CHAPTER ONE
The tiny jolly-boat floated across the surface of the water like a leaf, causing nary a ripple as it smoothly glided along the sea. At the stern, Celia stood, her simple gown blowing softly in the sea breeze. Her arms wheeled gently, and with each motion she made, the water gently tugged them forward that much more. There was deep concentration in her face as she traced her body through the motions of hydromancy. She flowed in smooth, lithe movements, each motion fluidly merging with the next.
"You can stop showing off, sis," Jack called out boredly. He was lying down by the prow, his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head. Annoyed, Celia cocked her wrist and made a slightly more violent gesture. A small torrent of water rose up from the sea before coming down on Jack like a hammer. She suppressed a giggle as he sputtered and sat bolt upright, angrily muttering to himself as he wrung out the hems of his tunic. "Think you're so funny…" he was saying under his breath. "…Stupid hydromancy…"
"That stupid hydromancy is the only reason this boat goes anywhere," Celia said with a smirk, and to prove a point, she stopped moving. Almost immediately, all motion ceased, and the boat was sitting on the surface, still as a painting. Jack rolled his eyes.
"All right," he said, annoyed. "You've made your point. Come on, we're still a ways off from the best reefs." He started sorting through his fishing equipment again, lovingly looking over all the bait he had painstakingly captured for today's expedition. While he examined his prizes, Celia resumed her hydromancy, stroking the boat along its meandering course to food. But as she started heading off in the usual direction, she felt something odd. She could feel the water pulling her in a different direction than normal. Something was different. Something had changed the usual current. Her brow furrowed.
"Hey, do you feel that?" she asked.
"Feel what?" Jack asked, still absorbed in untangling his fishing net. It was Celia's turn to roll her eyes. He was oblivious, as usual.
"The current's different from how it normally is," she said. Carefully, she explored this new undertow with a few tentative hydromantic gestures. Yes, it was different. While the old current took them straight north, this one seemed to be dragging them northeast. Intrigued, Celia relaxed her powers and the boat started shifting course. Jack looked up.
"What are you doing?" he demanded. "The fish are that way." He jabbed a finger northward, but Celia shook her head.
"I want to see where this current takes us," she said resolutely.
"Sis, don't you get it? The current could be caused by Fire ships passing through here, for all we know! That current could lead us straight into the worst danger of our lives!" Celia shook her head; she understood enough about how water moved to think that his idea was preposterous.
"Well, if we do run into trouble, then I guess it's a good thing that I've got the best warrior in the village to protect me," she said, her voice dripping with irony. For all his wit and quick thinking, the sarcasm seemed to be lost on Jack, whose chest immediately swelled with pride at the supposed compliment.
"As much as I appreciate the sentiment, Celia—and make no mistake, I definitely do—we have a responsibility to get back to the village with some good fish." He began sharpening the tip of his fishhook has he said this.
"We're not expected back until sundown," Celia said easily as she stabilized the boat against the current's growing strength. "Plenty of time to fish. There might even be some good fish where we could end up." Jack considered this. Maybe it was the soundness of her logic finally reaching him, or perhaps he had just realized that as one who couldn't practice hydromancy, he had absolutely no power over the course the boat took, but at long last he shrugged and nodded.
"Fair enough," he said. He pointed to her. "But if we come back late, it's your fault, and we're sticking to that story." Celia just nodded back.
"I'm glad you see things my way, Jack." And with that, they drifted in silence for a while, the current picking up in speed. Soon enough, they were practically flying across the waves, plowing through the low and easy tide. Celia no longer had to propel their boat; all her hydromancy was good for now was keeping their vessel steady. But even as she worked to keep their boat steady, Celia noticed that they were now starting to slow down again. This time, even Jack noticed.
"Brilliant," he said as the boat's momentum slowed to a crawl once more. "Now, we've just followed a current that dropped us right in the middle of nowhere. Anything else you want to do to help convince me to make you my navigator when I finally get my own ship, Celia?"
"We're not in the middle of nowhere," Celia said pointedly. "Look at that shadow below the surface of the water." She pointed at the deep blue expanse, and even despite its darkness there was a vast patch that was noticeably darker, almost black. "There's something under there, something that's disrupting the flow of water. And furthermore," she added teasingly, "I'd never be a navigator on any ramshackle raft you'd string together." Jack let the jibe go. He was peering over the edge at the large dark shape.
"What do you think it is?" he asked, his hand falling to the handle of his dirk by habit. "Some kind of creature?" Celia shook her head.
"It's sitting too still," she said. She thought for a moment, biting the edge of her lip. "I think I'm going to bring it up." She spread her arms above her head and splayed her fingers impressively.
"Wait, sis-"
The rest of Jack's objection was drowned out by the sound of gushing water surging into the air as if spat from the earth itself. After a moments' lull, the water crashed back onto the surface, creating innumerable ripples as it fell like rain. There was another stillness as the momentary rain pelted down…and then, like a great whale breaching, the thing broke the surface of the water and bobbed impressively in the tide. It looked to be a giant orb of roughly cut crystal, and in every place where the sun's rays hit it, the light glinted off in a multitude of colors. Jack let his jaw hang open in awe, while Celia's eyes went wide.
"What is that thing?" they chorused at the same time. For the longest time, they just stared at it, neither the boat nor the orb moving at all save for the gentle up-and-down of the tide lashing against their sides. Jack looked at the thing. The crystal, if it was crystal, was translucent, almost white, but it looked as though-
"I think there's someone in there!" he cried out in surprise. Celia started.
"What? Where?"
"Right there!" Jack pointed at the rough center, and the two of them squinted. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but there appeared to be the silhouette of a person, sitting calmly at peace…and yet, the silhouette was glowing in an odd, almost otherworldly fashion. "Bring us closer!" Normally, Celia probably would have made some remark about him ordering her around, but right now both of them were too engrossed to care. She waved the boat closer, and the gently sloped prow ground against the crystalline surface with a soft scratching noise. Slowly, tentatively, Jack reached out and gingerly touched it with his fingers. "Hey!" he called out. "This isn't crystal! It's ice!"
"Ice?" Celia carefully made her way to the bow of the boat, doing her best to keep it balanced. "But that's impossible! These are warm waters! It should have melted!" She didn't know why she was becoming so excitable. She had a sudden unshakeable feeling that something important was afoot, and here she was to witness it. She looked at the bottom of the iceberg, and saw how jagged its bottom was. "It must have broken off from the ocean floor," she thought out loud. "It was probably suspended between floating and sinking because that isn't a solid block of ice…it's hollow." She started to slide into another stance, but Jack held up a hand.
"Wait," he said. "Before you use your hydromancy and open this thing, we need to be sure that we can accept whatever responsibilities come with it. We might be unleashing something really bad by breaking this thing open. And if we do…it's totally your fault." Celia just shook her head, as if to say, whatever. She concentrated on the roughly-hewn berg before her, her hands outstretched as she willed it to melt itself away. It began to emit a low hissing noise, and tiny plumes of steam began to snake through the air as the ice began to collapse on itself. Suddenly, a huge chunk of it fell into the ocean with a splash. A blinding white light filled the area, and both Celia and Jack shielded their eyes from it. A powerful gust blew over them, one that rocked the both so much that Celia feared it might capsize. But after a moment, the wind settled again, and the light died down. Slowly, Celia dared herself to look at what the rock held.
The first thing that struck her was that he was young. He had intense grey eyes, and his rounded head was framed by closely cropped black hair. He was lean, and his build combined with the motley assortment of orange and brown that he wore gave her the distinct impression that he was a wanderer of some kind. Certainly, the elegant wooden staff clutched in his right hand aided the image. But what really caught her eye were the arrows: at least six bright blue jangling charms strewn across his clothes, each one in the shape of an arrow. Compared to the muted tones of his outfit, they stood out very distinctly, and there was something oddly familiar about their design…
The stranger from the iceberg looked around for a moment, confused, taking in his surroundings. And then, at long last, he noticed the dumbfounded boy and girl standing before him in a boat, and his youthful face broke out into a wide and friendly grin. "Hello," he said with a casual wave, before bowing slightly. "I'm Brishen. Pleased to meet you." If the appearance of a strange boy in an iceberg didn't confuse the two Water Tribe youths, then certainly his immediately pleasant and friendly demeanor did.
"What did you say your name was?" Jack said, his hand edging close to the hilt of his dirk. Celia laid her hand on her brother's wrist, staying his hand.
"He said his name was Brishen," Celia said. She turned to the boy. "That's an unusual name, Brishen," she said to him. "I've never heard one like it, especially not here in the Southern Water Tribe." Brishen's grey eyes widened.
"Oh, wow," he said. "I'm in the south seas? How'd I get all the way here?" He looked around, as though expecting for the answer to his question to fall out of the sky at any moment.
"I don't know," Celia answered, trying to be as calming as possible, "but my name is Celia. This is my brother, Jack."
"Don't tell him our names!" Jack hissed. Celia rounded on him, her hands on her hips.
"Why not?"
"Because," Jack retorted, with the air of explaining something very simple to an even simpler person, "he could be a spy for the Dominion of Fire!"
"Dominion?" Brishen asked. "You mean, the Fire Nation? Oh no, I'm not from there," he laughed. "Can't you tell by my name? I'm a member of the Wind Folk!" Celia had to hold down Jack's hand with extra force as Brishen said that.
"You lie," Jack declared softly, his voice wrought with suspicion. "The Wind Folk haven't been seen for close on a century. There aren't any left." Celia looked worriedly to see how the newcomer would take this. But to her surprise, he just laughed and shook his head.
"Don't be silly, Jack." He tasted the new name as he pronounced it, as though to see if it were one he could get used to saying. "Of course the Wind Folk are still around…We just don't come down to these parts very often," he said brightly. Jack looked as though he was going to raise another objection, but Celia cut across him.
"Well, Brishen," she said loudly, "After being encased in a block of ice for so long, I'm sure you're probably hungry. Why don't you come back home with us and I can fix up something for you to eat?" She smiled warmly, and Brishen returned.
"I'd like that," he said. Jack made one last try.
"I'm sorry, Brishen," came his almost snakelike objection. "But our boat can only fit two. I don't know what more we can do for you." But strangely, Brishen didn't seem daunted; that smile was unbreakable.
"No problem," he said. He looked around. "Wait, was there another iceberg with mine?" Celia and Jack, perplexed, both shook their heads, and for just a fraction of a second, that unbreakable smile flickered. "Oh," he said, his voice tinged with a hint of sadness to it. Then, he brightened again. "Well, which way is your village?"
Celia pointed off in the distance. They were a good deal away; even on the calm sea they couldn't see their distant island home. Brishen followed her gesture, and then nodded. "No problem," he declared, and tapped the bottom of his staff on the iceberg impressively. At once, a pair of orange wings unfurled themselves from within his staff, and suddenly a weapon and traveling companion had become an otherwordly contraption altogether. "I'll see you there!" he called out. He slung the glider onto his back before taking a deep breath and jumping headlong into the air. He hung, impossibly, for seconds on end, long after any normal person would have plunged into the water. Suddenly, it seemed as if the air and taken him, and in an instant he was whisked away in the direction Celia had pointed, soaring freely and wheeling eagerly in the bold blue sky.