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Auspicious Occasion of Katara's birthday.
Part 2: friendship.
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After trust falls I announced that we were all going to do relaxing yoga together and a collective groan went up from the group.
Really now!
Yoga isn't that bad!
There were several attempts at arguments from Toph (she already did trust falls, did she have to do yoga) and Sokka (I'm too manly for yoga) and Aang (Last time you made me do yoga it really freaked me out and did not relax me at all.) They will have to do it- No Arguments! I poked the three of them with the common sense stick quite firmly. It was my birthday and they were ruining it by being anti-yoga jerk-faces.
In fact only Suki and Zuko were not categorically opposed to yoga. Suki said she found it relaxing and Zuko said yoga wouldn't be so bad because it was beneficial for Aang's breathing techniques and breathing is very important for firebending. Aang countered that breathing was very important for life and because Aang was alive, that was proof that he knew how to breathe. Zuko had no counter argument for that.
We needed to find a steamy place to do it because yoga done in a warm environment has more health benefits. I asked Zuko where the nearest steam pool was. He'd told me there were lots on the island. The other exchanged shifty glances. After a few moments, Zuko said there was one about twenty minutes walk from here, but we would have to hike temporarily through the jungle to get there. Another groan went up. Honestly a few days on a tropical island and we've all become lazy bones. I birthday commanded that Zuko lead the way.
Everyone went to put there swimmers on and then we all walked along the beach for a bit and just before we went in the jungle Zuko gave a little speech about all the poisonous and nasty creatures that live in the jungle and how to identify them and the best ways to avoid them.
Wow, the firenation is just full of poisonous creepy crawlies.
I don't do rhino-snakes.
Squirpions- fine! Scorpildillos –I'm cool. Porcu-spiders - sure.
Rhino-snakes – oh hell no!
Zuko's little speech about all things poisonous had a little dispiriting effect on the group. There were a few comments to this affect. He said he didn't want to be a no fun party-pooper, but that there were dangerous things in the jungle and he just wanted us to be safe. He added that all the creepy crawlies were far more scared of people than we were of them and generally avoided the main paths and tracks, so we should be fine if we just stayed on the main path and didn't get distracted and wander off. He said this last part rather pointedly at Aang who had gotten distracted by a butterfly and wandered off before Zuko reached the end of his sentence.
Zuko sighed quite comically.
I pulled Aang back into line and birthday commanded that he stay with the group and we were ready to get our hike on!
-?-
Creepy crawlies aside – the jungle was actually quite beautiful. Very green and lush and filled with bird songs and all different sort of flowers. The air smelled sweetly floral because of all the star jasmine growing in big wild clumps. There were frangipanis and hibiscus trees everywhere and there were many rare bright moonflowers clinging to the shadowy, shady places on the side of the trees. There were flowers I'd never seen before. One was quite pretty. It was a little like a daisy – Zuko said they were sun poppies – so named because of their happy yellow colour. They were common everywhere in the firenation and had a lot of medicinal properties. I leant over and smelled some and they smelled great. I'd never smelled anything quite like it. It smelled faintly like vanilla and frangipanis had gotten together and made a smell-baby.
Why couldn't Aang have gotten me sun poppies instead of firelilies?
-?-
Eventually the trees opened up and we were in a small clearing at the base of a cliff. There was a large and rocky pool that has steam rising faintly off it. There was a large cave at the other side that hung over the pool. It had star jasmine clinging to the side and its tendrils reached down towards the water's surface, which made almost a flower curtain over the cave. Zuko said the cave opened out at the back and there's be room enough for us all to stand back there and it would be nice and steamy, but we'd have to swim through the pool to get there. I birthday commanded that everyone strip down to their swimmers and follow me.
To yoga and beyond!
-?-
Toph was exceptionally reluctant to get in the water and I went over to her and reminded her of my birthday powers. Then she reminded me in a rather petulant voice that she couldn't swim. Oh. Well I feel like a goose. Toph hates the water. Sokka volunteered to carry her to the cave and she acquiesced. Toph loves being carried by Sokka.
The water was deliciously warm. Like a big giant bath. There were a few cold currents eddying around about it was mostly just a lovely. The pool got a little deep at the mouth of the cave and Sokka had to put Toph on his back in piggyback style and swim while she was holding onto his neck with a vise-like grip. We all made it to the platform together and it was perfect for steam yoga. There was enough space for all of us and the air was warm but not too hot.
It's yoga time.
-?-
Suki was my best student and stood next to me and performed all the stretches with aplomb. She is my favourite because she gave me no trouble at all. Toph wouldn't copy my movements and moved to her own yoga beat. Aang asked repeatedly am I meant to be relaxed yet? In a similar manner to how Sokka would ask my father are we there yet? when we were kids. I gave Aang a speech about the many health benefits of yoga and he started doing some air nomad yoga instead of copying me, which I guess was an improvement. Sokka and Zuko were there worst! They had clumped together at the back and were making various jokes and comments and laughing quietly and I think, at one point, giving each other noogies. At this point I separated them and made Zuko stand next to me at the front. And…
Oh my.
I have a great…. Err…. Appreciation for the sight of a shirtless Zuko. All sweaty and muscular.
Hhhhmmmm.
I was greatly distracted for a moment. I hadn't got a good look back at the clearing when he took his shirt off and now…. Anyway I greatly enjoyed my current view and I may have ordered everyone to do stretches that would improve my view.
Could I birthday command Zuko stay shirtless the entire day?
Or will the others think that is weird and then tease me forever.
Still it could be worth it.
-?-
I had hoped that by separating the boys they would stop being silly but they did not. Sokka just called out all his comments more loudly. I left the commonsense stick back with the clothes so I couldn't whack him with it. Sokka said something about being too manly for yoga again and Zuko made a sarcastic comment about Sokka's manliness. Sokka said that Zuko was definitely getting a noogie for that one and there was an inelegant struggle at the edge of the water. I birthday commanded them to stop goofing around and get back to yoga….. to no effect. At some point during their inelegant struggle for noogie dominance, Zuko lost his footing/Sokka pushed him in the water and he landed with a big splash. Sokka declared himself victorious.
Zuko didn't resurface.
The Zuko less moment stretched on to half a minute- then a minute- but it felt like a million years. We were all crowded around the water's edge and it was so murky. I couldn't see him anywhere. I started catastrophising in my head.
Maybe he'd hit his head and was unconscious and drowning.
I was just about to jump in and waterbend all the water out of the pool and find him when a pale hand reached up from under the ledge where Sokka was standing. Zuko grabbed him by the ankle and Sokka made a startled noise that sounded like aaeergh. Zuko flipped him into the water in one smooth movement and Sokka landed with another tremendous splash! Because we'd all been standing on the water's edge we all got soaked. Toph let out a squeal of surprise. Aang let out a whoop of joy and declared it was now swimming time! He got a run up and did a giant cannonball into the water and we were all splashed anew. Suki looked at me a little apologetically and gave a slight shrug and dived in gracefully.
Oh well. I wanted everyone to have fun and relax. And judging from the amount of splashing and delighted noises coming from everyone swimming, I had achieved this end. Yoga time was abandoned.
I turned to Toph and asked if she would like me to swim her back to the shallow end. Toph was pursing her lips and putting on a brave face but she nodded slowly. She'd never in a hundred million years admit to being scared of anything. But I knew how much she hated the water. She'd prefer Sokka, but he was otherwise engaged at present. Toph always feel more comfortable with solid earth under her feet and I could get her back to the shallow end easily.
She put her arms around my neck and I swum us carefully around all the water based-shenanigans and splashing of the others. When we were in the shallow end I told her to put her feet down and a wave of relief visibly passed over her face when her feet touched the rocks. Toph had been a really good sport about everything today. I put my arm around her and asked if she'd like me to teach her how to swim. She shrugged noncommittally and said she didn't know if she wanted to learn. She said she knew it was stupid to be scared of the water, but the in the water she felt really blind and she hated that feeling.
Zuko swum over to us grinning and asked if he could join us. I felt a wave of crossness at him. Just five minutes ago he had scared the bejeezus out of me. And accidentally started a pro-swimming/ anti-yoga rebellion.
And now he was here, just smiling and grinning. He had no idea how worried I'd been. He'd nearly given me a heart attack. I'd thought for a second that he was drowning and it had been horrible. There was only one thing for it. I got up and grabbed the common sense stick and started whacking him with it and exclaiming that he should never, ever do something like that again! He was rather perplexed by this turn of events and held his arms up and kept asking what have I done now? I paused in my common sense stick whacking and told him (ranted a little) how worried I'd been and how he'd nearly given me a heart attack with his little trick back there and how dare he worry me like that on my birthday (or any day come to think of it). I whacked him anew with the common sense stick. He said that it had just been a joke and I said he was terrible at jokes and that making me think he was drowning was not very funny at all -next time he made me worry about him dying -he better at least be seriously injured. He apologized for worrying me and gave me an apologetic smile.
Gah! I can't be mad at him when he smiles at me like that. I poked him with the common sense stick instead. Toph, who we'd both forgotten in the common sense stick whacking melee, had been sitting there, cheerfully witnessing the whole scene. She expostulated aaaww Katara-you really do care quite loudly and affectionately.
I have poked Toph with the common sense stick as well.
-?-
Soon the sun was near the noon point in the sky and it was time to head over to the main town and the day spa. Toph had booked us in for the entire afternoon. We all walked back together along the path. Zuko picked me a sun poppy as a peace offering for his earlier antics and I have put it behind my ear. We left the boys back at the house. They will have to sort out lunch for themselves because I am not cooking anything today. Toph says she got the lunch included package and that Angi's bounty day spa will provide all the snacks and beverages we need.
Go Toph! She is so practical.
When we arrived a super friendly and conciliatory lady showed us to the change room where we could leave our clothes/bags/shoes. She gave me a little vase to put the sun poppy in. She had a nice round face and a gracious manner. She said that she would be looking after us this afternoon and gave us big fluffy towels and dressing gowns and asked what we'd like to drink/eat first and handed us a small menu.
The menu contained 18 different types of fireflakes. Boo.
But also had 23 different types of dumplings. Yay.
She gave the order to a lackey who had appeared from nowhere and then lead us through a series of rooms. There were a few scattered mandolin players who were plucking away a 'relaxing' melody and the whole place smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. Wow this place was even more lush that the fancy lady day spa back in Ba Sing Se. They really go all out in the firenation over relaxation.
The first treatment was a mineral spa. Toph groaned and said not more water! The gracious lady smiled at her indulgently and said it was only a shallow bath and so there wasn't that much water and the volcanic minerals would be really good for our skin. We all hopped in what appeared to be a giant bath together. It bubbled away in an alarming manner and had steam rising faintly from the surface but the gracious lady said this was normal and it was meant to do that.
The gracious lady bustled off and we all stretched put and Suki gave an especially blissful sigh. The gracious lady returned with our drinks and snacks and said she'd be back when it was time for the next treatment. Suki had ordered a mystery selection of dumplings because she wanted to try new things.
The first bun was ridiculously spicy and Suki made a series of comical faces after she bit into it. Her eyes were watering and she was fanning her mouth. Zuko said milk was good for soothing that spicy –just-licked-the-sun-feeling. I didn't have any milk, but I did have a smoothie. I gave her my mango smoothie to drink and she felt a little better. She made a lame pun regarding the fire nation and hot food and spices. Oh Suki. Lame jokes are her thing. I said the only person who tells lamer jokes was Zuko and that was saying something.
Toph made a sly face and asked exceptionally bluntly "speaking of Zuko- what exactly is going on between you two?"
Suki piped up that she was going to ask me the same thing because she'd seen us cuddling last night when she got up to get a glass of water and she'd been most curious but wanted to wait until it was just us girls to ask me. Toph was curious about the cuddling and asked if it was kissing and cuddling but Suki said it had only been cuddling when she saw, but she hadn't stayed for the whole time because it looked like we'd been cuddling for ages. I blushed brightly but blamed that on the steam rising for the pool. Steam just makes me red in the face okay.
I told them both very firmly that no kissing had gone on and Toph looked a little disappointed and said that she was sure some kissing should have happened after we rolled around on the sand together. Suki spat out some mango smoothie in surprise. Toph explained how last night when she'd been able to do the scales perfectly, she'd come out to find us because she'd wanted to show Zuko. She had felt us –err rolling about and tickling each other. Toph had assumed we were busy and left. Suki's eyebrows nearly leapt off her face and she turned to me and said "you did what!" I explained that we were just letting off steam together and Suki nodded knowingly and said "if that's what you want to call it" with a smile. She and Toph were making big assumptions like big assumers who just assume things. Like Sokka!
No!
I got a bit ranty and said that it's not that I want to call it that – that's what we were doing. That's ALL we were doing! No kissing of any sort had ever gone on between me and Zuko. Despite my denials and exclamations to the contrary, I couldn't seem to persuade them that me and Zuko were not having a torrid, secret love affair and were just friends. A great deal of assuming was done and and great many teasing comments were made by Suki and Toph and in the end I had to use my birthday powers to end the conversation.
We are not talking about this!
This conversation is over!
Thankfully at this point the gracious lady came to get us for our hot rock massages. Which were done individually. So I had a brief break from all their assuming glances and assuming comments and assuming smiles at each other.
-?-
I just feel I need to write how much I LOVE hot rock massages. That was awesome.
-?-
Toph also loved the hot rock massages. And she talked and great length about what an awesome idea it was and how it reminded her of home. There was brief silence. Toph almost never mentions her home voluntarily. I didn't want to push her in case she shut down. But all three of us were encased in some mud mineral scrub and were meant to stay wrapped up until it had set – so she couldn't really run away from this conversation.
Apparently she'd had a nanny who had been especially kind and this nanny knew a lot about bending and benders and she knew that earthbenders were normally comforted by rocks around them. The nanny had been the first one to notice that Toph had earthbending tendencies and when Toph cried the nanny would give her some smooth river pebbles to play with (all of Toph's other toys had been fancy dolls etc) and would run one of the bigger pebbles over her back in soothing patterns. The hot rocks had reminded her of that a little.
When we had all been rinsed off and were sitting in mineral spa again, I asked her some more about the nanny. Toph couldn't remember much because she'd been really young, she could just remember the pebbles. One day the nanny had stopped coming to work and that was when Toph ran away for the first time. She went looking for the nanny, but found the badger moles instead. She let her sentence hang in the air. Finding the badger moles was what helped her unlock her earth bending ability.
We were quiet for a second and then Suki piped up that if Toph was meant to see the nanny again, she would. Toph asked her how she could be so sure and Suki just shrugged and said 'because of cheong' as if that explained everything.
Cheong what?
Suki explained that cheong was a Kyoshi Island belief in togetherness and connectedness. We are all connected, but when you have a shared experience with someone, or spend any amount of time together, this connection increases. When someone has an impact upon your life, you will have bond with them forever. Just passing all those years with the other Kyoshi Warriors meant that she would always be attached to them in some way.
Suki thought that Toph and her nanny would always be connected in some way because she'd had a great impact on Toph's life and if Toph was meant to find her again, Suki was sure that she would. Toph smiled at her in a way I have never seen Toph smile at Suki before. All open-like.
I like the idea of cheong. I said the water tribe had a similar concept, but we didn't have a name for it. Then I told them about that crazy swamp me and Aang and Sokka had visited and how Huu had thought we were all branches of the same tree.
I said that I thought we'd all be connected forever because of the experience of travelling together and fighting with the Avatar. It was like Aang said. Friendship can last a lifetime (or many lifetimes, if you are Aang.) Then faster than you can say cheong Suki reached for me and Toph's hands and we sat in the mineral pool just holding hands. Even though the boys weren't with us, in that one moment I felt connected to them too.
There are the five people in the world who I just can't imagine being without.
I really do think we will always be friends.
-?-
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Frighteningly long Authors note:
Lovely wonderful readers! You have reached the end of the auspicious occasion of Katara's birthday, part 2: friendship. Congratulations and I hope you enjoyed it! This was a lot of fun to write but I am once again on the bf's laptop, so there may be a few more spelling/grammar errors! I'll try edit them when my normal computer is feeling better. Anyway this chapter was had a bit of a friendship- especially a girly friendship focus and I hope it was a fun read.
Anyway huge giant thanks with cherries on top and hot rock massages for all my wonderful and fabulous reviewers! You guys know I love ya! Really reading your comments just gives me a warm old cheong feeling!
In this chapter:
The firenation, like Australia, has lots of poisonous creatures. I think there seems to be more poisonous animals in temperate to tropical climates and that's the firenation! Zuko knows a bit about how to be safe around poisonous animals and he's a safety first kind of guy when it comes to his friends.
That steam pool they hike to is not the closest one. But it gave me a chance to send them on a hike through a lush jungle and see other firenation flowers. I mean it can't all be firelilies can it? They have to have more floral bio-diversity in my opinion. They'd have to have jasmine growing at the very least! So I have introduced a few more flowers.
Birthday obedience is a bit hard on Toph, especially when it comes to the swimming. I am under the impression that she can't swim (this may be remedied later) but she wouldn't want to be a spoilsport and ruin the birthday activities for Katara and so she puts on a brave face and goes along with it. I also realized I hadn't had much Toph-Katara friendship love lately, so I added some.
I very obliquely floated the idea of where I think some of Zuko's recklessness comes from. Zuko can hold his breath for a freakish amount of time in the siege of the north and I think after Sokka pushes him in he gets the idea to play a trick on his bro and swims under the ledge and waits until he can pull Sokka in too. While he's just goofing off with Sokka he doesn't think for a sec how this will drive Katara bananas with worry. I think Zuko is not at all accustomed to people worrying about him and caring about him, save his uncle. And even then, uncle was rarely demonstrative about this (I say this with oodles of love for Uncle Iroh. But it seems like a firenation custom to be a bit more reticent and just more reluctant when it comes to showing affection. Like the lovely brits and their stiff upper lip.)
Knowing that people care about you and will really miss you if anything happens to you can be a huge inhibitor of more reckless behavior and I think previously, Zuko's felt a little unloved in this respect and hasn't feel like he had that much to lose per se when it came to reckless behavior. It's not until Katara goes nuts at him that he realizes that she really does care on a deep level. He'll make an effort to do less dumb stuff that will make her tear her hair out with worry in the future.
He was always going to be the first person Katara really used the common sense stick on.
The day spa – I just think the firenation had a very wealthy upper class and it would make sense that their day spas would be super lush and more volcanic-treatment orientated, so it is a little different from the fancy lady day spa.
The girls have a lot of fun teasing Katara (wouldn't you), but in all honesty they are both wondering what is going on between Katara and Zuko. She may have shut this particular conversation down with her birthday powers – but tomorrow is a new day! I think Katara is not at all sure how she feels at this stage. She is not only the birthday girl, she is also the queen of denial! The Zuko love is just at inception levels and will still have to bust through a whole bunch of dream levels before it becomes something she'll admit to herself.
But never fear-there are many more chapters to come!
Toph's nanny: Toph, though I love her, didn't come into this world as a delightful 12 year old badass. I feel that she had a very coddled over protective childhood. With her parents, I'm surprised that they even figured out she was an earthbender. Of all the elements I reckon earthbending would be the hardest to pick up on in early childhood. And I don't think Toph got allowed outside much as a young kid so she couldn't even be around earth that much. They didn't seem that encouraging of her earth bending in any case. Then I had the idea of a lovely nanny and it made a bit more sense to me. I think it's likely Toph would have had a succession of nannies and one of them knew a fair bit about bending and figured out what Toph was. This nanny would have opened up a whole new world for Toph but when she went missing *cough* got fired *cough* Toph would have missed her. In the episode where she explains how she ran away and met the bagermoles she never explained why she ran away. So I reckon that it is plausible that she was looking for somebody.
We may see this nanny again. In fact we may already know her ;)
When Suki is talking about cheong and Toph finding her nanny again, Toph really warms to her. I think she would have been a little stand offish with Suki as a result of her crush on Sokka. But she has come to terms with the fact that Sokka loves her like a little sister, but not in that other way. She much more astute at reading these situations than other people *cough* Aang *cough*. Now I think she's starting to really warm to Suki as a person and get over her adorable Sokka crush.
Cheong: is not only the name of that nomad guy. It is actually a lovely Korean philosophy of togetherness and connectedness that my friend Hannah explained to me. Sorry Hannah, if I'm not doing it justice. I went to school with Hannah and I ran into her a little while ago and we went for a lovely chat and coffee and a catch up and it was great. Anyway Hannah explained about cheong and how because we'd been to high school together (shared experience of several years) we'd always have a connection. She explained it much more profoundly and I don't know if I'm doing it justice, but anyway I think it's a lovely idea. So I made it a Kyoshi Island philosophy so I could put it in my fic. But I do think strands of it appear through the t.v series (huu and the tree). The Gaang are connected on a quantum level and I just love their friendships and group dynamics.
*In musfasa voice* and so we are all connected in the great circle of life.
In the next chapter we will see what everyone has planned for Katara!
Til then my lovely readers…