disclaimer. nothing recognizable belongs to me.

author's notes. i have no words. i'm honestly speechless and overwhelmed by everyone who sent their well wishes and their love, thank you so much. treatment hasn't been easy but i'm doing okay for now.

this one's for all you lovely beautiful people.

i give you...

southern lights.

chapter xxxviii. perpetual motion


did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

"wish you were here"/ pink floyd


The dim morning half-light glimmers off the snowdrifts outside the healing house, a humble igloo that manages to be warm despite its stark snowy interior, completely bereft of any furnishings except for a weathered animal-hide mannequin lying on a cot in its center.

This far north, early was a deceptive term. In the heart of polar winter, the first light of day often didn't arrive until well past midmorning. Unlike Fire Empire routine, designed to maximize time spent in the sun, life in the Northern Water Tribe didn't start until far later in the day.

Even still, Katara stifles the yawn that threatens to escape her. In spite of a much-needed rest - in a proper house no less - the hour had been late indeed by the time Yue had escorted her to the guesthouse, one of a long row of small igloos erected quickly in the empty plains surrounding Aujuittuq. It had been so late that even her friends had departed to sleep, their footprints in the snow outside her door the only sign they'd ever been there at all.

Guilt swells in the back of her throat and she swallows it down with no small effort. She shifts uncomfortably where she kneels alongside the other Water Tribe girls, her joints unused to such stillness.

Unlike her lessons with Master Pakku, which had consisted of her and maybe six other teenage boys, the healing house is crammed with girls of all ages and backgrounds. She counts at least two dozen gathered this morning: two old masters, a handful of girls roughly around her own age, and at least three girls so young they could barely speak. All gathered under the roof of the single cramped hut to learn the humble healer's art.

All of whom were currently gawking at her, unable to disguise their curiosity.

But Yue had introduced her to their midst with the calm command of a princess. And so everyone gathered to study the healer's humble art learned quickly to hold their tongues and accept the stranger into their fold without a word in otherwise.

For that, Katara couldn't help but feel grateful.

She keeps mostly to herself during her first lesson, trying to avoid drawing anymore undue attention to herself. The two master healers are situated at the head of the room - Yugoda, a grey-haired woman roughly the age her Gran-Gran would have been, demonstrates healing techniques on the hide mannequin while Ahnah, an old blind woman stooped with age, hunches over a stool and narrates in a grating reedy voice.

"...to fix a simple puncture wound, such as with a fishhook or small knife, apply pressure to the entry points and drain…"

Katara tries her best to pay attention despite her tiredness. But among even the youngest girls called up to demonstrate in front of the class, she can't help but feel like a lumbering oaf.

"My, my!" Yugoda exclaims a quarter of an hour later, as Katara places her hands on the mannequin. "That's one way to do it! The wound certainly won't bleed out if you apply that much pressure to it."

Katara bites her lip, flushing self-consciously as everyone chuckles. "Sorry," she apologizes, hastily lifting her water-gloved hands from the mannequin. "I just never really learned how to do this properly."

But Yugoda only smiles warmly at her. "That's alright, dear. You're here to learn, after all." She moves closer, covering Katara's hands with her own before placing them back onto the dummy gently. "There, see? A light touch is all it takes. Let the water do the work for you, and you won't tire as quickly."

Sweat beads upon Katara's brow at the unfamiliar technique. She flexes her fingers with the effort to keep them relaxed and gentle. The water glows and vibrates against her skin, a refined motion almost too delicate to detect.

"Just like that!" Yugoda praises her warmly, clapping her hands together in delight. "A little bit of practice and you'll be a natural in no time!"

Something small rises with elation inside Katara's chest at the unexpected encouragement. After so many years of fighting, maybe healing lessons were exactly what she needed. If it was good enough for all the women in this room, why couldn't it be good enough for her too?


"...and this is where you'll find some way to be useful around here. Usually after lunch, the women will gather and tackle the day's work."

The hustle and bustle inside the large communal tents at the city's heart unfolds around Katara with the controlled chaos of a storm around its deceptively peaceful eye. She blinks stupidly in the firelit interior, crammed full of warm animal hides and girls of all ages milling about, chattering, working under the watchful eye of the village matriarchs.

"The day's work," Katara echoes glumly. "Mending and washing and cleaning, you mean."

Nerrivik, the broad, slightly terrifying, middle-aged housewife charged with the thankless task of introducing Katara to the responsibilities of a Northern Tribe woman, only glares at her. "There's more to it than that," she explains witheringly. "The men wake at the crack of dawn to hunt and trap what they can, and then they work to keep us safe. In the meantime, we do what we can to support the tribe. Who keeps their weapons sharp and their boats seaworthy? Who sews the clothing we all wear on our backs and the furs that keep us warm in winter? Who butchers the day's hunt and feeds the tribe?" Her flint-coloured eyes bore into Katara's accusingly. "It is in these halls that we women keep alive the beating heart of our tribe."

Katara can't help but lower her head shame-facedly. "You're right." She scuffs aimlessly at the ground, trying to quash the immediate resentment that surges up within her. "It does sound...important."

Nerrivik's expression softens momentarily. "What skills do you have?"

"Me?" Katara is taken aback. "Um...it's been a while, to be honest…" She casts back in her memory, past years of anguish and bloodshed, to a simpler time when her days were occupied by the simple tasks of supporting a community where she belonged. "...I can sew, I guess," she says awkwardly, as Nerrivik's foot taps an impatient rhythm against the ground. "I think I still remember how to do that."

"Hmph," Nerrivik sniffs. "Well, it's better than nothing. Even if your domestic skills appear terribly neglected -"

"Yes," Katara snaps back, "being snatched from my home and surviving the colonial schools didn't really leave much time for maintaining domestic skills. Sorry if that inconveniences you." She bares all of her teeth into a feral smile, wondering if she appears every bit as uncouth as the sheltered Northern Tribeswoman must think her to be.

Nerrivik's nostrils flare officiously. "Hm. Southerners," she mutters to herself, shaking her head. "Luckily for you, we find ourselves hosting an unprecedented number of guests at the moment, and Chief Arnook has made it clear that our hospitality shall not be found lacking. You can help with preparing the clothing for now, and maybe with luck, some of the other girls can show you the ropes around here."

Katara only glowers as Nerrivik steers her through the chaotic hut, clearly separated into distinct but overlapping areas of industry. In one corner, some of the older women are bent over lengths of shining driftwood, waxing and whittling them into oars and masts. In another, their weathered hands roll and stretch tanned drums of animal hides to fashion into clothes, tent covers, sails. A group of younger, stronger women chatter good-naturedly among themselves as they fletch arrows and nock sharpened stones to the heads of spears.

Women's work, Katara thinks to herself, half disparagingly and half in awe. For Nerrivik was right in one way. This was the beating heart of the community, the well-oiled machine that kept the Tribe afloat.

"Aujak!" Nerrivik snaps, as they stop abruptly in front of a small group of women, some years Katara's senior. "I've brought you another one. Do you have any work to spare?"

A rosy-cheeked woman glances over her shoulder at Nerrivik, before slowly rising to her feet respectfully. "Of course, Nerrivik. We have to clothe an entire visiting army, after all!" The woman sizes Katara up from top to bottom, clutching a hand to the heavy pregnant swell of her belly in order to maintain her balance. "Is this one from the South too?"

Nerrivik sniffs again, a sound that Katara is beginning to learn signifies her perpetual disapproval. "Yes. I figure she might as well start off with you, what with your common life experiences -"

"Wait," Katara says slowly, "are you from the Southern Water Tribe too?"

Now the pregnant woman's face splits into a crinkly, friendly smile. "I am!" she exclaims, thrusting out a weathered hand. "My name is Aujak. And these -" she gestures to the two curious women sitting on the ground behind her, "are Hei and Lusa! We all came from the Southern tribe!"

"No way!" Katara exclaims, studying the small group excitedly. "I mean - I knew some of us escaped up here, but I've never met anyone who did until now -"

"I see she's in good hands then?" Nerrivik interrupts with a weary glance at Aujak. "I trust you to keep her in line and make sure she pulls her weight around here."

"Don't worry, Nerrivik," Aujak replies, somehow managing to keep her face entirely straight even as laughter glimmers in her pale blue eyes. "We'll find some use for her. You go take care of everything else you have on your plate. I'm sure it's all very important."

"Oh, you have no idea. Thank you dear," Nerrivik breathes in relief, clasping a knotted hand to her forehead before turning on her heel and scurrying off, already in search of another hapless individual to harry.

"Don't mind her," Aujak supplies conversationally. "She's a character, but her heart's in the right place." She motions at a small wooden stool, already being cleared of the piles of sewing supplies stored haphazardly on it. "Here, take a seat, we don't bite!"

Katara obliges, seating herself among the small group of women sitting in a ring behind Aujak. A group of Southern Water Tribe survivors like herself, if it could be believed. She studies the women swiftly, idly wondering if she could place them from her distant memories of a lifetime ago.

"What's your name?" one of the other girls asks kindly, setting down the swath of cloth that she had been folding and measuring.

Katara glances at the three women, some years older than herself, hunched over their sewing and dressed comfortably in plain furs. In spite of their unexpected circumstances, they appeared easy around each other, with laugh lines creasing along their young faces. A strange pang hits her at the sight of it.

"Katara," she answers forlornly, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Aujak pauses, exchanging a quizzical glance with another of the women. "Katara?" she echoes, her brow crumpling. "That name sounds familiar...I can't remember why…"

"Your dad was a chieftain," supplies another, a sprightly stick of a woman with coils of dark hair piled on top of her head. She studies Katara intently with clear grey eyes. "Somebody important, right?"

Katara shrugs, her father's memory a sinking feeling in her gut where once it had been a glow of fierce pride. "Hakoda," she says dully.

All three of the women surrounding her gasp in shock.

"Hakoda, you said?"

"You mean, the Hakoda?"

"You were from Sivusiktok? I lived a couple of villages away, we must have been practically neighbours..."

Katara learns that Aujak is nearly ten years older than herself, had been given in marriage to an Aujuittuq man upon her arrival in the North and was expecting her third child after having borne two healthy sons. "I'd like a girl," she comments with a wry smile, patting the swell of her belly. "Try being the only woman in a house full of boys! It just doesn't feel complete without a little girl, does it? But…" she trails off, before picking up a pair of bone shears and continuing to cut pieces of dyed cloth off the roll.

She learns that Lusa, the woman closest to her in age, had originally lived in Inuisertut, a village not very far from her home in the South Pole. Her family had been close friends with the village chieftain, a man who would have been familiar to Hakoda in his time as chief.

"Small world, huh?" Lusa remarks, biting soft thread off the spool and tying it off into a knot.

She learns that Hei, the tiny woman with the coils of dark hair and clear grey eyes, had been tapped for her healing abilities and spent her time fixing cuts and broken bones. "They didn't try as hard to marry me off," she explains, plying her fine bone needle through lengths of cloth and furs effortlessly. "Not for a lack of effort, though. Chieftain Natok - that's Nerrivik's husband, you see, I think he had a nephew or a cousin or someone he wanted to move out to Aujuittuq, besides his fool son Hahn. Ah, from the look on your face, I see you've met Hahn already. My condolences."

"Healers are in short supply up here," Aujak explains cheekily, as Katara blushes and resolves to make herself less easily read. "Well, especially after - after what happened -" her voice breaks off momentarily before she composes herself and continues, smiling bravely, "the Tribe was just happy to receive anyone! There's so much to do around here, and if you had special abilities or - or just the right attitude, they were happy to take us in!"

"What about waterbenders?" Katara inquires quietly, the sewing in her hands remaining quite neglected. "Surely I can't be the first one?"

She doesn't miss the loaded glance that Lusa and Hei exchange among themselves. "The Fire Empire dragged all the known Southern waterbenders off into their prisons," Lusa says carefully, not meeting Katara's gaze.

"Yes, but - what about the ones who got away?" Katara presses on curiously. "I mean, Hei - you're a healer. Doesn't that mean that you were born a waterbender in the South?"

"That's all in the past," Hei answers primly, suddenly fastidiously occupied with her sewing as well. Katara watches the embroidered patterns bloom to life under her quick fingers, a trail of birds and berries and leaping fish. "I'm here now and I'm a healer. Nothing else matters."

"But -"

"Nothing good ever came out of us being able to waterbend, Katara," Lusa hisses through gritted teeth, before her green eyes widen in panic at the accidental admission. "I - I mean -"

"What Lusa means is that we have a life here now," Aujak cuts in smoothly, even as worry creases in small lines around her eyes. "The wars, the colonial schools, the escape north - all of that is behind us. The North gave us other things to live for. A job, a family, a community. We have purpose, Katara." She smiles and her eyes glisten warmly with reflected firelight. "I hope you find that here too, eventually. After everything you've been through, isn't that what you deserve?"

Katara is so taken aback by the suggestion that she finds herself unable to answer.

Truth be told, it sounded nice. And wasn't what Aujak suggested exactly what she was looking for? Wasn't that the reason she had all but rejected her position as a general in Iroh's army, a decision that still makes her mind wrestle over itself in confusion?

"You might want to make some headway on that hemming, Katara," Hei suggests quietly. "Otherwise, Nerrivik might just consign you to the soapmaking circles next, out of spite."

"Right," Katara says, bending her head down to the task.

By the time the afternoon chores are complete, Katara suspects that Nerrivik might not have been too satisfied with the quality of her stitching. Yet despite several accidental stabs of the needle, two bravely hemmed tunics, and a promise made to the other Southern girls to join them again the following day, she leaves the women's huts feeling somehow more alone than when she had entered.


While the days in the Northern Water Tribe were a communal exercise, the hours after sundown were a strictly domestic affair. As the sky darkened and the chill in the air deepened, the combined glow of firelight and phosphorescent stone painted the entire city in flickering shades of gold and blue. Men, weary from their long days of training and hunting and trapping, stumbled gratefully back to their homes, while their wives served up whatever had been prepared and distributed from the day's kill. For that was the way of the tribe. No matter in times of plenty or scarcity, everyone earned their equal share. How else could it be in a land so cold and unforgiving?

But Katara, still housed among General Iroh's visiting army and with no family of her own, gratefully leaped at the chance to find her friends and join them for the hearty dinner being served in the kitchen tent set up by the guesthouses.

However, the army kitchen bustles full of people she no longer recognizes - mostly Air Nomads with their blue arrow tattoos and Empire soldiers who had served in different regiments. Among them, she feels like a broken nail along cloth, every now and then dragging against a quizzical stare in her direction.

This was my choice, she reminds herself, gratefully accepting a wooden bowl heaped with seal and stewed berries. I couldn't possibly continue to support Iroh, not after what he did.

Instead, she focuses on the tantalizing aromas drifting upward from her plate. Familiar. Nourishing. A reminder of a time long past and yet somehow remaining just within grasp, if only she tried hard enough.

Her eyes sharpen at the sight of a familiar duo seated in the corner among a group of saffron-clad acolytes: Aang's shaved, tattooed head, no longer as distinctive as it once was in this crowd, and Toph's shock of dark hair, the green velvet collar of her uniform peeking out under the heavy borrowed parka.

She picks her way over to them, their presence only now reminding her of how conspicuous their absence at her side had been, like the loss of a limb.

"Got room for one more?" she asks, inexplicably nervous as she sidles up to them.

To her relief, Aang grins warmly at her, shuffling over to grant her room on the bench next to him. Even Toph seems to brighten up at her presence, and the heavy weight lingering on Katara's shoulders seems to lighten somewhat.

"Well, look who decided to grace us with her presence," Toph drawls, scraping her spoon along the remnants of her supper. "After that stunt you pulled last night, we weren't sure we were ever going to see you again, Sugar Queen."

Katara's cheeks burn. "Sorry," she says hastily, glancing around them and noticing the fourth, conspicuously empty seat. "I didn't expect them to put me on the spot like that."

"I don't think anyone did," Aang admits softly. He fiddles with his bowl, the stewed berries picked clean off the untouched seal meat. An instinctive pang of distress strikes Katara at the sight of it. "But...it's great that you're reconnecting with your people, Katara! That must be so exciting!"

"Right," Katara agrees dully. "Exciting." She thinks of her day, busy and exhausting in some respects and utterly confusing in all others. "You have no idea."

"Well, it probably beats sitting in councils all day," Toph groans. "I miss when it was just us in Team Avatar. Now we've got all these extra voices from the different parts of the military butting in, not to mention the Air Nomad Elders and the Water Tribe band chiefs -"

"They're all on board already?" Katara asks, taken aback at the speed of it. "I would have thought it would take longer for the Northern Tribe chiefs to come to the table."

Toph shrugs. "They haven't made a decision one way or another. They just want to hear what we're planning before they commit."

"And they're okay to sit in on a council with you as a part of it?" Katara can't help the bitterness that leaches into her voice. "Even though you're a girl?"

"I don't think Toph would give them a choice," Aang supplies, his faint smile an unintentional slap in the face.

"Yeah, they stopped their complaining real quick once I bent some metal at their heads," Toph finishes, her face splitting into a roguish grin.

Katara blinks, nonplussed. "You did what now?"

"Oh right!" Toph exclaims, her grin widening. "You weren't there. Yeah...I know how to bend metal now."

"You do?" Katara demands, thunderstruck. "Since when? How long?"

Toph raises her hands defensively, as though trying to stem her tirade of questions. "Since the night of the wedding! I first figured it out when I broke out of the cage Sparky's sister trapped me in, and then I was working on perfecting it while we were on the ships."

"I guess that's why you weren't as seasick this time," Katara breathes, her confusion suddenly settling into a new, impossible reality. Toph could bend metal, a feat previously thought to be the stuff of stories. But she'd done it - whatever it was that held the earth captive to her will now extended to metal, once a prison for the blind earthbender. "It all makes so much more sense now!" she exclaims, laughing in disbelief.

Belatedly, she remembers all of Toph's snide comments from the boat and her blush deepens.

"I hope you're not upset?"

Toph's uncharacteristically earnest question catches Katara off guard. "Upset?" she echoes. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" Toph pushes the remaining chunks of stew around in her bowl. "I wanted to tell you. I had it all planned out, really. It was great, I was really going to mess with your head for a while."

"Gee, thanks," Katara retorts grumpily, shoveling a spoonful of stew into her mouth, hoping it would dispel the bitter taste blooming there.

"But it just sort of slipped out at the meeting today," Toph continues, blowing her disheveled bangs out of her eyes. "And you weren't there and I wish you were."

The food in Katara's mouth suddenly loses all its taste. Katara pauses, chewing the tough meat until she can finally swallow the heavy mouthful and the unhelpful sentiments accompanying it. "I'm sorry, Toph," she says, carefully aware that it wasn't enough to make up for her absence. "I wish I could have been there. But that's not how things work around here, apparently."

If either Toph or Aang hears the bitterness in her voice, neither of them make any mention of it.

"Just...just be careful, Sweetness, okay?" Toph asks, remarkably unguarded. "I've been where you are before, and I can tell you it's a slippery slope straight into the middle of a locked cage."

Unbidden, Katara thinks of the girls practicing their healing on the hide dummy in Yugoda's crowded hut. Of Hei's fingers expertly embroidering polar bear parkas, and of the panic in Lusa's eyes when she'd blurted out that waterbending had brought nothing but misery to them all.

After everything you've been through, isn't that what you deserve? Aujak had asked. Aujak, who had braved a similar flight north after losing everything, only to find contentment in her days in the womens' huts, gossiping with her friends over sewing, parrying the orders of overly controlling women with good humour. A vision of a future Katara had never thought for herself.

A vision of a future that should bring her peace, but only fills her with more resentment.

"Yeah," she mumbles through another mouthful of stew. "I'll be careful. Don't worry about me."

A slight commotion at the tent entrance cuts across their conversation. Katara spots General Iroh marching past the serving line, accompanied by a small retinue of his closest advisors, all bundled in ill-fitting fur parkas layered over their deep crimson velvets. Zuko hovers by his side, his unwavering right hand. A true prince, regal and impassive, the scar permanently twisting his face into a scowl.

The golden firelight winks off the small crown pinned to his topknot, and even under the ridiculous layered parkas, his shoulders were broad and straight. She remembers the feel of them under her fingertips, and makes herself look away before breathing became any more difficult.

"Took you long enough," Aang says brightly as Zuko approaches them, his hands wrapped around a steaming bowl of stew. "I thought you were never getting out of there, Zuko!"

"Me neither," Zuko confesses in a small voice. "And it isn't even over yet. Jee's just intercepted a whole series of communications, we're going to have to go through them quickly -"

"Already?" Toph asks, aghast. "But you've been cooped up in that stupid meeting room all day! Can't they give you a break?"

"I'm the Crown Prince, Toph. It's my duty."

The sound of Zuko's carefully measured voice makes it difficult for Katara to look at him directly, not since he had thought to speak out on her behalf the night before. Even though the day had brought no more clarity to Katara's decision and she understands now that he, like Toph, had only her best interests at heart…

It is only as the silence rises questioningly around them that Katara realizes that she's been staring at him. Her face flames hot at the quizzical look burning in his golden eyes. Instantly, she wishes everyone else would just disappear already.

But there was no such luck, as General Iroh, seeking out his nephew, chooses that exact moment to join them, ostensibly to drag Zuko back to the middle of whatever meeting they had scheduled next. Instead, he pauses and offers a smile. "Sifu Toph, Sifu Aang, I hope you are enjoying the hospitality here so far?"

"Can't complain," Toph replies.

Aang returns Iroh's smile, tapping at his unfinished bowl. "Yeah, maybe tomorrow they'll have a vegetarian option!"

Iroh's face falls at the sight and he shakes his head. "My sincerest apologies. I didn't even think to mention it to the cooks…"

"I can bring it up with them," Katara speaks up waspishly, Iroh's haplessness making her feel suddenly defensive of her entirely underwhelming day. "It's the women who do all the cooking anyway. I'm sure they can forage for some extra sea prunes or something."

Iroh appears taken aback by the sound of her voice. Perhaps he didn't expect her to speak at all anymore, she reflects bitterly. The silence surrounding them turns uncomfortably tense.

"Sifu Katara," Iroh manages at last, his smile uncertain. "I am glad to see you here, thriving -"

"Please, General, we can dispense with the formalities," Katara cuts him off. "I'm not your resident waterbending master anymore. Just Katara will do."

Iroh's eyebrows lower in a pained display of sympathy. "Surely you will not take my civility as cause for reproach? Whether in the North or outside of it, your talent and capability remain unchanged in my eyes. Regardless of how you choose to use them...or not."

Arrogant old man, she thinks harshly. Who is he to judge me?

"I see you and your soldiers are all warm, General," she bites out icily. "The parkas you all wear were all hand-sewn by the women of this tribe. The food on your plate. The bowls and utensils, carved from bone and driftwood...all work of the women of this tribe."

She directs a smile at him edged in flint.

"Forgive me," Iroh says automatically, sensing that he had struck a nerve and drawing back. "It was not my intention to cause offense."

"Of course not," Katara says severely. "I never expected you to understand my choice. But do not disrespect the work that Water Tribe women put into keeping this community afloat. Your little venture up here wouldn't survive without it."

She follows his steady retreat with unwavering eyes. With a sigh of frustration, she sets down her spoon in its bowl, the chunks of seal meat devoured and only congealed lumps of deep red berries remaining.


"You really shouldn't have spoken to him like that."

Katara kneads her temples with cold, weary fingers. It is well past bedtime and the deep black of polar night shrouds the slumbering tribe, the bright golden firelight all but dimmed to a faint shimmer.

Inside her small igloo, the fire in the pit ebbs to cool red coals, touching the pale white snow with rosy fingers. Its interior is spare if not comfortable: humble furnishings carved into the ice, a wooden basin and pitcher for washing, piles of animal furs and skins for warmth.

The tent flaps hanging along the doorway stir in the nighttime wind. Zuko lingers awkwardly on the threshold, afraid to intrude any further. It had been of little surprise to her when she'd heard him outside her door after dinner. After everything, the air between them was heavy yet again, and she had known that he would come to her in his own time.

But even though she thought herself prepared for his quiet reproach, it rankles at her anyway.

"I tried," she admits, her face falling. "I didn't want to, but it just slipped out. He was so arrogant and I got so angry."

"I don't think he was being arrogant, Katara," Zuko explains tersely, taking a tentative step into the igloo. Tamped snow crunches softly under the sole of his boot. "I think he was expressing his concern in his own way."

Katara blows a wayward strand of hair out of her face. "Iroh, the great Dragon of the West? Concerned for little old me? I should count my blessings."

"He's not the only one." Zuko's voice grows quieter in hesitation. "Katara, we're all worried about you. You're...not acting like yourself here."

"You don't know that," Katara counters stubbornly. Annoyed with the way her hands begin to shake, she reaches for her small pack of belongings, ferreting through it aimlessly. Her hands close around a bone comb, cold and hard to the touch. "You've never experienced life in the tribe, Zuko. None of you have. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean you should be worried about me."

The ebbing red heart of the firepit glows instantly brighter before dimming again. In his corner of the igloo, Zuko lets out a breath of frustration. "It's not that," he struggles to explain, as Katara undoes the myriad little braids in her hair and it cascades over her shoulders in a heavy dark fall. "Are you telling me that all of this -" he gestures around him vaguely, "- is exactly what you expected?"

Something in the sound of his voice makes her pause. "I -"

"You miss your home. I get that, I really do," Zuko continues, now seemingly unable to stop himself. "You want to do anything to get it back. Even if it means bending yourself into a shape that hurts you."

Katara freezes, her breath hitching in her throat. She glances at her own tired face in the burnished mirror before meeting Zuko's eyes in its glassy reflection. "But you still did it," she says softly, her fingers decisively dragging the bone comb through strands of her hair. "You had your freedom to make your mistakes and learn from them. Now let me have mine."

She winces as the comb snags on a knot tangled into her hair.

Zuko sighs again in defeat. "Was it this terrifying for you when I went back home?"

Katara chews her lip as the comb finally breaks through the knot, ripping pieces of hair out mercilessly. "Worse," she says plainly.

He recoils as though she had slapped him. "I guess I deserve this then."

"I'm not doing any of this because of you," Katara retorts snappishly.

"I know." He raises his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I - I just mean…" He trails off, watching her slowly comb her hair out in the dying firelight.

In the weighted silence, Katara can't help the faint stab of sympathy in her chest. "Everything is different now," she confesses, replacing the bone comb in its pouch. "I had such high hopes of what I would find here. But I forgot about the reality of it all. We did things differently in the South...and that doesn't matter now."

"I hate the way they treat you," Zuko growls, an edge entering his voice that sends prickles of unease running down her spine. "You're worth so much more than what they're giving you. It's a waste, Katara -"

"Oh, so you've decided that for me, have you?" Katara challenges, flaring up in a trice. She whirls around, marching up to him until they are practically nose to nose. "What about the way your father treated you? Time and time again...but you followed him anyway, because you still had hope that things could change!" Angry tears threaten to brim in her eyes and she looks away, setting her jaw uncompromisingly. "I trusted you to make the right choice for yourself. I believe I've earned the same from you."

The air surrounding him turns almost unbearably warm. She resists the urge to step back.

"I trust you," Zuko mumbles wearily, even as Katara raises a skeptical eyebrow. "But there's something going on here. The band chiefs, they're hiding something. Or haven't you noticed how they skulk around every time you mention the Southern Tribe or your brother?"

Katara gapes at him with equal parts disbelief and appraisal. She had expected him to continue to protest; instead he had cut straight to the heart of her own misgivings about the tribe. "Princess Yue said they were ashamed. Sokka wanted to join the resistance and fight back against the Empire. But they sent him off on a suicide mission instead."

"Do you think that's it?" In the dying firelight, Zuko's eyes seem to pin her in place. "I know you said that your tribe did things differently, Katara. But some people will do anything to keep things under their control. And if they can control you, what would that mean for the South?"

Katara tries very hard to keep her voice steady. "The South is ruined beyond repair," she chokes out. "Even if the Northerners could spare some waterbenders to rebuild it…" For an instant, she thinks of her home, rebuilt in the image of the North. With the band chiefs' tent at the heart of the community and women relegated to its corners. The complete opposite of what her mother would have wanted.

She meets Zuko's gaze to see thoughts of a similar nature flickering through his eyes. "It just seems too much of a coincidence," he says at last. "Your father and the Northerners disagreed on how to negotiate with the Empire. The next thing we know, the Southern Tribe is destroyed and the North starts accepting all its refugees under condition of obeying its rules? While staying miraculously unaffected by the wars?"

The thick wave of anger that had nearly strangled her in the hall before the band chiefs threatens to consume her again. Not for the first time does she question what Sokka must have thought when he first arrived. "Well, whatever it is, we have a better shot of finding out if we keep our eyes and ears wide open," she answers grimly. "Don't look at me like that, Zuko. You're not in much of a position to bargain either. From what I understand, your uncle needs the tribe to ally with you if you have a hope of getting your home back. And that means showing your respect for their culture, no matter what your personal opinion might be."

"I know, I know," Zuko grumbles. He pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling a small puff of smoke. "The picture of diplomacy, that's what I'll have to be."

"It'll be good practice for later," Katara advises, daring a little teasing smile. "And in the meantime... I could help you out."

"You'd do that?" Zuko demands hoarsely. "Even after everything?"

Katara shrugs, blood rushing to her face. "Well, nothing will change if you don't understand our way of life. And respect is a two-way street. I'm sure if you extended your hand, the band chiefs would notice and return the gesture in kind."

She grows uncomfortable under the growing intensity of his stare before he finally speaks again. "What do I need to know?"

With a sigh, she turns back to prod at the fire coals. The small room brightens instantly as it spits out tongues of flame, filling the air with sudden heat.

She settles herself on one side of the fire, and Zuko wordlessly sits on the furs on the other. "The first thing you need to understand about the tribes," she begins wearily as the crackling of firewood fills the air, "is their connection to the land itself. Long ago, when the spirits walked among us…"


The next morning, Katara rises early. On her way to the healing huts, she stops by the communal women's tent, already bustling with activity.

In spite of the faint periwinkle glow at the horizon's edge, roaring fires already illuminate the tent interior, dispelling the morning chill with surprising warmth. Under her fur-lined parka, Katara begins to sweat, even as she nervously slips inside.

If she had thought the tents a busy place the afternoon before, that scarcely compared to the chaos unfolding before her. Large pots of bubbling porridge and flat-baked breads steamed over top the fire pits, their smells mingling with the burning wood and animal fats in the dense warm air. Baskets of foraged plants were stacked by the back entrance, waiting to be cleaned and shelled and preserved. To her surprise, some of the older women were even barking instructions at a handful of young hunters dragging in the morning's kill: some fish, a pair of sizable caribou-elk that could certainly feed the tribe with meat to spare...

She spots Nerrivik hovering nearby, chastising a straggling pair of hunters. Katara thought she looked almost happy, even as the pair of young men cower in terror before her.

"...as if we weren't busy enough, not only must we butcher, cook and dry two whole caribou-elk, but also another entire tiger-seal to go with it? How wasteful!" She prods at the large carcass the two hunters carry between them, frowning at the scorch marks marring its striped neck. "We can still probably salvage most of the hide, but how in spirits' name did you manage to burn this creature during the hunt?"

One of the hunters, big and brawny with a half-shaven head, stirs uncomfortably but says nothing. The other, a tall lanky guy with a big forehead and a sealskin belt, clears his throat. "Well, we'd probably have let it go, but we had an important guest join us for the hunt this morning." Katara frowns, recognizing his voice and the two boys as having accompanied them on the boat ride into Aujuittuq. "Who were we to get in his way?"

"Guest?" Nerrivik's bushy eyebrows lower into a scowl. "What guest?"

"Crown Prince Zuko," the skinny guy mutters, and Katara silently chokes on her breath. "Marched right up to us this morning and asked if he could join us."

"How very strange," Nerrivik declares, with a loud sniff. "I don't understand these fire folk, or what they want from us."

"I don't know," the skinny guy muses, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. "He seemed pretty humble and curious to learn about our traditions. He knew an awful lot about some of our stories, too. Maybe he's just trying to be friendly."

Katara can't help the small smile that crosses her face, even as Nerrivik sniffs again in disapproval. "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard, even coming from you, Jukka! Firebenders are no friends to the Water Tribes, and don't you ever forget it! I'm amazed that Arnook is even entertaining this madness, what is this world coming to..."

The skinny guy, Jukka, exchanges a dry glance with the other hunter, before delicately interrupting Nerrivik's tirade. "So, uh, do you want the tiger-seal after all, or should Sangilak and I dump it back into the water?"

"Of course not!" Nerrivik all but shrieks, clutching at her chest. She points absently at another nearby tent where the other hunters have been hauling their carcasses. "Just...put it there with the others. We'll figure something out…"

And with another sniff and a muttered tirade under her breath, she barges outside, not even noticing Katara where she skulks in the doorway.

"C'mon," Jukka mutters, shifting under the weight of the tiger-seal carcass, "let's drop this off and go. We're already late."

The big guy grunts before effortlessly wrenching the entire carcass into his brawny arms. Without another sound, he stalks into the adjacent tent, the animal carcass somehow seeming absurdly tiny compared to his massive bulk.

"Show-off," Jukka complains to his retreating back.

Katara weighs her options, feeling more and more out of place even as Jukka dashes over to one of the cookfires and pilfers a golden flatbread off the baking stone. Quick as a wink, he shovels the entire thing into his mouth, wiping golden crumbs with the back of a mittened hand before he turns on the spot and meets Katara's silent, watchful eyes.

He tenses abruptly in surprise. "Were you always here?" he asks her bluntly, cocking his head at her.

"Uh -" Katara struggles to find a word to say. He seemed friendly enough, but he was still a guy from the North. "Yeah." She intercepts his glance at the baking stone, and the conspicuous empty space where the stolen flatbread had lain. "Don't worry. I won't tell Nerrivik."

"Thanks." Jukka flashes her a swift, grateful smile, which she unexpectedly finds herself returning, just before his pale eyes widen. "Hang on. You're the new girl, aren't you?"

The smile slides off her face as quickly as it had appeared, even as Jukka snaps to himself, as though trying to remind himself of something important. "Katara, right? Sokka's sister?"

Katara's gaze sharpens at the mention of her brother's name. "You knew Sokka?"

Jukka's face splits into a dimpled grin that instantly makes her miss her brother. "Of course I knew Sokka! That kid was trouble through and through! Brave though, and sharp as a whaleshark's tooth." His face grows unexpectedly somber. "I miss him."

"Yeah." Katara slumps. "Me too."

A heavy silence follows then, punctuated only by the crackling of the cookfires and the echo of voices clamouring from the nearby rooms.

"I'm Jukka, of Nagojut," the boy says, thrusting out his mittened hand littered with breadcrumbs. "You probably don't remember, but I was part of the patrol that brought you into Aujuittuq the other day."

"I remember." Katara accepts the proffered hand warily. Because as friendly as Jukka was, she also remembered some of the unkind commentary that had followed her on the boat ride inland. "There were a bunch of you."

"Yeah. We get around. No shortage of work on this side of Aujuittuq," Jukka says disarmingly, even though his grip on her hand is firm and unwavering. He nods as his brawny, silent friend lumbers back into their midst, having deposited the tiger-seal carcass in its proper place. "That's Sangilak, of Akluilak. He was with us on your boat too."

"I noticed," Katara says, now withdrawing her hand as the giant man approaches, dwarfing both of them in his shadow. With his half-shaven head, muscles straining the seams of his parka, and impassive blunt face, he truly cut an intimidating figure. It takes all of her effort not to shrink in his presence. "Sorry about the misunderstanding the other day."

Jukka's smile hitches at the corners as Sangilak's face darkens. "Misunderstanding?"

"Yeah, I mean, when you guys attacked us in the beginning and then I had to, you know, uh…" Katara trails off as the baffled silence greeting her words grows steadily colder. She sighs through gritted teeth, instantly regretting bringing her waterbending up again at all. "You know what? Never mind."

Sangilak rolls his eyes, already turning away. His voice rumbles like an avalanche of sliding rock. "C'mon, Bastard. Master Ukiuk will tan our hides if you get us late because of her."

Jukka scrambles to follow in Sangilak's footsteps out the door. "Nice meeting you!" he still calls after her before the tent flaps erase him from view and his reproachful voice fades into the morning air. "C'mon Sangilak, that was Sokka's sister, you could at least be nice"

Katara pinches the bridge of her nose, exhaling sharply in frustration. The heavy scents of boiling porridge and baking bread linger cloyingly in her nostrils, making her feel suddenly sick.

"And what are you doing here?" snaps Nerrivik's voice from directly behind her.

Katara jumps, finding herself face to face with the stout middle-aged woman, now clutching a turtleseal-shell basket and a flat bone utensil. "I…" she says weakly, suddenly struggling to remember her whole purpose of showing up here so early in the first place, "I just wanted to let you know that most of the Air Nomads are vegetarian," she says quickly, hating the meek tone her voice automatically assumed in the woman's presence, "and it would be really helpful if they could have something to eat that wasn't meat."

Nerrivik's thick eyebrows rise to the level of her hairline. "Vegetarians," she snorts. "Perfect. Just perfect. I didn't want to touch the dried vegetable stores for at least another moon, but Arnook ordered us to be hospitable…" She sniffs and shakes her head, strands of frizzy grey hair escaping its braids and flying every which way. "I'll see that they have enough to eat. Now, off to the healing huts with you." She waves a dismissive hand, already forgetting about her and directing another handful of girls to distribute the morning porridge and bread.


The days following afterward gradually melt into a routine of sorts, a rhythm of familiarity that dulled the passage of time even as it filled its spaces with neat little tasks to while it all away.

She learns how to pick out the quickest route from her igloo to the healing huts in the morning darkness, the deep silence broken only by the crunch of her softskin boots against the fresh powder of snow fallen overnight.

She spends most mornings holed up in the cramped healing house with Yugoda and Ahnah and all the other healing apprentices. Instead of grueling cross-bending training sessions with her friends, she learns to bite her tongue against the old masters' corrections.

"Gentle, Katara," Yugoda reminds her for what feels like the thousandth time, her knotted fingers brushing against the rigid line of her shoulders. "You are working with the water, not against it. Remember, this is healing, not waterbending."

But after years of waterbending, it has become second nature to her. After years of mastering the push and pull of water in all its shapes and spaces, the soothing art of healing in its patience and gentleness feels all wrong.

Still, she manages to learn those first simple lessons. How to heal a puncture wound from a hunting knife. How to set a bone broken from a slip on the ice. How to draw away the evil humours that collected in the chests of the young and old alike, that made them cough at night and struggle to draw breath and grow feeble and weak with each passing day.

She even begins to recognize the faces of the other healing apprentices, remembers their names when they pair off for lessons. Bunik, the sullen daughter of a band chief. Woka, an outspoken firebrand who would sooner fling water across the room than heal with it - a girl after Katara's own heart. Ulva, a steely reticent woman closest to Katara's own age but seeming far older, who everyone gave a wide berth, for she had been widowed young and under suspicious circumstances. Shila, sweet and popular, whose family required her to become a healer to uplift their social standing, but who seemed far more preoccupied with attracting a betrothal carving from a respectable match. Lately, it had become the source of much amusement among the teenage girls to tease Shila about the unlikely targets of her affections, which seemed to change from week to week.

Katara only raised her eyebrows and shook her head in a show of distaste, even while nursing the faint stabs of envy at the easy camaraderie the apprentices all shared.


In the afternoons, she joins the other Southern girls in the women's communal tents, whiling away her hours amid the thick heat of the roaring firepits.

In the cheerful, uncomplicated company of Aujak, Lusa and Hei, she doesn't revisit their shared lost past as she hoped they might. Instead, she remembers how to sew again. How to pick out polar bear furs for the winter parkas and seal hides for summer wear. How to stitch them together to withstand the bitter winter cold and the rigourous motions of hunting and fighting. How to embroider fine patterns along the cloth, tiny needle-stitches blooming along the dyed fabric in neat little rows.

"Well, look at you," Aujak marvels with a dimpled grin one day, "you're already becoming an expert! Is that your second parka you're completing there?"

"My third, actually," Katara replies without looking up. Beneath her fingers trails a simple pattern of tiny snowflakes and suns, the stitches neat and straight along the fur borders.

Lusa whistles appreciatively, glancing over bundles of unsorted cloth at the small pile of completed sewing folded neatly in a pile in Katara's basket. "Someone's been busy," she remarks, her green eyes glinting teasingly. "Are those for anyone special, Katara?"

Katara knots the thread and breaks it off the needle. "For my friends." She shakes out the garment in front of her, inspecting it in the roaring firelight. The heavy blue parka appears nearly overlarge in her hands, lined throughout with thick white polar bear fur. Enough to keep a firebender warm up here, she thinks with a small smile, recalling Zuko and his tendency to layer parkas with no regard for how it amused the Northerners.

As she folds it back up into her basket and stretches, she catches the other girls watching her oddly. Lusa sighs, her shadowed eyes growing strangely wistful. "You're lucky to have friends like that," she says absently, before continuing her sewing in silence.


And while her friends spent their long hours poring over maps and enemy communications, she learns other useful skills instead. How to properly butcher the day's kill, how to strip the flesh from the hide and preserve it with salt and rendered blubber. The myriad uses for the remains, so that hide and bone and entrails, none of it went to waste.

From the gossip filtering freely through the communal tents, she learns other, subtler things. How the women and their families felt generally uneasy about hosting so many outsiders in the heart of polar winter. How Chief Arnook's judgment would never be overtly questioned as the leader of the band chiefs, but whispers persisted about the necessity of growing involved in a conflict originating far beyond their borders. Even those sympathetic to Iroh's cause seemed more preoccupied with the tribe's winter reserves dwindling too quickly.

To Katara's growing annoyance, even the other Southern girls appeared unconcerned with Ozai's growing ambitions.

"He destroyed our home," she finds herself arguing one evening. "Surely you must find him a threat?"

"Of course he's a threat, Katara," Hei says simply, not even looking up from her sewing. "But he's all the way on the other side of the world, and severely injured." She doesn't mention the obvious. That the reason why Ozai lay injured half a world away instead of upon their doorstep sat across from her, mending worn-out mittens and old boots.

"Me, I'm more worried about winter," Aujak comments, wiping a hand against her damp sweaty brow. "It's harder and colder than we've had in years, and now we have all these new mouths to feed." She yawns loudly into her hand. "My husband says the men should be drilling, to sharpen up their warrior's skills in case of an attack. But they've been so busy hunting and foraging. It's not right."

With growing restlessness, she witnesses the haggardness apparent on the hunters' faces as they deposit their haul into the adjacent tents. Even cheerful Jukka, the only one among the surly Northern boys who made an effort to be friendly, spent less and less time around the communal tents. As for his companions, big menacing Sangilak and a handful of others, they were all kin to the tribe's band chiefs and had little time to spare for her or any other of the women.

"I don't understand why it bothers you so much," Lusa points out when Katara voices her frustration. "You left Iroh's army to join us. I thought you were done with fighting."

"I am," Katara argues, growing less sure each day of who exactly she was trying to convince.


"...and then Keelut demanded Jee to show him on the map where the messenger-hawks were coming from, and Toph told him -"

"I asked him what his problem was," Toph finishes, struggling to contain her mischievous grin, "if I could see it, why couldn't he?"

She and Aang dissolve into a fit of laughter, shared by the small group of air acolytes growing steadily around them.

I guess you had to be there, Katara thinks to herself dryly, resting her chin on her hand. "I guess Chieftain Keelut didn't appreciate being told off by a blind teenage girl, huh?"

"That's one way of looking at it!" Toph snorts, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Oh man, I wish I could've seen the look on his face -"

"He looked like he swallowed a bug mid-flight," offers Bodhi, one of the air acolytes from the Northern Air Temple. Golden firelight glimmers off the shining shaved dome of his head. "If he could fly, that is."

"If he got any angrier, something of his would probably go flying," Toph agrees.

"Knowing him, he probably wished it would be you, Toph," supplies Soma, another Air Nomad from the Eastern temple. "Unfortunately, he still had to pretend to be polite in front of Arnook and the Dragon General."

Unlike the majority of the crush of awestruck air acolytes riding hard on Aang's heels, blue tattoos decorate Soma's skin visible at wrists and forehead beneath a shock of black hair cropped nearly as short as Toph's. But that was where the similarity ended. Katara had frequently thought that Aang was the most different in temperament to Toph possible, but that was before she met Soma.

The thought of it fills her with a swelling disapproval that she can't explain. "The Dragon General?" she echoes scathingly. "Is that what Iroh's calling himself these days?"

"It is what the people are calling it," Soma informs her politely - as though of everyone sitting at the dinner table, Katara was the outsider, the one who didn't belong. "Ozai, the self-styled Phoenix King. And his brother Iroh, the famed Dragon of the West. A struggle between brothers and those caught in their loyalties. The war of the Dragons and the Phoenixes." She shrugs dispassionately. "It does have a noble ring to it."

"A noble ring to a stupid conflict," Katara snipes, tearing at the stewed sea-prunes with more ferocity than she intended. "But whatever pretty propaganda it takes to get more people on board, right?"

"You cannot possibly think the Phoenix army is blameless in all this," Soma continues, even as Toph claps a hand to her forehead and Aang very carefully looks elsewhere. "You were the one who took down Ozai. You know what he did. How can you stand aside and pretend that your role in this is over? That this conflict will not come for you, whether you engage in it or not?"

Katara sets down her spoon very calmly, exhaling sharply as though her breath was made of fire itself. "Are you honestly judging me for shunning one of the two men responsible for nearly destroying the tribe that your precious Dragon Army needs in order to stand a chance of winning its noble conflict?"

To the Air Nomad's credit, she only smiles knowingly, as though she knew something Katara didn't. "So you will only take up with the cause when it threatens you and no one else is left to shield you? The late Chief Elder Pasang felt the same way. Look what happened to him."

"Chief Elder Pasang was an arrogant old man who shut himself up in the mountains and thought he was above the conflict at his doorstep," Katara snaps. "I lost everything. I have nothing left to give that I haven't given already. You don't get to compare the two and then ask any more of me."

"Just drop it already," Toph mutters under her breath. Before Katara knows it, someone quickly cracks another joke at some hapless chieftain's expense, the table erupts in laughter, and the moment is lost entirely. Only the taste of her anger and disappointment remains, sharp in her mouth as though she had bitten her lip and drawn blood.


A few days later, Katara's morning classes are interrupted by a small group of women bursting unannounced into the healing house.

"Sorry to bother you," Nerrivik announces, crossing her arms across her chest, "but we need more hands in the kitchen tents. You can spare a few girls, right?"

Yugoda casts a mild glance at the newcomers, halting mid-sentence from where she had been explaining how to deliver a breech birth to one of the girls crouched over the glowing hide mannequin. "This is an important healing lesson," she says simply, as behind her, wrinkled old Ahnah taps her cane into the ice impatiently. "Surely there must be others in the tribe who are less occupied?"

"Chieftainess Nerrivik just told you she needed more help in the kitchens," retorts another of Nerrivik's companions, a taller, stockier version of Nerrivik herself. "She has the interests of the entire tribe at heart. Surely the healing lessons can wait?" She snaps at the apprentice lingering haplessly over the dummy. "Come, Shila. You're a good girl, you can always catch up later -"

"Is that Kirima I hear?" croaks Ahnah, tilting her blind face in the direction of the women standing at the hut's doorway. "Always in such a rush. How many times have you slipped on the ice and had to get your bones set by one of our girls? And now you ask if we can spare one!" She lets out a huff of dark laughter. "What is this tribe coming to?"

The woman called Kirima flushes visibly but takes a deliberate step into the hut. "We are hosting an entire guest army within our borders, in the middle of winter, rationing against the stores we prepared for our tribe. At times like this, we expect everyone to put the survival of the Tribe first, Ahnah. Whether they wear a healer's robe or not."

Katara startles in surprise at the unexpected battle lines drawn suddenly and decisively in the ground. But Ahnah only blinks, her filmy eyes the same colour as the weathered grey robe hanging off her wiry old body.

The heavy beads hanging around her neck and off the braids in her hair all clack together loudly as she struggles to her feet. "Master Yugoda and I have always put the Tribe first, Kirima. You can find the help you need anywhere else in Aujuittuq. Perhaps you could even trouble your young sons for help...if it is so sorely needed that you would interrupt my girls from their lessons."

Her voice rings like a hammer against steel in the crowded hut. Katara can't help but tug her grey apprentice-healer robe tighter about herself as Nerrivik lets out a loud sniff. "So, Master Ahnah. You cannot help us, or you will not? What am I to tell my husband, Chieftain Natok, or my son Hahn, who will one day lead the entire tribe itself?"

"Tell them whatever you want," Ahnah answers in a withering voice, seating herself back down on her small stool with the dignity of a queen on her throne. "Healing is a fading art in our Tribe. Within these huts, the imparting of it upon any able-bodied and willing student will always remain my priority. Do not presume to interrupt our lessons again with such trivial concerns. Otherwise, I am certain that Chief Arnook, who currently leads the tribe, will have strong words for you and any of the men you drag into your petty politics, Nerrivik."

It seems to Katara that Nerrivik swells forbiddingly at Ahnah's dismissal, like a bloated toadfrog straining to catch flies. "Very well," she says, her mouth tightening into a cold smile. "If this is how it is to be. Some of my kin are well-versed in the healing arts and would be happy to help you in your tasks, Master Ahnah. If you are indeed stretched so thin that you cannot spare a single girl to help us in our time of need. I will make sure they are able to join you for your lessons, starting tomorrow."

Ahnah inclines her head almost mockingly as Nerrivik and her companions turn back to the doorway. "Suit yourself. I hope they will add as much to our lessons as your charming presence has."

The tent-flaps sweeping shut behind the departing women do not entirely conceal the sound of Nerrivik's disapproving sniff.

"Well, Ahnah," Yugoda mutters, taking up her position beside the hide dummy and directing a bewildered Shila to continue her lesson, "you've gone and done it now."

"My dear Yugoda," old Ahnah sighs, much to Katara's growing consternation, "you don't get to my age by sparing a single thought for women like Kirima and Chieftainess Nerrivik."


Not that Nerrivik, nor anyone in her powerful family, had ever learned to accept defeat. In the case of her husband, he had forced the loss of tribal leadership into a betrothal between his son and the princess of the tribe herself. And Nerrivik's case, it meant planting several of her own creatures, distant cousins and family friends, into the healing classes themselves. Even when she wasn't around, Nerrivik always knew everything that was being said. And if Nerrivik knew, then Hahn and his father knew.

Which left Katara with one lingering concern. And that was where exactly she fit into the Northerners' plans when she surprised them with her arrival on their shores at the head of an army belonging to a perceived enemy.


"I can't stay long," Zuko says ruefully when he turns up at her door that night. He rubs at his eyes, where the shadows hang deep and dark in exhaustion. "I've been tied up in war strategy meetings all day long, and I have to be up early too."

"For the hunt," Katara answers, giving him an appraising glance from head to toe. "Why?"

He flushes under her gaze, but holds it nonetheless. "You were the one who suggested I do more to understand the ways of the tribe. I'm just...trying to do that."

She grins at him warmly as the flush on his face intensifies and crawls along his neck. "How's that going?"

He shrugs. "I'm not really sure. I try to keep up and stay out of their way, mostly." He pinches at the bridge of his nose exasperatedly. "Some days they tolerate me, and some days I get into trouble for accidentally killing a tiger-seal."

"Ah. The tiger-seal." Katara nods sagely, fighting to keep her face straight. "I heard about that. Nerrivik was furious."

"Nerrivik?"

"Chieftain Natok's wife," Katara supplies with a grimace of her own. "Hahn's mother."

Zuko's face crumples into an expression of such acute disgust that it nearly makes her laugh again. "If I could go the rest of my life without ever having to deal with Hahn and his stupid father ever again, that wouldn't nearly be long enough," he growls, dragging his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I don't understand how Toph hasn't murdered him yet."

"Probably because as Arnook's future son-in-law, it would leave a pretty bad impression overall," Katara suggests.

Zuko glares at a spot in the snow. "Probably," he agrees reluctantly, before letting out a long sigh. The set of his shoulders collapses, buckling as though under a heavy weight. "I'm really tired, Katara."

Katara turns to examine him in the dying light of the fire, the newly sewn parka soft and heavy in her hands. "They're really working you hard, aren't they?"

"It's not the work," Zuko bites out. "War tactics and deciphering intercepted messages, that's all fine. But I don't know what to make of the band chiefs, Katara. I really don't. Arnook and a few of the other chieftains seem to be in support of joining us, but Hahn and his faction - they just want us all to pack up and take a hike. Have Uncle challenge Father to an Agni Kai already and be done with it."

They're not wrong, Katara agrees privately. And then immediately drops the thought with abject horror, because it meant she accidentally agreed with Hahn about something.

"I...I just really wish you were with us." Zuko's voice drops to a weary mumble and this time he carefully avoids her gaze. "You belong there. You should have a say in what we do."

"Zuko -"

"I got a letter from Mai," he barrels over her abruptly, and suddenly Katara gets the sense that he has finally cut to the heart of the matter he has been longing to discuss. "She said that my father's recovered and he's put Zhao - he's a psychopath, Katara - in charge of amassing a fleet to mount a siege here -"

Katara can't help the disbelieving scoff that escapes her. "A siege? Here? In the middle of winter?"

"I know it sounds crazy," Zuko continues in that same, strained voice, "even Azula thought it was lunacy, and that's saying something, coming from her! But Zhao alluded to some secret knowledge, some trick up his sleeve he won't tell anyone about. Whatever it is, he's confident that he can mount a successful siege up here and bring the Northern Water Tribe to its knees."

"He sounds like a puffed-up egomaniac who's never set eyes on the North Pole," Katara spits, rolling her eyes. "Typical Fire Nation propaganda. Just wait. He'll be in for a rude awakening the day he shows up here."

"And when he does?" Worry glints in his eyes. "If Zhao sails up here with the Empire's entire fleet, including those new airships he used against the Air Nomads, I'm not sure he'll be so easy to ignore. We have to be ready. Even you."

"Me?" Katara stares at him incredulously. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Common sense says, forget all this healing nonsense and come back to join Team Avatar!" Zuko exclaims, his face flushing even deeper. "We haven't had a single practice since before the Sun Warriors Isle, and look at everything we've done since! Toph and I with the lava-bending, you with your bloodbending… For Agni's sake, Toph can even bend metal now! Think of what we could do to Zhao's ships if we tried!"

"I -"

"The last thing any of us want is to replace you, Katara," Zuko tells her in a pained voice. "But that's what's going to happen if you keep this up."

"Replace me?" Katara echoes, instantly furious. "As if you could -"

"We can't," Zuko finishes, now sounding thoroughly miserable. "But if you won't come back, Katara, we'll have to try. Uncle's put it off for as long as he can, hoping that you'll come back around, but sooner or later, he's going to have to find a replacement."

Katara closes her eyes and makes herself breathe. It was all happening quickly, far too quickly. Too many changes, too many decisions, too many conflicting feelings.

And at the heart of it, the desire to belong, anywhere, everywhere, in all its forms.

Yet for all her protestations against Iroh's complicity with his brother's crimes, it had never properly occurred to her that abandoning him might also mean giving up her spot in Team Avatar. That had always seemed separate, something precious that belonged to just the four of them, born far back on that unassuming summer morning in the heart of the Special Forces base camp.

But then she remembers Iroh's taunting voice from the pinnacle of the Southern Air Temple. I am the only choice you have, whether you like it or not, and her heart hardens to steel.

"It was always just one of your uncle's experiments," she mutters darkly, finally lowering her gaze. "I...I just can't do it, Zuko."

His face tightens as though she'd slapped him. The small fire in the pit flares suddenly, hot and bright with anger, before it calms back to its rosy flicker. "If that's your decision," he finally says curtly, stepping back toward the swaying tent-flaps. "I should go."

Katara swallows past the knot welling in her throat. "Yeah… I have an early morning tomorrow too."

He nods wordlessly, before turning away from her.

"Wait."

He glances over his shoulder at her as she approaches him tentatively. His face scrunches in bewilderment as she unfolds the heavy parka in her hands and drapes it over his shoulders. "Katara, what -"

"I made it for you," she says, her tongue thick in her mouth. "It should be a lot warmer than whatever Arnook's men gave you."

The expression of utter bafflement on his face creases into something much softer. She fights to look away, blood rushing to her face at the sight of it. He looked touched. "I - I don't know what to say -"

"If you're going to go around trying to win over the Northern band chiefs, you might as well dress the part," she says lightly, smoothing the soft, thick cloth against the solid planes of his chest. Against her fingers, threads of warmth rise from beneath his skin and it takes all her effort not to pull him close. "They might actually take you seriously now."

His hands brush reverently along the pristine white fur trimming his parka, tracing the simple sun and snowflake pattern stitched along the hems, before finally closing over her own. "It's perfect," he whispers hoarsely. "Thank you."

She closes her eyes, savouring the warmth beating off him, the solidness of his body and the loud pulse of his heart against her ears the only real thing in the world. Outside the walls of her igloo, the whistling winter wind howls and tugs at her tent flaps, but in his arms it was just another sound.


Katara is troubled all throughout the next morning's lesson. Tired from a fitful night's sleep, she barely pays attention to Yugoda's lecture at all.

Until she is picked on by blind old Ahnah to come up front and demonstrate a new advanced technique on the weathered old mannequin.

Katara struggles to focus as she places her hands into the small bucket by the mannequin's side and then lays her glowing water-gloved hands onto its chest.

From where she sits behind them, Ahnah motions with her hands. The mannequin doesn't move but Katara frowns, sensing the water start to pulse throughout the makeshift vessels, the new ruptures forming within its dried hide body.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Yugoda instructs as Katara traces her hands along the mannequin's length, pausing where the water's flow became turbulent. "The healer's art is to master the motions of life. To study the pathways of water within the human body, and to guide them back to their natural flow when disrupted. It is a painstaking art of control, far more taxing than waterbending."

She closes her eyes. The pathways inside the mannequin were at once easier than the living tissues within the human body, the pulse of its water lacking the will of a human heartbeat.

"Mastery of waterbending is attained through surrender and true humility," Yugoda continues as Katara's trembling hands hesitate over a mangled knot deep within the mannequin's shoulder. "But healing does not allow you such luxury. Where there is water, there is life. And to master life, you must control the water inside the body, bend its errant flow to your will."

Katara inhales sharply, her head snapping to face Yugoda in wide-eyed horror. "What did you say?"

She half expects to see Hama standing there with her vengeful smile and hate-drunk eyes, but Yugoda's face crinkles kindly at her consternation. "I know it sounds harsh, my dear," she admits, the warmth in her voice unchanged, "but the first thing you must understand is that healing is not always gentle. To undo violence, you may have to inflict equal violence. You must be willing to inflict pain upon your patient in order to undo the damage they have suffered."

Where there is water, there is also life, Hama's voice echoes mockingly in Katara's ears. "Do you mean to tell me," Katara says faintly, feeling sick and light-headed at once, "that you expect me to reach into this body and control it? Enforce my will upon it as though….as though it's some kind of puppet?"

"The master healer must know compassion and mercy, always," wizened old Ahnah says sharply from behind them. "But the master healer also knows that she must do what she can, whatever she can, at any cost, to keep her patient alive." She taps her cane against the floor to emphasize her point. "She must not balk at what is necessary to sustain life, must not give in to pity or doubt or the self-indulgent surrender of a waterbending master. She must be willing to dominate life itself if she wishes to save it."

Katara stumbles back from the mannequin as though it had burned her. "You sound just like her," she whispers, the taste in her mouth turning acrid. "You sound just like Hama."

"Who, dear?" Yugoda asks kindly, while impatience flashes across Ahnah's face. If the atmosphere in the igloo had been quiet before, now it grows tense with the weight of two dozen bated breaths. The burning press of curious stares, from the young apprentices to the scattered handful of Nerrivik's women glowering suspiciously at her sudden hesitation.

Suddenly everything felt too small. Katara staggers to her feet, the bleak ice walls trapping around her like the shroud of a tomb. The air is sharp and cold in her lungs, dragging with every breath like claws in her chest, every desperate beat of her heart longing to burst free.

"I can't," she gasps, struggling to breathe. Blood rushes to her face and her head spins as she fends off Yugoda's concerned hand reaching for her shoulder, "I can't, I can't…"

And without another word, she dashes out of the cramped healing hut. Someone calls out after her, but the words are lost in the chilly air whipping against her ears and the silent roar building inside her.

She runs and runs, back along the smooth carved ice paths of Aujuittuq, its crystalline majesty glowing in the faint midday light that managed to pierce through the perpetual dark of polar winter. Strangers part before her headlong flight, and if their gazes follow her, she ignores them all.

They asked too much of her. She needed to be gentler, she needed to be stronger. She needed a mind of her own, but only when it came to agreeing with the tribe's hive mind. She could be anything she wanted to be, but only if the tribe approved.

It was all too much.

She finally slides to a halt at the top of one of the bridges arching across the grand canal that cut through the city. From here, she could see its entirety unfolding before her: the boats sailing in the waterways, people going along their daily business. The grand hall of the band chiefs rises like a watchful sentinel in the distance, its snow-packed walls glittering in the daylight.

She leans over the bridge, panting heavily, as though trying to evade the perpetual weight of its gaze. But it didn't matter. No matter where she was, in the healing huts, in the women's tents, even in the depths of her own misery, the eyes of the Northern Water Tribe were always watching and judging.

And for everything that had changed, she was still no closer to feeling any of the peace that she had sought out here. She was still no closer to finding her brother or the truth of what had happened to him. All she had to show for it was a few new baskets of sewing and the shame of being unwilling to settle for the same kind of life that had appeased the other women of her tribe.

Zuko had been right. You'll do anything to fit in, he had said, even if it means bending into a shape that hurts you. And only now, when she felt like everything she had surrounded herself with was no more than a trap meant to constrain her with the duties of a Northern woman, did she truly understand his meaning.

Part of her itches for his presence at her side. Part of her longs to march straight back to the band chiefs' council and take her place alongside her friends, to hell with what the men thought.

For a moment she considers it, flexing her fingers under the faint white light of the sun.

But then a voice catches her attention and interrupts her thoughts altogether.

She glances up sharply, watching a small group of boys tussle along the canal below her. A sharp burst of envy tears through her at the sight of them, sailing along the surface of the water, practicing waterbending forms both on land and within the water.

She recognizes wiry Jukka straightaway, his chestnut hair braided into a knot away from his face, leaping out of the way of a slicing wave, pulling a pillar of ice out to support his weight. Big brawny Sangilak with his half-shaved head glinting in the light, pushing what looked like the entirety of the canal up against the other boys. Most of them fall before his onslaught and wash onto the shore, but one of them, a fair-skinned guy with feathers braided into his hair, manages to pull a whirlpool up underneath him and slings some well-timed water jets against Sangilak's offensive. It breaks through the might of his attack, suddenly forcing the giant waterbender on the defensive.

Katara watches them with an ache splitting in her chest, blinding and unshakeable in the weight of its truth. I should be there. I'm not a healer, I'm not what they want me to be.

Then, a cracking sound shatters the air around her ominously. Torn from her thoughts, she whips around in a sudden mounting panic. "What -"

Beneath her, Sangilak's opponent smashes a wave against one edge of the bridge, where its weight anchors against the shore. To her dismay, cracks thread all along it with no regard for her presence whatsoever. Shards of heavy ice crumble and fall into the water below.

There was nowhere else to run. Without a further thought, she bends the crumbling ice beneath her feet into a wave and tumbles onto the canal's surface, sweeping the icy carnage out of her way with the force of a small explosion.

"Hey, what the -"

"Who's that?"

By the time she clambers out of the water and onto the side of the canal, she realizes she has more than a small audience. A handful of dark stares pin her in place.

"Oh hey, it's Katara!" Jukka dashes up to her with a bashful grin. "Sorry about that, I guess Sangilak and Tartok got a little carried away -"

"She knows she's not allowed to waterbend up here," snaps the fair-skinned guy with the feathers in his hair, who had given Sangilak such a strong fight.

Katara jams her hands on her hips in a mounting fury. "You collapsed the bridge I was standing on in broad daylight, without even checking if anyone was there! What was I supposed to do, just fall in the water quietly and wait for you to rescue me?"

But the feather-haired guy only cocks his head forbiddingly. "So this Southerner thinks she's too good for our rules now?"

"I don't know, Tartok, she kind of has a point," Jukka interjects quickly, rubbing a hand along his clean shaven jaw. "You and Sangilak did kind of go a little overboard there. You could have really hurt someone."

"Yeah, but we didn't, so shut up, Bastard!" The guy called Tartok turns to face Katara, his lip curling contemptuously. "I know you think you're a big deal wherever you came from, little girl, but this is the North. Go stick to the healing huts and leave the bending to the men."

Katara knew better to heed his taunt, but after everything, she sees red instead. "That's a shame, Tartok," she spits. "Because you were awfully sloppy back there, and I could definitely teach you how to not waterbend like a complete amateur."

More than one person surrounding her gasps in shock as she straightens to her full height.

Tartok reacts as though her words were a whiplash. "Right," he growls, glancing about him for support. "The day I get taught anything by a female like you, I'll eat my own mittens."

The weight of the water surrounding her on all sides itches at her. Instead she folds her arms across her chest, clamping her hands tightly shut. "I hope you like the taste of wool."

Tartok gapes at her even as Jukka and some of the other guys burst out laughing. "How - how dare you," he stutters at last, his cheeks flushing dark red. "How dare you talk to a chieftain's son like that!"

"How dare you talk to me like that?" Katara fires back, incensed. Her fingers drum against her sleeves in an effort to contain herself.

"Oh yes, Hakoda's daughter, in the flesh, in our midst," Tartok crows mockingly. He steps up to her, crowding her space. "Except Hakoda's long gone by now, and we're still here. My father is Chieftain Keelut of Siliktok, and I have the ear of Hahn himself. Who are you, except a little girl looking for her place in the world?" He scoffs, staring down his nose at her. "And you still think you could teach me anything?"

Once upon a time in another life, Katara would have simply smashed his chest in and called it a day. But now, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and caged with something far more powerful than Fire Empire disdain, she only manages to bite her fury back between her teeth.

"I remember when I used to bend like you," she breathes, tilting her chin up defiantly. "My bending was rigid and predictable and hopeless against powerful attacks from the earthbenders. You're never going to beat Sangilak if you think like a waterbender. He's always going to beat you." She meets his affronted gaze, unable to resist the insolent smile that crosses her face. "And so will I."

Tartok's face twists into an ugly mask, before he spits at the ground between her feet. "We'll see about that," he seethes, wiping at the corner of his mouth. "Come on Imnek, I think we need to have a word with Dad about this impudence."

One of the guys who had been silently watching on the sidelines, a shrimpy dark guy resembling a nervous shadow, quietly joins Tartok's side as he marches away in the direction of the chief's hall. Every now and then, he turns back to stare at her in growing curiosity.

Katara breathes heavily in the cold air, suddenly feeling as though even the broad streets of Aujuittuq weren't big enough to contain her. She glares at Sangilak and the rest of the boys still gawking at her. "Can I help you?"

"Um," says Jukka, tentatively breaking the silence, "are you okay, Katara?"

She watches him suspiciously as he continues, waving his hands in front of him defensively. "Because Tartok is someone you do not piss off! He's one of Hahn's best friends, and his father is Chieftain Natok's closest ally. They could make life really difficult for you here, if they wanted to."

"Difficult," Katara snarls under her breath. "Right."

"Just take it easy," Jukka advises, offering her a quick dimpled smile that only makes her angrier to see. "You'll be fine, just wait."

But Katara didn't want to be fine. As the group of boys disperses, she closes her eyes and wishes everyone would admit that nothing was fine at all.


By the time dinner rolls around that evening, Katara is in a foul mood.

The bitter taste in her mouth lingers long after she takes her place at the table where she usually sits with Toph and Aang and the other air acolytes. Usually they were out from their meetings by the time the dinner bell rang, but for some reason, tonight they were running late.

That afternoon, she had sought out her place with the Southern girls in the women's tents. But even after burying herself amidst the rolls of furs and skins to occupy herself, Nerrivik had found her and pulled her aside for a word.

"This will not do, Katara," she informed her imperiously, with a sniff and a twitch of her nose. "This simply will not do."

"I don't understand what I was supposed to do," Katara had started to complain, but was almost instantly cut off.

"This bad attitude of yours will get you nowhere here," Nerrivik told her gravely. "I suggest you keep your head down and learn your place, Katara. Otherwise your time among us will be unhappy. And nobody wants that for you."

Katara simply stared at her balefully. "You mean you actually want me to be happy?"

Nerrivik had smiled at her then, a genuine thing that actually warmed up her eyes and made her appear almost human. "Of course we do, Katara. That's what all of us want, isn't it? To survive, and to be happy."

She didn't need to say the other part. That Hahn and the rest of the band chiefs were watching her like a falconhawk, looking for one more excuse before unsheathing their claws. Katara could read right through Nerrivik's thinly veiled promises of happiness and survival. When it came down to it, what the chiefs wanted was control.

But then finally the others join her at the table for dinner and the dark cloud of her thoughts disperses momentarily.

"Hi," she says, setting down her spoon as Toph and Aang settle in across from her. To her surprise, even Zuko slides in next to her and she smiles at him brightly. "Look who finally decided to join us! Your uncle realized he could finally spare you for a night, could he?"

But Zuko doesn't smile back. In fact, as she glances over at the others and sees a similar reticence there, the smile slides slowly off her face. "What...what's wrong?" she asks nervously.

Toph blows her bangs out of her eyes before slamming her fists on the table. "Hahn and his buddy Keelut started asking questions about Team Avatar this afternoon," she grumbles darkly. "They say they'll formally join our alliance...but only if we take one of their men as our master waterbender."

Katara spits her food out of her mouth. "What?"

"That's what we said!" Aang exclaims, his face mottling angrily. "Team Avatar was always the four of us. We can't replace Katara, she's been with us since the beginning! It would be impossible to get that chemistry with anyone else."

"Especially not some stupid Northern guy we don't even know," Toph gripes. "As if anyone could hold a candle to Sugar Queen, she's the best waterbender in the world!"

"But if we don't accept their condition, the Northern tribe won't ally with us," Zuko speaks up finally, sounding just as miserable as he had the night before. "And...we need them on our side. Zhao's fleet is coming. Uncle can't refuse without a good reason."

"Come on Sugar Queen, tell us you're coming back!" Toph bursts out, her blind face turning to face Katara appealingly. "They can't force us to take one of their dumb guys if we still have you on board!"

Katara tries very hard to breathe, but all she can hear is Nerrivik's voice echoing in her ears, a promise if not a threat. And beyond that, Tartok's ugly words, the gawking stares of the boys in the tribe. Hahn in the chief's hall that first night, old blind Tupilek declaring that the North would not suffer the same fate as the South, whatever that meant…

If I'd known this would happen so quickly, I might have fought harder and sooner, she thinks to herself ruefully. But she knows better than to indulge that kind of thinking. Sooner or later, the Northern band chiefs would have forced her hand.

"Actually Toph," she admits grimly, "I'm not so sure about that anymore." She meets the stricken look in each of their eyes, before she averts her gaze back down to the half-eaten stew in her bowl. "Me not wanting to give up my spot probably won't be enough of a reason for General Iroh to refuse the band chiefs' request, will it?"

Beside her, Zuko lets out a low rumbling sigh. Smoke trickles out from his nostrils in a mournful plume. "No," he agrees at last, "it won't."

Sooner or later, it would always have come to this.