To Honour the moment
Hi everyone! Sorry I'm taking so long translating. I'm going to have some important exam next week, and it kind of rub on my nerves... As always, thanks to Avocadolove for making my story readable, and to my readers for, well, reading it. :-)
Chapter 2: And may madness finish you off (Part 2/3)
A little calmer now, he let his eyes sweep the glaciers hiding his ship from view. He couldn't see the village from where he was. The dark circle, formed by enormous sentries and by the sea's grim lapping, was really cutting him off. Almost like a cell. Furrowing his brows, he was barely able to make out a thin wisp of smoke rising from the ground some miles away.
It would take at least two hours to reach the camp on foot…
His eagerness was starting to cloud over. Of what use could they be? A handful of peasants who probably never had left this Agni-forsaken hole in all their existence… He didn't need to go and find them. He had to find his uncle, his crew, as quickly as possible… His heart tightened painfully in his chest at the thought of all of them still being alive, somewhere, lost in this ice desert. But how, why…
During those three chaotic days, he had done his best to not think about the lugubrious mystery surrounding their disappearance. The lack of sleep had helped, in a way…
However, now that he was stuck in the snow with no droning nor screeches of a mad ship to occupy his mind, all the hypothesis and sick apprehensions lashed out at him, more fiercely than ever.
Each theory was more nightmarish than the next, and none of them was even possible: his crew couldn't have been captured, couldn't have fled, couldn't have vanished into thin air. No plausible explanation came to mind, except for this absurd, alarming vision of group suicide that he wouldn't think about. In the end, he always came back to this retarded tale in which aquatic monsters drove the sailors mad with their beautiful songs, so they would throw themselves into the sea. But that was also stupid: even if such creatures really did exist, why on earth would he be the only one spared of all the crew? He had no way of knowing what kind of beasts populated the southern ocean anyway…
As if roused from a trance, he lifted his head and casted his eyes towards the wisp of smoke, resolutely.
That was it.
These people had spent their whole life in the South Pole. The men from the Water Tribes were reputed all around the world to be outstanding sailors: they knew every current, every spirit that haunted this land. The ocean held no secret for them.
They might have already heard of such disappearances on their territory. They might know what had happened to his men. They might…
His nerves were on fire. This new hope seemed so tangible that only sheer willpower prevented him from leaving the ship at once and walking straight to the village. He leaned heavily against the guardrail, grasping the ice cold metal with one hand, and forced himself to cool down. He was slowly becoming aware of the shivers running down his back and legs, of a headache around the bruise on his temple, worsened by first signs of fever.
"You have to rest, Prince Zuko, said his uncle, his voice gentle yet brooking no reply. Try to sleep. You are going to need your strength…"
He supposed it wasn't absurd.
The furnace didn't make the ship vibrate anymore; from his cabin he couldn't hear the wind's murmur. The silence was complete, suffocating, and as heavy as a corpse. The four candles had fallen from the table during the manoeuvre and were now scattered on the floor. He didn't bother to replace them. His head was still hurting, and in spite of the blanket he had covered himself with he couldn't warm up. Maybe it was the pain, or the cold, or even this unmoving floor he wasn't used to any longer, after all those weeks living at sea, that kept him from falling asleep. His body and mind were bubbling over, and yet he was hardly able to keep his eyes open.
His head was buzzing with vague, painful thoughts, broken by nightmares each time he would get lost on the threshold of sleep. He kept coming back to the people of the South Pole, to the intense, improbable hope he had of finding a lead that would get him to his men. To his uncle…
But why would these people help him? He was their enemie's prince. Wouldn't they be looking forward to seeing him freeze to death on their land, all alone? He couldn't imagine them other than indifferent. His exhausted mind pictured them huge and motionless, cruel; not unlike the glaciers surrounding him in the dark… Strange spirits were coiling up round their arms, like snakes of smoke; pale, glassy stares were penetrating to his very bones, he couldn't move, and little by little his skin was getting covered with frost…
He had to wake up to think straight again. Those people were refugees, for Agni's sake, peasants, not mythological monsters… In his apprehension, he straightened up on the mattress, rubbing his temples and giving up on getting any rest. The torch fire was growing weaker; the cabin was slowly sinking into an eerie, red-glowing darkness. His little furniture had already been swallowed. The whole room seemed to be closing up on him like a trap. So small among empty iron…
But the Water Tribe had no way of knowing that this ship was empty, would they?
His heartbeat was getting faster. Exactly. No matter the severity of his situation, they couldn't just deduce that he had come to their land abroad a phantom ship, alone and vulnerable. And even if they were weird enough to suspect such a thing, no one was going to venture into his ship and make sure it really was filled with an army of firebenders ready to burn them alive… His excitement had increased; the young prince couldn't stay still any longer. He had to throw back the blanket: the room's rigid silence was getting unbearable.
So if he came to them and pretended to be some sort of messenger…it would seem normal to forbid them to go near his ship. And it wouldn't seem absurd that no Fire Nation soldier would be seen on their territory as long as his conditions were observed…
It reeked of blackmail. Of bluff, even. Yet he didn't have time to waste feeling remorse: he had to find his crew back, and quick. If they really were roaming with no resources about this hellish land…
Even the carpets were cold under the sole of his feet as he paced up and down.
In order to gain the information he needed without sounding too suspicious…he would just have to pretend that he was investigating on the disappearance of another crew, on another ship, not far from here. It could be the goal of his ship's expedition. He would offer them safety in exchange for their cooperation, and no one would take the risk of doubting his word…
He stopped at the centre of the room. His heart was racing; steam was going out of his nostrils with the energy he was expending to warm up his body. He could face them. Right now, if he wanted to. The torch fire was going out: in the growing darkness, the slight hissing of the embers sounded like an inhuman breath. As if some dark creatures were lying in wait in the corners of the cabin, spying on him. He shook his head disdainfully, yet left the room.
Trying to sleep really was doing him no good.
In desperation he decided to go and feed the komodo rhinos: he might as well do something that would be at least a little bit useful. Deal with real living beings instead of those feverish apparitions.
Stave off his devouring need for a human presence, at last, after this utter, three-days-long, never-ending loneliness…
One could hear the racket of the loose boxes from several corridors away: the rhinos hadn't enjoyed the mooring too much. They were now roaring wildly and trying their earnest to demolish the walls. The whole room was shuddering under the assaults of a dozen horned foreheads, aggravating the prince's headache. The hoarse groans increased twofold when he came in, filled with a tone that sounded unpleasantly like reproach. A few flames appeared between the knuckles of his clenched fists.
Those damn creatures hadn't done a thing to make the mooring easier: if there was someone in this crazy ship who had a reason to scream and complain, it was him!
So it was with a great many swears and vociferations that the teenager went inside each of the loose boxes and refilled the mangers, pushing bad-temperedly away the hard, huge flanks that threatened to crush him against a wall. The familiar sound of their young master's screams, as well as the slices of raw meat at mouth's reach, were gradually calming the animals. It was in a relative silence that Zuko reached the last, most spacious loose box of the room.
The rhino inside, a powerful creature whose thick skin scratched the hands like a granite wall, had remained stoic in midst of the widespread hysteria. It moved graciously out of the young prince's way, yet didn't seem to mind poking at his chest with its imposing muffle so as to sniff at the food. An unimpeachable discipline and a greedy guts: his uncle often had insinuated, when he really wanted to aggravate him, that his nephew had a lot to learn from this animal. Zuko seized one of its horns, exasperatingly:
"You'd better not slobber on me, he growled as menacingly as he could, fixing his eyes on his mount's black one. Still, Orm."
He had named it on his twelfth birthday, when the animal had been offered to him. Orm, the legend's dragon-god, mistaken for a fuming volcano when asleep. Azula had found it ridiculous, of course. Yet the rhino had never complained about being called after a mythological creature; the single syllable rolled in a pleasant way on the firebender's tongue, as if he had bitten into embers. In any case Orm was one of the few elements from his former life that he had been allowed to keep with him in exile.
The name he had chosen to give his komodo rhino was none of his sister's business.
Obedient, the animal didn't move its colossal head as its meal was served. He was now slavering copiously in his manger and gulping down the meat almost without chewing. Arms crossed, Zuko leant against the dark, stone-hard frill, and watched the rhino stuff itself with a mix of annoyance and unexplainable appeasement.
"I'm going to a refugees' village. To ask them for help."
He was speaking slowly, taking advantage of the animal's presenceto think out loud.
"They are peasants, and enemies of the Fire Nation, but they're familiar with this place. They may know where all those idiots are."
Orm didn't stop chewing; nevertheless a small black eye was set in motion on his face of stone and considered its master, patient and attentive.
"It can't be more stupid than talking to a war mount anyway, can it?" Zuko went on with some irritation.
Nonetheless the teenager stayed a few minutes more, watching the animal eat, then fall asleep, before he left the room and wandered yet again through the dark corridors. Why did the torches keep going out? It was really getting on his nerves… A deep weariness had taken over his body and mind, tightening like a vice around his head. He was cold, in spite of the crimson coat, and he realized with exasperation that he was stinking of rhino.
Among the permanent grounds for annoyance, when living aboard a war ship, Zuko had put the hygiene almost at the top of the list: it was execrable in this little metal tin where fresh water must be saved at all costs. He suddenly remembered that he didn't need to save anything, any longer. He liked the idea.
What's more, in the state of exhaustion and strain he was in, it probably was the best way of staying operational.
There were two washrooms in the whole ship, empty and badly-lit, with a close-meshed grating by way of a floor so the dirty water would fall in the ocean. As members of the royal family, the room that was in the best condition had been reserved for Iroh and his nephew, filled with barrels of rainwater in order to prevent them from tedious trips. It was a poor privilege, though: this place too was gloomy, with traces of rust even beginning to blossom in the dankest corners.
Despite everything Zuko took a sour pleasure in filling a basin to the brim, carelessly, not having to worry about the damn liquid's waste. He had to bite back a groan as he plunged his arms into the icy water; yet again he had to summon the fire in his chest, strive to take deep breaths in spite of the inhuman cold sucking up the air from his lungs, until heavy curls of smoke rose towards the ceiling. With a fierce joy he turned the basin upside-down above his head and let the torrent of boiling hot water collapse on his shaved head and naked shoulders, the intensity of the contrast almost knocking him senseless.
He had to repeat the process a dozen times for the heat to finally penetrate through his skin. His whole body was steaming; a thick cloud had engulfed the room. The few torches had been quickly smothered by humidity: the darkness was complete, moist, undulating.
It reminded the young prince of the other torches, back in the corridors: they went out just as inexorably fast, no matter how hard he tried to rekindle them, and even though the air around them was perfectly dry.
As if some shadow lurking in his footsteps was applying to blow out all light behind him…
Had three days of this insane situation driven him paranoid? Zuko was tense in spite of the hot vapours; he couldn't quite suppress the feeling of being spied on through the moist screen of darkness. It didn't make any sense, of course: aside from a few komodo rhinos, there was no one but him in all the damn ship. Which was the real problem.
Nevertheless an unpleasant sensation of vulnerability lingered. He hastened to slip back into his clothes.
He didn't really know why, before leaving the room, he took the trouble to examine the floor one last time. Perhaps he needed to concentrate on a problem that would be purely material, for once. Lighting a small flame in the crook of his palm, he saw that rust had well and truly eaten into the metal in places. Now that he was thinking about it, he had already noticed such damage in the least busy parts of the ship.
One more thing he could add to the list of reproaches he would level at his men, as soon as he had got them all out of trouble…
From the slight quickening of his heartbeat and his deeper, steadier breathing, he could feel that dawn was drawing on. It was a good time to set off. What's more he was fed up with this place, with the ghostly presence that seemed to be haunting the empty corridors, with those damn torches that kept going out for no reason. He wanted to hear the wind's murmur outside; he wanted to see once again that tiny wisp of smoke, fraying far away. Only the necessity of looking in his cabin for clothes that wouldn't smell of pachyderm was still keeping him there.
Bent over the chest, Zuko wondered briefly whether it would be appropriate to go to the village with his armour on. Messenger or not, he was still venturing into enemy territory… However his uncle retorted that the Southern Water Tribe had suffered enough from Fire Nation armies already. Their attacks had been bloody and merciless: by coming to them dressed as a soldier, all his nephew would accomplish was terrorizing them or increasing their anger. Nodding to the imaginary advice, the teenager fastened a simple leather plastron under his cloak.
His eyes had grown accustomed to obscurity: when the black horn serving as the ship's prow fell to form a ramp to the ice field, he was nearly dazzled by the dim light of dawn. All trace of wind had faded with the last stars; silence had crystallised the air. Zuko felt somewhat curious as the dense snow crunched under the sole of his boot, giving way a little as he made a step forward, then another.
The pale sun was making the icebergs and the ground sparkle like jewels. The young firebender had never seen so much snow so close. The landscape was almost beautiful, bathed in morning light, an unknown beauty that made him feel strangely exposed, awkward, not unlike those footsteps disrupting the perfect, immaculate snow.
A breath of icy wind pulled him out of his contemplative torpor and, wrapping the cloak tighter around him, he started to walk faster. The cold was hurting his teeth, chafing his lungs; he concentrated on his inner fire, the familiar forge breath making the heat circulate along his bones. His face was grim yet again. How could anyone even consider living in this hell? The air tasted of frost: each breath made his empty stomach lurch unpleasantly. Maybe he should have tried to eat something before setting off…
No way was he turning about, though. Zuko had just found the tiny wisp of smoke, in the horizon; he focused all his attention on this light quivering in the sky. The rest would wait.
The ground was uneven, crumbling in places and he had to endure several minutes of unsteady, downright humiliating walk before he could finally find his balance. Nevertheless there was a kind of gratifying pleasure in pacing this still land bathed in dawn light, flat and endless like an open door to infinity. The young prince was too excited to remember anything about his tiredness: it didn't take him long to reach the icebergs' belt hiding his ship from view.
It was deathly cold in the glaciers' shadow, a bluish, translucent cold. The too-pale sun was shining above the ice sculptures without dispensing any warmth. Without turning back, Zuko left his ship's leaning skeleton behind, among the ice mountains, and went on his way.
It was only two hours later that he could finally see the small fortifications of snow. The uneven walls seemed even more fragile, lost in midst of the frozen desert. One could make out the top of this weird house built with snow, an "igloo", he thought its name was. The smoke was going up regularly in the colourless sky. The teenager's heart was thundering against his temples, aggravating his dizziness. His throat seemed to have tightened, yet he refused to think that he was afraid.
Could they already see him, little blood-red stain on the perfection of their snow?
His pace had slowed down a bit. He was supposed to act like a messenger: he should probably send some sort of sign to make them understand his intentions…
It took him a full minute to remember a truce sign, none having been used for nearly a hundred years. Without much conviction, yet seriously, he finally raised both arms above his head and summoned a flame in his cupped hands. He let it shine in the morning light before lowering his ablaze palms towards the village, as if in offering. When the fire went out between his fingers, he stood still, watching indecisively out for the small walls of snow.
The sign must have been a bit unclear, for as he was about to set out again, a peasant armed with a spear appeared from behind the walls, screaming and rushing towards him. Puzzled, Zuko watched him come closer, the sparkle of snow making his eyes narrow.
He definitely didn't look anything like a mythological monster. Judging by his voice and figure, he even seemed quite young. Not a very good warrior, at that: he was maybe thirty meters away from the firebender, and yet he kept running straight towards him, as if seriously hoping to hit him with this stick that served him as a weapon. As the distance separating them grew shorter, the prince could make out the pieces of his light, bluish armour, and take in the most vulnerable parts.
His skin was dark, as he had been told, brown like damp earth. That was strange: he had imagined those people completely black, an inhuman colour that would make them invisible at night. At a distance, he almost looked like a native of his own country who would have spent a bit too much time in the sun…
He was coming at last. Applying himself as if for an exercise, Zuko swivelled round in one fluid gesture, snatched the rudimentary weapon and let the other fall flat on the snow. The spear was light in his hand, almost like a toy. He didn't know what to do with it, and had to refrain from just snapping it in two. He ended up putting the thing under the peasant's throat, freezing him to the spot as he was about to brandish some strange curved weapon.
They stayed still a few moments, one standing, the other half slumped in the snow, staring at each other with a morbid fascination.
His opponent was about his age. He was breathing laboriously after his fall, yet his eyes were fixed on the huge scar, the young prince's disfigured face, with a mixture of disgust and defiance. His eyes were well and truly the colour of ice, contrasting sharply with the black pupil. However the pale pigment didn't really make him seem blind, as Zuko had thought it would.
At least it proved that the damn nightmare really had been absurd…
Shaking his head, he tried to focus on the present situation. It wasn't going well at all. He wasn't supposed to find himself in such a situation, threatening the first peasant that came along with some primitive weapon.
If he started playing assailant, he would never see the end of it.
"I'm not here to fight", he said.
He winced at how weary his voice sounded, almost hollow against the pole's ice-cold wind.
"Lower your weapon, peasant", he went on in a firmer tone.
Then he took a step backwards, lowering the spear to give an example. The other one stood up slowly, one hand still grasping the metal object on his back, his weird pale eyes wide with consternation. Standing up, the two teenagers were about the same height. The light armour his opponent had put on made his shoulders look broader, while Zuko seemed almost frail in his crimson cloak.
The peasant stopped glaring at him only to glance quickly in the horizon, where the young prince had come from, as if he expected a whole army dressed in blood-red armours to materialize in the fog.
"What the hell do you take me for?" He suddenly exploded. "After all the times you Fire Nation jerks came to destroy the village, what am I supposed to think? That you travelled all the way here just to say hi?"
Heated by his own words, he had taken out his weapon and was watching the prince intently. Zuko's headache only managed to aggravate him a bit more:
"If I had really wanted to destroy this heap of snow you call a village, you idiot, I would have come with an armour and soldiers. Maybe you would like me to go back and get them?"
He was about to go on with his invectives and add that you really must have nothing to do with your time to consider sailing all the way to this hellish land just to finish the demolition of some wretched Agni-forsaken hole lost among the icebergs. Yet he remembered his role in time and tried to carry on more calmly:
"I was sent as messenger. Take me to the…chief of this place; or anyone with a bit of authority, it doesn't matter. No harm will be done to your tribe."
There was another long, uncomfortable pause as his opponent thought it over, still eyeing him distrustfully. Zuko had to hold back an aggravated groan. His plan had seemed a lot simpler when he had made it up the previous night, among the oppressive solitude of his ship… However the peasant's eyes had come to rest on the small snow fortifications, the only thing protecting the camp from the outside world. With a sigh, he finally lowered his weapon.
"Follow me", he grumbled. "But I'm warning you: I'm responsible for this village, so you really had better keep your word. No magic fire, or any of your other tricks; I've got my eye on you. And give me my spear back!"
The young prince would have been tempted to retort something: what kind of irretrievable illiterate called firebending "magic fire"? But the exhaustion kept weighing down his body and mind. Horrible weariness. He was tired of standing in midst of this ice desert, exposed to the wind piercing his bones. So he threw the stick to its owner without a word and nodded to all of his conditions.
When Zuko started walking again, the Water Tribe teenager was close behind, hands clasped around his spear; but at least he didn't seem about to throw his weird weapons in his face anymore. His features were hardened by distrustfulness, as well as some kind of offended expression that might have something to do with his pathetic battle. Or maybe the situation had just become too complicated for his peasant's brain: the young prince was enough keyed up as it was and didn't want to tire himself thinking about it. It was the other who broke the silence, speaking between gritted teeth:
"Still, for a messenger, it wouldn't have hurt to make your intentions a bit clearer…"
"I have made myself perfectly clear. It's not my fault you can't understand a truce sign, peasant."
"Well, it's not my fault those past hundred years you Fire Nation guys rather burn everything you cross than send truce signs, Scarface!"
Yet again, only sheer exhaustion prevented him from challenging the idiot to a duel. He clenched his fists hard enough to unsolder his phalanx; steam was beginning to come out of his nostrils, until he remembered that he had promised not to use his "magic fire". Resigned, he carried on walking towards the opening in the snow walls, focusing with all his might on his uncle's imaginary placating words, looking straight forward in case the damn peasant would have the nerve to snigger about his childish victory.
The uneven walls didn't look much like anything up close. Zuko was surprised to see that they protected efficiently the inhabitants from the polar wind, so much so that when he entered the village, the temperature was almost bearable. There were just a few tents around the igloo, but it was still hard to believe that this handful of women and children, massed before the two teenagers and staring at the firebender with a frightened consternation, could really constitute the whole Southern Water Tribe.
The young man had stopped in the ring of stares, about forty pale eyes fixing the hideous scar that had eaten away his face. He felt very exposed in his scarlet coat, and wasn't used to seem so tall among a group. Huge and cruel like icebergs? Yet again Zuko cursed the absurdity of his nightmare: the peasant who had attacked him seemed to be the only male here. It was almost distraughtly that the banished prince looked at those young children, those old women, having been for several weeks around no one but the sailors and soldiers of his ship.
It was all so strange that, for a second, he forgot why he had come here in the first place: mothers were clasping their toddlers against their legs as if they could catch fire at any moment; he didn't know why this seemed to harden the knot of his entrails. His head felt heavy, burning hot against the icy air. He was out of place here, the only inhabited place in all this snow-buried land…
He suddenly realized that his head was beginning to tilt over his left shoulder in a vain, instinctive attempt at hiding his burned skin from their look. But he had overcome this ludicrous habit two years ago already. He spitefully lifted up his head and took a step forward, his eyes sweeping the group of strangers, as though trying to glare at all of them with the same intensity they were inflicting him.
"Who is responsible for this village?"
He would have liked his voice to resound more strongly around him, to not give away so much his tiredness and nervous strain. But maybe he was the only one hearing the shivers reverberating to his very bones…
"The guy says he's some messenger from the Fire Nation", the teenager behind him added with caution. "I had him promise no one would attack us before I let him in."
He hadn't quite finished his sentence when an old woman stepped out of the crowd and forward. Like the others, her small figure was engulfed in a thick blue coat edged with furs. The wrinkles chapping her face underlined the uncompromising expression in her pale eyes. She ignored the girl beside her, about the prince's age, who was trying to hold her back.
Curiously her eyes, widened by fear, weren't the colour of ice: it was a darker blue, deeper, that reminded him of his homeland's ocean in summers' nights. He couldn't make out the expression in them.
"It is uncommon", the elder said calmly, "for the Fire Nation to dispatch messengers to our lands. Who sent you?"
For a moment the unexpected question caught him off guard, and he said nothing. In the still, ice-cold air, it was as if his head was caught in a vice: it hurt to think… And was it even normal for a messenger to be spoken to so bluntly?
He didn't know anymore.
"He's…I'm under General Iroh's command", he improvised with difficulty, inspired by the soothing voice, at the back of his mind, exhorting him to kindness and composure. "We're investigating on the disappearance of an ally crew, not far from here. Until now it has remained…inexplicable. That's why we need all the information you have concerning this event."
He wasn't sure he had been very convincing: in spite of her small body wrapped up in furs, the old woman managed to look down on him with a critical eye. The hideous scar didn't seem to impress her in the slightest as she examined his face and seemed to work out his every expression. Gradually the teenager was taking notice of the deep, dark ring under his unburned eye, of the black bruise still visible on his shaved head, of the piercing one that a control board had imprinted on his side during the mooring…
But she couldn't see this wound through his clothes, could she?
Suddenly nervous, the young man gave up on his tries to act as a messenger with some plausibility and, reprimanding himself mentally for getting into such a state because of some plain wrinkled peasant, he hurried through whatever he still had to say:
"We moored our ship about two miles away from here, eastwards. As long as nobody comes near it, and as long as you give us the information we seek, no soldier will set foot on your land. You won't have anything to fear from our being here…"
During all his short speech, he had fought against the stupid impulse to look somewhere else: the tips of his boots, the clouds, the little heap of snow on his right, anything but the piercing eyes of the old woman. The villagers surrounding them were listening silently to the dialog. Mothers were still protecting their children with their arms; it was getting on Zuko's nerves. Hadn't he just promised he wouldn't hurt anyone? Behind him the peasant had yet to lower his spear, and was grimly eyeing the distance separating the firebender from the old woman. Dozens of ice-coloured stares weighing on his spine…
He couldn't see the girl anymore.
"Your proposition sounds reasonable, the elder said at last, her expression unreadable. Very well, we accept the truce. Of course, due to the current war against the Fire Nation, we won't deliver any piece of information that could compromise us or our allies."
The young firebender nodded, relieved that they were getting somewhere. The old peasant, however, was examining his face silently and with even more intensity than before. Zuko suddenly wondered whether it had been suspicious of him to agree so quickly to her conditions, since he was supposed to have such a crushing superiority over them all. He was feeling unpleasantly transparent, not unlike those times when he had tried to hide something from his uncle. Could all old people really see into his head?
"There can be many causes to such disappearances", she went on unperturbed. "Our history is filled with mysteries similar to this one. Not to mention our legends… Anyway, we will be more at ease to talk inside: it is no use standing there waiting to catch our death."
So saying, she made a solemn gesture towards the igloo in the centre of the village, like a noble hostess. The ring of villagers immediately parted to let them through. With one look she stopped the peasant who had made a step forward, gripping his spear, and who seemed about to intervene.
"You have done well for the village, Sokka. Now lower your weapon: I won't tolerate any aggressive behaviour towards a messenger. You should tell the children they mustn't venture to the east, on no account."
While talking, she had turned her head towards the girl, the one whose eyes weren't the colour of ice, so that her last sentence seemed to be addressed to her. The young peasant, a resolute expression written on her face as if she had been given some secret mission, nodded vigorously and ran inside a tent.
Zuko, however, had no strength left to be surprised by any of this.
He had to walk almost doubled up in order to walk through a small snow passageway and enter the igloo. It was larger inside; the floor was covered with furs, giving a faint animal scent to the room, pleasantly alive after the taste of frost that the wind carried, making his stomach lurch. What's more, it was warm.
Zuko looked around him with confusion: was it really possible that the walls keeping this warmth were made of snow? It seemed so surreal…
With an authority that sounded natural to her, the old peasant told him to take off his boots as well as any weapon or piece of armour he might have on him. "We're here to parley, not to fight a duel." Zuko would have hesitated: wasn't it risky to be left so vulnerable in the middle of an enemy village? Yet the voice of his uncle reminded him that since this handful of refugees included only one fighter, they would never take the risk of harming the messenger of a powerful nation. Finally he took off his boots, with some relief after two hours of uneasy walk in the snow, as well as the leather plastron against his chest.
Then he noticed the hearth in the middle of the room, throwing orange reflections onto the rounded walls, hypnotizing him. He immediately put the cloak back over his shoulders and came to kneel as close to the flames as he could. The fire gave off a bittersweet scent, probably coming from the containers hanging above the flames. Curls of smoke and steam were rising without a sound to the opening in the centre of the ceiling: the slight quivering in the sky he had seen abroad his ship… From time to time a spark would jump in the hearth with a snap, adding to the perpetual humming that filled the room, like the breath of a sleeping animal.
It was strange and wonderful, the warmth of his element falling on his frost-bitten, fever-burned face. There was something almost magical in finding fire in this igloo, among the Southern Water Tribe, in this hostile country made of ice. The flames were crackling benevolently, strong, not mysteriously going out like the torches of his ship.
For the first time in four days, a deep sense of relief fell on the young prince's shoulders.
"It has been a long time since we last received a messenger or any visit from the outside world", the old woman said as she filled two cups with a fuming liquid, perhaps some kind of tea, from one of the containers. "I'm afraid we're now too poor to honour your presence as well as we should."
"Getting the information I seek is the only thing that matters", objected the teenager, shaking his head, in a tone he hoped to be firm.
The peasant had put a burning cup in his hands: the porcelain was delicate, and would have been splendid if years hadn't tarnished and chipped it. But it was warm between his fingers reddened by the polar wind. The elder's gestures were slow and measured, a soothing attitude that reminded him of his uncle. He could almost hear the old man's jovial reprimand: "Now, Prince Zuko, where are your manners?" so he raised the gift to his forehead and bowed slightly.
The drink was disgusting, catching in his throat with a taste of seaweeds and salt. He forced himself to swallow half of it, letting the burning liquid revive his body while he tried to suppress a grimace. His hostess hadn't stopped looking at him, yet her piercing eyes didn't seem all that menacing in the warm room…
"Take your time drinking", she said simply. "You must be tired."
The young prince failed to take offense at the peasant's speaking to him as if to a kid.
"It has been a long journey to this place…" He heard himself pronounce in a soft, weary voice he hardly recognized.
He intertwined his fingers around the porcelain, enjoying its warmth without yet daring to finish the awful liquid. In the pleasant fog relaxing his body and mind, he felt paradoxically more lucid, capable of breaking the silent horror of the disappearances, convinced that he was going to find, at last, some explanation that would lead him to his men.
He told her everything he knew about his own situation, almost with detachment: the ship had been westwards from the village when in one night the whole crew had vanished (if his hostess had a map to give him, he could show her the disappearance's exact location). The ship itself had been left intact, with no trace of degradation that could indicate a fight and provide a clue for their investigation. It had been verified that no other ship was to be found in the area during the events. For the time being, nobody knew what had become of all those men…
He realized how eerie his own story sounded; yet fear couldn't reach him. The fire was still dancing in front of him, calm and protective. All the anxiety that had seemed about to crush him in the dark, empty corridors was very distant now, like the imprecise fragments of a nightmare. Before the disgusting liquid (that, for lack of a better term, he had decided to call tea) could cool down, he emptied the cup in one gulp.
The elder was still examining him, yet Zuko couldn't worry any longer about his looking more like an exhausted refugee than a messenger. He listened as she talked for a little while: her knowledge was limited; only a trained Southern sailor could know what really concealed this ocean. Of course, they still had a few maps indicating the currents: many disappearances of ships had been caused by particularly treacherous rapids. A fair amount of their legends had also been transferred in writing: one of them might bring up similar disappearances; if he would wait here for the doyen to go and get those documents… The firbender nodded: "Any lead will do."
The old woman stood up and went to the snow passageway. Once there, she seemed to hesitate before speaking again:
"Those maps and legends are almost the only inheritance we have left from our former tribe, a hundred years ago. Has General Iroh anything to offer us in return?"
Hearing this stranger pronounce his uncle's name brought him a strange, but great relief. As if Iroh's existence being acknowledged by an outsider could increase his chances of still being alive, somewhere…
"We have money and supplies. As well as a few valuables."
"The supplies will serve us more here", she answered with half a smile.
Then the elder bowed without too much deference and left.
The young prince was now alone, huddled up close to the hearth, holding his heavy coat tight around his shoulders as he gazed at the flames. His toes, still a bit numb, were moving among the furs. He put the cup before him and allowed himself to be lulled by the humming of his homeland's element and by the warm darkness of the room. It was curious to think that a complete stranger was currently looking for the information the life of his uncle might depend on.
Curious to feel safer between these round walls made of snow, inside this small camp where only a handful of strangers separated him from a never-ending ice-desert, than he had been in his own ship…
The warm fog was getting thicker in his head, relaxing his muscles. The hearth was now only appearing to him as an orange, benevolent vapour, diagonally crossing his field of vision. The animal scent was a little stronger; he could feel the warmth of fur against his cheek, another bastion against the ice-cold atmosphere of the pole. His legs were still tucked up since he had slipped from his kneeling position. Half-conscious, he arranged the cloak so that crimson velvet would cover him up to his chin.
It would really be stupid to fall asleep in such a place, he had the time to tell himself, eyes already shut.
And like a dead leaf the thought drifted and was lost in the dark.
