Chapter Nine
Suki couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Sokka sleep this late. Every time she'd tried to rouse him, he'd simply roll over and say, "I just want to dream a little longer."
Finally, she'd resorted to sending the children in. Their activity was a guaranteed wake-up call.
Zutara and Toma leaped onto the bed with a vengeance, inciting groans then laughter from the sleepy Sokka. After much tickling and bouncing, Sokka finally managed to pull the two children into headlocks. "All right, you two, settle down," he exclaimed with a laugh.
He rose and dressed as the children sat on the end of the bed, still giggling.
"Show us another trick, Daddy," Toma asked excitedly.
"All right," Sokka agreed, then looked around for water to bend. The water pitcher was empty, but the window stood open, letting a warm, damp breeze into the room. He closed his eyes and felt around him. Sure enough, the air was humid, heavy with coming rain.
With a wave, he pulled enough water out of the air and into his hand to make a small globe about the size of a child's fist. He sent the little globe sailing around their heads, then bounced it off Toma's forehead. Toma giggled and rubbed his skin, but he wasn't a bit wet.
Then Sokka took the globe and fashioned it into a crown of unmelting ice which he placed on Zutara's dark hair. "For my princess," he declared and gave her a polite mock bow.
Zutara pulled the crown off her head to examine it more carefully, then placed it back on her head with a smile.
"What about me, Daddy?" Toma asked bouncing on his rear end in excitement.
"Hop up," Sokka said, helping the boy to stand on the end of the bed. "Now jump to me."
Toma jumped off the bed toward his father, but instead of catching him in his arms, somehow Sokka managed to hold Toma in mid-air, suspended above the floor. Then with a gesture he tumbled him end over end, dropping him playfully back onto the mattress.
"That was cool!" Toma cried. "Do it again!"
After three more jumps, Sokka asked, "Zutara, do you want a turn?"
Zutara looked up at him, then with a serious look asked, "How do you do that, Daddy?"
"Bending, sweetheart," came his reply. "I'm just bending the water in him. There's a lot of water inside us."
"Can you show me how to bend?" she asked. "Can you show me how to do it too?"
Sokka thought for a minute. "I don't think so. I never learned how from a teacher. I remember watching your Aunt Katara practicing when she was a little girl, but I don't remember what she did." He tried to emulate one of the basic forms, but he felt silly. "You should probably go talk to her, sweetheart."
Zutara nodded then took off her crown, placing it carefully on the dressing table. "I don't want it to get messed up," she explained. Then she headed out the door.
For some reason, Sokka felt like he'd let her down. It made him uncomfortable. Then Suki came into the room and his discomfort increased. For some reason, he felt like he'd let her down too, but he had no idea why—just the vague notion that he'd dreamed it somehow.
"Good morning, honeycakes," he said to her, giving her a slightly guilty kiss.
But before she could respond, Toma started in with, "Show Mama what you can do, Daddy!" and he leaped out at him. Sokka caught him easily with only a wave of his hand and plopped him on the bed.
"That's enough for now, son," he instructed firmly, aware that Suki's eyes had widened at his display of ability.
He ignored the question in her eyes and went to the bathing room to wash up, all the time feeling uneasy, as if he was doing something wrong.
Then as he gazed into the mirror, his newly white lock of hair caught his eye and he remembered his dream. He'd dreamed about Yue. The details were fuzzy, but he remembered how much she'd liked his castle. He remembered the smell of her hair.
Strange, he'd never smelled in a dream before.
He shook himself and finished dressing. In the kitchen, he threw together something to eat for breakfast since Suki had fed the children hours before and had already cleaned up. Then he asked her if she wanted to walk down to the boat with him. "I've got to check on repairs with the Duke," he explained.
"Are you sure you want to go out again, Sokka?" she asked. "I wish you'd just leave the fishing to the Duke and the crew this time."
"It's my boat, Suki. My crew. My responsibility. I can't just ask them to go without me," he replied. But seeing the look in her eyes, he reached out for her hand. "I know you don't want me to leave. But I'll be fine. I'm a super master waterbender now," he declared with a grin. "How can water hurt me?"
Suki let him pull her close. "I'm afraid it will find a way somehow," she whispered against his chest as he held her. "I can't lose you again."
They walked together with Toma and the two babies, Zutara having cornered Katara in the courtyard for a lesson.
"Water is life," Katara was saying. "Waterbenders cherish and protect life. That's why we are healers."
Zutara listened spellbound. "There's water in all living things, including us," Katara continued.
"That's how Daddy did it," Zutara interrupted. "That's how he picked Toma up and turned him over."
Sokka and Suki approached as Katara looked at him with suspicion. "What did you do to Toma?" she asked.
"Just a little bending fun," Sokka replied casually.
"He picked me up and floated me and flipped me over," Toma added excitedly. "Show her, Daddy!"
"No, Toma," Katara declared firmly. "I don't need to see it." Then she turned to Sokka. "That's blood bending, Sokka. Don't you remember Hama?"
"Who is Hama?" Zutara asked curiously. Toma also perked up as well.
"She was a mean old lady who did mean things," Sokka declared defensively. "I'm not doing anything mean."
"But it is blood bending all the same," Katara responded firmly, fixing him with a serious look. "Waterbenders cherish life and waterbending comes out of a place of peace and enjoyment."
"'Out of pleasure in helping others and furthering life,'" Sokka quoted. He turned to Suki and explained, "We found this waterbending scroll—well, actually Katara stole it from a bunch of pirates-"
But before he could keep telling the story, Katara interrupted, "No matter where it came from, Sokka, this is basic waterbending instruction that perhaps you need."
"I know Bending Master Penpahg D'ahn's words as well as you do. You used to read it out loud every night when we were kids trying to memorize it," he declared with a laugh.
"You might know the words, Sokka," Katara replied seriously, "but you need to work on understanding what it really means now. Bloodbending is not a path that cherishes life."
"I'm not Hama," Sokka said, growing a little piqued at her narrowmindedness. "You got nothing to worry about here. I'm not up to anything unnatural."
Katara just gave him one of her looks, as Sokka kissed Zutara on the head. Then he made sure his little girl was listening as he said, "Your aunt knows how to waterbend, girlie girl. Pay attention to what she tells you and work hard and you'll become a great bender too."
Then he and Suki headed off toward the harbor. Behind him he could hear Katara sigh, then she continued, "Like I was saying, waterbending comes out of pleasure in helping others and cherishing life. Hurting others blocks your ability to bend."
"Didn't stop Hama from bending," Sokka muttered under his breath as they walked away.
At the harbor, Sokka was pleased to see that repairs were coming along, but when the Duke asked about a return trip, he just said, "Let's get the rest of this work done, then we'll talk about it."
Then he headed toward the beach to try one more time to talk Suki into a move into his ice castle. To his surprise, the tide had come in far deeper than he'd expected, washing the foundation out from under the huge construction and leaving it partially collapsed.
"That's strange," he said after a few moments of examination. "This is the only place where the tide came in this far. Strange."
Suki shivered a little, then said, "I'm so sorry, Sokka. After all your work on it."
"No big deal," he replied, waving the entire building back into water again with only a gesture. "It can be rebuilt. Bigger and better next time."
Suki stood there and watched the water flow back into the ocean and shivered again. "But not today, okay? Let's let the ocean have it back today."
"Sure, honey," Sokka replied, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Another day." She leaned close to him, and he could smell the jasminclover in her hair. But he couldn't help remembering the smell of moonlight.
Far to the south, the sea rolled in huge breakers as tall as a three story building. Warm currents met cool currents over uneven depths, compounded by a strong wind from the east where the southernmost tip of the Earth Kingdom approached the shores of the icy continent of the Southern Watertribe. The passage there was always dangerous and this time of year it was especially treacherous.
The wind blew continually over the water as the waves crested and fell covered in white foam and breaking heavily hundreds of miles from shore.
Air, water, heat, earth-all combined in this place to create seas that surged and fell mightily, the weight of a crashing wave enough to crush any boat that attempted to navigate through.
And as if one area of chaos and imbalance was not enough, thousands of miles away in the heat of the equator, warmer tropical water also reacted to the sun and the wind, spiraling up towers of evaporation that rolled through the atmosphere as clouds, then storms, then gales, then hurricanes of wind and rain—air and water, driven by heat and directed by earth.
Balance. It was all a matter of balance. Keeping balance between the great forces of the elements. Ocean concentrated on feeling the flow and the movement between the elements at work, always working to maintain balance.
Balance didn't necessarily mean calm water and temperate nights either. Sometimes balance could only be achieved by allowing the waves to roar and the winds to howl. Sometimes balance was violent and deadly.
But balance was necessary to the health of the world and its inhabitants. It was necessary to the health of the spirits who served its caretakers.
The seas of the world were a vital component of balance and as such required Ocean's attention and guidance. He knew every inch of the thousands of miles of deep water. He knew every centimeter of the inland rivers and lakes as well since all water eventually came from and returned to the ocean.
At last, balance was achieved in both the heavy seas of the south and in the great storm of the tropics, and Ocean headed at last to his retreat in the spirit world, his great palace of red coral.
As soon as he entered, he knew he was not alone.
Her presence permeated the place just as Tui's had done so long ago—in the days when they were happy together.
The very walls seemed to glow with an inner light that said the Moon had come. Huge rooms of collected treasures and memorabilia from centuries of living that normally lay dark and silent now sparkled with renewed life.
He entered the central hall of the coral palace and saw her standing before the large doors that led to the terrace and courtyards. The very air seemed to shimmer around her where she stood, as if she herself was moonlight.
"Once, many centuries ago, we held a huge ball in this room," he found himself saying. "The entire spirit world attended. Even the Avatar came."
Yue turned at the sound of his voice as it echoed through the large room. He took a few steps toward her and continued, "The orchestra was right there, just to the side of where you are standing now."
He closed his eyes and for a moment, he could hear the music, could see the banks of flowers that had adorned the room. He could see the guests—spirits of air and mountain, field and starlight. It had been a very happy time.
Then he opened his eyes and the room was empty again, empty as it had been for far too many years. Except she was here now.
"What brings you to my house, Yue?" he asked quietly.
Yue looked at the man before her. He was not some abstract concept of Ocean but a living, breathing person. And he seemed tired.
For the first time, she really looked at him, not with the eyes of a scared girl in a new world, but with the eyes of a grown woman in her own right. She walked toward him, her silvery white gown flowing down the smooth red steps as she approached him.
His shoulders were broad and strong, and he stood several inches taller as she looked up into his face. When she'd first come to the spirit world, Ocean had seemed very old to her, but now she realized that what she'd seen before as age before had now tempered to experience. He'd seen so many things, had lived so long. But his face did not seem old now, simply mature.
And handsome. She'd never realized just how handsome he was—not in the smooth way of youth, not in the way of the young men of her memories. In fact, he was far more attractive than her fiancée Hahn had ever been and in her youth, she'd thought Hahn a very good-looking boy indeed.
That was it, she realized. Hahn had been just a boy. Sokka had been just a boy.
Ocean was a man.
And he looked tired, so tired. His eyes were the dark blue of the deep water, but they were framed with little crinkles of weariness.
"What have you been doing?" she asked as she came nearer to him. "Why are you so exhausted?"
"I have been seeking balance," he stated, "in the arctic seas and in the western tropics."
"Balance?" she asked. "What is there to balance in the ocean?"
He laughed then, and his laughter had a bit of bitterness to it, she thought.
"What can I do for you, Yue?" he asked again.
"I have come . . ." she began, but did not know what to say next. She had come to seek reconciliation with him, she supposed. She'd come to lay claim to something, but now she was not sure how she truly intended to lay claim to the ocean.
She searched his face for some hint of understanding from him, some encouragement to continue. Her eyes stopped on the shock of white hair that streaked the dark and her hand went up to touch it.
But he caught her fingers in a soft yet firm grip as she reached for him.
"What do you want with me, Yue?" he asked again quietly. Those eyes of his had grown a dark, stormy gray, and she became aware of the strength in his hand. And the warmth of it.
She began to tremble. "I don't know," she stammered. "I am sorry." He let go of her and she looked up again at his hair, so much like Sokka's. Then she remembered at least part of her errand.
"I just wanted you to know you have nothing to worry about," she said. "It's over. I have ended it." He closed his eyes for a moment as if searching mentally for something. After a brief pause, he opened them again with a little smile.
"Thank you," he replied softly. Then he let go of her hand, but she did not move away.
They stood there a long moment, silence hanging heavily between them.
She wanted to say something else, to bridge the gap between them. She wanted to reach out to him again, but there was nothing to say, nothing to do.
"I am sorry," she said again softly. But she wasn't precisely sure what she was sorry for.
Then she left and the room was a little darker in her absence.