So, it appears that I am getting reblogged (occasionally), which means that I'm getting new readers. If you're one of those new readers: Hi! *waves like the complete and utter dork that I am* Otherwise, I suppose that I should get on with the show, no? And, because this is for Zutara Week: Kiddies beware, for bad language lingers here. Beware!
Maelstrom, Part One
NEVER, IN ALL OF HIS FIFTEEN YEARS, HAD THE BOY SEEN A STORM LIKE THIS. The rain came at him in sheets, cold as ice and sharp as knives, the impact and the chill slicing through the heavy cloak and thick blankets that he was huddled in like they weren't even there. The wind howled like the end of the world, driving the rain into his face, lashing at his eyes. He could no longer tell up from down, right from left, north from south. Everything was a dark, endless blur, lightning slicing the heavens before blackness enveloped the world again.
He was utterly terrified, utterly alone. He didn't know what to do with this, didn't know how to respond. He had never been scared before, not once in his entire life. He dreamed of the temple, of the warmth of the fires and the sound of his own laughter echoing up and down the halls like bells chiming in a light summer breeze. He wished desperately for help, for someone to come and wrap him in their arms, for his mother and his father and the novice master, the only people who knew where he was, where he was going. He had never intended to come this far, to be gone this long. He had only wanted time to think, time to master his emotions.
I just wanted to clear my head, he pleaded with the cold, silent, unseen faces of the gods the monks had told him were mere metaphors, for all that his mother had said otherwise. Strange men were crowding around me, saying things I didn't understand, pointing at me and telling me all that I needed to do. I was disturbed and confused and I just wanted to go visit some friends for a week and clear my head.
I just wanted to think…
I just wanted…
The reins jerked, and suddenly the air bison was falling, diving down, or he assumed it was down, he didn't know anymore. His heart stopped, crawling up his throat and choking him. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He pulled at the reins, screamed words he didn't understand, would never remember. He felt like he was crying, but he couldn't be sure; he was soaked to the bone and shivering so bad that his face hurt from the clacking of his teeth. The world was spinning, spinning even worse than before. He thought a thousand-million things as the bison dove, heedless of his commands. He remembered the little village, little even by Southern Water Tribe standards, the friends he had played with, the girl he had been sweet on. He thought of his mother and his father, of Gyatso the novice master, of the strange day they laid out a thousand toys and he picked out four and his mother had burst into tears.
He thought of how they had finally told him why, the strange old men (or so they seemed to his teenage eyes) who muttered to each other in different tongues and didn't seem aware that he understood every word.
He thought of home, and how he was supposed to be back by now.
The panic rose, rose and grew until there was a keening in his ears, a high-pitched squeal unlike anything he had ever heard, something strange and horrible and he wanted to clap his hands on his ears and make it stop but he couldn't let go of the reins, was afraid that he would fly off the bench and go hurtling off into the void. He didn't know where he was and he wanted it all to stop and he wanted to go home, he never meant to run away, he was sorry, he was supposed to be back, he had meant to be back, he was sorry, so sorry, so sorry…
The world shattered, and all he knew was the light.
To call the place known as Kuujjuarapik a village would be a severe stretching of the term. Nestled in the foothills of the Polar Mountains, several days' travel from the coast, it is, in fact, more a collection of huts than something one could call a proper village. Villages and towns are for the coastal areas, where foreigners would be more likely to find something they would be comfortable calling civilization. Down in the depths of the land the thirty-or-so Southern Water Tribes call home, though, is a different land, where people are spread thin upon the ground, where isolated people corral massive herds of buffalo-yaks and the like across the endless plains, ducking and weaving out of the foothills of the aforementioned Polar Mountains, those forever snow-capped shards that punch up and threaten to tear a hole in the sky. Here, in a place like Kuujjuarapik, people live the same as they have for eons, paying little heed to the outside world. Few speak anything other than their tribal dialect, and fewer still can read or write. Occasionally, a hawk will fly down from the north, and the young men will shoulder spears and head off, called to war by the Chief, sometimes against one of the other tribes, sometimes against that selfsame outside world of which these people know little, and want to know less.
The summers are short and cool here, and the winters are long and hard. It was in the midst of one of these winters, a full year after their marriage, that a strange couple arrived, a couple who, for all of their oddness in appearance, were not only known, but expected.
They were met by what amounted to the village's elders, a half-dozen older people lead by a middle-aged man named Aariak, who hobbled a bit from the old wounds that had kept him from going with his Chief to war for several raiding seasons now. He watched the couple with a keen eye, for though he had heard much (and who wouldn't have, seeing as not only does a chief's daughter not take a husband every day, but it's even rarer for a chief's daughter to marry a banished prince from across the seas), he had never seen them for himself. They spoke to each other in a language he didn't understand, the young woman giggling at some private joke the young man had made, the young man beaming at the accomplishment. They moved as one entity, very much a pair of happy newlyweds, and Aariak looked to his wife, who nodded and let him know that it was alright for him to approve of the sight.
As the couple turned to face the delegation, all leaned forward while trying not to look like they were doing so, for the young man was throwing back the hood of his parka and sliding off his snow goggles. Like everyone, Aariak had heard of the hideous scar that marred the young man's face, and for his part, Aariak was a bit disappointed to see that, while the scar itself wasn't exactly pleasant to look at, the tales had greatly exaggerated its horror.
If anything, Aariak mused, it gives him a kind of dashing, piratical quality. I can see why the chief's daughter fell for him.
By this time, the couple had made it to the delegation, the young woman extending her hand and flashing a happy smile.
"Elder Aariak, I presume?" she asked, speaking the tribal dialect.
Aariak smiled back, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake. "That would be correct, Miss Katara, and might I take a moment to say how honored we are that you have finally made it to our humble village."
The chief's daughter laughed, dipping her head in a sign of respect. "Now Elder, be truthful: Since when have our people ever been humble?"
This time, it was everyone's turn to laugh, including the young man, though Aariak couldn't help but notice that, even after three years of living among their people, the young man didn't seem all that comfortable with the act. Aariak started to turn to him, but the chief's daughter was way ahead.
"And before we get any further," she said, moving to the young man's side and sliding an arm through the crook of his, "this is my husband, Zuko, of whom I'm sure you've all heard at least a little about."
"Only good things," Aariak said, taking the hand the young man offered and giving it a proper, manly shake. "My eldest boy," who was still away in the wars, for the Yuupik tribe's turn to guard Chameleon Bay had come up, which meant that the warriors had not returned for the winter, as was usual, "has spoken very highly of you, young man."
The young man blushed bright red, and stuttered a few times before replying. "Oh, well, you're far too kind, my lor-er, I mean, Elder." The young man started to perform what could only have been a bow, but arrested himself at the last moment, looking even more embarrassed than before. He gave himself a shake, during which the chief's daughter squeezed his arm in encouragement. "I would, however, like to take a moment to say that you have a beautiful home out here; it really is quite lovely."
Aariak wasn't so much of a country rube not to recognize courtly pleasantries when he heard them, though it seemed to make the boy feel better to fall back on them, so he just smiled and laughed, choosing to ignore the young man's almost painfully thick accent. "My thanks, Your Highness," he said, dipping his head.
The young man's remaining good eye went wide as a saucer, and he coughed awkwardly into his hand. "Oh, that's really not necessary, sir. Zuko will do just fine."
At his arm, the chief's daughter rolled her eyes. "Get over it, babe; to us, you and Azula will always be royalty." She punctuated this by popping up and pecking the young man on the cheek, which set off a round of coos and awws from the women who were watching. Turning back to Aariak, the chief's daughter dipped her head once more. "Now, as much as I would love to stand here and make my husband blush, I do believe we have some business to attend to…"
Aariak nodded. "Quite right, I'm afraid. We would, of course, be honored to invite you in for a little feast, but with the weather we've been having lately, it probably wouldn't do to put this off for too long." He half-turned away, beckoning at some of the teenage boys too young to go off to fight. "If you two will come with me…"
The chief's daughter smiled. "Lead the way!"
And off they went.
"Elder Aariak?" Katara asked, taking in the sight before her. "Just how long has this been here?"
Beside her, Aariak heaved a rather impressive shrug. "Honestly, Miss," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, face screwed up in contemplation, "I haven't the fainted idea. It's not unusual for the snow that falls in these little dips to never melt, and I doubt that any of us has ever bothered to poke around."
Katara nodded, pursing her lips in thought as she tried to wrap her mind around what she was looking at. They were standing at the lip of a kind of divot, for lack of a better word, low in the shoulder of the mountain that towered above them. The rent in the surface of the earth was in such a position that the sun, even at the height of what passed for summer down here, would never shine upon it in full force, and here in the depths of winter, it was filled almost to the brim with snow.
Or, at least, it would've been, had events not taken a different turn.
"So, if you don't mind," she began, watching as one of the village boys helped Zuko clamber up onto the thing they had come to look at, "tell me again what happened?"
Aariak nodded. "Right. So, two weeks ago was the Glacier Springs Festival. We're kind of the meeting place for all the local bands of herders, so during the festival, our population about triples in size. A couple of boys got into an argument – you know how these things go, when people who normally see each other only once a year get together – and came out here to settle it."
"And they were both waterbenders, right?"
"Exactly. They started fighting – nothing serious, mind you, neither of them were skilled enough to do real damage," a statement Katara interpreted as, they were too drunk to do much more than blindly flail at each other, but she let the Elder go on without interruption, "but then, one of them tumbled into this little ravine. He got stuck, and when he and the other boy, their argument forgotten, tried to get him free, well…"
"They caused a bit of a mini-avalanche," Katara finished, gesturing at the object before them, "and out comes this."
Aariak sighed. "That's the long and short of it. Needless to say, the second I got a good look at it, I sent a messenger hawk to your brother."
Katara allowed herself a very deep, slow nod. "I can see why."
The object of their attention was a massive hunk of ice, only unlike any hunk of ice Katara had ever seen (and after twenty-one years in her homeland, she'd seen quite a few). For one thing, judging from what had so far been unearthed, it was a nearly perfect sphere, which should've been impossible for nature or anyone but an exceptionally skilled waterbender to form. The ice itself was cause for concern as well: It was a strange, hybrid mix of ice-cold blue and a bizarre glimmer of white, so that the thing almost seemed to glow, which, again, shouldn't have been possible, but here it was, right in front of her eyes. Even stranger was the fact that several of the boys had sworn that there was something inside the sphere, a claim that her husband was checking out at that very moment while she got more information from Elder Aariak.
As she watched Zuko slowly make his way through the snow, deep in an animated conversation with one of the teenage boys who had found the thing, Katara allowed her mind to wander. She really couldn't think of a single explanation for what this thing was. It might, she supposed, have been formed by some mischievous waterbender, but she couldn't think of anyone that skilled who might be in the area. It could've have been older than her time, but then again, even down here, in this sheltered place, the ice should've melted somewhat, or at least enough to mar its perfect curve. And then there was the glowing to take into consideration, the slightly rhythmic throb of the gleaming, unworldly white, almost like…almost like…
Almost like the beat of a heart…
"Hey, Katara! Come take a look at this!"
Her husband's voice yanked her out of her thoughts. She turned to Elder Aariak, dipping her head in respect. "If you don't mind…"
Aariak spread his hands. "Be my guest, Miss. Though, please, do be careful."
"No promises, sir." With that, she went through a quick gathering form, before quickly and easily bending herself through a combination of snow and ice to deposit herself right next to her husband. Zuko took her hand as she set foot on the sphere, a bit of a gleam in his eye.
"I never get tired of seeing you do stuff like that," he said, leaning forward to whisper in her ear in Nihongo, a language she had become quite proficient at.
She did nothing to control the shiver his breath on her ear sent up and down her spine. "Careful now, silly boy," she said in the same language, "or I'm like to jump you right here and now."
"Settle for a kiss?" he asked, looking hopeful.
"Oh, definitely," she said, throwing a distinct purr into her voice. He leaned down to give her a peck on the head, but she was more than up to his tricks, and quickly grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him into a real, and decidedly unchaste, kiss. Her head swooned, and she made sure to nip his bottom lip as they parted.
She was quite pleased to see that he was redder than the fire he bent during his morning workouts, stuttering and stumbling a few times before he choked out, "Why must you do that in front of people…"
She popped up and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Because I think it's adorable that, after a year of marriage, you're still squeamish about PDA?"
He rolled his eye. "I swear, between you and my sister, it's a wonder I have any self-confidence left."
"Just wait until we have children," she said with a wink and an air of promise, before crouching down on the ice and brushing some stray snow away. "So, what did you want to show me?"
Chuckling, he crouched down next to her, pulling off one of his gloves to lay his bare palm against the ice. "Take off your glove and touch the surface."
She started pulling off a glove, eyebrow popped in interest. "I wouldn't leave my palm there too long if I were you."
He cracked a smile, that soft, simple one that she loved so much, the smile that said, I've never had much cause to smile in my life, so I'm not very good at it, but for you, it's the only thing I want to do. "Trust me, you have to feel it with bare skin to really believe it."
"Oooh, mysterious, I like…it…" It was right then that her brain fully registered what her palm was feeling. "It…it…" She looked up at Zuko, eyes wide. "That's impossible."
He laughed. "Hey, don't look at me; I completely agree. But that doesn't change the fact that this ice is warm."
She looked down at where her bare hand lay on the ice. The sensations she was feeling made so little sense that, for a moment, she felt almost dizzy. After all, who had ever heard of warm ice, nevermind the fact that if ice could be warm, snow shouldn't be able to bury it deep enough to escape detection for however long the sphere had been there. She turned her hand over, felt the ice with her knuckles, wondering if it was just some sort of strange trick, but sure enough, it was still warm. Though…
"It's not a normal kind of warm, is it?" she asked, eyes on her hand as she patted around, trying various pieces of ice, always getting the same results.
"No," Zuko admitted, "it's not, is it? It reminds me of how Zula describes bending blue flames, you know? How it's hot, only not hot, though this is a bit different."
Katara nodded. "I get where you're going. I mean, it's like…gods. This is the coldest warm that I've ever felt in my life, nevermind the fact that that statement should make my head explode just trying to think it."
"Tell me about it, though I have to admit, I'm immensely relieved that I'm not, in fact, going crazy."
She rolled back, settling down on her haunches, as she put her glove back on and shot him a wink. "Ah, but am I the best measuring stick for that determination? After all, I did marry you…"
He chuckled as he mirrored her actions, right down to the way he put his glove on. "You might be on to something there. After all, as Zula's always saying, only a crazy person would ever not only marry me, but enjoy it."
"Well, I'm not complaining. Though, as regards this impossible hunk of ice…"
"If it really is ice."
She frowned. "You know, that statement should make me burst into hysterical laughter, but…you just might be on to something…"
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, his hand traveling up and through the shaggy mop of jet-black hair on his head. "Yeah…and this glow is really unsettling. Notice how it pulses? Almost like a heartbeat, you know?"
She giggled, leaned over for another quick peck. "I swear, I will never get tired of how you can read my mind like that."
He shrugged. "Hey, have to be good at something, you know? Might as well rock at being a husband. Still, as fun as flirting with you on top of a strange ball of ice that might as well be from the depths of the Spirit World for all the sense it makes is, we do have to do something about it…"
"Yeah," she said, shoulders slumping in defeat, "I suppose you're right. You believe what those boys are saying, that there's something in there?"
"If there is, there's no way that it's still alive, or at least, it shouldn't be alive. Nothing about this makes sense…"
She shot him a mischievous grin. "Well, there's only one way to find out, now, isn't there?"
The look he shot her was a bit on the skeptical side. "What, you mean crack open the giant sphere of ice that we know nothing about and can't make any sense of?"
"Naturally."
"Heh…you've officially spent too much time around my sister."
"That, or too much time around you. After all, Azula may be prone to acting crazy, but she always thinks before she leaps."
"Are you implying that I don't?"
"Are you going to contest that?"
"…bite me. I love you."
"I love you, too. Now, help me get everyone a safe distance away."
"And, by, safe distance away, you of course mean, significantly further than where we will be standing, right?"
"See? This is why I love you."
If, three years ago, one had asked Sokka how he would describe having two former members of the Fire Nation Royal Family living in his tribe, one could have bet money that educational would not have been among the words he would've used. Headache would definitely have been one, along with stressful, weird, and, last but not least, the collection of words that make up the statement, why the hell is my sister looking at that boy like that?
And while he had definitely used all of those at various points in time, education would, indeed, be the biggest one. For example, through the two former royals who were now his in-laws, he had become a downright expert in Fire Nation geography and history, fighting against skilled firebenders, and the wonders of foreign obscenities. Thanks to Zuko, he now knew more about sword-fighting than he had ever imagined existed, and thanks to Azula, he had a pretty solid mind for politics. The most useful, albeit frustrating, skill he had learned, though, had been in languages. Over the past three years (excepting one year he spent raiding Fire Nation shipping with his father), he had become proficient in reading and writing both Nihongo and Guangzhou, the latter being one of the three primary languages of the Earth Kingdom, which had led directly to the extraordinarily frustrating afternoon he was in the middle of right now.
For the record, he did not blame himself. No, it was all Azula's fault. Obviously.
"You know, Zula," he said, pinching his nose to stave off the massive migraine that was building right behind his eyes, "threatening bodily harm is not generally considered an effective means of education."
Azula, for her part, seemed rather unimpressed by his reasoning. She huffed that special, infuriating huff of hers, crossing her arms and glaring at him from her position by the chalkboard Sokka had cobbled together a few years before. "Then you obviously don't know much about education…or anything, for that matter."
Sokka groaned, slumping back and down in his chair. They had been at this for upwards of two hours, just like the day before and the day before that and the day before that, on and on for several months, and yet he seemed no closer to mastering Putonghua. "I know I'm going to regret this," he said, adding eye-rubbing to his current task of nose-pinching, "but whatever, I believe in going big or going home: What the holy ever-living fuck does that even mean?"
Azula tilted her head to one side and looked at him like he was the dumbest fuck that ever dumb-fucked in the entirety of the history of dumb-fucking. And that's saying something, he mused, considering some of her ancestors. "What, besides the fact that you're a dumb ignorant savage who wouldn't know a haiku from your asshole?"
"Says the sister of the least poetic person to ever walk the planet."
Rather than wilting under his barb, she giggled. Though, in her defense, she's never wilted under my barbs; you'd think I'd learn to stop hoping for it. "Point, but my assertion still stands. Do you have any idea how education works in the Fire Nation?"
He shrugged, removing his hand from his face and clasping it with the other behind his head, beginning the process of leaning his chair back until he inevitably tumbled onto his ass (as one does). "Honestly, I always assumed they just hurled fireballs at you until only the evil ones remained."
That got him another giggle. "Heh…you know, I'm actually surprised that my grandfather never thought of that. Still, though…basically, a teacher – or, in my case, a tutor, one of many – smacks you with a bamboo cane every time you screw up."
Sokka tried to wrap his mind around that image, but couldn't stop imagining the nineteen-year-old in front of him grabbing one of those bamboo canes and shoving it up a tutor's ass. After allowing himself a chuckle over the picture, he snarked, "And the purpose of that would be…what, exactly?"
That earned him another Azula Smirk, which, if Sokka had had a gold yen for every one he had earned in three years, he could buy the Fire Nation and end the War in a fortnight. "Simple: Eventually, you stop making mistakes, and stop getting beaten. At least, that's the theory."
"Naturally. The tatemae, if one will."
Azula's face lit up like the sun. "Ooh, it does learn! Good boy, Sokka!"
He flipped her the bird before continuing. "I take it that the honne is that the teachers or tutors or whatever-the-fuck just start making shit up to beat you for."
Azula sighed, looking as glum as she was generally able. "Pretty much, and trust me, at least when it came to me and my brother, they could be amazingly inventive."
He frowned. "And you just took it?"
That got him another shrug. "Meh, it's considered good for building your character. Plus, it happens to everyone, not just, you know, royalty, so I wasn't even aware it might be considered bullshit until I got here. Which reminds me…" Her face shifted from glumly introspective to disturbingly mischievous as she tapped her own version of a bamboo cane (in this case, a long stick that Sokka, in one of his weaker moments, had carved for her) against the chalkboard, which was covered in characters.
He sighed, slumping deeper into his chair in defeat. "Yeah, yeah…can't blame a guy for trying…"
She laughed. "I do have to give you top marks for effort, though. But, as I was saying, back to the lesson. Now, once more, with feeling, count from one-to-ten in Putonghua."
Sokka sighed, doing his best not to pout as Azula began tapping the appropriate characters in time with his recitation. "Yīgè, Liǎng, Sān, Sì, Wǔ, Liù, Qī-"
So intent was he on getting the pronunciation right (all while mentally lambasting his sister, who constantly lorded her much-more-rapid language acquisition skills, not even bothering to take into account how she shared a bed with her tutor), as well as being excited that he seemed to be on the verge of getting to ten without error for the first time all week, that he didn't notice that the door to his sister and brother-in-law's house (where Azula lived and where their lessons typically occurred) had burst open with an earth-shattering bang until he was on his feet with his heart in his mouth, all while shouting (in surprisingly good Putonghua), "Dude, what the fuck?!"
The aforementioned dude happened to be one of the younger boys of the tribe, whose name escaped Sokka during that moment of surprise. The boy gaped, confused, not in the least bit understanding what had just been said to him. "Um…huh?"
Sokka groaned, slapping a palm to his forehead. "Don't worry about it," he said, switching back to his tribal dialect. "What's up?"
Before the boy could answer, Azula had stepped into view, leveling a look that could kill at the kid. "And it better be good," she said, also in tribal dialect (and pitch perfect, too, Sokka noted with annoyance, because of course she can't be like Zuko, who has the good grace to speak it like his mouth is full of mush), "to justify interrupting my lesson."
The boy, to his credit, visibly gulped, the blood draining from his face; the penalty for interrupting the former princess at, well, anything, was well known around town. "Um…apologies, Miss, but…uh…"
Azula snapped her fingers a few times through the air. "Come on, kid, spit it out."
The boy nodded, turning to Sokka. "It's just…um…well…uh…"
Sokka bit down on a groan. Shit, he's starting to get on my nerves. "It's alright, bud, no one's going to set you on fire."
"Speak for yourself," Azula muttered in Nihongo.
"Hush, Princess," Sokka shot back in the same language, before turning back to the boy. "Seriously, though," he said, switching languages once again, "just get to the point."
"Uh…right…um…I honestly don't know. I just…I really think you need to see this…"
"Well," Sokka observed, "that certainly sounds ominous." He turned to Azula. "Shall we, my lady?"
"The proper form of address is Your Highness," Azula corrected him, before setting her stick on the living room table that doubled as their school desk and heading for the door. "But, in answer to your question, yes, I believe we shall."
Sokka turned back to the boy. "Lead the way, little guy."
The boy did, and when Sokka saw what was causing all the ruckus, he decided that the kid was right. It really did have to be seen, and as the current stand-in Chief (his father being away for the winter in the Earth Kingdom), he was the one who needed to see it.
Not that he had any idea what he was looking at.
"Hey, Zula?"
"No, Sokka, I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm looking at."
He nodded. "Right…just making sure. Otherwise, I would have to conclude that I had lost my mind."
"Hmm…how would you know?"
"Point."
They lapsed into silence as they watched the sliver of blinding blue-white light slice up into the heavens, listening with half-an-ear to the awestruck mutterings of the people filtering into the streets around them. Just as suddenly as it had appeared, though, it flickered, once, twice, and then was gone.
It was another minute or so before Sokka put two-and-two together and realized that it had come from the direction of Kuujjuarapik. Azula realized it at exactly the same moment as he did, which was why, not ten minutes after that, they had bundled into traveling clothes, tossed some supplies into a couple of sacks, and hurled themselves atop two buffalo-yaks, racing off to the south.
The first thing the boy saw was the girl.
Before that, there was the light, but he could not see it. He wasn't even sure if it was light, or if he could actually see, since he didn't feel like he had eyes. He didn't feel like he had anything. Nothing made sense. Time was meaningless, senses were meaningless, everything was meaningless. There was a sound, a deep, rhythmic thump, on and on, endless, though to have an end one must have a beginning, and there was nothing to tell him that this had ever not been his life, or even if he was alive. It sounded like a heartbeat, but where that heartbeat would come from, or what it could possibly mean, he did not know.
All he knew was that he was very scared, very alone, and very, very cold. The body he did not have shivered, the teeth he did not have clacked. He was sure he was in hell, though when he was sure of that, or what he meant by being sure, he could not say, not least because his mouth was not a mouth, his tongue was not a tongue, his lungs were not lungs. The monks had told him, over and over again, that there was no hell, that that was just a mistaken belief, something the elders of the other nations used to scare their children into behaving, but now he knew they were wrong.
He had run away, without even meaning to, and then had come the storm and the light and now the cold, the deep, profound, endless cold, and all he wanted was for it to stop, for him to have eyes again, eyes that he could screw shut and wish for his mother to wrap her arms around him and carry home.
And then he opened his eyes, and there was the girl.
She was standing over him, her long, curly, dark brown hair askew, her clothes covered in snow, as if she had just gone tumbling down a long, steep hill. He blinked, and she swam more into focus. She was looking at him with eyes as deep and blue as the ocean itself, eyes that drank in the weak sunlight of what could only be winter. Her skin was dark and her clothes were blue and white, just like her eyes, and around her neck hung a choker, a thick ribbon of blue and red from which hung two stones, two pendants, one blue like her eyes, one purple like the sea at dusk. She reached up a hand, and from that hand – it seemed to be her left – on her index finger, there was a thin golden band that sparkled as it caught the light. The hand came to rest on his forehead, and he swooned and smiled, warmth filling his very being.
It had been a long time since he had felt warm, a long time or a short time, he didn't know, couldn't tell. All he knew was that she was breathtakingly beautiful, more beautiful than anyone he had ever seen. She was speaking, he couldn't understand the words, concern etched on her face, turning and talking to someone, but he didn't care. She was just beautiful, and he just had to tell her so.
"You're very pretty…"
She frowned, said something again, and into his vision came a young man, with a hideous scar covering the left side of his face, fanning out from an eye dead and white, a stark contrast to the other, which was gold like the ring on the girl's finger, an eye that flickered down at the boy through a shaggy mop of jet-black hair. The man frowned, and said something to the boy, but the boy didn't understand. The boy just felt himself frown right back, and then words were forming and he spoke again.
"But you're not…"
And then the ocean rushed through his ears and the world was spinning and spinning and he fell once more into darkness.
Guess who! Yup, that be Aang, which means shit is about to get straight up fire in a circus in here.
(Yay for puns!)
But I digress, as one does. This prompt ended up being the hardest one to deal with, not least because I had to re-write it, from scratch, a good three fucking times. Finally, though, I got a handle on it. Unfortunately, getting a handle on it meant having to divvy it up into three parts, but, hey, happens to the best of us, you know?
As for the story...well, there are more parts to it (two more, as a matter of fact), so we'll be dealing with that tomorrow and Monday, when I'll post the final bit, which happens to be, hands down, one of my favorite pieces of writing that I've ever done. It just turned out so awesome, you guys. As for Sokka counting to ten in Putonghua, Putonghua is one of the names for Mandarin Chinese in, well, Mandarin. The words I used come directly from Google Translate, which I normally don't trust all that much, but hey, surely it can give me that, right? If it's wrong, feel free to tell me, and I'll...probably pop back in and fix it, because these things bother me.
What else, what else...oh, right! So, I have, like, a massive backlog of messages in my inbox to reply to, because life by cray sometimes, guv. However, my wife is about to take off to Mexico for the next week, which means I will be bored in a way that should be illegal be...oh...probably by about dinnertime today, which means I will be...probably hanging around here a lot. I'm going to be freaking bored as fuck, guys. Pray for me, because for a week, I have to deal with myself, and I got married at least partially so I wouldn't have to do that.
On the other hand, my wife will come back not being able to speak English for a few days, and that's just all kinds of sexy.
That's...really about it. Moving on! In the next chapter, our Fearsome Foursome try to figure out what happens, and Aang comes clean. Stay tuned!
