#jaystrifes

 There was a distant knock behind him. Aang turned to see Toph rapping her knuckles on the pillar of the pavilion in a gentle rhythmic beat.

 “Come on. Come on now. Weren’t you the one who said a little sleepover before tomorrow’s ceremony would soothe the nerves?” 

 Aang laughed, not as perfunctory as Toph probably thought it was, and turned back to the twinkling water.

 “Well?! It’s not my nerves that need soothing, you know, so—”

 He took another long look at the bay and then jerked to his heels, turning. “I heard you, I heard you.”

 Back inside, it was a strangely subdued picture, a waiting room. Kya was reclined on the divan, showing Zuko that insane card trick she had picked up from some fortune teller in the Si Wong Desert (allegedly). Bumi and Sokka could be heard having one of their regular midnight spars out in the yard, high yelps echoing all the way indoors at reliable intervals. Poor kid, Sokka always pummelled him when he was around, or at least he did when Bumi had been younger and scrawnier than his uncle, and without a couple years of his own military training. Still, Aang was always grateful for Sokka’s presence, for Bumi’s sake, especially on a day like this when all attention converged on—

 “Tenzin,” Katara sighed, entering the drawing room with a small damp towel wound around her wrist. All eyes went right to her, rapt. The towel was wrung dry, from stress it seemed, considering the way Katara dug her fingertips into it. “I thought the fever had finally broken, but he’s still chattering like anything.” 

 They had mediated for several nights, Aang and his younger son, in preparation for tomorrow’s tattoo ceremony. It was an obscure pre-tattoo ritual Tenzin himself had dug out from the scant surviving records of Air nomad tradition. Truth be told, Aang didn’t know what basis it had whose traditions, and thought it doubtful that it might have been written down accurately in the first place, but it wasn’t like he was ever going to find out. And if it helped Tenzin feel a little calmer about the whole thing then, certainly, it would be worth it.

 As it turned out, it did not help Tenzin feel calmer about things. That much became apparent shortly after lunch today when he threw up, burst into sweats, and admitted through tortuous embarrassment that the fear of the needles had been keeping him up every night of the past week. He went to bed not long after. Katara had been trying a new method of soothing him pretty much every hour since. But it was as though a damn had finally burst, and it rushed unrelentingly. Now at last on the eve of the occasion, when he couldn’t tamp it down anymore, the thought of the impending day had made Tenzin inconsolable. He looked and spoke like he was going to the gallows in the morning, except he was white as a ghost already.

 Once they realised the true extent of his anxiety, Aang made a mental note to tell Tenzin (when his wits were about him) that there was no need to keep fears this grave in for so long. It wasn’t good for him, he had to let go. That was one aspect of his study that he always had a lot of trouble with. Still, Aang would be lying if he said the whole situation didn’t shock him a little. They were all surprised; a little unsure how to tread around this new development. Katara had already taken Kya aside to have a stern word about not ribbing Tenzin about it, like they were young kids again. 

 “He’ll be fine,” Zuko said before the lull could stretch again. Aang got the impression that Zuko was speaking from experience, of his own fair share of inconsolable sweats. He got the impression that everyone else got that impression too, although he was keenly aware that Zuko’s assuring statement had been directed squarely at him. Toph snorted audibly, and Kya looked between them with gleaming curiosity in her eyes. In their own shared gaze, Aang found some of the anxiety in Katara’s face finally beginning to ease, the corners of her mouth turning slightly.

 “Well, he needs to sleep first,” she said evenly. But all she could do about it was state the fact, and the rawness of the concern in her voice did cut Aang a little. She sighed deeply as she sat back. Aang watched her as she scanned for a diversion, her eyes finding the outfit Kya had laid over the divan that she opted to sleep on over the hard beds. It was an unconscious process of self-distraction, though Aang knew what Katara was doing all too well.

 “You’re wearing that thing tomorrow? What about the robe? Kya, it’s important—” 

 Kya simply turned her head a smooth ninety degrees to Aang and said, “Dad—”

 Aang shrugged, it’s fine. 

 It was then that Kya came and sat by him, leaving Zuko’s personal space free for Toph to rest her legs up over his lap. Kya had sensed Aang’s pensive mood, and she bent to put her head on his shoulder. At her adult height, she was now taller than Katara, almost as tall as him. Aang let some of his weight rest against his daughter. She smelled of incense; she had been out helping smoke the wood, wire the lanterns, and all the rest for tomorrow—away from the house proper, which was choking with the fuss over Tenzin all day.  

 Tenzin’s phobia, his reluctance to bring it up—beyond that noncommittal, tremulous laugh last week when the acolytes making the inks offered to give a demonstration—weighed on Aang. Thinking on it now, Aang should really have picked it up before: was it for some selfish reason that his mind overlooked the signs? The sheer panic that had now bubbled from Tenzin, it was the last thing Aang would have wanted for him to feel. And yet, he understood why Tenzin had kept it from him the way he did. 

 The first tattoo ceremony of the postwar was a contentious occasion for some, as much as a momentous one. There were a few out in the city that liked raising Aang’s hackles whenever possible—a paper that circulated among the community of more recent Fire Nation emigres, the ones coming to help implement new development plans, sprung particularly to mind. Last month they were questioning the civility of subjecting a child to full body tattoos. Aang and almost everyone else he cared to discuss it with secretly wondered what the commentators, many of whom had not long ago been broadcasting oblique Fire Nation propaganda from their pages, really knew about civility. 

 It would have been easier to brush off if some of the very acolytes here on the island hadn’t brought up the same thing. It was innocuous enough, and that was the problem.

 “I was just ten when I got my tattoos,” Aang had explained, though it sounded more like a retort than we would have liked. It wasn’t ire, but a clawing helplessness, that he stemmed in his throat as the acolyte conceded reluctantly and went on. 

 Presently, Zuko was lighting one of Toph’s cigarettes for her with a lazy finger. It was a habit she had picked up not long after moving to Republic City, though she did it less now that her girls were around. She took a long draw and tapped her foot absently. 

 “Twinkletoes,” she announced. 

 It seemed like Aang was going to be subject to a few of these platitudes tonight. He hated feeling like they were sorry for him, having to handle him, acquiescing to some pageantry that no one but he could make sense of. That wasn’t really true, he knew that in his heart. But in a moment where it felt like Aang, with his poor son barking on a leash for him, was the only thing standing between everyone and a nice, easy time—it was all too easy to sink.

 “He’ll get over it,” Toph said. “And if he doesn’t, well, you know, a little tough love is okay sometimes.”

 Katara winced a little, though she didn’t move, and Zuko’s brow shot up. 

 Aang never thought he’d concede to Toph on that point. He still didn’t, because a grueling day-long tattoo session sounded like more than tough love to him. And if Tenzin refused to get his tattoos—well, that was tough love Aang didn’t know if he could take. He was never good at it.

 “If he really can’t do it—” When Katara spoke, it was with finality. She searched for Aang’s gaze, not asking for agreement so much as affirming a truth she knew he already knew. “If he really can’t do it, then he won’t. Something else will have to do.”

 Beside Aang, Kya was quite still, clearly trying to gauge his response.   

 “What I’m saying,” Toph continued, puffing, “is he’ll get it together when the time comes, if it’s what he really wants.” 

 “But what if he feels like I’m pressuring him?” Aang finally said. Then he sighed, while Kya lifted her head and regarded him with compassionate concern.

 “But are you?” Then it was Zuko—and he, with more magnanimity in his heart for Aang than he sometimes felt he deserved—posed it like a rhetorical question with the answer no. However, when Toph nodded along to the question, she was asking in earnest. 

 “I don’t want to,” Aang said, honestly. But that was avoiding the question. “I mean, I don’t think I am... but what if I am? I know he doesn’t want to disappoint me. And it is important to me, it would mean the world, I also know there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

 He said with a conviction he didn’t quite feel, but it was renewed when almost everyone nodded or hummed along. 

 “There isn’t.”

 “‘Course not.” 

 At the same time, he felt their reassurance almost heavily. Their love weighed heavy. 

 So did Tenzin’s.

 Aang could swallow the disappointment, if he had to; after all, it wasn’t like tattoos made a master airbender. In Tenzin’s case, a very great deal of hard work did. At worst, they would just have to use some face paint for the rites, it could definitely be arranged. “It’s just... I know how important he believes it is to me, because I’m the last airbender. I guess I’m just scared it’s too late to convince him that it doesn’t mean he’s gotta suffer for it.” 

 “Well, you’re not the only airbender anymore.”  Toph took another puff.

 Zuko and Katara regarded her curiously, one of Katara’s resting eyes opening.

 “You think it isn’t important to him? Come out of your head, Twinkletoes. That kid could give you a run for your yuans any day. Let him do what he’s gotta do.” After a pause, she gave him a sympathetic inch after that. “I know it’s hard to watch.” 

 Aang exhaled, concurring with that at least.

 Toph was trying to say that Tenzin was in the process of tough loving himself, honouring his own ideals. It wasn’t an easy burden, the love the air nomads, not in today’s world. Aang knew that better than anyone. He was the only one that knew it. 

 Until now. 

 Aang swiped his eyes. Having company in that love, it meant having to see his son take on some of that burden. Recast this way, it was the price of the erosion of the loneliness he once felt, the reason he now felt like he could call this city home.

 It would be a little easier for Tenzin, at least. Aang would make sure of it. He could talk his worries through first thing in the morning, and make sure he could hold his father’s hand, find any comfort in his presence that he might seek there, while he went through it. And if he found he couldn’t—well, Aang would be there to help him through the pain of that, too. 

 “You’re right. Thanks, Toph. We’ll see in the morning.”  

 “Yes, we will.” Toph stubbed out the cigarette, and went to pick up the cards Kya had left. “Now, who’s up for a round?”  

 “Just brace yourself,” Zuko warned, reaching out to pat Katara’s ankle sympathetically. 

 Kya had a more hopeful take on it, in more ways than one. “Anyway, there’ll be other airbenders one day, who aren’t huge wusses.”