Chapter 10 - Rajio Bay
Hikoshu was terrified of flying.
No, that wasn't enough. He was petrified of flying. But, as Natquik spent the next day arguing to him, Miyo's air bison was the only way to get there and back before the storms. Where was there? Natquik wouldn't say, but he assured Hikoshu it would take three days via bison, where it would normally take a week or longer via sled.
Besides, as Natquik insisted, Hikoshu had mastered airbending and practically spent two months on the back of a bison. And used an air glider. Twice. He couldn't be scared of heights now.
What the waterbender was neglecting was the fact that it had been four years since his last run-in with Rosma, the previous bison, and in that ensuing time, Hikoshu had grown quite accustomed to being on ground again. Still, Natquik had a point. It wasn't as if he'd had a traumatic experience riding Rosma. So he really had no reason to fear this new bison, even if it was a different bison altogether. And if they ended up stranded in the middle of an infamous South Pole blizzard because they'd taken too long to get home, then he'd really have something to worry about. With such persuasive arguments, Hikoshu eventually caved. Three days in the air wouldn't be the end of the world.
The next step was convincing Miyo, whom Natquik had conveniently forgotten to ask about the plan while he was still talking Hikoshu into doing it. He possibly thought their combined wills might goad her into agreeing. Which was a terrible idea, because Miyo couldn't be goaded into anything.
Hikoshu had thought so, anyway. But as the three walked through the ice fields outside of town in order to avoid eavesdroppers, he watched in amazement as Natquik actually talked her into going along. And Hikoshu had to marvel at how easily she allowed herself to be talked into it. Almost as if she welcomed a reason to get away from the village.
So then the plan was set: leave the next day, be back within the week. All that was left for him to do was to talk to Mayami. Hikoshu hadn't seen her since the night of the attack, and he had begun to suspect that was on purpose. She was too conveniently missing in the places he thought to look for her, her friends far too quiet on her whereabouts. Yet, surprisingly, Hikoshu didn't feel hurt by the apparent avoidance; after all, what could he say to her? Perhaps Mayami was a little more realistic than him in knowing that they didn't have much to talk about.
Still, Hikoshu couldn't leave without speaking to her—without knowing that she'd be alright. While Miyo and Natquik went about making preparations, he searched the village. Scoured it, virtually, because Mayami was good at hiding when she wanted to. Finally, a helpful tip from a mutual friend who actually felt a little sorry for him led him outside of town yet again, to a gulley that flushed snow melt into the lake. Right now, it was unimpressive—a simple shallow ditch forming a broad line down the hill. But in the summer when everything thawed, it would create a cascade that could easily drown a careless person.
Hikoshu followed its length to the top of the large hill, finally finding Mayami hidden inside a rock formation that had been hollowed out by the summer melts. She didn't look up from her tiny nook as he approached, her back against the gray rock as she twisted an ice ring around her finger. Her eyes were a bruised color from tears, her winsome smile now lost to a frown that tugged at the dotted tattoo by her lips.
"Want to tell me why you've been avoiding me?" he asked with no introduction, clasping the rock as he leaned down to talk to her. Her knees tucked up toward her chest, Mayami merely shrugged and dragged her braid into her lap to pick at it absently. "Want to tell me anything?"
Another evasive shrug.
The day was brilliant. No clouds, no wind: it barely felt like winter at all. And if it weren't for the sun hanging low in the northern sky, he could have fooled himself into thinking it was a few months earlier. But it was still chilly, whether from the season or from Mayami's cold shoulder, he wasn't sure. Sighing, Hikoshu seated himself beside the rock, outside of the narrow alcove that she had crawled into. In front of him, the shallow gulley slid downhill to the lake, and beyond it, the world was obscured by a white so stark that he almost wished he'd brought his visor.
"I kind of miss green things," he said idly, if only to fill the silence. "I mean, snow is great. Wonderful. Can't get enough of it. But nothing grows here. It's always so barren."
"You came all the way out here to insult my home?" she asked. Which at least meant she was talking, though he didn't think it was progress.
"I'm not intending to. Most of the time, I love it here. I'm happy being with you." It didn't get a response from her.
Hikoshu would quickly admit he wasn't very good at talking out emotional things. It wasn't like his fellow Fire Sages would come running to him with quandaries about their love-lives-gone-awry. And Mayami wasn't a very emotional person, which was making this even harder. Usually she was the one teasing him about being too moody. Yet now that she was genuinely sad, Hikoshu found himself at a loss.
"You know," he continued after a moment, "sometimes in the summer, this gulley reminds me of a silk-washing stream." Actually, it was too fast for a stream, but it was the closest thing they had to one this far inland. "Know anything about silk-washing?" She didn't respond, which he took as a 'no.' "Silk is a very delicate, but also a very tough, fiber. After a while, though, it begins to wear out. Even washing it takes a little bit out of the fabric each time."
"I'm not following."
"Just let me finish," he said quickly. "Imagine you're the silk. You've been stained, worn, wrung out. You're tough, but you're also not as tough as you used to be. And when you go into that stream, it takes a little more out of you. But it also cleanses you—gives you a fresh start."
"So I'm the silk, my grandfather's death is the stain, and my grieving is the stream?" Her voice was wry, which actually made the metaphor sound a bit less impressive than he'd intended. "And I'm eventually going to be so overburdened by death and grief that I'll literally rip?" Alright, a lot less impressive. "Thanks for cheering me up."
"Forget the metaphor. It was a bad metaphor. Instead of the silk, let's say you're the stream. And during the winter—during the tough times in life—you freeze up. But come summer, you'll always melt and start off stronger than you were before."
A long pause. "Do streams even freeze in the Fire Nation?"
They didn't. "That's not the point."
"Hikoshu, just give the metaphors a rest, please? You can just say that I'm sad now, but everyday it'll get a little bit better."
Hikoshu leaned his head against the rock to stare at the sky, searching the blue vainly for support. "I used to have a mentor who could put things into perspective like that, with a really nice metaphor. Thought maybe it could help you."
"But life isn't a metaphor. Nor is it a stream. People don't get into rivers and have all their griefs or their mistakes washed away. If anything, our miseries are like the sand in the stream. No matter how much water flows over us, we never lose the sand. It's always there at the bottom, slowly scraping away at us until there's nothing left."
Hikoshu let her jaded words hang in the air before he answered. "You know, actually, I think I liked my metaphor better."
Mayami heaved a sigh and finally leaned out of the rock structure to give him a sad, and tired, smile. But it faded quickly, and she stared at the ground as if facing another hard moment.
"We can't see each other anymore, Hikoshu." She then straightened, disappearing back into the rock. He didn't ask for an explanation, but she apparently felt like she needed to give one, anyway. "My grandfather was so upset about us. He told me not to get involved with the Avatar—said that bad things happen to those the Avatar loves. And I guess he was right."
It stung. A lot. "You really think I'm the reason your grandfather died?"
"It doesn't matter." Hikoshu noted that wasn't a denial. "My grandfather's dead, and nothing will change that. But he wanted me to be married by the end of next summer, so that's what I'll do."
"Are you leaving, then?"
"Within the next week or two. There's nothing really to keep me here."
Hikoshu had always known she would have to join her future husband at some point; he just hadn't anticipated the possibility of losing her so soon. Nor had he anticipated how he'd feel about being lumped so carelessly with the term 'nothing.'
But he understood. He might be hurt, but he definitely understood. They had never meant for anything lasting to happen between them, and as always, Mayami was true to her word. So that was that. Time for them to go their separate ways.
"It was fun for the little while it lasted, wasn't it?" he murmured.
"Yeah, Hikoshu. It was fun."
He wished he could say that Mayami was the only one who laid the deaths at his feet. That Natquik had been wrong in his prediction. But in a small community, when terrible, unexplainable things happened, the tendency was to blame those who didn't belong. And though Miyo was more of a stranger than he, she also wasn't a firebender.
That wasn't entirely fair. The concealed looks and aloof acknowledgments the villagers gave him weren't just because they blamed him as a firebender. The fact was that Hikoshu was the Avatar. And as the Avatar, he was supposed to protect them from things like this. If he couldn't even protect the small village he called home, how could he defend them all from things like the outside world? More than betrayal, they were hurt by his failure to do the one thing he was meant to do.
It was the coldest they'd been to him in four years. Even his foster clan—the family that he turned to for support because of his less-than-impressive survival skills—treated him differently at meals and in passing. To be honest, he would've preferred to travel to Natquik's undisclosed spiritual place by polar-dog sled for more reasons than his fear of flying. Anything that would keep him away from the village as long as possible.
The morning for them to leave couldn't arrive soon enough. Naturally, there was no fanfare—no well-wishers or even curious passersby. In fact, only Kinu came to see the bison off, his boots leaving tracks in the crystalline snow as he met them out in the tundra. Hikoshu hadn't yet climbed into the saddle, waiting until the last possible moment to fortify his nerves. So he was the first to greet the old Shaman when he approached.
"I thought I would miss you," Kinu said with large, fogging breaths, his light blue eyes wrinkling along fine lines formed from decades of squinting. "You're pretty far from the edge of the village."
"We wanted to be discreet in our departure." Hikoshu gave him a respectful bow, which he acknowledged with an incline of his head. "Everyone's already stressed enough as it is."
Kinu nodded, then glanced from him to the top of the bison. Miyo was on its neck, securing the reins to its horns, while Natquik, obscured by its massive gray belly, was on the other side throwing up gear. Snuffling, the bison shook its head and Miyo chastised it harshly as she clung to a horn.
"I wanted to speak with you before you left, Hikoshu." Kinu's attention returned to him, and his loose, cottony hair caught on the wind. "On what you're about to do."
Hikoshu brushed it off even before he finished speaking. "It's nothing to worry about. I deal with spirit stuff all the time." Another exaggeration, but it was an Avatar thing to say.
"Still, I don't know what kind of spirit you're dealing with now." Kinu reached around his neck with gloved hands and pulled a band from out of his coat. Drawing the leather thong over his head, he then took one of Hikoshu's hands and folded the pendant in his palm. "Just to be safe, you should take this."
"What is it?" It was heavy, and when he twisted it around with his fingers, he discovered a figurine of cream-colored bone—a masked dhole, carved so that it sat on its haunches, its paws drawn toward its chest as its snout stuck forward, alert.
"It's a talisman. One of my few prized possessions. And when you get to my age, I assure you there aren't many possessions you prize." Though Hikoshu had rarely seen Kinu grin, the one he wore now seemed to fit his face perfectly. "This was given to me by Natquik's and Mayami's great-grandfather, in the hopes that it would protect me in my own journeys into the Spirit World. I give it to you now for the same reason."
Hikoshu was at a loss for words. Kinu—the Shaman who'd ridden him to the point of surrender—had been to the Spirit World. It was the first time Hikoshu had met another person who had seen the other side and may understand its mechanisms. Yet even as he discovered a newfound desire to learn from his teacher, he realized the opportunity had already passed. Perhaps someday, in the future.
So, nodding, Hikoshu slipped the leather band around his neck and took Kinu's proffered hand, clasping his elbow as the Shaman clasped his. They stood like that for a moment, and then Kinu let go, turning to retrace his trail.
"Master Kinu!" Hikoshu shouted just as he started away. Kinu hesitated, throwing a glance over his shoulder. "Any final advice?"
"Don't relieve yourself on anything before visiting the Spirit World. It always angers some spirit." With one last grin, he headed off, his steps slow in the deep snow.
"Hey." Hikoshu jerked back at Natquik's voice, then ducked to see him between the bison's six legs. He leaned over in a similar position, his hood falling over his head. "What did Kinu want?"
"To wish me luck?" Natquik didn't seem like he believed that.
"You boys can stay down there in the cold," Miyo said above them, and they both straightened to see her kneeling on the bison's neck, one hand clinging to the saddle for support. "But Tehsa's getting restless. We need to take off."
Obediently, they both bent themselves into the saddle—Natquik with snow, Hikoshu with air. Then, within a few, painful moments reminiscent of past terrors, they were off the ground and in the sky.
xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx
To Hikoshu, those three days in the air made four years melt away. Perhaps they looked a little older—Miyo now had the calm, distant manner of an Air Nomad, Natquik was much more somber, and even the bison had changed—but below all of that, it was just like old times. The wind whipped Miyo's hair around as she sat wreathed in orange robes in her usual spot on the bison's neck, and Natquik leaned over the lip of the bamboo saddle as he always would in order to pester her.
And Hikoshu huddled somewhere near the center of the saddle, trying—as usual—to avoid any accidental glimpses over the bison. He kept repeating that he shouldn't be this terrified. His last trip on a bison had allowed him to become accustomed enough to flying to get over his illogical fear. But four years had effectively erased that immunity, and his constant mental berating did nothing to lessen his anxiety.
Occasionally, over the three days, Miyo would hop into the back of the saddle in order to reassure him, or tease him if she felt his nerves could take it. And at night, when they landed to make camp in the monotonously snowy tundra, she would make sure to tease him then, too. But he could never share the same love of flying that both Natquik and Miyo seemed to enjoy, even with his title of "master airbender."
"There has never been an airbender who doesn't know how to fly," Miyo said at one point, having crawled into the back of the saddle with him and Natquik. Natquik, seated next to her opposite Hikoshu's perch in the center, merely shrugged and rested his arm along the bamboo edge.
"He flies when he needs to, and that's probably good enough." Ungrateful despite the defense, and still mildly nauseated, Hikoshu scowled.
"I don't see me having any reason to fight mid-air battles, thank you."
"Really, Hikoshu, you were doing so well. If you revert back to your paranoia every time you aren't in the air, then who's to say an enemy won't use that against you?"
"So all he has to fear is an enemy who can build flying war machines," Natquik said sarcastically, and Miyo twisted toward him with a level frown. He didn't seem to notice. "I don't know, Hikoshu, better start preparing now."
"If they ever do that, I'm afraid the world will just have to be doomed." Then Tehsa tilted right on a wayward gust, and conversation ended abruptly as his vertigo resumed.
Three days of that, more or less. When they finally got to wherever Natquik wanted them to go, Hikoshu didn't even know it. The horizon was the same kind of endless blue, though he could see a gathering of clouds just above the lip of the saddle. They billowed high on top of each other, their deepest bellies a murky gray.
Miyo was the first to comment on them, anxious from Tehsa's neck. "Natquik, those clouds don't look very safe." Distracted, the waterbender glanced up from the binding he had reworked on the hilt of his knife, the blade firmly wedged between his knees.
"It's too early for storms. Probably just a qanialak." Then, with a sidelong look to Hikoshu, he added, "A snow flurry." The patronizing translation made him roll his eyes. Natquik finally resheathed his knife and turned in his spot to peek over the edge of the saddle. "Actually, circle the mountain. It's on the other side."
"What?" Miyo's voice was sharp, and suddenly her head appeared over the saddle, her expression one of accusation as her hair flew around her.
"Around the mountain," he repeated nonchalantly, as if failing to catch her suddenly guarded demeanor. "You can't miss it." Miyo stared at him hard for several long, uncomfortable seconds. Then, groaning, she pressed her palm to her temple.
"Natquik, you said we weren't!"
"He said we weren't what?" Hikoshu asked, his apprehension growing in leaps.
"Well, if I'd said we were, you wouldn't have given us a ride." He was still nonchalant about it.
"Said we weren't what?"
"This is a bad idea. A very bad idea."
"Hey! What'd he do?"
Now Natquik had the audacity to look guilty, but he gave a vague shrug, and Miyo glared at him. The ensuing silence held no answers, nor did it do anything but fray Hikoshu's frazzled nerves even more.
Miyo was the first one to break the silence, finally turning to Hikoshu with genuine sympathy. "We're going to Rajio Bay."
"What?" His tone was the same as Miyo's.
Even before Hikoshu could round on him, Natquik was holding his hands up defensively. "Listen, you asked for the most spiritual place in the South Pole. And there is literally no place more spiritual than this."
"No way! Natquik, I can't convene with any spirit at Rajio Bay. That's—that's—"
"Sacrilege? Insanity? Suicide?" Miyo supplied, and Natquik shot her an irritated look. "Please, stop me when you get the point."
"He is the Avatar. He has nothing to worry about!"
"I'm a firebender, Natquik. Who has any idea what could happen?"
"Exactly," Natquik interrupted Hikoshu quickly, turning as he stabbed a finger at the air. "You don't know what would happen. Yes, the bay has a bad history. But the truth is that there are very few places in the world that don't. If you fear a spirit is going to target you for something you did in the past, then you wouldn't get too far outside your own hut. But you need a place that is most connected to the Spirit World, and for non-Tribesmen, Rajio Bay is that place. So why bother only assuming the events of forty-five years ago will have a negative impact on you when this is our best chance at saving people's lives?"
He hated to admit it, but Natquik was right. Hikoshu's fear of Rajio Bay was almost cultural in nature; after all, the Water Tribes didn't believe in spirits acting maliciously on their own, but the Fire Nation certainly did. So were his concerns legitimate, or was he simply reacting to old ghost stories? The only time a spirit had really posed a threat to him was when he accidentally brought it into the physical world. Otherwise, he couldn't be harmed while in his spirit form.
...could he?
Hikoshu pushed the fear away. Regardless of it, Natquik still had a point. He didn't know what to expect, and his overreactive caution wasn't worth risking more lives.
"Of all the crazy plans," Miyo continued to scold, propping herself over the saddle. "You're a Southern Water Tribesman! Surely you realize how badly this could turn out."
"But he's right." Hikoshu's abrupt agreement made her snap her now wide-eyed gaze toward him. "Well, it's the most spiritual place, and I have to find out what's going on. Besides, the Spirit World doesn't scare me. I'm the Avatar, after all." He wasn't sure if that fact really would protect him from any vengeful spirits, but he filled his statement with as much reassurance as he could muster. Miyo only seemed partially mollified as she tried to see past his façade.
"And we'll be right there in case he needs us," Natquik continued, which seemed to relieve her uneasiness a little more. Finally, she nodded and slipped back behind the saddle. Without another word, the bison turned, presumably toward a mountain peak that Hikoshu couldn't yet see from the saddle.
"You sure about this?" Hikoshu murmured right before the bison began to land. Almost refusing to meet his eyes, Natquik didn't look nearly as sure as he'd hoped.
"Of course," he said anyway. "Trust me."
Hikoshu didn't trust him, but at this point, the bison was descending and he was forced to grip the bamboo and hide his head as he always did during landings. This was by far the worst part of flying—the sensation of falling, hurtling toward the ground, with nothing but a bison between him and imminent death. It was the very essence of why he hated flying: the fact that, once in the air, he would have to come back down again.
What certainly felt like hours, but was most probably minutes, later, the bison's feet jolted against the ground, and shaken, Hikoshu jumped out of the saddle. He airbended himself gently to the snow just as Natquik appeared beside him. It inevitably took a few moments to steady his knees as well as his heart, and he focused on the ground while he did so. Ridiculous paranoia. He really was going to have to work on it. Finally, taking a deep breath, he looked up and scanned the horizon.
There wasn't much to see. Rising from the snow was the rather unremarkable mountain that Natquik had mentioned, white except for the sprinkling of black rock that stuck through. Between it and them, and quite a bit shorter, a snow dune stretched in either direction, a barrier of solid white that blared brightly despite the fluffy gray clouds that crept past the northern sun.
The scene was particularly notable only for its lack of water.
"This isn't a bay," Hikoshu said as he turned to Natquik, and the waterbender gave him a look of strained patience. Without warning, he jerked his elbows back—a bending move that Hikoshu didn't have time to recognize before he was thrown over the bison, tossed off of the ground by the ground itself.
There was the momentary surge of fear, quickly staunched by instinct, and he flipped into a landing made softer with airbending. Any complaint at the rough treatment, however, was cut short by the new sight, revealed now that the bison was no longer in his way.
It really was a bay. To either side, the snow plain continued, yet in front of him, the black of the ocean bit into the land to cut a circular swath out of the white. It was a glaring interruption that spanned a distance large enough to make the breaking waves on a far-off headland merely foamy caps.
The bay was impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the four, soaring columns that rose out of the snow, standing just between him and the shore. They were totems of ice, pillars of animal heads that symbolized various clans as well as various spirits. Forming the corners of an invisible square that was itself empty, their faces looked out on the bay.
"The totems are of the clans that were killed here," Natquik said behind him, and Hikoshu felt a welling of guilt that kept him from turning around. "The two trout-crows at the top represent the dead, and the two koala-otters memory."
Conspicuously absent was any tribute to the firebenders who had died. Not even the mast of the ship that the waterbenders had sunk without provocation—the very action that had begun the battle fought here—remained. For years, it had supposedly stuck above the waves of Rajio Bay, but if it ever did, it was now gone.
Bitterness at the idea made him speak. "I thought the Water Tribes didn't believe in memorials."
"Some things are so evil that monuments must be built."
"No," Miyo said sharply, and Hikoshu finally turned to see that she stood between him and Natquik. "You won't have this fight. Rajio Bay has nothing to do with either of you."
She was only partly right. But, instead of arguing, Hikoshu shrugged off his anger and headed for those four pillars. This wasn't something that he could fight out with Natquik; they'd come to a mutual understanding years ago that the war was a fruitless, often infuriating, debate which for the sake of their friendship should be studiously avoided.
The air of Rajio Bay was solemn, as if nothing had changed in the forty-five years since the battle of the same name had been fought. The story, as told by the Fire Nation, was that a Fire Nation merchant ship had docked in this very bay for repairs of damage suffered by heavy ice floes. That night, they were ambushed by Water Tribe warriors, who killed the crew and sunk the ship. According to the Fire Nation, the attack was in retaliation for the supposed kidnapping of the Water Tribe princess. According to the Water Tribes, the sinking of the ship was staged.
Though the initial reports were vague, the response of the Fire Nation was widely disparaged. They immediately sent all nearby ships to the bay to attack the neighboring winter camps, whether or not they had committed the nighttime raid. Every warrior was killed just as the crew had been, the women and children spared to take the story back to the chief.
The first act of aggression in the Ten-Year War, the War of Steam and Smoke. A war that would culminate in the mass slaughter of the Western Air Temple, the imposition of fifteen-year sanctions on the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom of Omashu, and the almost-universal hatred of the Avatar for failing to act for so long.
Hikoshu had good reason to dread the spirits of this place.
The sun came out momentarily just as he crossed the transparent boundary of the square, but it did nothing to burn away the bleak atmosphere, the shadow of one column actually chilling him more. The totems, now visible, studied him with frozen eyes, their muzzles and beaks sticking out like ice spears at ready.
Hikoshu couldn't shake the feeling of their gazes, judgmental and cruel, on the back of his neck. But he would have to concentrate if he was going to meditate, and he couldn't do that facing the totems. So seating himself at the center of the square, his back to two of the columns, Hikoshu folded his legs in the snow and looked out over the bay, on a horizon that was quickly filling with a distant wall of clouds.
He then pulled his hood over his head, clasped his hands in his lap, and closed his eyes. Breathing deep, he searched for that place of tranquility somewhere in his chest. Far away from those cold stares.
xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx
Hikoshu hadn't asked them to leave, but Natquik wasn't going to wait around. Watching the Avatar do Avatar things seemed almost irreverent somehow. Besides, he'd seen enough of Hikoshu's powers to never want to see anymore ever again. So he turned away from the distant figure of his seated friend and signaled for Miyo to do the same.
"Let's get your bison into some shelter before it snows."
"But we can't leave him," Miyo said, distraught as she clung to her staff.
"We're going to stay in sight. I just want to keep my things dry and avoid the wet bison smell."
Grudgingly, she again allowed herself to be talked into following him, and patted the bison on the side of its head to get it to follow as well. The hulking beast scooted its six legs through the thick snow, the size of its furry paws serving as natural snowshoes.
A pretty useful trick as they climbed toward higher ground. Natquik could bend the snow under his feet so that he didn't fall in and Miyo could step lightly enough that it didn't matter. But it was only by virtue of the bison's large paws that it didn't sink knee-deep and force him to bend it out.
He had to find a structurally sound point in the snow dune before he could bend a cave into it, which took some time. Miyo's eyes never left the black dot that was Hikoshu, sometimes forcing him to backtrack because she thought it was too far away. Then it took even more time to make the burrow, as his bending skills were mediocre at best and not powerful enough to dig an entire cave in one go. But when he finished, it was sufficiently deep enough that Tehsa could probably stay warm as long as the animal stayed put.
Afterward, Natquik was surprised to see that Hikoshu had still not moved from his spot. As Miyo coaxed Tehsa into the shelter, he stood back and wondered idly how long it would take him to convene with the spirits. He wasn't even sure if Hikoshu had crossed over yet. Was he supposed to disappear? Or start floating like he did in the Avatar State? What sign were they to look for if he was in trouble?
"You did this on purpose."
Natquik turned at the sound of Miyo's voice and found her scowling from the mouth of the cave, her shawl pushed up over one shoulder to reveal an orange sleeved arm that she propped against her hip.
"Did what?"
"Tricked Hikoshu into coming here." Straightening her shawl, she turned back to the groaning Tehsa and rested her hands on its nose with some murmured words. The bison twisted its head and shuffled its feet, but at least it didn't move out of the cave.
"I didn't trick him; I simply didn't tell him everything." He waved over his shoulder, back toward the bay. "I would've talked him into coming eventually—I wasn't lying when I said he had his best chance of contacting the Spirit World through here. But it was going to be a lot harder to convince him of the reality of the situation while in the safety of his own hut."
Finally satisfied that Tehsa would stay, Miyo grabbed her staff from the smooth ice wall and spun around to face him. "I wonder why."
"Come on, Miyo. He's been in the South Pole for four years—four years—and he's never bothered once to visit Rajio Bay."
"So you're angry that Hikoshu might not want to remember something so horrible? Or do you think he just doesn't feel guilty enough?" As she marched past, she paused long enough to glare right into his face. Frustrated, he followed behind her.
"I'm not angry, I'm realistic. Have you noticed Hikoshu knows nothing about his previous life? You can't protect him from this. He needs to be aware of his past mistakes." She didn't look back, skidding awkwardly down the slope toward more solid snow. "So you mean to tell me in all of his years at the Western Air Temple, no one ever mentioned the massacre?"
She paused at that, turning her head enough that he saw the outline of her nose. But then she was moving again, and incredulous, he stopped. "You didn't tell him."
The Western Air Temple massacre was a well-understood but little talked about dark point in history. After all of the atrocities committed at Rajio Bay, and all of the years of war, the world had reached its breaking point. Avatar Sidhari had been conspicuously missing for most of the fighting, and the Western Air Nomads, proclaiming neutrality, had chosen to hide the exiled Fire Prince Zenshi and the kidnapped Water Tribe princess Yukona within their temple. What happened next, no one could ever really explain: the Fire Nation had attacked the temple and murdered nearly every nun there. The bodies of the prince and princess were never found.
Despite the mysterious reasons for the slaughter, it effectively ended the war. Sidhari finally intervened, and the Fire Nation was sanctioned, as well as Omashu for aiding in the attacks on the South Pole. But the Water Tribes hadn't yet forgiven the Fire Nation, nor had they forgiven the Avatar for failing to respond sooner.
"He knows about it!" Miyo eventually snapped, her voice muffled. "Everyone knows about it. And there wasn't any reason to make him feel bad about something that had nothing to do with him."
"It's not making him feel bad. It's helping him to realize what happens when powerful people make mistakes."
"No, it's punishment, Natquik." Now she did turn, digging her staff into the snow to regain her balance as her foot slipped. "He's a firebender. And you want to take out everything the firebenders did on him. Air Nomads don't believe in that, though. We don't believe in punishing people for the actions of their ancestors."
"It's not about punishment!" He found it difficult to control his volume when Miyo was reprimanding him so. Even harder to control his expression. "It's about the fact that a previous Avatar did exactly what he's doing now—refusing to address the past. We'd be committing a huge injustice on Hikoshu to let him forget that in order to save his feelings."
Miyo's face warped at that, containing a mixture of anger and agonized sadness that made him wonder if she was on the brink of tears. Her voice, though, was savage. "You don't know what he's been through."
"Yes, I do. I was there." And it was precisely the reason why Natquik knew Hikoshu needed to confront his ghosts. Everything he'd done in another life had repercussions, and Hikoshu had already suffered at the hands of some of them. If he tried to avoid learning about the past, he'd simply suffer more. Thus Miyo's refusal to show him reality was overprotective and overly naïve.
But that was who she was. And as she finally relented, her shoulders falling along with her expression, Natquik couldn't fault her. Air Nomad nature was to forgive and forget, yet Water Tribe nature was to remember and understand. It was about time Hikoshu did the same.
"I'm sorry, Natquik. I know you care about him, too. I just…." She struggled with the words, refusing to meet his eyes. "I just don't want anything happening to him again."
"Going to be hard to protect him from that." He pulled an arm around her shoulders, and under his touch, Miyo stiffened then relaxed. "Listen, spirit journeys are supposed to be done alone. He'll be fine out here, so let's give him some privacy." And maybe get her mind off of worrying about him. With a weak nod, she agreed and let him lead her back up the snow ridge, away from the totems.