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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 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.

It is octopus-y. And made out of water.

Also, oddly dark in patches. Maybe that's just the water from the pond, though. Either way, Katara lets her hands fall quickly, splashing a big puddle around all of them.

"Sorry. It's normally better, I don't know what's wrong."

"Looked fine to me," he says cheerfully. "That's a pretty neat trick. What else can you do with it?"

"Normally it's better," Katara says, frowning at the wet ground. "I can heal!"

This last is not as excited as it perhaps would otherwise be.

"...Really."

His focus sharpens a little, but his voice is still gentle when he asks, "What's wrong now, then? Something throwing you off?"

She wraps her arms around herself, frowning at the lake and not looking at him. "No, I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. I'm going to be able to do it properly again soon, anyway."

"Okay."

He accepts that prediction without comment. Her distress is not his business. If she wants to claim she's fine, well, who is he to argue?

Damn right.

And she's not upset at all.

At ALL.

She's FINE.

...

:(

"Thank you for worrying, though," she says brightly, all smiles.

"It's something I do," he admits. "And hey, if I can help with anything..."

A shrug serves to indicate you're free to ask.

Neil Dylandy: everyone's big brother. Even, apparently, people who already have brothers.

Katara glances over at him, smiling a little. He reminds her of Sokka a little, and that makes her trust him. "Thank you. I will, if I need anything."