"This was a triumph," Sokka told Zuko, making sure to activate Maximum Sarcasm to get his point across. "I'm making a note here, great success. I can't contain my sense of satisfaction."
This earned him twin glares, one from Zuko, and one from the guy who was half-pushing, half-hauling Zuko along. Hell, Sokka would bet that the thug doing the same to him was glaring daggers into the back of his head as well. Three points for Sokka.
The person in charge, a man around Sokka's age with a square jaw and a supremely bad haircut, said something that was probably supposed to be witty.
Witty was Sokka's game, and it was never off, even if he had brain freeze and didn't technically speak the language. He could still recognize the language family (Turkic) and the tone (self-satisfied asshole). This, together with context, led Sokka to deduce that thug-in-charge was very probably calling Sokka some variety of smartass.
"At least I am smart," Sokka shot back, and was rewarded with a stunned silence and a slight pause in his captor's step. And then a blow to the back of the head, because obviously dumbass back there was trying to even out the IQ scales with some permanent brain damage. As if Sokka could ever sink that low.
But hey, if they were nervous now about communicating in their own language, so much the better. After all, they could be worrying about more important things, such as the nature of the device wrapped around Sokka's hand, and oh yeah Zuko had been breathing fire a minute ago, hadn't he?
Yup, Sokka was definitely going to have to handle this entire situation, because even with his speech paths uncrossed, Zuko was the conversational equivalent of blunt force trauma, and for all that he seemed to be really good at keeping secrets he was terrible at bluffing.
Case in point. "Hi, Zuko here."
Sokka couldn't even blame dumbass-leader-thug from trying to smash Zuko's teeth in for that line. It was that bad.
"Sorry about my… companion." Sokka addressed the man who appeared to be the leader. He had a lot of very long, grey, straight hair, both emerging from under his fur-trimmed hat and on his face. They were in an alcove of a large, somewhat cylindrical cavern within the glacier. Sokka did his best to glance around while still giving the impression that the leader had his full attention. This had to be a garage of sorts, given the runners and tracks peeking out from underneath various tarps, and the overall shape of the space which, together with what metal he could see emerging from its coating of ice, suggested that the entire room had once been a vehicle, too – likely of the space-going variety.
Sokka knew the size of the rockets required to send people to the moon, but it was another thing to feel physically dwarfed inside the remnants of one. The small tunnel he and Zuko hade come up through must have been either a natural tunnel that was used as drainage, or had gone overlooked. The presence of a welcome party had Sokka hard in favor of the former hypothesis, and he really hoped it was just mechanical debris they were washing out of here.
"This first date was a real lemon," Sokka went on. "This one's about as great a conversationalist as Young and Dumb back there." He jerked his head towards Thug Leader.
Thug Leader did not appreciate that comment. Ow.
"Stop it, Hahn," sighed the man, pinching the bridge of his nose in a familiar gesture. Sokka deduced at once that he'd gone grey from pure stress. "We're trying to talk to them, let them keep their teeth for now."
"Or, you know, forever," Sokka mumbled, spitting some blood to the side. Damn, he'd missed getting it all over Thug Crony Number One. "So, how can we help you gentlemen today?" He brightened his tone and gave his best Client Interactions smile to the man with the headache.
This seemed to only increase the headache, if the soft curses in a different language were any indication. "Who are you, and how did you get in here," said the man.
"I'm Sokka, this is Zuko, and we swam here. Clearly. Who are you, or do I just have to call you Headache Guy, Idiot Hahn and Idiot Two?"
Idiot Hahn did not like that, but deferred to Headache Guy's policy of delaying violence until a later point.
"Pakku," said the older man, snubbing both the idiots, probably intentionally. "Tell me why you are here, and remember when you're answering that I'm the one who decides what happens to you for your little break-in."
"Well, you see –"
"We have a kid who needs help," broke in Zuko, ruining everything. "I tried to make contact, but –"
It was Sokka's turn to interrupt and attempt to salvage the situation before Zuko could lie them into an early grave. Seriously, had he been unclear in his telepathic projections of leave the talking to me, buddy?
"Kid! Yup, a kid! Not us, personally, just so we're clear. We're more of reluctant situational allies than anything else. So the 'we' is more in the collective sense of we-adults-who-are-in-charge-of-a-child-who-needs-help-which-only-you-can-provide! Let's make a deal."
"Why should I make a deal with my prisoners?"
"Oh, is that what we are?" Sokka gave his most winning grin. It was probably ruined by his bloody teeth. "You know, Zuko and I had that issue not too long ago, and we decided that what was best for everybody was if nobody was the prisoner. Which, if you think about it, would really help the situation here, because then we could just find an arrangement where -"
Hahn must have lost patience at this, or Sokka had reached a pre-established word limit, because he got a kick in the ribs out of fucking nowhere.
"– where nobody gets hurt –" Sokka sent a devastating glare, although the wheezing might have detracted from that somewhat "– and we all get what we want."
"We've already said what we want," said Zuko, and his word limit was supposed to be zero, but Sokka didn't see Hahn kicking him, life was so unfair. "The kid's got old tech, really old, and it's failing. Tech that was first developed here. Now do we have to take it by force –"
Sokka groaned, because Zuko was setting himself on the fast track to becoming the immediate past president of the Being Alive Club, and Sokka did not want to accept the nomination for the position of vice-president.
"– or are you going to tell us what we can do to earn it?"
Threatening Pakku was evidently enough to earn a kick in the back, but at least that kept Zuko from pushing things over the border from bad to worse.
With the situation rapidly deteriorating, Sokka weighed the pros and cons of a dramatically timed reveal, and decided it was what the moment called for. "Hey, it's not like we could just send you guys an email or something. So pardon us the breaking and entering, if you will, and consider that we might actually be able to do you a lot of good." He took a breath, making sure he had Pakku's full attention and minimal annoyance – which appeared to still be quite a bit – before revealing his hand.
"My sister's a powerful mutant. She's got hydrokinetic abilities, and I can't help but notice you live under the ice. In fact, you're fairly lucky we were subtle and didn't just ask her to displace this entire glacier for us to see what's under it." Okay, maybe he was exaggerating a little, but Sokka had full confidence that his little sister could in fact move glaciers. With some additional practice and training.
"Sokka," growled Zuko, and Sokka spared him a glance. "Shut up."
"They were going to find out eventually," Sokka argued.
"It doesn't matter," hissed Zuko.
"Your friend is right," broke in Pakku, tone still very much put-upon. "So far you have yet to demonstrate that you're worth more to us alive than dead, much less that we should assist you with our technical expertise."
Sokka had the perfect witty response to that, but was deprived of the moment when another man strode in, shadowed by a young woman. The man had the bearing of a leader, wisdom lining his forehead and the corners of his mouth much like Pakku's. The young woman was solemn, and breathtaking; her white hair made the ice around her look dingy in comparison. Silver embroidery on the violet vest buttoned over her white dress brought out her bright blue eyes, which were curiously yet politely examining the newcomers.
"What's this?" asked the man, and Pakku straightened up just a tad from the whole disappointed, sleep-deprived-teacher slouch he had going on.
"Intruders, Arnook Khan, Princess Yue. They swam in under the ice."
"They must be powerful mutants indeed," said the Princess, her harmonious voice ringing throughout the chamber.
"Why, thank you, we are." Sokka couldn't help but preen a little; it wasn't often that intelligence was lauded over flashy ice powers.
"Powerfully idiotic," butt in Pakku. "They claim to be searching for old tech to help a child in their care, but that explanation is… suspect." The way his eyes narrowed implied exactly in which direction Pakku's suspicions lay. "This is Fire Lord Ozai's son –" he nodded towards Zuko, who glared back at him "– and a companion from the South Pole."
"You know, where I come from, which is the Torres Strait Ice Sheet, by the way, we're pretty geographically relevant. Don't lump us in with the rest of Deep Freeze Down Under," Sokka grumbled.
He was ignored in the favor of the guy who had a fancy title, go figure.
"This is the Fire Prince? The Tracker?" asked the Khan, and his eyes flicked over to Pakku. "We don't want Ozai's attention on us."
"I'm not here to hurt you," growled Zuko. "But I will if I have to."
Once again, the fact that he kept saying things like that was not helping their case.
"I think it might be best if you were never here at all," said Arnook, with a dark threat in his voice that reminded Sokka of deep crevasses. Which could conveniently be used to disappear people even as remarkable as the Fire Lord's son.
"We're not working for the Fire Lord!" Sokka protested. "Like we said, we can help –"
Oh, for fuck's sake, Hahn. Sokka's sentence died as the air left his lungs for the second time in as many minutes. Strangely enough, it was Zuko who was making weird hacking noises and spitting out… gross, was that a bloody molar?
"We're not here on the Fire Lord's behalf," he insisted. "We don't need to be. But you should know." Zuko nodded towards the red-streaked object, which on closer inspection Sokka recognized as one of the buttons from Zuko's coat. It was white, and round, with a lotus flower design. Pakku, too, was looking curiously at it, and crouched down to pick it up.
"Oh my God, don't pick that up, that's disgusting."
Both Pakku and Zuko ignored Sokka's cry. Zuko just locked eyes with Pakku and declared: "He knows about the Moon."
And wasn't that an interesting look Princess Yue was exchanging with the khan. Her father, presumably, who looked… deeply concerned about a fact that was as simple as the sky is grey from the ashes of a nuclear winter.
"Take them away," ordered Pakku, leaving Sokka to wonder, for not the first time that day, what exactly had just happened.
"So, now that we're not freezing to death or getting our teeth re-arranged. Want to tell me what all the flowers and moon cryptic-ness is all about?"
"No."
Sokka knew it was a futile gesture to kick the icy wall of their cell, but he did it anyway. "You really make it extremely difficult to work with you sometimes. I'm pretty sure we want the same thing here, so can you just. Tell me shit, so I can take it into account because let's please remember who's the genius out of the two of us."
He slumped down against the wall, coming to sit opposite the Fire Prince in optimal glowering position.
"I can't tell you because I don't know everything either. Not because I don't want to."
"You were bluffing?" Sokka had to give the guy credit. That took balls, and Sokka's were still frozen from their swim.
"No! I mean, it's true, what I said."
"And you're going to have to explain what you meant by that, because unless these people have legitimately never seen the moon before, you didn't mean what I think you meant," Sokka interjected, but Zuko continued on with his own train of thought.
"The White Lotus, all of that, it's just… sometimes Uncle asks me to do things, so I do them. He doesn't tell me why, and I respect that because it's never too much trouble and he knows best. Besides, it worked, didn't it? It means something, it's a token, just like Uncle said it was. It got them to take us seriously, after all."
"Yeah, taken seriously to jail, probably awaiting interrogation and then execution." Sokka thought about beating his head against the wall, but he didn't want to do his captor's job for them. Zuko, perhaps, could do with having his cognitive capacity re-arranged, though. Did non-genius-level people really trust so much in AIs that they didn't question their judgement?
"Speaking of which," Sokka picked up his previous line of inquiry. "I doubt they're just going to let us go, so how about some fire and then we break out of here? And if you can multitask, tell me about the moon while you're at it."
"I've never broken out of a prison before," said Zuko, a frown in his voice.
Sokka had a bad feeling about that phrasing. "How many have you broken into?"
"Several."
"Unbelievable." Sokka let his head flop back against the wall. The ice actually felt pretty good on his bruised skull, so he left it there. "How do you usually get out again?" At this point, it couldn't hurt to ask.
"Isn't that why you're here?" Zuko had the audacity to ask. "You're the Plan Guy."
"Once again, Zuko," snapped Sokka. "How do you expect me to plan things when you insist on withholding information?"
"Fine," grumbled Zuko, squirming in an attempt to get more comfortable on the ice. "I'll tell you what I can, but then you owe me a good plan."
"Fine." Never let it be said that Sokka wasn't confident about his intellectual capabilities.
Several hours later, Sokka could reluctantly agree that Zuko had probably done the efficient thing by not explaining during their frigid canoe ride.
He could even more reluctantly decide on the best plan of action: inaction.
It was, much to his chagrin, a good plan.
"The Fire Lord knows that the Moon failsafe is located here, in Baikonur," Zuko summarized to Arnook Khan. And, well, when he'd said that to Sokka it had earned a half-hour rant from Sokka about how the failsafes weren't real any more than the Avatar was.
Arnook didn't argue with Zuko's statement at all. Neither did Pakku, or Yue, or any of the other local officials gathered in the small conference room.
Sokka stood corrected.
"Recently, that information reached one of his Admirals – a sycophant who has the resources at his disposal to initiate an attack."
When Sokka had learned this little tidbit about Zhao, he'd understood Zuko's hatred for the man a little more. Not that what Zhao had done to acquire said information in the first place wasn't enough to make anyone's blood boil, but it was probably best that Zuko didn't bring it up here. He'd obfuscated enough in the cell, alone with Sokka who could deduce full well what had happened, but the last thing they needed right now was for the blame to bounce back to Zuko.
"I can't be sure when they're coming, but rest assured – the Fire Nations will attack. And if you help us out, I will make sure that you are both forewarned and know exactly what you'll be facing."
"You would betray your own people?" came Yue's soft voice.
A look of angry frustration crossed Zuko's face. "The Fire Nations need the Moon too, we can't risk the balance any more than you can. I don't know what Zhao is thinking!"
They'd have to be fools to turn this offer down, Sokka had assured Zuko, teeth chattering in the cold of their cell. Like you are right now? Zuko had turned the statement on its speaker, and that was the only reason – besides signs of early-onset hypothermia – that Sokka had awkwardly curled into the fire mutant's side, accepting the offer of shared heat.
"We accept," said Arnook Khan, after a moment's silent communication with Pakku and a glance at Yue. "Pakku is our technical lead, and he will assist you with the children. Master Yugoda, our combat specialist, will train your sister, Sokka, in exchange for your own insight into technological solutions. You'll all be granted access to necessary facilities, with appropriate supervision."
They'd had to tell almost the full story of their adventures with icebergs and frozen children during the course of the negotiations, but in the end Sokka was satisfied with the outcome. Better than being dead, for starters.
"I will do my best to ensure that these conditions are carried out to the satisfaction of both parties," said Princess Yue.
The Khan nodded gratefully at his daughter, before turning back to the Fire Prince. "In return, you, Zuko, will assist us with preparing defensive countermeasures against a Fire Nations invasion force, up to and including detailed information on the military's organizational structure and weapons capabilities. This is our final offer."
Pakku didn't need to say what refusal would mean, and Zuko didn't need to add any threats to assure them neither side wanted to risk that outcome.
Zuko nodded, the movement sharp. Sokka echoed the movement, and pasted on a broad smile as he took a small bow. "Thank you for helping us help you help us all."
A/N: I had a hard time finding out information about the structure of the Kazakh Junior zhuz, so I just went with the title of Khan for Arnook cuz it sounds cool. I am definitely open to more accurate suggestions if anyone happens to know.
You should look up Kazakh traditional clothing by the way, their women's fashion is top-notch.
And if you've ever stood beside a Saturn V rocket, you know how humbling that is.