Chapter Text
1.
“Katara, no!”
Too late, she thought as the iceberg cracked beneath her hands. She hadn’t even touched it, not really — used her brother’s club instead — and still she could feel something coming up, even without watching the light beginning to pour from inside. That was the last thing she saw: the light.
She had never seen anything like it. She’s certain Sokka had never seen anything like it either. One moment it bubbled up to the surface and the next, it burst through its icy sphere like a beast set free.
“Look out!” Sokka called as they both fell flat on their backs. The ground shook with the force of whatever came out of the iceberg and Katara feared she’d be swept into the freezing water. No way did she want to drown just after managing to pilot their kayak through a rush!
Eventually she and her brother arose and with them a third figure did as well. Sokka scrambled to her side, his fingers wrapping tightly around her thick coat, and urged her to shush. “As if I was going to say anything—” she started, then promptly cut herself off as a shadow of a man emerged before them.
The two watched with bated breaths as the looming figure moved closer to them. It was encased in a hollowed out sphere, shards of ice and overturned snow surrounding him, and Katara was prepared to flee with her brother on her arm until the shadow turned to flesh.
What she thought was a large dark creature turned out to be a mere boy!
“Eh?” Sokka breathed out. The two took in his appearance: he was short, a bald head covered in a giant blue arrow, and was wearing the flimsiest clothes of the most bizarre fashion. Katara would have ogled at him if only he stood still long enough.
The strange boy fell to his knees just as soon as he stood up. Even from a distance Katara could see he was drowsy or at least weakened, so she made to hurry in his direction when Sokka called for her again.
“What are you doing?” His voice was annoyingly shrill to her ears. “Get back here or else—”
“Or else, what?” Katara tested, already kneeling before the unresponsive boy. “He’s just a kid. And judging by the looks of it, he must be freezing!”
For the briefest moment she was tempted to take off her own coat to cover his skinny little limbs with but then quickly banished the idea. There can’t be two people freezing out in the open like that, she thought. Then she looked back at Sokka, who was now following her to where she lay. But maybe one can, she added punishingly as she eyed her brother’s own coat.
“Get away from him! He could be dangerous!”
“Stop yelling, you might scare him.”
“Oh, he’s scared?” Sokka pointed at the boy. “He’s the one who came out of a beam of light with a freaky arrow on his head!”
As if on cue, the arrow crinkled with movement as the boy began to raise his brows. Both Katara and Sokka paused as they watched the stranger stir from his brief sleep. “Ugh,” he let out with an unconscious frown forming at his dry lips. It was the only thing they could make out from all the other noises that came out of his mouth.
“What did you say?” Katara urged sweetly, trying not to frighten the kid. Clearly he must have gotten his brains stirred in the commotion, judging by his unintelligible words.
He made another sound though this time it was more of a grunt than anything else. Then he began to open his eyes, blinking away at the harsh sun. Instinctively, Katara moved in front of him to block out the light.
“Who are you?” she asked before he could speak again. “What were you doing in the iceberg? Are you alright?”
The boy was now staring straight at her with a confused look on his face. Then, a few seconds later, something came to him and his next words finally began to make sense.
“Would you … penguin sledding … me?”
2.
His name was Aang. Aang was in the Southern Water Tribe. Aang was an airbender.
Aang had a flying bison.
Or at least he says so. Sokka was not quite moved when it ended up flopping belly first into the water instead.
“Spirits,” he whispered to himself for the nth time that day. Regardless of the creature’s ability to fly or not, it was still a remarkable one and Sokka could not help but ruffle its fur in wonder. He wondered if he was bothering the animal with his petting before quickly coming to the conclusion that the bison was simply too big and too hairy to feel the weight of any human’s hand.
So he shrugged and kept petting it.
“I didn’t even realize I was speaking in Water Tribe language!” Aang said to no one in particular. “It just came naturally. The monks did always say I had a natural affinity for learning foreign languages, but I think that’s all of us really. After all, we are nomads.”
“I still don’t understand why you were in that iceberg,” Sokka tried again, finally resting his palm on his cheek.
“Me neither,” Aang replied.
Silence followed afterwards as the three of them waded through the water, the white moonlight shining down on their path as the bison carefully evaded chunks of floating ice. It was a peaceful night, Sokka thought to himself gratefully, and he childishly hoped it was the same for everywhere else. He wondered if Gran Gran was at her friend’s hearth at the moment waiting for him and Katara to return, or if his father and the rest of their men were already asleep in their cots, tired as they were from the day’s fighting.
Night always fell early in this part of the world, and even more so now that it was winter and colder than usual. At times Sokka resented it — especially when he was small and wanted to stay out longer with friends — and at times he welcomed it. All in all, he doesn’t mind the dark and the cold like he imagined foreigners do. That is why he is so impressed by Aang’s lack of shivers on the ride back to the village.
“By the way, why does your Tribe look so different?” Aang eventually piped up.
“What do you mean?” Katara asked.
“I mean, usually there’s boats and people around. I haven’t seen anyone else but you two.”
“Haven’t you noticed? It’s nighttime,” Sokka answered. “People are at home. Aside from us, at least.”
Aang shook his head. “All the times the Air Nomads flew over the South Pole, we could see all the buildings and boats and people even from afar,” he clarified. “I wonder why that is.”
Neither sibling had the words to explain why. Katara peeked at Sokka’s face through the edge of her hood but he only looked away from her, a pang of discomfort suddenly blossoming in his chest.
3.
“Out of my way, peasant.”
Not wanting to waste his chi, Zuko swept his feet at the Water Tribe boy and let him fall on his own. It was a pathetic sight: a measly village of seal-skins, elderly women, and little children defended by a single youth with a painted face. Zuko was glad he only needed to finish one task before he could get out of here.
But the boy did not remain down and clumsily crawled back onto his feet. With a club in hand he charged at Zuko once more all the while yelling out incomprehensible sounds, to which Zuko responded with another hit on the arm.
The club fell out of the boy’s hand. Zuko grabbed him by the collar and grounded out, “Where. Is. The. Avatar?” The boy’s eyes — a bright blue — widened at the mention. Zuko tightened his grip. “I know you savages have him. Where are you keeping him?”
Before the stranger could answer, a second voice came from behind babbling in the same tongue as the one before him.
“Argh!”
Before Zuko could turn and face the new arrival, he suddenly felt himself being swept into the air! His breath caught at the cold wind momentarily blanketing his body before landing back onto the snowy ground. Alas there was no time to waste and he soon pulled himself back up into a straight a line as he could, ready to greet his newest rival.
“You!” He blasted out jets of fire into the attacker’s direction. “How did you do that?”
The fire was extinguished far too quickly to be untouched and quickly revealed the face of a young boy … with an unmistakable blue arrow on his head.
“You’re an Air Nomad,” he breathed out. Then, catching himself, he ushered in a second blast of fire.
The boy dodged it again.
“How is this possible?” Zuko shouted through attacks. “You’re supposed to be an old man!”
“Sorry to disappoint,” the Avatar replied in between evasions. It was not just his casual tone that made Zuko pause.
“You speak our language,” he remarked bewilderedly. “Where have you learned it? You were hiding in the Fire Nation?”
“What? No.” The Avatar shook his head.
“You must have learned it from somewhere.” Zuko resumed his stance. “You certainly couldn’t have learned it from here.”
He readied a fist towards the Avatar’s direction, to which the Avatar responded by raising a staff in anticipation for the next offense. Zuko feigned another attack but switched midway to set aflame a tent beside him instead.
The Avatar shouted before quickly attempting to put out the flames. Zuko continued blasting at the nearby tents one by one all the while yelling commands at his own men.
“Set them all on fire! I’ll take the kid!”
The sound of armor clanged around him followed by cries of women and children but Zuko had no mind for it; his focus was only on the Avatar.
As it turns out, the Avatar was far more nimble and faster than him.
“Get over here, you—”
Suddenly, a gale of wind came down upon the ground. The fires which surrounded them all died at once and for the second time that day Zuko was swept off his feet — as well as everyone in the circle around the village. Gasping from where he lay, he remained on the ground in awe of what impact had just greeted him. This is real airbending, he nearly admitted aloud.
“Enough,” an accented voice said above him. “If I surrender myself to you, would you let these people be? Take me instead and get out here.”
Then a second voice joined them. A girl’s this time. “Aang…” she practically whimpered.
Zuko opened his eyes to watch the Avatar standing over him as he looked in another direction, answering the girl from a distance. He couldn’t make out the words for they were in another tongue.
“Aang, is it,” Zuko managed to say as he clamored back to his feet. It was not a question.
“Yes,” the Avatar replied. The Water Tribe girl from across them pleaded again but Zuko ignored her.
“I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation,” he spat out, “and you’re coming with me.”
4.
If there’s one thing Aang has learned since waking up, it’s that a lot has changed in a hundred years.
“You know, I used to have friends in the Fire Nation.”
One of the soldiers handling him grunted. “Get a move on,” he urged.
Aang nearly tripped from the shove but quickly caught himself. He surveyed his surroundings once more: here was an impossibly large ship in the middle of the ocean within there is a room where he will be sent to … for what? He saw the destruction the soldiers wrought upon Katara and Sokka’s village but even that happened under the light of day with the sun as witness whereas Aang cannot say what will happen to him in a closed room. Will they torture him? Is there a person alive willing to do that to a child?
He shook his head, instead saying, “You talk funny.”
“What?” the guard returned. “Just go on ahead, boy, unless you want me to throw you in there instead.”
Aang twiddled his thumbs behind his back. This was nothing like how the monks treated him — not even Monk Dashpo, the old stick in the mud! — and especially not his friends. Kuzon was his age mate and nothing less than pleasant. His brother, however, was older and meaner with his jokes but even he was never so rough as these two men with him now.
With his tongue in his cheek, he kept quiet until a different thought came to his mind. “Is this the first time you’ve met an airbender?” he asked.
There was the slightest pause in their steps.
“What do you think?” another one replied roughly. “We’ve only been waiting a hundred years for you.”
“Really?” Aang still could not believe it. It was only yesterday he left the temple.
Eventually they stopped in front of a cell door.
“Well, Avatar,” began one guard, “welcome to your suite. Be mindful not to cause a scene.”
“What scene?”
The man sighed dramatically. “Like using your airbending.”
“Why would it be a scene?” Aang pressed. “You’ve never seen an airbender move before?”
5.
“Will you teach us some words in your language?”
Katara felt a kick to her knee after asking the question, prompting her to buckle.
“Hey!” she let out as Sokka made a face telling her to be quiet. She did not. “Why’d you do that for?”
“What’s going on back there?” Aang questioned from ahead of them.
“Nothing,” Sokka answered instead, eyeing Katara all the while. Don’t, his mouth formed a word.
Don’t do what, Katara returned irritatedly.
Sokka moved closer to her and put his lips over her ears. “Don’t give him false hope,” he whispered so furiously that Katara considered it a miracle if Aang could not hear him.
“I’m not giving him false hope,” Katara whispered back, a confused look on her face. “What are you even talking about—”
Sokka rolled his eyes. “Will you teach us some words in your language?” he began mockingly in a too-girlish voice. “For what purpose would you ask him that? To help us speak to his Air Nomad friends? You know they’re all dead.”
Katara froze. Judging by the pause in his crunching footsteps, Aang must have noticed and froze too.
“What are you guys talking about over there?” he called from a distance. “Get over here so I can show you where I live!”
Sharing a wary glance with each other, Sokka and Katara returned to their strides as they attempted to catch up with the nimble little airbender.
“Aang, wait up,” Katara practically yelled as the boy in question began making his way towards a large door. She turned to Sokka who looked at her more quietly than before.
“You know I’m right.”
“Don’t,” Katara said. “We don’t have to be so harsh with him.”
“He’ll find out eventually. You can’t protect him forever.”
“I know, but he’s just a kid.”
Sokka shrugged. “We were all just kids.”
6.
“I am Kyoshi.”
Endless pairs of eyes stared at him as he said those words.
“… Well, at least I used to be.”
Aang fidgeted under the scrutiny, rubbing the nape of his neck as though pretending it itched would distract him from the attention.
“You’re Avatar Kyoshi?” an old man repeated his own words. It didn’t sound like the shock registered deep enough yet, only the awkwardness of a twelve-year-old boy claiming to be a dead woman from centuries ago.
“It’s Aang now, actually,” he corrected. That brought on more stares — and a few angry ones, too. Aang coughed. “Please, I’d like you to let me and my friends go.”
The head of the elaborately-dressed guard looked back and forth from her three captives. Even with the heavy makeup on, Aang could see she rose her brow in question.
“How come your friends can only speak in a foreign tongue while you happen to know ours?”
“We’re not Fire Nation spies, if that’s what you mean. Those guys are Water Tribe and I’m an Air Nomad, just look at us.” She only looked at him even harder. Not surprisingly, she didn’t seem convinced. “And like I said, I was Kyoshi. Of course I can recognize her language.”
“Prove it,” a random voice of a small child piped up. Aang saw it was a little girl. “Prove you’re the Avatar.”
With a smirk beginning to form on his face, Aang prepared to go in a stance. With a burst of air from one foot, he used the other to push himself free from the ropes before both landed softly on the hard ground. “Now … watch this!” he said as he took out a marble and spun it around between his hands in small, powerful gusts of air. The crowd gawked at what must be the first feat of airbending they’ve seen in their lives.
“Avatar Aang,” the same old man spoke with a newfound reverence. “Forgive us our doubts and welcome to your home, Kyoshi Island!” He bowed deeply, which Aang thought must have looked just as funny to his friends as it did to him.
“Uh, it’s alright. Can I just get my friends back?”
With a brief command, the guards quickly unbounded Sokka and Katara from the post and the two ran towards Aang’s side.
Sokka didn’t bother to whisper when he asked, “Why do those boys look like that? They’re wearing dresses! Do boys in the Earth Kingdom dress like girls, Aang?”
“Huh?” Aang peered at the dress-wearing boys in question. “Sokka, those really are girls.”
“Girls?” Sokka gaped. He pointed in their direction unabashedly. “There’s no way a bunch of girls took us down.”
The leader of the group eyed him back not unkindly. It was clear that while she may not understand what Sokka was saying, she understood his intentions.
“And who are you to be pointing your fingers at me?” she approached him haughtily. Aang watched Sokka’s expression change from indignant to surprised to prideful.
“What did she say?” he almost barked at Aang, still pointing at the girl.
Katara rolled her eyes. “She probably called you a jerk, is what.” Placing a hand on Aang’s shoulder, she urged him, “Come on, we can’t stand here all day. People will clamor all over us.”
He agreed with a nod. Turning towards the guard who was now having a wordless stare-down with his too-mouthy friend, Aang asked, “Sorry about him, he’s just shocked. What’s your name? And do you mind showing us a place where we can stay on the island?”
At once the girl backed off from Sokka and bowed to her Avatar. “Of course, Avatar Aang. My name is Suki and I am the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. I would be glad to show you around with Mayor Oyaji.”
“Thanks.” Aang returned the bow with Momo landing on his back, a freshly plucked peach in his little hands. “Say, do you know where can we get some food?”
7.
“So why is it called the Earth Kingdom if there’s more than one? Why not just call it the Earth Kingdoms?”
Katara sighed at her brother’s never-ending questions.
“How do they all know about each other? I mean, there’s the Northern and Southern Water Tribes but it’s just two. How do you keep up with quadruple that amount of kingdoms? And why are your people called Air Nomads if you all have permanent dwellings?”
“Would you stop it?” Katara interjected. Even Appa seemed tired from his incessant voice that he bellowed beneath them.
“I’m being serious,” Sokka defended. “You know in Kyoshi Island, they even have their own language? It’s not even called Kyoshi Islander or what, it’s something called Yokoyanese. How am I supposed to talk to people in the Earth Kingdom when I only know Yokoyanese?”
“It’s not called Yokoyanese, Sokka, it’s just Yokoya language. And you don’t know how to speak Yokoya, you only know about ten words.” Thanks to Suki, she left unsaid.
Ignoring Katara, Sokka turned his attentions solely onto Aang. “Is the language at where we’re going to called Omashu language as well?” he asked.
“Nope,” Aang replied. “The last time I was there the people were speaking the common tongue but there’s a bunch of different languages they speak as well, just like everywhere else in the world.”
“I wonder how much have changed in a hundred years,” Katara sighed. “What was it like back then?”
Aang breathed out. “It was so fun,” he responded. “I had friends all over! But in Omashu, my closest one was a guy my age named Bumi.”
“What was Bumi like?” Katara added, moving closer to Aang from her side of the saddle. He peered back at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“He was a son of a noble house and a cousin to the princes of the throne, but you’d never know unless he told you. Even then, you wouldn’t believe him!” A smile danced upon his lips, dreamy with memory. “I wish you guys had known him.”
8.
Katara heard the boy say something to her but his words came out too fast.
She gave him confused look. “Ah?”
Haru pressed his lips together; things would be so much easier if she weren’t a foreigner, Katara imagined him thinking. She watched him as he tried to find the right words, his hands beginning to move around as though they spoke as well.
“Fire Nation?” he tried and Katara nodded, recognizing the name even in another language. “The soldiers. They asked if you—” he pointed at her— “and Sokka were mute.” He finished the sentence with fingers miming a clamp over his mouth.
Katara paused to take his words in before bursting into laughter. Haru cracked a smile at her reaction.
“Because we never spoke in their vicinity?” she responded in her language. “Aang told us not to just in case we sound like the Water Tribesmen that we are.”
Haru nodded politely as though he understood her. Feeling sorry, Katara wished she knew more words in his language but she has only ever been to two different places in the Earth Kingdom before — and in one of them, they did not even speak the lingua franca of their nation.
The rest of their walk went quietly and Katara passed the time half wishing Aang was around to translate for her while the other half was revisiting what was said back in the shop with Haru’s mother.
Earthbenders in the Earth Kingdom being barred from the art of their own land! Being taken in for practicing what was in their nature! Katara did not think she could be made surprised by whatever cruelty the Fire Nation continued to commit but she was wrong. There was nothing the Fire Nation would not do to put itself on top.
Haru spoke again. Katara glanced up to see him looking at her expectantly.
“I said,” he restarted slowly, “you’re thinking about something.”
“Oh,” she nodded, replying in Earth Kingdom language this time. “You … see me?”
He nodded back. “Thinking about what?” he pressed further.
“Fire Nation,” she replied. “Them. All.”
“They are thieves and criminals and butchers,” Haru stated simply, “and there is nothing we can do about it.”
Katara furrowed her brows at that. She could make out just enough words to know what he was saying.
“True not,” she pressed. “Earth Kingdom people is strong.”
Haru made a self-deprecating sound.
“Yes,” Katara swore. Yes, they truly were. “I meet warriors and kings.”
Haru’s face began to morph into a sour expression. “No,” he swore back. “We have no warriors or kings in this village. If we did then we would not be in this position and my father would still be here.”
At once Katara was saddened by his hardened gaze. She wanted to argue with him — tell him he was wrong — but she didn’t have the right words to tell him as much.
And what would she tell him? She wanted to say that the women back home lulled their children to sleep to stories of earthbenders fighting to protect their homeland against the Fire Nation, that her mother and Gran Gran did the same to her and her brother when they were both young. She wanted to confess that she used to wish she were from the Earth Kingdom instead of the Southern Water Tribe just so that she could know what it was like to belong to a nation that could defend itself.
Sometimes I wonder if my father thinks the same, too, she thought. He left us to join your people in the war, you know, because there is still plenty to defend and fight with.
There are still thousands upon thousands of earthbenders left in this world but Katara was the last of her kind. Haru did not understand how much he still had left.
“You people strong,” she bit out with confidence the only words she knew. “I want strong like you.”
9.
“I miss cheese,” Aang sighed.
Sokka started. “Cheese?”
“Yeah.” Aang leaned back from his place on Appa’s back to indicate he was listening to him. “Don’t you know what cheese is?”
“Oh, I know what cheese is. It’s practically poisonous!”
Aang laughed at that. “It’s not poisonous — you guys just can’t handle it.”
“Us guys?” Sokka sounded affronted. “What does that mean?”
“Water Tribesmen can’t handle cheese very well. It upsets their polar stomachs.”
“I’d eat anything but cheese. Cheese is the enemy.”
“What’s so bad about it? It just comes from milk.” Aang paused. “That’s why you guys can’t handle them: you don’t have any cattle.”
“No one needs cattle when there’s plenty of tiger seals and fishies around.” Sokka began rubbing his belly when a loud belching sound came from it. “Now that you’ve mentioned food, I won’t mind getting me some pork or beef. This Water Tribesman is open to exotic meats!”
Aang giggled. “Exotic for you, you mean? Everyone from here had it at least once but no one here has ever eaten seal blubber jerky.”
“That’s their loss,” Sokka said as he scuffled closer to Aang on the saddle. “Hey, you see that?”
Pointing into the horizon, there laid a large blackened circle in place of a forest.
10.
“I have something you’ve lost,” Zuko said carefully, his words slow and voice deceptively soft, though the girl was anything but calmed. Wide-eyed with surprise, he could scarcely see the rest of her features under the moonlight; only her bright blue eyes shone clear enough to see.
“Do not be scared,” he continued as he circled around her. She did not dare speak — perhaps she was too shocked to do so, or perhaps she simply had no words for it.
Circling back before her, Zuko studied the girl’s face. “Do you understand me?” he asked then watched for any telltale signs of comprehension. He didn’t think a simple Water Tribe peasant had the knowledge of the common tongue of the Fire Nation, of course, but surely she understands at least some of the Earth Kingdom if she were the Avatar’s friend? If not, she must be as ignorant as everyone else from her backwater village.
“… Yes,” she finally answered, her voice accented and tone incorrect. Zuko tried not to cringe from its grating sound.
“Good,” he replied. “We can help each other, then.”
Plunging his hand into his pocket, he soon brandished something that resembled a decorated blue ribbon. It was simple save for the carved white bone in the middle of the thick string, which had swung into the sides of his armor and produced a delicate clinking sound. The girl gasped at first sight of it.
“This is yours, isn’t it?” Zuko dangled the necklace in front of her. “Well, you can have it back … if you tell me where your Avatar friend is.”
11.
Sokka wanted to roll his eyes at the scene before him. Again.
“This one’s called shoulder pads.” Jet tapped at the raggedy contraption on his frame. “Shoulder pads.”
“Shoulder … pands,” Katara attempted.
Jet smirked and shook his head. “Shoulder pads,” he repeated and Sokka watched his sister blush like a little girl for being corrected.
Yuck.
“And these?” Katara pressed further, now pointing at the bizarre-looking swords the boy carried around his person. If you asked Sokka, they didn’t look too sturdy.
“These are called hooked swords,” he answered proudly with a clink. “Hooked meaning the shape—” he trailed a finger over its form— “and swords meaning the weapon.”
Sokka wanted to gag.
“Alright!” He stood up from where he was leaning against a tree, the volume of his admittedly screeching voice startling the two people before him. “While you two keep flirting like a bunch of toddlers, I’m gonna go and take a walk.”
“And where are you gonna go?” Katara returned, in their language this time, her tone suddenly shifting from shy to blunt in a matter of seconds. She was always doing this, berating him as though a second body wasn’t in the same room as them — or in this case, the woods.
Sokka waved a hand behind him as he started making strides away from his sister and Jet. “Anywhere without you and your new boyfriend.”
12.
“Hey, look at that,” Aang heard someone call from behind him. From his peripheral vision, he saw Katara’s arm pointing at something below them.
“They’re people.” A lot of them, he added to himself. “It’s a whole group of them … actually, two groups of them by the looks of it.”
“They look like spider-ant colonies,” added Sokka.
“Colonies that are arguing,” Katara said. “They look like they’re fighting.”
“You could tell that from way up here?”
“You can’t? Look at them with their swords.”
“I thought those were batons or something.”
While the siblings talked among themselves, Aang felt the tremors of Appa’s bellowing beneath him. “What’s wrong, buddy? Are you hungry?” he asked. Appa bellowed once again as if to answer.
“Hey, Aang,” Sokka called out, seemingly ignoring the bison. “Should we go and help them out?”
He shrugged, saying, “Sorry, guys, but I think we might have to make a landing elsewhere. Appa needs to eat.” Then, with one final cursory glance to the ground, he gave a tug at the reins. “Yip yip!”
13.
“If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?” asked the Avatar. The words were imported directly from Capital City though the inflections were still undeniably foreign.
Zuko said nothing in return. If he could recognize a century-old accent then surely the Avatar would recognize his living one — with or without his mother’s mask.
No, he thought as he willed himself to take a deep breath, fireball ready to spurt from his hands. We could not.
14.
Katara stared longingly at the steaming bowl: sea prunes, perfectly cooked into a stew. Even just the smell was enough to bring her back home.
“It’s been forever since I had this,” she said before taking a sip. “It tastes just like how I remembered it.”
Bato grinned at that, saying, “I’m glad to hear that. I hope it is as hearty as your Gran Gran makes them?”
Chasing the flavor on her tongue, Katara thought upon the aftertaste. “It’s not the same but it sure is good.”
He nodded. “Aye. It is difficult to find the same ingredients all the way over here so I had to find some substitutes.” Then, turning his attentions to Aang, he spoke, “I hope the spices are to your liking, Avatar? I figured you enjoy its use more often than us southern folks.”
Aang was sheepish in his response. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said.
“Nonsense. Look, you’re eating well.”
“It’s very good. I wish I could also try Gran Gran’s version of it, too.”
“I wish the same, Avatar. Kanna was always a wonderful cook when I was growing up — perhaps even better than my own mother.”
“Uh-ho!” Katara’s eyes widened. “Don’t let her hear you say that.”
Bato made a motion with his hand, saying, “The spirits won’t dare let her hear me.”
Katara smiled behind her bowl. Looking at both boys beside her, she saw her brother was wolfing the dish down to the broth while Aang ate his share far more calmly. To the latter, she whispered, “How do you like it really?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s alright. Really.”
“But it’s not Air Nomad food.”
“All I’ve been eating is not Air Nomad food. I’m just surprised there’s not meat in it.”
“Heh, I may or may not have reminded Bato that you’re a monk and so a vegetarian. I mean, it’s not cheese but it’ll do. Right?”
Aang suppressed a giggle as he bit into the sea prunes. “Thanks, Katara.”
The room went quiet save for the sound of all four of them eating, the silence giving way to the realization that this was the most she and Sokka spoke their native language with someone who wasn’t Aang. Katara paused at the thought.
“By the way,” Bato started again, “you speak our language very well.”
Aang looked up at the suggestion it was him the man was referring to while Katara nodded cheerily. “I forgot to mention, he can do that because he’s the Avatar!”
“Is that so?”
“It’s Avatar magic,” Sokka piped up with food in his mouth.
“Not quite,” Aang corrected. “The first time I spoke to them, my Water Tribe language was a bit … creaky.”
“Creaky?” Bato laughed. “A bit difficult, eh? At least you seemed to have picked it up brilliantly.“
“Not just me — Katara and Sokka, too. They speak the common tongue of the Earth Kingdom very well these days.”
Sokka audibly choked. “I wish!” he said.
“Yeah, he’s just being nice,” Katara concurred.
“A hundred percent.” Sokka leaned forwards so as to feign whispering into Bato’s ear. “You know, before we met you again, we were at this little Earth Kingdom village. Met a fortuneteller and Katara got her future read alone. She said the fortuneteller said she’d marry a tall and powerful bender. I said, are you sure she wasn’t trying to tell you something else and you just misunderstood her?”
Katara rolled her eyes as both her brother and Bato laughed, somewhat embarrassed.
Sokka pointed at her, adding, “Like that! That’s how she looked after I said that.”
“That is what she said!”
“Sure, sure,” Sokka feigned agreement. “Our Katara, married to a strong manly bender. Could it be Haru?”
“Who’s Haru?”
“No one—”
“Katara’s little earthbending crush—”
“Shut up!”
Bato laughed. “Alright, I apologize for asking,” he said, trying to calm the two siblings down. “It seems I’ve missed out on a lot of things.”
15.
The master stared down at him. “Repeat what you just said.”
Aang looked away before returning his sorry gaze on his open hands. “I never want to firebend ever again,” he followed.
Jeong Jeong released a great puff of air, saying gravely, “Your impatience cost your friend her hands.”
“I know.”
“It is a good thing she is a waterbender. The gift of healing is a far greater ability than the burning curse.”
“I know,” Aang repeated, even more sullen.
“Do you really?” Jeong Jeong gave him a tsk. “If you knew that, you would not have attempted to firebend on your own.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Enough. It matters not.”
“I am not like them, you know,” Aang insisted. “I’m not like the Fire Nation.”
“No, you are not. You are just the Avatar who cannot firebend, let alone waterbend or earthbend.”
Aang shut his eyes closed. Jeong Jeong watched his pained expression.
“I don’t want to!” he exploded. “I don’t want anything to do with the Fire Nation — not the Fire Lord, not their army, not even firebending!”
I cannot be one of them.
“Who does?” the master agreed with a sadness seeping into his voice. “What other nation is as ruthless as the Fire Nation? Who else uses firebending to subjugate the rest of the world?”
Silence fell in the wake of his heavy words. After a lengthy pause, Jeong Jeong continued, “Yet still, it is your duty to learn firebending.”
16.
The once-colorful wall of murals was hidden beneath a labyrinth of metal pipes and a layer of black smoke.
“They’re for the machines. They run on hot air,” Teo explained happily. “It was my father’s idea.”
Aang stared blankly at the sight. “This is terrible,” he said to no one in particular.
“What’d you say?” Teo turned towards him, curiosity piqued. “Do you know what he just said?”
Standing beside him was Sokka who shrugged at the question. “Don’t ask me. He’s the Air Nomad,” he responded with a finger pointing at Aang. “Ask him about his own language.”
In a flash, Teo’s expression turned excited. “So you were speaking Air Nomad language?”
Sparing a glance at the boy, Aang couldn’t control the irritation in his voice. “Of course. I just said I was an Air Nomad, didn’t I?”
If he was offended by the tone, Teo didn’t show it. Instead, his smile grew wider and his neck craned to take a closer look at Aang. “You have to teach me a few phrases!” he urged.
“What for?” Aang tested just as Sokka released an enthusiastic, “Yeah!”
Aang gave the older boy a look. “What do you mean, what for?” Sokka asked. “Katara and I can’t speak your language and one else has heard it spoken in a hundred years!”
“I have. It’s only been a few months for me,” he insisted, but his sullen tone did nothing to deter the conversation.
“A few months for you is a century for us regular folks.” Sokka wound his arm around Aang’s neck as he faced Teo. “This guy should teach you everything he knows, isn’t that right?”
Aang looked away, his gaze landing on another mural on the wall. It was about the history of the Air Nomads, he noted, rendered ugly and polluted. He will never see it whole ever again.
17.
“What a night, eh?” Katara overheard the young man behind her say to the person sitting next to him. With a glance in his direction, she couldn’t help but notice how rich and fine the material of his clothes were compared to hers. Everyone had better clothes than she did, really.
Perhaps that was why she was embarrassed by the attention. That along with all of the stares.
Smiling politely under the scrutiny of hundreds of eyes — by the Spirits, she has never been surrounded by this many Water Tribesmen before! — Katara played with the delicate white bone spoon in her hand. Gosh, even their utensils look pretty, she thought as she raised it to her lips while her eyes stayed glued to the scene before her.
It was delightful, watching the smooth and masterful movements of the waterbenders in their element. For a brief moment she allowed herself to feel like a princess serenaded with food and pageantry while the real one sat only a few chairs away from her.
Yue was a beauty of shockingly white hair and a refined demeanor. It was painful watching her be disturbed by her perpetually annoying brother.
“You know,” Sokka began, “I’m also a prince myself.”
Katara nearly choked on her food. “What?” she retorted, catching the attention of Princess Yue and her brother. “A prince of what?”
“A prince of a lot of things!” Sokka defended, to which both Katara and Yue replied with suppressed laughter. She watched him anxiously turn back towards the princess, lips forming to come up with another clumsy line, before refocusing on the performance.
When it drew to a close, an elderly man began to approach her desk.
“How did the Avatar and his companions enjoy the show?” he inquired in a tone that told Katara he already knew the answer.
“We loved it!” both she and Aang replied at once.
The man smiled victoriously, saying, “I thought so. I am Master Pakku, chief waterbending master of Agna Qel’a and personal sifu to Chief Arnook. Those were my students you were watching just now.”
“They were amazing,” Katara gushed. “I’m fixing to learn the same moves myself, sir!”
A beat passed in the brief seconds since she spoke those words and the people in near enough vicinity to have heard her began to titter with laughters, including Master Pakku.
“You’re fixing to learn them?” he repeated with some mockery.
Confused and increasingly self-conscious, Katara nodded as she wondered what it was that she said that was so funny. “What’s wrong?”
“What does that mean, dear?” another voice from around her piped up.
“Oh, it just means she’s going to learn them,” Aang explained nonchalantly by her side, to which a chorus of understanding rang out.
Master Pakku, however, only raised an already severe-looking brow. “You want to learn the moves I’ve taught them?” he clarified.
Katara nodded again. The man chuckled.
“My dear, girls don’t learn waterbending like mine.”
18.
Shouts surrounded Him from every angle. A clamor of a thousand different tongues sounded like gongs beneath the night sky yet they all fell muffled and silent as He rose even higher from the ground, the sea feeding into His watery flesh as He cut through the little humans below.
The rage ate at Him. The rage powered Him.
Wave after wave crashed into the ships surrounding His home which sent each one of them flying into the air or buried in icy water, He did not care. It was not as though anyone could see where they landed; the Moon was gone and so was the light.
Aang could do nothing, thought nothing. His power was not his nor was his mind; the Ocean controlled him through and through. He could not feel the body of water in which his own was encased and his eyes, though bright and wide, could not see for their own. He lent himself totally to the whims of the Ocean Spirit: power, body, sight, and soul.
He maneuvered across the raging seas, growling at every ship that came close to Him and swatting at them like they were nothing. They were nothing.
19.
“It’s too late. It’s dead.”
The Moon Spirit, once so ethereal and true, had been reduced to a bloody lifeless body of a koi. It was as if it had always been that: nothing but an animal.
Iroh, eyebrows drawn as if in a pout, shook his head in disbelief. Such a great spirit, such an inglorious end. It could not be.
Looking up, he noticed the Northern princess. “You,” he began in her language. “You have been touched by the Moon Spirit.”
Katara and Sokka started at the sound coming out of the Fire Nation general’s mouth. The Southern accent, they both noticed. Where did he…?
The question went nowhere as Iroh continued, “Some of Its life is in you.”
Yue widened her eyes at the realization. “I do,” she near-whispered.
“What does that mean?” Sokka asked as he gripped on her arm. “What does it mean?”
Yue did not look at him as she spoke, “The Moon Spirit gave me Its life. Maybe I can give it back.”
Katara gasped as Sokka began to panic. “What? No!” he exclaimed. “You can’t do that! You don’t have to do that.”
“It is my duty—”
Sokka shook his head no. “You don’t have to do anything,” he insisted. “You can’t know if it will help.”
“I have to try.” Yue tearily wrangled her arm from his grasp. “For what other option is there?”
“Yue, please, your father told me to protect you so I will protect you—”
It was her turn to shake her head. “I must do this,” she insisted as she moved closer and closer to the pool. “This is beyond myself or us, Sokka.”
As she bent down to place her soft young hands on the koi fish, something began to glow.
20.
“No,” Zhao croaked out. “No, it can’t be!”
What once was a terrible red blot returned to its shining silver form. “The moon,” Zuko breathed out with relief and wonder.
“NO!” Zhao continued, now yelling out, “No! No! No!”
As if on cue, a terrible wailing sound shook the ground on which they stood and a watery hand rose from the flooded canals beneath them. In one single swoop it wrapped its impossibly heavy limbs around the admiral’s frame and dragged him into the air.
Despite himself, Zuko rushed to the edge at the sight of the man so pathetically human. “Take my hand!” he called out.
On an instinct Zhao reached out to him as ordered, but then something clouded his fearful face and he retracted his hand.
“Take it!” Zuko repeated anxiously. He was dangerously close to something greater than himself.
From a distance Zhao’s face turned into a snarl and, without even so much as a yelp, was dragged into the deep blue — like a fire extinguished.
Cold water sprayed across Zuko’s bruised face as the wave subsided and his eyes stung from the impact of the droplets. With his head turned away, his gaze inevitably fell upon the only evidence left of Admiral Zhao: a ripped piece of red fabric dangling from the decorated side of the lonely bridge, the color almost obscene among the deathly white of the surroundings.
21.
From where he stood, Aang wordlessly looked at the destruction below him. Shocked was not the word for what he felt and neither was empty.
“Aang!”
Before he could turn around, he felt Katara hug him from behind with so much force they both nearly toppled.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” they said to one another. Neither of them could tell who said it first.
“Let’s get out of here, alright?” Katara pressed sweetly as she turned him away from the sight of the ruins. “Appa is waiting for us, and look—” she took out an uncharacteristically shiny chain and pendant around her neck. “Pakku gave this to me; it’s water from the Spirit Oasis.”
He nodded. Katara shook him lightly.
“Aang, you know what else?” she tried. He looked into her shiny blue eyes. “I’m a master waterbender now. I can teach you waterbending.”
We don’t have to stay here, was the unsaid part. You don’t always have to remember what happened here.
Aang’s eyes flickered down to her necklace then back to her face. Katara drew a small closed smile on her lips.
He smiled back at her.