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They actually arrived back at the farm a while ago, in the middle of the night, with no fanfare. Since then, Katara has been soaking in the winter sunshine, running around blissfully, practicing her bending and hugging her friends and brother, and basically just having a wonderful time. Today she's sitting at the edge of the pond, feeding Spots and grinning enormously at everyone who comes near. Life is great! Especially when you haven't had it for ages!

Steph is still working in Smallville at the bar, and has been catching up on missed shifts for the past couple of days; this is the first afternoon she's had off since they got back, and she's down at the training area making good use of her workout time. At the moment, just bending and stretching and general maintaining-of-absurd-Battish-flexibility. Any suggestions that she is avoiding Babs, using physical activity to avoid thinking, will be ... avoided via physical activity.

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Katara turns to see who he's waving at and beams at Nick too. "Hi! Don't mind Spots, he's just excited that I'm real now."

He grins, crouching down at the side of the pool.

"Me? Mind? Not at all." To Spots, "A little bird told me you like ham. Want a snack?"

Spots indicates, tentacularly, that ham would be OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

And he forgets that he's not a foot long any more, and tries to cuddle Neil's leg. TENTACLESQUISH :-*

Katara giggles, pulling ineffectually at a tentacle. "He's really sweet," she says happily. "And he likes me because I can waterbend! My name's Katara. I haven't met you before, are you new?"

It does not occur to Katara that there could possibly be any other reason for her not to recognise someone, of course.

"I'm Neil. I just got here a week or so ago."

Now that his hand doesn't have ham in it anymore, he wipes it off on his pants and offers her a handshake. (He's wearing gloves. Neil always wears gloves.)

"Nice to meet you."

And in a minute, the waterbending thing will click. In a minute.

"It's really nice to meet you, too!"

Katara is also wearing gloves, and hoping nobody notices. Nobody will think it's weird, right? It's winter! It's not weird that Nick is wearing gloves either!

"I think we left just over a week ago." ~~Time: this word does not mean what you think it means! ~~"But we're back now!"~~~~

"...Did you say waterbend?" he asks curiously.

His other hand is busy with that apple, so it's only after he's done shaking Katara's hand that he can pat Spots' leg-cuddling tentacle.

Being snuggled by a kraken is no weirder than being snuggled by a robot. A lot messier, but no weirder.

Katara nods proudly. "Do you know what waterbending is?" She is totally adjusting to this world and the fact that people don't sometimes! SO PROUD OF HERSELF. "I can show you!"

"I've heard about it, but I've never seen it. I met somebody a little while ago from-- well, your world, I guess."

Her enthusiasm is endearing. Neil smiles.

"Sure, why not?"

Katara beams at him, getting into a carefully balanced stance and grinning especially big at the feeling of her feet in the ground. Ground is awesome!

Then she hesitates, grinning hopefully. "Ooh, who did you meet? Was it my brother?"

"No-- a woman named Ai-Ling."

"Ai-Ling," Katara repeats, frowning. "I've never heard of her." Sadface. She thought maybe it was someone she knows! Then she beams. "But she's still from my world, that's really cool! What nation did she say she was?"

Ai-Ling doesn't sound Water Tribe.

"Ah-- she didn't, that I recall. Said she was looking for her husband. His name's Miki. That's pretty much all I remember."

"Miki isn't a name!" Katara is giggling. "It means 'little' in the old language. Like, my Grandma would call me 'miki Katara,' stuff like that."

"Could be a nickname. Or," and he grins, "she's from your future and the language has changed in the meantime."

Katara's eyes widen. "Languages change? How does that happen?"

"People start using a word a little differently, or saying it a different way, and it catches on and pretty soon everybody forgets what it used to mean."

"But wouldn't some people still remember what the word was?"

"After ten or twenty years, sure. After two hundred, maybe not."

"I haven't been gone for two hundred years!"

She's very pretty, Katara, but not always the quickest to pick up on things.

Shrug. "It's probably just a nickname."

Katara's ruffled feathers settle a little, and she nods, accepting that explanation grudgingly. "Maybe he's really short."

He grins.

"Maybe. So you were gonna show me waterbending, right?"

Katara grins at him, lifting her arms again. "I'll make an octopus!"

APPLAUSE PLZ.

Neil is completely ready to applaud the octopus.