To Honour the moment

Hi everyone!

I have got some bad news: from now on Avocadolove will be to busy to be my beta-reader. I thank her deeply for all the great advice she has given me all this time. I did my best to make this chapter readable, and my sister Nadramon also hepled (thank you sis!), but I'm really not sure it was enough. So if you spot too many mistakes, I highly encourage you to be merciless with me, because I need to improve my translating skills, and fast!

On a related note, I have been wondering for some time whether I should correct the prolog, "Shattering time", since I posted it before Avocadolove became my beta-reader. As my first attempt at translating, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. However some people have told me that they liked the feeling of strangeness the weird phrasing induces, since it is a dream sequence and all. So I thought I should ask you before I change anything.

Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! (Special thanks to gerro for his/her monster of a review. Wow *_*) My eternal gratitude goes to Lunatique, who agreed to "omega-read' this chapter. Here is the corrected version (any remaining mistake is purely mine):


Chapter 5: Back where the way collapses (2/3)

Every time the flying bison landed near the village's wall, it got immediately surrounded by a small, enthusiastic crowd. It hadn't taken long for the children of the tribe to get used to the six-legged white monster. Now they spent as much time as possible climbing it from all sides, or playing with its young owner.

On that day, they had a moment's hesitation upon seeing a frowning firebender jump down their favourite playground with a distant look on his face. However the intruder, though he did scream pretty loudly and often blew steam out of his too-pale nostrils, didn't look so much like the skeleton faced monsters their parents would describe with such loathing. What's more, the children had seen him ill, even sound asleep: all in all his dangerousness was rather abstract.

Thus, they quickly forgot his presence and threw themselves on Appa with delighted shrieks. Soon the airbender himself was getting submerged by small blue parkas, laughing harder than everyone else. Carefully, Zuko started walking away.

"So that's where you've been all this time. Seriously, don't tell me you of all people took up playing with this giant fur ball?"

The prince jumped and threw the peasant a murderous look. He hadn't noticed the taller, quieter boy among the group of overexcited kids running about. The teenager was standing some distance away, wrinkling his nose at him in disapproval. His body seemed oddly deformed by the thick furs he wore. He was holding a spear; an old-looking sleigh laden with two bags lay at his feet.

"I'm not playing, you idiot," Zuko said in a vexed tone. "I'm looking for my men. Some of us actually have important things to do, you know."

"What, I'm an idiot? Have you even seen yourself with the canoe the other day? I never saw anyone so worthless with an oar, you nearly threw us overboard!"

"That again? You insisted I should use the stupid shapeless thing! Can't you Water Tribe people use paddles like everyone else? That whole fishing plan of yours was ridiculous anyway. And I did not throw us overboard!"

They went on arguing. The canoe event came up almost every time the Water Tribe boy would start talking to him (Zuko was not sure he remembered his name: Kossa, Sokka, or something equally strange). The prince honestly couldn't understand why this half crazy, xenophobic peasant insisted so much on bringing up the subject, since he was obviously the one who had acted like a complete fool on that day.

That the villagers tended to give him works way under his status was one thing. During his convalescence, the old lady who had healed him would give him a few simple tasks, rekindle the fire, sharpen knives or spears; she had even tried to have him mend a net, though that one hadn't gone too well. At the time he had been too grateful for something to occupy his hands and his feverish mind to protest.

Afterwards the habit had just clung, and he didn't know what to do about it: since his recovery they would give him the works that demanded the most physical strength, peasant's work, but there was no man left in this village. And it wasn't like he could let old women do it in his place; it would only give Kossa, or whatever his name was, an occasion to mess with him and call him a weakling.

Four days ago however, the peasant had gotten it into his head to go fishing for some particular specie which, he said, could only be found in narrow channels surrounded by icebergs. Thus two men were needed, one to hold the spear and another to keep their boat from crashing into the ice. Zuko hadn't felt the least bit concerned. He had curtly advised him to take his sister along; she seemed in the mood for impaling fish these days. However Kossa had stared at him like he had just said something not only stupid, but blasphemous. Apparently the success of his project highly depended on the gender of both fishermen, go figure.

In spite of the overall stupidity of the situation, things still might have gone well: Zuko had slowly gotten used to the rudimentary weapon the peasant had put in his hands. There was even some kind of contentment in feeling his arm jolt slightly every time the tip of the spear would reach the target. It was basic, mechanical, and a lot less disturbing than running after ghosts in the ruins of his ship…

So really, the fact that the project had turned to a near disaster could only be blamed on this Kossa person, who had loudly complained that he could catch way more fish way faster and that Zuko was making them waste their time, and who had ultimately snatched the spear from his hands and let him do the steerage. The young prince could handle a kayak rather well, but the strange craft holding them was not a kayak, and as for the thinghe was supposed to use as a navigating tool, he couldn't even begin to describe it.

The two teenagers had come back in a terrible mood, completely drenched, and with half of their catch lost.

But he had not thrown them overboard!

"What on earth do you want this time?" Zuko asked, crossing his arms when it became clear that the peasant wouldn't leave him alone. "You had better not tell me you need me again for one of your ridiculous plans."

"My plans are not ridiculous! And if you think it's any fun for me to team up with pretentious Fire Nation jerks… But as I'll let you know, I too have important things to think about. Find the food to keep my village alive, for starters. And you had better help with it, 'cause in case you haven't noticed, you eat like an arctic horse."

Zuko tried to reply: the damned idiot was a fine one to talk about that, and he wasn't even a firebender, or anything that could explain his gluttony. However the brown, angular face of the Water Tribe boy was lighting up: it seemed they had come to the reason he was here at all. He went on without giving the prince any time to react:

"I went on reconnaissance yesterday: there is a whole herd of walrus caribous that got out of the water, I never saw that so long before spring! No way are we missing an occasion like that. We get one, period. Some had tusks and antlers of four feet at least, can you imagine?"

Kossa was getting more and more excited as he talked, waving his arms to punctuate his sentences, pointing at the horizon with his spear like he really expected some galloping herd to suddenly appear between the snow hills. Zuko remained stony-faced.

No, he could not imagine. He had absolutely no idea what a "walrus caribou" might be and frankly, he couldn't care less. This peasant's obsession with hunting, and meat in general, was getting a little more grating with each passing day. Zuko was cold and hungry after his search this morning, and he had more important things to focus on than play caveman.

However one part of the Water Tribe boy's speech made him lift his head despite himself and ask, frowning slightly:

"Four-foot long tusks? A herd? Are you sure those things are meant to be hunted by two people?"

The peasant paused, biting his lower lip for a second, but he managed to keep his tone firm:

"First things first, walrus caribous are not "things", they are meat, so show them a little respect. And no, you don't exactly hunt them with two people if you can avoid it. Ideally we should be ten. But I have a plan and it's gonna work, so it's okay. Why, you afraid?"

"Of course not!" the prince retorted, immediately reacting to the hint of challenge in the teenager's voice. "Why would I be afraid of an animal? I just don't trust your stupid plans!"

"Hey! My stupid plan found some use for your fire tricks, you should be grateful. It's better than steaming like a cooking pot all day. And it's not like anyone cares about your opinion: you're here, Gran Gran healed you, don'task me why, so now you help."

Zuko didn't answer, arms still crossed over his chest in a resolutely disapproving way, but not exactly disagreeing with his reasoning.

The prince hadn't tried to leave yet; that puzzled him a little.

"Your flames," the peasant went on. "How far can you throw them?"

"It depends, you fool. On the position of the sun, and whether it is cloudy or snowing, among other things. You really don't know anything."

"And how do you expect me to know anything about it, jerkbender? Do I look like a firebending fan, do you think the soldiers give us textbooks about it during raids? Let's say in bad conditions."

"When I am fighting at night, about twenty feet. I can go to thirty if I prepare with a kata."

Kossa took some time to think, his lips moving silently as though mouthing calculations. He was holding his chin in his gloved hand, looking like he regretted not having a beard he could stroke thoughtfully.

"That would be cool, thirty feet," he finally said. "The farther the better. Does it take long, this kata of yours?"

"A few seconds," Zuko said, growing impatient. "Why, is that important for your plan? What do you have in mind?"

A smirk broke the peasant's face, showing very white teeth on his dark face. With his ice blue eyes, wide with enthusiasm, he really looked like a lunatic. Zuko had to refrain from stepping back.

"Aha!" the peasant exclaimed, victoriously pointing his spear in the prince's direction. "Now you're interested in my plan! See? My ideas are brilliant."

"I never said I was interested," Zuko replied dryly. "Are you going to answer or not?"

"I'll tell you on the way," the other said, still smiling. "We're leaving right now, I already warned every one. There's some food in this bag, you'll eat while walking. Gotta hurry up. We were supposed to set off this morning, but of course you had to go and play with the bison…"

"For the last time, I was not playing with that thing!"

"Whatever. What's your problem anyway, still had something to do in the village?"

Out of reflex Zuko turned to the opening in the small snow fortifications, from which loud laughter could be heard. The flying bison was lying blissfully among the tents, letting children dig their arms into its fur or slide down its flank. The Avatar was looking at them a few feet away, the Water Tribe girl by his side, the one whose eyes reminded him of the ocean from his homeland, whose name was Katara, and who hated him.

Both were laughing to tears, but when her eyes met Zuko's her neck stiffened, and her expression froze. The prince quickly turned on his heel.

"Why are we taking this sleigh anyway?" he said, grasping one of the straps. "It would be easier to just carry the bags."

"Yeah, great idea. And the walrus caribou? Are you planning to bring it all the way to the village on your back? You don't know anything, either. It would have been better if we had some polar fox dogs to pull it, alright. But our last one died two months ago. We couldn't feed it any longer."

The peasant had grown quieter with his last sentence, a little more worried. He was tying the rope around his waist without looking at him, pale eyes fixing some invisible point among the endless ice.

"We have to make do now…"

Zuko didn't answer: he wasn't exactly in any position to sympathize with the difficulties of the Water Tribe. He was also distracted by his own rope which, on close examination, looked alarmingly like a piece of entrails taken out of some large beast from this crazy land.

Kossa was the first to move again, taking a slice of dried meat from one of the bags and holding it out to the prince with a shrug.

"I've got nothing against pulling the sleigh, mind you. There can even be some advantages: good way to test you a little. We'll see whether you're man enough to keep up with me."

At those words, Zuko couldn't hold back the smirk that formed on his lips and brightened his eyes. Kossa was smaller than he was, and clearly skinnier. The firebender tied himself to the sleigh as well and, having eaten nothing since dawn, bit fiercely into the offered food.

It was close to noon now: the sun had risen high above the ground; the blood that flowed along his arteries drew fire patterns against his bones. The meat disappeared quickly in his hands.

"Keep up with you?" he asked, already walking ahead of the other boy on the packed snow. "You were the one who got flattened when you charged me with that spear, if I remember correctly. Care for a rematch?"

Zuko had never been too good at influencing others, but this time the provocation proved to be effective. For hours on end the strange team, two poorly matched hunters, red and blue on the blinding white of snow, dashed between the dunes without slowing down. The two teenagers were almost running on the treacherous ground that gave under their steps, exchanging challenging glances, watching for the first sign of tiredness.

The young prince was stronger and had more stamina than his opponent. His muscles warmed his skin as they contracted and gave impulse to his every step. He liked the feeling, in this frozen wasteland where every gust of wind pierced him to the bone. He felt like he could go on that way for days on end.

Still, Kossa was holding his own. This land was his, and he moved with confidence, finding with one glance the places where the ground was best packed. Sometimes he would even throw his rival a mocking glance as Zuko sank to the knee in the snow. And every time it happened Zuko would free himself, his eyes ablaze, and he would suddenly accelerate in retaliation. Clouds of steam were coming out of their mouths, sporadically, twisting around their faces without their noticing.

Neither would have ever admitted it, but in months, maybe years, they had never had so much fun.

After a long while the game ended, the Water Tribe peasant stopping to point at the ground, where tracks were spreading in front of them, still quite clear. Zuko looked at the incomprehensible traces with curiosity: they were large, sinuous, as though giant komodo snakes had been uncharacteristically crawling on the snow. They were made by flippers, Kossa explained, so no wonder it didn't really look like anything. The walrus caribous must have come this way yesterday night, damn, check out all those prints, I can't believe they all came out of the water in winter, and will you hurry up? What if we miss them?

The young hunter was already dragging him forward, now seized with panic. Zuko followed, slower than before. He kept glancing at the trail. Large creatures, like he had expected, but he couldn't guess their weight from those traces. Six hundred pounds? More?

"You still haven't told me anything about your plan," he said, cutting Kossa off in his anxious muttering. "If you really need my help for this nonsense, I would at least like to know what I'm supposed to do."

The peasant threw him an offended look, but slowed down a little.

"Yeah, guess so," he said. "We're a bit short on effectives, can't really afford not to be prepared. See, the walrus caribous always go in herds. You can't just go and attack them, they don't look like it but they can charge you real fast, just wait and see…well, don't see, you know what I mean. What we have to do is scare them and make them run to a narrow passageway, so they'll have to outdistance each other. Then we can get one. Of course, usually many hunters have to work together to scare the whole herd and make them run in the right direction. That's where you come into play, you and your magic flames…"

"For the last time, they are not magic!"

But Kossa merely shrugged and went on with his explanations, making wild gestures with his spear. He mentioned the "magic flames" several times again, Zuko was convinced the damn fool was doing it on purpose.

The landscape around them wouldn't change. The creeping twilight barely coloured the ground with a faint yellowish glow. Unpleasant. In a way he was grateful for the peasant's chatter. Being angry at him was a comforting distraction from the feeling he had of not progressing at all in this crushing, lifeless white.

They had spent the whole afternoon walking. Only the sun, slowly sinking in front of them, told him they were heading westwards. He hadn't had time to search inside the lands yet: this part of the South Pole was completely foreign to him. Out of habit, he found himself examining the blue shadows along the dunes, looking for footprints, melted snow, some proof that a firebender had gone this way before him. After two entire weeks in this cold…

But there was nothing.

The young prince was vaguely aware of Kossa, besides him, who was praising the meat of walrus caribous and comparing it to caribou squirrels, but he wasn't even trying to pay attention. He hadn't been able to find the slightest proof of his crew's presence, nowhere, no matter how hard he searched… For the first time the thought gave him some strength; a bizarre hope.

The Avatar's childish voice kept echoing in his mind, not that impressive, not that solemn, but so sure:

"Your crew already found a way to leave the South Pole."

Maps of the northern seas were passing through his mind, as though imprinted behind his eyes by three years of fruitless search. The outlines of the South Pole were clear in his memory, he could nearly see them on the immaculate snow before him. His heart was beating faster.

Of course that would have been difficult, even for trained men like his crew. And it didn't explain what had made them escape the ship in the first place. But maybe…

"There is a strait in the west…" he whispered.

"Hey, are you even listening? We aren't going all the way to the western coast, what's up with the strait?"

"But there is one, right? It separates the South Pole and the mountains, where the Southern Air Temple is. Only the Air Nomads don't own those mountains, nor the coasts. So it is neutral territory, and it can be used for trading…"

"…between the tribe and the Earth Kingdom, I know that," Sokka said, looking at him in puzzlement. "But it's been years since we used this strait, you know: all the tribesmen left to fight in the war, there's no one to protect trading ship. It's not like we have that much to sell now anyway. Why do you care?"

Zuko took a long breath, filling his lungs without even feeling the burn of the ice-cold air against his teeth and throat. The rope around his waist felt very tight all of a sudden.

"Even if all trading has stopped…there must still be something left of it, right? The sea walls must still be there, and you had to build some kind of warehouses to protect the merchandise. And if there are some boats left in there…"

The words were rushing out of his mouth, jostling each other and nearly blocking his throat. He had to stop before his voice started shaking.

The Water tribesman had gone serious beside him. He kept silent for some time, as though seizing up the foreigner: the pale hands clenched on the red coat, the thick wisps of steam coming out of his nostrils like blood underwater, the golden eyes staring fiercely at the livid polar sun.

"That's what you are thinking? That your crew found those warehouses and boats near the western strait, and that they used them to reach the Earth Kingdom?"

"My men are no amateurs," Zuko replied. His voice was hoarse yet firm, sharp. "They must know about this strait. And once in the Earth Kingdom, they can reach the nearest annexed port and get help."

He breathed out a puff of steam.

"Perhaps…perhaps they really managed to leave."

A thrill went through him as he uttered those words, defiance or dread, as though he had now officially made a gamble with fate. But Kossa just frowned.

"I guess," he said slowly, "there could be some installations and goods left from the trading. Not that much if you ask me, but whatever. But boats? We kind of need those to leave the South pole, see? At the very best you could find some sailing boats that needed to be repaired in the warehouses. Wouldn't be enough to move a whole crew. Sorry, but your theory doesn't sound that credible."

Zuko tried to shrug at his words, but his fists were too tightly clenched by his sides, making his gesture oddly stiff, almost a jerk.

"I don't recall asking for your opinion, peasant" he managed to pronounce. "You can keep thinking I'm crazy for all I care; it's not like you've done anything but since I came here."

"Hey! I'm criticising your theory, not you, you idiot! Don't get everything mixed up, it's bad for my argumentation!"

That was surprisingly true. But Zuko wasn't in the mood to discuss rhetoric. He tried walking faster, willing for the conversation to end, but when he breathed out words spilled from his lips on their own accord, half drowned in steam:

"My men were not turned into rust. I refuse to believe that."

He heard Kossa swallow hard next to him.

"Look, that's not what I…"

"Shut up! Can't you see I don't care what you think? Can't you see I need a lead? I don't have the time to be sceptical. Maybe my uncle needs me right now, and I'm still responsible for my crew, so as long as you can't show me their corpses I have no right to just give up and think some spirits…"

"I never said they were turned into rust, damn it!"

That surprised Zuko enough that he fell silent. For a few moments there was nothing to be heard but the crunching of their steps on the packed snow and the sound of the sleigh trailing behind them. Kossa had crossed his arms over his chest, looking rather offended.

"I agree with you on one thing," he said. "It won't do you much good to drive yourself mad and see spirits everywhere. Some weird stuff might have happened to you, but that doesn't mean science's suddenly fit for the bin. I mean, no offence, but you benders really have the tendency to turn mystic the first opportunity you get."

The peasant paused briefly to get his breath back, then went on:

"Your theory from before is fishy at best, but at least it's rational. It's just your method that makes no sense. You need facts to back you up, man. Let's see, this…rust, thing. You did say it could attack people, but you were feverish at the time, weren't you? Has anyone actually been touched?"

Zuko turned towards him, wide-eyed. He even forgot to get annoyed at this peasant who, having lived all his life in some backward wasteland, still took the liberty to give him lessons on logic.

"I don't think so…" he said slowly. "There were still some animals in my ship, before it collapsed. Twelve war mounts. Everything else was covered in rust, the tapestries, even some of the food, but theyhadn't been touched."

The young prince's face darkened at those words, a phantom pain briefly grasping his shoulder where Orm's large head had fallen. He hadn't told anyone about the methodical slaughter of his komodo rhinos, back in this dismal room, back in the piercing cold that had paralysed the weakest of them… But Kossa merely nodded with a satisfied expression, and didn't ask for details.

"So that's already one argument against carnivorous rust. See? There's nothing more to it."

This time Zuko couldn't find any words to answer.

They remained silent for most of the journey afterwards. The two teenagers needed all their concentration to fight off the cold that was getting more and more biting as night fell. The leather rope was rubbing painfully against Zuko's waist. He couldn't tell for how long they had been walking: the pole's unchanging landscape seemed to have swallowed them for good. When Kossa finally came to a halt, there still wasn't anything to be seen around them but the ghostly outlines of glaciers, standing out against the black sky in the distance.

"And here we are!"

Here? There was triumph in the peasant's voice. Still, aside from the abnormally high hills standing in front of them and blocking their view, the place seemed just as desolate as the rest of the South Pole. Zuko's lip curled disapprovingly.

Meanwhile Kossa seemed to have become overly energetic once again. He quickly untied the rope around his waist, and without warning he grabbed the prince's hand and dragged him to an abrupt slope. It was a good six yards high. They had to climb nearly on all fours on the packed snow that burnt his fingers like an acid; the wind chafed his neck and ears. Kossa must be used to do the stupid exercise; he was way ahead of him already, it was infuriating.

He felt like throwing fireballs, but finally they reached the top of the hill. The landscape stood out sharply in the pale glare of the moon. For a second he forgot the bite of cold.

"Our trap for walrus caribous!" Kossa announced, embracing the horizon with a wide motion of his spear. "Has been there for centuries, and still holding pretty well, don't ya think?"

The hill on which the two teenagers were standing was not natural. In fact it wasn't a hill at all. Silently, Zuko gazed at the pearl-white wall that sliced through the plain, as far as the eye could see.

The side they had just climbed had been rendered almost shapeless by the wind, but the inner wall was still as smooth as marble. Screwing up his eyes, he was able to see a similar construction at the other end of the plain. Both walls seemed to converge towards some point in the distance, where they formed a narrow corridor, barely wide enough to walk three abreast.

"There's as good as nothing left of the Southern Water Tribe," Kossa went on, "but this, no one thought to destroy it. This is ours."

"Those walls were made by waterbenders," Zuko said quietly.

At once the peasant was angry again:

"Not just waterbenders!" he protested. "All the men participate for that kind of work. And you also need architects, and it was the hunters who imagined the trap in the first place, you think those were all benders? Really, you people, always thinking the world turns round your navel…"

Kossa climbed back down, grumbling about finding some shelter to wait for the walrus caribous without turning into snowmen. Zuko followed him with some irritation, shrugging stiffly at the peasant's mood swings.

They dragged the sleigh to a shallow cave half buried in snow. Kossa still wasn't done sulking: the two teenagers vigorously yelled at each other as they cleared the snow away from the entrance, unloaded the sleigh then hauled it against the opening of the cave to cut off the wind.

"Why the hell", the young prince found himself snapping, "do you stupid peasant have to drag me into all of your ridiculous projects? I already gave you the supplies from my ship, we went after those damned fish, now this! Aren't you supposed to make your own supplies before winter?"

"Hey! I'm the village's hunter. It's my job to get as much meat as I can so my village won't starve, you jerkbender. But I guess it's no wonder a prince, or whatever it is you are, can't get something like that."

Zuko clenched his fists, about to retort. What did this backward foreigner know about him, in Agni's name, of course he had experienced hunger after three years banished at sea: the lack of drinking water, the biscuits crawling with rat-worms larva when they would wander for too long, sometimes months without landing…

But even as he opened his mouth, Zuko realized that he himself couldn't imagine the level of distress this village might suffer at times, stranded as it was in a frozen, utterly barren land. He lowered his head, bad-temperedly.

"Also, I'm not that dense," Kossa went on, seemingly not noticing the prince's change in behaviour. He was arranging some kind of camp fire on the ground, crushing a shrivelled bush on top of a dry, brown material that looked dangerously like it had come out of the bison's intestines. "With this kid talking Katara into finding a waterbending master at the other end of the world, and Katara going wild about Avatars' quests and stopping the war… I think I have a pretty good idea of how that's gonna turn out."

Zuko glanced at him, surreptitiously. The peasant had come to sit cross-legged near the entrance, his spear stuck in the ground. It should help him sense the approach of the herd through the vibrations, or so he said. His gloved hand seemed to grip the weapon tighter than was strictly necessary.

"Well, we haven't talked about any of that yet," Kossa concluded. "But I'd rather be sure the tribe has as much supply as possible. Just in case."

The young prince nodded, a little awkwardly, and lighted up the tiny branches with a gesture of his hand.

"The Avatar told me this morning he was going to leave the village eventually," he said. "If that's what you were wondering. But he didn't say anything about bringing you or your sister along."

Kossa nodded, unsurprised. He was quiet for a while, looking intently at the fire, as though lost in thoughts.

"Say, why do we even build a fire if you can make one yourself?" he suddenly asked. "Now that would make your magic flames useful, and it would save us some fuel!"

"Only they are not magic flames, that's my point," Zuko hissed, starting at the barbaric words. "Do you really think it's that simple? That the fire comes out of nowhere? Without fuel it is my strengths that keep it alive. I'm not going to exhaust myself for hours on end just so you can spare some bush!"

"Whoa, I was just asking! No need to get so worked up."

"You're the one getting worked up."

"Er, no, that would be you."

"No, you."

The peasant threw him a weird look. For a moment it even seemed as though he was going to laugh out loud. Zuko glared, just in case.

Silence fell between them once again, only disturbed by the crackling of the campfire, its flames pouring orange shadows onto the stone walls, and by the wind howling outside. It was almost warm in there. Zuko wrapped himself in his winter cloak, breathing out a puff of steam. His mind started wandering, spreading out both maps and memories in front of his eyes, southern Earth Kingdom ports they had moored at before, and he found himself imagining his men there. Wide-eyed and exhausted, but safe.

Guon's port, for instance, was tiny and poorly equipped, but it was the closest to the South pole. Could it be that his crew had managed to reach it? He would have to start his search there. Lost in thoughts, Zuko fingered thin white-hot twigs, watching them glow and crumble in his palm as their warmth impregnated his skin to the shoulder. He was frowning. If he could just find some kind of boat near this strait in the west… Even a kayak would do. At worst, he would learn to use those shapeless things the Water Tribe peasants sailed in…

Kossa yawned loudly, rousing the prince from his musings.

"Still, your fire, the more I think 'bout it, the less handy it looks," he said with a smirk. "There's all those rules to produce it, it eats up your strength, and it can't even help to build a city or a wall. And you live on an island, but your boats and navigation skills suck. I'd say you Fire Nation people are kinda useless."

It wasn't hard to hear the hint of teasing in the hunter's voice. However, it didn't stop Zuko from retorting hotly, claiming he wouldn't exchange his firebending for all the world, let alone for any of the other elements, all of them inhuman, lifeless and cold; he was fine without having this insane land's ice and salt-saturated water running down his veins, thank you very much.

And Fire citizen were outstanding sailors, he went on without pausing for breath: not only did they have the greatest fleet in the world, but even back when they still used sailing boats their navigation skills had had nothing to envy those of the poles' tribes.

Seeing that the other boy looked ready to snicker once again, he told him about an old ritual his uncle had once described to him. Something all true firebenders would be challenged to do at that time, sailing one entire night in a boat too small to sit in, guided by nothing but the patterns of the stars and the direction of the wind entering their lungs. They would sail alone, one-handed, the other palm stretched out and ablaze, lighting the way and challenging the ocean until the breaking dawn.

He himself had never tried it, though: ever since the slaughter of the Air Nomads, it wasn't too well thought of to rely on the wind to travel. The use of sails had been mostly abandoned, too: it had been decades since they had invented steam boats after all…

He had grown a bit quieter with the last sentences, but Kossa failed to notice, cutting him short to tell him about a similar rite of passage from his tribe, his eyes bright with excitement. The details of the test were secret, he said importantly, part of what made his tribe unrivalled. Of course the whole thing was by far more dangerous than this little picnic trip the firebender praised so naively.

He also talked about the Southern Water Tribe's city, before the war, the great walls and ice towers. Their use of hydraulic energy had been so state of the art that scientists from all over the world would come to them and learn from the technology of the poles. Now nothing the Fire Nation could cobble up compared to that, he happily concluded, but Zuko was already interrupting him to prove him otherwise.

The patriotic duel went on for some time, two exalted teenagers racking their brains to render all the richness of their homelands, their heroes and discoveries, their art and skills. The nations they were building in their shelter of rock and snow were beautiful and proud, but behind their enthusiasm both were silently, fully aware that those same nations had died a century ago:

There was nothing left of the Southern Water Tribe but a shapeless village lost among the ice. And the Fire Nation itself had lost of its radiance, tarnished by the coals of war technology, palling through the uniformity of propaganda, weakened by the loss of their youth, sent out at war again and again.

When the teenagers noticed all of their sentences began with "before the war", they had no choice but to be quiet. They stared at each other across the campfire; with bright astonished eyes, not daring to say another word lest they would have to agree with the other.

We were greater before the war.

Kossa's hand suddenly tensed around his spear; his eyes darted round the cave for a second. He extricated his head from his fur-trimmed hood and pressed his ear against the handle, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

"They're coming," he said at last with a nod; his tone was surprisingly calm. "Can you put out the fire?"

"What do you think?" Zuko said in a huff, already pressing his palms against the embers to smother the flames.

The peasant watched him with a slight grimace, but didn't comment on his behaviour. He took his time picking the coals among the warm ashes, packing them carefully and putting them in a bag before getting his weapons. Zuko found his lack of hast unexpected and rather unnerving, after the state of near-hysteria the foreigner had shown most of the day.

However, when Kossa dragged him once again into the frozen night and they climbed the wall of ice, he had to admit that the goal of their hunt, thick brown beasts huddled together, wasn't exactly about to escape from them.

In fact those things were hardly moving.

"What, that's a walrus caribou?" the prince exclaimed in frustration, pointing at the nearly legless animals crawling on the ground. "You said those things had to be hunted with ten people at least!"

"Will you pipe down?" the peasant said between his teeth. "Want some action? Wait 'til we make them run."

Kossa had kneeled in the snow next to him, following the beasts' slow progression with covetous eyes. He muttered some calculations, evaluating the distance between the animals and the trap, then cast another look around as though to check that all his weapons were in their proper place, the boomerang on his back, the spear in his hand.

"Are you sure you can do it just with your fire?" he went on without lifting his eyes. "I saw you brought back some kind of swords the other day, was it just for show?"

"Dual Dao swords," Zuko corrected in irritation. "They would weigh me down in the snow. You were the one who said we would have to be fast."

"I can see your point: you're bad enough at walking in the snow as it is. Let's go get some meat, then! Do you remember the plan?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

The peasant gave him a pointed look; Zuko was briefly tempted to switch the objective of his hunt. However Kossa was already standing up and running down the slope, towards the narrow corridor at the end of the trap. "Count to fifty before you go. If I'm not ready it'll mess up the whole plan!" he said excitedly over his shoulder, and slid down into the dark.

Zuko was suddenly alone on top of the ancient wall, hearing nothing but the distant howling of the wind roaming the hills, the hoarse calls of the walrus caribous below him, and his own heartbeats, hammering against his ribcage with a strange intensity, as though this half mad pole boy had somehow communicated some of his enthusiasm to him before leaving.

Zuko shook his head and started counting, pacing around in the snow to make his blood circulate in his legs despite the cold. From the corner of his eye he watched the herd of huge creatures as they moved forward with an agonizing slowness.

Their skin was dark, hairless, and seemed more elastic than the komodo rhino's cuirass. He couldn't make out their legs very well in the distance: it looked like four giant flippers, on which the beasts laboriously propelled themselves. All things considered, the only impressive part of these creatures was the head: two broad, yellowish tusks jutted out of their jaws. Some of them wore thick, entangled antlers, framing their foreheads like a fossilized crown. From afar it felt like seeing an absurd mountain of bone sitting enthroned on a heap of flesh.

The young prince wasn't sure he wanted to eat one of those things.

Forty-nine. Fifty.

Zuko rubbed his hands, satisfied by the sight of sparks cracking between his palms. The wind coiling up round his legs and arms exhaled frozen dust in his face, stinging his eyes. The ice fragments melted with a low hiss as they touched his skin.

He looked around, but he couldn't see his hunt mate from where he was. He breathed in, as deeply as he could, then flexed his knees and planted his heels in the snow, starting the longest firebending set he knew. Flames tore from his outstretched arms, free and raging: they cut through the night in one thick orange stream and dispersed behind the creatures with a roar.

There was a hoarse, surprised cry: he must have hit one of the walrus caribous. In the wild light that had taken over the plain, he thought he could see his fire reflected in the animals' black eyes as they twisted around in stupefaction.

And suddenly, they fled.

Captivated, Zuko almost missed the crucial moment where he must start running towards the end of the trap and keep throwing fire at their preys to guide their flight. Head bent, exposing their antlers like the bone helmet of a battering ram, the walrus caribous had propelled themselves forward, and hurtled on the packed snow with a horrible rumbling. The ground was shaking under his feet as Zuko chased after the beasts, sending out ephemeral flames that got weaker and weaker as his heartbeats quickened.

They were running in the right direction, though, the prince thought, smiling against the frost. In his excitement the success of this hunt, theoretically the least of his troubles, was taking the form of a true victory.

The snow was hard against the sole of his boots. Zuko was running as fast as he could, but still the creatures were distancing him, howling as they tried to escape the bursts of flames. Sometimes they would hit the snow wall and nearly throw the teenager to the ground. Soon the walrus caribous would reach the corridor, where Kossa was lying in ambush, and they would have to slow down. If this peasant was as good a hunter as he claimed, he would hit one of them. Then…

Just as he formulated that thought, another bellow distorted by the polar wind reached his ears, as well as a victorious cry. Zuko sped up, breathing steam out of his mouth and nostrils. The ground shook with the shocks from the monsters as they pressed against the walls of the trap and tried to escape towards the ocean, one after the other.

When Zuko reached the far end of the wall, the walrus caribous were already disappearing in the distance. Only one of them had stayed behind and was crawling along the opposite wall, a spear planted in its lower spine. Blood was trickling from the wound.

Lowering his eyes, Zuko saw the other hunter crouching in the snow, his back on him. He was gripping his boomerang and followed the wounded prey with his eyes, too focused to notice the firebender standing above him.

Zuko didn't move at first, short of breath after his run and his multiple attacks. One arm pressed around his side, still grinning slightly without taking notice, the young prince focused on the walrus caribou's moves as well. Kossa seemed to have the situation under control, but the animal might still have the energy to try and escape…

Not one to leave anything to chance, Zuko breathed in as deeply as he could, fuelling the forge in his lungs.

There was a scent of burned flesh in the air.

His eyes widened.

"Kossa, watch out!"

The peasant had barely the time to look up and see the firebender jumping on him before Zuko threw them both into a snowdrift, raising in a mad rush a wall of fire between them and the opening of the trap.

There was a loud howl, and then two giant tusks, surmounted by a helmet of bone, broke through the furnace not two feet away from the two teenagers.

This must be the walrus caribou he had hit as he tried to scare the herd away,Zuko guessed in a haze. His senses were clouded, disturbed by cold and heat, the animal breath mixed with the stench of burning fat. A brown flipper, large enough to crush their spine, twisted in front of his face; with a yell he raised his arms in front of him, hands ablaze to strengthen the wall. The roar of fire mingled with the monster's screams. The snow around him was melting against his clothes, its cold nearly sucked up his breath and smothered his bending, but finally the walrus caribou turned away, blind with pain. He tried to propel himself on his charred flipper, perhaps on half a dozen yards before he collapsed on the snow, whole body fuming, and died.

It took the prince quite some time to breathe normally again, and a little more to notice that he was still sprawled on the Water Tribe boy after his fall. He slowly extricated himself from the snowdrift, limbs still shaking. Half buried in the snow, the other teenager remained motionless, pale eyes wide as he watched the smoke rise from the dead beast.

Finally his gaze fell on the prince.

"Sokka!" he yelled. "SO-KKA! That's two syllables, damn it! Do you Fire jerks make it a custom to freaking cauterize your brain? What the hell, you've been hanging around in myvillage for more than two weeks, and guess how everyone's calling me all the time? Sokka! Seriously, that can't be harder than remembering weird names like Zuko!"

The hunter stood up with some difficulty on the melted snow, still cursing.

"You should go make sure the meat mountain's well and truly dead," he muttered, wringing out his ponytail. "I'll go finish the other one before he tries going back to his friends and takes my spear along. And for the record, the name's Sokka."

Making sure the mad beast with its giant tusks had been definitely rendered harmless was a pretty good idea as far as Zuko was concerned, so at first he didn't protest. Actually, it was only after he had walked to the walrus caribou and circled it with caution, his nose slightly wrinkled against the smell, that the prince realized he had, just a moment before, as good as saved Sokka's life, and that instead of thanking him the xenophobic moron had found nothing better to do than insult him on some stupid ground.

The prince gritted his teeth, irked at not having reacted fast enough to the offence, and determined to make up for it as soon as the idiot would face him again. However, when he heard footsteps behind his back and turned around with dangerous stiffness, he saw that Sokka was now grinning from ear to ear.

"Two walrus caribous, can you believe it? Told ya my plan was brilliant! Two of them! It'll be a real pain to bring all of this back to the village, but damn, that's so worth it!"

That guy was completely crazy, Zuko thought, perhaps for the sixth time this day. Anger forgotten, he took a step back in case the lunatic would do something weird like hug him or burst out laughing without warning.

But Sokka merely grinned wider and started circling their prey with exhilaration, poking the charred flesh with his spear. "Still, you made a real mess out of yours. We'll have to stand the smell when we come back. But hey, as long as it's still edible…" Finally he turned round and went to fetch the sleigh with a spring in his steps.

The two teenagers had to combine their strength to haul the two creatures on the planks. Their still lukewarm body weighed enough to almost dislocate their knees. For a second, that thought filled Zuko with a vague, incomprehensible pride.

"We've been lucky, don't you think?" Sokka said as he jumped on the walrus caribous' flabby chests to tie them to the sleigh. "A whole herd coming out of the water in winter! They only come on land to mate usually."

"If you say so," the young prince said, shrugging. "I'm not lucky most of the time."

The teenager laughed from his perch.

"Good thing I'm here too, then."

Their task achieved, the two hunters rested for a while, eating most of the food they had left before setting off again. They had to pull on the ropes with all their might for a good minute before the sleigh even began to move: its sudden weight seemed to have embedded it in the ground. At first it barely made a few inches forward, screeching plaintively, before its own weight started dragging it along, making their work easier.

In between groans of exertion, the peasant still managed to chatter, looking for paths that would skirt round the hills, muttering about the flying bison they could have used to do the job, but Aang was too disgusted by the idea of hunting to permit that, disgusted by hunting, can you believe it? This kid doesn't even eat meat!

The hunter's scandalized voice was a little muffled by the furs covering his mouth and by the whistling of the wind around them. Fragments of frost danced in the dark and whipped their faces. Zuko pulled his hood down to cover his ears and held his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

The red velvet of the Fire Nation wasn't nearly as good a protection as a parka would have been: over and over again he had to call on his inner fire to rekindle the heat in his blood, wrapping himself in a thick enough steam to cut off the polar wind.

It had always been enough, though. Even after a whole day of walking and a night of hunting, even with each of his breaths burning and swelling his lungs, even as his fire felt like an animal biting his joints, it felt oddly gratifying to go unprotected over this fiercely cold land. His bare hands steamed as he pulled on the rope alongside Sokka. The wind couldn't graze his skin; it ran angrily over his fingers, powerless in spite of the ice needles it scraped off the hills. Its low-pitched whistle echoed around them, in the opaque whiteness of the night.

Zuko wasn't afraid. So when he first noticed a brief movement from the corner of his eye, something slithering downhill and vanishing again, he thought it nothing but another wisp of snow.