VI. The Facts of Life, Again
Toph could feel Zuko's uneasiness. Aang, being Aang, was oblivious to the fact that the firebender was sweating. Which meant a lot, taking into account that this was the South Pole.
"What you mean the facts of life?" He asked innocently. Zuko intervened.
"She means nothing." He said. "She has no idea what she is talking about."
"By the Spirit's Sparky, that is a lie!" She interrupted. "I know all about the facts of life."
"Getting Chin to read romance scrolls to you about buxom heroines being ravished by sailors does not count as experience." He retorted.
She stopped, and to her chagrin, felt her cheeks burning.
"You know about that?"
"Please …"
She made another mental note: Cut Chin's tongue. Scratch that. Kill Chin.
"Well." She insisted, trying to recover some composure. "I may not have practical experience but I know things. I know that TwinkleToes here will be getting committed to Sugar Queen very soon, and there are certain things that he needs to know how to do."
"You mean, like the speech at the ceremony? I thought that was Zuko's job." Aang said.
Toph turned her head towards Sparky and made a gesture that she hope meant: Did I need say more? Zuko refused to take the bait because he said nothing.
"For Earth's sake!" She said suddenly exasperated. "Say something! Start explaining!" He did not budge.
"I'm not having this conversation with you in the room." He said adamantly.
"Why not?" She asked defiantly.
"Because is not proper. Besides, I still don't know how you guys came up with the idea that I am the right person to do this, but I am not doing it in front of the girl I taught how to write."
"We think you are the right person because you seem like the type, you know? Like a natural. And intense." She added, remembering Katara's swamp story. "Besides, is not like you taught me the entire alphabet. Just the kanji of my name. That barely counts as writing."
"I've no idea what are you talking about, and even if I do, I'm not having this conversation with you on it. You are always accusing us of being clueless, what makes you think that I will be able to explain anything to Aang?"
"Explain me what?" Aang asked, who was missing the entire gist of the conversation.
"About babies and wedding nights." She said ill-humored.
Aang seem neither surprised nor alarmed.
"Oh!" He said. "That. Don't worry, I know all about the facts of life."
"You do?" She asked surprised.
"Oh yes, the monks were very open about the facts of life."
"But … " Zuko said, now himself sounding surprised. "I thought they separated nuns and monks. You know? The Northern and Southern temples for the men, and the Western and Eastern temples for the females?"
"Yes, that's true. But once a year we all came together for the festival."
"What festival?" Toph asked.
"The Hrish festival." Their silence told him that they had no clue what he was talking about. "You know, to make airbender babies?"
They let this sink in.
"Oh, by Agni!" Zuko exclaimed after a moment, scandalized. "The monks had fertility festivals?"
"More like 'release the tension' festivals." Aang said.
"Sweet…"
"Toph, shut up You shouldn't even be here."
"So" Toph asked, curious "Did you ever participate?"
"No. Official ritual age was sixteen."
"Thanks the Spirits." Zuko mumbled.
"At 12 we were only allowed to watch." Aang continued happily. Zuko groaned.
"Wow!" Toph said. "Talk about progressive religions." Aang seemed to be deep in thought, though.
"It's part of the philosophy of communing with nature." He continued. "You need to be whole with the universe and control certain impulses. The purpose of the festival was to let go of such control and commune with our bodies. And of course, breeding." He added.
Silence followed. Zuko, being a guy, picked up the unsaid faster than Toph this time.
"You mean." He said cautiously. "You are only allowed to do this once a year?"
Aang shifted, his voice sounded thoughtful.
"Technically, yes. Well, the festivals lasted an entire week, so it was more that just once for everyone. More than that, and there would have been too many airbenders". Toph felt Zuko leaning forward.
"Aang" he said slowly, "you have never mentioned any of this. What do you mean by too many airbenders?"
Aang shrugged.
"All Air Nomads are born airbenders. It is a fact of our race. Also, we have alarming fertility rates. The odds of conceiving are always very high for Air Nomads. So the best way to control the population was to control encounters of a certain type. Too many people upset the balance with nature. Look at some of the problems in the Earth Kingdom because of overpopulation. We, the Air Nomads, have a different concept of family than the other nations. For us, our family was our community. That is the reason the females and the males were separated and communed only once a year."
Zuko and Toph thought this through.
"So," Toph asked "Did everyone get to participate every year?"
"Of course not." Aang said. "Nuns that conceived and gave birth did not participate for several years, to let them recuperate."
Toph felt obligated to ask.
"How may years are several?"
He shrugged.
"Not sure. Two, maybe five? I grew up in one of the male temples, I don't know much about the rules of the females."
Toph did the math.
"Aang" She called him by his name to get his full attention. "Does Katara know any of this?"
"I've never told her about it." He said, and she heard Zuko slapping his forehead. "You know," Aang added, "if I am really to resurrect the old ways of the Air Nomads I should start organizing a festival. Do you think people will be interested in having one?"
"Please, tell me you are joking." Zuko muttered in shock.
"What I want to know," Toph wondered in utter disbelief, "Is how come you are getting committed to my friend and forgot to tell her that she may be participating in fertility festivals with you once every five years and getting pregnant every time?"
Aang was perfectly calm.
"I didn't forget. The topic never came up."
"About the babies, or about the frequency?" She drilled further.
"Oh, the babies, yes. We talk about it all the time. We want several."
Toph turned her head towards Zuko, with an expression that she hope read like Are you doing it or should I?. This time Zuko took the hint.
"Aang" He started softly, "Other nations do things differently."
"I know." Aang said "You guys get married and stuff. Monogamy is practiced by the Fire Nation and the Water Tribes. The Earth Kingdom nobility may practice polygamy."
"You are quoting from your lessons, aren't you?" Toph asked suspiciously. She did not heard him, so she added "Are you nodding?"
"Yes, I am."
"Oh, by Agni!" Even Zuko's patience was starting to run short. "Aang, this is not a diversity lesson. Katara is going to expect more than 'once every five years' from you!"
"But then she will be having babies every year!" He argued terrified.
"There are things that women take to avoid that." Toph said "And anyway, once you knock her up she cannot get pregnant on top of the ongoing pregnancy." She heard Zuko damming Agni below breath and she realized that the comment may have been a tad insensitive, specially to him. "I mean, you don't have to follow the monks rules. Not anymore."
"I am the Last Airbender." He said resolutely. "If I don't keep the traditions alive, they die with me. I need to start recording everything I know about my people to pass it to my children."
"Yeah," Toph said "About that. How are you planning to repopulate an entire race, especially if you are only planning to do your ritual every five years?"
Aang seemed uncomfortable, finally.
"Well ... " He said slowly. "There is a reason why the ways of the Air Nomads were somewhat kept secret and a mystery to the other nations." She could hear Zuko mumbling under his breath. "We didn't really practiced monogamy. There was a purpose to the festivals."
"Are you saying what I think I am hearing?" Ahe asked, and her second conscience, the witchy hag, laughed inside her head. He did not answered. "TwinkleToes!" She shot a finger at him "You are planning to continue with the festivals on your own, aren't you?"
"Well, not on my own, no … " He started and Zuko cut him off.
"Aang, is time you and I had a talk not about the facts of life but about the facts of society!"
"What do you mean?" He asked surprised. "This is like the lessons you are giving us?" Zuko tried to sush-him but it was too late. Toph picked up immediately.
"What lessons? What are you teaching Sparky?" When Sparky did not answered, she pushed Aang. "Who is 'us'?"
Aang was saying below breath What? I forgot, I am sorry! to Zuko. She pushed him again, harder.
"Manners!" He said exasperated. "Zuko is teaching me and Sokka princely, society manners."
Toph started laughing.
"You mean, like chewing with your mouth closed and not using Momo as a napkin in public?"
"Something like that." He mumbled. "Zuko says that I as the Avatar and Sokka as future chieftain, that we need to look the part."
"Behave the part!" Zuko said "behave the part!"
Toph kept laughing.
"This is priceless!" She said. "Sparky cleaning TT's and Snoozles act and TT planning orgies on his own without telling his intended!" She lay down on the bed cracking up. "And I thought things were bad in the Earth Kingdom." She grabbed her belly. "Hey! I can ask Kuei to let you borrow his two hundred and seventy two concubines for your festivals!" She was trying to talk clearly, but couldn't. "If anything, they will be grateful!" She heard Zuko, making a noise. He was actually chuckling. If Aang was sulking, it just couldn't last long.
"You think he would let me borrow them?" He asked and somehow that send Toph over the bed. She fell.
"Why not?" She yelled from the floor. "Go ask him!!"
Zuko tried to rescue the conversation.
"Aang, you need to explain all of this to Katara." He said, in his best Sifu voice. "She is going to be your wife, she needs to know."
"Yeah!" Toph's voice came from the floor. "Go and tell Fussybritches about the yearly festivals, the 200 hundred concubines and why she is only invited every five years!!"
That last statement sobered up the mood. Aang voice sounded a little more than concerned, now.
"She is going to kill me, isn't she?" He said, and sounded like a little boy again.
Zuko sighed deeply.
"She scolds everybody." He explained. "She is Katara, for Agni's sake. She used to scold me in her sleep back at the temple! I was always in fear for my life!"
Toph raised herself and leaned her arm and chin on the bed.
"Frankly, TT" She said, wiping her tears away. "Reproducing and filling the world with little airbenders like you is a great thing, don't get me wrong. But there is no way you can do what you are planning to do and not get Sweetness to maim you in the meantime. Sparky, please, tell him."
"If I were you, I will brave that now instead of waiting for the ceremony." Zuko mumbled "Let alone five years." The last phrase sent a chill through the air.
"I don't think Katara will understand that easily. Ihaveanobligation." The last sentence was mumbled fast, all pushed together.
"We all have obligations." Zuko sighed. "We are all born with them. That does not make them absolute. You get to decide if the obligations placed on you because of birth are right … or worth it."
Toph turned her head towards the door.
"Hey!" She said. "When did Pops get in the room?"
Zuko ignored her.
"So" He continued "Are you talking to Katara about this?" TT must have been nodding or something because Sparky seemed more relaxed when he said: "That is the right thing to do, my friend."
Toph sighed in disappointment.
"And here I was sooo looking forward to hanging out with Sweetness while you were out there communing." Zuko reached over the bed and slapped her in the arm.
"So, even if I manage to convince her about the week, the two hundred concubines are out of the question, I guess" Aang said aloud, and maybe because of the ice and how hard was reading vibrations in the Pole, she did not know if he was talking seriously or in jest. "I guess I will be very tired after two hundred in a single week."
"More like dead." Zuko said but something in the way Aang had said it sent her a signal.
"Eh…" a thought suddenly struck Toph. "Twinkle-toes, let's say that if, by any chance, you know, you get hold of Kuei's two hundred, what exactly would you do with them?"
She felt Aang turning to her.
"What do you mean?"
"No. What do you mean by 'the monks let me watch'? What exactly did you watch?" Zuko said something about being indelicate and asking for details, but she sush-him "TT is a literal person," she turned and explained, "a very literal person. Like you. Subtle is no the way to go here."
"Well ..." She heard him scratch his head. "You know. The festival. There would be music, and dancing, and some of the monks will recite poetry and the nuns will bake these amazing pies, and the bards will tell us stories of the deeds of famous heroes from all nations, and stories of the Spirits, and then we will be sent to bed."
Toph and Zuko kept waiting for more, but that was it.
"That's it?" They asked almost at the same time.
"Pretty much, yes."
"What about, you know, the fertility part of the festival?" Zuko asked.
"Well, that was for the monks and nuns that were neither too young or too old. They went to a different part of the temple and as I understand for what monk Gyatso told me, there was a lot of foot massage and more poetry reading going on."
"Was he winking when he told you that?" Toph asked.
"How do you kn…"
"So you really have no idea what happened on the other side of the temple, do you?"
"Well, I have an idea." He answered, a little annoyed. "I mean, I have been hanging out with you guys for almost five years now. I know things happen. I can feel, you know?"
For the first time, she felt a little embarrassed about the way she had been treating him so far. (She refused to feel embarrassed about the way she have been talking about him so far, though, but that was not her fault. That was the hag-in-the-back-of-her-head's fault). Zuko intervened.
"We all feel the same way." He said softly. "All the time. You are not the only one."
"The girls too?" He sounded surprised, and a little scandalized too. Zuko turned to her.
"You wanted to be part of this conversation." He said unmercifully. "You answer that."
"Well" She felt blushing against her will, and also for the first time cursed her own meddling nature. "Erh, yes. We feel pretty much the same. I guess the difference is the focus of our feelings."
"Meaning?" it was Zuko who pressed her, not Aang.
"Meaning that we, the girls, would probably focus more on the poetry part of the meeting than the foot massage." She answered doing her best Katara impersonation, hopefully. She knew that Zuko did not believe a word of it. She just knew it.
"So" Zuko said slowly, leaning forward, "all those romance scrolls that my men keep getting for you are just for the sake of poetry, aren't they?"
Being a soldier she had basically two choices, retreat or attack. She chose the latter.
"There is a lot of poetry in the world," she said, "there is no accounting for taste. And so just you know, the heroines usually get ravished by the dark, mysterious Captain, not by the sailors."
"So, it is a matter of rank, now?"
"It always is." She turned to Aang. "Here is an idea, TwinkleToes. I am going to lend you my personal library, delicately chosen by Sparky's best, Captain Yin. Read a couple of those, and neither Sparky here, nor me, would have to go through this again. You can always ask questions after you are done with your reading."
"Oh, by Agni!" Zuko exclaimed. "You are worse than a firenation horde. No survivors left on your wake. So what now? You are going to fill his head with trashy romance scrolls? There is no way for any real life man to meet the expectations set up by such … readings! They are unrealistic!"
Toph almost let it slip that hearing her friend tell it, he had met all possible expectations, but even the hag in the back accepted that it would be in poor taste, so she opted for the offense tactic, again.
"Sparky!" She accused. "You have been reading my scrolls!!" It was his time to shrug.
"I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Frankly, neither you nor Chin, Yin, Lee and all the rest have any shame or taste. You are worse than uncle. He probably recommended all of those if I know what I am talking about."
"Can I read those, er, scrolls?" Aang asked, sounding really interested.
"Of course, T.T." She said in defiance to Sparky. "I admit the cultural value may not be the best, but those scrolls are written for women by women. So" she turned to Sparky "they could give any guy interested in learning a very good roadmap of, er, what women like and want." She crossed her arms resolutely. "They may not be very elevated, but they are definitively uplifting."
Zuko slapped his forehead.
"Aang" He said resignedly, as there was obviously no way to stop the rhino from crashing against the tree. "Whatever you do when you read those, do not, please, do not start acting like the men on those stories."
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"You will see what I am talking about."
Someone knocked on the door at that moment. Zuko got up from the bed to open the door, and she could hear him talking to someone. Sokka's food had arrived. Zuko turned to her and Aang.
"I'm going to get Sokka." He said. "Maybe we all could eat here after all. Aang, we have not finished this conversation, but this is something that we do not want to discuss in front of the rest. Please, let's keep this private, for now."
Zuko left the room and Toph was left alone with Twinkle-toes.
"So, Sifu T." Twinkle toes edged closer to her "What do girls like?" He asked, and his voice was very low.