Frozen Heart
As Sokka's eyes adjusted to the difference between the dim lighting of the Velvet Room and the blinding brightness in the other side of the door, the first thing that hit him was how cold it was. That struck him as strange, as he didn't recall it ever being cold in the Fire Nation, except perhaps at night, and since it was light out that ruled that out. Then, when he could see normally, Sokka's jaw dropped at what he saw. After rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't just seeing things, Sokka turned to Yue, who'd exited the door behind him before it vanished, and asked her, "Yue, why are we at the North Pole? My friends and I were at the Fire Nation when we got caught in that strange fog."
"This isn't the North Pole," Yue explained, and her tone suggested she was feeling homesick, "any more than the place you saw that guard attacked was the Fire Nation's Capitol City. This is just another area in the Shadow World."
"I don't understand," Sokka confessed.
"The Shadow World is a realm of the subconscious," Yue told him, "Since the active subconscious of people is so strong, anyone who finds themselves pulled in here against their will will find themselves in a place familiar to them, usually somewhere they have a strong connection to."
"But that doesn't make sense," Sokka said, "I don't exactly have a whole lot of fond memories of the Fire Nation, and especially not of the Capitol City, and the only tie I have to it is Zuko."
"It could be that you simply aren't a nostalgic person and are very grounded in reality, so your subconscious structured your area to match where you remembered being last," Yue suggested, "It's far more likely though that you simply were pulled into the area the guard's mind created."
"So you're saying this area was created by the mind of one of those caught in this fog?" Sokka asked, "But whose?"
"If I had found you here, I would have thought yours," Yue said, "But since I'm sure that none of the others had really been here, much less had a connection to this place, I would say either Aang or Katara, most likely Katara. We should hurry up and find her."
Sokka nodded in agreement, then he started following her. After they walked together in silence for a while, Sokka cleared his throat and said, "Uh, Yue? I never really got a chance to say this before, but I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Yue said in confusion as she turned back towards Sokka, "For what?"
"For failing you back during the Fire Nation's of the North Pole," Sokka told her, regret heavy on his voice, "Your father tasked me with protecting you, and because I couldn't even do that right you're gone now."
"You have nothing to apologize for, Sokka," Yue assured him, "It was my choice to give my life to restore that of the Moon Spirit. Besides, I'm not really gone, I merely became the new Moon Spirit."
"But that shouldn't have been necessary," Sokka countered, "I should have been able to stop General Zhao from killing Tui. If I had, you wouldn't have needed to sacrifice your life to stop the Fire Nation from conquering the North Pole."
"And then I would have been forced into a loveless political marriage," Yue reasoned back, "Honestly, there really wasn't anything anyone could have done to stop him, at least without knowing the future beforehand. Sure I miss my father and my friends, especially you Sokka, but at least now I'm free to be myself, and I'm able to help my people in ways I never could have before, so you really have nothing to feel guilty about."
As they continued their search, during which they had encountered neither friend nor foe, Sokka felt guilt tighten his chest as he confessed, "Uh, Yue? There's something I need to tell you about."
Yue chuckled as she said, "It's okay, Sokka. I already know about Suki."
"Wait, you do?" Sokka asked her in surprise, then he smacked his head in realization as he said, "Of course, duh! Moon Spirit, you probably saw us both back at Serpent's Pass."
"That's correct," Yue confirmed, "I was actually disappointed that you did not kiss her back then."
"You were?" Sokka said, feeling really confused now.
"Of course!" Yue said with another chuckle, though Sokka saw a tiny bit of sadness in the smile she gave him, "As much as I like you, you and I simply were never meant to be. In fact, I like you enough that I only want to see you happy, so you can't spend your life regretting the past or pining for what we had and lost."
"Oh, okay," Sokka replied, stunned.
"But don't go breaking that girl's heart by doing something stupid," Yue warned with a serious look on her face, "otherwise one day you'll find the tide dropping suddenly when you're sailing over a reef."
Sokka nodded his understanding, then he proceeded to follow her as they continued their search. They hadn't gone far, though, before Sokka heard behind him, "Sokka?"
Turning around, Sokka looked for the sound of the voice, calling out, "Katara? Where are you?"
Katara pokes her head out the door of one of the dwellings they had just passed, looking nervous and uncertain as she asked, "Sokka? Is that really you?"
"Yes, of course it's me," Sokka said as he hurried over to her, "Who else would it be?"
When he got over to her she placed her hands on his shoulders, as if making sure he was real, and Sokka could feel her trembling as she said, "It's been horrible, Sokka. I couldn't find anyone around here, the North Pole seems entirely abandoned, and every time I thought I found one of you guys it turned out to be some horrible monster! What happened here, Sokka, and how did we get to the North Pole anyway?"
"We didn't, not really," Sokka told her, "We're still in the fog. I can't recall the details, but basically this area came from your head."
"I don't understand," Katara said in a confused tone, "This place seems so real."
"Maybe Yue can explain it to you better than I can," Sokka said before turning around and calling out, "Yue! We found Katara!" But Yue wasn't behind him. Looking around in confusion he called out again, "Yue? Where'd you go?"
"Uh, Sokka? There was nobody there," Katara told him patiently, "It was probably just another monster."
"No! She was here!" Sokka insisted, "Yue? Where are you!?"
"Relax, Sokka," Katara told him, and it sounded like something had calmed her down a lot. Possibly the familiar sight of him acting like a spaz. "We need to find where the others went," Katara continued.
"That's right!" Sokka said as he dropped his fist into his palm, recalling what Yue and Igor told him before he'd left the Velvet Room, "Those monsters you've saw around here? They're made up of the bad thoughts in our heads that we don't listen to, but they can kill us all just the same."
"How do you know this?" Katara asked him.
"Just trust me on this," Sokka told her, "But Aang is in as much danger as the rest of us, if not more so. Your bending isn't as effective here, and if the Shadows manage to kill him then that's it: he won't be reborn, the Avatar's gone for good."
Katara gasped as she asked, "You mean the cycle will be broken?"
"Uh….yeah, what you said," Sokka replied.
"Oh no, Sweetie!" Katara breathed, her eyes widening in panic and her hand over her mouth. Then she took running in the direction of the palace as she cried out, "Aang!"
"Katara, I just finished saying this place is dangerous!" Sokka called after her, "Katara!?" When she didn't turn around or even slow, Sokka growled in concerned exasperation as he took off after her.
He had just caught sight of her upon entering the palace when numerous Shadows, some even stranger in appearance than what he'd seen in 'Capitol City', emerged from the walls behind her and blocked his path. He was just wondering how he was going to get past them when the card Yue had shown him in the Velvet Room, the Fool card, appeared spinning in the air in front of him. Acting on instinct, Sokka grabbed the card out of the air and cried out, "Persona!" As he did so, the card disappeared from his hand and the huge armored warrior appeared before him.
Wasting no time, Sokka's Persona began slashing through the Shadows in front of him as he himself ran behind him, yelling, "Get out of our way!" Sokka had lost track of how many shadows had fallen before his Persona's blade but, just when they were about through the horde, one orb-shaped Shadow managed to dodge under his Persona's attack and went straight for him. Convinced he was about to die, Sokka grabbed his sword and swung it at his attacker, surprised when it cut through and the shadow fell before vanishing. Sokka looked in shock back and forth between where the shadow was and his sword in his hands for a moment before exclaiming, "Just when I thought I couldn't love you any more, space sword….you're incredible!"
Sokka's Persona looked down at him, the Shadows before them cleared for the moment, and though the warrior's face was covered except for the eyes it seemed to Sokka that the look he was shooting at him was saying, "What am I, chopped liver?"
"Oh, you're pretty badass too, Izanagi," Sokka told him, though how he knew the Persona's name he couldn't say. When Izanagi jerked his head in the direction of the hall, Sokka nodded and said, "You're right, we need to get going."
A few minutes and several skirmishes later, Sokka caught up to Katara in the Throne Room. Pausing a few moments to catch his breath, Sokka panted, "Katara! You can't….go running off…by yourself like that! You know how many….Shadows I had to fight through….to get here? How many times….I feared you had been killed?" When she didn't respond, or even turn around to acknowledge his presence, Sokka gently asked her in concern, "Katara? Are you okay?"
Once again Katara didn't respond, but this time Sokka was able to pick up on the sound of quiet sobbing in the room, sobbing that wasn't coming from Katara. Edging his way around Katara, Sokka was shocked to see seated in front of her….Katara! This Katara had the same familiar bone structure and hair style as his Katara, but she looked only about 8 years old. Despite the difference in age, Sokka could tell that it was her, as he had seen her in just that same position the day they lost their mother.
Looking back in the face of his Katara, he saw it filled with shock and grief and he wondered if she was reliving the same memories as he, but before he could ask, little Katara bawled, "Why!? Why did you not save Mommy!? Why did you run away and let him hurt her? Why did you let him take Mommy away from us!?"
"I'm sorry, but I was young and scared," Katara pleaded with her younger self, "I ran as quick as I could to get Daddy, but I wasn't fast enough. I'm sorry."
"Liar!" young Katara yelled at her, standing and stamping her little feet, "You didn't want to save her, you wanted her gone!"
"No, that's not true!" older Katara countered, "I swear that's not true! I loved her!"
"Mommy, Daddy, Gran-gran, the villagers, and especially Sokka….they were all the same," young Katara continued. As she spoke, her face took on a cruel smile that eerily reminded Sokka of Hama, and she seemed to be visibly aging as well. "None of them could understand you, none of them had your gifts. You were simply a reminder of a painful past, of a gift taken from their tribe by the Fire Nation, as well as the reason they returned. Faced with that kind of scrutiny and judgment, your life would be much better if they were all gone," young Katara told her, now looking closer to 10 or 12.
"No, you're wrong!" Katara argued, "You're wrong!"
"You lied to Niyok and Nutha too," young Katara said, ignoring her outburst, now looking about 14 "You knew exactly what you were doing when you freed Aang from that iceberg, when you snuck with him onto that Fire Nation ship even though it was strictly forbidden. You saw him as your one-way ticket away from that place, were you were at best a freak, and into the world were there were others like you. That's why you came back here: you felt more at home here, surrounded by other waterbenders, then you ever were back at that pathetic little village."
"No, you're lying!" older Katara yelled at her, "Stop lying!"
"Then, when Hama taught you bloodbending, you acted like you were horrified but you know you really loved it," young Katara said, now looking around 15 or 16, "The power, the control, it was what you were looking for your entire life. After all, you were quick enough to use it on the Captain of the Southern Raiders, when you thought he might have been the one who'd killed your mom."
"No, stop it!" Katara yelled at her, "That's horrible, it's not true! Stop it!"
"Ad as for Sokka, that immature oaf actually thinks that he's a contributing member of 'Team Avatar'? Hah!" young Katara mocked, "That's a worse joke than any that he ever said himself, and that's saying something. 'Jabbering Hog-monkey' indeed, it's no wonder Yue died while under his care, and Suki's bound to end up the same way."
Older Katara turned around and grabbed Sokka's arms, apparently not even noticing Izanagi standing behind him as she looked pleadingly into Sokka's eyes and said, "Don't listen to her, Sokka. What she's saying isn't true! None of it is true!"
"You can lie to others, Katara, but not yourself. I would know," young Katara told her, and with a final age change she now resembled a dark reflection of Katara herself as she finished, "After all…I am you."
This last statement seemed to shock older Katara as she protested, "No, you're wrong! You're lying!"
"Katara," Sokka muttered sympathetically, then he recalled Yue and Igor's warning just as he hollered at her, "Katara, wait…!"
"I could never become a heartless monster like you!" Katara yelled at her other self. As soon as the words were past her lips, Katara collapsed in a heap on the ground, unconscious. Sokka hurried over to her, fearing the worst. When she appeared to still be alive, Sokka breathed a sigh of relief.
That relief was short lived, however, as the other Katara started to undergo radical changes: rowing radically in size, form changing and distorting, her body turning blue and becoming translucent like water or jelly. Once the changes were complete, the Shadow Katara looked more like a monstrous version of the Koizilla form Aang and La, the Ocean Spirit, took when General Zhao killed Tui.
As Sokka stood there in shock and confusion, Katara's Shadow waved its hand and a bunch of ice spiked flew at him. They would have impaled him had not Izanagi dashed in front of him, deflecting most of the spikes with his sword, taking only a couple of glancing blows on his arms and legs.
Even though it was Izanagi who got hit, Sokka felt the pain as though he was the one who got struck. As Izanagi prepared to fight back, Sokka called out, "No, Izanagi! Don't do it!"
While Izanagi looked back at him in confusion, Sokka heard the voice of Yue saying, "Sokka, you have to fight back!"
"Yue?" Sokka called out, looking for where she was at. Though he didn't see her this time, Sokka felt a million questions come to him, though he decided most of those can wait for a more appropriate moment. Instead, he said, "That thing is part of Katara, right? Won't she get hurt if we attack it, like I felt Izanagi's pain?"
"There may be some pain, yes," he heard Yue confirm.
As Sokka felt another icicle rain strike Izanagi, Sokka shook it off as he said, "I can't do it, then! I can't attack my own sister!"
"But if you don't get the Shadow to settle down, then it will kill Katara," Yue reasoned with him, "Isn't saving her life worth causing her a little pain?"
The thought of that thing killing Katara foremost on his mind, Sokka drew his sword and charged at the shadow, swinging his sword at it when he was close enough, though it seemed to pass harmlessly through the creature's leg. As Sokka looked at the damp blade of his sword in confusion, the Shadow smacked him with a backhand hard enough to stun him against the wall far behind him.
As he shook his head to clear it, he saw his Persona pressing its attack against the Shadow, apparently assuming it was given leave to do so now. Though Izanagi's sword passed through the shadow just as Sokka's had, it did seem to have more effect against it, if only marginally so. Then as Izanagi swung his sword again, Sokka saw sparks of lightning dance along its blade, and the Shadow screamed as if it did some real damage this time.
"My Persona can lightningbend?" Sokka said in confusion, then he called out, "All right! Izanagi, hit it again with lightning-slice, Raikouzan!"
Izanagi slashed the Shadow again with another lightning-enhanced blade attack, and the Shadow sagged to one knee as Sokka told him, "Now hit it with a lightning strike, Zio!"
The Shadow writhed under the lightning blast Izanagi shot at it, then it fell still and vanished as Sokka saw the scene waver around him, changing back into the Velvet Room, and he saw Igor and Yue standing before him as Yue beamed at him and said, "Good job, Sokka! You did it!"
Sokka nodded as he asked her, "Why did you disappear earlier, Yue? I'm sure that Katara would have liked to see you again, and it would have been easier to convince her of what I was saying and we could have avoided this whole ordeal."
"I was able to enter this realm to serve as your guide and yours alone," Yue explained, "Unless it becomes absolutely necessary, I won't appear to anyone else but you, but I will continue to watch over you and provide you guidance when you need it."
"That's kind of a bummer, but I guess you have to do what you must," Sokka acknowledged.
Yue nodded, then she said, "And now you need to go back, as Katara will be recovering soon."
Igor templed his fingers as he said, "I will be looking forward to seeing how you've grown soon, young Sokka."
Sokka found himself standing over Katara as she began to stir again, and he reached his hand to help her up as he asked, "Katara, are you all right?"
"I suppose so," Katara told him, holding her head as she asked, "What happened?"
"Well, you see…" Sokka started to tell her, but out of the corner of his eye he saw that Katara's Shadow was back, standing on her feet and looking like his Katara's mirror image again. He started to draw his sword, but Katara placed her hand on his arm to stop him, shaking her head no before she turned to face the Shadow and say, "You were right about my feeling out of place back at the South Pole. I loved my friends, my Gran-Gran, Dad and especially Mom, but I never felt I fit in there. And when we found Aang, all I could think of was leaving with him to find someone who could teach me how to use my waterbending properly. Then when I learned to bloodbend, I did like the power it gave me. I hated that I liked it, and I was afraid that I might end up like Hama if I gave in to it, but I cannot deny how it made me feel."
"And as for Sokka, I do find his immaturity rather annoying, as well as how he sometimes places greater import on some of the rather inconsequential things he's done," Katara added with a glance back at him, "but he is my brother, and I love him and trust him with my life. There's nobody else, except maybe Aang, that I'd rather have by my side." As she strode up to her shadow self, Katara told her, "I'm sorry if I made you feel small or insignificant by not acting on these feelings or making them known, but I promise to never act as if you do not exist ever again."
As Katara hugged her, Shadow Katara said, "Thank you." Then the Shadow changed again, becoming neither the young Katara or the huge monster, but rather another form altogether. This beautiful form was almost as tall as Izanagi though not quite, it was female in form though it was as free-flowing as the water it seemed to be made of, the only parts of it that seemed to hold their shapes at all were its hands: one hand looking soft and gentle, meant for healing and nurturing, and the other more like a claw, its razor sharp digits meant for attacking.
"Who….who are you now?" Katara asked in awe.
"She is your Persona," Sokka told his sister, "She's the hidden part of you that you accepted."
"My….Persona," Katara said as she reached up to touch her face. As she did so, the Persona disappeared, turning into an illustrated card with the caption of Priestess underneath, which she hugged to her chest as she said, "Thank you." Katara turned back towards Sokka as she said, "Sorry about running off earlier."
"That's okay, I understand," Sokka assured her, "I'm worried about the others as well."
"So there was someone behind what had happened to us?" Katara asked him.
"That's what Zuko thought," Sokka answered her, refraining from mentioning that Igor and Yue pretty much confirmed it. No need to open that particular bag again, since Yue could not show herself to Katara to confirm it.
"If so, than he or she is the worst evil that ever existed," Katara bit out with venom in her voice, "Even worse than Ozai." Then she smiled at Sokka and said, "Thanks again, Sokka. You're the best immature lout of a big brother a girl like me could hope for."
"Anytime," Sokka told her with a smile of her own. As they hugged, an archway behind the throne lit up with a blinding radiance and Katara asked, "You think that leads to where the others are?"
Sokka held out his hand and said, "Only one way to find out." Katara took his hand in hers and together they raced through the illuminated passage.
