Sailing the Shipping Seas

She allowed herself to grumble for three steps before just settling her face into her usual scowl. 

“Pema,” she said before catching the very strange look on the acolyte’s face.

“There’s news about dinner, and I wanted to give you a little warning.” She stepped back as Lin disembarked, and gestured toward the Thousand Steps. They began climbing in silence, but Lin’s relief was short-lived.

“Kya showed up about an hour ago.”

Lin’s heart fluttered, and she gave a quick cough. “Is that so? Is that what you’re warning me about? We’ve been friends for years.” She pointedly kept her eyes level, staring straight ahead at the stairs.

“She said hello, but then shut herself in her room. The girls banged on her door, but haven’t gotten any response.” From the corner of her eye, Lin could see Pema waiting for a reaction.

“She didn’t seem hurt or anything, in case you’re worried about that.”

Lin scoffed. “Why would I be worried? She can care for herself just fine. Has been for years.”

Pema suddenly leaned against Lin’s shoulder, chuckling. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Lin stopped. “Noticed, what, exactly?” she asked in her coldest tones, before resuming her climb, leaving Pema stalled behind her.

Pema startled her by laughing as she took a few more steps up. “Get off it, Lin. You’re not such a closed book as you like to think. I’ve watched you watching her. She asks about you, you ask about her… You’re here more when she’s staying for a visit.” Lin looked back over her shoulder at Pema.

“Lin, I know this is going to sound strange, I know you’re going to want to explode all over me, but this is what I think you need to hear.” Lin turned to face the younger woman, who had balled up her fists in a power stance that would have been cute on a four-year-old earth bender.

“You need to take a leap of faith.”

Lin creased her brows. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

Pema crossed her arms. “I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.”

Lin crossed her arms aggressively. “I don’t.”

“Then I’ll spell it out for you. Tell Kya you love her, or so help me, I’ll start scheming for real.”

Lin gaped. 

Pema continued, “When I did the same thing, it was terrible and wrong. I was a child and acted in a childish way. I’m sorry for that.” She sighed, and dropped her arms.

“I’m not sorry for marrying Tenzin or having children with him. Our children are a blessing, and they happened because I took my own leap of faith. I’m only sorry that I hurt you in the process.”

Lin snapped her mouth shut and stormed up the stairs.

Even on the wooden stairs, Lin could tell that Pema had not charged after her.

Just below the final reach of stairs, Lin retracted her boot and kicked at the side of the mountain, searching the surroundings for who was where. When she saw what she wanted to see, she took a deep breath and bent her head.

Pema had climbed up until she was just outside of the reach of Lin’s hands (though not her cables). She barely heard Pema ask, “Lin? How angry are you?”

Lin just stood there for a moment. She took a deep breath before turning around and stepping down to face the woman who had changed the course of her life, so many years before.

“Pema, I’m not angry. It’s about fifteen years late, but I accept your apology. Because I can see that you put your faith in me with no guarantee how I would react.” She searched Pema’s face, but would never know what for.

And then she climbed the rest of the stairs, leaving Pema alone.

As her head came level with the courtyard, she heard Kya’s exclamation. She turned to see her new favorite person come running from the house.

She spread her arms in welcome.

Kya ran forward for a kiss and an embrace. As Pema passed them, Lin gave her a tiny nod.

Lin took a sharp breath, stepped back, and extended her hand to Kya, leading her away to the gardens.

Just as she settled her back against the headboard, Kya entered the room with her own breakfast that Lin studiously avoided evaluating too closely. Once the tray was settled on the other side of the bed, Kya walked all the way back around the bed for a good morning kiss.

She keeps that up, we might not leave the room.

To Lin’s surprise, breakfast was only the beginning.

The walk to the park near Lin’s childhood home was a stroll down memory lane. Kya pointed out a spot where she had tried to create an ice ramp on a particularly warm summer’s day, and they laughed about the array of skinned knees Katara had to treat. Lin pulled them into the bookshop where she and Tenzin had had their first official date. Lunch at the Tiger Noodle House reminded them of late nights when Toph seemed to buy up all the remaining food to bring over to the Island so she could say she ‘cooked.’

What do you know? I do have nice memories of childhood.

While walking back to their apartment, Lin took Kya’s hand, pulled it up to her face, and kissed it softly.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that I am so happy I would be suspicious right now.”

Kya’s shy smile was so adorable that Lin just had to lean over to give her a real kiss.

A block later, Kya pulled them to the right instead of to the left to return home. Lin tilted her head to try to get a look at Kya’s face, but she was eyes-forward and walking with a determined stride.

They continued on for a few blocks, and Lin began to recognize the area. A few small restaurants and shops were clustered at corners, but the area was mostly residential. The further they got along Jasmine Avenue, though, Lin began to realize the only thing left in the direction they were walking was the Spring Jasmine Home for Elders.

She couldn’t tell why Kya had brought her here. She had been out to see a few of her older friends a month earlier, just after Summer Solstice. The home was a lovely, caring place for the ones who had lost their families too soon. One or two out of the retirees didn’t recognize her anymore, and she knew not to linger and disturb their daily routines.

She didn’t recognize the wing where they were walking, but Kya had said it had only been open for a couple of weeks, and that not all of the new residents had moved in yet. Lin could feel tremors in her wife’s soft grip. She looked at Kya and asked, “Did you bring Toph here without telling me?”

Kya glanced at her, but said nothing. With the hand that wasn’t holding on to Lin, she reached up to knock gently at the door.

Against all odds, it really was Toph’s voice that shouted, “About time you got here. Come on inside. I ran out of things to talk about an hour ago.”

Lin gasped as the door slowly opened to reveal her mother sitting in a chair under the window, the afternoon sun probably warm on her arm and lap.

“Chief? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“And spoil the fun? You know me better than that. Get in here.”

With a confused, searching frown, Lin glanced at Kya, who released her hand and stood back silently.

Lin knew she didn’t have long before her frustration got the better of her, so she strode fully into the room.

Sitting beside the bed in a chair that matched the one her mother was using, sat a distinguished gentleman, and her suspicion flared like fireworks.

“You have your wife to thank for this, Lin. She came to do her healer thing, heard a name and did some checking.”

The man stood, and bowed.

A few months later, she had sent him a specific invitation to see a set of bronze sculptures recently unearthed from an archaeological site near Zigun. Chef Chen had needed little convincing to help Huan prepare an entire travel plan before approaching his father.

There was no way he’d ask his mother for permission without being completely prepared.

Interestingly, she seemed almost disappointed that he was so well thought out, giving him permission in a tone that sounded much more like her Matriarch voice than he liked to hear.

He reached into his bag and drew out the small yellow box Chen had given to him to give to his aunt. When Huan had asked about it, he got no more details than a smile and a wink could convey.

He reached up to pull the bell cord when the door silently pivoted into the apartment, revealing his aunt in a dark green tunic over black trousers.

It wasn’t until he stepped inside, removed his shoes, placed his bag on the floor, and turned to present Chen’s gift that he realized her clothes were spattered with paint in a rainbow of hues.

A quick glance was all he needed to realize this was a shirt she had used for years of painting. The red, orange, and yellow hues at her right arm were wet, but the other colors scattered haphazardly across the rest of the garment were clumped in similar groupings of related shades. None of those other colors had the shine of new paints.

“Come on in, kid. You look like you just stepped in on your parents kissing.” With a huff, Lin turned and walked over to a countertop to pick up a tray with a teapot, two cups, and a plate of morsels he couldn’t identify from across the room.

Bewildered, he clutched the long, thin box to his chest and followed her out to her balcony overlooking what must be one of the inlets rather than Yue Bay to the west. His vauge memory of the map of the city felt like the earliest impressions of his artistic impulses, the ones that often began as paintings, even if he eventually used his metalbending to create more tactile representations.

Tea on the balcony was quiet and relaxing. He decided that she was one who, like his father, didn’t need hours of conversation to drown out the silence. They were sufficiently shaded from the late afternoon sun that sitting out and watching the water traffic was almost meditative.

But, eventually, his body demanded a bit of attention. He squirmed in his chair, Chen’s box catching his eye again.

“Chen asked me to bring this to you,” he commented, sliding the box over to Lin.

The smile she gave the box intrigued him. It was gentle, unlike any expression he remembered seeing on her face. And it was almost like she wasn’t looking at the box, at all.

“I’ll have to write him a note.” She looked up, smiled again, and gave him a nod. “Thank you for bringing this. He must have just found them. He didn’t say anything in his last letter.”

She opened the box, and he was taken aback to see the selection of paintbrushes. He held his breath, examining them with a professional interest, but still too nervous to ask any of the questions he had.

He knew perfectly well he would never touch them.

His aunt replaced the lid, placed the box on the tray, and returned inside to the kitchen. He followed her lead, bringing his cup inside, not entirely sure where to put it. At home, there was always someone in the kitchen who took things away when he returned them. But surely, he shouldn’t give dirty dishes to…

“Here, let me have your cup.”

After drying her hands, Lin picked up Chen’s gift and walked away again without speaking to him.

Once again hoping he was doing what she wanted, he walked after her, pausing for a moment when she entered a room with a bank of windows letting in the last of the day’s sunshine.

The wall to his left was covered with a cacophany of paintings, each of them visibly unfinished. A figure stood against a blank canvas. A bridge hung in space over a water with no banks. Mountains hovered in a void of white. A hand, posed in what was clearly a bending position, the owner’s airbending tattoo nearly glowing in the light from the sunset.

He stepped closer, examining each in turn. Brush strokes, color choices, line weights… she was not a professional, clearly. But he was enraptured. Each was more than a sketch, less than an entire work of art.

“Why have you never finished them?” he asked before he could stop himself. He turned to look at her, but she was looking at the wall, her eyes distant and unfocused again.

“Because of why I was interrupted. This one,” she pointed at the mountains with no sky or lowlands, “was interrupted by a callout to a fire. I met a six-year-old Asami Sato that day.” She brushed her fingers against the canvas.

Above and to the left was the person, faced away from the viewer. “I was painting Tenzin when he told me he wanted out of our relationship.”

She traced the airbender’s arm.