Team Awesome :
Toph sneered into the darkness. Of course, in a way she always sneered into the darkness, but this time was different, this time there were only echoes to guide her. She wasn't completely blind on the ship, but her earthbending senses were dulled. Her ability to sense things like heartrate (and thereby gauge emotion) was lost to her at the moment, so she was left relying on audible cues almost entirely for social situations (thank Kami her hearing was excellent), but the physical positioning of the people around was clearer. It was an unpleasant contrast to the clarity she had felt only last night on land—every heartbeat for meters in every direction, the scurrying movements of small animals, and amusingly, the slight way that Zuko angled his feet unconsciously toward Sukka wherever she wandered. (That boy watched her like he was secretly worried she was about to leap at him or something, Toph snickered.) Through the metal, footsteps felt like butterflies landing on grass- difficult to discern, but definitely there.
'And isn't that interesting.' Toph's lips quirked into a confused frown. From her understanding, she should only be able to see through things that she could bend. That was the whole reason it was called an 'earthbending' sense and not a 'super happy magical everything' sense.
'Does that mean I can bend metal?'
The thought never would have occurred to her if she hadn't been trapped on a metal ship, feeling helpless and frustrated for hours. Their plan was basically still on track, of course. But being a political prisoner was boring, and since she was the only real earthbender in their little group, she was the only one really handicapped by the trip. Sukka was probably missing her fans, but both she and Sunshine had full visibility and some hand-to-hand combat training to fall back on.
Her part of the plan was basically over until the older two got the information they needed. That had to be done covertly. After that, she could raise hell and cause an escape attempt. She had scoffed at the plan initially, thinking it was stupid and that they could easily grab that information once the ship was in their control. Zuko had looked at her as if she was an absolute idiot (or so she inferred from the awkward silence and the way Sukka had gotten crabby at him) and explained that if they failed to take control of the ship smoothly, the information would be lost. It was standard procedure to destroy sensitive information in the event of a security breach.
'Stupid paranoid Fire Nation jerks,' she groused to herself, curling her bare toes into the cold metal floor. Granted, it was apparently a good idea, but still. Toph didn't like things that inconvenienced her.
They were relying on Sunshine's sneakiness and knowledge of Fire Nation ship procedure and layout, while Sukka was back-up in a fight and the only one with people skills (Toph had laughed when that point was politely made. Sunshine, on the other hand, had nearly exploded at the Earth King, proving the point more than anything else) who could hopefully convince the long-term prisoners to head to Ba Sing Se.
She felt the sneaky bastard himself creeping back to their little corner and settling down next to Sukka in a way that probably looked casual. Apparently, the Fire Nation didn't believe in individual bedrooms or cells for political prisoners. It might have just been the lack of accommodations on a barge, or a conscious choice to increase the amount of prisoners they could hold, but everyone ate and slept in a huge communal area. Sukka had been staying really close to Toph the entire time, which pissed her off a bit. She didn't need to be looked after just because she was blind! Even now, the older girl was practically leaning into Toph's side.
"I think our chance is after the second shift switches," Sunshine rasped quietly. Sukka must have replied non-verbally, because he continued. "We're going to have to deal with four crewmen at least. The mail center is going to be six halls down, on the upper deck."
Toph grimaced. "Well, I'm pretty much useless there," she groused quietly. Sukka's hand settled reassuringly on her shoulder.
"We need you on this deck anyways," she pointed out quietly. "Once the hatch is flipped, someone has to ride a wave of awesomeness and coal back up and start the riot. For many obvious reasons, you're the only one who can do that."
Toph snickered, but didn't reply.
"Hey, you kids, go to sleep!"
Toph felt Sukka jerk in surprise. "Hey, give me some space, Fan-Girl."
"Sorry." The pressure of Sukka's arm against her side left.
The accommodations weren't exactly comfortable, which made it a little easier to lay still, silent, and awake until the moon was directly overhead. Toph's clothes rustled when she leaned over to let the older two slip by. They were more used to moving quietly than she was, especially Zuko. All she could do was follow his lead—he had already crept around the ship and determined what layout this ship utilized. The going was slow. Sukka could actually feel him glare at her a few times in the dark for scuffing her soft shoes against the metal floors or breathing too loudly when they were particularly close to an occupied room. They ghosted down a long hallway almost directly behind the first guard they saw.
Sukka fought the urge to touch her temple to see if she really was sweating or if it was just nerves. Her heart was beating against her chest so loudly that she couldn't see how the man they were following didn't hear it. He might have—his back suddenly stiffened and as if in slow motion the guard began to turn.
'Oh, shit. What do we do now?!'
She was torn between turning to run and trying to work out how they would re-try their plan again later when Zuko, who apparently moved about as fast as she thought, leapt forward and yanked the guard's helmet straight up off his head and then shoved the same forearm between his teeth to silence him while his other jabbed hard at something on the back of his neck. The man collapsed to his knees almost instantly, only awkwardly held up by Zuko's forearm. He lowered the man to the floor as quietly as he could, laying him out flat with clanking that made her cringe.
"Help me move him out of the way," he hissed between his teeth and grabbing the man's arms. Sukka hurried to comply, and they awkwardly moved until they could discard the man in what appeared to be the kitchen.
"Uh, why the kitchen?" she whispered.
Sukka wasn't entirely certain she deserved the resulting glare. "It's called a galley, and because no one will be here until morning," he rasped out quietly, gently propping the man up against a crate. "Let's go. We're behind schedule, and it won't take more than an hour before his replacement comes over."
It was lucky he knew what was going on, because after the fourth turn she was completely lost. Sukka worried her lower lip between her teeth, concentrating on moving as silently as the boy she was following. 'I don't think I could find my way back to the deck with a marked map,' she despaired a little. She was drawn out of her thoughts when Zuko suddenly pressed himself flat against the wall and stilled. She followed suit, closing her eyes. 'In future, I think I'll leave the sneaking to him.' Sukka only noticed the guard Zuko must have heard a few minutes later when she clanked across the hallway that intersected with the one they were on. The woman noticed nothing, and they slipped behind her in the direction she had come from. Apparently their destination was close by, because he crept directly to one of the next doors they came to and stopped so suddenly that she bumped into his back.
He expertly flicked out a short, thin piece of metal that Sukka has no idea he'd had on his person and knelt to rustle around in the keyhole, eyes unfocused and obviously concentrating on the miniscule sounds he was hearing from inside.
'How does a prince learn to pick locks? And where was he hiding that? It seems like something that should have been confiscated…' She gave him a slow up-and-down, noting that his clothes were as plain and pocket-less as hers. Sukka did her best not to grin at the ideas her imagination was providing as to where he'd had that secured, eyes lingering on the sharp angles of his hipbones and just how tight his prison issued clothing was. When he stiffened suddenly, she blinked and refocused on the lock he was fiddling with. With a soft click, the other teen forced it open and gently turned the handle, seeming to mentally come back to the real world at the same time. Zuko just shrugged at her quizzical look, indicating that there wasn't another way. He silently pushed the door open. She followed on his heels.
Then she paused for a moment, a bit stunned. 'So this is a fire nation communication hub.' It was a large, open room. She meant that almost literally—large parts of the ceiling were partially open windows, presumably for messenger hawks. Rows of cages covered with dark fabric lined an entire wall on three levels of shelves. Sukka took a moment to investigate the cages, running her fingers along the cold metal and pulling up one cloth to peek at the sleeping avian inside.
Zuko stalked past what she found interesting, scanning the labels of some sort of filing system, occasionally pulling open a scroll to check something. He made a noise in the back of his throat that called her over to see what he found so interesting.
"The log of incoming communications," he explained quietly. "We just need a few more scrolls. Here, take this." Obediently, she tucked the papers under her waistband and pulled her shirt back down to cover them, not noticing the bright red her companion's face turned when she pulled up her shirt.
"We're good," he wheezed, tucking away the other papers he'd grabbed. "We need to get out of here. We can't count that they won't notice where we've been. Now would be a great time for Toph to start making trouble."
Sukka frowned, following him down the hall. "It wasn't the plan, but I suppose that a break-out would be easier if they're all asleep. Toph won't be pleased if this ends up a stealthy operation."
Zuko actually snorted. "There is little worry of that."
She giggled. 'He's probably right.' It took a moment for her to get serious again.
"We should make sure they can't use this information," she pointed out quietly. "They're organized. They will eventually figure out where we've been and see what papers we pulled. I think we should release all of these birds and burn the archives."
He outright winced at that, looking around. "That's going to take a while." Zuko didn't dispute the point, though. They worked as quickly as they could to release the birds—who, irritatingly, were well-trained enough that they wouldn't leave without a destination.
"Stop it, that's not going to work," Zuko hissed at her when she tried to hustle the dumb things out the window so they didn't burn. "These ones are trained to follow verbal commands, probably to all the major bases." He scowled. "Which means that they'll know something is wrong as soon as a flock of birds gets there."
"They were going to figure it out anyway. What's furthest?" she whispered, pulling her hand sharply out of the reach of a sharp beak.
"Pohai Stronghold." At the way the loose birds perked up, it became clear that he had been right. Her arms were bleeding from long scratches and pecks, but they eventually managed to usher all the birds out. "Light those candles over there. I want it to seem that this could have been done without firebending."
While he crept out into the hallway to check that no one was near, she hurriedly tipped the thick candle in her fist and held the tip to several piles of paper, making sure to start fires near where they had taken papers so that if the fires were put out quickly it would still be impossible to tell what had been taken. Then she dropped the candle on the ground by the door and slipped out, seamlessly falling in line behind the person who knew the ship layout.
That was when it went to hell—a shout went up somewhere in one of the hallways nearby. They wordlessly exchanged a look and then abandoned discretion for speed. "We're close to the stairs down," he pointed out. "We need to arm the prisoners and get back-up fast. We can't fight the whole ship without bending."
Sukka shook her head. "I don't think we have time to take Toph down there to get the coal up that way," she half-shouted. "There's that big grate on the deck that keeps the boiler from getting too hot, right? The coal will be right below."
Comprehension dawned in his visible eye. "I can get that out of the way." She nodded. 'I'd hope so, between the super-strength and the metal-melting fire.' Then she grimaced, hoping he didn't have to use firebending. The prisoners they were saving would probably not take the time to listen to explanations that he was on their side. The soldier they had heard appeared at the end of their hallway, shouting for reinforcements and falling into a bending stance.
"Don't forget Toph," she reminded. "She'll need to know the change." With that, she sprinted right at the person standing between them and tackled him to the floor. The move was just stupid and unconventional enough to surprise the guard enough for her companion to run by, heading for the deck out of the guard's sight. The impact hurt her as much as it must have hurt him—that armor was not comfortable to land on, and her ribs were going to bruise. Luckily still on top, (it would have been a very short scuffle if she'd gotten pinned under that armor) Sukka grabbed the guard by his shoulders and jerked him up and down to crack his head against the floor and hopefully stun him, crawling over him like a monkey and stumbling into a run. She turned just in time to see him stumble to his feet to follow, then grinned to herself and chose the opposite direction Zuko had taken.
'How long can it really take to take control of one measly ship?' Sukka snorted. She'd find the deck eventually, but for now she could distract as much attention as possible from him and Toph while they got to material the earthbenders could use and riled the prisoners up enough to do it.
As soon as they were armed, it should be child's play for the imprisoned earthbenders to immobilize their former guards. Not only did they outnumber their captors, but their bending was much more suitable for a fight in close-quarters with non-lethal intentions. Firebenders could easily roast opponents and allies by accident in the halls. At worst, earthbenders would wreck up the place.
The two-person chase soon turned into merry hell, with other patrolling guards flooding the corridors, some following and some heading towards what must be another disturbance. She just kept running and turning randomly, hoping to eventually make it back to the main deck or someplace she recognized. In the distance she heard shouts. Sukka swallowed hard, trying to keep her breathing under control and sprinting away from her pursuers in their heavy plate armor. 'I hope that's the sound of the prisoners fighting back.'
Even with her definite advantage of being in only light cloth, one of the figures caught up to her in the hall, cutting her off with a punch of flame. She ducked under it in a roll, finding her footing and side-stepping to flank him. 'Have to finish this. If the other two catch up, I'll be in trouble.'
That thought ringing in her mind, she viciously aimed a flat-footed kick into his diaphragm with the hope of immobilizing him. Overbalanced in his armor, he fell backwards, scrambling for footing and hitting the walls of the narrow hallway. She leapt over his legs like a gazelle and kept a dead sprint for the sounds of the fighting that had broken out, praying not to hit any dead ends. When she recognized the door way to the galley, she gleefully skidded into the correct turn and ran out into the moonlight.
She was relieved at the twin discoveries that Toph had managed to arm the earthbenders and that she had made her way to the lower deck somehow. Her eyes went wide at the havoc. 'Who twisted the metal grating like that?' The thing was curled up as if it had weathered an explosion. She gaped for a long moment, accidentally allowing one of the guards to snatch her by the arm. A second later, both of them went flying when an elderly earthbender with a ridiculous beard whumped the guard from the side with a coal projectile.
The impact against the railing and the sharp pull on her arm disoriented her for a long moment. Sukka blinked slowly several times to clear her vision.
'It's like a giant sign saying 'Toph Was Here'. She must be delighted.'
Sukka didn't see the girl herself, but the place was trashed and filthy, guards immobilized within blocks of rock all over the place and dents punched into the metal ship at odd intervals. Most of the prisoners who weren't still fighting their former jailors appeared to be escaping over the sides of the barge on a precarious bridge. It was doubtlessly stupidly dangerous to traverse—all the ambient light was from distant stars and the half moon. She had the nervous realization that in a few hours, the firebenders would be getting their daily boost from the sunrise.
That was when the engines died and the ship shuddered violently. The fighting was winding down, but she had no idea where her companions were. At least no one seemed particularly concerned with her. Sukka furrowed her brow, scanning the crowd for Toph, who she thoroughly expected to be commanding several hundred pounds of rock. 'You would think that would be easy to see,' she griped, jogging across the deck and dodging several fights along the way. It turned out that Toph spotted her before she could see the smaller girl.
"Nice of you to join us," Toph snarked, standing wide-legged. She had lost her shoes sometime since Sukka had last seen her. Almost casually, she stomped her left foot and smacked a poor unwary soldier off the barge into the water, screaming all the way.
"Things are going well, then?" She half-shouted, fighting close enough to talk.
Toph shrugged and spat to the side, encasing someone else's opponent up to her waist in rock and leaving her there, pinned to the deck. "The first part is, I suppose. I think that the ship is mostly ours. The engines shut off—we must have taken too much fuel out. Once this is done, I'll move some back down."
Then she jumped at the hand that wrapped around her shoulder. Reflexively, she grabbed the forearm still right behind her shoulder with both hands, bending her knees and digging her shoulder into his gut, and flipped the poor unwary soul over her body and onto the floor.
Or, at least, that was what was supposed to happen. The arm she was holding twisted to prevent her from taking advantage of the leveraged angle, the body behind her stepped to the side, and she spun around to look directly up at an un-amused firebender who she had dragged directly into her personal space. She flushed and let go as if burned.
"Ah, I'm sorry!"
Zuko rolled his eyes at her, not missing a beat and jerking his head to the side, indicating the direction of the control bridge where only the Fire Nation sailors had been allowed when the ship was under their control. "I was saying your name and you didn't hear me. Come on, let's go already. They can finish up here. We aren't doing any good." Left unsaid was the fact that it could possibly be dangerous for two firebenders to spend time around trigger-happy earthbenders flinging coal like there was no tomorrow. All they could do without outing themselves was dodge fast-moving rock.
"Good point," she agreed breathlessly, trying not to remember just how easily the flying projectiles could squash her like an insect. Luckily, the coal bridge to the secured area where the barge was controlled from was less precarious than it looked, but she still picked her way across carefully, sacrificing speed for safety. Her more sure-footed companion was hot on her heels, (she was relatively sure she could feel the heat of his breath on her neck, though it could have been imagined) so she felt incredibly relieved to jump off.
Luckily Zuko knew enough to change the bearings and alter their course. Sukka found the whole thing a bit baffling, but he bossily directed her and the earthbenders who had finished up and they managed to get the ship moving after Toph shoved a whole hunk of coal back into the engine and apparently managed to find someone to re-light the fires below.
Sukka stood back on the deck letting wind whip through her loose hair and just watched the newly free earthbenders go about depositing sullen firebenders imprisoned in rock in the lower deck, grinning. Despite the rough spots, they had succeeded in their mission. What appeared to be about forty capable earthbenders would be returning to re-take the province where they had been stationed, a communication hub and resupply area had been captured, and they had taken their first prisoners of war. They would be headed to Ba Sing Se to occupy the old Dai Li prison, both so that they were no longer resources for the Fire Nation and so that they could be used as leverage later.
She pulled her lips into a small smile for the tall boy who strode up nearby to overlook the deck, turning slightly to keep him in view, arms wrapped around her body in protection from the chilly wind. Somehow, even with that ghastly scar, he really was cute, especially in the dramatic lighting that early dawn lent to his features. He gave her a curious look, eyes lingering on the way she was holding herself. Then he raised one eyebrow at her in what she assumed was a question.
"Hey, it's cold out," she defended lightly. Sukka gave him an exaggerated pout, eying his own clothes. "Aren't you cold? You're wearing the same thing I am."
"You lived at the South Pole," he said disbelievingly, working not to smirk. "And you're complaining about a little chill?"
"Hey, did you see those furs I was wearing?" she countered playfully. "They weren't for looks, I can tell you that much."
"That's an understatement," he muttered, making a face. She shrugged in response. No point in denying that. Sukka much preferred the aesthetics she had discovered since leaving the South Pole. It was sort of marvelous to see how colorful and fun clothing was in places where not everything had to be functional. She looked up when he cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "This worked out better than I expected," he tried, looking uncomfortable.
Sukka carefully pressed down the smile. 'Aw, he's adorable when he's trying to make conversation.' She took a deep breath of sea air and shrugged again, tilting her hips and resting one palm over her hipbones. "Is that a back-handed compliment or a regular one about my planning abilities," she teased.
He snorted. "Neither," the teen snarked back. "I was of course referring to Toph, without whom this venture was doomed to failure."
"True," Sukka admitted easily, weaseling into his personal space and giving him a winning smile, blinking coyly up at him. Suddenly, Zuko looked trapped and confused. "Come on though, you've gotta admit I'm brilliant. This was an awesome plan. Say it," she wheedled. "Say that I am brilliant."
Apparently, when flustered Zuko fell back on his standard 'grumpy' setting, backing up quickly and giving her a strange look before snapping back, "As if!"
Undaunted, she pouted. When that didn't work, she gave an imperious sniff and lifted her chin up to look at him through her eyelashes. If she could have, she would have looked down over her nose at him. "You'll admit it eventually," she half-threatened. Then she looked away. "You were pretty cool too, you know. It's unfair, actually. You're a better bender than I am, you're sneakier than I am, and apparently you're better at lock-picking than I am too. Where'd you learn to do that, anyway?"
He sounded confused. "That's not exactly an impressive skill," he deflected, shifting uneasily. "We used to explore the old wings that were cordoned off as kids," he admitted with a huffing laugh. "It was stupid and really not as interesting as we thought it was. They were all just full of old paintings and spare bedrooms."
"I see." She responded quietly, thoughts drifting to her little sister and Aang. Sukka gave a heavy sigh, suddenly not preoccupied by her recent victory. She consciously forced her hands to uncurl from the fists they were trying to stiffen into, chewing at the inside of her cheek for a moment. "Do you think what's-his-face has made it to the North Pole yet," she questioned quietly. 'Appa almost certainly has gotten there by now.'
"What, Zhao?" Zuko shrugged, features slipping into a scowl. "If not, he's close." Then he seemed to catch onto her thoughts. "Oh, hell. Look, I'm sure the Avatar and his flying moose are taking great care of your sister."
"I suppose," she muttered.
5:24PM, Northern Water Tribe
Yue swallowed hard at the first sign of black snow, letting her assigned bodyguard usher her inside and to the sacred pool where she would wait out the fighting.
She was torn. On one hand, it seemed almost impossible for them to lose this fight. They had taken advantage of the provided foreknowledge and information about the military capabilities of current Fire Nation weaponry. It had exhausted all of the master water benders, but great planes of ice had been frozen into false shores that should beach the bigger ships and keep them too far away from the city to use their catapult weaponry. It would be suicide for the soldiers on board to attempt to get out and swim the half-mile to the city from the false beaches surrounding the easiest paths through the ice fields, so the only way hostile parties could make it to shore would be by smaller boats. It would be possible, but that would drastically reduce the number of hostiles on shore. The waterbenders who had been out freezing huge blocks of ice had mostly rested and would be ready to repel invaders. The water was cold enough that there had been no danger of their work melting.
Still, the princess was frightened. An assault of this scale had never been made against the Northern Water Tribe, not in thousands of years of recorded history. Anyone who made it into the city would be the first invaders ever to hit the ice fields.
Their entire continent, not just the city but the actual continent, was made of ice. A firebender could do massive damage to their infrastructure in a short amount of time.
She folded her legs delicately underneath her body, taking care to keep her white kimono neat and breathing in the warm, sweet-smelling air in her people's most sacred place. Her two bodyguards- one a skilled water bender and one a club user (who happened to be a bear of a man who dwarfed her by over a foot) took up positions just inside the door, jostling anxiously. They would probably rather be out fighting. Although she was tempted to tell them to go help, Yue bit her tongue and did her best to meditate on the two koi fish swimming in circles. Her father would be incredibly displeased if she was left alone even in such a safe place, and the two men were honor-bound to stay with her. Ordering them to do otherwise would only give them an impossible choice.
The first clue that the assault had begun came almost an hour later when she had given in to her restlessness and began to pace. She stopped in her tracks (figuratively, as the soft leather soles of her white fur boots left no marks on the soft grass), ears straining to figure out where the noise was coming from. That had almost certainly been the sound of ice crunching. Yue clenched her jaw, outwardly serene, and tucked her hands inside the opposite sleeves of her kimono to tightly grip at her forearms.
The sound could mean anything. They could have failed to keep the ships out of their projectile range and been assaulted with flaming rocks in the heart of the city. Their information could have been misleading about the amount of smaller vessels capable of fighting through the ice fields and the sound could have been the first hint that a large force had landed on the shore and begun throwing around flame in the ice city, causing collapse. Though it seemed unlikely, the horrible crack could even have been the sound of ships steering directly into the ice.
'Panicking will not help.' Yue took a deep breath and dug her nails into her forearms, repressing the shaking of her muscles. She did not look, but could hear at least one of the men at the door shifting his weight from one foot to another.
Time passed. The three water tribespeople waited in stillness and silence. If asked, Yue would have not been able to offer an estimate of how much time had been spent in the serene biome. After that, the sounds from outside became much more frequent, though equally distant and difficult to identify.
Then her head flew up, brow furrowed and pale lips pursed in an unusual departure from her habitual calm façade. "Was that-?"
No one should be anywhere near this area. The women and children had been evacuated to the catacombs below the gigantic temple, and the men should all be by the shore, guarding the gates and walls. Her surety that they should be alone didn't change the fact that she had heard the sound of the great doors opening down the hall- doors that should have been barred after her father left the palace.
"Stay here, my lady." The two men exchanged slow looks, the taller man sliding his fingers to grip at the handle of his weapon and the other unscrewing the cap of his water pouch. The door way was open, and the waterbender carefully angled his body as to be mostly in the room and extended his bearded face past the doorway. Then he jerked back in immediately to dodge the spout of flames that flared down the hallway. Yue lost her composure entirely and screamed, stumbling backwards for the meager cover provided by the large decorative rocks around the pool.
The first man who rushed into the room met with the business end of a club with a sickening crack that turned Yue's stomach. His helmet dented and his head was immediately pulped, the body bouncing off the side of the doorway with an awful clang and slumping down in the frame. The bloody club stuck in the skull-faced helmet for just a moment too long and the bulky man wielding it urgently braced his foot against the visor and yanked his weapon away, dancing backwards fully into the room where they had a tactical advantage.
Yue shook and pressed against the far wall, shocked and afraid and wishing she couldn't see the fight quite so well, but knowing that their best chance of dealing with the enemy was one-on-one by using the doorway as a choke point. She wanted desperately to look away, but was transfixed. She had always had a weak stomach for gore. Even her training in healing had been almost impossible. The sight of blood had unnerved her and made her more likely to freeze the blood in a man's veins than use the trace liquid in his cells to replicate healthy tissue.
The shouts in the hallway told her that there were certainly more than two men out there ready to run in—a hoarse voice was shouting orders in a way that implied he had several subordinates. The waterbender had completely emptied his water pouch. His teeth were bared under his wolf-head hood and the glob of water hovered in the air by his tense fingertips, coalescing into a bright, shining spear of ice that he whipped at the soldier who tried to rush over his fallen comrade into the room, slamming into the weak point of the armor at the joint of the shoulder and neck, pinning the poor bastard to the wall behind him in the hallway.
Yue could see the spray of blood, but also that the man still struggled. She felt sick. It wasn't an instant kill. The man would suffer, and could still pose a threat.
Her waterbender bodyguard apparently had a similar thought. Instead of taking the time to melt his weapon (and thereby releasing the man who was screaming and gurgling in his own blood on the wall) he whipped around 360 degrees and sluiced a water whip off the top of the pool, startling the koi within. The water whip barely managed to deflect the spray of flames that blasted through the door, widening the frame by nearly instantly melting where it cut through. There was a terrible shout from the man wielding a club as he shuffled backwards, clutching his weak hand to his abdomen and inadvertently giving the three men remaining in the hallway that space to force their way in.
Wide-eyed, Yue felt her relatively weak bending pulling at the sacred pool, and she wildly considered running over to heal her bodyguard. Despite her lack of skills for the art, she had always possessed the temperament of a healer. There was no time, however. Ignoring his burns, the injured guard charged forward with a roar, swinging wildly and denting the chestplate of one of the two armored men with a crack. She winced in sympathy despite knowing the man was an enemy, touching her fingertips to her own chest lightly. The third man, clad only in what appeared to be silks, gave the club wielder a disdainful sneer and lit him on fire in a spectacular display of power and cruelty. Yellow eyes flickered directly to her when Yue screamed again in unison with her bodyguard, hugging her body tightly. The smell of burnt flesh was immediate and terrible, polluting the air that had been scented by flowers only moments before. If she had possessed the clarity of mind, Yue would have been shocked and awed by the clear-headedness of the man burning alive in front of her when he leapt forward onto the man he had stunned with his club, allowing the blaze fed by his flesh and oiled furs to lick at the cloth at the soldier's wrists and catch the padded lining of his armor. Though winded, he managed to shriek horribly, clawing at the dying water tribesman and trying to back away, instead collapsing under the now-limp weight.
She didn't have time to admire his bravery, however, as the third man was advancing directly toward her with cruel amusement on his face and flames dancing at his fingertips. The last uninjured Fire Nation soldier was bombarding the frantic waterbender, keeping him from coming to her aid although his wild-eyed glance at her proved that he saw the threat. Yue swallowed hard and shook like a leaf, barely noticing the water turning to steam across the room and scrambling, failing to avoid the harsh grip that grabbed her wrist and yanked her over the rocks back towards the pool.
The voice she had heard in the hall was somehow worse and more sinister when it purred into her ear, "Now, what do we have here? Let me guess. Some savage princess or the priestess of this temple? No, no priestess would have two guards. You must be the little princess. Tell me, girl, do you know why I am here?" Yue registered the strange wording—though this was a sacred place, it wasn't a temple exactly—but gave it little thought when she stuttered a reply.
"Please, let me go!" He shook her instead, releasing one wrist to tangle his hand painfully into her snow white hair and yank it close for examination.
"Exotic for a water tribe barbarian." She yelped, tears coming to her eyes. The man holding her chuckled, stroking her hair and letting go of her entirely, pushing her to the ground with a harsh movement. She fell painfully, hurting her shins on the rocks.
"The room is secured, sir." Yue jerked her attention, horrified to see that she hadn't even noticed her second bodyguard dying. Her heart thudded in her chest like a rabbit's, hard and fast. Sorrow and fear fought for primacy. She flickered blue eyes back towards the man closest to her, breathing hard. He looked satisfied.
No, not satisfied, she realized with horror. He looked ecstatic.
The silk-clad man threw back his head and laughed, baring his teeth in a heady grin. "At last, here I am," he announced theatrically, striding to peer into the sacred pool, but swiveling slightly so that he could see her expressions. Yue managed to fight down enough fear to feel confusion, staring at the apparent madman. It would have made sense for him to capture her to force her father to surrender, but he seemed to not even know who she was. 'What tactical advantage does he hope to gain from the sacred pool?' she questioned, feeling the weight of the bizarre situation.
Yue wasn't certain if she should be grateful when he proceeded to monologue his intentions (thereby answering her silent questions) or if she should assume he was insane from the fact that he apparently needed an audience. He was certainly an egomaniac, claiming that he would be forever remembered by history as a great hero of the Fire Nation.
'He acts as though he were in a play,' she realized, not daring to speak. Even the way the lunatic posed was theatrical- chin up high, shoulders back, on the center of the path in front of the pool. She bit her tongue. He had momentarily decided he would rather have her as an audience for his madness than as another victim. There was no point in provoking him. Then he said something that sent a spike of distress that could cut through even the shock she was feeling after having witnessed real brutality for the first time in her life.
Yue choked back bile, scrambling to her feet and working her mouth wordlessly for an instant. "But you can't kill the moon spirit!" she shouted, half-wild. Aside from being impossible—spirits can't die, that's part of being a spirit—it was an idiotic, dangerous idea. Even if she didn't believe he could really kill the moon spirit, that didn't mean she could let him try. "Everyone needs the moon," she pointed out desperately. "You're a sailor, right? What would you do without the tides or the moon's light to navigate by?" The man didn't seem convinced at all.
She trembled, feeling real fear, not for herself but for the little fish that he reached in and easily grabbed out of the pool in a cloth sack. The soldier let out a surprised oath when the light outside instantly turned the red of a bloody sunrise, streaming in through the windows above head. Yue dug her fingers into her palms, feeling her nails bite at her own flesh. 'He's crazy, but he's not totally wrong,' she realized as if through a haze. 'He really could hurt the moon spirit through her physical body.' A strand of white hair fell in front of her eyes, and she carefully uncurled her stiff fingers. 'I have to stop him.' There was no one else to do it.
It was easier thought than done. The princess pointedly did not look at the corpses of two of her tribes most skilled warriors, but knowing they were growing cold on the floor was a chilling reminder that she could not hope to win a physical fight with this man even if she'd had a weapon other than her small knife on her, and a miracle that helped her win that fight would still have to deal with the problem of his remaining soldier. She had never been trained in combative waterbending either, and the man would not listen to reason.
Then she realized just what she had been thinking, and tried not to let any hints of her new idea cross onto her face. It was true that she had never been trained as a combative bender, but she had been trained as a healer, a long and torturous process that resulted in multiple bunny fatalities before Healer Yugoda gave it up as a bad job. 'It is fortunate that I am an awful student,' she thought grimly, reaching out to delicately encircle the man's uncovered wrist with her left hand as if to get his attention.
"Please," she babbled mindlessly, trying to keep his attention off what she was doing and giving most of her own attention to the feeling of life underneath her fingertips. He seemed amused by her pleading, one side of his mouth pulling up into a most unattractive smirk. "Don't do this! I beg of you." Yue thanked Tui and La that the idiot man took a long moment to respond, using his free hand to grip her wrist tightly and yank it up by her face, stepping in close. She didn't know what he said, concentrating on grabbing hold of all the liquid in his body that she could manage, doing nothing with it until she had every bit she could manage with her embarrassing lack of talent, and then freezing it. He must have thought he was imagining the sensation for a moment. Then he stopped talking, brow furrowing in confusion and mouth hanging slightly open. He wavered, grip loosening on the sack with the koi fish. She yanked her wrist free and grabbed for the bag, letting the little fish slip out back into the water and then scrambling backwards while the lone soldier shouted, moving forwards to try to catch the man falling over sideways and landing in the pool with a splash. He didn't move.
Yue stood and stared, transfixed at what she had done. Then she leapt like a frightened snow rabbit, unsuccessfully dodging the harsh grip on her shoulder that shook her like a ragdoll, letting her head collide with the wall behind her with a sickening crack one, two, three times. The visor in front of her clanged down, and she was staring into furious brown eyes. "You little ice bitch!" the backhand that whipped across her face with metal fingers sent a white noise ringing in her ears and gouged bleeding cuts into her face from her right ear, over her cheekbone and to her nose. The next words slipped in and out of her hearing, but she eventually managed to catch that he was questioning if the other man had been right about her identity. Yue nodded and gave an answer she couldn't quite hear, frightened, pained, and disoriented. The brown eyes were then re-covered with the metal face plate, and she was dragged to her feet and across the room, out the door and down the hall, out of the palace and into the streets down alleys. Yue struggled, not sure if she wanted to try to keep up or drag her feet and force the soldier to literally carry her out. The point became moot when the man took what was either a wrong turn or just an error in judgment and led them far too close to an area that had been set up as a temporary infirmary for the wounded.
Yue heard shouting, blearily blinking and sinking over in relief at the unexpected cessation of movement. The Fire Nation soldier let go of his harsh grip on her collarbone to fight for his life against what appeared to be a very short and very angry waterbender, so she accommodatingly slumped over onto the ice, just for a moment to rest.
6:43PM Northern Water Tribe
The panicked shouting could be heard from almost a mile away over the cold water when the first Fire Nation ship beached itself on ice hidden under the waves, sailors trying to warn the other ships before they made the same mistake. 'Too late for that,' a man noted grimly. 'They have too much momentum.' At least, the largest and closest ships did. Arnook stood tall on top of the wall next to but not behind the iced parapets, where he would be giving orders, and noticed with some surprise that the beached ship was taking in water. His brow furrowed in confusion, and then irritation.
"Master Pakku!" he barked, gesturing the man to come closer. The old man glanced his way, finished the conversation he was having with a young waterbender with blue beads braided into his beard, and calmly stalked closer with only the quiet scuff of his leather soles on the ice warning of his approach.
"Yes?"
Arnook gestured out at the first beached ship, which had not been fast enough to warn its companions. The sound of ice scraping against metal hulls was audible even from their position, due in no small part to the disciplined silence his tribesmen were maintaining. "I thought that we had decided not to spike the ice," he said disapprovingly. "Blood only excites these people."
"Drowning doesn't result in blood," Pakku deflected facetiously. Then he sniffed. "Besides, the ice is not spiked. Likely, that ship does not have the reinforced hull that a vessel built for travel in the poles would have. It is not as though the Fire Nation possessed an armada specially designed for this venture. Doubtlessly, the savages foolishly intended to overwhelm us with sheer numbers." He gave a condescending laugh that lacked genuine amusement. "Nonetheless, even their foolishness is unlikely to result in fatalities," he pointed out grudgingly, one wrinkled hand curling imperceptibly into a fist at his side. "The beach is close enough to the surface that their decks will likely stay dry, even though the hulls will fill." He made a face. "Although it is unexpected, the sheer idiocy of bringing ships that are not reinforced for ice travel should only benefit us. Those ships will be going nowhere. We will be able to take prisoners at our leisure after this mess is resolved."
Arnook gave a heavy sigh, not precisely happy but willing to see the wisdom in his advisor's words. Despite the fact that his tribe had technically been at war for his entire reign and eighty years before, Arnook had never really been a military man. Still, how could he order his men to kill if he could not even stomach seeing them defend their home against men who wanted them all dead?
He was especially displeased by the unfortunate fact that some of the warriors out there were far too young, in his opinion. The Avatar in particular made him uncomfortable—despite knowing that the child was a font of supernatural power, it was hard to see him as anything other than a little boy. Twelve years old was far too young to be in combat. From his vantage point, it was easy to spot the child among his own warriors, as even the shortest men dwarfed the boy by a foot.
'At least that little girl let Yugoda talk her into working as a healer,' he comforted himself. The Avatar's female companion from the Southern Water Tribe was going to be ferrying critically injured men to the make-shift infirmary that the older and more talented healers would be maintaining well inside the walls of the city, keeping the vulnerable healers away from any Fire Nation soldiers who breeched the city walls. Field healers were often the first target, other than officers and other sources of command.
"Very well. Thank you for your council." The chief shifted his weight from one foot to the other, squinting over the vast expanse of blue into the distance, wishing for the glass contraption that made seeing things like this easier. Alas, the materials were expensive and his item had been given to the leader of the group of waterbenders hidden in the ice floes that would be cutting off anyone who got the bright idea to go around the beaches that blocked off the 'easy' route to the city.
Then he frowned. "What are they doing?" At his side, the elderly waterbender leaned in, raising a weather beaten hand to his brow and grimacing. He didn't want to believe it, but as far as Arnook could tell, the beached ships that were not busy trying to patch their hulls were unloading small boats over their sides into the water, no doubt loaded with soldiers in heavy armor.
"Stubborn, stubborn," Pakku clicked his tongue, sounding unpleasantly pleased. He didn't seem to notice that he was smiling darkly. "Someone is overeager, I see. They should have used those boats to map out the ice to find a route for the other ships, or waited until the vessels that are not too large to pass over the ice came up to provide cover. They are sitting targets in heavy armor and unbalanced vessels."
Arnook scowled, already despising his counterpart on the Fire Nation's side of this conflict. He was a man who valued life. Misusing the men under his command in such a stupid, doomed endeavor would never have occurred to him. Arnook could do 'risky' operations if his more military minded advisors thought there was a chance of success, but this waste of life was practically murder through incompetence.
'Then again,' he thought wearily, 'the kind of man who makes a naval attack against the Northern Water Tribe in the heart of our power and cannot stand to wait until a new dawn to do so cannot be expected to make sensible decisions.' He was downright shocked that the armada had attempted to approach them in the early evening, when the sky was already darkening. They had not even considered the possibility—all their plans had assumed their waterbenders would have the handicap of high sun and that the attacking firebenders would have the corresponding boost in power. The only rationale he could imagine was that the person in charge wanted to humiliate them by showing they had no chance even in the height of their power. Overly dramatic, but it made sense to a certain kind of man. Even that kind of man should have the sense to retreat when the very first attempt to approach ended in failure and reconsider his actions.
"May I?"
Arnook sighed heavily, and fixed his gaze on the seven boats he could see rowing their way to shore. They were relatively small—probably containing about twenty men each. "Wait until they get closer," he said shortly.
The two men waited in silence, expertly gauging by the distance of the small vessels just how deep the water they were in was. The water tribesmen waiting below fidgeted anxiously, occasionally glancing up as if wondering when they would be given an order to enter the water. When the approaching ships were within half a mile of the shore, over the deepest part of the water, Chief Arnook silently asked forgiveness from the spirits of his peace-loving ancestors and nodded his head. Pakku walked away briskly, barking orders that Arnook barely heard to the men lined up on the shore, taking up a stance in unison. Arnook kept his gaze firmly locked on the now visible men in the small boats, spotting the exact moment that the man in front realized what was about to happen and stiffened, shouting orders. The massive wave that Pakku and his students had summoned crashed upon the boats in a concerted motion that first swept them up onto a high ridge and then flipped them over. Arnook grimaced, not allowing himself to look away from the empty boats that surfaced upside down and the conspicuous lack of men around them. He breathed in slowly, deeply, sorrowfully. 'What kind of foolishness is it to wear steel armor in the ocean?'
Those men had no chance, regardless of whether or not they were powerful swimmers. Not even a master waterbender would try such a thing.
Silence reigned over the shore, disciplined (though artificial) calm rippling through the gathering of water tribe warriors. That was about when the large, beached vessels that had no doubt been intended as the primary aggressive force unleashed an impotent hail of fury, enormous balls of flaming ballast that had likely been soaked in oils crashing into the ice water with enormous hisses and huge clouds of steam, sending impressive waves rocketing towards the shore.
Arnook swallowed hard, gritting his teeth. Those weapons had been intended to devastate his city. Below, the waiting waterbenders rushed to create walls to deflect the onrushing waves that could easily drag a man out to shore, fighting against the unexpected handicap of clouds of steam that obstructed their vision.
The sound of panicked shouts all ran together in a cacophony and Arnook noticed blood on the ice where the waves had not been stoppered before dashing a man against the tall ice wall. His jaw twitched, and he carefully loosened it, trying to project calm. If he were to lose his head, it would affect morale.
"Well, this is unexpected," Pakku muttered from his side. Confused, Arnook surveyed the field, not seeing what Pakku was referring to. Everything seemed to be as he had expected. Luckily, the old man added, "See there, through the smoke?" He pointed. "The last bombardment was much wetter than the last."
It took a moment for Arnook to catch on. "They're spreading their flammable oil," he realized with a frown. "But why? Fire on the ice will not last long."
"No," Pakku said grimly, eyes narrowed at something in the distance. "But it will handicap us by preventing our people from entering the water while allowing the approach of skilled firebenders, as well as continuing to mask our vision with that damnable fog." He paced like a caged lion. Then he whipped around to face his chief. "It's a distraction. True, they will send their smaller ships through to land, but they are attempting to draw our attention from something else, either on their ships or approaching through the ice fields."
Chief Arnook stiffened, not liking the idea of being unable to see what the Fire Nation military was doing, before he forcibly relaxed. "That is not completely unexpected," he pointed out. "We do have reinforcements that should prevent entry through the ice fields. I suppose that we could send more men over there, but that would open up holes in the defense here."
The elderly warrior hmm'd consideringly, before tightening his features. "No need. The group in the ice fields is small, yes, but I trust in their relative lack of incompetency. Even the least of my students has mastery of the waters and knowledge of the ice fields that those savages cannot hope to match. The going will be slow for any ships that attempt that path, and they will be small, poorly manned and forced to go one at a time." He gave a feral smile that showed too much teeth to play at civility. "They will cause no trouble."
The fight played out much as they had surmised, and soon outright fire danced on the water, turning the clean steam into foul-smelling smoke that choked at the warriors on the shore. Arnook pulled up his hood and breathed through the fabric, struggling to keep his eyes open against the sting. It must have been even worse for the men below, though they determinedly sent waves out into the water to disrupt any smaller vessels attempting to use the cover to approach. Even from his high vantage point, Arnook only managed to see the mid-sized vessel about to crash into the ice shortly before his men did, bellowing warnings that rippled along the lines. The gangplank that clanged down was almost instantly iced, causing unsteadiness and confusion among the disciplined troops rushing down to the shore. They were almost instantly overwhelmed by the standing army of water tribe warriors.
However, the next two ships landed on shore almost simultaneously on opposite sides of the first vessel, splitting the number advantage that the water tribe had possessed in the first round. Men swarmed and crashed into each other with plumes of fire, hurled icicles, and the clash of steel and bone weaponry. The agonized shrieks of the dying quickly bled into the ever-present smoke, distracting Chief Arnook from the oddity on the first ship until the last moment. He frowned, waving away smoke as best as he could and leaned in.
'I had thought that ship was emptied,' he noted idly, spotting the figures moving about quickly on deck around some strange contraption. 'What are they doing?'
Then realization struck, slightly before the fireball on the small, modified catapult did, crashing into the great doors of their ice walls, collapsing the ground under Arnook's feet and sending him flying atop a sheet of ice and in a cloud of shattered ice crystals, backwards into the city limits.
He coughed, miraculously unharmed (or mostly unharmed, anyways) and struggled to his feet, blinking away disorientation. Tanned fingers found their way to the handle of his own club, a ceremonial weapon that he had not had much cause to use after the hunt that heralded his entry to adulthood many years ago. Fire Nation soldiers surged in through the new hole, cutting down the dazed water tribesmen in their way hastily. Arnook roared, swinging his weapon upwards and cutting off the stream of enemies from the side, knocking into steel-clad enemies with whirling movement like a madman.