Chapter Eight
Yue watched Ocean leave with a mixture of relief and regret, along with a measure of confusion.
"Good riddance," came a languid voice from the sofa. "He's always been the jealous type." A lovely green hand reached out to pick up the delicate stemware that sat on the nearby table, and Lian Shen, the swamp spirit, leaned forward out of hiding to take a sip of her drink.
Yue rubbed at her wrist and walked back across the room to take a seat with her friend.
"What is he talking about?" Yue asked.
"Which part, darling?" Lian Shen responded with an amused laugh.
"About the unfaithful moon," Yue answered. "I haven't been unfaithful."
"No, of course not," her willowy green friend replied. "You've done nothing wrong at all. He's just overly sensitive. Ocean always was the jealous type."
Yue sat there for a moment and considered Lian Shen's words. Had she done anything wrong? Had saving Sokka's life been wrong?
Absolutely not.
"And after all," Lian Shen continued, "what kind of claim does La think he can make on you? You didn't choose this life. You didn't choose him."
Yue had to agree to that. When she'd given her lifeforce to the little white koi fish, she thought she would die. She expected to pass into the next world, not the spirit world. It had been very unexpected to find herself embodying the moon. And even more unexpected to realize that she was now the consort of the Ocean.
Yue looked around at the beautiful tower of ivory moonstone that was now her home in the spirit world. It was lovely and filled with things that delighted her and reflected her nature and her interests—nature and interests that were far removed from the Watertribe girl she had been.
She knew she'd changed there. Her perspectives had changed dramatically. From her vantage point in the moon she could see the natural world from a distance that both removed her from it and gave her a far deeper appreciation of the scope of life itself. She could see the stars around her and the land beneath her and all of the human activity on a grand scale.
But far more of the planet's surface was covered by water than earth. And unlike the land, the water was effected by her very presence in ways that made her feel powerful. She had to admit the sea fascinated her even as her tides pulled it closer in great waves of motion-like she was bending at last.
She thought for a moment about the spirit of Ocean. She had been a little afraid of him when she first came, but he had always treated her with such polite kindness and reserve that she'd grown comfortable in his presence. He understood the spirit world completely and had helped her learn her place there in a kind but businesslike manner.
At first, he'd appeared to her in the spirit world in the form of a man of perhaps her father's age. But the more time she spent around him, the younger he'd seemed to grow.
Now he seemed to her like a handsome man in his thirties, and the perpetual sadness that had always seemed to mark him had begun to ease a little. He smiled more easily when he spoke to her and had even laughed a time or two at something she said.
And whatever Lian Shen said about him, Yue admired him. He was knowledgeable and respected in the Spirit World. But now he was angry with her.
Lian Shen watched as her young friend Yue frowned. It was odd to see such an expression on her lovely face. Yue had settled in so well with the rest of the spirits and was usually a very content person.
"What is it?" Lian Shen asked. "How has that old bore put you out of temper?"
"He's angry with me," Yue replied, unconsciously rubbing her wrist where Ocean's fingers had left their mark. "And I have no idea why saving Sokka's life should make him so angry."
Lian Shen sighed at that. She'd seen enough of Tui's push and pull on La over the millenia that she knew quite well why he was angry. But La had known Yue long enough now to realize she was not Tui. Just like Mountain, Ocean was just being possessive and overly sensitive in Lian Shen's opinion. It would be good for him, she decided, to twist in the wind a little.
"I agree completely," Lian Shen said. "It's not as if you started anything with this human. You were simply doing him a kindness."
"True," Yue agreed. Then she blushed a little. Lian Shen noticed immediately.
"Unless, of course, your kindness has extended further than you've admitted, Yue," Lian Shen teased. "Who is this Sokka to you?"
Lian Shen listened in amusement as her friend finally told the entire story of her relationship with the human Watertribesman whom she had now blessed with uncanny bending abilities. The swamp spirit's amber eyes widened as Yue admitted having looked in on Sokka many times over the years, including very recently indeed.
"But all I can do is watch him," Yue sighed. "I see him with his wife and his children, Lian Shen. I see her have the life with him I wanted. A life I'll never have." And tears welled up in those cerulean blue eyes.
Lian Shen thought privately that Yue was only setting herself up for heartbreak if she continued down this particular emotional path. Then again, Lian Shen's own little dallies with human men had been a source of entertainment and pleasure for years. And a way to make Mountain appreciate her attention when she chose to give it to him, she thought with a smile. Perhaps Yue could use the same kind of diversions.
And it would be nice to see Ocean squirm as well. Lian Shen had hoped that after Tui's death, he would have been a little more appreciative himself of her attentions and had offered to console him in his time of grief, but he'd turned her down cold. No man rejected Lian Shen's favors and got away with it.
"Yue," she began in her sweetest voice, "what if I told you that there was a way for you to be with Sokka?" At Yue's scandalized look, she continued, "Just to talk to him, to visit with him—nothing more than that of course."
"I could talk to him?" Yue's voice was full of hope and excitement.
"Let me show you a little trick I know that involves dreams," Lian Shen replied smoothly.
That night Sokka lay in bed with Suki, back in their old house. After all his work on the ice castle she wouldn't stay the night in it.
"We need to bring in some soft furnishings," she'd told him with a kiss on the cheek. "I think it is beautiful, Sokka. I really do. But give me a day or two to find the right kind of bedding and cushions to match such a grand place."
He'd offered to just go get the mattress from the bed but she talked him out of it, declaring that the children needed time to settle in as well.
In the end, he'd given in and gone back home with her, disappointed and a little hurt. Nobody had seemed to really like the new place. He'd discovered a whole new kind of waterbending and nobody seemed to like it at all.
Jet and Mai were the only ones who seemed even half-way appreciative. Katara was downright hostile and Aang was distant. Toph said she felt like she was walking on invisible stone and Zuko just kept frowning and shaking his head.
Even Zutara had been whiny and uncooperative when he tried to coax her inside. At least Toma ran the halls like a wild ponyrabbit.
He rolled over again and closed his eyes once more to try to sleep. After several minutes, he could tell from Suki's even breathing that she had finally drifted off. The rest of the house was dark and silent with only a little glow from the window as the moon rose overhead.
At last he slept as well.
And then he dreamed.
He dreamed that he sat with Yue in a beautiful white room. The walls and the floor glowed as if they were infused with moonlight. And Yue was just as transcendent as she'd been when she'd come to him during the storm.
"I've missed you so much, Sokka," Yue said in a melodic voice. "You don't know how many times I've looked in on you and wished I could tell you how much I missed you."
"I missed you too," Sokka replied. "But I always felt like you were looking out for me."
"I was," Yue answered sincerely. "Always." She moved closer to him on the silvery gray sofa, and he reached out and put his arm around her shoulder because it seemed like a friendly thing to do. Besides, it's just a dream, he thought to himself.
"How do you like the gift I gave you?" she asked, snuggling into his side. Her hair drifted around her face and onto his neck. It felt like gossamer, like spidermoth silk. And she smelled so wonderful. Had he ever smelled in a dream before?
"I love it," he answered. "It's incredible. It's like everything I ever thought bending would be like but so much more, Yue." And he told her about his house he'd built.
"I want to see it," she stated and stood up, taking him by the hand.
"Okay," he answered, wondering if his dream would take them there or if he would suddenly find himself dreaming that he stood on the streets of Omashu wearing a dress or in some other equally disturbing nightmare.
To his surprise and delight, he found himself standing hand in hand with Yue in the halls of his ice castle on the beach. The moonlight shone through the windows and down the chandelier he'd bended so carefully.
"It's wonderful!" Yue was suitably appreciative and breathless in her compliments as he took her from room to room. "You made this?" she asked as they stood in the doorway of the master bedroom. She ran her fingers over the carved posts of the bed. "I think it is incredible."
"And it's all because of you," Sokka stated. "Thank you so much for giving me not only my life, but my bending."
Yue looked up at him and smiled. "You are welcome, Sokka." Then she reached up and ran her fingers through the strands of white that stood in such contrast to the rest of his dark hair. "It was my gift to you. My chance to protect you."
"I am so sorry I didn't protect you in the Spirit Oasis," Sokka murmured. "I played it over and over in my head how I could have stopped Zhao, how I could have saved you."
"But if you had saved me then, how could I have saved you now?" she asked gently. "It's the way it was supposed to be."
Sokka stood there a moment, entranced by her loveliness, her transcendence. He wasn't sure what to do next. Then she pulled his head down to her and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. "You sleep now, Sokka. We will meet again," she whispered.
And the dream shifted out of the ice castle and into more familiar dreamscapes. If he whispered her name in his sleep, no one knew, least of all himself.
Yue opened her eyes in her tower of moonlight and smiled at Lian Shen. "It was so easy," she said in relief. "And it was so nice to be able to just talk to him. To sit with him and touch him."
"I am glad," Lian Shen replied, giving her hand a pat. "You can visit like this any time you want—any time Sokka is asleep, that is."
Yue then frowned again. "What is it now, darling?" Lian Shen asked, getting a little exasperated.
"But Ocean is still so angry with me. I don't want him to be angry," Yue answered, her voice a little nervous.
Lian Shen stood, shaking out her skirts and sweeping back her dark auburn hair with an elegant green hand. "Then give Ocean what he wants as well. He's jealous. Give him some of your attention," she instructed.
Yue looked even more anxious at that. Ocean had never made any kind of overtures to her that he wanted her attention and she admitted such to Lian Shen.
"Ocean may be a spirit," Lian Shen stated firmly, "but he's still a man. And he wants you, trust me." She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice as she said it, but Lian Shen had to admit it. She'd seen it on Ocean's face from her vantage point in the back of the room. The old fool was in love with the young fool. But his love for her had certainly done him good. Ocean was looking younger and far more attractive than he'd been in years.
Yue still looked nervous. "Go see him. Go offer to make up to him," Lian Shen suggested. "You might even enjoy it."
Yue just shook her head. "No, Lian Shen. Ocean is not interested in me."
"Do whatever you want then," Lian Shen stated breezily. "You are the one who has to put up with him. If you want him to keep thinking you are unfaithful to him, just let him be. I'm sure he'll come to his own conclusions without your help."
Yue frowned again. Maybe Lian Shen was right. Maybe she needed to just go to Ocean and talk to him, let him know there was no reason to be upset about her saving a friend's life. "Maybe I should go talk to him," she concluded.
"Of course you should," Lian Shen affirmed. "And then he'll not be angry with you. And he won't go trying to put an end to your new young man. Remember the story of Tui and Ahsan."
Yue's frown deepened. The Ballad of Tui and Ahsan was an old Watertribe legend that told of Tui's love for a young sailor named Ahsan and how La had become jealous and drowned him in a storm. Yue had always thought it just a sad story, but now she was curious.
"Did it really happen the way the legend is told?" she asked Lian Shen. "Did La really drown Ahsan?"
Lian Shen shrugged. "Ocean has always claimed innocence, but Tui was convinced he did. She was angry with him for years," the swamp spirit stated. Of course, she thought, La did have reason to be jealous. Ahsan wasn't Tui's only human lover over the centuries.
But Yue was worried now. Whether or not the story of Tui and Ahsan was true, Ocean had threatened Sokka. "What can I do, Lian Shen? I don't want Ocean to kill Sokka just because I was kind to him," she cried.
"Then go convince Ocean that he has nothing to fear from this human man. Go make sure Ocean knows his place is secure," Lian Shen instructed as turned to the door. "I think you know what you must do."
Then Lian Shen was gone back to her flower-filled bower, leaving Yue alone to think.
Had she done wrong in saving Sokka?
Absolutely not.
Was it any of Ocean's business who she chose to befriend?
No, she told herself.
Was she doing anything inappropriate by just talking to Sokka?
No, she told herself again, shaking off the memory of his arm around her.
But could she actually do what Lian Shen suggested? Was Ocean truly interested in having her as his consort in anything but an official way? Was she interested in being such?
Then she remembered how it felt to see Sokka with his wife, how it hurt to know that no matter how often they met in dreams, she would never truly be with him. She would never have the life she'd wanted of a home and a family.
And she grew angry. She hadn't chosen this life.
Now she belonged to Ocean. But he belonged to her as well, and perhaps it was time she began to take what belonged to her.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In case you didn't read Voice of the Earth, Lian Shen is the spirit of the swamp outside Omashu where Aang, Katara, and Sokka got lost in Season One where Aang kept seeing visions of Toph and the swamp kept playing tricks on Katara and Sokka. She's a beautiful green busybody who developed a serious crush on Zuko and threatened to kill Toph if she didn't find a new king for Omashu—which turned out to be Jet. At the end of their stay in the swamp, Aang told Lian Shen she needed to get out more and that she should pay a visit to Yue, the new moon spirit. And don't we wish he hadn't! I love Lian Shen! She's so bad!