Gyatso and Kara: Prodigies of an Avatar
Chapter 33- Flashbacks
"What to wear, what to wear . . . ?" Kara thought to herself aloud in the sleeping quarters that she shared with the rest of the women of the group. Though she was only going to the ball so that the group could leave the base, she was still nervous and excited.
"My mom used to say that when looking for a dress, pick the one that makes your eyes pop the most." Rika tried to help as she picked a forest green dress out of the huge closet that was decked out with women's clothes. The dresses were traditional and had stayed in their closets for a number of years; however, they all kept their shine and had their own distinct smell.
"How to you make grey eyes pop?" Kara replied looking at an azure blue kimono and a coral colored hanbok (without the jacket) with a green flower design on the bottom. She brushed her fingers against the fabric of both dresses and was tickled. The dresses were made of pure silk.
"Not with those colors." Topaz said taking both dresses out of her friend's hands and placing them back in the closet.
"Topaz, why aren't you coming anyway?" Kara asked digging her head into the closet in hopes of finding the perfect dress. Though, in theory, the dance was bound to be horrible, the teen wanted to try and make it nice for everybody.
"I want to hang out with Kuzon and your mom."
Everybody's head turned at the outrageous lie. No way would Topaz want to spend time with Kuzon after the whole babysitting thing, and child-care was not one of her lifelong dreams.
"What?" She asked seeing the faces of the women around her.
"Pazzie, you hate my little brother." Kara chuckled as she took a red dress out of the closet.
"You know what, why does it even matter? I can stay behind if I feel like it, okay!"
"Relax, Topaz." Katara said trying to calm the girl down as she took a seat on the soft bed that she would be sleeping on that night.
"Nobody is forcing you to go to that stupid ball." Katara continued tucking Kuzon into a fuzzy sheet of covers. She looked up at the windows of the room and sighed.
"Hurry up, ladies. It'll be dark in a couple of minutes."
"How am I supposed to hurry up if I have no dress? I am expected to look cute all of the time, and the one time that I actually want to, there is nothing for me to wear!" Kara yelled collapsing on her bed disheartened and frustrated.
"Oh, look at this cous; I think that I have found you the perfect dress!" Kyoshi exclaimed jumping up.
"It's perfect!"
The Ball
Iroh, Roku, Li, and Gyatso stood nonchalantly at the snack table at the less that crowded ball. There were almost no women at the ball, and who could blame them with a misogynist general dictating everything, so they just stood waiting for their friends to come out. Nobody expected anything special, probably just the girls in their regular clothes ready to stand and eat as many servings of Peking Duck as their bodies could handle-especially Topaz- and only dancing because that was the only thing that they could do besides eat.
"Are you nervous, Gyatso?" Iroh smiled sliding over to face his friend. He wore a black button down similar to those of the Dai Li. Every man wore a variation of this outfit whether it is in red, yellow, green, or some other color.
"I'm only nervous if you are." Gyatso said as he took a bowl of rice and sucked it into his body.
"Don't be such a sloppy eater, man, if you get rice stains on your white suit that your mom cleaned for an hour. She'll kill you if you mess it up."
"No she won't." Gyatso scoffed placing the bowl on the red table. His bright blue eyes wandered to the stage, where Fong sat waiting on the girls to come.
"These clothes don't belong to me, either. General Fong will be in charge of cleaning whatever stains get on these clothes, anyway. Why should I care?" He continued bitterly and turned to the entrance of the ballroom.
"Where are the girls?"
Just as Iroh said that, the girls walked in, looking more beautiful than ever. Kyoshi wore a purple and white hanbok with a pink and green lily design on the bottom. Her hair was up as usual, but had white flower ornaments hanging from it, which stood out because of its dark auburn color. Rika looked almost fifteen years old with her dark green qípáo (mandarin dress) with her long hair in a huge, loose bun that made her look prettier than she usually did.
Kara came out wearing a yellow kimono. It had pink and blue orchids and poppies scattered all over the kimono in the perfect spots. Her hair was in a simple bun, but had loose "loopies" on the sides and top of her hair that stuck and shined on her more than the regular hair. There was also a comb-over bang on her head, which made her look even more dressed up.
"Wow." All the boys said simultaneously taking a deep breath.
They stayed like that for a couple of seconds, just staring at the girls before them in awe. The boys had never seen them fully made and cleaned up. The girls were always either practicing their fight of choice, which made them sweaty and funky-the smell-and they couldn't exactly buy a new hair brush when their old one wore off on the road, sky, rather. Surprisingly, to the boys, they had cleaned up very well.
"Guys, do you expect us to eat for the rest of the night?" Rika asked with a giggle, but Iroh and Gyatso knew her well enough to know that her giggle really meant "if you don't ask us to dance, I will kill you all".
"Yea-" Li started, but was elbowed violently in the arm by Gyatso before he could finish his stupid statement.
"I'll dance with you, Rika." He said with a casual smile. He extended his arm for her to take, which she did, and they walked onto the empty dance floor.
"Gyatso, I don't want to dance alone-with you alone, I mean. We are the only people on the floor."
"Rika, relax. We'll be fine."
She didn't believe him though because, like most people that belonged Water Tribe had no rhythm-especially Rika. Whenever Rika even tried to dance, she would either trip, fall, and injure herself and/or others, or all of the above. She flinched thinking of dancing, but before she could say anything else, Gyatso took her by the waist and pulled her close.
The band, which consisted of four men, started to play a smooth beat. Gyatso moved to the side slowly and Rika tripped, and would've fallen down if Gyatso hadn't caught her and pulled her up onto his feet for him to dance for her. They swayed together in sync with the music, pulling people onto the dance floor. Li pulled Kyoshi with him to dance, which she did, forgetting about their stupid argument and moved with the music as well. Even the soldiers that had no dates went onto the floor, dancing by themselves.
Rika looked up at Gyatso with a small smile and wrapped her arms around his neck, stepping down from his feet.
"Rika, you're dancing?" The boy asked with a curious smile.
"Yes, I am, thanks to you." Rika looked around the room and saw everyone dancing on the floor with them.
"It turns out you were right after all." She said with a laugh.
"Don't doubt me, my friend." He laughed back dipping her.
"I do not doubt you, Gyatso." Rika sighed as he pulled her back up. "I just get a little nervous about things."
He gave her a quizzical look, moving to the side. After giving Rika a quick twirl, he asked her a question.
"What is it that you get nervous about?"
"Um . . . that's classified?" She chuckled nervously as they swayed more.
"Ooh, juicy!" Gyatso joked pushing her away from him and then pulling her back so quick that she couldn't breathe.
"Shut up . . . I didn't know that you were such a good dancer!"
"I get it from my father, trust me, so good dancing is rare in my family-considering that 95% of it is Water Tribe." Gyatso said with a shrug. He pulled Rika close to him and bent his head down to her.
"But just between you and me, I wouldn't be as good a dancer that I am if not for you."
As Gyatso resumed his previous position and twirled her again, Rika's eyebrow raised in surprise-she obviously was not the best dancer, so how would that help her?
"What do you mean?" She asked returning from her twirl.
"You inspired me to do better." He said moving with her again. "Do you remember when you first found out that you could water-bend?"
"Yes, why do you ask?"
"We were going into our separate groups-healers and warriors-and I asked you why you picked healers instead of warriors. You told me that you wanted to become a healer because there were so little of them because-"
"A healer would've been able to help-maybe even cure my mother before she had her heart attack. I wanted to help other people like her, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"Well," Gyatso sighed with a small smile. "You were such a horrible dancer when we were younger, and I wanted to help you, so the best way to do it, in my opinion, was to learn how to dance so that I could teach you how to."
"You are so sweet." Rika thought aloud, and when she realized that she did, she blushed and looked down nervously.
"Thanks, Rika. I guess my mom taught me well." Gyatso smiled, completely oblivious to the more than platonic meaning of the quote that Rika had used.
"You bet 'cha." Rika sighed looking around.
She saw everybody dancing except for two people: Iroh and Kara. The two stood next to each other drinking juice and eating eggrolls instead of having fun with the rest of the party. Parties, even one as messed up as that one, were supposed to be fun and exciting. For them, it was anything except that.
"How's the eggroll?" Kara asked, trying to start up some sort of conversation.
"I don't know . . . eggroll-y?" He replied giving her a look that screamed "how am I supposed to answer that" and "you are so weird".
". . . Whatever. My eggroll is delicious! I especially love the, um, crunchiness of the roll part." She said awkwardly.
"Great." Iroh sighed looking down at his juice and taking a big gulp.
Kara had had enough of his sarcasm and plain out rude behavior. What happened to the old Iroh who was the nicest person in the world to her? She couldn't take his icy disposition anymore.
"You really have changed, haven't you?" Kara said, dripping with a sort of sneer.
His eyes rolled over to her and he placed his food down at that. He walked over to her across the snack table and stood next to her. What do you mean? He coldly asked with his eyes.
"You used to be nice to me, my best friend, even, and now . . . now, you're just cold."
"What do you want me to say, Kara? Sorry, but you and I both know that sorry never really helps." Iroh said harshly.
"No, I don't want you to say sorry." She sighed looking into his eyes. "I want you to be my friend, like you used to be."
Iroh looked down and leaned against the wall once more, examining himself. He closed his eyes, realizing that he was a changed person. No longer did he smile all of the time, but was serious and kept his feelings inside for the most part. The spontaneous boy that he used to be was fading fast. He had to do something that showed that he was still there inside-and fast.
"Come with me." He said taking her right hand.
"Iroh, what are you doing?" Kara yelled as she was dragged to the dance floor.
"I'm being myself. Please don't say that you have a problem with that, too."
"No, no, I have no problem with that." Kara sighed starting to move wither her dance partner. "I just have a problem with the music."
The smooth beat with a rhythm changed into a slow, romantic one almost as soon as Kara and Iroh began dancing. Their dance was supposed to be like Rika and Gyatso's, for the most part, platonic, but the romantic music was making it especially hard for them. One by one, each couple/dancer left the dance floor until only Kyoshi and Li, Rika and Gyatso, and Kara and Iroh were left dancing.
"This is weird." Kara chuckled, resting her head on Iroh's shoulder nervously. His body seemed to tense to her touch, but relaxed shortly after as they started to sway with the music.
"Is the weird bad weird or good weird?" He asked bravely.
"Good, but not good enough to dance the night away, but not bad enough to fake food poisoning to stop."
"So you're saying that I am a pretty good dancer?"
Kara rolled her eyes with a small smile. Iroh was back in the building. "I never said that, Iroh. All I said that y- the situation was sufficient." Kara caught herself as she was about to embarrass herself.
"You were going to say that I am a good dancer." Iroh laughed as the song went on.
"No," Kara said as her cheeks reddened. "I said that this situation was-I-Iroh! Stop!" Kara yelled as Iroh picked her up so high that she had to put her hands on his shoulders and then dipped her so deep that she couldn't breathe.
As the boy placed her in her original spot, she began hitting him playfully on the chest. Instead of pushing her away, he pulled her closer-so close that they could hear each other breathe-with a giddy laugh.
"So, Kara, having any flashbacks?" Iroh asked moving with her again, but quickly regretted it.
The chilled atmosphere around the two evaporated at his words. An eerie tension filled in the small space between the teens, and they looked away from each other, both red in the face.
"Kara, I-" Iroh started, trying to recover from what he had just said.
"Don't, it's okay, really." Kara sighed looking over her shoulder at the snack table. Two steps forward, one step back, she thought sadly.
"Um, Iroh, do you want to get some chow mein or something?"
"Sure, it'll be better than dancing here with the couples." Iroh laughed awkwardly.
They released each other from their holds and walked to the food table again, still close together, unsuccessfully trying to get the moment that they shared minutes before.
How was that? I seriously want to know (I live for reviews-nice ones, I mean). This chapter was three pages on Word, but nothing is ever the same length on FanFiction, I guess. Oh, well.
On to another note, to give the people who are hungry for spoilers some hints, I'll tell you all what I listened to as I wrote this chapter. Okay, while everybody was dancing, I listened to 15 Step by Radiohead over and over again until Kara and Iroh started dancing. For them until the end I listened to Iron & Wine Flightless Bird, both songs are on the Twilight soundtrack, and seriously fit the chapter.
God Bless,
Leelee488512