Chapter Text

Cold as it was
We felt secure sleeping together
In the same room.

–Bashō

In the corner of the city known as Old Cranefish Town, the streets are narrow and winding. From storeys above, light and shadow give its icy strands of asphalt the impression of spiderfly silk: one big web swaying on a bitter gust of ocean air. While there is no monster waiting to snag its prey, the absence of anything lurking had not saved a Satomobile from skidding across black ice early in the evening. Two young boys had watched the ordeal from their third floor window, captivated by the events playing out like a real-life radio drama: the fender wrapped around a pole, the dying wisps of smoke from the engine, the cursing and apologizing and hugging of the passengers, and the frozen darkness of the shoreline, now disturbed by a bright red flash of patrol cars that set the entire bay aflame. But the scene ends, or rather is ended, by a quick pull of the curtains. 

The boys’ father, a generally lively man named San, can only offer an exasperated puff of laughter tonight. He towers over the two of them until he sits for dinner, inviting them to follow his example. To turn around. All the way. Elbows off the table. His lips are drawn into a thin line, hidden for a moment behind his neat mustache as they meet him. Makoto is eight and growing lanky, his skinny arms a bit too long for last season’s new clothes. Those will soon be handed down to Bolin, six and rosy-cheeked and, at this moment and most, literally attached to his brother’s hip. Mako scoots himself right up to the wall, hoping in vain that more space will be volunteered. In the end, he frees an arm to push Bolin’s empty bowl aside. A begrudging patience. 

San often thinks of his own little brother when he watches them. He thinks of Ba Sing Se and the hot sun freckling their round faces, and the fights they had laughed to a draw, and how every day sands away at the memories of their youth. Of course, this isn’t Ba Sing Se. This is his modest but happy home by the sea, where the food is fresh and the futons are warm and comfortable. A collection of scarves and mittens dry on the radiator, expecting the promise of morning commutes. San feels especially lucky these days. He had never even asked for this life. He had for a long while even rejected it, dreaming instead of the wide world and the strangers he would come to know. How did they live their lives? How else might he? It was with no small amount of shame that he realized, in stumbling into his own father’s footsteps, that he had not only come to sympathize with the man he claimed to hate, but he would miss his opportunity to tell him that it wasn’t true. (Don’t come back, Chow wrote. Father’s dead. You broke his heart.)

“That’s too much.” 

Distracted—by what, on such an ordinary night—San cannot be sure. He had scooped at least two servings of congee before Mako had piped up. Patient, if a little sour.

The father scoffs. What would have been a third scoop of mushy rice lands in Bolin’s bowl. “You’re all skin and bones, boy! A little extra won’t hurt you.”

“S’fine,” a full mouth insists. As he shovels and Mako picks, their differences couldn’t be more apparent. Bolin seems to be taking more after his father: impulsive, opinionated, unable to tell a convincing lie. If he tried then his very nature would give him away, tears pouring from the same spring green eyes that, with age and experience, have only just learned to contain them. Poise doesn’t come naturally.

“See?” San grins, meeting Bolin’s puffy smile. “Your brother’s happy with it!”

Mako agrees, barely, with a hum. 

A different approach, then. San forces a pout. “I am sorry it isn’t Mom’s cooking tonight.” 

It is, after all, her amber eyes cutting to him. They sharpen at the implication. “I didn’t mean…”

“Nuh-uh!” The little one snickers, reclaiming his rightful place beside him. “You said Dad’s cooking looks like deer-pig slop!”

And he wouldn’t be wrong. San winks. “Long as it tastes okay. Right?” 

“No!” Bolin speaks for his brother, dodging his hands as he does. An empty threat. “Yesterday, he said–”

“It’s fine, Dad, really! I had a big lunch.” A sidelong glare meant as a final warning quickly dissolves, thwarted by the beginnings of a smirk. “And I said cow-pig slop.” 

A chuckle answers him. “Well, that it does!”

Levity only lasts as long as the laughter it inspires, though. More than once, Mako’s attention drifts back to the covered window as if patience alone could settle his confusion. The sudden regularity of his mother’s absence. The truth being kept from him. The weary eyes that struggle to keep a secret. 

San’s journey from Ba Sing Se to Republic City had taken about two years from start to finish. There had been no destination in mind for the duration of his travels, which were spent—as his wife puts it—freeing his mind and his wallet. He had trekked the ruby foothills of Taihua, hitchhiked along the rocky shores of West Lake, and chartered a fishing boat to the tranquil waters of Full Moon Bay. By the time he reached the Sea of Mo Ce, where the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and United Republic meet, he had seen more wonders than he ever believed the world could hold. And soon, none of them would compare. 

She told him her name was Naoki, and she presented him with a slip of paper and a kind, almost pitying smile. Should he need work or a place to stay, she said—her voice low and demanding to be heard—that was the number he should dial. 

Fair and foxlike, framed by long waves of black barely moved by the wind, her face belonged more to the world of a classic painting than to San’s. Everything in him wanted to trust her immediately, this young woman who had reached through the noise and chaos of the pier to extend a hand, and who could look past the uncombed mop of hair and five o’clock shadow at a man who didn’t even realize he was lonely. No doubt, if Ba Sing Se would have chewed him up and spit him out eventually, then so would Republic City. Knowing that he would be a fool to turn down such an offer—if not out of loneliness, then the pounding of his heart—he would take her up on it. He mustered all of his patience for her, letting the night pass before feeding the last of his savings to a payphone. Until then, she held her ground at the center of the bustling port that would forever live in his mind. Was she really the painting, he wondered, or the painter herself?

They would meet over tea, cramping in with the other regulars at her corner table of the little shop. The red scarf around her neck muffled her greeting, but he could hear yesterday’s smile in her voice; not nearly as well once the busy, chattering heat of the indoors had reached her. San jumped to his feet, pulling out a chair and accepting her coat, scarf, hat. It impressed him again that her hair frizzed and settled without her need to smooth it. Impressed him too much. Towering awkwardly over her, no better than a coatrack, he had forgotten himself entirely. 

But she was glad that he called, she said. It had been so long since she met someone new to the city, and before he could learn anything else about her, the interview was in full swing. Where are you from? What part of Ba Sing Se? What did you do for work there? Are you comfortable around benders? 

What kind of question! If his laughter was colored at all by nervousness, he could convince himself that it was the rapid fire nature of the conversation. Still, half-hidden behind her teacup was the sympathetic look that had introduced him to her. He found himself leaning in to admit privately: My father happens to be one. Earth, of course.

Earth? It was seamless, the way she played off of his dumbstruck silence. Her attention flickered from his weatherworn jacket before returning to his eyes. You don’t say.

Had he not been focused so intently on her, he might not have noticed the way her painted lips twitched at the corners. 

I shouldn’t be presumptuous.

Grateful for the tell, subtle as it was, San leaned back in his chair. Broad shoulders unsquared with a flowery sigh. At least green is flattering. Don’t you think? 

Do I think?

Or is that–

Presumptuous? 

It was the widest he had seen her smile yet.

From the details he had provided, the young woman was able to push him in the right direction: towards a warehouse job at Cabbage Corp and a cheap hostel outside of Dragon Flats. This was what she did, and while it paid her absolutely nothing, she took the role seriously. His success would be her success. Granted, he was happy just to know that she would continue to check in on him—that their meetings at the teahouse had developed without warning, no longer straight to business but to stolen glances and uncontrollable laughter—yet time would prove her to be a master in her field. What he called luck, she called charm, and it guaranteed him a swift promotion to sales; then, to his own apartment; then, eventually, to the home they would share. 

He did not yet know Naoki well when he knew that she was intentional beyond measure. To fall in love with her was to savor the surprises as they came: never stumbled upon accidentally, but granted at the right time and to the right person. Whether it was his luck or his charm, she had chosen to let him in on her life. He had chosen to be a part of it. And with this, he had chosen the possibility of losing her.

The people that Naoki helped, and still does help, are not at all like her husband. They fled the remote Fire Nation island they once called home. They come in droves some years, and some not at all. If their escape across the water is successful, they will look for her at the docks of Yue Bay—there, the girl from Penquan will be waiting alone. No matter the cost, she will make sure they won’t be.

Of course, their children hadn’t made any choices. The distance being kept tonight is for their own good, though neither of their parents imagine it must feel that way to them. Until one cold winter day eight years ago, they wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing up a family under such circumstances. At that time, the iron fist of Naoki’s homeland had never been stronger, and as a result, she spent much of Mako’s first years waiting for something to happen. For news. For a familiar boat to appear on the horizon. 

Bolin, arriving two years later, was welcomed into a life of routine: that is, under a mournful acceptance that no one else could be saved, and under a guilty sense of relief for the life they had secured for themselves. It was only when Mako began bending fire that a total change of course felt necessary to his mother. She was there to provide the guidance he needed, having never followed orders to stop practicing the art herself. Had he been raised on Penquan, not only would he have been encouraged to bend but he would have been enlisted to strike fear in the hearts of his own people.  In this city of dreams, where fear of the unknown seems to be growing more insidious by the day, she believes he could help turn the tide on it altogether. 

The bedroom door cracks slowly open. The light of the hallway stripes across the wood floor. One little leg has kicked free from the blankets of their futon, too warm even in the frigid depths of winter. San’s eyes adjust to find the rising and falling of breath under the blankets. Just Bolin’s. 

And Mako…

There’s the shape of him, completely covered and motionless in sleep. But this image rings untrue. Would the boy not be sitting at the window once again, waiting sullenly for his mother to round the corner onto their street? Perhaps he had already been sitting there long enough—and turning in for the night, would a firebender not be stifled by the warmth of their futon as well? He thinks of a younger Naoki in the teahouse, her coat, scarf, and hat, and it’s this memory that holds him to the threshold.

San barely hears it the first time: a sound like rustling leaves. A slight shifting of fabric, then the rustling. Sniffling. 

He opens the door fully, letting in enough golden lamplight to catch the wide, watery eyes of his youngest son peeking over the sheets at him.

“Bo?”

More distinct this time, a whispered “Oh no.”

“Bolin,” San tries again, worry culminating into the firm voice of a father. It isn’t necessary. Two steps forward have already confirmed his fear, blankets pulled away from Mako’s side to reveal three pillows underneath. 

“He just left! Just!” Bolin blurts out. “Down the fire ‘scape! I couldn’t stop him or-or… or he’d whop me!” 

And this time, San actually believes it. Sooner or later, discouraged time and time again to question what he was seeing, anyone’s patience would have worn thin enough to snap.

“I think he’s looking for–”

But a sigh interrupts him. What follows is a thunderclap of laughter that shocks Bolin upright. “Thank goodness!” San’s racing heart had led him to the window, where—clever boy—a shadow meanders an otherwise empty street, stretching tall between lightposts. He’s retracing her steps. “Your brother’s not far, see? Nothing to worry about,” he assures him, kneeling to tousle his bedhead. Too clever for his own good, and Bolin too sweet. It’s no wonder the secret wasn’t kept safely with him. “Go back to sleep.”

“Is he in big trouble?” 

“Never mind that.”

“You’re gonna go get him, though?”

“You bet I am.”

“And Mama?”

A nod is enough to put him at ease, the blankets clenched in his little hands dropping to reveal a small smile. 

He had seen his mother walk this way many times, in good weather and in bad, before dawn and after dusk. What used to worry him was how closely she would walk along the edge of the road. One misstep, and the guardrails wouldn’t save her from the rocky embankment. Mako ghosts his fingers over the metal barrier, ensuring that some part of him stays tethered to the city. The waves crash far below, and still he can feel the mist kissing his nose. 

What worries him now, more than the water or the company of his own shadow, is a radio announcer’s voice. Yet another tragedy today, it says. Yasuko Sato, the wife of Future Industries leader Hiroshi Sato, is dead after an apparent firebender attack. That was almost two years ago. Now, play fights between brothers are met by gasps and threats. In the market, eyes follow their family wherever they go. Naoki had started holding Mako’s hand a little more tightly. 

But tonight, she’s gone. Some nights, she simply is. He worries because she is his mother, and because no one is holding her hand. And he still doesn’t know why. 

The first flurries of snowfall begin when a shadow joins his on the pavement. Its imposing silhouette is too familiar to worry him on its own, though. Mako’s feet slow to a stop. 

“Let’s go home,” his father tells him. “It’s cold out here.”

It could be the night blurring his vision, reminding him that he is too tired to go much further. It could be all the worry. Now, caught, it could be the guilt in disappointing someone he loves so much. Still, he swallows the lump in his throat. Shakes his head. Refuses to turn.

“Mako.” Low and calm, not one edge to the sound. Bigger, stronger hands tie a warm scarf under the boy’s chin. 

“Where does she go?” 

Under the gentle push and pull of the sea, a sigh. Through the haze of tears, Mako notices the brightness of their eyes meeting and quickly looks away. 

“The pier.”

So shocked by any answer at all, he doesn’t question why. He doesn’t have to anymore. His father holds his hand and they walk—not back, but onward. Over his shoulder, their building shrinks with every step until it finally disappears. The world looks different this late at night. Alone together, it feels different, too.

“When I was a boy, I ran away from home. Did you know that?”

His son shakes his head. One eye is scrubbed with the heel of his palm, watching their shadows overlap with the turning of a corner. Through the veil of the squall, he can see where the sky meets the water. The wooden docks. Not a boat in sight. “How come?”

San’s mouth draws to the side, thinking. But the world is more honest tonight. “I was being selfish,” he decides. “Not like you, looking for your mom out here.”

“But you wouldn’t have met if…”

His pace halts for the briefest of seconds. A bemused smile crosses his face. “That’s true,” he says, laughter bubbling just beneath the surface. “I left because—well, your grandfather and I were always fighting over something or other. How I talked, how I spent my time. How I ought to set a good example for my brother.”

“You have a brother, too?”

“Yes,” he says, the happiness slow to fade from his face. “He stayed to work for our father, and to take care of our mother once he was gone. He did all of that on his own, but he shouldn’t have had to.” He lifts his cap, swiping back his dark hair as he chooses his next words. Once settled, that hand finds Mako’s shoulder, leaving only the snow in motion. A blank canvas.

The night cuts through as a dark figure: a single brush stroke.

“Mom!” The boy doesn’t wait for his father to let go. Already, he runs into her open arms, too consoled to notice the hitch in her breath. 

“Makoto,” she says, half sighing, half laughing. The voice in her chest buzzes against his ear. “And how thoughtful of your father to join you.”

“I can explain.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Grinning up at her, unnerved slightly by her struggle to return it, Mako looks back at his father. Despite the weather, he’s removed his cap again to wring at its brim. “Mom,” he tries, “I wanted to know where you were, so I went the way you usually do and then we found you.”

“He was worried,” San adds.

“And you…?”

Mako doesn’t see or hear the answer—but there must be one. Her hands cup her son’s cheeks, trapping to pepper his face with loud kisses. 

“Anybody?” 

She shakes her head: an odd answer to an odd question. No matter now. “Are you coming with us?” Mako asks.

He feels her nod then, her hug umbrellaing him from the tick-tick of flakes that collect in her hair. When she pulls back, her gloved hand sweeps it off of him before it even has time to settle. “The night I’m not here,” she reasons, straightening to speak over him, “is the night they’ll need someone.”

“‘Someone,’ Naoki? Or just you?”

One hand is kept warm in his mother’s grip, then his father’s. He looks at them as they volley words back and forth, gauging their neutral expressions as if he could glean meaning from them. Though offered a tiny glimpse at this alien world—this honest world of adulthood—he was never invited to stay, after all. And maybe, he thinks, that’s actually for the best. He’s happy to walk in between them now, not speaking, not being spoken to, but warm. 

“Let them find you.”

“Find me? Good. I’ll make sure to give out our address, too.”

“You’re right,” he says under his breath, a puff of steam wisping in and out of existence. 

The snow tick-ticking. The waves sloshing under ice, against the rocks below. Three pairs of footsteps crunching along.

His name again, like he’s being loved or scolded: “Makoto.” She squeezes his fingers in hers, lifting him slightly off the ground. His father notices, letting him swing. “I don’t want you running off like that again.”

“I won’t,” he promises.

Tick-tick. 

“Unless Dad’s making congee.” 

His mother’s airy laughter breaks the near silence, like rain announcing the arrival of thunder. His father’s laughter follows, deep and booming. 

“Excuse me!”

Mako and Naoki stop in their tracks before San can hear the fourth voice joining them. It’s their turning heads that bring him to attention, ending his giddiness with the clearing of his throat. 

“Excuse me–” the stranger repeats, pausing to catch his breath. He’s an older man, his white hair poking out from under the hood of a fisherman’s slicker, his hands whorled and veiny as they rest over his knees. “I’m sorry!” he pants. “I heard your voices over by the docks there!”

San lets go, helping to close the distance. “Are you alright, uncle?” 

Naoki’s breath hitches again, loud enough for her son to hear the word being choked back: Hold–

The old man’s eyes catch the yellow light of a street lamp, briefly meeting the boy’s with a glance. They return to his father, smiling gratefully as their conversation continues just out of earshot. He lifts his hand and San follows its direction, looking back at his wife. Nodding.

“Wait here,” she hisses. Mako’s hand is dropped with such an anxious force, he would have no choice but to obey. He freezes in place, watching her march. She removes one glove, then the other, before stuffing them both in the pocket of her coat. 

Alone, the tips of his own fingers are already starting to numb, and the sensation reminds him that he should not be here. He was not invited. He looks over his shoulder then, towards the known world waiting for them at the end of this street. It’s possible that Bolin is still awake, taking his older brother’s place at their window. Mako wonders if he can see them from here—how far into the beyond they had traveled without him. 

He’s still looking for him when the snow suddenly changes. The sky glows with a thousand falling stars, blinding him with its strange beauty before he can think to close his eyes. 

A tortured sound reaches him through the light, something animal, and for a moment he fears that he will have to explain it to them. He wouldn’t know how, nor does he know where it might have come from. Even when he turns to them, enough color returning to make out the sea, the road, and the lapping tongues of fire, he fears their concern above all else. They were so close to putting it behind them.

He hears it again, curdling blood before it registers to the rest of his body. Curtains of grey smoke pull away, revealing the man in his slicker examining something under his foot. The brim of his father’s cap turns with it. 

Nearer to him, wide and wet on a faceless face, are his mother’s eyes. Her mouth can’t form a word, and—as if deep in slumber—she can’t lift her head. Flakes of lace gather in her hair and vanish, suddenly, under the warping heat of the old man’s fist.

And Mako runs as far as his tired legs will carry him. He trips, tick-tick, into an alley. There, the echoing of his own breath wakes him from a trancelike state of waking sleep. His face, seeking warmth, wants to dip beneath a scarf that is no longer there. Lost along the way. 

Across the street, scraps of painted metal jut out from the thin layer of snow: parts of the Satomobile that had crashed earlier in the night. He can orient himself to the walls of brick surrounding him now, where clotheslines stripe the ashy sky above his head. In the summer, the sun will shine through the colorful patchwork of cotton and silk. The grandmother on the fourth floor will water the plants sitting on her sill. Dozens of dinners will be cooking at the same time. He and his brother will play. 

Mako follows muscle memory up the fire escape, counting two, three, to their bedroom window. Taps the glass.

Bolin has been sleeping soundly, the fuzzy top of his head resting against the pane. Just following orders. It isn’t until he hears his name that he finally blinks awake, and with a jolt, pushes the window wide open. “Hi, Mako,” he mumbles. 

Mako doesn’t even think to answer. He closes the window tightly behind them. Tugs off his jacket. Lowers into bed. 

Still half-asleep and eager to return, Bolin slides under the covers next. “Is it late?”

His brother nods to the ceiling. 

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No,” he whispers. “I think I had a bad dream.”

“Really?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Bolin thinking—placing the puzzle pieces that he himself is struggling to sort out. But it’s late, and they’re both so tired. The easiest explanation is this: the three of them had sat down for dinner, and Mako went to sleep, and then Bolin, and then, lastly, their parents. This was the order every night.

And never, between the time he set his head down and rose in the morning, did Mako have a nightmare. It was always his little brother who would tell him about the spirits and demons haunting his dreams, and he would always laugh at him. As Bolin comes to the same silent conclusion, he can tell by the way he holds his breath that he wants to laugh, too. But it is held. Mako curls up so small beside him that a stranger would not be able to tell which one of them is older. Not at all. 

The sheets are pulled to cover both of their shoulders. They fall asleep before they can say goodnight.