The pallet in the head cabin had once been a safe haven, a small, comfortable, rectangle of protection after a long day of battle. But now it wasn't. Now it was a hard, unforgiving board that made Hakoda itch to break something, and he lay on it in tense discomfort as an awkward fold in the pelt beneath him rubbed the skin in between his shoulder blades raw. He could hear the other men clanking about on deck. He guessed it was around mid day, he wouldn't know. The men had let their once punctual habits fall loose, and Hakoda had slept well into the morning. Even when he woke he didn't leave his pallet.

He had not been sleeping well the past few days, and if the circles under his eyes were no indication then he wished someone else could feel the fatigue that had settled deep into his bones. He did not eat much, attempting to try and preserve what little food they had for the young and sick, and what little water he drank came from sucking snow. Kanna paid little attention, and Katara failed to notice due to her consistent fretting over Sokka, who needed it more.

Hakoda swung his feet down off the cot, grimacing as his stale socks hit the ground with an unpleasant noise, and then made his way onto the deck as he pulled on his parka.

None of the remaining men looked much better than himself. There were only six men left from the eleven in the village (if you counted Sokka, which he did), and they were all sitting around deck, fiddling with odds and ends, waiting for Kanna to signal that it was safe to come back to the village. At around sunhigh two days ago, everyone took a turn for the worst. Fevers spiked, food regurgitated, blood spit up. Kanna had sent them all away immediately, telling them that if they were to even consider coming back before she signaled them she would personally castrate them. They had all returned to the ship sullenly, lazing about, sleeping through the night, and then repeating. There wasn't much to do on the ship. They weren't moving, so nothing needed watched or pulled or manned, and really what else do you do on boat?

"Hey, she's here!" Nunuq shouted, pointing out over the boat. The men all scurried over to where Nunuq was standing and peered out over the edge. Upon seeing Kanna approaching them in the snow, the all began to ask questions.

"Can we come back?"

"Has anyone died?"

"Have they gotten better?"

Kanna raised her hand for silence.

"No, you may not return just yet." Grumbles and angry jabs were made, and Kanna glared at them all briefly, before raising her chin in high position, "However, we are all in need of food. It would be useful if you would fish and hunt. Not only would it replenish our stock, but perhaps it would do something to ease your minds for the time being."

Hakoda nodded with no words. He went to the small cabinet attached to the hut on deck and swung it open. Reaching in, he removed the nets and the hunting harpoons. He tossed them in the men's direction, not caring that the harpoons were sharp and someone could get hurt.

"Get going." He said flippantly, "We split into groups of two. I'll go with Bato, Rou with Nunuq, and I want Nunka and Kesuk together."

Hakoda swept his arms out, gesturing to the ocean as the men picked up their needed supplies, "Three groups, three directions. Mother, is Saghani using the smokehouse for her herbs?"

Kanna shook her head, "No, and it's unoccupied, you can bring your catchings there."

"You heard her." Hakoda said. The men all paired together respectively and trudged down the gangplank towards the canoes. Bato gave Hakoda a long, contemplative look, but didn't press on to ask questions.

Hakoda was thankful for this. Had someone asked him right then if he was alright, he would have exploded.

OoOoOoO

Hakoda leaned back against the front of the canoe, letting out a long breath. Bato hunched, leaning over the edge of the canoe slightly, the sharp hunting harpoon perched on his shoulder in ready position. At Hakoda's noise of discontent Bato spent him a glance.

"What?" Hakoda asked, his voice tinged with irritation.

Bato shook his head and returned his eyes to the water. He could see its shadow beneath the canoe. He was a large thing, perhaps the length of Bato's arm. His scales were silver, and they glinted in the light of day. His back fins, a light blue in the sun, spurred up a little as he came to a slow swim beneath them, feeling the men's presence, but electing to ignore it. This decision led to his demise. The harpoon was out of Bato's hands before Hakoda could so much as blink, and the rope was pulled tight, ripping back and forth through the water as the fish thrashed, blood bubbling up to stain the water red.

Bato leaned his body back, clearly struggling while pulling the fish into the boat. Hakoda just watched. He managed to pull the head over, but was barely able to keep it in the boat as he groped around in the red water for its tail. He found it and, gripping it tightly in his slippery fingers, hoisted its back end up and into the boat, all while Hakoda watched.

Finally, the fish sat in between them, lying sideways in the boat, belly towards Bato. Hakoda scanned the fish with his eyes. It was huge, long as Bato's arm, and quite fat. It could feed the village belly full for near a day, and any leftover pieces could be contributed to two days worth of broth and stew, along with the spare bones for small trinkets and subtle uses.

"Nice." Hakoda said. Bato scowled.

"Yeah. Thanks for all your help by the way, much appreciated."

Bato spent no time rolling up his sleeves and pulling off his sopping wet mittens. He retrieved a whale bone hunting knife from his pack and began to dress the fish. He looked at Hakoda back and forth as he worked, only once glancing long enough to spur his friend.

"What ?" Hakoda bit out. He wasn't angry, Bato knew him well enough to know that, but rather he was attempting to be mean in order to be left alone. Bato wouldn't have it, but he had ways of opening Hakoda up without starting a fist fight in the middle of the ocean.

So he shook his head and looked back down at the fish, "Nothing, nothing at all."

"Then why do you keep looking at me?" He snapped.

Bato looked back up at his friend, his patience waning. Was there a nice way to put this? Nope. Bato dug his hand into the open belly of the fish before him grabbed a handful of thick, meaty, blood covered pieces.

Holding them up for Hakoda to see, he said, "You see this? This is what you look like."

Hakoda sat up from his laid back position and pulled off his mitten. He reached forward and lifted a long stringy piece of the fish guts from Bato's hand and threw it at the man across from him. It stretched across Bato's chest in midair before falling into his lap, leaving a long red line from pit to pit on his parka.

Bato threw the guts into the water, but instead of rinsing his hand off, he smacked his blood covered palm into the center of Hakoda's forehead. Hakoda froze for a moment, feeling the sticky wetness in his hair, feeling his skin tighten as the blood began to freeze in the cool air. He retaliated though, and it wasn't long before the two were in a fight of sorts. There were no closed fists, so it was more like a sissy fight that you would see in a school yard. Quick smacks and pushes, occasional hair pulling. They probably looked ridiculous.

It all stopped when Hakoda tackled Bato, leaping over the fish and shoving him back against the seat behind him. Bato cried out slightly, baring his teeth in a grimace. Hakoda straddled him easily, pushing down on his chest in order to keep him from jumping back up. They were both breathing heavily, glaring at one another. Hakoda shook his head.

"You are so not worth it." He said childishly. He climbed off of Bato's chest and turned to go back to his seat. When he had one foot over the fish, Bato launched forward and tripped him. Hakoda fell forward, smashing his chin on the hard wooden seat and sinking two teeth through the side of his tongue.

"You may be above continuing stupid disputes," Bato said, climbing onto Hakoda's back and pulling him over to face up, "But I'm not."

And so it continued.

Diligently.

Laughter, loud and brimming with mirth suddenly filled the tundra, echoing off the ice and ricocheting across the water. Bato and Hakoda stopped their slapping and pulling long enough to turn and look behind them. There, along the ice and snow, was Nunka and Kesuk. Kesuk wore a small grin, eyebrows raised, indicating amusement, whereas Nunka's shoulders shook heavily, his hands half suspended in the air, mouth agape, straight out bellowing with laughter. Bato and Hakoda hastily separated themselves, both scrambling to sit stiffly on the respective ends of the boat.

"You're supposed to be on the other side of the glacier fields!" Hakoda shouted.

"Why?" Nunka replied, choking on his laughter." So you can fight like a bunch of schoolgirls in privacy?"

Hakoda's face flushed beet red and he turned away. Bato, whose face was as equally colored so, had the confidence to shout back.

"Have you caught anything?"

"Two tuna." Kesuk replied.

"Take them to the smokehouse, we'll catch up."

Nunka waved a hand as Kesuk picked up a paddle, "Later ladies!"

"Who you calling a lady little girl!" Bato shouted back, his face darkening further. He turned back around began to remove the last of the guts of the fish, "I hope he falls out of the boat."

Hakoda snorted, "Wouldn't that be something?"

OoOoOoO

The daily catches weren't much. There was Bato and Hakoda's fish, the tuna Kesuk and Nunka had pulled, and a small octopus that Rou and Nunuq had managed. It was quite bountiful on simple standards, but they would no doubt have to go fishing again in a few days. Nevertheless, the remaining six men all began to scale their catches and cut the meat into edible slivers. They were halfway finished when Kanna entered the smokehouse, her face long and sullen.

"Hakoda, Bato. Let Nunka do that, I need your help."

The two shared a look before rinsing their bloody hands in a bucket of melted snow and following Kanna out into the snow. She began to lead them towards the roundhouse.

"Mother," Hakoda spoke up, "What are we doing?"

Kanna pushed aside the thicket door in silence, not acknowledging Hakoda's question, appearing unaware that she had even heard him.

"Leave it open." She said as Bato moved to close it.

"Mother, what are we doing?" Hakoda repeated.

Kanna looked down, "Bodies."

Bato frowned, "What?"

"Bodies." Kanna said again. "We lost five today."

Hakoda felt his breath hitch in his throat. Five. They had lost five people in a day? It was awful, the plague was getting worse.

"I need you two to wrap them up and put them on the burn pile." Kanna said. She kept her voice flat and emotionless, but beneath was a distinct tone of grief. Of strife and helplessness, Hakoda noted.

He nodded, "Alright, where are they?"

"Outside," She said, "They were beginning to stink."

OoOoOoO

The corpses had all been lazily piled over one another, all turned face down, disabling Hakoda from identifying them. Kanna had supplied them with old worn out pelts and a single tattered tent cover to wrap the bodies in.

It felt as though someone had shoved a ball of otterwolf fur in the back of Hakoda's throat. With a thick swallow, he set the pelt down and turned over the first body.

Maru, the kind woman that had once cared for Sokka when he had gotten sick for first time after Kya died.

Hakoda tried not to grimace, but he did anyway. Her skin was pale and ashen, her eyes sunken deep into her skull. Her face itself looked like a skeleton. She had become so thin in her last days that every bone in her once plump face was eerily defined. He and Bato made quick work of her, binding her tightly in the tattered tent cover. Hakoda laid her body out on the burn pile. With a face of stone, he turned to the next.

Shilo, a fierce warrior, husband to Buniq, and proud father of Aput, the little boy that had died several days before.

His eyes were open, staring out into the blue sky with a dead glare. Hakoda shut them. He and Bato wrapped him in an otterwolf pelt, tying it in place with a strip of brown cloth. They laid his body out beside Maru's, leaving a small bit of room in between them. Bato rolled over the next, being as it was small, and if Hakoda were to touch a dead child he would snap.

Nilak, Nunka's little sister, fraternal twin to Nasak. Bato remembered, she had always insisted on doing everything that boys did. Being the only girl in her family, she found it a small sense of normalcy.

Bato wrapped her in a fox pelt, the dull orange in deep contrast to the white snow. He laid her out gently in between Maru and Shilo, letting the little girl take comfort in an adult's presence one more time. Maybe they would scare the monsters away. He and Hakoda rolled the next one over together.

Innu, Ulva and Rou's eldest son, a new warrior, the youngest official one in the tribe, having only seen a single battlefield.

Neither of them even looked at him as they bound his body in an otterwolf pelt. Bato remembered the first time they had stopped on their two year journey. Bato and Hakoda had seen plants and sand and expensive wood before, having been on journeys before Innu was so much as a twinkle in his mothers eye. Innu hadn't, they had all been tempted to yell at the boy for wandering off into the humble earth kingdom town, but they didn't. Instead they hung back a small ways, watching in amusement as the seventeen year old ran about, from stall to stall, in awe and admiration of everything that so much as blew in the wind.

They laid him out on top of Shilo, the two bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces. The puzzle made Hakoda feel sick. They both gasped as they rolled the last one over.

Auga, wife of Kesuk, mother of Koko, the proudest woman of the southern water tribe.

Kesuk was going to lose it. First, his child, that he had never even been able to see, then his wife, his pride and joy. They both bound her hastily for no particular reason. Hakoda remembered when Kesuk had first started chasing Auga. They were young of course, but Kesuk was set on marrying that woman. He had done everything in his power to get her to pay attention to him, from flowers to silly little notes and poems. She had refused his advances until her sixteenth birthday, when he approached her with a betrothal necklace. She had accepted his offer immediately, putting the necklace on gracefully before wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him square on the lips in front of the entire village.

They laid her down on top of Maru. They began to pile sticks and logs along the burn pit side, preparing for it to be lit at sundown.

Neither of them spoke a word.

OoOoOoO

Sundown came too quickly for Hakoda's liking, and he wrinkled his nose in anger and frustration as the last orange sliver slipped beneath the horizon. Everyone had been informed of the losses, and to whom they belonged too. Rou had disappeared into the tundra for several hours, to privately mourn the loss of his son, before the body burnt and his soul was sent off to the spirit world.

They all now stood before the burn pile. The flames danced high in the air, licking the sky with shining tongues. The small was awful, like someone had left meat on the coals. Though, Hakoda supposed, that was what was happening really.

Kesuk sat in the sand, a little too near the burn pile for Hakoda's comfort, but he didn't dare move him. Kesuk's face was blank and emotionless, but the light made his wet cheeks shine, illuminating each tear as it fell. He turned away.

Hakoda had not cried when Kya died. He had wrapped the body in tight blue cloth, laying it on the burn pile as if she were made of glass. They had lit the fire at sundown, like now, but the second the flames began to blacken the cloth Hakoda had feinted, dropping back onto the snow like a fallen tree. He had not watched his wife go on to the afterlife. He regretted that, at least he could make up for it now.

I hope I ripped your hearts out. Just kidding! No I'm not, really man I'm trying to channel feelings.
-PoisonBones

P.S. Petitioning for fan art, anyone interested?