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Iroh has been around the farm (really!). Mostly drinking tea and getting used to this world and, when no one's watching, keeping in shape. Today he sits out on the front porch with a steaming cup of tea simply watching and thinking. He's been nursing the same cup for an awful long time, but somehow it's still just the right temperature.

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"Similar in that it wasn't the world either of us were born in," Mel says, and now she has Loo in a careful hug. Loo, for once, doesn't complain. "And that we had no idea how we got there.

"Different in that it was dead, empty."

"I am sorry that you lost him, then."

Mel swallows quietly

"No different than if we were from the same world," she remarks.

"True," Iroh agrees. "It makes me no less sympathetic." He holds out one finger to let Hana grab on tightly with one hand.

Hana knows this game! She grabs, and tries to feed the finger to Dino. Mel smiles fondly, lost a little in nostalgia.

"When was the last time you saw your nephew?"

It's not a non-sequitor in her head.

Iroh considers, "I saw him a few days before I found myself here." It... hadn't been a very happy meeting.

Mel picks up on that, and tilts her head, curious.

"What happened?"

Why weren't they together?

"We had a... disagreement. He decided that he wanted something foolish, and I found I could not support him."

Mel snorts. It's a curious noise from a stranger. In a hypothetical world where she would know his nephew, it might be interpreted as frustration with a loved one.

"Teenagers," she says in explanation.

"I still hope he'll find himself before things are too late," Iroh says quietly allowing Hana to feed his finger to Dino.

Mel's focused on Loo, briefly, quietly agreeing.

"He will."

She hopes, anyway.

"I don't suppose I'll ever end up finding out," Iroh sighs tiredly.

There's a lot Mel could say to this, but nothing really forms into words.

"I'm sorry."

It's the first time, on this world, she's actually expressed regret that someone couldn't make their way back.

"Some things can not be changed," Iroh says simply. "And at least the tea here is good."

Mel laughs out loud for a second. Because Iroh and his tea amuses her - in Apocalyptica his constant quest for good tea was always funny.

"And there's green," she says. "And wildlife."

"Another thing I was missing at home," he smiles.

Now the reason Mel didn't have any at home was because she lived in a city. Iroh, though...

She glances at him surreptiously.

"Didn't..." she starts, but that's the wrong question for now.

"City man?"

"Sometimes more than others," Iroh agrees. "Most recently I was spending time in prison, and there is not much to see there."

Mel blinks.

Opens her mouth.

Shuts it.

Eventually, "whose prison?"

Fire Nation, Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom?

"Oh, my brother's," Iroh answers off-handedly. "We've never really gotten along all that well."

"Then your brother's clearly a jerk," Mel says, with a small smirk.

"Oh, no. He is merely... misguided. He has allowed himself to be caught up in ambition, and that never ends well."

"No," Mel says firmly, "he's a jerk.

"My sister usedta keep trying to cell me, but I was a thief, so yuo'd expect it."

"Did that make her a jerk?" Iroh asks calmly.

"Only a little," Mel says.

"You're a lot nicer than me, I can tell."