the-moment too much. Now I didn't know how I was going to ask him. "Hmm...well...you know how you-? Hmm, no, let me start again."

Dad watched me out of the corner of his eye as he positioned a nail, smiling patiently at me. (He knew I liked to speak properly.)

I put a hand to my chin and constructed my sentence. He raised the hammer, and I said, "Why are you always so sad during the Full Moon Festival?"

Boom!

"Owwww!"

x

"I thought you said you had learned not to hit your thumb with the hammer!"

"When you sneak up on me, not when you ask…surprising questions. Although," Dad took his thumb out of the cold creek water and inspected it, "I was expecting you'd ask me one day."

I blinked. "You mean Sukhon hasn't asked you?"

"Nope. But, where exactly do I begin?" (It was a question mostly for himself.)

I sat back on the creek bed and looked at my sandals. "I know you're not sad in the normal-kind-of-sad if that helps."

Dad dipped his hand into the water again. "You're right. I'm not." He looked up at the moon.

"You know how a long time before you were born, your Aunt Katara, Uncle Aang and I had to go to the North Pole?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember why?"

I looked up at the moon too, to see if that would help (it seemed to help him). "Aunt Katara and Uncle Aang had to learn waterbending, right?"

"Just like you are now."

I smiled and passed my hand over the creek water. It rippled weakly. "Only just."

"Well, anyway," he sat back on the creek bed next to me, "I was traveling with them. The first day we got there, I met the princess of the Northern Water Tribe."

"Ooh," I couldn't keep my mouth shut. " Is this a fairytale?"

Dad smiled. (I didn't know it then, but there was a little sadness in his eyes.) "Not all fairytales have happy endings, Yuzuki. But, she was certainly as beautiful as any fairytale princess I had ever heard of."

"Did you love her?"

"Yes. I loved her. As soon as I saw her."

"Did she love you?"

"Yes."

I thought before I asked my next question. "You don't still love her, do you?"

My dad blinked in confusion at me. (Imagine! My dad, confused at such a little question!)

"I mean, what about mom? You love her, don't you? Unless-" I gasped, "Mom's not a princess is she?"

Dad laughed. "No, no, your mom's not a princess. Let me finish the story first."

I pouted. "Alright. So you loved each other. Then what?"

"Well, she thought we shouldn't see each other. She was already engaged to another young man of the Northern Water Tribe."

"Your rival?" I said with a grin on my face.

"Yes, I guess you could say that."

"But you did see each other again, didn't you?"

"Yes. The three of us had only stayed at the North Pole for a couple of days before a massive fleet of Fire Nation soldiers attacked. And you have to remember, Yuzuki, back then, the Fire Nation wasn't a peaceful place."

"I remember. …But dad, why were they attacking the North Pole? You told me the South Pole had been weakened for years back then."

"You remember me telling you that? That was a while ago."

I nodded. "I have a good memory."

"Well, they attacked because the North Pole has a very sacred spot in it called the Spirit Oasis."

"I've heard that before."

"Yes, I imagine someone has told you about it. One of your aunts and uncles, it's important to us. It's a small pool of water, where two koi fish swim around and around each other. Sound familiar?"

"Yes," I answered, struggling to remember, "one is black and one is white. And they have spots on their forehead, like the yin-yang symbol."

"That's right, Yuzu. Do you know what was special about those two koi fish?"

I shook my head then.

"They were the moon spirit and the ocean spirit incarnate. The general who was leading the invasion, Zhao, he was planning to kill the moon spirit, and destroy every waterbender's power."

A long silence.

"He didn't...win, did he?"

Dad opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally, he said, "Well..."

"He didn't!" I said indignantly.

"He killed the moon spirit, yes. But he didn't win."

I leaned back on my hands, waiting.

"The princess...When she was born, she was very sick. But her parents brought her to the oasis, and the moon spirit blessed her, and gave her life.

"She gave it back that night."

A wind shifted through the trees.

Let me tell you, my dad never liked fully saying what he meant to me. He liked me figuring things out on my own, and I did too. It made me feel scientific, like Uncle Teo. It took me a while to figure that out.

"So...she sacrificed herself, and...the moon spirit survived?"

Dad shook his head. "She became it."

I digested this, and looked up at the sky. "So then...you mean..." (I couldn't help it. I shouted.) "You were in love with the MOON SPIRIT?"

"Yes. And to answer your much earlier question: Yes, I do still love her. Or at least part of me does."

"But what about mom?"

"I've always loved your mom. And I always will."

"But you just said-"

"Yuzu, it's possible to love two people at once. If it makes it easier to understand, I'll always love the moon spirit for how brave and selfless she was that night. Being a princess doesn't mean being rescued by a brave knight. It means being a future queen. It means one day you will rule a people, and you must be loving and protective of them. Like a mother."

I tilted my head and looked up at the big round moon. It reminded me of Aunt Toph's big round pregnant belly. "Like a mother..." a repeated. "Did she tell you that?"

"Who?"

"The moon spirit. Did she tell you all that stuff about being a princess?"

He laughed. "No. She told that to your mother, in a dream when she was expecting Sukhon, before you were born."

"The moon spirit told mom? So, so, she's not jealous?"

He closed his eyes and ruffled my hair. 'I don't think the moon spirit is capable of jealousy. She's far too gentle for that. And besides, she has all the Star Children to look after…and I don't know, meetings with the Sky Council to talk about...what clouds should be on the job which days of the week. She's too busy to be jealous."

"Daddy!" I chided. "You just made that all up!"

"How do you know?" He asked. "There could be a Sky Council!"

Whether it's true or not, we'll never find out until we remember to ask Uncle Aang one day (he'd go off into the Spirit World and find out for sure). But the idea of the moon spirit being busy made me realize something. "Daddy," I started slowly, "that's why you stay home during the festival isn't it? It's the one time you get to sit down and talk with her."

He nodded, and pulled me over to sit on his crossed legs. "You guessed it. I don't really know how to explain how we talk with one another. Maybe it's all a daydream in my head when we talk. You know...the festival before you were born, she gave me the idea for your name."

"She did?"

"Yes. You see, her name is Yue. And your mother's name is Suki. So we put them together, and we got your name."

"What does Yuzuki mean then?" I asked.

"'Gentle Moon.' It was perfect for you. It was perfect for her. And it was perfect for your mother."

I sat like that for a long time, the silver moonlight spilling down from the sky, safe and warm in dad's arms. And after awhile I started feeling it. This human feeling in the moonlight. A feeling I got when I hugged one of my aunts that I hadn't seen in a while. It was...wonderful.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Yuzu?"

"When you and Yue met, you were young, right?"

"Oh, yes. Only as old as your sister Sukhon is now."

"So...Yue looks after the stars, and the waterbenders. Would she look after young couples, too? In memory of you?"

He laughed into my hair. "That's certainly a romantic idea. But yes, I imagine she would."

I got up. "Well, that's good. That way you don't have to worry about Sukhon and Jiang's date tonight."

I started walking up the hill towards the house. Behind me dad was flailing his arms (how expected) in sheer dad-ish-ness. "Date?!" he shouted after me.

I turned and smiled oh-so-innocently in the back doorway. "Yup. They're going to the dumpling eating contest. I said I'd be right down after I asked you a question, so I better get going!" I waved and ran through the house and down to Kyoshi Village, giggling all the way.

Sukhon would be so proud.

x

"Don't worry."

Sokka turned to the girl in the flowing white robe, sitting with her knees tucked to her chest on the flat little rock in the middle of the creek. The white ribbons and long sleeves drifted into the water, silver flowing downstream like milk. One of the little fairies floating like starlight around her was giggling into her ear.

"They haven't kissed. Yet."

He shook his head and put his chin in his hand. "You know Yue, being the only man in the house is frustrating."

"Don't say that. You know you love it."

He grinned at her and it spread to her face as easily as she learned the dance steps she mirrored with Tui.

"I know."

AN. Thank the Lord, this is finally done. Something about this really bothers me though. I don't know what. Maybe it's the ending. Oh, well, I'm not going to fret. It took me long enough to get this done

Edit: Thank you to Onigumo, who pointed out I had one too many Japanese phrases and names in here. Changed a couple of the names around and got rid of a couple of lines of dialogue. "Sukhon" is a million times better than "Aiko" anyway.