A/N: Mock Round pt II
Team: Water Tribe
Category: Themed - Discovery
Prompt: #6 - North Pole
Word Count: 923
"Come on, Pakku!" Turak called from the end of the snowy street, stopping to glare back at his friend. "We're going to be late for lessons!"
"Give me a second!" Pakku yelled back, breaking into a run as he fastened his parka at the same time. Fumbling with the last catch, he looked down to fix it, stepped on a patch of ice, and slid at least three yards down the street, only stopped by a very solid someone who promptly fell on top of him.
"OW!" Pakku shouted as the person landed on his knees. His legs were scraped and stinging, and his pride was badly bruised as well.
The girl that had served as his brake scrambled to her feet, glaring at him. "Excuse you!" she snapped.
Pakku blinked.
She was gorgeous, with dark brown hair in a long braid tossed over one shoulder, and sea-blue eyes that were currently narrowed in irritation.
"H-hi," he stammered, looking up at her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Turak jogging toward them.
"Watch where you're going next time," the girl told him, crossing her arms over her chest.
He could only nod as she turned on her heel and stalked away.
"Who was that?" Turak asked, also staring after the girl.
Pakku shook his head. "I don't know, but I am definitely going to find out."
o0o
It became his mission for the next three weeks: find the mystery girl and (possibly) get his parents to talk to her parents and arrange something to get them together. Preferably marriage. His parents already had been talking about finding him a wife, but they had said he might get some input in the matter.
Thus his frantic search for the girl's identity.
She couldn't be a waterbender, he knew that much - while he didn't train with the girls, all the waterbenders ate lunch together and he'd never seen her there. And he'd been looking, these last few weeks. So she was just some ordinary resident of the North Pole, which made his mission significantly harder.
He'd enlisted the help of Turak, since he'd actually seen The Girl; and Turak had enlisted the help of his sister, Norah, and his fiance, Denari (Turak's parents had had one of those "before they were out of the cradle they were destined to join our families" agreements with another prominent family), to find The Girl as well. Between them, Pakku figured they had the North Pole pretty well covered.
Four weeks had gone by since he'd ran into The Girl and his confidence, so strong, was beginning to fade. Maybe she didn't live at the North Pole. Maybe she was just visiting. And, to make matters worse, Pakku's parents had informed him that they had found a quite suitable girl for him and were speaking to her parents about a betrothal arrangement.
He had to find her.
o0o
"It's been over a month, Turak," Pakku complained on the way home from waterbending practice. "Where in the name of Tui and La could she be?"
Turak rolled his eyes. He'd grown tired of Pakku's "obsessive" behavior (Pakku didn't see anything wrong with it) and now only barely tolerated any mention of the mysterious girl.
"Maybe you just aren't looking hard enough," he said in a bored voice, which was his default any time The Girl was brought up in conversation.
"Over a month!" Pakku repeated, ignoring him.
"Maybe she doesn't want to be found," Turak suggested. Pakku glared at him.
"A girl like that is too amazing to stay hidden," he insisted, stubbornly. "Her… her personality wouldn't allow it!"
"Who cares about a girl's personality?" Turak asked, rolling his eyes. "Besides, you talked to her, what, once? How do you get any idea of what her personality's like?"
"I'm not speaking to you anymore," Pakku announced, marching ahead of his friend.
o0o
"But Father!" Pakku protested, on hearing that the family had agreed to let their daughter be betrothed to him. "I know this other girl - and she's a good fit - and I actually like her - "
"Pakku," his father replied sternly, "you have been unable to tell me who this girl actually is, and so she has been put out of the running. Kanna's family is a good, respectable family, and Kanna is a good, respectable girl. By all accounts, she's very intelligent - although," he added, with a slight tone of resignation, "she is not a waterbender. She will be an excellent wife for you."
But I don't want Kanna to be my wife, Pakku protested silently as they made their way through the icy streets to his new fiance's house. I want The Girl.
o0o
Kanna, who had yet to present herself, had three younger sisters and one younger brother. Pakku recognized the brother from waterbending training; he was in one of the lower classes. All the girls looked alike, with black hair that they'd clearly gotten from their father (a stocky, jovial man) and grey eyes that just as clearly belonged to their mother (a quiet and meek woman with dark brown hair. Pakku barely noticed her).
"Kanna!" her father called, after ten minutes had passed since their arrival and she still had not appeared. "Come down!"
"I'm coming, Father!" a girl's muffled voice yelled back.
Five minutes after that, Pakku heard footsteps coming down the stairs - Kanna, presumably. He decided not to give her the satisfaction of a dramatic entrance and didn't look up until she entered the room.
His mouth fell open.
It was The Girl.
