Author's Notes:
So, the first scene in this chapter is in present tense. The story has developed a mind of its own and demanded I break verb-tense conventions. So I guess we all just have to deal with it.
Anyway, this marks the first chapter with the new title, so that's exciting. Maybe I should put up a poll any time I'm trying to title a new story. It seems to work better than just naming them as I post the first chapter. Or maybe I just need to get deeper into my stories before I start posting them so I can come up with something suitably clever. Hmm. Either way, thanks for reading.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The cold hits Sokka like a thunderclap as he crashes into the water. Suddenly, the howling wind is muted to a moan, and the relentless drumbeat of the rain hushes, becoming a faint hiss. A deep, indescribable sound replaces it—moving water and bubbles breaking over his skin and a low groan as if the sea itself is in pain. Other sensations follow—the sense of being pulled in a dozen different directions by the churning waters; the horrible pressure on his chest; the weightless, stomach-turning swoops and dives as he struggles toward the surface without knowing how to find it.
In the chaos of his mind, an image forms. A face. Two faces, actually, laid over one another, transitioning back and forth like a mirage. One is angular, with soft grey eyes that speak of profound sorrow, framed by hair as pale as moonlight. The other is softer, dark-skinned, with eyes a deeper blue than any he's ever seen. Yue and Katara—past and present—and he's struck by the notion that he can choose. That in letting go of one, he has a chance to find the other, in this world or the Spirit World.
Cold. It's so cold under the water, so dark. Not like ice, which you almost have to touch before you can feel its chill, but a penetrating cold that sinks into your bones and freezes you from the inside out. Shock, some part of his mind whispers. You're in shock.
Yue-Katara stares back at him, but it's his mother's voice—a voice he's nearly forgotten—that reaches his ears, pure and resonate despite the swish and groan of the frigid waters. A song, quick and light, yet somehow melancholy:
"Once was a boy, all pride and grace,
who cast his eye upon a moonlit face.
He thought that he might take a piece away,
so he rowed his boat to the ocean's sway.
For days he rowed, searching for the place,
where the sea reached up and touched the moon's face,
yet as he drew near, it lifted away,
out of reach, out of hand, it would not stay . . ."
The face wavers, back and forth, back and forth. Yue. Katara. Yue. Katara. Yue . . .
Yue is gone, he thinks, and at the admission, a tiny part of him dies. The rest of him comes back to life, hands clawing their way toward the ocean's surface, legs kicking clumsily to dislodge the hefty, water-filled boots weighing him down. Dappled light flickers above him—a wide circle of light wrapped in darkness. The eye of the storm. Sokka swims toward it, his lungs aching, his extremities numb and clumsy, and when he breaks the surface, he breathes for the first time in an eternity.
As the floor collapsed beneath his feet, Aang twisted, bending wind and water to create a pocket of air around himself and Momo. The lemur squirmed inside his robes, chattering wildly as the shelter Aang had created shattered under the might of the storm.
Appa fell through the ice, then began to swim, graceful despite his bulk. Aang hesitated, trying to think of a way to expand his air bubble around the bison, but with his thick fur and the layer of fat beneath it, Appa was in no real danger from the cold. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, Aang propelled himself through the raging seas, water misting against his skin and leaving patches of frost on his clothes. He and Appa broke through the surface at the same time, and a shower of seawater trailed after them as they shot up into the air. Aang landed at the front of the saddle and gripped the reins tightly, the wind buffeting against him and sending jolts of cold through his body. He pushed the discomfort away, breathing as Monk Gyatso had taught him to keep the chill at bay. "Sokka, what do we do?" he cried, twisting in the saddle.
Sokka wasn't there.
Oh no, Aang thought, looking out over the choppy water. No, no, no . . . He searched for a shadow beneath the surface, a scrap of blue fabric, anything that might help him find Sokka, but with the dense cloud cover, the sea was nearly black, a menacing shadow that stretched for miles and miles in every direction, and something Sokka had said just before their shelter had broken apart flitted through his mind: "The storm might be louder, but it's the sea that'll swallow you up."
Not this time, Aang thought, pulling hard on the reins. Appa groaned in protest, swerving as he continued his ascent. If they could get above the clouds, they'd be safe. That was what they should have done in the first place, but it hadn't even occurred to him. And now Sokka was in the water, and Katara was gone, and Monk Gyatso was gone, and . . .
No.
"C'mon, buddy," he called, throwing all his weight—negligible though it was—into pulling on Appa's reins. At last, the bison banked to the left, and they made a tight turn toward the water. As they careened toward the sea, something caught his eye—an arm sticking out above the water, waving weakly. It disappeared, then reappeared a moment later as Sokka's head broke the surface.
Aang snatched his glider off the saddle and leapt from Appa's back, shooting toward Sokka like an arrow. He slowed only enough to avoid injury as he slammed into the sea and used his bending to create a jet of water to propel the two of them back onto the saddle. They hit with a thump, and Appa rose out of his dive and hurtled toward the cloud, the rain falling like hundreds of tiny needles around them.
"Hold on!" Aang yelled, though he was the one holding on—to Sokka, to the reins, to the desperate hope that they wouldn't be knocked back into the water by a strong gale. All the while, Appa tore through the air and Momo chattered in fear.
The dark clouds gave way, insubstantial as mist. The rain subsided, and a powerful updraft carried them above the storm, into the fading sunlight. Appa leveled out, riding the winds. In the saddle, Aang turned to examine Sokka, stomach twisting as he saw how pale he was. Sokka breathed shallowly, but he didn't seem to be choking, so there wasn't any water in his lungs. Even so, Aang had heard him talk about how dangerous the seas near the poles could be, not only because the ocean itself was unforgiving, but because its frigid waters robbed a body of heat so quickly that the chances of survival dwindled to almost nothing within minutes.
Standing unsteadily in the middle of the saddle, Aang bent the water from Sokka's skin and clothes, drying them out as much as he could. Sokka stirred, eyelids flickering, but rather than waking up, his pupils tracked back and forth, as if he weren't really processing anything. Have to get him warm, Aang thought, digging through their supplies in search of blankets. He found a few waterlogged bundles and used his waterbending to dry them, but when he went to wrap them around Sokka, he found the older boy's skin ice cold.
"What do I do now?" He clutched his head between his hands, and if there had been room in the saddle to pace, he would have. He had to get Sokka's temperature up, but how was he supposed to do that when Sokka couldn't produce enough heat to warm the blankets?
You could try firebending. He recoiled from the thought. Fire was wild, dangerous. The last time he'd tried to control it, he'd burned Katara. He still remembered the firelight reflecting in her eyes—eyes wide with shock and fear in the moments before her face had crumpled with pain. He'd promised himself he'd never firebend again. But . . . but if he didn't, Sokka might sink so deeply into hypothermia that he would never wake up.
Aang took a shaky breath. Then another. Then another, this time cupping his hands in front of him, like he was trying to catch the rain. Jeong Jeong had been reluctant to teach him firebending, and rightly so, but Aang still remembered that moment, holding a flame above his hand, feeding it with his breath. That feeling of warmth and life and power. That feeling had led him to carelessness, tricked him into thinking he could control a thing that lived and breathed and grew. For a few heartbeats, he had been someone else, someone who saw the dancing light of the flames and wanted to bend them to his will.
More than the fear of hurting someone he cared about, that had frightened him. But now he let that feeling swell in his chest, stoked by every breath, and concentrated on the spot above his hand, willing a flame to flicker to life.
Nothing happened.
"What am I doing wrong?" he whispered. He'd had no trouble coaxing a tiny ember into flame before, so why couldn't he do it now? What's different? What am I missing? He closed his eyes, looking back. The monks had been primarily concerned with airbending, for obvious reasons, but they'd also said that each of the four elements and their associated philosophies had value. Air was the element of freedom; water was the element of change; earth was the element of substance; and fire . . . fire was the element of power.
I need to be confident, he thought, opening his eyes. I need to believe I can do this. Firebending was easy with Jeong Jeong because I wasn't afraid of it then. He took another breath, imagining his fear as a black, twisted thing, flowing out of him with each exhale. It was a simple trick, a trick for clearing the mind when meditating, but it worked. Fire was dangerous, yes, but only if you weren't careful. And he needed it, to help Sokka.
Above his hands, a tiny flame bloomed. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat—alive and steady. I did it, he thought, marveling. He inhaled, and the flame grew, feeding off his breath. Letting instinct guide him, he separated his hands, strands of fire stretching with thee movement. At the same time, he subtly twisted one of his wrists, creating a loose pocket of air to catch the heat and carry it downward, toward Sokka. Within moments, the air turned from frigid to temperate, and then from temperate to stifling. Aang let his fire dim, holding it carefully above one hand while the other maintained the air currents, and soon, some of the color began to return to Sokka's skin.
"You're going to be okay," he said, and the storm raged on beneath them.