deercountry | it's the solstice

Entry tags:

it's the solstice

Who: Mako, Wu, & close CR
What: They might be in a different world, but the solstice is the solstice, and that means it's time to feed everyone you care about, if you're Mako
When: Night of December 21st
Where: Mako and Wu's loft above the Raccoon Room

Content warnings: Sadness from potential memory-share stuff, homesickness, mentions of Mako and Bo's dead parents

© TESSISAMESS

If you have close CR with Mako or Wu, in the days leading up to the Winter Solstice—December 21st—you may have gotten a small text invite in your inbox. A few simple lines inviting you to the Raccoon Room on the night of the 21st for dinner "because it's the solstice." Normally the Raccoon Room is closed early in the week, but on the 21st they've opened it up.

They're actually having people over in the loft above the Raccoon Room, and their living space is decked out in lanterns and candles to keep out the long darkness. Snow falls quietly outside, but in here it's warm and it smells like ginger and pepper. Wu's put on a few scratchy records in the background. Here and there, Winter Mournings are hung, not quite out of reach. It's very easy to accidentally or purposefully touch one.

If anyone comes in early enough, Mako is still at the counter with his sleeves rolled up, rolling dumplings, covered in rice flour. Maybe help him cook? He's looking better than he was early in the month: his skin is the correct pallor without that odd gray cast, and there's no smoke rolling off his body, so that... has to be good!

For the later arrivals, Mako's made dinner, which means hot tangyuan in gingery broth, an entire bowl of mushroom noodles for sharing, and a simmering pot of broth for people to cook things in, as well as a lot of a tangy sauce that Mako gets kind of cagey about when people try. Sit down, enjoy some hot pot! It's a time to be together, after all.

[ ooc: tag around, top-level, have a good time! ]

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[Wu. Of course. Oh, bless you brother in law. Bolin makes a mental note to thank him later in private for being there for Mako when he wasn't. For keeping him from becoming like the thing Dean has chained in his basement.]

No, no I get it. Me too. I miss everything so much and it's all so far away.

[What he wouldn't give for a bending match right now. Hell, he'd marry Eska on the spot if it meant they could go back to familiar streets. This city is nothing like their home. In the blink of an eye they left a world where everyone was just like them and now? Now, they're it. Five people to represent a vast planet and all it's many cultures. It's devastating. Overwhelming. The food, the animals, their connection with the spirits.. it's all gone. Maybe that's why he's been having such a hard time letting go of Opal. She's one more piece of their world slipping through his fingers and gone forever.

Bolin tries not to be so sentimental but he can't help it. And it's hard to stay cheerful in the present when you long for everything in your past. He's normally good at putting it aside and setting a brave face but.. it's been hard. And lately? Almost impossible. There's no mission to complete, here. No problem to solve so they can go home and carry on with their lives.. it's just. Survival. He knows that this is their home now, and he's accepted that, but it doesn't stop the ache between his ribs. Their world wasn't perfect.. far from it, actually, but it was theirs. This new Otherness is suffocating.]

I have something to show you.

[But Spirits, he isn't sure if he can let go just yet.]

Yeah? What?

[ Immediate attention, like a dog to heel: Mako straightens up, pulls back just a little to search Bolin's face. He doesn't know what he was expecting. Bolin to laugh at him, maybe, and tell him of course he's being stupid? That's ridiculous. Wu might not be attached to Republic City or really their home, but Bolin is softer than Mako is, and cares maybe more about traditions and all the little rituals that have sustained them their whole lives.

He should have talked to Bolin. It's obvious now, but Mako's never been good at reaching out when he's having a hard time. It's another thing to get better at, to figure out in this new place, trying to be this new version of himself with softer edges. ]

[Next time. You'll know for next time. While Mako was busy guarding their lives he inadvertently gave Bolin guardianship of their hearts. He taught his little brother everything he remembered of their parents. Taught him how to thrive. Kindness. Curiosity. Loyalty. How to rise up when the time came. By taking the sharp hand of reality, Mako held space for Bolin to learn gratitude and tradition and ritual. Together they created memorials for their lost family. Together they forged traditions for themselves. Small, but vital gestures to keep them human.

Bolin doesn't realize this so candidly and he knows that he's been cruel to his brother int he past for making the hard decisions, so it isn't that big of a surprise when Mako didn't come to him. Plus.. obviously they've been fighting. So.

Next time. Ever onward.]

Here.

[That's when he pulls back and disconnects to turn and retrieve the pack he brought. Inside it are three paper lanterns made of thin, red paper, ready to be puffed up into shape and let go into the sky. Beside them in another layer of protective fabric is the glass Memory's Touch he was gifted in October.

It blooms over and over again and was recently a spider lily, but when he reveals the orb, fabric between the glass and his skin, it's a fiery lantern flower just on the cusp of bloom.]

This thing is like a little vision of home. A smell.. or a sound.. a taste.

[Which has been equal parts helpful and devastating.]

It changes every time the flower opens. I don't know what this one is, yet.

[ Mako's afraid to touch it, but he comes to hover near it instead, lifting a finger to hover over the tip of one brightly-glowing leaf. It looks like a real flower, all soft petals and pollen, like a little glimpse of home. They bloomed in the park. Mako had tried forever to bend fire into the shape of one, but that kind of precision was beyond his young fingers at the time. Maybe now he could pull it off.

Wu would love this, Mako thinks, and drops his hand to look up at Bolin. His voice is soft, a little hoarse with feeling apparently still crowding into him. ]

You... touch it. Right? To find out?

[Bolin nods, letting Mako take all the time he needs, understanding his hesitation without explanation. But he also knows that his brother won't allow himself to chicken out and so he holds his hand steady and waits.

Really, he should have brought it to Mako sooner, but it appeared only shortly before his encounter with that weird metal spirit and things had gone down hill very quickly after.]

These flowers always remind me of Mom..

Yeah? Why's that?

[ His finger hovers, frozen in space and time above the little thing. It's moving practically more than he is. It's a good idea, right? Touching this thing, getting reminded of home. What it yanks him right back into that awful headspace, feeling like the fragments of his past were slipping from his hands the harder he squeezed? He can't do that again: he's patched things up with Wu but it's a fragile peace and Mako feels sort of pasted together, like his cracks are visible to anyone looking.

He might be stalling. ]

[He's definitely stalling but that's okay. Sometimes you have to break before you can grow.

Bolin considers the question for a beat like he isn't entirely sure.]

I have this memory of fabric.. skirts I think? I can remember the way they moved across the floor. I think it was her. These remind me of that, I guess.

[And it goes unsaid but lantern flowers were always blooming when they held their yearly memorial and it's all fused together in his head.]

Dad used to tell her she was going to trip on her skirts.

[ Something Mako's never really brought up before. His voice is soft, almost absent: a memory half-there that he hasn't thought about in years. He stares at the flower for a moment longer, then looks up, his face set. ]

...touch it with me.

[It shouldn't hurt so bad to have a memory confirmed. It shouldn't... but it does. But maybe in a good way?

Bolin presses his lips together, chewing them for a second while he thinks about those skirts. The few, thin memories he has left of long hair and singing. Feeling safe against someone so much bigger than him and knowing- absolutely knowing- that he was safe.

He swallows hard and nods, raising his other hand to hover in tandem.]

Count of three. One.. two.. three..

[ They press their hands down together.

What they're given isn't a visual thing. It's not a sound, either: it's a smell, ginger and garlic and tart tamarind, something more savory and deeper. Not just the sauce but all the things that go with it, broth and spices and battered vegetables. It's the scent of their kitchen at the solstice, a blend of Fire Nation spices and a sauce from Ba Sing Se that they'd mixed together into their own little thing. Mako sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes closing entirely without his say-so. It's like he's there, swinging his legs on the counter next to their mom as she stirs, telling him about all the spices she's putting in and how their dad used to do it wrong, how she rescued him with Ember Island peppercorns from languishing in a spiceless wasteland. ]

[It hits hard and nostalgic, mixing into the air around them that smells so very, very similar. Bolin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, tensing his shoulders a little to stay balanced as he takes it all in with a small whine.

it's like the flower knew where they were. What night it was. It's like their mom was waiting to offer one last guiding hand.]

It's the pepper. That's what's missing.

[ Mako says it like he's in a dream, his eyes still closed. ]

Mom... toasted it, I think. Got them from Ember Island. They're called ice pepper because they're kind of cold, too, remember?

Best when toasted in the hand of a firebender.

[Rhetoric popular with vendors and chefs. He's heard the slogan many times but associates them more with bang-bang komodo chicken than he does their mom. Not that he would ever tell Mako that. Not now, not ever. Whilst Bolin is the keeper of their traditions, he stays in the present as a coping mechanism. And while it means he's usually grounded and centered and pleasant, it also means he has to sacrifice object permanence and his memory is short. Too much has happened to them, and those two years of age between him and his brother aren't much now but it was miles when they were kids.

And that's what they were. They were just children.

But how can he say he barely remembers anything before their parents died? Just wisps of skirts and lullaby and strong arms. Sometimes he wonders if he's just making those up, too.

Really, this gift couldn't have been better. He's remembered so much since he woke up with it next to him.]

Do you have anything close?

Edited 2022-01-12 02:55 (UTC)

Red pepper gets pretty close, but it doesn't have the same...

[ The smell is fading, a little, and Mako leans down closer to the ball like that will bring it back, his nerves spiking all at once. He can't lose it, he has to remember—to sear it into his head, cauterize it so it stays untouched on a shelf there. ]

It's just the one? The one memory, in this thing.

It's the same until the flower dies, then something new will appear. You can touch it as many times as you want. Here-

[Reaching to offload it into Mako's hand. He'd only kept a barrier between himself and the orb because he had a feeling that whatever this new flower held would be something for Mako and he didn't want to experience it first.]

I think this one was for you.

[ Mako curls his palm around it like it's a fragile flower itself, breathing in the renewed smell of that sauce. His lungs feel too big for his ribs, like they're going to overflow and spill between the cracks. He swallows around the lump in his throat. It doesn't go away. ]

Where... did you get this, bro?

[Alas, it isn’t a spectacularly interesting story.]

It was next to my bed one day. I’m not sure, but I think it might be a Patron’s Gift.

From your Pthumerian, huh. Which one's that?

[ Mako's eyes are still closed. He's still half-lost in the smell of this thing, but talking about Pthumerians and Patrons is a reminder of where he really is: in his kitchen, in Trench, with probably a bunch of people coming over and food to finish. With a quiet huff, Mako opens his eyes again and sets the thing carefully on the counter. ]

Help me finish chopping stuff for the hotpot while you're here.

[He can do that, nodding and righting the orb on the little metal stand it came with before moving to take up his station with Mako’s best knife.

This feels good. This feels like how it should. Like everything is going to be okay, and he slides right back into place at his brother’s side.

One last order of business, though.]

Oh- I haven’t got to tell you yet. I moved in with Lance and his buddy Hunk. So that’s all taken care of.

...oh.

[ Mako's taken slightly by surprise with that. He hadn't know what he expected—for Bolin to move in with them? Obviously not, there's no room. For him to get his own place, maybe, but...

After he gets used to the idea, Mako smiles a little. ]

You have your own room? How much of it did you have to bend yourself?

Ha ha, very funny.

[Such a jerk, but he quips back without heat. Surely the joke is just extra proof that they’re okay again.]

You sound surprised. I know it’s hard to believe but I’m a popular guy. I’ve had a lot of offers, you know.

[ It's such a ridiculous relief just to joke with his brother again that Mako can't help but grin at him, elbowing Bolin in the side as he chops. ]

You gonna start bringing your screaming fans back to your new place?

You know, I think I might. It's been a while since I've had a place to bring them. Can't say no to a good groupie.

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it's the solstice

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