Chapter Seven
A massive ship weaved through the glaciers, rope ladders sprawling over its sides. Zuko watched it approach through the eye-slit of the helmet he'd found, paddling over toward the side of the ship where the ladders hung. "I'll go up first," Zuko said. "You stay with the waterbender while I have the crew retrieve something to pull her up."
"And then what?" his uncle asked. "She is wearing water tribe clothing, and her face might be known to those paying attention to the wanted posters. I do not think we will be able to convince them that she is a soldier."
"We're not." He'd thought that much through, at least. It had seemed prudent, after a lack of planning had resulted in him wandering into a blizzard, to consider his next step as he'd paddled. "They'll throw her in the prison hold, away from any water. When we get close to land, we'll break her out of there and take her with us."
His uncle nodded, his wordless acceptance stoking the embers of pride in Zuko's chest. They paddled the last few paces toward the ship, and Zuko sent up a flare, signaling his presence to the crew members on deck. "Come aboard," one of them called.
"We have an unconscious prisoner."
"This is a rescue ship, son. We don't have any room for prisoners."
"It's one of the Avatar's companions. The Fire Lord will be very displeased if we allow her to go free after our defeat today." His father wouldn't likely care, actually. He wasn't the sort of person who concerned himself with details like that. He probably hadn't even signed off on this expedition himself—one of the generals would have looked over Zhao's plan and approved or disapproved it. If his father had seen those plans at all, it had probably only been after the general in charge of the troops had pitched the idea to him.
"Very well," said one of the soldiers on deck. "We'll send a cage down for her. Is she dangerous?"
"She's a waterbender. A good one," he added, frowning. It felt strange to compliment the girl's abilities, even when she couldn't hear him. "Keep her away from any water sources, and be very careful when you give her anything to drink."
They lowered a metal cage over the side of the deck, onto the pallet they'd been floating on for the past few hours. Zuko grabbed the girl by the arms, shoving her headfirst into the cage. She groaned weakly, rolling over as he closed the bottom hatch keep her from falling out. As they raised her toward the deck, her body jerked, and she kicked at the cage door with her bound legs, punching the overlapping metal pieces in a desperate attempt to get free. "Let me out!"
Zuko watched them pull her onto the deck, then grabbed one of the ropes hanging over the side of the ship and started climbing, wishing the armor he'd put on to disguise himself wasn't so heavy. His uncle followed, wearing no disguise. Zhao had asked him to come along as a guest, and even though Zhao was dead, no one would question Iroh's right to be here.
"If you don't let me go," the waterbender shouted as Zuko swung over the guardrail, "I'm going to freeze you all to the side of the ship and watch you drown!"
"Quiet, peasant," one of the crew members said, kicking the cage.
"You should not refer to her that way," his uncle said, pulling himself over the rail. What are you doing? Zuko wondered, but held his tongue. "She may be our prisoner, but we should not treat her with such disrespect. You would not want to be treated like that if you were taken prisoner by the Northern Water Tribe, would you?"
His tone shamed the crew members as much as the words, and even Zuko felt a twinge of guilt, though the comment wasn't directed at him. His uncle had that effect on people.
The waterbender had stopped yelling, he noticed. Now, she looked at his uncle with a mix of consternation and wariness. "Why?" she asked.
His uncle crouched next to the cage, putting himself at eye-level with the girl. "I have found that a little kindness and respect can pay dividends. I am hoping that no one will come to harm unnecessarily, particularly since our primary mission on this ship is to recover as many survivors as we can."
The girl's eyes widened, as if she really hadn't considered that some of the undamaged ships would remain out here, looking for shipwrecked survivors. Four deckhands walked over, picking up her little cage by the handles and carrying the girl down below. Zuko waited with his uncle; it would look suspicious if he followed after the waterbender without explicit orders to do so, and he'd have a chance to find the prison hold later, if his uncle didn't find it first.
"Sir, we have more survivors on the port side," one deckhand said, beckoning the remaining crew members surrounding Zuko and his uncle.
"There will be food and blankets in the galley, through that door," one man told his uncle.
"Thank you. Let's go, soldier," his uncle said, giving Zuko a knowing look. "It has been a long day, and we are all tired. It is time to rest."
They headed in the indicated direction, finding themselves in a room packed with survivors in varying stages of health. Many had hypothermia, and were being warmed by firebenders who had escaped onto lifeboats before the frigid waters had capsized their ships. Zuko felt cold himself, but not cold enough to take one of the limited blankets when another survivor started offering them out.
Instead, he contented himself with moving about the cabin, looking with little hope for anyone from his old crew. There was a chance, however slight, that they'd survived and ended up here. So he searched, moving through the entire ship, though he couldn't find the cell where the waterbender was being kept. Not once did he see any familiar face, and eventually, he returned to the galley where most of the survivors awaited food or medical treatment.
Gradually, those in good enough condition were shuffled off to the crew cabins—smaller than the galley, but sufficient to temporarily hold a handful of people. Zuko got split up from his uncle, as Iroh had been recognized by this point as an important general by some of the soldiers, and had taken charge of organizing the rescue mission with some reluctance. So Zuko sat, surrounded by other survivors but utterly alone in the world as they sailed through hostile waters.
They took her to a dingy section of the ship which housed a row of prison cells the size of small bathrooms. "We're going to untie your legs and arms now," one of her guards said. "Don't try to bend."
Like I even could, without any water. She didn't complain. She'd wanted those ropes off for hours, and having her hands free would prove useful when she did get a chance to escape. The soldiers ushered her into the cell at the end of the hall, locking the heavy metal door behind her and leaving only a thin slit for light to filter in. The cell had a bed bolted to the wall, but no sink or toilet, which meant no water. Not surprising, given that putting her in a room with either fixture would have allowed her to escape in minutes. She'd have to find some other means of getting out.
All right, Katara. You're on a ship in the middle of the ocean. There has to be some way to use that to your advantage. She could feel the gentle lilt of the sea, could even hear, very faintly, the waves brushing against the hull of the ship. But when she reached out with her mind, she found the water too far away to bend with any precision. She'd learned to bend water she couldn't see before she'd come to the North Pole, but up here, water came in such abundance that no one had really talked about what to do if you couldn't find a water source at a glance. So while her other skills had improved dramatically, her ability to bend water she couldn't see was still somewhat underdeveloped.
The ship lurched, and she felt the faint tug of water moving through the pipes. She reached for it, trying to see if it was close enough, but although she could slow and speed its movements, the ship's hydraulic systems pumped it out of reach every time it came close enough to feel. You could freeze the pipes, whispered a darker part of her mind. It might make the whole system break down. The ship might stop working altogether. She prepared herself to do it, to reach for the next surge of water that the pipes brought near her and freeze it. The pipes would burst, and she might be able to channel the water back toward her prison cell and use it to make her escape. Except . . .
Except that the old man who'd told the deckhands to treat her with respect had said this was a rescue ship. Which meant that if it went down because of mechanical problems she'd caused, everyone on board would probably die before the Fire Nation could send a second ship up to rescue them. They're Fire Nation, she told herself, holding her ocean-stance as she waited for more water to move through the pipes. I can't concern myself with their safety if I want to get out of here.
They have families, whispered another part of her mind. Children. Brothers and sisters. Loved ones. No nation could survive without that much. Her arms sank slightly, and even though she desperately wanted to escape, she realized she wouldn't be able to, not until the ship had docked and any innocents had made it back to shore. Besides, for all she knew, there were other water tribe prisoners in the other cells. If she sank the ship, they'd perish, too.
She'd just have to wait until they reached safe harbor. Then she'd free herself and either find Aang or, barring that, return to the North Pole to finish her waterbending training. Either way, it was going to be a long trip.
They searched everywhere.
"She can't have just disappeared," Sokka said, trudging through the snow. The blizzard had covered most of the tracks, but there was the faint indentation snaking through the tundra where someone had trampled a trail in the snow, and since part of that trail came from the cave Aang had pointed out, Sokka had been following it all night, hoping it would lead him to his sister.
Instead, it ended at the edge of an icy cliff that had partially crumbled, collapsing onto the bridge below. She might have done that, he thought, carefully jumping down onto the pile of ice. If she destroyed the ledge to escape Zuko, then she probably got away.
Still, he looked for signs that things had gone differently. He didn't like what he found. Or, rather, what he didn't find. Despite poking through the pile of ice for almost a quarter of an hour, he found no signs of crushed firebenders, no signs of his sister. What he did find were tracks—lots of them, many slightly pointed, indicating the wedge-shaped shoes of the Fire Nation soldiers. The other footprints were shallow and almost soft-looking, which indicated the animal hide boots of the Northern Water Tribe. Which, unfortunately, were indistinguishable from those of the Southern Water Tribe, which meant that if Katara had walked any distance from here, he wouldn't be able to identify which set of footprints belonged to her.
Above, he heard a muted rumble, like thunder, but closer and not quite so loud. Moments later, Appa swooped down, landing on the bridge. "Have you found anything?" Aang asked, jumping off Appa's head and floating down to the ground.
"Tracks. I can't be sure if any of them are hers."
"Maybe she used her bending to cover her tracks," Aang suggested, but he couldn't quite manage to maintain his usual optimistic tone. "She's learned so much from Master Pakku. Maybe she had to sneak away, so she moved the snow to hide her footprints."
Sokka looked down at the tracks in the snow. "I don't think so, Aang. If she'd done that, she'd have disturbed at least some of the other footprints. If she walked away, then she'd be in the city." And if she were in the city, someone would have found her by now. "I want you to take Appa and do another fly-over of those paths leading to and from the cave Zuko dragged you to. She might have decided to follow one of those back to the city." The fallen ice shelf could have been the result of some other waterbender using their surroundings to fight. There had been a lot of people moving through this area. It was possible.
Aang leapt back onto Appa's back and guided him up to the sky. Sokka continued to study the footprints, checking each set for odd features. When he came across a set of pointed footprints that sank more deeply into the snow than the others, he paused. A person with feet this size wouldn't be heavy enough to make tracks this deep unless they were carrying something big. As big as another person. Lips pressed into a thin line, he followed the tracks.
They led to the shore, away from the docks where several water tribe ships were tethered, but near a curve in the ice, where debris pushed to shore by the current would congregate. Bits and pieces of armor, driftwood, and other material had already started circling slowly in the water. Sokka looked out to sea, then up to the moon, feeling a pang of loss so powerful it brought him to his knees. "All right, Universe," he said, addressing anything that might be out there. "If this is your way of getting back at me for all the times I've made light of what you can do, I got it when I lost Yue. You didn't have to make me lose my sister, too."
The waves lapped up at the beach, and if they gave any reply, it was in a language he couldn't even begin to understand.
Author's Notes:
So this will be the last scene with Aang or Sokka for a while. By which I mean I've already drafted the next dozen or so chapters and haven't yet gotten back to this particular plot line. I do plan to return to it later and write it as a bigger chunk, with several chapters devoted to what happens between this moment and their eventual reunion with Katara, but I want to get to some Zutara goodness first, since that's what most of you came here for. So, in short, we will eventually see what happens with Aang and Sokka, but I won't be going into much depth with them for a while.
More importantly, I'd like to take this moment to thank all of my wonderful readers and reviewers. Your continued support of this story makes it easier to keep pushing forward (so that I can stay ahead and maintain a steady update schedule). I hope you continue reading as this story strays from the season two narrative because I've got a lot of (hopefully great) surprises in store for everyone.