Ohhhh boy. This took a while.
Part 2 is coming sooner or later. I had to divide this chapter into two pieces because otherwise it would be far too long for anyone to read, even for the most-bored people in the world.
Well, not that much, but it was still long.
By some weird feat of events, the last chapter is done, but the next isn't. Weird!
CHAPTER NINE: EMIN'S SENTIMENT, PART ONE
Sokka and Suki looked up the hill, and Sokka took a hold on Suki's arm in surprise when he spotted his friend. There was Aang, sure enough, leaning on Toph for support, his brown hair fuzzy and unkempt, and his eyes wide.
Sokka let out a whoop of laughter and clapped his hands, and he called up, "Hey, sleepyhead, about time you joined us!" He could barely contain his joy, he let go of Suki and jumped up and down a few times, and then grabbed onto Suki again, still bouncing on the balls of his feet and cheering.
Aang put on a grin and he replied, "Sorry about that, Sokka." His eyes drifted sideways, and he said, "Hey, Suki!"
Suki brushed off Sokka's arm to bow, and she lowered her eyes and said, respectfully, "Hello, Aang! It's good to see you about! How are you feeling?"
"I'm feeling a bit funny, but I'm pretty good," Aang replied, cheerily. He then added, "Are you okay?"
Suki glanced at Katara and frowned. Katara had the grace to look apologetic, and Suki replied, "I'm fine, thank you."
"That's good," Aang replied, and he blundered right into the conversation they all knew was inevitable: "Thanks for saving Appa. It means more than anything to me."
Suki seemed almost bitter about the subject, Sokka noticed, but she didn't express it. She just smiled, and she bowed again, with a polite, "It was my duty." It seemed a bit cold to Sokka, as if there were no personal level to why she had done it, but there was nothing that could be done about that. Of course Suki cared about Appa, about Aang. Sokka just knew she resented sacrificing the Earth kingdom, Ba Sing Se, the Avatar, her friends and herself for a bison, no matter how important of a bison he was.
Aang just smiled, though he seemed a bit awkward about it, too. He took his arm off of Toph and started down the hill. He was a bit wobbly, but he made it, slowly but surely, and Sokka and Suki approached the bottom on the hill to meet him. Toph slid down on a flat plane of earth.
When he reached the bottom, Aang bowed to Suki, very low, and he said, without straightening up, "Katara told me about what happened when you saved Appa. I feel horrible about it. If there's any way to make it up to you…"
"No," Suki interrupted and she placed a hand on his shoulder. He straightened up, and his eyes were clenched shut and brimming with tears. She seemed alarmed, and realizing her callousness, she said, "I mean, not 'no, you can't make it up to me'… I meant 'no, don't feel horrible about it' and 'no, you don't have to make it up to me'… oh, Aang."
Suki seemed to be the cork plug in the dam, and with that out of the way, everything just seemed to burst through. Aang took her hands and held them tight, and he said, choked, "It's my fault, and Ba Sing Se, and everything—"
Suki just smiled at him, awkwardly, sadly, with something like pity, and she held onto his hands carefully, squeezing them reassuringly. Aang was right on his knees, in front of her, and she sank down with him, and let go over his hands to put her arms around him.
"Hey," Suki said, "it's okay."
Katara knelt down, too, and put a hand on Aang's back.
"Yeah, Twinkletoes," Toph chipped in, squatting down with them and throwing her own arms around them. Katara did too, and after an instant, Sokka awkwardly leaned over the whole pile of teenagers and hugged them all from above. He wobbled, Toph let out a protest as his weight started on top of her, Suki let out a yelp, and Katara scrambled to get out of the way, but they were all pinned anyway.
Dog-piled but happy, Aang started to laugh, and as they all picked themselves up, he was wiping tears off his cheeks as he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Katara was crying too, Sokka noticed, the silly girl, she was hugging Aang so tight that he worried the Avatar's head would pop off.
They were all incredibly glad.
Sokka glanced at Katara with a funny look, and he said, feeling weird and overly concerned, "Why did you tell him as soon as he woke up? Big thing to dump on the kid so fast, Katara."
Katara didn't reply for a moment, she was busy rolling out her bed. Sokka reached over to give her a hand she didn't need, and she said, "Well, like you said, right? I can't protect him forever. I felt bad about keeping him in the dark… I figured, the sooner he understood what was going on, the better."
Her voice was funny: guilty but oddly confident.
Sokka looked up, and Katara's eyes were focused on smoothing out the corner of her blankets. After a second, she looked up, and he pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back, tightly, and he said, "I'm glad."
"So am I," she replied.
Suki was slowly working her way down his throat, from the juncture of his ear and his neck to his collarbone, and he could only, relax between her body and the trunk of the tree, and run a hand up and down her side slowly, through the fabric of her robe.
"Want to?" Sokka asked.
"Not tonight," Suki replied, "rather do it when we're not going to get caught, by weather or otherwise."
They were, after all, in the middle of the woods. That didn't exactly say comfortable to either of them, but, well, feelings were feelings. Sokka was okay with this. He shrugged, ran his fingers through her hair, and focused on staying reasonable.
"Besides," Suki said, lips breaking contact with his skin again, but just slightly. Her breath was still hot on his neck, and comfortable. "I'm happy just doing this. I don't really feel like doing it, anyway. I'd rather just spend time with you..." She broke off for a second to kiss him again, and then she finished, "... like this."
If Suki was happy, so was Sokka.
"You seem so much better these days," Sokka said, cheerfully. "Happier, or something like that. I guess being together changed things."
"I don't think that's it," Suki said, and she corrected herself with a contemplative little, "Well, about what changed things. I am happier."
"So what changed things?" Sokka asked.
"Talking."
"Makes sense."
"It had nothing to do with holding your hand or kissing you," Suki said, slow and relaxed. She drew herself up close to him, suddenly. Her head was on his chest, rising and falling with his breath, and Sokka's hand trailed along the contour of her hip. He didn't say anything. He let her finish: "You helped, but I had to heal myself. I had to come to terms with everything."
"Yeah?" Sokka trailed. He liked to think he had been a major influence.
"But if you, and Katara, and Toph... if none of you had supported me, I wouldn't have been able to come to terms with everything. So I have to thank you for that, Sokka. You held my head above the water until I could do it myself."
"So it wasn't weird that we...?" Sokka trailed, there, face going the slightest bit red. Suki laughed, switched him across the chest with her fingertips.
"Oh, no, it was, it definitely was. Maybe it was too big of a step. It just... shouldn't be a big deal, I guess," she replied. "I just don't feel like we should do it again. Just... wait a while, you know? I like just doing this. It's nice."
Sokka was okay with that. Suki was okay with that. Everything would be fine.
But it didn't stop the looks on Toph's face whenever they came back to the house after being out alone together, or how moody she was whenever the two of them goofed around in front of her.
"What was it like?" Katara asked, quietly. Aang was looking at the fire, intently, without blinking. The embers were low, the bits of wood glowing red-hot, and only the tiniest of flames still survived. The smoke curled in delicate wisps. Katara prodded him with, "You glowed, every night, you know. It was like you were trying to go into the Avatar state, or to the spirit world."
"I dreamed," Aang said, "but they weren't normal dreams. I was in the spirit world the whole time, that's how I knew how long it had been, they told me."
"They...?"
"All the past Avatars," Aang said, and his face lit up with a funny smile. "Avatar Roku, and Avatar Kyoshi... Avatar Kuruk, he was really funny, though he scared me at first! And Avatar Yangchen was brilliant... they told me everything, I didn't know whether to believe it or not..."
There was a slight pause, and Aang grinned outright and sort of laughed to himself, and then suddenly, this laughter died almost as suddenly as it came, and Katara's brilliant smile died with it. She leant her head closer, brushing her hair behind one ear, and she said, "What is it, Aang?"
He seemed alarmed. He asked, "Did the Fire Lord get killed?"
Katara seemed confused. She replied, "What?"
"Did the Fire Lord get killed by Azula?" Aang said, and he sped up, suddenly, "Yeah... I remember seeing it! Azula went into his room, killed him... Zuko's the Fire Lord now, I saw him get crowned... then they were going somewhere with the Fire nation navy..."
"What?" Katara said, in disbelief.
Aang was in a flurry, and he pushed himself to his feet. He said, turning to look at her, so alarmed, "Did any of that happen?"
He had raised his voice a little bit too much, and Toph let out a groan and rolled over. When she rolled right over Momo, Momo shrieked, and that was enough to rouse both Toph and Suki from sleep. Toph sat up, and Suki propped herself up on her elbows, lifting her head over Sokka's shoulder to see them.
"Ugh, what are you yelling about," Toph protested. Suki agreed, and she blearily wiped at her eyes.
"Did Azula kill her father?" Aang asked Toph, wide-eyed.
"How should I know?!" she shot back.
"Hey," Suki said, trying to be rational, but she still sounded sleepy. She said, "Sokka and I heard a rumour about the Fire Lord being dead the other week... but that was because of the flu, not an assassination..."
"But it was so... real..." Aang protested. He seemed hurried.
"I had a dream once that there were these magic boxes that took pictures of people, like, as clear as you can see another person. Like magic." Sokka grumbled, suddenly, "Doesn't make it real. Can everyone discuss this in the morning?" He stopped to yawn, and then finished, "I'm not awake enough for this type of talk."
Suki looked at Sokka, and he dragged the covers over his head. Suki shifted, and then she said, to Aang, "Have your dreams ever been right before?"
"It wasn't just a dream," Aang said, "it felt like it was real. But... well, I've had visions before, and they've all been right... how could it be wrong?"
"I think we should believe it," Katara said, seriously.
"Ugh, nighttime is for sleep people," Sokka grumbled.
Sokka's plea for sleep didn't last long. No one could really sleep after that, and by daybreak, when the fire was just glowing embers, they were up and talking already.
"The Earth kingdom just isn't safe anymore," Katara said, "There's a huge pilgrimage to the North Pole… I think we should go, too."
The five of them were seated in a circle in the middle of the room. There was no reply to Katara immediately. Sokka folded his arms, Suki's mouth pursed, and Aang let out an unsure "hmm". Toph scowled.
"No," Toph said, "I'm not going to some snow-filled place, I'll either lose my feet to frostbite or have to go blind, and I can't even see with snow and ice anyway. I refuse."
Katara hadn't thought of that. She said, seriously, "Toph, we might not have a choice."
"So say the Fire Lord's really dead, and Zuko's on the throne?" Aang asked. "Where are they going?"
"I could venture a guess," Sokka said, "we know they're headed to the North Pole to ATTACK it, so I don't see any reason for us to go to the Fire Nation."
"That cretin on the throne," Katara piped up, "Azula took Zuko home with her, I guess it was too much to hope that she locked him in a dungeon. The creep's back in his cushy bed, living out his dreams... ugh, he's probably being waited on hand and foot, probably patting Azula on the back for their hard work. Probably laughing about how he got us in the end! Ha ha. I'm not laughing."
Her voice was so bitter, so resigned, that there was an awkward moment where Katara was simply stared at, like a zoo curiosity, as a part of the 'Savage Women' exhibit. Sokka sort of leant back, raising his eyebrows, and Suki stopped resting her hand on her chin, and her expression softened. Aang was just staring at Katara wide-eyed.
"Um," Sokka said, "let's not get into that."
"I agree with Sokka," Aang said, after a moment. "We have to protect the capital, it's all we have left. Besides… they need me."
"Still not going," Toph said, "I'd be completely useless to you in the snow, and I'll be completely blind. I can't go."
Aang reached over and put a hand on Toph's, and he said, hopefully, "Well, we can't force you, but… how about for moral support? Or, well, we could probably make you a bag full of rocks, like how Katara has a pouch of water. Then you'd have something! And you could still metal-bend!"
There was a pause, and Toph said, "True. Maybe. Still doesn't solve the blindness problem."
There was another moment of silence, for the gravity of this all to sink in, and other than Momo's chattering, no one said anything. Sokka glanced at Suki, sidelong, and she looked at him with a smile.
"When are we leaving?" she said.
"We should probably leave as soon as possible… Appa's okay for flying, and we've got about a week and a half of distance to go. Azula, Zuko and their armies will be going by land, and even if they have a head start, we can probably beat them there if we go sooner," Aang said.
"Let's start packing, then," Katara said, and she pushed herself to her feet and opened all the cupboards. Sokka headed out into the yard to finish Appa's new saddle, and Suki went with him.
"I'm going to miss this place, in a weird way," Katara said, "it kind of became like home."
They were standing all in a line in front of the tiny place. Sokka glanced at Katara sidelong, and he said, "Really? It kind of looks like a home now… all thanks to me and my door-fixin', roof-patchin' skills."
Katara laughed, and she replied, "It does look like a home now…"
"Yup, I'm gonna miss this particular patch of darkness," Toph replied. "Goodbye, earthy little house."
They all laughed, in a good mood, and Aang smiled oddly, holding Momo in the crook of one arm. He scratched behind Momo's ears, and then said, still looking at Momo, "I've only known this place for a few days and I'm already going to miss it."
"Here's to hoping the next house isn't so… cozy," Suki said, delicately, and Sokka laughed and reached over, taking her under an arm. She awkwardly slipped out of his reach, and when he raised an eyebrow at her, she looked at his hand just as awkwardly, and he said, "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said, "Sorry. Had a moment, there."
And then she walked herself right into his arms, linking her elbow with his, and pressing them together, forearm-to-forearm. He smiled, relieved that it wasn't starting up again, and figured, well, there'd always be a ghost of the past. Only thing was, now Suki had conquered it and could ignore it, so it wouldn't always linger in plain sight.
He figured he had been right about before. A bit of love and a bunch of physical intimacy didn't put the problems to rest. It just made them, well, a lot sleepier.
"You calling this place too small, Suki?" he teased, and she laughed.
"Yeah," she said, "let's have more rooms in the next place we stay in."
"Who knows where that could be," Katara replied. "Before we get to the North Pole, I mean." She paused, and glanced at Toph. She said, "Decided whether you're coming or not, yet, Toph, or are we dropping you off anywhere particular? We don't have time to detour back to Gaoling, so…"
"I'll go with you," Toph replied. There was a pause, and she said, "The whole way, I mean. For moral support."
There was a brief moment of cheering and general Toph-hugging, and on Toph's part, a bit of resigned laughter. Aang, especially, seemed grateful, and he hugged her a moment longer than everyone else did.
"Thanks, Toph," he said.
"No problem, Twinkletoes, but this means you have to be my Seeing Eye Airbender when you're not off doing your Avatarly duties."
Aang laughed, and Katara said, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get going, see how far we can get before dark."
So, with the last of their things stowed on Appa's back, they all climbed up into the new saddle, and Sokka hesitated before he settled in. At the last minute, he ran back to the house, and fell against the side of it with a dumb laugh, acting as though he were hugging it. He said, brightly, "Good luck finding owners as good as us, Hut! Thanks for everything!"
The rest of the party giggled, and Suki teased, "I'm sure we could see it again someday. Now get up here, you goofy goober."
So they headed off.
They spent most of their days flying, and they stopped shortly before dusk each night. They always packed up before dawn, and then hit skies again as the sun was rising. It was a system that took work, seeing as everyone but Aang and Appa had adjusted to a life of sleeping late, but it settled into their systems after a few days. They usually stopped for pit stops for bathrooms and a lunch, but some days they spent as little time as possible on land. They just wanted to get to the North Pole as fast as possible, and the endless hours crowded in the small saddle made for cranky travelers. They usually argued over who sat on Appa's head, as it was as solitary as one could be while on a flying bison, but it really didn't matter: most of their time was spent napping, or in moody, worried silence.
"Let's go find some food, then," Sokka yawned, as Appa landed, "We passed an apple orchard a couple minutes ago… let's go get some."
"Sounds good," Suki said, standing up and stepping one foot onto the edge of Appa's new saddle. She glanced at Sokka, who was practically falling asleep again, and she said, "Sleepyhead."
"Right," Sokka said, shaking his head, and he got up. Suki jumped down, landing on two feet, and then she straightened up. Sokka followed, though he landed quite clumsily, and he had to put out one hand to keep himself from face-planting forward.
"I'm coming, too," Toph said, sliding down off Appa's tail. She landed well, too, and she walked over.
"Alright," Sokka grinned, just happy to be on the ground.
"You guys go, then," Aang said, "Katara and I will get camp set up and all. Just make sure you get enough for Appa, all his stomachs are empty!"
"Man, that'll take forever," Sokka said, as he pulled a few burlap bags from the saddle. He tossed one to Suki, who shook it out, and draped another over Toph's head. She protested and pulled it off, and Sokka had to hold her head at arm's length to prevent her from pummeling him with her bare hands, though she still got him with the earth in the end.
So, nursing a bruised bicep and a goose-egg on his forehead, Sokka tramped off with Suki and Toph to go get dinner. It was only a few minutes walk, but the three of them shortened the time with banter, playful conversation, and arguing things as simple as "How many apples will fit in Sokka's stomach, and how many Sokkas would fit in Appa's stomach?"
The apples were ripe, and ready for picking, but no one had taken them. There was a farm at one end of the orchard, but it was empty, and even from a hundred yards they could see it had been abandoned. Animals loafed around, loose in the yard, and hippocows had stripped the trees of the lower-hanging fruits. There was not a single person around, and it seemed as if there hadn't been in some time. Most noticeably, the barn had been burned, and it was nothing but charred timbers and ash-blackened stone.
"Let's not go too near," Suki said.
"Why not?" Sokka shrugged, "It's not like we'll get shot for trespassing… let's go check it out, maybe there's something there."
"Nah, I agree with Suki," Toph replied, "it smells bad and we just need some grub."
"It looks like it could collapse at any minute," Suki argued. "Not to mention the fact that there could be Fire nation still around here. They didn't strip this place of the apples, and they need food, don't they?"
"Alright, alright," Sokka said, raising his hands in surrender, "I get it. Fine. Let's just get our yummy dinner and go, then." He paced over to the nearest tree and reached up to grab an apple, but the lowest ones were out of his reach by at least a foot. He could blame those damned animals eating the lower ones. "Can't reach!"
Suki was up a tree in seconds, literally, grabbing a low branch and walking up the side of the tree until she could get a foothold. Then she pulled up her weight, and she pushed herself to her feet, and then climbed up a few more branches. From where she was, she could easily pick the apples, and she dropped them down to the grass.
Sokka looked up, grinned, and said, sing-song, "I see Suki's underwear!"
He was clocked in the head with a hurled apple a second later, and with an "oof!" he flew right off his feet. As he pulled himself up, half-laughing and half-whining about the pain, he glanced up at Suki and said, "HEY, missy, I'm just stating a fact—"
He had to lift his arms to shield his face and duck his head again. Suki stuck her tongue out at him, and smiled. Sokka made a face back, and he said, "Don't make me come up there.
"And lose your great view?" Suki replied, "As if."
Sokka grinned, sheepishly, and Toph made a retching noise. Sokka glanced her way, and Toph said, "I'm so glad I'm blind."
"You're missing a great, great view, Toph, it's the type of thing men go to war for," Sokka informed her, grinning and collecting the apples Suki threw down into the burlap bags. Toph heaved a scowl. Suki stopped her apple mission to look down at Sokka, squinting through the fading light of day.
"Sokka, don't talk that way," she chided, "seriously, not in front of Toph. She's twelve, that's so inappropriate."
Sokka was flustered suddenly. He protested, "I was just kidding around!"
But his indignant reply was nothing like Toph's. Toph piped up, cattily, "I bet I know more about sex than you do, Suki."
Suki nearly fell out of the tree, she was so startled, and she quickly regained her footing and went back to picking. She dropped another apple, and another. She said, slowly, "Um, do I want to know?"
"I spent years hanging out with guys at the Earth Rumble, and other lei tai competitions," Toph said, with a smug look, "They talked about it all the time! And in front of me, too. So don't think you're all smarter than me and protecting me from big, bad Sokka's stupid UNDERWEAR jokes."
Suki replied, "Oh." She sounded vaguely skeptical.
Toph seemed to be reckless that evening. She folded her arms, and walked over to the nearest tree, and stomped her foot on the ground, hard. The tree shook violently, and a couple dozen apples fell. Sokka went to pick them up, and Suki glanced over from her own tree.
Toph continued on, "So don't treat me like a kid just because you're all older-and-wiser and junk. What do you think I am, sheltered? It's not like I don't know what you and Sokka do when you go out to 'collect firewood' in the evenings. I'm twelve, not four."
She definitely seemed angry. Suki said nothing, and neither did Sokka, and the two of them avoided looking at each other. Toph let out a bitter scowl as she completely uprooted one tree, sending it crashing over, all the apples tumbling to the ground or into reach.
"I'm not stupid," Toph said, angrily. There was a moment of silence, and Toph just stood there, staring straight ahead of her, but they could tell she was waiting for either of them to say something. Anything. Suki jumped down from her tree and walked towards them.
"Errr," Sokka trailed, finally, "this is awkward."
"If you simply have to know, we don't have sex," Suki said, firmly, "and what we do in private is none of your business."
Toph seemed to wait, and then she said, slowly, "You don't?" She sounded surprised, as if she expected otherwise.
"No," Suki said. "We don't."
Sokka was as red as the apples as he shoved them into bags. Suki was standing with her arms folded, and Toph heaved a sigh. It was confusing, all of it, but the conversation ended itself there, and with three full bags of apples, they headed back to camp, and pretended the conversation had never happened.
They started meeting up with refugees by the end of the week. As they prepared to fly after lunch, a group of forty or so refugees trundled by. They had a large wooden cart pulled by a pair of ostrich-horses, and many people were packed into it. As they were coming into view, Aang and Katara jumped to their feet and ran to greet them. The leaders of the caravan went over to speak to them, and Suki went over after a moment, too, and Toph and Sokka rose to follow.
And then, a girl on the wagon called Sokka over with a bright, "Hey, Ponytail!"
He was close to reprimanding her for that kind of name, but she was kind of cute. When he got closer, he realized the girl wasn't just cute, she was adorable, with a sweet face and an optimistic smile. Looking at her, Sokka figured that even in the worst of moments, she could manage hope. He said, "Hey."
"I just wanted to ask if you knew the area," she asked, "we've got some people who are hard of breath, and I don't have enough herbs. Would you know where I could find some angelica plants? Or some arnica?"
"No, sorry," he apologized, "we're passing through, too, though I know what they look like."
"That's alright," she said. "I thought it was worth a try."
The girl smiled at him and batted her eyelashes. Those eyes were too friendly for mere acquaintances. He quickly said, "My name's Sokka. That's Suki, my girlfriend."
This was sort of stupid, because Suki was standing a good twenty feet away, in conversation with Aang, Katara and the leader. He had to point her out between the other two.
To his surprise, the girl's smile didn't even flicker. She said, "She's so pretty. It's nice to meet you, Sokka. My name is Song."
"Nice to meetcha. Headed for the Northern Water Tribe, I guess?" Sokka asked.
"No, actually," Song replied, softly, "I have relatives up north. Our village was ransacked by the Fire nation last week, there was no house left to stay in. Hopefully our relatives are still around. If not, I don't know if my mother can survive the North."
She was troubled. Sokka cringed, and he said, "I'm sorry about that. But things'll look up. See that kid over there?" He pointed at Aang. "Under that scruffy hair, there's a blue arrow. The Avatar. He's alive and kicking."
Song's eyes widened, and she looked over, and her smile brightened even further. She even flushed pink in the cheeks. She said, with much heart, "I'm so glad! Where did he go? We all thought he was dead after Ba Sing Se fell…"
"Yeah," Sokka said. "He fell into a coma. We took care of him. And now he's ready to win back the world."
"I know he can do it," Song replied. Her smile flickered, suddenly.
"What's wrong?" Sokka asked.
"Oh," she said, and she smiled again. "I was just thinking about something. Don't mind me."
"Sokka," Suki called, "we're getting ready to leave."
Sokka glanced up at Song one last time, and he said, "Have a safe journey."
"You too," Song replied, and Sokka gave a brief wave and jogged back to Suki and the rest of them, finding it hard to keep the smile off his own face.
Yeah. Things would look up.
"Let's go swimming," Aang suggested. Katara followed his gaze to the lake, and she looked back at him.
"Are you sure? We could probably get another hour of flying in…"
Aang shook his head, and he said, "Appa's pretty beat. Let's just call it quits for the day. Besides… we need to have a bit of fun. We keep going like this, we're going to start hating each other up there."
Katara hesitated, and Sokka piped up, "Stop being such a worrywart. Aang's got a point."
"I'm not!" she protested, and as if to put across her point, she kicked off her boots. Sokka laughed, and so did Aang, and both stripped down to the waist. Sokka kicked off his boots and moved to undo the button of his fly.
"I'm game," Toph said, "as long as we stay in the shallow end."
"Don't worry," Sokka teased, and he stopped fiddling with his pants for a moment to clap Toph on the back. She didn't exactly see that coming, and she was nearly bowled right over. "Suki can save you if you step off into the deep, eh, Suki?"
Suki glanced at him, raised an eyebrow, and she smiled. There was no argument, no attempt at irritating Toph, and that was a good thing, because Toph scowled and folded her arms as it was. Suki rolled her eyes away, though she kept smiling.
"Come on, Toph," Sokka said, and he grabbed her around the waist and hoisted him over her shoulder. She flailed, but she didn't exactly stop him from doing it. "Let's gooooo swimmmmmming!"
"HEY!" Toph protested, "Put me down! He-ey! SOKKA! At least let me get my stupid clothes off first you dumb--"
He splashed right into the surf, up to his knees, and yelped when she caught him in the chest with one knee. Almost doubled over, he flipped her down and dropped her right into the water with a loud, "DOWN YA GO!" and a shriek of protest from her.
She surfaced immediately and spluttered, and he grabbed onto her arm and hoisted her up as she shouted and reached under the water to sling handfuls of muddy sand at him. He laughed, and let go of her, and ran back onto the grass as Toph yelled at him.
"JERK," Toph shouted, and Sokka kicked off his wet, muddy pants, still laughing.
"You asked for it!" he called back, and Toph climbed out of the lake with a really sour expression, and just as she stomped her foot to send a volley of rocks at him, he ran and took a crazy leap off the rather short bank. He landed hard, seeing as he couldn't jump farther than waist-deep.
"You--!" Toph snapped, and Sokka laughed, and laughed. The other three just watched them, not particularly concerned about how this was going, as they all knew it was for play, and even if Toph seriously injured Sokka, it wouldn't be anything Katara couldn't fix. And Toph, well, no one was really worried about Sokka injuring her.
"I missed this," Aang sighed, and chuckled. Katara was smiling oddly, too, and she glanced at Suki.
"Coming?"
"Of course," Suki smiled.
"Water fight!" Sokka roared. "Water fight, let's go!"
"Someday," Katara said, pinning her hair back, "you'll regret ever asking two Waterbenders to have a water-fight with you."
And so the battle began, Aang and Sokka versus the girls. By virtue of bending, Aang ended up handling the two younger girls, simultaneously using water, earth and air to fend off their attacks, and Sokka and Suki settled to a childish game of whoever could get the other more wet. In the end, Sokka emerged victorious, but not for long – Toph, having left Katara and Aang to their waterbending, joined in.
"No fair!" Sokka protested, as he was running away through the shallows, trying to avoid stepping on sharp things at the same time. Suki and Toph gave chase, pelting him with mudballs as they went, until the poor guy's back side was so covered in mud that one could hardly tell what colour his skin was.
"You know that in older times, they used to check fallen Kyoshi warriors' wounds to see how they'd fallen!" Suki called, as she pelted another mudball, chasing Sokka around a fallen log. "If it was on the back, they'd been attacked running away, the cowards, and it never happened!"
Sokka slowed to look down at his own chest, and he turned to ask "Are you implying something?!" when Toph caught him in the mouth with more mud. And it wasn't just a handful – it was a bent rush of it.
He spluttered on it, immediately, making a great show to whining and complaining about it, and Suki caught up first. She grabbed onto him from behind, putting him into a playful armlock, and when Toph caught up, she soaked him from head-to-toe in mud.
"Witches," Sokka said, spitting out mud. "Eugh eugh eugh eugh witches, the both of you, see if I ever feed you ever again eughhhhh!!"
Toph and Suki shared a laugh, and Suki lifted a hand to give Toph a high-five, when she realized that Toph couldn't see her. So she burst out laughing more, and Sokka saw the gesture, so he laughed too, and he grabbed Toph by the wrist and forced her to do the high-five. Toph, having been the subject of this sort of thing before, just laughed and did a second high-five on her own, almost missing Suki's hand.
The three just laughed, until Sokka got the advantage and took Toph hostage. This led to a rather amusing chase scene back down the beach, Suki tripping Sokka and taking Toph back along the way. They met up with Aang and Katara again shortly.
"Hey Suki," Sokka said, loudly, "what happened to the skunkbear that fell in the river?"
Suki glanced at him, paused, and thought about it for a second. She paused, laughed, and then pointed at him and dramatically replied, "It… stank to the bottom."
Sokka laughed like a madman, pulled her into an energetic hug, and he yelled, "YESSS. Exactly! See, NO ONE ELSE gets these jokes! THAT'S why I love you, baby!"
Katara was laughing and covering her mouth with her hand, and even Toph was snickering at this. Aang just laughed and made some comment about "Did Sokka hit the cactus juice again?"
Suki laughed, and she said, "You're crazy, Sokka, absolutely crazy, oh boy…"
"Yesssss!" Sokka said, and he picked her right up in both arms and spun her. Then, mid-step, he tripped over something underwater and sent them both crashing down into the water, which left both yelping instead of laughing.
But they laughed some more when they surfaced.
Overall, it was a pretty good evening.
They reached the snow faster than they anticipated. Toph was fitted with boots as soon as they had hit the snow line. She didn't enjoying it, but the moral support was there still. And as they got deeper and deeper into the arctic, Sokka felt his heart start to gnaw at him. It wasn't just the fact that the sun stopped setting, or that the chill had settled in his body.
He hadn't been back here since Princess Yue. It had been months since then, it was summer now… and he was going back.
He glanced down at Suki, who was sleeping with her head on his lap, her arms tucked up to her chest. He absentmindedly ran his fingers through her hair, and then bitterly looked away, glad that the moon was going to be hidden from this tribe for at least a few more months. The moon was in the South, now.
Never had he appreciated the midnight sun more than he did right then, feeling too embarrassed to hold Suki so close under any moon.
Zuko found out, quite quickly, that he couldn't control anything as Fire Lord any better than he could as the banished prince. Already, as he boarded Azula's ship, he knew that it was as good as being led away in chains. It was a bitter, nasty thing.
Every order he gave seemed to be overridden by mysterious parties, and he didn't have to guess twice to know who it was. Azula had her claws dug in to the knuckles, and he knew her stranglehold wasn't going to ease until she died, or he did.
It was a game of endurance, now, and Zuko was being worn ragged.
"You should sleep," Mai said, quietly, whispered into his ear one night. "We won't be there for another week and a half, for now you need to sleep." She sounded almost exasperated, frustrated with herself and him.
Zuko didn't reply, or even move, he just kept staring at the ceiling. Even as she pushed over in bed to press closer to him, even as she pressed a kiss to his scarred cheek, even as she held onto his arm. It was comforting, but he was too stressed, even when one of her nipples grazed his forearm.
"She's going to kill me, isn't she," Zuko said, quietly, flatly.
There was no reply for a moment, and then Mai let go of him, rolled over, and buried herself in blankets on the other side of the bed. He didn't sleep at all that night, though he made a trip or two to the bathroom to throw up and come back to bed miserable. Never had he hated his life more.
As they got further north, they intended on picking up some extra supplies – heavier clothing, for example. But things were not going well for the Earth kingdom, and many things, including parkas, anoraks and other such winter-wear, were all hard to come by, especially when Earth kingdom people were gathering in the North as a mass exodus. The Fire nation had run them ragged, and had Aang not been there, Sokka knew they'd never have gotten suitable winter-wear. People saw the Avatar through. People managed to spare a few coats, and that saw Toph, Katara, and Aang clothed. Suki and Sokka settled for half a dozen fur blankets, and everyone spent the last few days of the voyage huddled together on Appa's back, under those thick furs. It was warm, but no way to live.
And the sights they passed were certainly terrifying – thousands, literally thousands of Fire nation ships, gathered in the water, slowly chugging closer to the capital. As they got closer, the boats got thicker, more stationary, and Katara pointed out, terrified, that they were mostly parked, and not on the attack. Shockingly, tiny boats full of refugees weaved between the warships unharmed and left alone, heading towards the snow-beaches.
"That's so weird," Sokka remarked, and Suki wound her fingers tighter around Sokka's. He said, worried, "They're just… guarding the place. They're not even doing anything. They're letting people in to the city."
"Why?" Suki asked.
"I don't know," Sokka said, stressed, "how would I know? What's why I'm asking!"
But his waspishness was nothing compared to the others', being fairly laid back by nature. Sokka cringed every time Katara opened her mouth to talk, Aang became moody and bitter, and Toph complained of the cold all the time.
"This is so scary," Suki said, wondering aloud for the nth time, "it defies all the logic in sieges… why would they waste time and resources waiting here?"
Sokka shook his head, leant his forehead against hers, and didn't say anything, but that was right when the city came into view, and the crash-boom of fire meeting ice hit their eardrums. They all snapped to attention and leant forward on Appa, and they looked down to a strange sight: Fire nation ships removing icebergs.
"What in the world do they think they're doing?" Aang asked, confused.
"I think I know," Katara replied, narrowing her eyes. "I think they're stripping the water of the North's best defense… ship-blockers."
When they landed on the beach, it became frighteningly obvious that there were problems heavier than the sky had initially suggested. Their position in the sky had obscured the Water tribe's desperate last defense from their view, but from the ground, they could see that a giant icy wall had been built around the bay, and that it was constantly being attacked and repaired.
And, the second problem was, Fire nation scouts on the outskirts of the city. Generally these scouts seemed to come in groups of fifty, every other day or so, to delay the repair work on the Great Ice Wall, and they had to be eliminated. They were in the middle of such an attack when the Avatar landed on his bison.
"We'll take care of this," Aang growled, angry already, drawing water from the snow and flinging it at the soldiers. Katara jumped down from Appa, and Toph stayed in the saddle. Suki leapt down, too, pulling out her fans and preparing for combat.
"Toph, get on Appa's head, and take the reins. He'll know what to do," Aang shouted, as they backed up the Water tribe warriors fighting the invasion. He then paused, angrily, and he snapped, "Sokka, run to the palace and tell them that Avatar Aang is back!"
Sokka got a dozen steps before he stopped to look back at Suki. It was her first fight since he had saved her, wasn't it, her first real combat? He wheeled around in the snow to look at her and caught sight of her just in time to see her step through the deep snow and catch a soldier across the jugular with her slim fan, slipping between the edge of his helmet and his chest. He went down like a sack of potatoes.
Sokka kept hesitating, but Suki turned and caught sight of him and she shouted, "Sokka, what are you waiting for?"
There was a solider coming up behind her, and she turned and took his feet out from under him, ducking under a blast of fire. He didn't get back up, and she shouted, "SOKKA, I'm fine, GO!"
He snapped out of it, turned tail, and ran.
Zuko sat down to breakfast wearily. He could feel the exhausted drag on his face, he felt zapped of energy. He had probably caught only a handful of hours of sleep in the past four or five days. He was too worried to sleep.
And, there, sitting to the right of his chair, with a bright smile on her face, was Azula. Her wine-red lips curled up on one side in some hopelessly mocking way, and she had her chin rested on her folded hands. Matter-of-factly, she informed him, "I've poisoned your drink."
He looked at the glass helplessly, and he glanced at Mai and Ty Lee. They didn't say anything, though Mai certainly looked at Azula dead in the eyes with some sort of ennui. Zuko picked up the glass, and he said, "Why would you tell me that? Why wouldn't you just let me drink it and have your laughs, you horrible, horrible monster?"
Azula didn't skip a beat, and she replied, "Do you think I'm a liar?"
"Yes," he said.
"Then it's safe for you to drink," she replied, and Zuko stared at her.
"I don't have to drink this," he replied, "you're being stupid now, Azula. Why would I drink it now? It's just a glassful. It's not like it's made of pure gold, or the rarest drink in the world, or irreplaceable. It won't be a waste if I throw it on you."
"Someone's cranky," Azula replied.
"Get out of my sight," Zuko snapped.
"Gladly," she replied, "I have units to prepare, anyway."
She pushed herself to her feet, smirking all the while, and she walked by him with a wicked smile. Zuko looked at her, and looked at the drink, and then glanced at Mai and Ty Lee. Ty Lee rubbed at her temples, surprisingly stressed, and Mai heaved a sigh.
"And here I thought I'd join up with Azula for the entertainment," she said. "Murder plots, sex, lies, torture, political intrigue... I should have just gone to a Kabuki show and saved myself the personal strife."
No one replied to that, and Zuko was so angry he threw his drink at the floor. It splattered, the metal cup skittering across the iron flooring loudly. Still, no one said anything, but they all ate their breakfast anyway.
Sokka ran the field between the ice wall and the city wall faster than he ever had in his life. It took a great deal of energy to get through the fresh snowball, and he shouted shouting at the people on the wall: "The Avatar! The Avatar!"
His voice carried well on the cold air. That got them moving, and that got the wall opened for him long before he got even remotely close to the wall, and they shut it behind him rapidly. He stopped running, and there were already warriors waiting for him on the other side.
"The Avatar?" the leader of the team said, stunned, and Sokka doubled over and wheezed. He hadn't had this much of a workout in days, he hadn't even had time to warm-up! He felt dumb, and though he was steadily getting to be just as tall as these guys, he certainly felt dwarfed anyway, and he didn't want to look weak.
"Yeah," he panted, "the Avatar, on the beaches… he's fighting off a group of Fire nation soldiers… might wanna take care of that."
"I thought the Avatar was dead!?" the leader gasped, and his eyes widened and his mouth broke into a great smile, though it faded within seconds. Then, almost frustrated, he said, "Where has he been?!"
"The Spirit world," Sokka said, because it was easier. He settled on snapping at the leader anyway: "Who cares about that now? Go help him! I need to tell Chief Arnook."
"Very well," the leader said, and he and his warriors barreled by Sokka and out the reopened wall. Sokka heaved one last breath and broke out into a run, and when he got to the canals, he leapt in the nearest parked gondola and shoved it off the bank, walking along the bottom to the other end, looking for a paddle. The boat was already drifting off the icy dock when he realized that they didn't need paddles here, they had waterbending.
He swore, and then he just heard a girl say, "Need help?"
He looked up, and said, starting to freak out, "Er, yeah, find me a waterbender, I need to get to the palace as soon as possible, it's an emergency, message from the Avatar, blah blah--"
The girl didn't go get him a waterbender. Instead, she just paced the edge of the dock until she was nearest to the boat, and with a great pull of her arms backwards, the boat came flying towards her. Sokka was knocked back in the boat, landing with his knees on the seat and his butt on the bottom. Sokka wasn't exactly in the most intelligent of moods, instead opting for panic mode, and he said, "You're a boatbender?!"
She laughed and stepped in, neatly, and then with another push of her arms, they were off, barreling down the canal. Sokka climbed to sit, and then stood right up.
"Waterbender, actually," she said, "now sit down or you'll fall out."
"I thought they don't teach girls. What, did Katara actually have an impact on you guys?" he said, confused.
"You must be Sokka," she said, and then she cut right to the chase: "The Avatar?"
"He's alive," Sokka said, edgily. He never wanted to be able to bend more in his life, sitting there with ants in his pants, wanting to just get there. He had a message. He had an important message! He had to get there; he had to get there NOW. Sokka danced around in his seat childishly. "Look, how far is it to the palace?"
"An hour walking, half an hour running, fifteen minutes by boat," she said, "stop moving or you'll tip out. But the Avatar's alive?"
"Augh," Sokka whined, trying to settle and chewing on a fingernail for a second. He hoped Suki was doing okay. He prayed Suki was doing okay. "Yeah, the Avatar's alive and he's kind of fighting to protect you right now so it'd be great if we could get to the Chief and tell him what's happening. Right now. Like, immediately-right-now."
"Working on it," the girl said, "don't nag me, I'm a beginner."
He resisted commenting on that harshly, and instead he said, "Is there someone with more skill who could do this?"
"It doesn't matter how much skill you have," the girl said, "there's only so fast you can push a boat in small canals like these before you tip the thing or flood it."
"Whatever," Sokka said, a bit louder than he intended, and he was freaking out. "Just drive the boat, woman!"
"Again, working on it," she said, and they veered so far to the right that the gondola dinged off the icy siding of the canal, and Sokka yelped.
"Watch out!" he said, with much more gusto than needed. Was Suki okay? Oh, he really, really hoped she was okay without him. The worry had him in a stranglehold, and then, guiltily, he started with a "Sorry, beginner, I get it, I'm just freaked out okay, sorry."
The girl gave a funny sort of huffy laugh and managed to steer the boat back to the center. Sokka settled on worrying and panicking again, and then he head his name being called. For a second, it didn't register, because he was too busy imagining worst-case scenarios, but that quickly vanished and he wheeled around in his seat.
There was Hakoda, following alongside the boat on the docks, at a jog. He said Sokka's name again and Sokka said, "Woah, woah woah, hey, let me off." He didn't even wait for the girl to steer towards the side, he stood right up and had one foot on the edge, ready to jump. So jump he did, and he only just made it to the curb as she was pulling over.
"Sokka," Hakoda said, pulling him into a tight hug, and Sokka lingered for a second before throwing it off.
"Dad," he said, hurriedly. He was almost grinning ear-to-ear, suddenly, despite how grave the circumstances were. He said, "When did you get here?"
"Sokka," Hakoda said, with a smile that was more of a grimace. "Immediately after the fall of Ba Sing Se, we were attacked by enemy ships. We weren't in the condition to fight, so we fled and made for the North. We've been ferrying refugees since. Where in the world have you been?"
"It's a long story. What's going on here, anyway, with the Fire nation?"
"You've probably seen their fleets. The Fire nation sends in small battalions every couple of days. They leave by the evening. They've been doing this for a month," Hakoda said. He sounded older than Sokka remembered, even from weeks ago, like everything was fruitless.
"Dad, it'll be over soon," Sokka said, dismissively, "Look, I'm going to go back to the front and help them… can you go to Chief Arnook and tell him that the Avatar is alive, well, and here to help?"
Hakoda did a double take. "The Avatar is alive?"
Sokka was too glad to see his father to care how stupid and redundant this was getting. He said, "Yeah! He was just out cold, not dead. See, we went into hiding—"
"Sokka," Hakoda interrupted, "take the message yourself. I'll go get Katara."
"Alright," Sokka said, "meet you back here? And, um, there's an Earth kingdom girl named Suki, if you could keep her safe for me, but, um, don't let her know you're protecting her, okay? She doesn't like that sort of thing but--"
"Go, Sokka," Hakoda interrupted, and Sokka hesitated, grinned, and dashed back towards the waiting gondola.
Sokka didn't think he had ever seen his father run faster in his life, than he did to go help Katara in that battle. Really, it made Sokka very happy.
When Sokka returned to the front, after the message had been delivered, there was his father, standing there with Katara, Aang, Toph and Suki. Well, Katara wasn't standing – she was knelt over a water tribesman, and she was healing his arm from some injury. As Sokka jogged through the snow towards them, Suki looked up and smiled at him, and so did Hakoda. It took all his self-control not to leap on Suki and badger her with questions about how she had held up.
"Katara's introduced me to your girlfriend," Hakoda said, "Quite the capable girl. I came up just as she was taking out a Fire nation soldier twice her size, with one hand. And to think I was going to step in and defend her."
Sokka flushed, furiously, and he said, "That's nothing, she can take out guys four times her size." He said it playfully, walking right up to her and bopping her on the rear with his knee. This gesture seemed to be more out of embarrassment than anything. "It's pretty intense."
"I don't doubt it," Hakoda said.
"I'm working on guys five times my size," Suki said, and quite boldly, she jumped at Sokka and gave him a not-so-playful sock in the arm.
Hakoda looked down at them with a smile.
"How old are you, Suki?" Hakoda asked. She blinked, once, as if surprised by the question, and gave Sokka a glance over her shoulder. He looked just as blank, though he snapped out of that relatively quickly.
"I turned seventeen in the spring," she replied, after a moment, and Sokka was looking at Hakoda suspiciously. Hakoda laughed, suddenly.
"I didn't mean anything by it, Sokka, you take your time. I was just curious," Hakoda said, smiling, and gave Suki a polite bow. He told her, grinning, "Last time I spent significant amounts of time with my son, he probably only knew one or two girls his age, and he thought they were 'icky'."
"Dad!" Sokka complained.
"First time I met your son, he thought women couldn't be warriors," Suki said, with a smug little look. Sokka was tempted to tackle her into a snowbank for even bringing that up but he resisted, because he was feeling awkward was it was without horsing around with her in front of his dad. His girlfriend and his father were chatting like old friends, teasing him. Worse yet, they were going to start exchanging anecdotes right in front of him. It was embarrassing.
"Really? I'm sure he's learnt better now, though," Hakoda smiled. "He underestimated everything as a boy. Once, he saw a reinwhale and insisted on catching it, claiming it was big enough to feed three dozen men. After dogging it for eight hours, in and out of the water, after falling in twice and getting his knee split open, he got it... only to discover it was barely big enough to feed six."
Suki laughed.
"Dad," Sokka groaned.
Hakoda clapped Sokka on the back, chuckled to himself again, and Sokka let out a frustrated sort of noise, flushed red in the cheeks. When Suki pointed that out, smiling between Hakoda and Sokka brightly, Sokka insisted it was just the cold.
"I had almost forgotten how cold it is here," the man chuckled, and he heaved a great breath. The weather was taking a toll on his energy, but he certainly wasn't beat yet, no matter how foggy his heavy breath was on the air. He was wrapped in many, many brown and black clothes, and his voice was muffled by the scarf wound around his mouth. It obscured his face so that only his eyes could be seen.
His companion was faring a bit better, and even if she seemed exhausted, there was a weary sort of hope in her gold eyes. She was bundled in the front of the sled and staring straight ahead of her, as if she were expecting the Northern citadel to be beyond the nearest snowdrift. The old man, on the other hand, was wearily watching her, with some sort of concerned fondness.
"How much farther?" she asked, and even if her own mouth was hidden behind a scarf, he could tell she put on a smile when he looked down at her.
He shifted his weight on the back trails of the sled, and he glanced up at the horizon, over the backs of the six polar dogs pulling them. Over the long, flat landscape of the snow, he could nothing, but he knew there was a sharp drop there, and in that drop lay the citadel. It had taken weeks to boat around to the back of the arctic, and he knew they never would have been able to get into the city from the front, with the Fire nation blocking the icy passages.
"Two hours, at best, Princess," he decided.
There was no reply, and the woman only tightened the fold of the heavy blankets around her, to trap in more warmth. Her hands were balled together tightly, clutching a precious package. For many minutes, they travelled in silence, and then the woman spoke, in a resigned, sad tone.
"I wonder if he'd recognize me, if I saw him."
The man didn't reply for a second, and then he replied, "Why wouldn't he? You're his mother. And besides, it wasn't as if he was a baby. Even a toddler would know his mother. Why, I believe he could pick you from a crowd while blindfolded."
She didn't seem to believe it. She replied, "Even with these scars?"
She touched one gloved hand to her cheek. Even with such bulky and cheap gloves, her fingers seemed delicate and fragile. The brown leather ghosted over the scars there, and she let out a resigned sigh. The man brought the sled to a halt, and she looked up at him as he stepped around the handles and knelt next to her, in the snow. His beard was coated in flurries.
"Your Highness," he said, "what you had to do was unfortunate. But I truly believe that this will amount to the best, even if Zuko has betrayed us."
He took her hands in his, closed his great, bear-sized hands over hers. He smiled, and she smiled back, faintly, and he said, "I don't know whether we can save Zuko from his puppeteer, but we will try. I truly believed that he had found the right way in the world back in Ba Sing Se, and I was wrong. But as long as you ask it from me, I will try my hardest to save him; I could never deny him his life, no matter how many bad choices he makes."
The woman seemed comfortable with asking it of him. She said, "We must save Zuko... but could we save Azula, too?"
"After all she's done," the man said, and he actually heaved an uncharacteristic sigh of sadness, and regret. "You would still save her. Motherhood..."
"She's my daughter, no matter how wicked she is," she said, almost defensively, and Iroh shook his head sadly.
"No, Princess -- she is my brother's daughter. There may be hope for a peaceful ending to this, for her to leave this war alive, but I'm afraid there could never be any redemption for her. Zuko, though... he hasn't been raised drinking Ozai's poison."
There was a moment of silence, nothing but the wind and the baying of some of the polardogs, and Princess Ursa looked at Iroh with dry eyes. There was little capacity for crying, in this barren snowy wasteland. It was far too cold, too windy.
"Poor child," she replied, bittersweetly.
"If I could have saved her, I would have, long ago," Iroh said, as he straightened up and trumped back to the back of the sled. Stepping up on the rails again, he remarked, "I resent that I should ever have to choose one child's life over another, or that I should ever have to do such a thing."
Ursa was quiet. She was so sick and so weakened when he found her in refuge, let alone now, in the harsh arctic snows. Iroh regretted bringing her, no matter how much she had insisted, how much she had begged. But if he hadn't allowed her to come, she would have died alone.
"I will regret taking her down for the rest of my life, but I will have done it to save thousands."
"You sound as if you can," she said, as he whipped the dogs into motion once more. She swallowed her dry breath, and said, "If I hadn't believed her..."
"If you hadn't believed her, she would have been killed then," Iroh said, and after a pause, he said, "But who can say how things would have been? The future is a funny thing. We know it's coming, we can guess what will happen, but no one can claim to know that things would have been better if my brother had killed her."
Ursa was quiet once more, and then she said, "Saving Zuko is the only thing I can think of from now on. I must protect my baby, my child. I've left him to you for so long, when I should have gone to you the moment he was banished."
Iroh was silent. They both knew there were apologies to be made, but that could wait until they were out of the cold. But, as they went on, battling the arctic wind, Iroh knew Ursa would barely survive the trip to the North.
When they all found their way to the palace, an hour later, Chief Arnook was deep in discussion with the rest of the tribe's elders, and although Aang and Katara were raring to go speak with him, they weren't allowed in until afterwards, Avatar or not. Instead, Hakoda brought them through the winding icy halls to one of the side wings, where they all settled down to wait. Hakoda was invited in on more than one occasion, but he politely declined each time. He seemed content to stay with his children.
People came and went into the room, and the entire place never seemed to stop bustling. Earth kingdom and Water tribe people passed each other in the halls as if it were normal for there to be mingling like this, the Earth kingdom people usually clad in blue coats over their brown and green pants. They seemed so pale, next to the darker-skinned natives, but they also seemed a bit blue, at times. Suki looked similar, the red make-up around her eyes making her otherwise unpainted face seem pale enough to be white anyway.
No one looked familiar, until one face popped into the hall.
"Hey, Boatbender," Sokka called. "Thanks for the lift, earlier."
"Sokka," the girl replied, brightly, and Suki's head turned faster than Sokka had ever seen in his life. He was suddenly ultra apprehensive, and he just smiled like an idiot. The girl asked, "Everything going okay?"
"Yeah, I think everything will be great now, er," Sokka said, pausing for her name.
"Hena," she replied.
"Hena," he repeated. "Thanks."
"Nice to meet you," Suki said, and Sokka could of laughed at how she was suddenly so concerned, but the curtain between the rooms suddenly brushed aside. They all looked up expectantly.
And there was Chief Arnook himself, looking even more exhausted than Hakoda did. The weathered lines of his face seemed even more creased than usual, deep and heavy with sorrow. Hakoda's resilience seemed tenfold, compared to Arnook, and despite only a few years between them, Arnook seemed older by decades.
"You could have come in, Hakoda," Arnook said. His voice seemed gruffer than usual. "I would have assumed you'd skipped out on the meeting if I didn't know your children were here."
"Ah," Hakoda said, smilingly, but his tone wasn't so warm. "Why would I join in just to disagree with you? I'd much rather spend time with my children."
"I'm glad you're enjoying your luxuries, but we don't have time," Arnook said, stiffly. "This place is starving, war is imminent, and the entire world depends on the Water tribe's survival."
Sokka was a bit offended by how Chief Arnook was speaking to his father, but Hakoda replied before Sokka could even make a face. Hakoda said, calmly, "Arnook, the tribe will survive this. The Avatar is here now and we'll see what can be done."
"Can he create food? Oil? Supplies? Can he put our culture back on its feet?" Arnook replied. There was something about the way he gestured at Katara, at Suki, at Toph and at Hena that struck a nerve in almost all parties, and Katara snapped.
"Don't start with a the-Avatar-wasn't-there campaign," she snapped, "It's not Aang's fault. It's not anybody's fault but the Fire nation's, don't you dare blame him! And if you have a problem with female benders being here you can just sho––"
"Katara," Hakoda cut her off.
Arnook looked startled, and Hakoda put a hand on Katara's shoulder. Katara stopped there, breathing heavily, and Aang looked away. Sokka couldn't even see Aang's reaction, behind Katara.
"Katara," Hakoda said, a bit softer, "Let's let the Avatar speak to Chief Arnook in private. We'll all go find a place for you to stay." He paused to look at Hena, who had a grimace on her face, and then back to Katara. "I'm sure this girl can find us a place."
Hena looked up as Hakoda caught her attention, and she nodded.
"Dad," Katara said, bitterly.
"Go, Katara," Aang said. The guilt was apparent on his voice, and he stepped around her and Hakoda to stand in front of Arnook. "I'll catch up with you later."
"Aang," Katara said, voice softening, though she kept her shoulders tense.
Aang smiled, though it was forced. He said, "I'll be fine! Go."
Hakoda steered Katara towards Hena, and he gave Sokka, Suki and Toph a nudge, too. On a second thought, he offered Toph his arm, and Toph took it. She was so short he almost had to lean to the side.
"Hakoda," Arnook said, after him, "will you be joining us?"
"In a moment," Hakoda said, "I'll just be a moment, go on."
Arnook and Aang disappeared into the room. Hakoda cast the doorway a furtive glance and then he said, looking at Katara, "He's not in a good way right now. He lost his only child months ago and his wife died last week. He literally has the responsibility of the whole free world on his shoulders, and because of it, his tribe's culture is shifting rapidly to include female benders. Don't hold it against him, Katara."
"Dad," Katara started, vehemently, and Hakoda shook his head.
"He'll apologize later," Hakoda said, "he always does. But when we've won the war, you'll see. He'll warm up a bit. Well..." Hakoda paused and managed a laugh. "As warm as these Northerners get, anyway."
Sokka smiled, and Katara managed to twist up the corners of her mouth, though she tried not to.
"These old guys really don't change, Dad," Katara argued.
"Sure they do," Hakoda replied. "This is a war, everyone adapts in some way."
Katara was silent for a moment, and she paused, as if she was realizing how surreal the moment was. Sokka felt it was strange and alien too -- his sister and his father hadn't talked for years, not like this. The boat ride to the palace had been quiet and moody, awkward, even.
"Aang was so hurt," Katara said, sadly.
"I know," Hakoda said, "I'll go join them. You lot get settled in."
So off Hena took them, leading them through the halls for many minutes, until they got into a section with many rooms. It was busy, with people streaming about in packs.
"We don't have much room, so all of you'll have to share with some of us," Hena said, dragging aside the heavy drapes over a doorway for them to pass. Much like the rest of the fort, the outer walls were constructed with a large patch of thick ice, so clear one could almost see through it. It allowed light through, at any rate, though it was distorted and not terribly bright. "There are already four boys and I staying in here, but there should be room for you five..."
"It's fine," Sokka said, with a grin at her. She smiled, and Suki and Katara passed into the room, holding onto Toph's arm and leading her along. Sokka held back the curtain for Hena to pass through.
"Not even a spare room for the Avatar," she said, sadly.
"He'd rather be with his friends, anyway," Katara said, cheerily. "Toph, you can sit down here!"
Toph did so, and Katara flopped down on the pile of fur blankets next to her. The stove in the middle wasn't lit. When Suki shivered and rolled her shoulders, Hena said, "You can light the stove during the night, if you need to... just be mindful of the coal..."
"Yeah," Sokka said. It seemed a far cry from the abundant hospitality they had experienced six months before, but it was understandable. He asked, "No offense or anything, but what's a girl doing in a room with four guys?"
Suki looked annoyed at this question, but Sokka flashed her an apologetic smile, and Hena laughed. She said, "Well, I'm a waterbending student, now, and my boyfriend's staying here, so I just joined them..."
"Why are they suddenly letting girls bend, here?" Katara said, suspiciously, and Hena nodded. Katara seemed beside hersel. She launched off into a barrage of questions that completely shut Sokka out of the conversation, asking about the thoroughness of the class, if they were learning all the tricks, and more. Sokka chuckled and plopped down next to Suki on the furs, stretching out beside her.
"It's freezing," Suki said, "and I thought Kyoshi winters were bad, this is just miserable."
Sokka laughed, and he grabbed one of the blankets and threw it over her head. She fumbled with it, and he pulled it down a bit, so her head popped back out, hair mussed. Sokka said to her, "Whine, whine, whine."
"Can't hear you," Suki replied, "too busy whining about the cold. Did I mention it's cold? Because it's really cold here."
"You've been saying that since we got past the northern peninsulas," Sokka reminded her. "We need to get you a real coat, and stat."
"No kidding," Suki replied. Sokka heaved himself to his feet, and he offered a hand to her to pull her up. She didn't take it, instead holding the furs closer, and when Sokka laughed at her, she dropped them and let him pull her up. She said, more teasing than anything, "Just when I was getting warm, too, you idiot, you'd better keep me warm on the way."
"Keep you warm with what?" Sokka asked, still laughing.
"Stuff me down your shirt or something," Suki offered. Sokka laughed even harder.
"Stuff you down my shirt? Alright, Suki, hop right in!" he said, pulling his shirt up and gesturing under it. She laughed and pushed his arms back down, and she linked her arm with his.
"Let's just go get us new coats, you goofball," Suki said.
So with a brief "bye" to his sister, the girl, and Aang and Toph, the two headed out. It was a place full of business and madness, with people bustling down the halls rapidly. Sokka still hadn't seen his father since they were on the bea, and he was eager to, but that could wait until Suki wasn't freezing. Not that finding a coat was an easy task: with so many desperate newcomers to the city, extra coats were surprisingly hard to find.
In one of the larger halls, Sokka encountered Chief Arnook again. Sokka didn't want to know why he was roaming the halls listlessly, but Arnook took one look at Suki, who was shivering and holding onto Sokka's arm, and he glanced back at Sokka with a disapproving, "Where is this girl's coat? And yours, for that matter."
"Looking for one," Sokka replied, "short supply, ha ha."
"Ah," Chief Arnook said, "your father would certainly dispute me if he knew you were unable to get your friend a coat. Come with me. I know where we can find one for the girl, and then we can get one from the armory for you."
Suki smiled at him, and Sokka did too. But as Chief Arnook led them right past the halls he expected them to go down, and up the icy stairs to the biggest of rooms, his smile faded. He knew, quite quickly, where they were headed, and it took all his strength not to run in the opposite direction. They were headed straight for Yue's room, and when they came to the doors, Chief Arnook pushed them open, and he gestured inside.
"Go on, take one from the wardrobe," he said, and he smiled, sadly. Suki went right on in, seemingly oblivious, and Sokka was dragged behind her. He almost braced himself, almost held her back, but she had taken him before he could.
"I have to get back to the other elders," Chief Arnook said, "just make sure you close the door when you leave, Sokka."
"Right," Sokka said, numbly, his throat constricted. Chief Arnook disappeared around the corner, and Sokka looked around the room with wide eyes. The atmosphere had changed since he had been here last -- the one time he had been in here with Yue herself, it had somehow seemed so much cheerier.
Now it was just an ice-cold room, with a bedframe made of elaborately carved ice. The furs were gone, presumably serving other people now. The stands where her make-up had lain were emptied, presumably to give them to the living. Nothing was ever wasted, in the Water tribe, North or South. Only a single thing of Yue's had been left behind.
There was a single coat in the wardrobe, a beautiful one with ceremonial beading, falling to knee-length. Sokka's breath hitched when he saw it. He'd never seen it on Yue, and that relaxed him a bit. Still, when Suki unfolded it and held it up, Sokka couldn't control the sadness on his face. When she moved to pull it on, he closed his eyes tightly, and she stopped. He had hoped that she wouldn't put it together.
"This was Princess Yue's, wasn't it?" Suki asked, and Sokka hesitated. After a moment, he opened his eyes, and she was staring at him. She didn't look skeptical, or crude, or teasing. She looked downright sensitive, and he realized he had his hands balled up. He relaxed.
"It doesn't matter. Just put it on," he said, "you need a coat."
"Sokka," she said, concerned.
"Put it on," Sokka said, forcing himself to look at her in the eyes. His heart was pounding in his chest. "Do it, just do it."
Suki hesitated still, but she did it. She pulled it on, she slipped her arms into the sleeves, and Sokka took a moment to swallow the knot in his throat and untangle his nerves. Only then did he look at her, and he still had to blink rapidly to keep himself from getting stupidly emotional about it.
"Sokka," she said, softly, and he kept his eyes above her neck at all times. He didn't want to look at Yue's coat, or at Yue's furs, or at anything of Yue's. He didn't want to mix the two girls up, not now or ever. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, and he wiped at his face with his gloves, and Suki pulled him into a hug. He gripped her tightly, burying his face against the furs of her collar, and then after a moment, he pulled away, having pulled himself together.
"You sure?"
"Yeah," he said, with a determined smile that perhaps seemed like more of a grimace. "Yeah. Let's go to the armory, then."
"The Fire nation's been pounding away at the outer wall for weeks," Hakoda said, drawing a line with his finger across the map, tracing the shape of it. "The ice wall was built as a precaution over the weeks between the fall of Ba Sing Se and the start of the siege. So far, with extreme repairs on a constant basis, it's surviving, but if they start a full onslaught, we may not have the numbers to hold it. The ice-spikes are all but gone from the water..."
"So what should we do, then, Hakoda? We can't just wait for the wall to break and drag us into the heat of battle," Chief Arnook said, seriously, and Sokka snickered behind his hand at the pun. Hakoda did, too, though his was so well masked that no one noticed but Katara, who gave both her father and her brother the iciest glare she could manage.
Suki stood up, slowly, and she leaned over the map. She lifted her arms as if to gesture on the map herself, but before she did, she asked, "May I?"
Arnook and Hakoda glanced at her. Arnook nodded.
Suki said, "There's no point, strategically, in a besieging army assaulting a wall. If they really cared about bringing the city down, they would be blocking off all entrances and exits to the city." She pointed them out, one by one, specifically where the five of them had entered on Appa. "They would wait for everyone to starve to death. If they really cared about this, they would be patient, and not waste resources and lives trying to bring down the wall -- particularly because they haven't blocked off all access. They're actually allowing people to get into the city..."
She trailed off, suddenly.
Hakoda and Arnook glanced between themselves again, and Arnook said, almost impatiently, "We've realized that since they started the siege, but it doesn't explain why they would invest so much energy in something they don't intend on doing."
Sokka sat bolt up in his seat, suddenly, and he said, "Because they're actually waiting for Azula. Until then, they're just wearing you down."
"Pardon?" Hakoda pressed, and all in the room turned to Sokka. He was looking at Suki, and he reached over and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Tell them," Sokka said, "Suki, tell them what Azula said."
Suki looked at Sokka almost warningly, but she explained to all present, "I spent weeks in Azula's captivity. I only saw her over a stretch of what was probably two weeks, but we talked a lot. She explained, at one point, how she wanted to be the one to crush all the world. Seeing as this is the last free land... I'd bet anything she's moving here. "
"Azula herself wants to destroy the Northern Water tribe," Arnook said, solemnly.
"Azula could be here," Aang said, "we just don't know it because there are so many ships, and they go so far… how do we know that she isn't amongst them? I bet half the fleet leaving is supposed to be a diversion."
Arnook shook his head, and sighed. "We have no communication with them, no leads, no negotiations… it could be a diversion, a trap, it could be anything. Perhaps they're replacing the original ships with a new shift."
"They aren't," Sokka said, still poring over the map. He pointed out many ships, and he said, "These ones were here when Suki and I noted them all. It seems that the ones leaving are all towards the back anyway, or are else picked at random from the crowds."
Hakoda leant back in his seat, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. He seemed to have a huge headache, and no one blamed him. He said, "So we can only assume."
"I think it's a diversion," Katara said, "I wouldn't expect Azula to just march in and kill. She's… she doesn't fight like that. She finds a back way in; she finds a weak spot and exploits it. When I fought her at the end of spring, halfway through the battle, I realized she attacks experimentally, rather than just trying to go for the kill immediately. She tries different things until she finds something you have trouble defending yourself against, and then ups that, makes it even harder."
Aang paused, and then said, "And she's not shy about attacking you when you're off-guard."
Hakoda leant forward again, and nudged Sokka out of his way. Sokka shifted, but not quite enough, so Hakoda said, "Let me see the map for a second, Sokka." Sokka moved clear out of his father's path.
After a second of watching, Hakoda said, "She wouldn't dare go in from behind, would she?"
"She would," Suki said, firmly, "she would."
"Even if she tries, I don't think she'd be able to do it," Arnook said, "To avoid our outposts and avoid tipping us off, she'd have to sail to the other side of the North Pole and enter on foot. No one goes onto the tundra for more than a day or two and survives, especially without a pack animal like a yak. There are constant blizzards; it's the coldest place in the world. They could never cross it without losing the vast majority of their army."
"Where there's a will, there's a way," Suki said, and Sokka could tell she was trying to be polite, but the frustration was rising in her voice. "She'll destroy the outposts, she won't care if you know she's coming. Azula is never threatened, not by anything. I know Azula personally; I know what she'd do. Don't take stupid risks – we need to defend all the sides of the city, we need to defend the skies above it, and everything underneath."
Arnook frowned, but it wasn't out of contempt for Suki's admonishments, or the implications that the city wasn't doing well under his guidance. It was the build-up of everything, the obligation they had to all the people of the world, the lack of soldiers versus the greatest empire in the world. It was the shortage of weapons; it was all the earthbenders who couldn't help fight because they didn't have their element available. Things were bad, and their tribe was already weakened from the siege six months earlier.
Arnook put his hands over his face and took a deep breath, as if he were holding back emotions. Not even the chief of a great nation could hold back his emotions, at the face of inevitable defeat.
"We need a miracle," he said.
Aang looked away, guiltily, and Sokka stood up. He said, boldly, "Hey, Dad."
"Yes, Sokka?" Hakoda replied.
"You always taught me growing up that it would be the strength of everyday men that would end the war, not an Avatar, or benders," Sokka said, "why should that be any different now? Let's do it. Let's go down fighting, to the last man."
"I hadn't forgotten, but this is suicide," Hakoda said, slowly. Arnook sighed, and Hakoda said, "This is the fate of the free world, and we don't have a choice but to fight to the last man. That never left the table, as an option."
"Then let's do it," Sokka said, firmly.
"That's crazy," Katara protested, "We can win this! If you don't think we're going to win, why wouldn't we just turn ourselves over and join them, instead of letting people die fighting? We can win this!"
"We can, but we won't," Arnook said, "Don't believe my remarks to be naïve, or those of a man who assumes young girls have never seen battle, or struggles against the enemy, or impossible odds. I know you've bested them before. But I have known battle as a warrior since I was younger than you are now, and I know when we will lose."
"But this IS suicide," Katara said.
"No one's denying that," Sokka said.
"SOKKA," Katara intoned, "whose side are you on, anyway?! We have to beat them, we have to, and we're GOING to."
There was a moment of stubborn silence, and Katara looked at her father, she looked at Arnook. She looked at Toph, who didn't react, she looked at Sokka, who folded his arms and looked away. When her eyes fell on Aang, he looked away and sighed. Last of all was Suki, who met her eyes boldly, and replied, "I say we do this the Kyoshi way."
"Do you have a plan?" Katara asked.
"Not yet," Suki said, "but we will soon. Right now, we have to find the Fire nation's weakest point and exploit it, just like Azula's trying to do to us."
"Do you know where this weakest point is?" Hakoda asked, and Suki turned and looked at him, and, surprisingly, a smile blossomed on her face.
"Azula herself," she said.
"Azula's going to be heavily guarded, surrounded by all the strongest fire benders. She may command them, but she's not going to be on the front lines, where we can get her," Arnook frowned, "How is she the weakest point?"
"Because she wants to kill me, personally," Suki said, with that big smile. Sokka's stomach twisted, and he had a violent reaction, sitting bolt upright.
"Suki, NO," he said, with much more gusto than he intended, and she turned to look at him.
"Got a better idea?" she said.
He stared at her in a mix of horror, and when he could only stammer and protest and make excuses, she turned to Arnook, and she said, "Get a messenger out there and tell them to tell Azula that I'm waiting for her, personally. THEN we'll negotiate one-on-one battle terms. I'll kill her, I know I'm ready."
"Azula's not going to fall for that," Sokka argued.
"She will," Suki said, "I know she will."
Arnook had nodded to the order, but now he said, "How are you so sure?"
"Because I know things about her that she's never told anyone else in her entire life," Suki said, "trust me, she'll kill me, and she believes she can do it. I'm ready for her. If we can pull her from the crowd, I can kill her, and we can turn everything around."
"This is crazy," Hakoda said, "but it's our only shot so far."
"No," Sokka protested, and Katara swallowed her breath. Sokka felt like a hand was constricting around his throat. "No way you guys are agreeing to this crazy plan, it doesn't make sense, it's not going to work. I can't believe I'm hearing this."
Suki looked at him, and she said, "I'm sorry, Sokka, but it might be our only way."
"It isn't," he snapped, and Suki squared her jaw. Sokka snapped, again, "This plan is stupid. There has to be another way."
"I wish there was, but there isn't," Suki shot back, and Sokka ignored her. He stood up, turned on his heel, and stormed off, whipping the curtains on the doorway out of his way and making a right turn. He stormed right to the end of the hall, not looking back to see if anyone followed, and he kept going until he found Yue's room. There, angrily, he fell against the wall, and slid down the length of it, until he was sitting at its foot.
There, furious and upset and angry and altogether just miserable, Sokka pressed his gloved palms against his eyelids and tried to keep himself from exploding. He was angry, he was furious; he just couldn't accept this nonsense.
And when he pulled himself together and returned to the room fifteen minutes later, everyone was waiting for him except for Suki, who had disappeared. Katara and his father didn't make eye contact with him, Aang gave an awkward smile, and Toph elbowed him and whispered, "Maybe Azula won't buy it."
Sokka would have prayed to every spirit he knew for Azula to refuse them, but guiltily, even he had to admit that if she didn't, the entire free world would turn to ash.
