Work Text:
“So it’s dark all day?” Lin asked, horrified.
“Not all day, no,” Katara responded. “But most of it. Down at the actual Pole, it really is all day. Here at the coast, we have about two hours of sunlight. That’s not the point, though. The point of the Glacier Spirit Festival is the aurora lights. There are beautiful bands of colored light that cover the sky.”
“Will we see the spirits?” Suyin asked, excitedly.
“No,” Katara replied kindly. “They stay in the spirit world. Only the Avatar can meet with them, when he goes there. But at the solstices, the border between their world and ours is the thinnest, and the lights are kind of like them waving at us.”
“Thanks for bringing us,” Lin said, quietly.
“I’m glad your mom let us take you,” Katara answered her. “It’s nice to be back home at the South Pole, but it’s even more fun when we get to show it off to friends! There’ll be food, stories and plays, traditional dances that you can join, and all sorts of games.”
“We don’t know the dances,” Lin objected.
“I can show you,” Kya said, joining them.
“Yippee!” Suyin shouted, but Lin seemed to become even thinner, putting her arm across her abdomen, clutching her elbow.
The four watched from the observation deck of the airship as the ocean passed beneath them and the sun hung low off to their right.
“Will you have time, Kya? Don’t you want to meet up with your friends there?”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll see them… we just… it’s different now.”
Katara nodded sympathetically.
“Your grandfather Hakoda will be so happy to see you, too.”
Kya grinned. “I’m as tall as he is now, aren’t I? I’m looking forward to his reaction.”
Looking up at her daughter, Katara appraised the situation. “Yes,” she sighed. “You’re as tall as he is now.”
“Lin is taller than our mom too,” Suyin piped. “But I’m faster than she is, and a better dancer.” The youngest Beifong twirled on her toes. “Teach me first, Kya!”
“All right, all right,” Kya said. “You’ll get it right away. Then I’ll teach Lin.”
“Good luck,” Suyin laughed. “Lin can’t dance at all!”
Lin’s face grew hot as she scowled. “Shut up.”
“It’s not a hard dance,” Kya assured her. “It’s just a few steps. It’s a lot like a bending form.”
“All she does is a horse dance, ‘cause all she knows is a horse stance,” Suyin teased, in a singsong voice.
“Su,” Katara warned gently.
The young girl twirled off, dancing to her own tune, quietly singing the words as she whirled.
Lin rolled her eyes and heaved a great, bothered sigh.
Kya pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Don’t listen to her. You’ll be fine.”
Lin blushed even more, but she lasted a good ten seconds before she was released. Kya’s hand and arm were soft and she continued to feel their warmth where the two had touched.
“Let’s first get settled in, and get something to eat. I bet the food stalls are already open,” Katara said, and went back to sit down.
Hakoda’s home was as warm as it was cold outside.
Katara greeted her father with a kiss on a cheek and a hug for her stepmother Malina. Hakoda was first astonished at Kya’s height, but then lifted her off her feet in a polar bear dog hug and twirled her around. His hair had gone grey, and white at the temples, but he was still hale and hearty.
“No Aang this time?”
“Zuko invited him to the opening of the new Fire Sages temple for the summer solstice, and we asked Toph if it would be okay if her girls could come along with us here.”
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “And so let’s meet these two beautiful ladies?”
“This is Suyin,” Katara said, putting her hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“It’s FREEZING here!” Suyin complained.
Hakoda bellowed his big laugh. “It sure is!”
“And this is Lin,” Katara gestured. Lin stepped forward and offered her hand, and Hakoda gripped her forearm in the traditional Water Tribe manner. She returned the shake, bracing herself against the floor.
“Oh, I like this one!” Hakoda said. “She’s got her mother’s strength.”
Lin dropped her eyes and blushed once more.
“Is everyone hungry?” Malina asked.
“Starving!” the Water Tribe chief cried. “Let’s go!”
They left their bags on the floor and went back out into the wintry night. The town that had grown on the shore of the polar region glittered in the darkness, and its glow hid all but the brightest stars. But the street was full of people laughing and eating, and the two earthbender girls looked around in amazement at the displays and buffets.
In the distance, they could hear the sound of drums and flutes, and voices chanting together. There was a trio surrounded by a small crowd, and they wore costumes with masks adorned with the skins and heads of a wolf, a caribou sheep, and a jackalope, with its long ears and small racks of antlers. They were telling an ancient tale, moving like dancers while reciting lines that everyone knew. Children called out these lines as the scene progressed, and clapped while the wolf was tricked time and again.
Suyin could not resist playing a game that involved spinning a block of stone across the ice, trying to hit a mark at the end of a lane. She missed twice, but on the third attempt she gave her hips a twitch and the stone nailed the target squarely.
“That was cheating,” Lin grumbled, as Suyin was handed the prize, a stuffed deer with blue fur and unsettling black eyes. Su stuck her tongue out at her older sister.
Finally they came to the dancers, who stomped and twirled in what seemed to be complex patterns around several fires. Immediately, Katara, Hakoda and Malina jumped into the fray and were absorbed into the dance.
“Ready? Here’s how you do it.” Kya stepped out and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, picked up the other foot and tapped the ground three times as she moved it forward. Then she stomped firmly, spun on that foot, and pulled the other foot back as she tapped the same count of three.
Suyin imitated the move, and with a little hesitation, finished the form. Once she did that, she repeated it three times.
“Great!” Kya called. “Now we hook arms and I’ll spin you.” And so she did, and the tall, lithe waterbender swung the skinny little earthbender around. When Suyin landed, she stomped the ground and planted herself, and Kya was swung around her perfectly.
“Yes!” Kya cried, and they repeated the dance, circling around Lin, who shivered in the cold.
“If you dance hard you warm right up!” Suyin yelled, excitedly.
Lin’s face darkened.
Once more around, and Kya flung the young girl into the crowd, where Katara hooked her arm and brought her into the circle. Back and forth she turned, changing partners again and again. The drums throbbed and the singing was loud.
Kya breathed hard, the moisture forming a small cloud around her. Her face was flushed, and the firelight caught her chestnut hair with golden streaks. She was smiling and her eyes were bright.
Lin stared. Her stomach was in knots. When did Kya get so beautiful? she wondered.
Kya took her hand, and she almost flinched.
“Your turn?” she asked.
The blue in her eyes was otherworldly, and Lin’s mouth would not work.
“Okay, like this,” Kya said, and placed her feet wide apart. “Put your left foot out, shift your weight from your back foot to your front, and then, lift the back foot up, tapping three times as you pivot, until it’s up here,” she said, as she demonstrated.
Lin shook her head to clear it, and attempted to imitate Kya’s moves. She tripped on the tapping, and landed with her foot too close, losing her balance.
“Here,” Kya said. “Watch me. First do it without the taps.”
Kya dropped into what Lin recognized as a horse stance, softer, as were most waterbending forms, but with her feet wide and her center solid. She moved one foot out, then shifted weight from her back foot to her front, and finally pivoted as she brought the weightless foot around her in a near semicircle. She placed that foot with a stomp.
Lin tried that, haltingly.
“Oh, close!” Kya said. “Let’s try it again. Hang on.” She stepped close behind Lin and placed her mittens on Lin’s forearms. “Hold your arms up like this,” she said, and Lin felt a strange fluttering lightness inside. Her arms were weightless.
“Now, shift your weight, first,” Kya said, and they moved together.
“Good. Let’s do it again.”
After Lin had accomplished this, Kya stepped back, and watched. “Now try to add the taps in between the placement of your open foot,” she said.
This was very much unlike her mother’s earthbending instruction, which came with variations of “AGAIN” until she mastered a given form. Only then did Toph offer a grunt of approval or a nod. With Kya, every step she got right was rewarded with a smile or a murmur of “nice!”
She managed to work through the moves with the toe taps, woodenly.
“You’ve got the form down, Lin. All you need to do is loosen up a little. Flow, like water.”
It was so similar to an earthbending move, but the element was different. She just had to be soft. But how? She looked to Kya with despair.
Kya frowned slightly, thinking. Hands on hips, she looked off into the sky for a minute.
“I got it! Lin! Remember how Suyin got that prize? How she moved her hips? Think like that. You’re moving a stone across the ice. Except… except your foot is a pebble, and you’re bouncing it along instead. How about that?”
That made sense. She closed her eyes, shifted, and lifted her foot. Visualize the skipping of a stone across gleaming blue eyes… ice. Ice.
“Perfect!” Kya clapped her hands. “One more time!”
Lin listened to the beat and shifted in time to the bass drum, and her toes tapped the ground, one, two, three, in time with the chanting. She stomped on the last, and when she did, she felt Kya’s arm hook hers, and they spun together, turning by half. They both shifted, lifted, tapped, stomped, swung, this time going the other way. Again and again.
Each time Kya’s arm caught hers, she met her eyes, and saw her delight as they twirled around and around.
Suddenly, the drumming and singing and flutes stopped, and everyone cheered.
They were stopped in the middle of a swing, and breathed hard, their gazes locked. A moment passed, and another, as Kya’s face went from a smile to an expression of confusion and surprise.
They dropped their arms and stood up straight, neither looking away.
“When did you…” Kya began, when Hakoda clapped her on the shoulder.
“The auroras are starting!” he said, beaming.
The festival’s electric bulbs were shut down, and everyone’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. Suyin gasped.
Above them were more stars than Lin had seen in her life. It took her breath away, too. But before she could even begin to absorb this wondrous vision, ribbons of color filled the sky, and the crowd uttered sounds of pleasure and awe. Green and gold, white and purple, blue and red. Behind them the stars glittered like perfect jewels.
She felt a hand take hers, and through their mittens she felt the pressure of fingers on her palm. She didn’t need to look to know it was Kya, and she squeezed back.
The lights continued to shimmer and move slowly, and after a long, silent, solemn period, the people turned their attention back to their festivities. The crowd passed around the two of them, and she felt Kya loosen her grip.
“Kya!” she heard, from a group of young men and women, greeting their old friend. A group of nine water tribe members about Kya’s age were headed toward them. Her eyes met Lin’s once more, still confused but something else as well. Then she turned and waved at them.
Lin stepped away and sought out the others.
“Having a good time?” Katara said, her eyes twinkling.
Lin sighed. “I guess so.”
She wrapped an arm around her. “Come on. Let’s find some dessert.”
