Chapter 1 - Snow Games


A cold wind swept across the tundra, dragging a shower of fine snow with it. It brushed over hills, past the rocks of mountains and the bones of former animals, now picked clean. Through villages and gulleys, where it chilled anonymous inhabitants and brought a taste of something foul with it. Past the lake it made its way, and sifted across a snowy expanse. An expanse where Hikoshu, fifth Fire Avatar since the Fall of Zinwei, now stood, his shoulders heaving with effort and his face drained of blood.

Hikoshu was being murdered. And no one seemed to care.

Actually, he was being slaughtered, and in fact, quite a number of people cared. Far too many people for his comfort, who took far too much delight in the brutal massacre of his manhood and the tragic death of his pride. Five women in total, aged from sixteen to twenty-three, were seated outside the hastily drawn square in the snow, all there for one explicit purpose: to see the Avatar get his dignity handed to him by a twenty-year-old girl.

"Is that all you have?" Mayami's tone was mocking, and she held her hands on her hips with apparent disinterest, the supple gray of her caribou-elk coat contrasting with her dark skin. "My grandmother bends faster than that."

Her comment was answered with squeals and giggles from the handful of similarly-dressed young women, who whispered behind their hands. Hikoshu probably would have blushed, but he was so used to Mayami's ridicule that it was almost expected. Besides, from the way this fight was going, he deserved it. There was only one way to retaliate that could possibly let him save face at this point.

So instead of reacting to her taunts, he slid into a stance and snapped his arms up, the snow shooting forward in two rows from his splayed fingers. They sped for her, two attacks to sweep her off her feet, but Mayami slipped lithely over the ground and twisted the rising snow into a whirlwind that dusted the square. Then, just as quickly, she sent the flurry of white crashing back toward him, which he narrowly dodged.

But his evasion was only a distraction; he knew she could counter the attack, so he had focused on bending the snow behind her—on calling it to him. The snow, like a wave, bulged up from the ground and hovered over her head, slowed under its own weight. Unsuspecting, Mayami ducked into a defensive form for an attack that was never coming, and then jerked her head toward the sound of the cresting snow. With a gasp, she threw up her arms, barely managing to shield herself in ice as it tumbled down on her.

When the snow settled, thick enough to fill the square, the girls at its perimeter gaped and Mayami struggled to pull herself out of the heavy drift. Hikoshu, smug, watched her futile attempts to bend herself free. He may not have been very fast in waterbending, but he was still pretty powerful. And even a fast waterbender such as she had a hard time moving that much snow.

"Funny, Hikoshu, now help me out," she said, buried up to her arms. Her skin was red where the snow had hit her, and her hair had come loose from its braided bun. Finally getting his fill of her misery, Hikoshu sauntered to the drift and bended half of it away, allowing her to fall unsupported to the ground. Gasping, she glared up at him with eyes made even bluer by her anger, and slapped away the offered hand.

Hikoshu retracted it swiftly. "Come on, Mayami, don't be sore." That didn't seem to make her any happier as she got to her feet, bending the excess water from her coat. "Force beats speed. That's all there is to it."

"I wish you had that philosophy in places other than the practice yard."

Now, that made him blush, and the fits of laughter from their onlookers did nothing to allay his embarrassment. "Was that really necessary?"

"You know I'm teasing," Mayami said with a grin, her anger vanishing as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her nose against his chin. "I enjoy all of your moves, whether or not they're used for fighting."

She loved embarrassing him. Returning the hug only half-heartedly, Hikoshu then pushed her back and straightened his coat in an attempt to regain some of his lost dignity. She beamed at his discomfort, her smile twisting the long line of small blue dots tattooed from the corner of her left eye to just beside her lips.

"Impressive, Hikoshu!" came a shout from beyond the square, and he turned toward its source. Their makeshift practice yard was situated outside the village, the blue silhouettes of ice huts melding with the yellow horizon. On the other side was a vast ice field, itself ending less than a mile away in a frozen lake. From it walked a group of three young men, strings of fish slung over their shoulders, their cocky grins neatly matching their thrown-back shoulders and wolf tails.

"Maybe soon you'll move on to fighting men?" Its leader—Siku—dropped his catch in the snow as the three came to a stop next to the girls. The fish left slimy wet trails on his coat, which he wiped at idly.

"Didn't you know?" quipped Onjuat, rubbing an upper lip barely dark with the first hints of a mustache. "The Avatar only fights women."

The third man, Tulit, laughed. "You mean he only fights Mayami. So he might as well be fighting a man."

Their laughter was cut short as snow shot up, engulfing them as the girls cried out and threw up their hands to avoid the shower.

Maybe he'd underestimated her, Hikoshu thought as he regarded Mayami's self-satisfied expression, her arms folded under her breasts. Her skill with waterbending was practically an art, mirroring his own ability with firebending. In some ways, it even surpassed it. Coughing, the men dug themselves out of the snow bank and glowered at her, and her gaggle of friends went back to jeering.

"Did you have something else to add about my bending, Tulit?" Mayami called out as Onjuat began searching for their now-buried fish.

Tulit brushed a sopping handful of slush off his head. "No, I think you've pretty much said it all." Their good humor was now gone, and one of the girls said something to them which only made their sour expressions darker. The comment, however, sent her friends into new peals of laughter.

"Did you just learn that move from me?" Hikoshu murmured, edging closer to Mayami's shoulder. She glanced up at him and grinned, giving his arm a gentle push.

"I learn all my best moves from you, natsiqinu." Admittedly, after all these years, he still wasn't very fluent in the Water Tribes' native tongue. But he definitely knew the word for 'penguin.' Mayami had made it her pet name for him nearly two months before.

"Speaking of manly women," Siku said, nearly stumbling as he yanked his string of fish free, "look who's headed this way." Mayami leveled a glare on the tribesman, causing him to shrink, as Hikoshu turned toward the ice huts. The figure that approached was obscured by the snow, but quite obviously Natquik. There weren't more than a hundred people in the village, and after a year of seeing them all nearly everyday, Hikoshu had learned to distinguish between the majority.

And, of course, the fact that Natquik had been a constant presence in Hikoshu's life for the last four years made him fairly recognizable.

"Looks like the chief let him out of the healing hut," someone said lowly.

"Don't know why. He's not much use outside of it."

Hikoshu rounded on the two men—apparently Siku and Tulit, who hunched their shoulders and tried to hide their surly expressions as they scraped snow off their catches. "Could you not insult a friend of the Avatar in front of the Avatar? Please?"

"Good thing he has the Avatar to fight his battles," Tulit muttered, still loud enough for Hikoshu to hear. Before he could respond, though, Mayami tugged on his coat sleeve. She looked up shyly, her head bent so that she peered at him from below her eyebrows. It accentuated the sharp curve of her cheeks, thick lashes fluttering almost flirtatiously.

"Are we practicing a little more this afternoon?"

All thoughts of the offensive young men were wiped away, and he grinned wryly. "You mean without the audience this time?"

"I wouldn't want to embarrass you any further." That was a lie. But she was lovely, with her hair mussed and her blue eyes regarding him with such a false coyness. "Penguin."

Hikoshu grimaced. "You know how much I hate that." She laughed over him, and barely before he finished his sentence, she was wrapping him in another warm hug. It was a pleasant feeling, only interrupted by the sound of Natquik's voice.

"Is there a reason everyone's out here waterbending, instead of in the training square?" He had finally drawn near enough that Hikoshu could see him clearly. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his waterbending coat, the white fur seams and the long, tiger-seal fringe that hung loose from the base of his throat marking him as a Shaman. Above that, he wore his familiar grin, showing dimples that the Northern women apparently loved. And they'd probably be even happier with his new hairstyle; in Northern fashion, he'd taken to beading two plaits in front of both ears, letting them fall against his shoulders. Over his shoulder hung a leather pouch, decorated with similar blue beads and fairly reeking of bad meat.

"We would've invited you," Siku said, looking up from his overt flirting with one of the girls, "but we figured you'd be too busy healing the joint aches of grandmothers."

"I was busy with your grandmother, Siku." Natquik barely even paused, rocking from one foot to the other. "And believe me, she has no problems with her joints. Besides, I don't need much more practice in my waterbending."

The insult on Siku's family was perhaps going a little too far, but Natquik typically got away with things like that. There was something disarming about his amiable mood, as if he never quite meant whatever he said—either his taunts or his compliments. But Siku still took offense, glaring at him as Poni giggled and pulled on his pants leg, and Tulit, roaring with laughter, fell into the remnant snow bank that Mayami made.

"Mayami challenged me," Hikoshu explained, though he didn't think Natquik was actually interested. "I couldn't say no to a friendly match." Surreptitiously, Mayami curled her fingers around his. Natquik caught sight of it, anyhow, and eyed him unhappily.

"Well, my cousin's pretty convincing. I bet she beat you, too."

"I let him win." Mayami smiled up at him, and Hikoshu awkwardly pulled his hand out of her grasp. "But he agreed to a rematch this afternoon. Didn't you?"

"That's going to be hard, seeing as we have some ice fishing to do." Natquik's voice left no room for argument, even if Hikoshu was prepared to argue. Which he wasn't; he did promise Natquik to get in some fishing before the weather changed for the worse. And as Hikoshu's host family expected him to make good on the promise, he really couldn't put it off.

Still, an afternoon alone with Mayami sounded much more appealing.

She looked up at him with heartbroken eyes, and he wasn't sure how much of that was honest emotion. "You're going to miss out on waterbending with me to go spend hours at a cold, lonely ice hole?"

"Well, how much bending practice would we really get in?" Her knowing grin said just exactly how much she expected, and Hikoshu hated ice fishing even more.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't see that, Mayami," Natquik muttered under his breath, and he seized Hikoshu's forearm, rumpling the thick, lavender-gray fur of his coat. Even as she started to protest, he was being dragged off.

"Careful out there!" Siku shouted one last jibe as they left the square. "Walrus-bears can't be 'healed' to death!"

Natquik merely waved without turning around, and Hikoshu glanced back at Mayami's fading form longingly. Sometimes, it was very hard to be Natquik's friend.

Of course, he had to expect the conversation while they were fishing. They'd already had 'the conversation' on a few occasions, usually while they were out doing something like this. And Natquik took any opportunity to bring it up. Which he did now, as he affixed his bone hook to a braided line.

"You're going to end up in trouble, you know."

"I'm fine, Mayami's fine. We're just having fun." His knot wasn't nearly so tight, but Hikoshu had lost enough hooks to kelp-cod to learn at least a functioning knot. Sighing at the lecture, he wondered idly if this was what having a brother was like. Or maybe even a dad. "Pass the bait?"

Natquik handed over the cloth-wrapped scraps of inedible meat without even looking up. "I know you're having 'fun.' But that's the problem. Neither of you are being serious about any of this, and you don't know what you're going to do if it turns serious."

Hikoshu wasn't really sure it could. Mayami was engaged to another man from a clan wintering somewhere further south. Even if they'd wanted to marry, her family would've never approved. "We're young, Natquik. Let us enjoy our youth. Just because you're bitter about never getting to enjoy yours…"

Admittedly, Natquik was only three years older than him, but Hikoshu had spent most of his life in one religious institution or another, giving his friend many more years to chase girls and have fun. Unfortunately, though, Natquik had been engaged at a very young age, and even more unfortunately, he was more faithful to that bond than he wanted to be. Shooting Hikoshu an oddly dark look that reflected the same thoughts, Natquik baited his hook.

"I have enjoyed mine. But I also used a little more discretion."

"Fine, whatever. I'll be as celibate as an Air Monk, I swear."

Then there was a long lapse in conversation as they dropped their lines into the fishing hole left by Siku's gang, and waited patiently on the stumps they'd bended from the ice. Perhaps the hole had already been fished out, as they sat there silently without a bite, the cold wind the only sound. Stretching for miles in either direction, the frozen lake was barren and bereft of life. Just a blank white, hemmed in by snow hills made gray by distance. Just like the rest of the South Pole, Hikoshu mused drearily, his thoughts lingering on those empty ridges. It was quite isolated, quite unlike the green islands of the Fire Nation, which only made him feel even more alone. And in his solitude, Hikoshu found himself thinking of Mayami.

"We haven't heard from her in a year," Natquik finally said, his voice quiet, and Hikoshu puzzled at first over whether or not he referred to Mayami. But just as quickly, he realized who Natquik really meant.

"She's assumed a lot of extra duties at the Temple." Hikoshu missed Miyo terribly—he always missed her, even when he wasn't thinking about her. But in the four years since Hikoshu had left the Western Air Temple, the pain had lessened to something that he could shove into the back of his mind, allowing him to learn waterbending and blend into the Southern Water Tribe.

"A year's a long time." Natquik was trying to sound casual about it, but he kept his eyes fixed on the short, wood pole clutched stiffly between his hands, his elbows resting on his knees so that he was hunched over the hole.

"Then she'll probably be by soon. She never stays away, as long as she can find a bison."

"If she was here, she'd be agreeing with me." Once again, they were back on Mayami. It was enough to make Hikoshu groan. "And you'd probably listen to her, too. You could never argue with her."

"Natquik, I'm twenty-six years old. I don't need you—either of you—telling me what to do." He waggled the pole angrily, almost jerking the hook out of the water. "And since when did you become the voice of responsibility? Usually, you're fighting Miyo on these things."

He could actually answer that question, himself. First off, as Mayami's cousin, Natquik was practically obligated to protect her honor and betrothal to the zebra-seal clan. And the second reason was Natquik's unconscious anxiety over his own approaching marriage.

Before Hikoshu met Natquik, the waterbender had been rather accepting of his lot in life—marry the Water Tribe Princess, become a fairly mediocre chief of the Northern Water Tribe. But then his path intersected with Hikoshu's, and then Natquik did a lot of things with waterbending that were considered grievous offenses in the Water Tribes. Bad things—things that shouldn't ever be done on another human being. And if he'd done them to anyone other than Hikoshu, Natquik likely would have been executed. Fortunately, though, he was spared, and his only punishment was the negation of the marriage contract.

The sentence was a mixed blessing. Natquik got to taste what it was like not to be engaged for a few years, only to have the betrothal mysteriously reinstated the summer before last. Now he was just surly; he'd glimpsed what his life would have been without Water Tribe politics, only to be told that he would have that. Hikoshu imagined that was probably why Natquik was bothered by his obvious flouting of Water Tribe traditions: because he himself was bound far too tightly by them.

"So when do you leave for the North?" Hikoshu asked after a lengthy silence, when it was obvious that Natquik wasn't going to answer his last question. Already despondent, he seemed to grow even quieter, his expression falling as he rubbed his neck.

"The wedding's during the Ice Cutting Festival. So I'll have to leave within a month or two in order to avoid the seasonal storms." Then he added with a frown, "Fish don't seem to be biting. Too much noise."

A very Water Tribe-ish way of saying he didn't want to talk about it. The tribespeople were even less forward than the Fire Nation, if that was possible. And though Natquik tended to be pretty blunt with him when it came to Hikoshu's problems, he was very quick to avoid talking about his own.

So, again, they fell into silence, and again, Hikoshu had to suppress a wave of annoyance. Natquik was, on average, an even-tempered man with few mood swings and even fewer concerns. He took everything in stride, and provided a nice balance to Hikoshu's sometimes volatile emotions. However, in the preceding months, he'd changed, growing somber, more reticent. It was aggravating to see such a shift, but not to know what to do about it. Just sit quietly, Hikoshu supposed, and wait for it to pass.

But that silence stretched on for far longer than he thought it would, nothing biting, nothing changing but the sun as it crawled toward the west. And Hikoshu's mood grew even gloomier, his mind dwelling on Mayami and the hundred other places he could be right then. So distracted was he by these thoughts, that when something tugged lightly on his short pole, he reacted without thinking. Half out of frustration, half out of a need to move his frozen hands, Hikoshu simply bended the water from the fishing hole.

The kelp-cod that had been taunting his line splatted against the ice, and both he and Natquik jerked back to avoid the splash as the fish floundered about, gasping for breath. With a sudden—and odd—stab of guilt, Hikoshu set his worthless pole down in order to catch it before it made its escape.

Abruptly water flowed out of the hole, engulfing the cod, and dragged it once more into the frozen lake. Blinking in surprise and vague irritation, Hikoshu turned to Natquik. He'd also put down his rod, his hands raised where he'd bended the fish back into the water. He shook his head in admonishment.

"Why is it that you want to invite the wrath of the lake spirit?"

Hikoshu slumped his shoulders, both guilty and sullen. "I'm the Avatar. I'm sure he'd forgive me."

"Why bother finding out if she would?"

Because they wouldn't catch anything otherwise? It was exasperating, and Hikoshu was fully prepared to tell him so. But as he opened his mouth for the retort, a sudden pain shot through his left eye.

A sharp pain. In a split-second, it became a consuming pain, and Hikoshu gasped, clutching his head in panic. Spots danced in his vision as his thoughts flew wildly about, scrambling, desperate for some logical explanation. Had he been injured? The pain, which now throbbed like waves of heat, was far too visceral for that, as if something scratched at his brain with claws.

Natquik was talking to him, though Hikoshu held his head so tightly, sound reached him only in murmurs. All he could do was suck on his teeth and wait for the agony to subside. Breathing deep, he forced himself to be calm. And just wait.

It did fade, eventually. Hikoshu had been convinced it was an hour, but when he slowly released his head, cracking his eyes in trepidation, the sun hadn't moved, and neither had Natquik. He still sat on his ice stool, one hand raised in mid-attempt to help.

"Everything all right?" he asked, slowly lowering that hand.

Hikoshu wished he could say that it was, but an irrational fear that even thinking about it might bring it back made him shake his head. "It's nothing. Just a headache."

"Probably the lake spirit," Natquik muttered. "Told you not to mess with her."

Already, the pain was hard to remember, growing faint, as Natquik collected both of their rods and quickly disassembled the lines and hooks. "I have a feeling we're not going to catch anything today," he said. "We'll just have to try tomorrow."

Hikoshu was only partly relieved. "Can't we wait a week?"

"You know, for a fisherman's son, you're not especially gifted at it." He was stowing away the various ice-fishing implements in the leather pouch he'd brought, such that he didn't see Hikoshu's offended stare.

"Our fishing involved boats. And nets. And bending." Alright, probably not the last. It was pretty difficult to catch fish with firebending. "Besides, Fire Sages don't fish too often."

"I can tell." Then Natquik stood, the ice stump melting into the lake as he slung the pouch over his shoulder. "Mind throwing the bait in the water? I don't imagine even the dogs would eat it."

With a groan, Hikoshu bended his own stool back into the ground, then scooped the fur full of rancid meat off the ice. As he dumped it, the little bits of flesh made plopping sounds in the water, which roiled with the movements of unseen animals snapping up the remnants of bait. "So now they're biting. I've said this before, but I really think there's something on your twine that's putting off an od—"

Hikoshu cut off, the rest of his words lost as something floated toward the surface of the ice hole. At first, he was inclined to dismiss it as a fish—or a trick of the light. But the closer it came to the top of that dark, greenish water, the more the object looked like nothing that was supposed to be there.

"I've been using fresh twine," Natquik said from behind him, unaware that Hikoshu had stopped paying attention to him, and unaware of what now held his gaze. Doubtfully, Hikoshu knelt by the fishing hole, then reached into the water to pull the object out.

The amorphous shape took the form of a feather, longer than his hand, its separate barbs clumped together in a straggly tangle and its once-white color tapering to a point of blue. Odd, Hikoshu thought as he turned the feather over in his fingers. Siku or one of the others must have dropped it while fishing. But none had been wearing feathers.

He started to move away from the ice hole when something abruptly shot from the water. A hand, its frozen fingers latching onto his wrist just below the fur cuff, its skin a sickly gray-white. His heart slamming into his throat, Hikoshu immediately jerked back, but the hand held firm, keeping him next to the water as he gave a hoarse, guttural cry.

Prying at the fingers, he tried to wrench his arm free, and fear swamped him even as his mind tried to direct his actions—tried to get him to firebend, or waterbend, or airbend. Whatever was necessary to save himself from the thing that held him. But just as he managed to seize control of his panic, the hand let go, its fingers slipping into the undisturbed water as if it had never even been there.

Something grabbed his shoulder.

With a panicked shout, Hikoshu whirled around and grasped the new enemy's wrist, preparing to snap its arm. Fortunately, rational thought overrode instinct, and he found himself staring into Natquik's eyes, the whites visible all around his irises.

"Hikoshu?" he uttered, trying to tug his arm loose. With a nervous sigh, Hikoshu released him and turned back to the fishing hole.

"Did you see what grabbed me?" The water was dark and calm, lifeless.

"Kind of like you grabbed me?" Natquik rubbed at his wrist where Hikoshu had held tight. "What happened to you?"

"A hand came out of the water." He'd had no idea how incredibly foolish that sounded until he said it aloud. "It wouldn't let go of me."

Natquik took his shoulder again, this time with far more hesitation. "Are you sure it wasn't a tiger-seal? They use these holes, too."

Hikoshu wasn't sure about anything. Tiger-seal, though, seemed a lot more reasonable than anything he'd thought he seen, and quickly, he found himself believing it. Maybe his eyes were just worn out from the tundra; that happened all too often, without a visor.

But if it was a tiger-seal, then why didn't its teeth leave a mark? Hikoshu examined the skin of his wrist and found it unbroken. It wasn't even red.

Strange. With a shake of his head, he got to his feet, just as Natquik slung his bag over his shoulder once more.

"Should we take the long way back, or take the short route and suffer the ridicule of Siku and his friends?"

"Wouldn't it be cowardly otherwise?" Hikoshu tried ignore the way his legs trembled, but he doubted they'd be reliable at least until they were off the lake.

Natquik shrugged. "I'm looking out for your delicate Fire Nation sensibilities."

Mayami wouldn't be so kind if she discovered his attempts to avoid being mocked. With a weary gesture, he signaled Natquik onward. "Just go."

The sun was starting to set when they made their way east, their village far in front of them and a freezing wind to their backs. But for Hikoshu, the walk home didn't seem quite the same as before. No, he couldn't be sure what had caused the pain in his head, or what had come out of the water. But he knew, just as inherently as he knew how to bend, that something was wrong. It was as if the world had changed just slightly since they arrived—as if something more than the wind brushed at his hair and crawled along his neck.

Like something more than the softly falling snow was hidden in the coming night.


A/N: As always, thanks to my beta reader, Inazuma Akai, for her work in making this chapter possible. And as always, please R&R!