#ok its been a couple hours since i qued this

[autistic-stedebonnet]

“You are, I think, an evening star, of all the stars, the fairest”

Title is a Sappho quote

Yueki one-shot

---

Yue ran her hands through her hair. It had grown since the end of the war, trailing down just below her waist in silver waves, like light cascading off the edge of a crescent moon. Her hands were delicate and soft from years of silk and fur mittens and high quality moisturizers, contrasting with Suki’s rough, callused hands. Suki had told her once that she used to be insecure about her hands, which were larger than average and blistered easily before she became a Kyoshi Warrior and built up a tolerance. Yue thought that Suki’s hands were beautiful. They spoke of resilience and courage. Yue’s spoke of nothing but her sheltered, spoiled childhood.

“Yue?” Suki sidled up to her, resting her hand on Yue’s shoulder. “You’re thinking about it again, aren’t you?”

Yue nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I can’t look at it Suki,” she whispered. “it just reminds me of my failure.”

“Hey, you didn’t fail!” Suki protested, gently moving Yue to face her. “You helped save the moon spirit. When Sokka told me the story-”

“But I didn’t.” Yue’s voice was always small and soft, but now it just sounded hurt. “That was all them. I- I’m weak, I can’t bend, I can’t even fight like you.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I should’ve sacrificed myself, it was my job.”

Suki opened and closed her mouth several times before answering. “You wish you would’ve died? Yue that’s ridiculous.”

“I wish I could’ve done something,” Yue sighed, twirling her hair between her fingers mournfully. “The moon spirit gave me this gift, and I couldn’t do anything in return. Now every time I look in the mirror it’s just... a reminder that I’m weak.”

“Yue, stop that. You’re not weak. If you were weak would you have been able to defy your entire tribe to be free? Would you have been able to travel the world being chased by the fire nation and not given up?”

“I cried. A lot.”

“So did I!” Suki laughed. “We all cried a lot, except maybe Zuko, but that’s because he’s represses his emotions.”

Yue giggled. “Thanks Suki, you always know what to say.”

Suki lifted her hand as if to bring it to Yue’s face, but hesitated, letting it fall back at her side. She smiled lightly and wrapped Yue in an embrace. 

Suki smelled like dirt and sea salt, and despite her muscled physique, her embrace was gentle. It felt like home. Yue let herself melt into the other girl’s arms, breathing in shakily and resisting the urge to inhale her scent until she could carry it with her for the rest of the day. Yue hadn’t got a lot of physical affection growing up, her parents had never been huggers, and she hadn’t really had opportunities for friends. But Suki hugged her a lot, and every time Yue would wonder if she’d ever feel more loved, because it seemed impossible. She was the first to pull away, she always was, because she was afraid that if she held on any longer, she’d never be able to let go. 

Suki checked Yue’s cheeks for tears, her eyes scanning the smaller girl’s face with an expression that frustrated Yue so much, because she could never figure out what it meant. It was the same expression Sokka used to look at her with, but... but there was no way Suki liked her like that. They were best friends and Yue could accept that they would never be anything more. 

The idea came to her out of seemingly nowhere, although in hindsight, it’d probably been growing in the back of her mind for a while. She grabbed Suki’s hands and looked at her with an excited, almost mischievous countenance that she didn’t take on very often.

Suki raised an eyebrow. “Dude, you’re scaring me. What?”  

“Let’s dye my hair!” Yue said, grinning blindingly. She could tell that Suki was about to try and be rational, so she continued. “Come on, I know you don’t actually want to persuade me out of it. I want to be impulsive for once. We can use that stuff Sokka made! It’ll take a few months to wash out, but once it does my hair will be back to normal, so it won’t damage anything.” She bit her lip anxiously, her eyes gleaming with freedom that was still new to her.

“Yea, ok,” Suki chuckled. She broke out into a joyous grin and shook Yue’s shoulders a little roughly. “Yea! You’re gonna look so cool, what color do you want?”

“Pink!”

“That was... fast.”

Yue shrugged. “I guess this isn’t an entirely new idea. But...” she trailed off tentatively. “I want to do a color that’s not associated with any nation. Something that’s just for me.”

Suki smirked at her. “I thought pink was Ty Lee’s thing.”

“Ty Lee can’t own a color,” Yue replied, sticking her nose in the air. 

“Touché.”

---

“Have you ever done this before?” Yue asked as she settled into the rickety chair in the corner of Suki’s room. They’d been staying on Kyoshi Island for a few weeks, along with Sokka and Zuko (Yue made a note to get Suki in on her plans to get those two idiots together) and it was... really nice. 

Suki was silent for a moment and Yue swiveled in her seat to see the taller girls smiling guiltily. She raised her hands in defeat. “Fine, no, I haven’t. But it can’t be that hard right?”

Yue raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You better not ruin my hair.”

“Can’t make any promises.”

“Suki!”

Suki dipped her hands into the glass jar Sokka had given to them. It was apparently made of all organic materials, but cactus juice was technically organic, so that didn’t exactly speak to how safe it was. Suki told Yue to sit up taller and warned her that she might get dye on her tunic.

“Won’t that just be part of the adventure?” Yue asked in response.

“That’s it, you’ve been possessed.”

“Just put the pink stuff on my hair weirdo.”

“You’re the weirdo,” Suki muttered, already running her pink-stained hands through Yue’s hair. 

This was a terrible idea, Yue decided. Not because she didn’t want to color her hair, but because Suki was running her hands gently through her long hair and humming softly and Yue was sure that her heartbeat could be heard miles away. 

It was just a couple hours before dinner, so the sun had begun to dip gently below the horizon, kissing Yue’s dark skin in a fascinating contrast to her snow-white hair. Her cheeks were colored gold and dusted with pink and Suki thought she looked like a rainbow. Suki moved her lips silently as she found a rhythm in dying Yue’s hair. Soft whispers of the song she was mouthing escaped ever so often and she wished that she could see if Yue was smiling or not. Suki loved Yue’s smile, her real smile. The one that shone through when they sat beside the fire exchanging stories and jokes, or when they woke up early enough to watch the sunrise. Suki thought that Yue looked beautiful underneath the sun. Her hair would be tinted amber and her eyes would glow in a drastically different way to how they darkened when she looked at the moon. Maybe Yue had been blessed by the moon spirit, but Suki thought she looked like the sun. 

“Suki?” Yue turned her head slightly to where Suki could glimpse her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. “You stopped.”

Suki shook herself from her reverie and chuckled nervously, her skin heating up and glowing crimson. “Uh sorry, I was just...” What was she doing? Her heart ached with longing and really, Yue had been impulsive, why couldn’t she? Never one for timing, Suki whispered timidly, still facing the back of Yue’s head. “Yue? Can I tell you something?”

Yue’s breath hitched ever so slightly and Suki felt her shoulders tense. She hadn’t even realized her had was on her shoulder. So much for not ruining her tunic. It felt like hours of time moving slow as molasses before Yue finally answered. “Of course.”

“I-” Suki’s words caught in her throat and she groaned in frustration. What had come over her? She hadn’t been nervous at all when she was with Sokka before! “YueIreallylikeyoulikeasmorethanafriend,” she rushed, immediately stepping back and cursing herself beneath her breath.

But Yue didn’t say anything. Suki forced herself across the room to face her. “Please say something.”

Yue’s lips turned up slightly and she turned to look up at Suki. Her face was painted with sunlight and her hair was half pink and everything felt so indescribably perfect for a moment. “I- I like you too Suki.”

Suki decided she had never grinned larger in her life. She stopped wringing her hands anxiously. “Can I kiss you?”

She’d never seen Yue smile this large either, nor nod this vigorously.

Suki practically launched herself to the other girl, grasping her cheeks and smiling into the kiss. Yue’s hands were wrapped around her neck and her lips tasted like strawberries and she smelled like lavender. Kissing Yue was like dancing with the sun. It was new and almost scary, but so soft. And they fit together like puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces stained bright pink and wrapped in a blanket of gold.

When they finally pulled apart for air, Yue was giggling and buried her face in the crook of Suki’s neck, muttering against her skin. “I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that.” She lifted her head and Suki marveled at her lips, pearly lipgloss faded and smudged, cheeks flushed pink and-

Suki slapped her hand over her mouth and laughed. “Oh no, I made your cheeks all pink.”

Yue snickered. “Well now you’ve got pink all over your face, so I suppose we’re even.”

The sun was gone now and the moon hung in the window. Yue rested her forehead against Suki’s and breathed in dirt and sea salt. Maybe she could learn not to hate the moon, for its light washed over the room and made Suki’s eyes sparkle and highlighted her skin silver. The moon wasn’t her failure, it was love. It was patience and love and fierce protection. But maybe her hair being pink would help her remember that. She wasn’t the moon, she was Yue. Her own person, who loved Suki so much she could burst. And Suki was the steadiness of the earth and the courage of the sun and the joy of the wildflowers. 

Yue didn’t care that her face was pink, or that they were surely going to be answering a lot of questions at dinner. All she needed to care about was that Suki’s breath was warm against her face and her hands, rough and callused, brushed like feathers along the back of her neck and through the un-dyed portion of her hair. This, she decided was freedom.