Not Too Far from the Yew Tree (an ATLA fanfiction)

And Brings the Sailor Home from Sea

[Two days prior]

Katara set their garments bought at the North Pole beside local fabric. "See? Theirs are more indigo, while ours are cyan-blue. The cuts are different, too. Ours are designed for function, theirs for fashion."

"Should I change out?" Suki asked.

"If we're going diving today, we'll need to change, anyway. Gran-gran spent the winter making new outfits for it, like they had in the old days. They're quilted to provide insulation, but lightweight and cropped close to the body so extra fabric won't get in the way. It's difficult to sew, but she wanted to teach the others. No one else knows how."

They left the tent and had a light lunch with the others. Zuko and Sokka had departed for a hunting expedition, and she was just hoping her brother wouldn't come up with anything too hare-brained. "Are you sure you want to try diving? For a non-waterbender, it can be dangerous. There are a lot of predators in the water."

"I'll be with you, so I'll be fine."

At shore they changed and left their necklaces with their clothing by a crop of pearlwort, a bush of vivid yellow flowers. Katara had left the oasis-water with Gran-gran to be extra safe. They wore slender boots made of leather, as the sea floor contained sharp rocks and shell fragments which could slice a bare foot open. Each had a knife strapped to their thigh, in case they became tangled in a rope or kelp and needed to cut their way out, and a mesh bag on a lead tied to their waist with a clip that could easily be removed if caught on something.

Katara paused and lifted her arms, trying to sense the nearby water down to the depths, searching for large disturbances that would indicate a tiger-shark or dolphin-piranha, but found nothing and told her it was safe to begin. The two waded out to their upper thighs. For Katara, she knew what to expect, but that didn't make it any less overwhelming. Suki had a difficult time adjusting. "Deep breaths, calm from the inside out. Now that we're out this far, it's best to crouch down and submerge yourself to your head in one go." She breathed in and out, thinking it was like Zuko's candle meditation. When ready, she ducked under the surface. The initial shock was brisk and alarming, but she held herself down, and a few seconds later resurfaced, her hair completely saturated with the cold water and her legs curled under her body so she could free-float. She nodded to Suki, who did the same, and in a moment her short hair was clinging to her cheeks and neck.

Both adjusted, she demonstrated how to breathe deeply with one's diaphragm, which drew more air than breathing by sucking with the nose only, and her entire belly rose and fell. Suki tried it and grew comfortable filling her chest to maximum capacity in the freezing water.

They plunged under and pushed their heads down. They were still in the shallows, only four feet deep, for a trial. Heavy pebbles were interspersed with shells of every color and shape. Small crabs and sea-snails crawled across the floor. After a minute they resurfaced. "Want to go out deeper?"

"Yeah."

They swam broadstroke a few yards and she checked the depth. The sea could get deep spontaneously, and there was a shelf drop-off into the black, though it was still further out. Her eyes adjusted to the frigid saltwater, but she had to blink often to keep them warm enough to not be painful. There they were about twelve or fifteen feet deep and past the area broken by surf and tidal change. Life blossomed. A vivid scene lit the floor of white coral forests dotted with yellow and magenta-red. An anemone with frills like ferns snow-white clung at the holds of the coral. Like the root system of a plant radial from a flower-shaped center, a basket star glistened in peach velvet vines extending from the coral. Starfish and urchin took the floor, which moved too slowly for the motion to be easily seen. A marine worm six feet long wound its way between them as a featureless white tube.