Chapter 11 - Avalanche


Hikoshu awoke to a cold, dark world. His shoulder hurt where, during the night, he had slid down the wall to come to a rest on it, the cold seeping through his coat even if the snow hadn't. All of his joints were stiff as he shifted onto his back, and there wasn't enough room to stretch his legs. Above him, light streamed from the cracks of his rough-shod ice hut, giving a dim, blue contrast to the shelter.

Not that there was much to see. Just the solid walls and the snow now packed into ice underneath him. Around his neck, standing out against the gray of his coat, was the little dhole charm, unimpressive in the meager morning light. But it reminded him of the events of the previous evening, of the Spirit World—and of the storm. It was a sobering thought that he was still camped in the center of Rajio Bay, which spurred him into movement. Struggling to his knees, Hikoshu pressed one fist into the palm of his frozen hand and bent a sphere of air.

The shelter—and the snow that half-buried it—easily exploded outward in a wide arc, leaving him seated in a depression in the middle of the totem-marked square. Those columns seemed oddly shorter today, piled under the late evening snow, yet the world itself appeared strangely clear. Whiter. A chilly breeze settled over him, carrying a few flurries, and all around him, the bay held a restful sense of calm. The storm had moved on.

Hikoshu squinted upward, noting how far the sun had climbed in a sky half-concealed by a high, thin blanket of clouds. He'd slept part of the day away, and still, no one had come looking for him. Frowning, he cupped his palm to his mouth and bent the air as he shouted across the bay. His voice echoed on the distant snow ridge, but nobody answered.

He got up to search. Even though the white was uninterrupted, the snow so flat that it could hide nothing, Hikoshu still needed to look. Desperation hadn't yet set in—just a growing concern that something was wrong. They'd probably built a shelter on the other side of the ridge. They may have taken Tehsa to a safer location to wait out the storm. There were a million options, none of which were serious. Just wrong.

Even when he climbed, gasping, to the top of the ridge and looked over the other side to find more sprawling snow, Hikoshu was undeterred. A little dizzy—alright, a lot dizzy—but he was still convinced everything was fine. Stumbling to his hands and knees, he let his eyes stop swimming before he crawled back to the bayside and slid down the slope.

Then he walked along the bottom of the ridge, shouting periodically and listening for any response. The top snow was loose and thick, and his first steps out of the destroyed shelter had resulted in him sinking up to his knees. Now he walked with wide, slow steps, freezing the ground under him so that he wouldn't fall through.

Nearly an hour of searching and shouting passed before he heard a sound. Pausing to lean heavily on his thighs, he peered, half-blind, at the expanse of ridge ahead of him. There, possibly a trick of his eyes, he thought he could see something pushing out of the snow. With a heavy, fogging breath of both joy and exhaustion, he started forward, using airbending to move more quickly.

Something was trying to get out, the bank that covered the entrance jerking under the push of whoever was inside. Relief flooded him as he shifted into a bending stance, and with one forceful heave, he threw the entire wall of snow away.

Tehsa's head immediately emerged from the rain of falling ice chunks. The bison gave a mournful groan as she tried to climb out of the cave, and she nudged the snow drift that still covered the floor. He climbed over it to embrace her nose, grateful enough to see another living creature that he forgot his general apprehension of things larger than him. Tehsa, who hadn't seemed all that fond of him either, groaned again and nuzzled his hands, her teary brown eyes staring down at him in misery.

"Are you all right, Tehsa?" Another deep rumble, and she shook her shaggy head, her ears flicking as Hikoshu took a precautionary step back. "I'll get you out." He turned to bend a flatter path so that she could walk, and she nearly pushed him out of the way in her lumbering escape.

As the bison crawled from the cave, Hikoshu could see her fur was a mess, but she didn't look hurt. Just really tired, as she immediately collapsed outside of the cave, her large gray belly shaking the ground as she landed. Much to Hikoshu's dismay, she was still wearing her saddle, and when he peered inside of it, the bottom was empty except for their personal belongings. Only Miyo's staff was gone.

"Did Natquik make this cave?" he asked as he returned to the ground, and Tehsa gave an unhelpful grunt. Working past her wide, flat tail, he examined the interior of the cave to find the walls smooth, obviously waterbended. So Natquik had made Tehsa a shelter and left with Miyo. How long ago was that? Only Tehsa would know, but he didn't imagine he'd get much information from her. At least he knew it had to be before the storm, as the entrance was completely sealed. So they'd been in the elements for nearly a day.

Hikoshu wasn't going to get worried. Not yet. If they weren't with Tehsa, then they had to be close by. He simply had to keep searching.

"Do you want to come with me, or stay here?" he asked, rubbing the bison above one eye as he circled back to its nose. Tehsa looked up at him with a weary, half-lidded gaze and rumbled a response he couldn't interpret. But she didn't stand, either, so he took that as a 'no.' "Well, then, can you wear your saddle a little longer? I'd take it off, but I'd probably break something." Another apathetic growl. "I'm going to find Miyo, then. Wait here until I get back." She lifted her head at that, a large pink tongue darting out to lick him, and he barely dodged the attack. "No! No need for thanks. I'm…I'm good." He couldn't tell if she was insulted, but she rested in the snow again, and he turned back toward the ridge in order to retrace his steps.

There was a lot of ground to cover. Especially if they were buried like Tehsa was. Hikoshu figured they would have built another shelter in the ridge if they had been caught in the storm, and so he stuck to the tall bank, his eyes scanning for any more movement as he occasionally called out their names.

There was no response or movement. But there was something in the snow. Given how hard he was squinting, and how painful the snow had become to look at, Hikoshu was surprised he even saw it: nearly ten paces away, a tiny, dark break in the white. Stumbling toward it, and almost falling in to his waist as he forgot to bend some solid ground, he cut a path to the small lump of brown, no bigger than his palm.

As he dropped to his knees beside it, Hikoshu realized that the lump was actually the tip of meticulously crafted wood. It looked so familiar that, when he carefully scooped the snow away from it, his stomach sank in equal measures with every inch he uncovered.

The wood was Miyo's staff. Worse, it was Miyo's glider, the frame of the orange silk sails open but amazingly unbroken in the storm. Yanking it free, Hikoshu settled back in the snow and set it across his knees to examine it for any evidence—any sign of why it was here and why Miyo wasn't.

Unless, of course, she was.

That was when the concern turned to terror. She could be buried anywhere, lost in the snow drift. He wouldn't be able to tell, nor would he be able to help her. Frantic, he dug with his fingers into the snow neighboring the staff's resting place, though it became quickly apparent he wouldn't find her that way.

Standing up, Hikoshu prepared to bend away the entire ridge. Take the whole thing down and sort the mess later. But common sense intervened, and he realized the resultant avalanche would bury both him and Tehsa, even at that distance. So instead, he made a slicing motion with his flattened palm toward the ridge, dropping smoothly on his left leg at the same time, the right one stretched straight in front of him. In response, the towering snow ridge cracked loudly, the sound echoing ominously off the bay. With a final, gliding sweep of his other hand past his hip, Hikoshu caused a wide swath of the bottom ridge to suddenly crumple, its top surface sloughing off to tumble toward the ocean.

As one huge sheet, it descended on him, shaking the ground as it moved. He quickly held both hands against the onslaught, his overlapping palms toward the snow, and bent at his knees as he stepped back to snap one arm outward. Just yards from him, the menacing avalanche separated and spun, a white cloud shooting upward as it twisted in a wide arc around him. When the snow eventually settled, the air wet with falling flakes, it now encircled him in a miniature version of the drift—a rounded fort that held him in the center. Just over its daunting wall, Hikoshu could barely see blue sky and the top of the disturbed ridge.

There was no way he was going to find Miyo in this. As terror transformed into desperation, he spun in a circle, blowing away layer after layer of the drift surrounding him with wide sweeps of his hands. It revealed nothing, merely throwing the snow back into the air and obscuring the world once more.

Hikoshu felt helpless. If she was in this drift, then he might find her this way. But if she wasn't, it would take him hours to know that for certain. He might not even be near where she was. Ignoring the fact that if she was buried—had been buried—as long as that glider had been, she would be dead by now, despite his best efforts to locate her.

It wasn't going to work. He wasn't going to find her alive.

The helplessness built into frustration as Hikoshu fell to his knees and searched the ridge surface in futility. So much snow. They could be anywhere. He couldn't bend it all away.

With a cry fueled by impotent rage, he punched his fists into the ground. Immediately, the remnants of the massive drift wall sprung into the air, the snow vaporizing under the force of his anger, and the ground quaked below him. Still not enough, he thought, as the breeze carried away the tiny flakes, showering him in the spray. Still not enough.

Hikoshu expected a true avalanche at that point—probably wouldn't have cared if there was one. If he had really thought it would help, he would have torn that entire bay apart. But he had no idea where he was looking, or if he was even looking in the right place. So he sat quietly amongst the pile of disturbed snow, his chest heaving as he clutched Miyo's open glider.

Hikoshu wasn't really sure how long he stayed there, unmoving. Part of him even wondered if maybe he had entered the Avatar State without realizing it, though he supposed if he had, the bay would have been melted into the ocean. When he finally roused himself from the stupor that he'd fallen into, it wasn't because of the cold. Nor was it because he, in another state, had destroyed the entire bay.

Instead, he thought he heard a noise. Dim under the soft moaning of the wind, but distinctly there—a deep, booming rhythm that vibrated the ground beneath him and shook the powdery snow. It came in pauses and starts, sometimes swallowed by the bay, sometimes augmented by the wind. Though it wasn't any more human than the footsteps of the previous night, it wasn't nearly as foreboding either, and despite the despair that clung to him, Hikoshu felt a lingering flicker of hope.

"Miyo," he uttered, even as he argued that it couldn't be her. Sticking his hand in the snow, he reached out with his mind to follow the source of the vibrations—a trick taught to him by Mayami. Though not as effective as it would've been in water, the technique allowed him to feel the direction of the sound through his bending, and he realized with a small shock of surprise that it really was coming from a single source. Using the staff, he pushed himself to his feet and once more surveyed the area. No sign of people, but the sound hadn't yet disappeared. Something was out there, even if he couldn't see it. Tripping over the newly formed drifts, Hikoshu started to search once more.

xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx

Miyo awoke to light. Something was under her, soft and warm like a bison. In fact, it was very much like a bison, as it moved rhythmically with steady breaths. But it was also lumpy, very unlike a bison, and it encircled her, too, in a warm embrace.

That was her first reminder of the situation they were in. The second reminder came as she stretched her arms to either side and immediately encountered ice. Her eyes flying open, she lifted her head to spy the fur trim of Natquik's Shaman coat. Sunlight must have filtered through the hole behind them, because she could now see the tunnel as well, the walls perfectly smooth and so close that she felt panic rising in her chest again.

"Natquik," she whispered, and gave the coat under her a hard jerk. "Natquik, wake up." He didn't. "Natquik?"

Terror now swamped the panic, and Miyo pulled herself up higher along his body to see his face. He was still alive, but his skin looked frightfully washed-out, dark circles around his eyes. Grabbing his cheeks in both palms, she shook his head from side to side. "Natquik!"

"Whuh?" he mumbled, pulling his face from her hands as he blinked open red eyes. They took a moment to focus, in which time he reached up to rub them, and smashed his hands against the icy ceiling. Hissing, he lifted his head to peer at her, the memory of their situation slowly returning to him, too.

"Oh, thank the spirits." She sighed, letting her shoulders relax against his chest. "I thought…" She didn't know what she'd thought. That maybe he was slipping away from her. "Thought maybe you'd gotten cold," she said instead.

"Ow, no." He laid his head back down, wincing as he gritted his teeth. "Well, a little." He planted his arms to either side of him, though the tunnel was so narrow that he found little purchase, and shifted underneath her.

"Are you hurt?"

"Just feel like I've been sleeping with a rock on me all night."

"You're not the most comfortable bed either."

He gave a wry grin. "That's the airbender I've come to love." Cracking an eye, he gazed down at her, then craned his neck as much as he could in order to look around her. "Seems like the storm's let up."

"Time to get out of here and find Hikoshu?"

"Time to get you off of me."

"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it," she murmured, trying to lift herself up. There was enough room by his legs to brace her knees, but it didn't give her a lot of leverage. The resultant shuffling just made him grimace harder.

"May have enjoyed it more with my hood up. My head's been numb since last night."

"Well, why didn't you just tell me that?" She snaked her arms above his shoulders in order to yank the hood loose from where he was laying on it. Because he couldn't move to loosen the coat, she was forced to use his chest as a fulcrum.

"Elbows! Watch your elbows." Miyo ignored him, and a moment later, the fur finally came out from under his back. With a sigh, she worked it over his head and pulled it tight around his ears, such that his eyes were nearly lost under the white trim.

"Better?"

"Oh, yeah. Now I'm definitely enjoying this."

She gave a half-hearted laugh and brushed the hood out of his eyes, which glowed a brilliant blue despite the dim light. Now he didn't look so pale, though the dark, bruised color of his eyelids still lingered. Despite that, Natquik wore the same warm, easy-going expression he had even at the toughest moments, his smile crooked toward a typical grin.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, resting her hands on his shoulders.

"Well, I thought we'd wait a little longer. Not many opportunities I get to hold a beautiful woman, after all."

"Natquik, really, stop being such a tease..." But he wasn't teasing. Or at least she didn't think he was. That glint of humor was surprisingly lacking in his eyes, and he'd pulled his arms around her again. Though they had been pressed against each other all night, Miyo now became acutely aware of just how small that distance really was. She could feel his breath flutter her eyelashes—could touch her lips to his jaw with just the tiniest of movements.

A stomach-flipping moment passed, when her heart hammered hard enough that she knew he felt it even through his coat. The intensity of the gaze they shared chased all other thoughts away, except the thought of what the next moment would hold. Miyo saw the same question reflected in his eyes, and she heard his breath catch.

The ground had felt like it was shaking to her, so hard did her heart beat. But suddenly, it quaked for real. They were both rattled in the tunnel as a deep roar reverberated through the ice, and Natquik clutched her protectively. Burying her head next to his, she covered both of them with her arms, prepared for the tunnel to cave in.

Several, awful seconds passed before the trembling subsided, and Miyo looked up, amazed that the tunnel had held. She'd been convinced that it was coming down on them, but the walls had stilled, their little prison unchanged.

"What was that?" she said in a hushed whisper, as if speaking in a normal voice might set it off again.

"I don't know," Natquik's voice was also low, "but I think we better go."

She grunted in agreement and began an awkward crawl down his body. Unable to find traction on the ice, she used his coat instead, literally pushing herself backwards through the tunnel. But even before the tunnel began its steep slope to the surface, she hit something hard with her feet, her progress stopped.

"Natquik, something's in the way."

He looked as best he could, pushing her head to the side with one hand.

"It's the ice I bent free last night. It's blocking part of the hole. You'll have to climb over it."

"I don't think I can." She searched the barrier blindly with the toes of her thin cotton boot, the wooden sole sliding along the ice. But when she found its edge and explored further past it, she encountered yet another obstacle. "Maybe just…" Wriggling further down, she held tight to his waist and kicked at the barrier, adding a little airbending behind it.

The second barrier gave, but oddly didn't clear. The airbending, however, created a short vacuum that drew a gasp from Natquik.

"I don't think it worked," she muttered, dropping her head into his lap with a weak sigh. He suddenly sucked in a breath, his hands grasping her head to hold it up.

"Careful!"

"Sorry!" she hissed, lifting her head again. "Can you see what I'm hitting?"

"Feel it, more than anything," he said dryly. At her flat expression, he added, "Sorry, I'm a little distracted. It's uh…I just see the ice. Looks like your foot's in snow."

"Snow? How…?" The entire tunnel was solid ice, perfectly smooth from Natquik's bending. The only way snow would be in the tunnel was if it had come in from the entrance. And all of a sudden, it made sense. If the storm had dumped a lot of snow, it might have collected at the bend, forming a barrier just past the one that Natquik had formed out of necessity.

"I don't know," Natquik answered. His voice was weary, his gaze directed at the low ceiling as he laid back. "I can't really think about anything with you down there…like that."

She rolled her eyes as she slowly climbed back up his body, trying hard to minimize contact. "We're stuck in here, Hikoshu and Tehsa are lost out there, and you can't even keep your thoughts decent?"

"Honestly, Miyo," he said as she crawled to the level of his chest, "this isn't exactly fun for me. But you do need to stop moving around so much."

"Come up with a plan and maybe I will."

"That's a cruel threat. Alright." He let out a deep, audible sigh. "I might be able to bend those barriers into water, but if I do that, it's going to flow down here. And I don't know how much there is."

"Can't you just bend through the ceiling?" she asked, resting her head on him. Through his coat, she could hear his heart beat steadily, its gentle pulse calming her own.

"Maybe, but it'll take a while. A really long while. I'm not a very good bender." That made her snort.

"What happened to greatest waterbender in the world?"

"I give you ideas and you mock my impotence?"

"I don't know, you don't feel very impotent right now."

He jerked his head up at the quip, nearly hitting it on the ceiling. "Hey, you keep moving around."

Their banter was interrupted as the ground shook again, this time a lot harder. Hard enough to jar Miyo's teeth even as she pressed herself into Natquik, his arms covering her head. Around them, the tunnel roared as if alive, and she could hear something snapping.

"Natquik!" she shouted in surprise as snow smashed into her legs. The cave was coming down on top of them, burying them alive, and she couldn't do anything to stop it. The thought sent waves of unbridled panic through her spine.

Hiding her face in his coat, she tried to hold back a scream—tried to block out the sensation of choking. But her fear held onto her like a vise, crushing her chest until she couldn't breathe. It took Natquik shaking her shoulders to bring her back from her terror, and slowly, she realized that the collapse had stopped.

They were still inside the tunnel.

Gasping, Miyo raised her head, and saw that the tunnel was a lot darker now, Natquik's outline barely visible on the ice.

"Are you all right?" he said breathlessly above her, and she nodded.

"There's something on my legs." She kicked at it, felt it give slightly. It didn't move, however, and already, she was losing feeling through her robes.

"That snow drift fell through with the shaking." He released her shoulders. "I don't think the tunnel came down."

"We have to get out of here." That invisible vise was still wrapped around her chest, squeezing so hard that it hurt. She'd never been so long without her bending. Even in the worst moments of her life, she had still felt more in control than she did now. "Natquik, we can't die in here!"

"Miyo, stop!" His hands were back on her, holding firmly. "We are going to be fine. Just listen. The shaking, it wasn't in the tunnel. It was outside! It's coming from somewhere else."

"What?"

"Something outside is causing it. Just trust me, I can feel the tunnel and it's solid." There was a long pause, as she tried to get her heart under control. Tried to puzzle through what this now meant. Fortunately, Natquik had regained his composure faster than she had, his mind quickly processing the situation. "It could either be an avalanche. Or a waterbender."

"Hikoshu?" she asked, her heart leaping back into a gallop.

"I don't know, maybe. But I really don't know." Another long silence, filled only with her frantic breaths. "If he's out there. If that was him…"

"Then we should make some kind of noise."

Natquik nodded, the gesture barely visible in the reduced light. "Hold tight to me." Quickly, she hugged his chest as he made a fist and slammed it against the ceiling.

He didn't have much room to get momentum behind the blow, but it vibrated through the tunnel as if he had hit it with a club, a dull rumble echoing up the chamber. The tremor flowed through her, crawling past her spine, her legs, and in response, she shuddered. A moment later, he repeated the action. And after another moment, again.

Miyo squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the small jump in her each time the tunnel shook. Trying to ignore how hot and cold she felt at the same time. Trying to hold onto that small hope that maybe somewhere, Hikoshu could hear.

She counted twenty beats. The longer it went on, the further Natquik waited between each one, such that it seemed to stretch into eternity. Eventually, though, he let his hand fall as he took a deep breath, and she glanced up from his chest.

"Just need a break. My hand's cramping."

"If he was there, he would have heard it by now." Her somber tone apparently surprised him, and he lifted his head to look down at her.

"That's not the optimistic airbender I know. Seriously, don't give up. You might make me feel glum." Then, shaking his other hand out, he switched fists and started pounding again.

This time, Miyo only counted ten beats. But it wasn't exhaustion that stopped him. Even she heard it in the last hit—a change in the timbre of the vibration. Frowning, Natquik slowly lowered his hand, and she glanced around curiously for some change.

"What happened?"

"I don't—"

He was interrupted by a noise. No, a voice. Miyo tried to twist toward the entrance, but she couldn't look far enough. Natquik looked for her, pushing her head out of the way.

"Miyo?" the voice said, and her heart was in her throat as she screamed back, "Hikoshu!"

"Miyo!" It was faint, definitely high above them, and the snow drift that still held her legs blocked almost everything, even sound. But it was Hikoshu, alright. Alive. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! How're you?"

He only answered with a distant laugh. "Can you get out?"

"I'm fine, too, Hikoshu!" Natquik yelled with some sarcasm; she winced as his voice reverberated on the walls. "And, no, we're a little stuck!"

There was a heavy silence. "This hole is blocked!"

Letting her head fall, Miyo laughed breathlessly, the sound tinged with weary relief. "We know! That's why we're stuck!"

"Listen, I'm going to bend you ou—"

"Stop!" Natquik shouted, jerking his body so fast that he slammed into her jaw and made her bite her tongue. "Hikoshu, don't waterbend!"

"What is it?" she asked, rubbing her tongue against her teeth. Above them, Hikoshu said something muffled but with the same tone.

"The walls are structurally weak!" He clasped the ceiling as if to hold it up, his palms flat against the ice. "Don't bend anything or this whole tunnel might come down!"

"But you said it was all right," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper mid-sentence. He shot her a guilty look as he slowly lowered his arms.

"I did something when I was hitting the ceiling." Suddenly, that cramping vise had a hold of her again. "We have to find another way!"

"Can I just bend the snow blocking the hole?" Hikoshu suggested. "That shouldn't affect the walls."

"Slowly! Bend a little at a time and stop if I tell you to."

Slowly wasn't going to work. They needed to get out quick. Yet what could she do? She was stuck under snow, stuck on top of Natquik, stuck in that one position. Just stuck. So Miyo struggled to keep calm, listening carefully to Hikoshu move the snow, the sound of it crunching and swishing as he bent it free.

Natquik had placed a hand on her shoulder and one on the wall, closely monitoring Hikoshu's progress. Then she realized that if he hadn't panicked yet, then perhaps she shouldn't either. They both had it under control. They would tell her if something went wrong.

She hoped.

Clearing the tunnel was a tedious process, though as the sounds grew closer and nothing else happened, Miyo breathed easier. If Hikoshu could clear out a passage, then they could escape. She wasn't sure how, but she was sure they could. After all, Hikoshu was the Avatar. If anyone was capable of precarious rescue attempts, it was him.

But when he was nearly at the bottom—when he was so close that light filtered through the last screen of snow that held down her legs and her hope was at its highest, Natquik suddenly yelled for him to stop shoveling.

With the sound of the snow now stopped, she could hear what Natquik had felt, terror rising in her again: a deep groan, so low that it was almost inaudible, which vibrated the ice softly under her hand. Looking up at Natquik, Miyo saw his face filled with apprehension as he tried to watch the progress behind her, and she realized that maybe she now had reason to be afraid.

"Hikoshu, you have to move fast now!" he shouted; around them, the groan changed to a knocking.

"I'm going to come down there!" His suggestion was immediately answered by protests from both her and Natquik.

"You'll just kill all three of us!" She was trying so hard to keep calm.

"I can't see the rest of the snow, it's too deep. I'm just as likely to bend the tunnel if I try!"

Her breaths came in ragged gasps now, though Natquik was too busy to talk her down. She felt like she was strangling, as if the air were being slowly sucked out and the walls were already closing in as the knocking shifted back into a groan. An airbender, and she couldn't even breathe. Couldn't even use what little of the element she had. But she also couldn't panic. Slow breaths. Slow, deep breaths.

And it was her breath that gave her sudden focus. Quickly, she yanked on Natquik's coat to get his attention. "You said you can melt it."

"Which is liable to destabilize the tunnel and drown us both," he answered without looking at her, his hands sliding along the wall. "Maybe I can bend supports." There wasn't enough room for that.

"Listen," Miyo said hurriedly, still pulling on his coat. "Melt the ice. Get the barrier out of the way. I can bend us both out if the tunnel is cleared."

"You would have to bend us out quick," he said doubtfully, still searching for a way to solidify the wall. "Seconds at most."

"I can do it."

"Natquik! What do you want me to do?" Hikoshu shouted. Natquik finally broke from his preoccupation, considering Miyo at length in the dim tunnel. She was still panicking, but she struggled for a resolute expression. They didn't have much time.

Then, speaking over the ever-louder groan of the ice, he said, "Just wait! Miyo has an idea!" He lowered his voice for her. "Are you sure you can do it?"

"Please hurry."

He nodded, then scooted himself away from the back of the tunnel, his feet moving toward the barrier. Miyo tried to shift her weight off of him, stuck as she was in the snow, and it became a sort of dance, each moving limbs to let the other person by. He didn't get much room, but he didn't need it. Just enough to give his hand and eyes a clear shot at the drift.

"Ready?" he murmured, stretching, and she breathed a soft "yes" from her awkward position shoved against the wall.

He nodded and melted the snow.

It was like a dam breaking, the cold water flooded over them so quickly. There was a lot, too. Much more than she imagined, and it nearly filled the enclosure. Natquik under her was immediately submerged, and she had to press her head to the ceiling to take a deep breath. Against her cheek, the tunnel rumbled dangerously, and she thought she could hear Hikoshu's voice over the strange echo of water on ice.

Gulping air, she used their newfound buoyancy to maneuver over Natquik, pulling him under her, away from her, as one hand tugged at the ceiling. She just had to get him between her and the now-open entrance.

He was fighting her, though, as he started to run out of air. He needed to get to the surface to breathe, and she needed him out of her way. So Miyo fended off his hands, used her knees—whatever she could to push herself against the very back of the tunnel.

And finally, she was there, the cold biting into her until it hurt to think, the walls shuddering so hard that she didn't know if they would hold up long enough. But Natquik was past her, and he came up sputtering around her legs, further up the tunnel. He clung to the ceiling just as she had, gasping for breath.

Then she airbended.

Her breath had given her focus, as well as an idea. Pressing her lips near the ceiling, she sucked in all the air that she should—so much air that her ribs ached and her lungs balanced on verge of exploding—and then, her abdomen jerking with the effort, she exhaled forcefully. The resultant air blast was strong enough to rip Natquik away from the tunnel; both he and the water shot out and upward, moved with the gale that she created.

Miyo waited a second more to see if he would come back down, but he didn't. Then, twisting onto her stomach, she pushed her hands against the wall with the intention to propel herself out as well.

It was then that she heard the wall snap. And everything collapsed.

xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx

Hikoshu had no idea what her plan was. Miyo could only airbend, and in such a small space, that was tantamount to suicide. Any attempts to bend the air would rip it out of their lungs, suffocating them before she accomplished anything. So after Natquik's announcement that Miyo had a plan, he was still doubtful. He sat close to the man-sized hole, ready to launch himself into the narrow opening if there was any sign that something had gone wrong.

He heard—and felt—the ground groan, which almost enough for him. But he hesitated at the sound of gurgling from the hole, as if it'd just filled with water. Pushing himself to his feet, he took a step back.

Just in time. Hikoshu barely missed being hit as water and a body erupted from the hole, bursting high into the air. Surprised, he managed to airbend a cushion under Natquik as he came back down, and deposited him safely in the snow. The stunned waterbender rolled to a stop several yards away. Even before Natquik landed, though, Hikoshu's attention was already back on the hole, waiting for Miyo to appear, as well.

She didn't.

The ground groaned louder, shaking under his feet, and then snapped. Nothing changed on the surface except for a light dusting of snow that shot half a foot in the air. In reality, the only reason he knew something serious had happened was the appearance of a larger puff of snow rising from the hole.

"Oh, Miyo." The groaning ceased, the trembling stopped. The tunnel had collapsed.

Hikoshu moved into action quickly, no longer caring to be safe. Swinging back onto one foot, he drew away his arms and then heaved them forward, and in response, the ground exploded.

Snow and ice flew sideways, ripped off the surface as he drew back and repeated the form. If he'd stopped to think, he might have realized how such a slicing motion would have hurt Miyo. But his thoughts were only on getting as deep as possible, as fast as possible.

If he didn't reach her soon, she was dead anyway.

His bending created an enormous trench, and so much snow filled the air that if he had uncovered her, he probably couldn't have seen her. Coughing, he stopped to examine the scene, not sure if he needed to keep going. Then abruptly, the snow was wiped from the air, and he turned to see Natquik behind him, drenched and panting, his hands held up as he bent away the flakes.

Able to see again, Hikoshu continued to dig.

Before he could go any deeper, however, the trench suddenly burst into yet another cloud of snow, ice chunks pelting him as he threw up his arms. It wasn't his doing, and he tried to see beyond the white haze into the bottom of the hole. Natquik was obliging again, bending away the flakes as he approached Hikoshu's side.

Choking, Miyo dragged herself from a shallow pit at the bottom, pulling herself onto the smooth floor.

Natquik jumped into the trench faster than he could, skidding down the steep sides as he ran to her. Hikoshu was right behind him, though, dodging errant chunks of ice. When they finally reached her, Miyo had flipped over onto her back, holding her heaving breast, wet strands of hair stuck to her face and her orange robes plastered to her body.

Natquik was already examining her by the time Hikoshu reached them, a water-gloved hand on her head. "Good spirits, Miyo, what did you do?" he said, ripping away his soaked hood from his face.

"Air shield," she managed hoarsely, swallowing hard to regain her voice. "Held the ice up." Which also meant it had pulled the air out of her lungs. Starting into a coughing fit, she pushed Natquik's hand off of her head. Then she smiled weakly at Hikoshu as he knelt beside her, and reached up to grasp his knee. "You aren't dead."

"Surprisingly, neither are you," Natquik muttered, sitting back at the rebuke. Hikoshu simply returned the smile and covered her hand with his.

Furrowing her tattooed brow, she glanced between them both, her expression almost sad. "The next time I visit, could we just play table games?"

Hikoshu couldn't help but laugh. "I'm just glad there'll be a next time."

"Come on," Natquik said, taking her arm to lift her out of the snow. "Back to the bison and then back home." Still coughing, Miyo complied. Hikoshu, for his part, didn't think there was a more beautiful word than 'home.' With both relief and eagerness, he helped them both out of the pit. Turning his back on Rajio Bay, hopefully forever.