Post by Neva on May 28, 2018 20:29:17 GMT -5
Exploring Neva's family dynamics. This will probably be edited and added to many times.
They said home was where the heart was, but Neva was starting to wonder if she’d left half of hers back in Republic City.
The Northern Water Tribe was just as she remembered it. The snow, the glaciers, the cold temperatures; all of it told her she was about to reach the port. Neva leaned against the rail of the boat, watching as she grew closer and closer to shore. The further they drew, the more nervous she felt. There had been a time when going to visit her family would have been nothing but a joyous affair. Things were different now.
They’d been asking her to visit for so long that Neva could hardly remember when they first started asking. She’d told them that she was busy with work and needed to build herself a life where she was. Then she needed to be there for Zuka, to keep an eye on things. And after that came the vigilante business, which took up her spare time--willingly, of course. It was safe to say she had plenty of reasons why going home wasn’t on her agenda.
Not to mention she had her own reservations about seeing everyone.
But Neva knew she couldn’t keep putting it off, especially with all the time that had passed. The constant letters and phone calls didn’t cut it. She knew if she went, she could visit and return and then she wouldn’t feel so guilty anymore. But that involved leaving Republic City, and that worried her immensely. What if something happened while she was gone? What if someone needed her and she wasn’t there?
In the end, Zuka convinced her that they would all be alright while she was gone. It wouldn’t be a terribly long visit, and they would manage without her. After that, she really didn’t have a reason to say no. And now as the boat pulled into the docks, Neva had no way of turning back. She had to remind herself that this was a good visit, and that she shouldn’t let any of the tensions she feared might arise get in the way of it.
She took a deep breath of the cold air, and then descended to the docks. It didn’t take long for her to spy her parents waiting there for her. Upon seeing them, Neva couldn’t stop the smile from spreading onto her face, and she hurried over to them. Her father stepped out, pulling her into his strong embrace, and Neva smiled into the fur of his coat. “Hi, Dad.”
“I was starting to think I’d never get to see you again,” Khuno said, holding her tightly.
“I’m sorry,” Neva said, and she meant it. The only child her parents got to see regularly was Shiya, who still remained in the Northern Water Tribe. While they could come and visit her, the history her family had with Republic City kept them from coming back. In a way, that was better for Neva. At least when they weren’t in her space she had an easier time pretending that she wasn’t involved in half the things that she actually had a hand in.
“I’m just glad you’re here now,” her father answered, stepping back and putting his hands on her shoulders. His smile was warm, the kind that always reassured her as a child.
She didn’t realize until that moment just how much she had missed her parents underneath all her worrying. Neva stepped into her mother’s arms next, Eiriol running her hand through her daughter’s hair. “It’s so good to have you home, sweetheart.”
Neva smiled, looking between her parents. They looked happier than she’d seen them last, happier than they sounded in their letters as well. If her presence brought them something good, she couldn’t really be upset about visiting. It was something that she could give them and hopefully ease their worries about her being so far from home.
“I have to get back to work, but I’ll be home early,” Khuno told her, gesturing to some of the boats coming into port. “Your mother has a great dinner planned. All of your favorites.”
“I like the sound of that,” Neva answered, admittedly excited. There were plenty of times in Republic City where she missed her mother’s cooking. No Water Tribe restaurant ever lived up to her mom’s dishes, no matter how good they were.
“After I stop by the clinic,” Eiriol said, looking to her daughter. “Do you mind? I hate to leave you home by yourself.”
“I’d love to come,” Neva answered. She’d spent so many hours growing up at the clinic, her mother tutoring her in healing. It was where she’d started, and she was so grateful all these years later for what Eiriol had taught her. She never imagined it would ever be this useful.
“You’ll have to see what she remembers,” Khuno said. “It’s been a while.”
Neva just gave a tight lipped smile.
If you only knew.
~
Some people were uncomfortable around the sick and injured. They felt helpless, uncertain, unable to do anything to people who looked at them with pained eyes. For Neva, in the beginning healing had been intimidating, as much as she wanted to learn. But she’d never been a shy person, and with Eiriol’s guidance, she found her niche in the art, and the power to do something for people who couldn’t help themselves.
At the clinic, Neva moved from patient to patient, assessing and treating as the ailments called for. Neva truly felt in her element, aside from the bending part of it. She felt more confident now than she had the last time she worked in the clinic, not feeling the need to check with her mother every now and then. Truthfully, most of it felt easy compared to what she was used to dealing with. That only made her happier, as she knew she was able to help much more than ever.
The amount of patients in the clinic slowly disappeared as the day wore on, until there were only a few left. Neva moved to put away some of the supplies while her mother and the other healers finished up for the day. As she was doing so she caught her mom looking at her from the corner of her eye, and Neva turned her head to look at her fully. Eiriol seemed impressed, eyebrows raised, eyes twinkling with curiosity. Which, for Neva, could spark trouble.
“What?” Neva asked, refilling some of the bowls with different herbal medicines.
“You’ve gotten stronger,” Eiriol noted. “I didn’t think you’d get much practice in Republic City.”
“Everyone needs a healer at some point,” Neva answered with a slight shrug, smiling anyways. It wasn’t exactly easy to explain when as far as her family was aware, the only place she did any kind of work was the Blue Dragon.
Eiriol hummed, taking one of the bowls from Neva and placing it back on a shelf. “Apparently you know many people who do to make that much progress.”
“I do some healing on the side,” Neva replied. “I never mentioned it because I really just focus on my other job. But healers are always in demand in the city.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t let all that training go to waste,” her mother said. Her mother didn’t often look prideful, but there was a spark in her eyes. “Healing is a gift. You can really make a difference in someone’s life with it.”
“So I’ve learned,” Neva said with a nod, putting away the rest of the medicines. She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened had she not known about Zuka’s masked life. She even felt better when she was finally able to assist Kenji and heal his injuries. She knew her leaving wasn’t going to stop them from taking the streets, but she hoped they’d at least be a little more careful.
Doubtful, but she could dream.
Eiriol wrapped her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, giving her a hug from the side and led her out of the clinic. “Let’s get home. Dinner isn’t going to cook itself.”
Neva let herself enjoy the walk home, waving to some of their neighbors that she hadn’t seen in a while. She’d have a little over a week to converse with everyone and catch up before she headed back to Republic City, unable to pull herself away from the place for much longer. As she entered her house, Neva found herself surprised by the quiet. Her house had never been loud, but there was always some sort of noise going on. Now, it was eerily silent. She wondered how much time her parents actually spent at home with all of their children gone now--with only one having left on good circumstances.
She tried not to think about that too much. Instead Neva busied herself with helping her mother cook, catching up on the neighborhood gossip. Because they exchanged letters so often she was up to date on her own family, and so they talked about other things that normally didn’t make their way into the letters. Neva found herself at ease, strangely sucked back into old routines. If she focused on the moment, it was as if she’d never left.
The sky darkened slowly but surely, twilight setting in. Neva finished setting the table as the front door opened, Khuno stepping in with the breeze. She expected the door to close after him immediately, but as he moved away from the entrance someone else emerged from behind. Neva broke into a smile as she realized who it was, opening her arms, “Shiya!”
Her older sister stepped into her arms, hugging her tight with a laugh. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come to visit when you’re in town?”
“You didn’t say you would,” Neva answered, pulling back and looking at her sister. They looked alike in the sense that most siblings did, though it was very easy to tell them apart. While they shared similar features, Shiya had always been taller than her, and had their mother’s blue eyes.
“Then I guess it’s a surprise,” Shiya answered. Her husband stood off to the side, smiling politely to Neva and giving her a nod. Neva had no problem with her sister’s husband, but she once again felt lucky that she hadn’t been born the oldest sibling.
“Come,” Eiriol said with a smile, ushering everyone to the table. “We’d all love to hear what you’ve been up to, Neva.”
They all took their places around the table, getting themselves situated. Neva did her best to pointedly ignore the empty space. It looked like just an extra spot, but Neva knew better, and knew why no one sat in that seat. If she pretended it wasn’t there, that it didn’t exist, she could avoid the question she danced around even in her letters. As much as she didn’t want to talk about herself, she figured it would be the best way to keep the focus of the conversation away from topics she really didn’t want to delve into.
She told them about the Dragon (what she could tell them, at least), about her friends, and about her favorite parts of the city. She shared the stories that she could, and then finally turned the conversation on her parents and Shiya, getting to know what they’d been up to. Unsurprisingly, their lives weren’t all that different from when she’d left. Her parents were still doing the same things, her sister still living in the same place. With all the change that she’d undergone in the last couple years, she found it hard to believe that anything could stay the same for so long.
The twilight darkened to night, and Neva and Shiya helped their mother clean up after dinner. Things became quiet, Shiya and her husband getting ready to leave. Neva figured now would be the best time to slip away and get some much needed relief. As much as she enjoyed the night, she needed a chance to breathe. She excused herself from everyone in order to go unpack, making her way upstairs and to her old room.
It was just as she remembered it, not a single item out of place. The blue and white blanket her mother made for her still sat folded on the bed, the wall next to the bed lined with books. Neva walked over and drew back the curtains on the window, looking out over the rest of the tribe. Everything seemed so peaceful and undisturbed, which Neva wasn’t used to any longer. Her tribe seemed so small now, so calm compared to Republic City. While Neva was glad she’d come to visit, she was starting to wonder if she even fit here at home anymore.
A knock at the door disturbed her thoughts and she turned from the window, calling for whoever it was to enter. The door opened, and Shiya stepped inside, closing it behind her. Neva raised an eyebrow, “I thought you were leaving.”
“Soon,” she answered, looking around Neva’s room in what appeared to be aimlessly, but Neva didn’t like the feeling she got from it. “Mom kept everything the same, huh?”
“Like I never left,” Neva agreed. In a way it was comforting to come home to something that was the same and have at least a small refuge. Like living in a memory, almost.
Shiya nodded, quieter than she had been all night. Then she looked to Neva, her expression hard. “Have you found him?”
Of course, if her parents weren’t going to ask, it would be Shiya. Her sister didn’t share their hesitance. It took everything in her to keep herself from showing how uncomfortable the question made her, and so Neva took a deep breath and answered, “No. I haven’t seen him.”
“It’s been years,” Shiya said, frowning and crossing her arms. “How is that possible?”
Neva shrugged, opening up her luggage and pulling out her clothes, needing something to keep her hands busy. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. He might not even be in Republic City anymore.”
“And you haven’t found anything?”
Neva had to resist telling her sister that she never bothered to look for Naklin when she returned to Republic City. She’d been too much of a coward to do so, and still was. After what went down that night during the Equalist uprising, Neva didn’t know where she stood with her brother, and she was afraid to find out. And so she’d left it up to him, if he wanted to find her. Since he never had, she assumed he wanted nothing to do with her, and she wouldn’t chase after him.
“Why is it my responsibility to search for him?” Neva dodged the question, even though the answer was no and it would be easy to restate.
“I assumed that was why you up and left in the first place,” Shiya answered, her eyebrows raising. “It’s why I convinced Mom and Dad to not go and bring you back home when we found out where you’d gone.”
Even if in the beginning Neva had wanted to find Naklin, she knew she left to get out of the situation she found herself in now. She wanted out of the Northern Water Tribe in order to get away from her mother’s tears, her sister’s burning anger, and her father’s quietness. She left because she couldn’t take how broken her family was, and how it seemed to force her into decisions she didn’t want to make. “He’s made it clear by his silence that he doesn’t want anything to do with us. Even if I found him, I wouldn’t force him into anything.”
Shiya sighed, “I know he’s our brother, but we can’t excuse what he did to us. What he did to our parents. Don’t you want answers?”
Neva looked to her sister, asking quietly, “What is it going to change, after all this time?”
Shiya paused for a long moment, and then sighed again. “I don’t know.”
Neither of them did. Shiya didn’t understand it, not really. The three of them had been close growing up, but once Shiya had married she’d gone off into a whole different world. Neva and Naklin had been so close, and Naklin’s betrayal hurt her more than she admitted. At least, she believed they’d been close. Even if she still asked herself why it had happened and what signs she’d missed over the years, it didn’t change that she was empty of answers. Why agonize over it when she wasn’t going to get a response?
Neva didn’t dwell on it because she didn’t want to end up like Shiya: hating her brother. She didn’t want to sit there and wonder what he thought of her, if he felt betrayed by her, too and what went down that night. So she pretended she wasn’t angry, pretended she wasn’t hurt, like it had never happened. It was easier that way, especially when she hadn’t seen Naklin since.
The two of them fell quiet, until finally Shiya went over and hugged her, “I’ll see you soon. We’ll spend a day together while you’re home.”
Neva returned the hug lightly, less enthusiastic than earlier. She watched her sister leave and then sat on her bed, pulling her knees to her chest. Suddenly she was homesick, and it wasn’t for her parents or her sister. It was for the chaos of the masks and the life she’d made, which allowed her to ignore everything else.
It all seemed better than the pain that her home actually brought her.