Chapter Thirteen

In an ironic twist, it turned out the crazy firebender claiming to be Firelord Sozin's only daughter was exactly who she said she was. She had been recently disowned and banished, but she had not lied about her identity. Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme since it turned out that she was absolutely as crazy as she seemed as well.

Before making the acquaintance of Princess Azuka of the Fire Nation, the closest that Aang had ever come to "crazy" was his good friend Bumi in Omashu. But Aang didn't find Bumi crazy so much as madcap, daring and adventurous, not to mention a lot of fun. Princess Azuka, on the other hand, did not seem like she'd be much fun at all and while Aang might describe her as a great many things, "madcap" wasn't one of them. The very fact that she thought she could saunter past the walls of the Northern Water Tribe, inform him that she would be his instructor and expect that all would happen as she decreed it pointed to a young woman who was either incredibly haughty or incredibly unbalanced. Maybe she was a mixture of both.

Regardless, there was no way that Aang was consenting to have her as his firebending teacher. Her possible craziness aside, Aang couldn't trust her at all. She was too erratic and not extremely forthcoming when it came to explaining her motives for wanting to teach him in the first place. She was an enigma and a dangerous one at that.

Aang couldn't figure her out. She seemed to have a very deep disdain for all people not Fire Nation and yet, conversely, she seemed determined to help those same people defeat her father. He couldn't be sure if she had a sincere desire to help them or if this was her misguided attempt to stick it to her father. She wasn't at all forthcoming about the events that led to her disownment and banishment nor did she divulge how she had managed to track Aang to the North Pole in the first place. The lack of knowledge on both fronts made Aang understandably uneasy.

The Fire Nation princess was a wily one. The few times he'd had an actual conversation with her, Aang couldn't help but notice how she always seemed to be thinking ahead, always developing a contingency plan. He highly doubted that she was often caught unaware. She was clearly very perceptive and clever, but she also seemed strangely awkward and almost forlorn. He could see that there was much more going on behind her eyes than the princess would ever let on. The pain he saw in those fathomless depths was almost palpable. Aang pitied her as much as he distrusted her. But, at present, there were matters that took greater precedence than the crazy firebender.

Today, the comet arrived…and all of their lives would be irrevocably changed.

That had been the first thought to enter Aang's mind when he opened his eyes that morning, not that he'd had any actual sleep the night before. He had been obsessing over the comet's arrival without fail since the moment the monks confirmed that his dreams had some basis in reality. Aang had lived in dread of that day ever since. Even with all the precautions that had been taken to insure the safety of his people and his own safety as well, Aang continued to battle with fear and doubt. He had seen firsthand the awesome devastation that the Fire Nation could wreak with the comet's help. He knew they would storm the temples until nothing remained but rubble and ash. On the rare occasion when Aang wasn't being overwhelmed by visions of an impossible future, he was being tortured by horrific images of a world razed by fire.

But the worst thing was how helpless he felt. He was the Avatar, supposedly the most powerful being on earth and yet, when the world truly needed him, he was utterly useless. He sat tucked away safely in the North Pole, though no one knew how long that would remain so, while his people were left on the outside to fend for themselves and face the full onslaught of Sozin's sanguinary thirst for power. He wanted to do something, but he knew that he was in no way prepared to face the Firelord now, especially one who had been super-powered by a comet. Aang would have to wait and bide his time…if he even survived long enough to confront Sozin at all.

According to the Fire Nation princess, it was very possible that her father had already learned that he was hiding out in the Northern Water Tribe. After all, she had found him and she was only thirteen. She didn't have nearly the resources her father had at his disposal. Given that fact, she fully expected that the Fire Navy was en route to the North Pole at that very moment. Her theories on the Firelord's military tactics did very little to allay Aang's fears.

Sozin already planned to wipe out the air temples. That much he already knew. Adding the Northern Water Tribe to that list would be a small thing for him. In his eyes, he would be killing two birds with one stone…destroying the avatar and targeting the next nation in the cycle. The princess made it clear that Sozin would not stop until Aang was crushed and the only nation remaining was the Fire Nation. The death toll would mount and the blood of the fallen would be on Aang's hands.

Fear and guilt gnawed at him like corrosive acid. In the days leading up to the comet's arrival, he could barely sleep at all and had even less interest in eating. He was listless, moody and constantly on edge. He felt beyond comforting. Not even Gyatso and Katara had been able to pull him out of his funk. But now that the dreaded day had finally arrived, Aang felt numb, resolved and strangely unafraid. He didn't know if he would die that day, had no way of gleaning whether or not his interventions would mean anything in the long run, but Aang met those uncertainties with stoicism and calm. It was all beyond his control now. All he had left to do was to wait.

In the meantime, no one could be sure if what the Fire Nation princess had told them was the truth or if what she'd said was merely a wild exaggeration made by a girl who seemed to take delight in the misery of others. Still, to err on the side of caution, the Northern warriors had upped their security detail and were patrolling the choppy waters outside of the gates despite the severe weather.

A heavy snow continued to fall in the North Pole and was gradually growing heavier. The temperature had dropped enough that the sea had even begun to crust over with ice. The turn in the weather actually proved to be a blessing in disguise. Not much else might slow down the Fire Navy's progression through northern waters, but a blizzard and freezing temperatures would be sure to stop them in their tracks.

Aang tried to take as much solace in that as he could. He milled about in the common area of the house and anxiously awaited news from the scouts. Thus far, there was no report. The waters remained clear. Yet, that didn't keep Aang from darting over to the window every few seconds to watch for the falling, black ash that he knew would signal the arrival of the enemy.

As he peered outside, he was barely cognizant of Gyatso and Cui's usual bickering sounding just beyond his shoulder. His earthbending master, who was a tough and opinionated woman, didn't believe in "breaks" or "playtime." She was a diminutive woman, with jet hair threaded through with gray and delicately lined features that heralded the uncommon prettiness she had possessed in her youth. She didn't create the picture of an intimidating force, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

Even now, with the comet set to arrive at any second, she expected Aang to train. She was determined to make him into an earthbender whether the circumstances were favorable or not. Unfortunately, Aang was too distracted to concentrate on her lesson. Naturally, she grew annoyed with him for his inattentiveness and naturally, Gyatso stepped in to get her off of his back.

Master Cui's philosophy was that when there was work to be done then a person must work and they must keep working until the job was accomplished. There were no excuses, no time-outs, no breaks. Her no-nonsense drive had actually compelled the woman to bring bags of earth with her to the North Pole so that no time would be wasted in training Aang before they could move safely into the Earth Kingdom. As a result of her diligence, Aang had been learning both water and earth simultaneously.

Of course, Gyatso was concerned that he was being given too much responsibility, too quickly. He didn't want to load Aang down with too many tasks as he was always very cognizant of the fact that Aang was still a twelve year old boy. He needed to run and jump and enjoy his life as much as he was able. He needed to have a childhood and Gyatso could see it slipping away from Aang in small increments each day. He was determined not to let that happen. His resolve on the matter inevitably put him in direct opposition with Aang's earthbending master.

Because their disagreements were a usual occurrence, Aang had learned to take them in stride. Whereas they had troubled him in the beginning, they later began to amuse him because watching his usually levelheaded mentor lose his even temper had been fascinating to watch. He would often muse to himself that if they stopped sniping at each other long enough, they might actually discover that they liked one another…not that either of them would ever admit it.

Unfortunately, Aang didn't find himself entertained by their antics as he had been in the past. On that particular day, their bickering was like pounding noise in his head that grated on his already frayed nerves. He wanted nothing more than to escape…escape them, escape the house and escape his thoughts. He clenched his fist against the frozen windowsill. It was too much! He had to get out!

While Gyatso was in the middle of castigating Cui for being insensitive to Aang's feelings, Aang abruptly straightened, floated to his feet and grabbed his staff. "I'm going out for a while."

Gyatso broke off mid-tirade and snapped around to face him. "What do you mean? You can't be serious. Aang, we're in the middle of a storm and the comet is on its way. You should stay in the house where it's safe."

"I can't stay cooped up in here!" Aang cried, "I feel like I'm going crazy!"

"It's dangerous," Gyatso insisted, "You are to stay put. End of discussion."

"I'll be careful. I'll stay inside the wall."

"No."

Aang's countenance darkened with a petulant scowl. He threw up his hands in infuriated defeat. "Fine! That's just great! Keep me locked up here like a prisoner!"

"You're being unreasonable. That's not what I'm doing."

Inexplicably, Gyatso's calm response only exacerbated Aang's frustrated anger. "Well, can I, at least, go up to the roof or is that off limits too?"

Gyatso sighed. "You may…but just for a short while." He stared after Aang as he stomped from the room, worried and heartsick all at once. "I don't know what's gotten into him lately," he mumbled to himself.

In an uncharacteristic show of compassion, Cui reached over to pat his shoulder. "Buck up, Arrowhead. He doesn't hate you. He's a kid. They're ingrates. That's what they do. That's why I never had any."

The airbender appraised her with a dry glance before reaching up to deliberately remove her fingers from his shoulder. "Thank you so much, Cui. Your compassion, as always, is unparalleled."

Up on the roof, Aang was already regretting his sharp words to Gyatso. He resolved in his heart to apologize to him later, once he had sorted himself out again. Heartsick, Aang turned his face up into the blinding storm of swirling snowflakes and thought that it was an apt metaphor for the storm going on within him as well: chaotic and unbridled and always changing.

He was still watching the sky when he first sensed her, but Aang wasn't all that surprised when Katara came to stand next to him. He had known she would come. In a way, he had been waiting for her.

"It's going to be okay, you know," she whispered.

He grunted. "Everyone keeps saying that, but that doesn't make it true."

"We knew this day would come. We knew what could happen. I'm not afraid to die, Aang."

"I don't want you to die, Katara…" he uttered thickly, "Not for me and not like this. I don't want anyone to die for me. I hate that this is happening."

"You didn't do this. Remember that, Aang. This was Firelord Sozin. It's all Sozin."

"But it's because of me." His mind raced with a dozen other alternatives. "Maybe I can turn this around. Maybe if I went to him, he would—,"

"—He would kill you," Katara finished quietly, "And then, when he was done, he would turn his attention to us and we would be lost because all of our hope will have died with you."

Aang whimpered. "Why does everyone keep expecting me to do these impossible things?"

Katara smiled at him and encircled his shoulders in a brief, but comforting hug. "You're the Avatar, Aang. You were born to do impossible things. I know you can do them. I wouldn't be standing here with you right now if I didn't believe that. I think I believed in you before I even knew who you were."

He blinked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"It was a long time ago. You were here with Gyatso. We never spoke. You never even saw me, but I saw you. It was before you had your tattoos. You were just this scrawny little kid from the Southern Air Temple, but somehow I knew even then that you were special. When we learned later that you were the Avatar, I wasn't surprised. I think part of me always knew."

"I'm glad one of us did," Aang grumbled wryly.

Katara choked a laugh. "The point I'm trying to make here is that I believed in you even when I didn't have cause to do so. Now that I've gotten to know you…now that I care about you…I couldn't possibly put into words how much faith I have in you, Aang. I know you'll bring peace to the world again, even if, right now you don't know it."

He stared up at her with brimming eyes. "Thank you, Katara."

"You're welcome."

She started to suggest that they go back inside for some hot tea when she noticed the almost imperceptible change occurring in the slate colored sky. Gradual streaks of pink began to appear beneath the muted gray before the hues became darker, flooding the sky with a faint orange glow that bathed them in an ethereal haze. It almost reminded them of dusk only they both know that was impossible at mid-morning. Katara gasped and so did Aang.

"It's here," Aang said aloud, his words shaky and breathless, "It's starting now."

"Do you want to go inside?" Katara asked him anxiously.

"No. I want to stay. I want to wait and see."

"I'll stay with you," she said, reaching out to take hold of his stiffened fingers and fold them in her own, "You don't have to be alone, Aang. We'll do this together."

They stood together under the falling blanket of snow, hand in hand, and surveyed the sky together, waiting with bated breath for that inevitable moment when the warning horns would sound and the Northern Water Tribe would come under attack. Time slowed to an agonizing crawl. Neither of them spoke a word, but the tension rolling off of them both was tangible. It crackled around them like a halo of electric energy. They were afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. They became impervious to the cold and wind and snow. Nothing existed for them except the blood-orange sky.

But as morning faded into afternoon and afternoon meandered into evening, the fear of an oncoming attack began to lessen. The waters outside of the gates remained quiet. The Water-Tribe remained quiet. Yet, Aang knew that beyond the calm and silence, in all four corners of the world, the air temples burned. It was hard not to think of the people who might be burning along with them.

"Don't do that," Katara admonished him, easily discerning the look on his face even in the dwindling light, "Don't punish yourself, Aang. Don't blame yourself."

"I should be there with them. Who knows how they're suffering right now! I should be protecting them."

"You will protect them…when the time is right and the time isn't right."

"I know in my head. I still have a lot left to do. I need to complete my training. I need to learn firebending. I know I'm not ready to face the Firelord, but in my heart it still feels wrong."

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't feel that way."

"I hate standing here feeling so helpless!"

"It won't be forever. Try to keep focused on the tasks you have ahead of you. And try not to forget that, no matter what's happening at this very moment, your people are willing to sacrifice themselves because they believe in you, so you can't stop believing in yourself, Aang."

"I'm trying."

"You need to channel the fear and rage you're feeling right now and use that to your advantage," Katara told him fiercely, "Sozin has this battle, but the next one will be yours."

They lingered on the rooftop together until the luminescent orb of the moon was high in the sky and the comet had finally passed, leaving the atmosphere a canopy of purple speckled with glistening stars. In the distance, they could make out a faint glow on the horizon. It was the only bit of light besides the weak glow provided by the moon. Immediately, they both knew what the glow was though neither of them voiced it aloud. The Northern Air Temple was burning. Aang blinked back the tears that formed in his eyes.

"I think I want to be alone now," he informed Katara gruffly.

She hesitated, torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to respect his wishes. "Are you sure?"

He jerked a curt nod. "I'm sure. I need to think."

However, solitude was the last thing that Aang was after. Once Katara had disappeared over the edge of the roof and he watched her bend herself down to the street and then disappear around the corner, Aang threw open his glider and headed to the one place that could provide him with the least solace. He went to visit Princess Azuka in her holding cell.

She didn't seem surprised by his arrival at all. Instead, she sat cross-legged in the center of her cell, hands folded demurely in her lap as if she had been waiting for him. The self-satisfied gleam in her eyes told Aang that she very likely had been…and, apparently, had every confidence that he would come.

"Your father's navy didn't show up today," he told her, "I guess you don't know him as well as you think you do."

Azuka was careful to keep her features arranged in a remote mask. She had known all along that her father would not come to the North Pole. He had no way of knowing that his prey was sheltered there at all. But she had known. Months earlier, Avatar Roku had visited her in a dream and, he had told her exactly where she must go and what she must do. She supposed she could try and explain to the Avatar that, in a manner of speaking, he was the one who had sent her to him in the first place. Regrettably, Azuka doubted that he would believe that anymore than he was willing to believe she wanted to help him now. The fact that she was Fire Nation raised automatic distrust.

Timing, however, was critical. She didn't have weeks and weeks to convince him of her cause. He needed to accept her as his instructor and begin his training as soon as possible. His location hadn't been the only thing Azuka's dreams had revealed to her. She only had a small window in which to act. Azuka's time in the world was as limited as the Avatar's time to master the elements.

Ever since she had been very small, Azuka had possessed a special gift of sight, an ability to foreknow certain events. It was that gift which had secured her father's affection and practically the only thing that had motivated Sozin to take an interest in her at all. But the sight wasn't an ability Azuka could control. The visions came to her at random intervals, but that had not stopped Sozin from using her unique abilities to his advantage. That was the reason he had been able to patiently bide his time until Avatar Roku's death.

He had known that his rise to power was imminent because Azuka had told him…just as he had known that his empire would be crushed if the next Avatar was allowed to live. Under normal circumstances, he might not have been concerned with a child Avatar, but when Azuka foresaw that he would be unlike any Avatar the world had ever known, Sozin had no choice but to act. He put his plan to exterminate the Air Nomads into motion shortly thereafter. In Azuka's mind then, she had been the one to set these unfortunate events into motion and now she was the one who had to undo them.

Presently, she found herself at a crossroads, dependent on an avatar that was as lost as she was, an avatar that did not trust her at all. She could do her best to convince him of her sincerity only to risk failure and waste valuable time in the process or she could go with a tried and true tactic. Fear. Fear proved to be an incredible motivator. After all, fear was the very thing that had compelled her to make the dangerous journey all the way to the North Pole and practically on her own. If the Avatar couldn't accept her as his teacher because he needed to do it, then he would certainly do so because he was too frightened not to do it.

Resigned with what she must do, Azuka lifted dispassionate eyes to regard a belligerent Avatar Aang. "That's hardly anything to gloat about. You were fortunate today," she replied, "But, just because he didn't come this day, that doesn't mean he won't come eventually. And he will. He always does."

Bristling under her implied challenge, Aang held himself taller and straighter. "When he comes, I'll be ready for him."

"And how will you do that?" she taunted, "You're going to need more than clubs and spears to defeat my father, who will come at you with armored tanks and heavy machinery. So, tell me, what's your brilliant plan?"

"I'm going to master the elements and I'm going to defeat him."

"Oh…right." She tapped her chin, causing her chains to rattle softly with the movement. "As far as I'm aware, an Avatar must know all four bending disciplines. How many do you know again?"

"I'm already learning water and earth. It won't be long before I've mastered both."

"And fire?"

Aang glared at her. "Why would you want to help me at all? It's obvious that you don't care what's happening to my people or the world in general! So, what's your deal? What's in it for you?"

She dropped her eyes then, but not quickly enough that Aang didn't see the shadow that darkened their mysterious recesses. "Let's just say that teaching you will be mutually advantageous. You win. I win."

"What does that even mean?" Aang cried, "What do you win? If you think I'm going to neutralize one dictator just to herald in the reign of another, you have another thing coming!"

Azuka bit out a short, amused bark of laughter. "Oh Avatar, why so dark and serious? I have no desire to claim the throne so you can rest easy on that score."

"Then what do you want?"

"I've already told you."

"And I've told you that I don't understand what that means!"

"It means you need a firebending teacher and I'm all you have."

"That's not good enough."

"Do you want the rest of the world to burn?" she challenged airily, "Because that is what will happen. My father will tear this kingdom and every other kingdom to pieces in order to find you."

He wanted to deny the veracity of her words, but it was impossible. Still, Aang resisted nonetheless. "I can find someone else."

"Yeah. Good luck with that."

"I don't trust you."

Azuka casually buffed her nails against the breast of her uniform. "And who says that I want your trust? I'm here to teach you, not to make friends with you. Rest assured. I'm not interested."

Aang sneered at her. "That's fine with me! I don't like you anyway."

"Good. The feeling is mutual."

Aang resisted the urge to growl in outrage. He might have pulled at his hair if he had any. "Good grief! Don't you get how ridiculous this is? How am I supposed to learn from you if I can't trust you?" Whether Aang realized it or not, the question indicated his implicit agreement and Azuka accepted it with a confident smirk. "How am I supposed to make this work?"

She lifted her trim shoulders in an indifferent shrug. "I don't know, Avatar. That's just something you'll have to figure out on your own."