Fandom ATLA: Archive of Water [Closed]

[moonrise]

 

[Lucyfer]

Focusing upon the duties of being a princess was tiresome for Yue when it was all her days were full of. Even so, the ever-dutiful girl did as much as she could to understand what was ahead for her. As a non-bender, she felt frustration creep in the back of her mind. She would not be able to serve her people as a healer, and so, she had to serve her people with her intelligence, which meant studying history, politics, and of course – the spirits.

Yue always felt close to the spirits, and wanted to be able to guide her people in a truly spiritual way. Without the Avatar, they did not have any true spiritual leaders left in the world. It was a role she could, no, she would fulfill.

It was with that in mind, as the sun began to set on the horizon, that the white-haired Princess Yue left the walls of her home, garbed in her warm blue dress, tufts of white fur brushing along her cheek as she walked with two guards following towards the Spirit Oasis where Tui and La continued their push-and-pull dance, never tiring of it.

In a way, it was fascinating.

In another, she took inspiration from it. She needed to be as steadfast, even when it was monotonous. The way the Moon pulled the Tide was ever-changing, and ever-constant. Monotonous, yes, but a monotony that could lead to surprises and sudden changes.

She would be a steady force. A constant, for her people, and find things with each pull, each push, to move them out of the war with the Fire Nation.

Of course, such grandiose thoughts were obliterated by the mundane view of her dearest cousin’s agitated state, as Yue went around the palace. She paused, and crept forward only a little to try and catch sight of what had Malika so agitated.

The image of a shoddy ice sculpture that resembled the boy Yue was pretty sure Mali was dating. Their relationship had warmed her heart, for Yue was a romantic. She wanted to imagine young love, and live vicariously through Mali, but given the frustration, anger, sorrow that she now saw and heard in the ramblings of her cousin, she felt her own heart break – vicariously, of course!

Yue knew she was unlikely to marry for love. She could hope to build love with who she married, but…she would face reality.

Mali didn’t have to do that, though. Not so long as Yue lived, anyways.

Yue turned to her retinue of guards, and gave a silent shooing motion, ushering them back, though they were unlikely to go far. When the pair exchanged an uncertain look, she put her hands on her hips and scowled, before pointing in the direction of her cousin – out of their sight, but her voice was likely to reach them.

And it did.

One of the guards gave a soft smile as he shut his eyes, and nodded.

Yue returned a far kinder smile when his eyes opened, and she walked out silently towards where Malika was, facing her sculpture, blissfully unaware of Yue’s approach.

And Yue waited only a moment, before delicately intruding, “Whatever has this poor ice done to offend you so much, Mali?” obviously it wasn’t the ice that did it, but the one depicted in it. Still, Yue would not phrase it so, and wait off to the side with that earnestly concerned look on her face – and just enough warmth to promise to be gentle and even playful, if Mali wanted to hide behind jokes.

At least, at first.

 

[moonrise]

Kuak's skewed and drooping face was looking especially punchable; his lips half-melded with his chin and his eyes especially watery. Somehow, he looked sorrier now than ever before. As he should! After all, Mali had been yelling at him for the past twenty minutes. "You don't appreciate anything I do for you!" The young woman whipped around to jab a finger in his face, having yet to notice he'd shrunk by a few inches and now only stood three-quarters of a head taller than her. Admittedly, the height got annoying after a while, and whenever Mali's neck started to feel sore, she'd just start pacing around him again. Her footprints in the snow had no intention of disappearing anytime soon.

"But I support everything you do." Her rant continued like a pot boiling over. "I don't recall you making a fuss out of my waterbending when I saved your butt from being trapped in that hole. Literally! And who covered for you to Hahn and the others when your legs were too numb afterwards and you couldn't make it to drills? I did, Kuak. And do you know why? Because I'm an amazing girlfriend." Mali huffed and flipped one of her braids over her shoulder. "And for you, mister, I'll be an even better ex-girlfriend." She stood taller, prouder. It felt so good to finally get it all off her chest, but then...

Mali swallowed, and her voice softened. "W-why are you looking at me like that, Kuak?" The ice sculpture, of course, did not reply. But it did continue to melt, which gave the impression that the figure was slumping and feeling guilty as the smaller girl watched on. "Stop it. You're making me feel bad..." Mali's lower lip quivered, and she inhaled deeply, resisting the urge to sympathy cry with her own shoddy creation that was considerably more emotional than the real Kuak, who was a skilled hunter.

Tugging on the soft fur lining of her thick sleeves, Mali dropped her gaze to her boots. "I didn't mean it, you know." She kicked over a rock. "When I said you look like a grumpy koalaoatter. I think your big ears are cute."

One of Kuak's eyebrows melted, and Mali was reminded of that reprimanding look that she felt like she was always getting from him these days. "But you clearly don't use them for listening!" Her breath came out hot and puffy, and she let out a small shriek of annoyance that got caught in her throat at the sound of a familiar voice. Her cousin's.

"Yue?" Mali spun around quickly and then immediately tried to cover the statue of her not-quite-ex-boyfriend, but to no avail. "Oh, hey, Yue," she tried to sound more conversational, but couldn't manage a smile against the competing instinct to die of embarrassment. "I was just, you know, admiring the scenery." Mali gestured out towards... lots and lots of snow. "A-and then this statue just appeared before me! Pretty freaky, right?" Her face heated at the sound of her own pitiful, nervous laughter.

A heavy, resigned sigh escaped her. "How much of that did you hear?" Mali forced herself to ask with a slight grimace. She appreciated Yue's gentler and more tactful approach—something Mali herself was a bit lacking in—, but there was no point in trying to cover up now. And maybe she really needed to talk to someone about this whole thing. Preferably someone who wouldn't leap at the opportunity to judge her. "Not the part about him getting stuck in a hole, right? He made me promise not to tell." Maybe she also just missed talking to Yue.

The delayed realization caught up to her, and Mali smiled sheepishly. "Whoops..."

 

[Lucyfer]

As Mali recognized she was being listened to, Yue straightened up, keeping that tentative, inquisitive smile on her lips as she listened earnestly to her cousin try to explain what was going on with a very obvious lie. Even so, Yue kept her eyes wide, and she nodded, as if she was going to believe it. And, of course, to instill guilt in Mali for even trying to lie about something so obviously concerning.

When at last Mali saw sense, Yue answered, “From about the moment you started to tell Kuak that he was making you feel bad,” which wasn’t all of it, but Yue might bet it was the most ridiculous part as she came closer to where Mali was, and stepped around her to Kuak, tilting her head to examine the expression on the melting ice now.

It did look rather pitiful, now that the other eyebrow had melted off, and his bottom lip seemed lower, too. Yue managed not to cringe as she turned back to Mali, “I didn’t hear anything about any holes,” obviously, she just did, but she could keep a secret quite well! So, she’d pretend she didn’t.

But she wouldn’t pretend she wasn’t witness to this whole thing.

“What’s going on with you and Kuak that you have to come out here to yell at an ice sculpture, Mali?” she went for the point, putting a hand on the sculpture, only to quickly move it away and shake it off. She should have expected it would be wet since it was melting, but somehow, she didn’t.

She didn’t hide her own briefly embarrassed grin, though it softened back into concern quickly as she buried her hands by bringing them together and linking them at the sleeves. “You can talk to me. I promise I won’t tell anyone, Mali.”

 

[moonrise]

Mali had lost track of her own rant. For all she knew, she might've been yelling at not-quite-Kuak about the same things for the past half hour. Not that the real Kuak was particularly good at listening, either. Seriously, what use were those cute ears, anyway? The young woman visibly deflated, nearly melting into a pile of her own as Yue proceeded to ask a very reasonable question in the face of an unreasonable display. Mali's first response was a soft groan, but her gaze softened at her cousin, who probably was the only one she could trust out here. Mostly because Ukki hated Kuak. No way was that a reflection of Kuak's character, though. Nope. Brothers only existed to be occasional pains in the butt.

"I just..." Mali paused to sigh down at her boots. "I thought it wouldn't matter to him, since he isn't a bender." Neither was Yue, she soon recalled, but it was too late to stop the words from tumbling out. Words were always a slippery slope with Mali. She turned to face the melting ice sculpture that was even more off-center now. "I've been working on this dance with my waterbending—I know, I know. It's not how I should be using it." She could clearly picture Yagoda shaking her head, along with the rest of their family's looks of shared disappointment. Why did it feel like she was only ever singled out for the things people didn't like about her?

"But I practiced for weeks and I wanted it to be a big surprise." Mali clenched her fists at her side. "And he didn't even let me finish." She glared and the ice sculpture's nose melted off completely, dripping past what could no longer pass as a mouth. Kuak usually didn't care if people caught them together before. It was so unfair! "I'm not overreacting." Mali looked at Yue with a pained look, halfway on the brink of tears. "Am I?" She asked slowly.

 

[Lucyfer]

Yue listened, keeping her thoughts on the statement of benders and non-benders to herself. There were some things, no doubt, that non-benders couldn’t have educated opinions on. Yue didn’t know what it was to be a bender. Their struggles were foreign to her in the personal way, but not in the human way.

Mali wanting to do more with her bending felt normal. People always wanted what they were told they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, want. Yue felt it often.

Still, Yue pursed her lips together into a tight line as Mali asked if she had overreacted. The scene Mali painted was, well, haphazard. She had practiced combat bending, that much was clear, and Kuak responded negatively. The reason for his response was left in question, however, and given all the other things that Mali was yelling about…this wasn’t the only thing wrong with her and Kuak.

Finally, Yue let her expression loosen, wide eyes showing an apology before she even began to speak, “If it were the only problem with Kuak, I might consider it an overreaction – but in truth, you haven’t told me what reason Kuak had to stop you short, Mali. Was he maybe concerned you would be caught in your dance and get into trouble?” And so maybe wanted to see it somewhere less open?

No, that wasn’t the answer.

But Yue wanted to hear Mali say why Kuak had stopped it. To put it into her words. Yue felt it would also help Mali to digest what happened to say the reasons he had, to make them real in her voice.

 

[moonrise]

There was something so calming about Yue, who always seemed to know what to say to bring Mali a little closer to earth. Yue was like a tranquil spring, so kind and gentle. Mali wondered if that resulted from her cousin spending so much time in the spirit oasis. Occasionally, Mali felt herself being drawn there as well, but she often refrained from visiting. It was a sacred place, blessed by spirits, and cherished by all of the Northern Water Tribe. The air and water were so clean and peaceful there that it was always hard to leave. Hard to go back to everyone's expectations and disappointment.

"He didn't want anyone to see," Mali finally answered with a heavy sigh, though it wasn't quite what Kuak had said. Yue was right that he had been concerned, though. He'd sprung from where she sat him in the lone cave, grabbing her shoulders and looking at her with such urgency and pleading that she'd forgotten what steps came next.

"If anyone sees me with you like this—"
​

Mali's chest tightened, and she avoided Yue's gaze. "Kuak's ashamed of me." Admitting it aloud stung, but there was no point in denying it any longer. But a part of Mali still wanted to. Because this was the same Kuak that laughed at her jokes, bundled her in his coat whenever she got cold, and ate every single rock-adjacent kale cookie she ever made. She could accept every part of Kuak, but not the one that rejected a part of her. "Even though I'm so amazing," Mali tried to joke to fight back the wateriness in her eyes.

She wiped away at a few tears with her sleeve. "So I think," she paused, sniffling, "I think I'm going to break up with him."

 

[Lucyfer]

‘There it is.’

Yue’s expression remained gentle as Mali confessed that Kuak didn’t want anyone to see it. That meant he didn’t even want to see that side of Mali. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to deny her, in that way, and make her deny that side of herself, too. Yue knew Mali had such interests, and she really could not blame her. It may not be their way, but it was something in Mali’s blood, something that called to her!

Healing was only one aspect of water-bending, and there was a lot to be said for holistic knowledge! That’s what her parents tried to instill in her, sometimes to their own chagrin – holistic knowledge was good. Knowing a whole thing, hearing a whole story – good.

Yue stepped forward and closed the gap between herself and Mali, reaching to settle a hand on Mali’s shoulder, of the arm she’d used to wipe at her tears. “You are amazing,” she insisted with that gentle earnestness, taking Mali’s joke and spinning it true.

“You deserve someone who sees you are amazing, too,” she agreed, “if you do not think that Kuak will ever see that this facet of you is amazing, then I support you letting him go, Mali. But,” she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, then shook her head, white strands of hair fluttering around her face.

Wrong word.

She let her lip out, “Well. Maybe we should talk about the break-up part. Kuak may…now that he has seen this side of you, he may try to get you in trouble if he is hurt deeply with this knowledge,” Yue squeezed Mali’s shoulder.

There may be no way to avoid it, but they could at least strategize.

Yue looked to the wretched sculpture, “Maybe away from this?” she lifted her hand from Mali and gestured towards it. A walk would be good for them both.

 

[moonrise]

Different kind of tears had welled up in Mali's eyes at Yue's praise. Admittedly, the grosser kind, because she felt just as touched as she was on the brink of slobbering oh, Yue! She wiped it all away just the same. Out with the tears, and in with the cheers. It felt good to confide in someone who wasn't armed with a million reasons to convince her that she was in the wrong. Especially because Mali knew that Yue could, if her cousin wanted to. These days it was more difficult to ignore the differences in their statuses, that Yue was the Water Princess.

Which meant that she probably had more important duties to be addressing than this silly breakup. Maybe it was selfish to hog Yue's attention like this, but Mali didn't care, even if Yue's two escorts were starting to look a little restless back there.

Her blue eyes widened at the single word that so often upended her dreams: but. Mali swallowed nervously, but kept her chin up. Yue was kind and patient enough to hear her out, so Mali could spare the grace to do the same.

Unfortunately, Yue brought up a very good point. "I... hadn't even thought about that." She frowned and then groaned. Would he really do something like that? It was hard to know what Kuak was thinking. "Y-you're right. Let's go—"

"Go where?" Mali jumped at her younger brother's deep voice, twisting around to see the taller male skidding down a small snow hill. A two-year age difference did not give Ukiuk the right to be so much taller. He was a bit thinner than most of the other waterbenders, but he still had an entire head over Mali and Yue. "What are the two of you doing all the way out here?"

Instead of answering, Mali whipped back around and turned the Kuak statue into a puddle with a big swish of her arms. "N-nothing, Ukki! Just—girl talk, you know?" She chuckled nervously.

Ukiuk raised a questioning brow. "Right. And why does girl talk involve a middling ice sculpture of Kuak?" He raised an arm, recreating the half-melted Kuak where he'd been towering moments ago with uncanny precision. "I do have to admit, it's not too far off from the real thing."

 

[Lucyfer]

Yue would have been surprised if Mali actually thought of the situation she was in with regards to Kuak speaking out. She was caught up on the emotions now, not the potential of the fallout. And the emotions were hard enough, but Yue could see that. She wasn't in the swirling storm of a decision made, but not completed.

Unfortunately, they were not able to adjourn to another area for this conversation. Yue’s other cousin, Ukiuk, interrupted.

‘Brothers.’

Not that she'd know.

And she cherished Ukiuk just as much.

Yue wouldn't reveal any secrets that weren't hers to share, so when he asked about the sculpture, she gave a tsk, “Doesn't girl talk always revolve around boys?” She said, mock-annoyance given away in the friendly curve of her lips, “sometimes it helps to have a visual,” nope, her lips were sealed, “did you need something though, Ukiuk?” Maybe it was important to interrupt. Probably not, but still.