Chapter 13
Yue heard Sokka's words and understood the truth of them completely. Sokka belonged somewhere else. She looked at him then, the white strands of her touch streaking his dark hair and she knew she had to end it. She had to give him back his life.
But she had no idea how to do it.
Aang looked at her expectantly, but she only shrugged. "I don't know how I did it in the first place," she admitted sheepishly. "How can I know how to take it back?"
Aang frowned and began to pace.
"I need to go back to check on Ocean," she stated after a long minute.
"We'll be here," Sokka answered. "Unless Aang thinks of something."
Yue turned her attention back to the ivory tower and was beside the still-sleeping Ocean in a thought. There had to be a way to wake him, she decided. Perhaps then Ocean would know how to undo what she had done.
She looked at him again, appalled to see that his hair had grown even grayer. When it had grown completely dark again, would the Ocean no longer be pulled by the Moon? Would the tides no longer function? Would balance be forever lost on the earth?
She reached up to touch the strands once more, and the idea of losing that connection with him-a connection barely begun-made her want to cry. She leaned forward then and impulsively kissed his cheek. Would he forget her? Would she mean nothing to him then?
As she leaned into him, her cheek pressed to his, she felt him stir a little beside her.
"Ocean," she called to him, "please wake up." But he did not stir again.
She stroked his hands and his face. She talked to him. But he did not move.
Then she tenuously, carefully, brushed his lips ever so lightly with hers. And he stirred again.
"Please come back to me," she begged him, then she kissed him again. Without his permission, but with her whole heart behind the kiss.
To her relief, he took a deep breath. She ran her fingers through his hair then and the gray strands began to glow silver. And she understood what she had to do. There could be only one. She had to choose one or the other of them.
And with another kiss, she made her choice. She chose the future instead of the past. She chose the one who belonged to her rather than to another.
With all her heart, she chose Ocean. At the touch of her lips on his, a sensation ran though her as if the light of the moon itself passed through her and into his body. Now Ocean carried a part of her with him—not just the moon, not Tui any longer, but a part of Yue herself.
This time his eyes fluttered open and she grew afraid. Would he reject her touch? Did he want her mark? Was it too late?
She saw it in his eyes as he realized where he was, and she grew cold with fear.
"Please don't push me away," she pleaded.
His eyes met hers as the lock of moon-touched hair glowed white once more.
"Please come back to me," she whispered.
"I never left," he answered quietly, as he pulled her into his arms.
At Sokka's bedside, Suki saw her husband's chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath. "Sokka, are you awake?" she asked, taking his hand in hers.
"No," he answered. But he rolled over onto his side, pulling her against him as he did so. "I had such weird dreams, Su," he whispered. "I dreamed I was a waterbender."
On the beach, Zuko watched with relief as the strange ice melted away and the waves lapped freely against the sand once more.
At the harbor, the Duke watched as the new fishing vessel began to list in the water, then truly sink as its icy drydock began to disappear around it.
Within a few hours, Sokka had woken up completely and with Suki and the children at his side had gone down to the docks to see just how bad the damage was. She was thrilled to see that the odd lock of white hair no longer glowed, and even appeared to be a little less extensive than it had been the night before. Maybe with time it would go away completely, she couldn't help but hope.
But something told her it was there to stay as Sokka effortlessly bended enough of the water out of the hull of the boat to float it to the shallows where it could be repaired.
"So I'm still a waterbender, I guess," Sokka declared, a bit of relief in his voice. Being able to bend had felt really good, and he didn't want to give it up completely.
But the super non-melting ice bending was beyond him now. For some reason, his abilities had tempered to something more like the run-of-the mill master bender. That would annoy Katara to no end, he decided a bit gleefully. It also felt good to have one on his talented sister.
The rest of the group had joined them at the dock, ready to commiserate with the fisherman on the loss of his ship.
"But after repairs, she'll be ready to go out again, right?" Jet asked.
Sokka shrugged. "I don't know if I'll be able to refit her," he replied.
"Why not? She looks fixable to me," Jet stated, taking another look at the hull. "You've got to get back out there, Sokka. The crazy old men won't have it any other way."
Sokka looked at him in confusion. "What are you talking about? What crazy old men?"
Mai laughed at that. "That's just our private nickname for the council of Omashu. The group is made up of the elders of the city and some of them are pretty elderly. They can be very demanding—and occasionally unreasonable," she explained.
"And at the trade summit that your disappearance called us away from—thank you for that at least-" Jet continued, "the council had just introduced discussion on the creation of a permanent trade route to the coast for shipments of shrimpcrab. You would not believe how popular it is in the city."
"The emperor of Ba Sing Se had sent a delegate with the express purpose of making sure that there was secure shipment to the palace," Mai added. "He'd offered to hire on some of the swamp benders to keep the catch fresh and frozen until it arrived."
Sokka was totally taken aback. He'd had no idea that the Duke's first trade ventures had been so successful. "You're kidding me," he could only say with a bit of a goofy grin on his face.
"Absolutely not," the Duke interjected. "I've been trying to tell you that we were sitting on a gold mine, Sokka."
"I thought you just wanted to get back to Omashu to see Eun Min," Sokka teased the younger man.
"Well, there is that," the Duke admitted, beginning to blush a little. "And to see Smellerbee, Longshot, and everybody else. But I really meant it when I told you that trade was good there. Very good."
Sokka looked back at his wreck of a boat and sighed.
"Well, Sokka, given time and hard work, we can rebuild it," Suki stated firmly in an encouraging voice. "The market will still be there when it's finished."
"The market won't wait long," Jet said. "We'll need to rebuild as quickly as possible and add at least a couple more boats to the fleet."
Sokka laughed out loud at that. "I would if I could, Jet. But everything I own is sitting right there on the sand with a huge hole in it."
"You never heard of investors?" Mai replied with a laugh of her own. "Jet and I want in, Sokka. We want in on the ground floor of this venture. Mostly to have our own source of fresh seafood. You wouldn't believe how boring catgator gets after a while."
Then Zuko cleared his throat. "But while they are working on repairing and construction," he began, "I have got a huge fish processing facility that needs design attention immediately. Toph and I headed down here to try to convince you to come work a while in the Fire Nation as a consultant. I've got plans for this place that call for a whole new approach to processing, and honestly, the Fire Nation's fishing fleet just doesn't have the expertise or the ideas to do it."
"A job," Sokka stated in disbelief. "You came to offer me a job."
"Only if you want to come live in the palace for a while," Toph chimed in. "We've got a whole suite of apartments empty that used to be Zuko's. I remodeled them myself."
Zuko gave them a wink and stated, "The color choices are unusual, but other than that . . ." Then he winced as Toph hit him on the arm.
"The colors are lovely, Sparky," she replied. "Grandfather Iroh selected them himself."
"Like I said, the color choices are unusual," Zuko responded with a grin, skipping just out of reach of Toph's next swipe at him.
Sokka looked over at Aang and Katara. "So what kind of miraculous offer do you two have to get me and Suki out of a tight spot?" he asked, only partially joking.
"None at all," Aang replied. "I'm just glad you can't bend that crazy ice anymore. It upset the balance of the elements."
Katara shook as if a cold chill had run over her. "Don't even remind me of that," she declared firmly. "That so-called ice of yours was one of the most horrible things I have ever encountered."
"You are over-reacting, Katara," Sokka retorted. "Who did it bother? Huh? Nobody but you."
"Zutara here didn't like it either, Sokka," Katara answered. "That's because she has the makings of a great waterbender."
"That's two of you then," Sokka said, but everyone could see the pride in his face as he stroked the little girl's hair.
"I agree with my lovely wife," Aang added. "You wouldn't believe just how badly that ice went over in the spirit world."
Sokka frowned. "But we're all cool there now, right, Aang?" he asked. "I don't want to be drowned by the next wave I come across just because some water spirit is holding a grudge."
"I think everybody is fine now," Aang replied.
In the ballroom of the red coral palace, Ocean looked around at the banks of flowers that had been brought by some of the spirits of field and garden. Interestingly enough, even Lian Shen had sent over a whole spray of some exotic blooms that made him feel a little dizzy when he got too close to them. He made it a priority to keep his distance.
The musicians would arrive soon, and the guests would follow. He ran a hand over his blue-green silk and velvet tunic, then through his hair. He hoped Yue approved of his choice of clothing.
As if she'd read his mind, the moon spirit appeared beside him and the room suddenly brightened with an inner glow, as if she made it come to life just by her presence.
"You look beautiful," were the first words out of his mouth. And she was. She was transcendently lovely in her gown of white spidermoth silk, the gossamer layers of her skirt appearing to float weightlessly around her. Then he noticed a lovely blue-green sash around her waist—a sash which perfectly matched his tunic.
She came close to him then and he encircled her waist with his hands. The ocean green silk felt soft and warm from her body and he let the long ends of the bow run through his fingertips like water. "What is this?" he asked her curiously. "You always wear white, Moon."
For an answer, she reached up to his hair and ran her fingers through the glowing white strands. "If you can wear my colors, La, surely I can wear yours as well," she replied suggestively. Then she pulled him closely to her for a kiss.
And oh, how it felt to kiss him. She'd kissed boys before. Kissing Hahn had felt like a chore. Kissing Sokka had been a rebellious act—every time she'd done it.
But kissing Ocean was different.
Every time he touched her, she felt complete.
To kiss him was transcendent.
But even more incredible was to make love to him, to feel the very tides themselves, the entire ocean move in her and through her.
She felt him kiss her neck, then her shoulder, and she drew in a breath of pure pleasure. After all, waterbending was pleasure and she was first among waterbenders.
"Our guests will be here soon," he murmured against her neck and she could feel the ends of his hair brushing her bare skin.
She tangled her fingers into his dark hair, streaked with a lock of pure moonlight, then pulled him away from her to look into his deep blue eyes—the color of a summer sea. "We have all the time in the world," she whispered. "Let them wait."
Then she kissed him again, marking him as her own.
Far away in the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole, the two little fish, moon and ocean, white and black, each marked with a spot of the other's color, swam happily opposite one another.
"This is very curious," stated the old man who squatted next to the pond, observing the behavior of the two fish.
"What is curious?" asked the young man who assisted him in tending to the oasis garden and the pond of spirit water.
"I've been searching the records for as far back as I can discover," the old man began, "and I have not found any record of the fish swimming with this kind of distance between them. I have to wonder what it means."
The young man looked into the pond at the little spirit fish as they swam opposite one another, merrily mirroring the balance between Moon and Ocean. "They look okay to me," the young man said.
"But the circle is so small," the old man replied, mystified. "They always stay close enough to touch."
THE END
(Author's Note: I cannot believe I actually finished this! I cannot believe I am writing again! It feels soooooo good. I am only happy when writing and it has made me very happy to work on this. Only took me a year to finish. Sigh. I used to do this much in 2 weeks. I have so got to find a way to quit my day job and just write for a living. If anybody has any good connections to an agent/publisher, I'd love to pass along my two unpublished novels to them! Meanwhile, thanks to everybody who has read and reviewed. I LOVE reviews—even the critical ones. That's the only payment we get for writing fanfiction. So please drop a note to let me know you read. Even if you hate it! Thanks so much for letting me entertain—or try to entertain you! I do appreciate it very much!)