Author's Notes:
As promised, I hereby announce the winning title from last chapter's poll: To Catch the Moon. Thank you to everyone who voted or offered alternate titles. The change will be made prior to the posting of the next chapter, and I hope all of you are as happy with the new title as I am (which is to say "very happy"). Thanks, as always, to everyone who has read and reviewed!
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sokka woke before dawn.
He stumbled about the chilly quarters, his thoughts like sludge as his sleep-numbed legs dragged him through his morning machinations. Aang was still asleep, his eyes ringed by dark smudges. Sokka had woken once, late in the night, to the soft sounds of the airbender crying, but he'd slipped back into sleep shortly thereafter, too heartsick to comfort anyone else. From the look of it, Aang had gotten even less sleep than he had.
By the time Sokka finished getting ready, the first hints of the sunrise peeked through the window. Still groggy, he walked over to where Aang slept and nudged him awake with the toe of his shoe. "C'mon. The North Pole doesn't get much daylight this time of year. It's time to go."
The airbender's eyes slid open, glazed at first, then clearing as he sat up. He didn't say a word as he gathered his few possessions before heading out the back door to rouse Appa. Sokka went the other way, following the scent of roasting arctic hen and blubbered seal jerky. The knotted maze of passages remained beyond his navigation skills, but the smell of steamed seaweed and roasting arctic hen provided a reliable compass.
As he reached the kitchen, the cook—a rotund woman with her hair tied back in braids—fetched several large chunks of jerky from the drying hooks, along with a container of sweetened seaprunes, and wrapped both in a long strip of leather. "You're off to search for your sister, then?"
Sokka blinked, taking the bundle. "How did you know I. . ."
The cook glanced at the pack slung over his shoulders, then at his heavy winter attire. "Call it a hunch. Is the Avatar going with you?"
"Yeah, he is."
She nodded, grabbing a handful of hardy nuts and stuffing them in a pouch. "Keep hearty in body and soul, my dear. Hard days lay ahead."
He murmured his assent, thanking her again for the offered food before cutting through the main hallway and circling the building to get to the stables where Appa awaited them. As he approached, he heard voices: Aang, his voice high-pitched enough to be clear at a distance, and Pakku, quieter and more reserved.
"When you find Katara, give her these," Pakku was saying. "I've inked in some notes in regards to the more spiritual aspects of waterbending, as well as added some training exercises which may prove useful."
"Thank you, Master Pakku."
"One more thing," Pakku added as Sokka rounded the corner and entered the stable. "Tell her that I look forward to seeing how she's improved next time we meet. Oh, and Sokka?"
He jumped, startled. How did he know I was here? He wasn't even facing this way! "What is it?"
A trace of fondness wound its way through the stern man's voice. "If you happen to see your grandmother before I do, give her my regards."
Sokka shifted his weight from foot to foot, his face warming despite the frigid air. "Uh, okay. Sure."
Pakku turned back to Aang, bowed, and left, his tunic flapping in the wind. Curious, Sokka peered at the ornate blue and white box Pakku had given Aang. "What's inside?"
Rather than answering, the airbender flicked the clasp and lifted the lid, revealing a dozen or so scrolls capped with artfully carved circles of ivory. Sokka took one and unfurled it, finding dozens of stylized drawings denoting stances and movements. Waterbending forms.
"We're going to find her," Aang said, meeting his eyes. "I know we will."
I hope you're right about that, Aang. I really do. He rolled up the scroll. "Let's get going."
"We're looking for signs of Fire Nation ships," Sokka said as they soared over the ocean. There was less debris in the water than there had been yesterday—waterlogged supplies and bodies sinking beneath the surface and dispersing with the currents. "The most obvious sign will be a column of smoke wherever the ship is, but you'll also want to look for icebergs caked in soot or broken ice-fields. The ships in the fleet had thicker hulls to break through the ice, so if you see a long line of broken ice chunks, follow it."
Aang nodded, the wings of his glider snapping open. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. Stay in sight of Appa. That way you can signal me without losing the trail." He fished the handful of nuts the cook had given him out of their pouch. "Take these with you. We won't have time to rest until after dark, and you'll need to keep your strength up."
"Thanks." Aang took the pouch, tying the string around the spine of his glider, and took off, sailing parallel to Appa. Sokka urged the bison ahead, keeping them close enough to the water's surface to look for clues, but not so close as to risk getting caught in a rogue wave. The seas looked calm enough, but he'd heard more than one story of sailors lamenting weak winds only to find themselves swept up by a sudden squall.
They flew, Aang with his glider, Sokka with Appa, scanning the icy waters for signs of a ship's passing. The primary issue wasn't finding that evidence, but rather figuring out whether those signs were from the fleet's initial approach or the subtler indications of a handful of retreating ships. More than once, Aang twirled through the air, signaling Sokka to meet with him, only for them to determine that whatever he'd seen, be it broken ice or ashes, merely led back toward the city.
Their progress was slow but careful. Before they'd separated, Sokka had insisted that it was more important to be thorough than swift, because if they missed something, they might lose the trail altogether. Sokka just had to hope that any Fire Nation ships that had survived Aang's counterattack would be moving slowly enough for them to catch up.
The hours trickled by, underscored by the whoosh of the waves below. Around midday, Sokka dug a handful of jerky from their rations and ate, his eyes never leaving the water. Occasionally, Momo glided between Appa's saddle and Aang, chattering away. But apart from that, there was little variation in their search. Soon, the sun set again, shy and distant, as if too timid to burn as brightly as it did in warmer regions. The looming darkness of night and deepening cold eventually forced Sokka to guide Appa back to Aang. "We should head back for the night. We won't be able to see much once it gets dark."
The airbender slowed, then swooped upward, looping through the air before landing in the saddle. His eyes were sunken, rimmed with shadow.
Sokka stretched, feeling the stiffness in his own limbs, the lingering ache of his own restless night. "We'll start again tomorrow."
"Okay," Aang said dully, leaning over the edge of the saddle. If Katara were here, she'd be at his side, telling him that everything would turn out all right. Sokka knew that he should try to do the same, but he sensed that Aang would see through any such reassurances. Sokka had always been the cynical one. The pessimist. That had been fine, when Katara had been around to balance him out. With her gone, it was hard to hold out hope for anything.
He tugged on Appa's reins and guided them back toward the city.
The next day passed much the same as the first had. He and Aang woke at first light, dragged themselves through their morning routines, then flew with Appa to the outer edges of the area they'd searched the previous day. With every passing hour, the traces of the Fire Nation's passage through these waters dwindled, washed away by the relentless crash of waves. Though the more obvious evidence of the fleet's passage remained visible, smaller trails through the ice filled in and froze over, leaving only pale scars in the ice where it had been cracked. As a result, they were forced to slow even further to keep from missing crucial details, a delay that in turn gave the elements more time to wear away clues further ahead.
We're fighting a losing battle with the sea, Sokka thought as they were forced to return the second night. Another day or two, and there won't be anything left to find.
On the third day came the storm.
"Look over there," Aang called from his glider. Sokka pulled his eyes away from the water, his vision going strange for a moment, as if they'd become so accustomed to the sight of the sea that they couldn't process anything else. But then he saw it: a wall of bruise-like clouds on the horizon, moving fast.
"Not good," Sokka said, more to himself than anyone else. If the weather in the North Pole was anything like the weather in the South, a storm like that could last for days and tear ships apart like rice paper. He turned to Aang, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. "We need to find shelter."
Aang swerved in the air, caught by an errant gust of wind. With obvious effort, he steered himself back toward Appa, landing in the saddle. "Should we try to make it back to the city?"
Sokka hesitated, looking more closely at the clouds. "The storm's moving too fast. We're going to have to take shelter down there." He pointed to one of the larger sheets of ice, guiding Appa downward. Already, he could hear the waves slapping against the edges of the uneven platform, stirred to motion by the change in pressure. By the time the actual storm hit, the seas would be raging. We need to be out of the open by then, he thought as Appa landed. "Aang, I need you to use your waterbending to create a wall between us and the storm. It needs to be thick enough to hold even if we slam into an iceberg."
"Got it." Aang leapt out of the saddle, cushioning his fall with a gust of air, then set his glider aside and began moving his arms, pulling water from the sea and freezing it, one layer after another as he built a shell of ice large enough to shelter Appa while still leaving enough room to move about.
As he worked, Sokka began checking the ropes tethering their belongings to Appa's saddle. They'd tied down all the lightweight stuff this morning, as always, but for the heavier things, they usually relied on the weight of the bag to keep it from flying out of the saddle. Now, Sokka added extra tethers to these. It was entirely possible that the storm would smash or overturn the ice floe they were standing on, and the last thing they needed was to get crushed by their own supplies. This way, as long as the saddle itself didn't come off, they'd be fine. Probably.
As Aang sealed off the top of the dome, Sokka peered through the ice, watching the storm. It was close now, close enough that he could feel the waves rocking their chunk of ice. Beyond that, he could hear stray raindrops drumming against the outside of their makeshift shelter, a prelude of the chaos to come. Above, the storm's leading edge swept across the sky, and the wind roared as waves cracked against the ice.
For a moment, the world went quiet.
Then the storm hit.
Rain pounded against the ice overhead like a hail of arrows. Aang stared at the thick dome he'd created, watching rivulets of water pour down the glassy surface. Outside, the wind howled, the sound like a hundred voices moaning in concert. In the flickering light, he could almost imagine flocks of spirits swooping through the skies, urging the storm onward with their discordant song.
It was just like the storm he'd been caught in when he'd fled the Southern Air Temple. The storm that had cast him into the sea for a hundred years while the world burned.
"Aang," Sokka said sharply. Aang flinched, dragging himself from the memory as he turned to listen. "Aang, there's a crack forming on the ceiling. I need you to seal it."
He looked up, saw a web of fissures radiating out from the top of the ice dome from the sheer force of the rain. Looking up, it seemed as if they were trapped inside an egg that had cracked and was now allowing water from outside to seep in. Hastily, he leaped onto Appa's back and took an icicle-stance, freezing the rain inside the cracks and leaving jagged scars in their place. Once he was finished, he turned to Sokka. "What are we going to do if the dome doesn't hold?"
"I don't think you want to know the answer to that."
Something slammed into the sheet of ice they'd made their shelter on, and Aang tumbled from the saddle, cushioning his fall with a gust of air at the last moment. "What was that?"
Sokka staggered over to Appa, grabbing the edge of the saddle to steady himself. "There's a reason you don't want to be out on the ocean during a storm. The storm might be louder, but it's the sea that'll swallow you up."
Another wave hit, rocking the chunk of ice. Momo swooped from his perch atop Appa's head to Aang's shoulder, then back, chattering the entire time. "Don't worry, Momo. We're going to be fine." Their ice floe listed again, and they skidded toward the western wall, hitting with a series of impacts that left massive cracks in the side. Alarmed, Aang began sealing these up as he had with the fissures above, but before he could finish, another wave knocked them to the floor.
"Hold on to something!" Sokka yelled over the din. Aang grabbed Appa, Momo grabbed Sokka, and Sokka tucked himself between Appa's legs just as another wave struck. As soon as it passed, Aang returned to the cracks, dismayed to find that a piece of the shell had fallen away completely, allowing water to gush through the opening.
"I don't think our walls are going to hold," Aang called, freezing the incoming water.
"The first few minutes are usually the worst," Sokka yelled, still clutching Appa's fur. "We just need to hold out a little longer—"
A shuddering crack roared through the cramped space, overshadowing Sokka's voice. Aang looked down in time to see a massive fissure open up along the floor, seawater surging inside. The cracks hit the opposite wall, then started climbing upward, a lattice of destruction that allowed the pounding rain and raging winds to break through the now-brittle shell. Aang had only enough time to thaw the jagged shards of ice before the sea rose up and swallowed the four of them.