disclaimer. i own nothing familiar

author's notes. thank you so much to everyone following along and i apologize with my whole canadian heart for this next one :/

i give you...

southern lights

chapter xliv. blood moon


i was a heavy heart to carry
but he never let me down
when he held me in his arms
my feet never touched the ground

"heavy in your arms" / florence + the machine


The cruel arctic wind blasts across the powdery slopes of the Chugiak plains sprawling around the city walls of Aujuittuq. It slashes against Zuko's face so ferociously that it becomes nearly impossible to breathe.

He raises an arm to cover his head, bracing against the rush of air screaming into his ears. The sky overhead glows a dreary grey, masking the rising sun with swollen steel clouds. In the distance where it meets the horizon, columns of darker grey smoke belch upward, flashing a cool red as though a distant volcano was erupting. Low rumbles like thunder roll over the land, the ground beneath his feet still trembling so far inland.

And still falling gently all around him, big fat snowflakes black as tar, mingling with the pristine white of the arctic plains, staining it the ugly sooty colour of old stone.

Behind him, Toph burrows into her parka. "I'm bored," she announces for what must have been the fifth time. "Why on earth did they stick us here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Because Uncle wanted us as the city's last defense," he replies tonelessly, watching the empty sky with tiring eyes.

"And one other reason," Aang snipes, glaring sidelong at Tartok, who bristles indignantly.

"Excuse me, Ong," he declares imperiously ("It's Aang," both Aang and Toph chorus, wincing), drawing himself up to his full height with a twitch of his nose, "I must have heard you incorrectly. You wouldn't be implying that it's my fault we're stationed here instead of at the front...would you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact," Aang begins hotly, "I wa-"

"Because if you were, you'd be mistaken," Tartok continues, cutting him off midsentence and ignoring the dirty looks everyone throws at him. "My good friend Hahn - Chief Hahn, actually - told me that there was nobody he trusted more to protect the city than us. This is a great honour. So stop whining!"

"Nobody was whining, Tartok," Zuko interjects, the beginnings of a headache already drumming dully near his temples. "Now everyone focus and keep an eye out for anyone approaching."

"Yes, boss," Toph retorts sarcastically, throwing him a dry salute with a roll of her sightless eyes.

Tartok glowers. "Who made him the boss?" he complains, brushing a pile of sooty snow off his shoulders.

"No one. But he sure talks like one," Toph returns.

But Tartok only glares at Zuko, who sighs wearily as the waterbender marches up to him. "Such a bold presumption from a group of foreigners," he challenges, pulling himself to his full height and still coming up a few inches shorter than Zuko. "I'm the waterbender, I'm the one from the Northern Water Tribe. I know the lay of the land better than any of you." A smug smile crosses his pale face. "And I'm the one who's friends with our Chief. I'm certain he would object to a firebender leading our group - no less, the son of Ozai, who destroyed our sister tribe -"

"Didn't your friend Hahn also admit that he sold your sister tribe out to save your sorry skins?" Aang cuts him off witheringly, crossing his arms. "You don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to moral high ground, Tartok."

"Yeah, Tartok, get with the program."

"Quiet!" Zuko snaps, a blur of motion in the sky overhead catching his attention. "Who's that?"

The grumble of an approaching sky bison greets his ears as it dives out from the clouds to hover just overhead. Zuko raises a hand to block the gust of wind bellowing from its approach.

"Hey Bodhi," Aang calls out from behind him, "what's going on out there?"

The air acolyte straightens from where he's perched atop the sky bison's head. "Hi Aang," he replies with a faint smile. "It's okay for now. The defense at the North Sea harbour took some time to get their act together, but - but they're trying to defend against the onslaught so far…"

"And the fleet?" Zuko asks, dread boring a hollow pit in his stomach. "How big is it?"

Bodhi whistles, thinking hard. "Hard to say. But from the size of the smoke clouds, I'd guess around a hundred battleships, not counting supporting vessels of course -"

"A hundred?" Toph echoes in disbelief. "That's not a fleet, that's a fucking armada."

"What about the airships?" Zuko continues grimly, scanning the empty sky with tightening nerves. "How many of those did they bring?

"I'm not sure," the young air acolyte admits, his face falling. "They haven't deployed them yet."

"Oh, good." Zuko can't help the relief that washes over him. "Keep us posted if anything changes, okay?"

"Sure thing!" Bodhi wheels around on his bison. "They just have us shuttling the wounded back and forth from the front for now."

"Wounded? Already?" Toph gulps as the acolyte flies back toward the city. "That's not good."

"Zhao's fleet has the advantage of surprise on their side," Aang points out reasonably. "Nobody expected them to reach here so quickly. We thought we had a couple more weeks at least -"

"It doesn't matter," Tartok pipes up, sounding maddeningly unconcerned. "They're up against the Northern tribe's best fighters in winter. They'll be packing in no time, Ong -"

"It's Aang!" all three of them snap irritatedly in unison.


The ringing of the warning bells reverberates across the morning air. Katara ignores them, ignores the panicked cries of children, the anxious whispers of the women leading them by hand toward the safety shelters that had somehow sprung up out of the snow instantaneously like strange winter blossoms.

She watches wildly as a couple of sky bison land by the healing huts, already full of men injured from the battlefront. An air acolyte jumps down, helping yet another wounded man down from the sky bison's back.

Hei appears at the doorway, her tiny form slumping as she directs the man inside. Katara's heart swells and she dashes toward her. "Hei!"

The tiny healer pauses in her tracks, straightening at the sight of her. "Katara? Oh, thank the spirits you're okay -"

"What is she doing here?"

Katara swallows hard as Nerrivik pushes out of the healing house to glare at her ferociously. "Haven't you done enough damage for now? You're not welcome here."

"Nerrivik," Hei mutters, and for the first time, Katara notices the healer's exhaustion, "we're short-handed and I need help. Most of our apprentices and healers are still locked up, it's madness -"

"It's for the good of the tribe," Nerrivik informs her severely. "Princess Yue has gone to the Spirit Oasis to pray for our victory. With Chief Hahn at the battlefront, that leaves me in charge. And I say that these traitors can't be let loose, not now while we're under attack!"

"You mean, you still have the others locked up?" Katara asks incredulously. "Now, with the Fire Empire at our doorstep? That's insane!"

"What's it to you?" Nerrivik snaps, pushing Hei to the side as she blocks the entrance with her body. "Be off, and may the spirits take you!"

Katara's fists clench in mounting frustration at the woman's refusal to see sense. "You have all these wounded, Hei can't heal them all alone. At least let me help -"

"We don't want your help," Nerrivik tells her flatly, staring down her nose at her disdainfully. "Didn't you hear my son? You don't belong here. You're not one of us."

Katara stares at her helplessly, at Hei's white face shrinking into the crowded dark of the healing huts already crammed full of cots and wounded men. The black snow drifts down lazily from the sky, falling more heavily with every passing moment. Reminding her of the threat bearing down upon them all, even if no one else was willing to acknowledge it too. "I know," she breathes.

Nobody tries to stop her as she turns away, not even Hei, who so obviously needed her help. Her heart sinking like a stone in her chest and feeling perhaps as hard, she finds the way to her igloo, still standing in its spot among the rows of army housing, now barren and quiet.

The silence is her only witness as she marches inside, tracking black snow into the safety of her hut. Brushes it off her parka, where it stains the pale blue cloth. She empties out her pack, searching for the mismatched pieces of armour issued to her back aboard Iroh's flagship, shortly after escaping Lu Ten's disastrous wedding.

But at least they had been a team back then. At least they had been united.

Now, with so many different groups cobbled together, each with their own agendas and grievances, she feels like she's trapped in a house of sand, shifting and toppling with every turn trying to bury her. And somehow she had alienated every possible ally, one by one. Iroh. Hahn and the band chiefs. Even the women whose trust she had worked so hard to earn, were either imprisoned or probably hated her now.

She had been pulled away from her friends and replaced by some Water Tribe jerk.

She had blamed Zuko, yelled at him for trying to protect her from the implosion of her own ill-fated rebellion. Maybe pushed him away for good entirely.

And for what? To be rejected time and time again from her tribe. Only, as Zuko had pointed out bluntly the night before, they weren't her tribe. Not really. If they had been, they would never have treated her so poorly. They would never have made her give up waterbending for the sake of their stupid rules, they would never have tried to marry her off to the first convenient boy and send her away. They would never have betrayed the Southern Water Tribe and left her father to face the Empire all alone.

As much as it hurt to hear, as much as it made her heart ache and hot tears burn bright in her eyes...Zuko was right. He had been right about everything. How could he not, she realizes with a flash of understanding that sears like lightning, how could he not understand what she felt? Hadn't he tried to push everything away for a chance to regain his home, only for it all to fail miserably?

And instead of listening to him, she had turned him away and now Ozai's fleet menaced their shores. Who knew when she would see him next, if he would even want to see her? What if, after everything, he decided that he wanted nothing more to do with her? That she was too far gone to be helped, that their fledgling romance just wasn't worth it anymore?

She draws a shaky breath, trying to comprehend that possibility. After everything she had done, she wouldn't blame him if he ended up wanting very little to do with her. Because at that moment, she didn't like herself very much either. Nobody did.

That's not entirely true, a contrary voice in the back of her mind corrects, and her breath hitches in her throat at the realization.

Because when she had pitted herself against Hahn and the masters of the Northern Water Tribe and torn down his fancy hall, who had been there for her? Zuko, Aang, and Toph, the three of them, without hesitation. They had stood by her, supported her, even placed themselves between her and Hahn when they had to.

And she had taken them for granted, casting them aside for the sake of her stupid, ill-fated rebellion. Now they were all off fighting in the battle, and Zuko had probably told them about her outburst. If she hadn't lost them already, she would soon.

And she would deserve it.

But, warns that same voice, it might not be too late. You could still get them back, if you try.

Her fingers find the pendant hanging around her neck, searching for strength. The only path left to her was suddenly clear, and she was afraid to take it. Because it had always been there, all this time. Why hadn't she been able to see it before, why only now when everything else had crumbled around her?

And did that matter? After this, after everything they had been through, didn't she owe it to them to at least try? As long as there was still at least one thing left that she could do, that had to be enough.

It had to.

And so, she undoes her hair, pulling out all the beads and braids until it hangs down her back, framing her face in a loose dark curtain. Strapping on the ill-fitting cuirass, and the tassets, and the worn vambraces and greaves, she's reminded of the outset of the battle on the Sun Warriors Isle. The odds had been stacked even steeper, the battle plans slapped together quickly and outlandish by any sane person's standards. But she still hadn't felt as uncertain as she does now.

She chances a glance at the pots of war paint, before leaving them behind with a sigh.

Praying against hope through the headlong flight to the makeshift stables behind the encampment, her spirits finally rise as she slides to a stop in front of one of the pens.

Appa still waits patiently inside, chewing on a stack of hay. He growls at her, communicating his indignation at being left behind. She stares resolutely at her own reflection, warped in his giant liquid eyes.

"Come on, boy," she says, unlatching the door, "let's go find the others."


The wind picks up speed as the morning wears on slowly, flinging his hood off his head and pelting more of the ominous black snow into his eyes. Even as Zuko struggles to pull it back over his head, he wonders if the persistent breeze was still a blessing in disguise, for at least its growing screech drowned out the sound of the others arguing.

Blinking, he tries to focus on his surroundings. Even as the day grew steadily brighter, the sky in the distance remains stubbornly dark. The surface of the winding river at their side gnashes restlessly, its roiling surface the same slate of the clouds overhead. Behind them, a small distance away, the city walls teems with defenders - young men, teenagers, even some small boys, too weak to join the battlefront, but capable of manning the parapets.

"There!" Aang cries out, pointing toward the horizon. "What's that?"

Zuko spins around, squinting through the snowfall. He picks out a shape among the thick grey clouds, oblong and crimson and growing larger every second.

"It's an airship," he realizes, as it approaches steadily toward them, and a faint loud roar echoes across the plains. "A war balloon."

To his relief, the other three stop arguing at once to take stock of the small vessel slicing through the sky toward them with increasing speed.

"We need to bring it down before it reaches the city," Zuko instructs, not taking his eyes off it. "Aang, knock it off course. Tartok, see if you can slice through the balloon. Toph, the gondola is entirely metal, now's your time to shine -"

"Where are the other Air Nomads?" Tartok interrupts even as Toph lets out a whoop of excitement. "How did they allow that ship to get this far inland?"

"They must have been busy," Aang retorts, unable to disguise his annoyance.

"Busy? It's a warzone out there!" Tartok exclaims, crossing his arms stubbornly. "But it was their job to defend the skies, not ours!"

With a snap, Aang unfurls his glider. "I thought your friend Hahn trusted you to protect the city," he says witheringly before he flies off toward the approaching vessel.

Tartok blinks at his own words being thrown back at him. "Well - yes," he counters bullishly, "but we shouldn't have to. It isn't our job to clean up after the Air Nomads' sloppiness!"

"Actually," Toph grunts, "that's exactly what our job is." She outstretches her hands, her muscles straining with effort. Overhead, the bright red war balloon groans as it slows in the air, as though trying to push against something massive blocking its path. "Are you gonna talk all day, Caveman, or are you going to help?"

"Help?" Tartok scoffs, as Aang circles around the balloon, slicing through the air with one gust after another. "Fine. What would you like me to do?"

Zuko groans before jumping in beside Toph, punching a fiery blast into the sky. It strikes the side of the gondola, blasting off a large section of its hull. Free-falling debris hurtles through the air, landing around them with loud crashes.

Tartok huffs, grumbling about how everybody wanted his help but nobody was willing to tell him how, and failing entirely to notice the giant chunk of scrap metal falling straight toward him until -

Thunk.

Zuko whips around at the sound, witnessing something land on Tartok's head. The waterbender crumples into the blackened snow, already unconscious before he hits the ground.

"What?" he asks, aghast, clapping his hands to his temples. "He's down? Already?"

An answering crash rattles the ground as Aang finally rips the burners out and Toph drags the wreckage of the balloon out of the air. "Woo! Team Avatar one, war balloon zero!"

"We're down a man though," Zuko points out dully, pointing to Tartok's prone form lying facedown in the snow.

"How did that happen?" Aang asks curiously.

"He took some falling debris to the head." Zuko studies the offending chunk of debris lying in the snow by Tartok's head, before he frowns. "Hey, Toph, that was entirely made of metal. Couldn't you have moved it out of the way?"

"Whoops," says Toph, sounding entirely unconcerned. She kicks at the snow nonchalantly. "What a loss."

Zuko rounds on her furiously, about to shake some sense into her, when -

"Uh, guys?" Aang asks in a small voice, pointing tentatively at the sky. "What are those?"

Zuko growls before turning away from Toph, and toward the direction where Aang was pointing.

"Shit," is all he can manage, when he finally takes stock of the numerous dark shapes low in the sky and gathering speed. "How are we going to stop those?"

"What are those?" Toph asks, scrunching her sightless eyes.

"More war balloons coming this way. About half a dozen." Zuko frowns, studying the formation as it draws nearer. "They must be surveying the path inland."

Toph groans, before rolling her shoulders in preparation. "Great. Let's give them something fun to look at."

Waiting for the vessels to come within range was the hardest part, Zuko thinks to himself. The wind rifles along his hair, sweeping it into his eyes. Next to him, Aang holds his glider at the ready, while Toph cracks her knuckles loudly.

"They must be having a really hard time out there," Aang says softly, as the first of the airships hovers just out of reach. "If so many war balloons are already making it inland."

Zuko meets his eyes, unsure of what to say. They both knew what rested on this battle, they both knew what was at stake. Prolonging the siege was not a possibility. They had to win.

Seeing thoughts of a similar vein flickering in Aang's eyes, he nods grimly. "Then it's up to us to help them," he says shortly.

The first balloon passes overhead by the time Toph reaches for it with shaking hands. The burners sputter and screech before she rips them out and they sail through the air. The balloon follows their downward trajectory slowly, the bright red fabric deforming and crumpling like a torn sail.

The wind gushes stronger as it crashes to the ground with a deafening lurch. Zuko turns to see Aang blast the two following balloons with a sweep of his glider. A circle kick and a rough chop to the ground sends both of them tumbling out of their flight path.

With a flurry of motions, Aang channels a whirlwind, bigger and higher than before. It spins along the empty plains, growing larger in size until it sucks the confused balloons out of the sky. Zuko breathes in a lungful of icy air before sending an outpouring of flames into the whirling funnel. The swirling air whips the fire to towering heights, a raging inferno that nearly touches the clouds. It swallows the war balloons and flings their burnt, battered husks out onto the ice in pieces.

"Okay," Aang remarks, squinting past the fiery whirlwind to examine the location of the last war balloon, trailing some distance behind. "That was seriously cool!"

Zuko follows the movement of their remaining quarry as it skirts the wide mouth of the inferno, following the winding path of the river toward the city. In a concerted motion, the whirling fire trails behind it, but with an explosion of hissing steam, it shudders and shrinks as it reaches the surface of the water.

"They're using the water to protect themselves," Zuko groans, pulling back. The raging fire hesitates along the snow, narrowing into a spinning column of fire.

Toph blows her bangs out of her eyes. "This would be a great time to have a waterbender, wouldn't it?" She pauses to glare in the direction of Tartok's motionless body.

Zuko can't help scowling at it too. Before he could stop the thought, he finds himself wondering what damage they could have inflicted if Katara had been with them instead. Then he remembers their fight from the night before, and growls with frustration.

"I have an idea," Aang says softly, dragging him back to the present. "Zuko, I want you to bend all that fire away from the water, and compress it as small as you can."

"What?" Zuko stares at him as though he was crazy. "But that'll make it dangerously unstable!"

But Aang's grey eyes glitter with excitement. "Exactly." He slides into formation, focusing his breathing. "Ready?"

Wondering if he'd temporarily taken leave of his senses, Zuko sweeps into a deep-rooted squat and lunges forward. The fire rages entirely out of control, and his arms judder with the effort of constricting its tempestuous flow.

Next to him, Aang pulls the air out of the column, commanding it to surround the shrinking mass of fire. "It's working!" he cries, as the wind envelopes it and seals it off entirely.

"Barely," Zuko grunts. Clenching his teeth, he manages to shrink the inferno from a raging tower to little more than a pinprick. An erratically shuddering seed of blinding light begging to burst at any moment. His forehead pounds with the effort to keep it contained.

With a decisive motion, Aang lobs the rapid winds and the tiny seed of unstable fire straining within them high into the sky, straight toward the last war balloon flying above the river. "Now!" he cries, breaking the spinning air with a slash of his wrists.

Zuko lets go with a gasp and everything explodes.

The concussive force of the shockwave sends him and Aang tumbling backward into the snow. He blinks stars out of his eyes, feeling stupidly like someone had slammed both their heads together. A faint ringing echoes in his ears as he staggers back to his feet, brushing sticky black snow off his armour.

Overhead, the sky blackens with curling smoke as the fire finally fizzes out. Pieces of charred metal slowly fall back to the earth, splashing loudly where they cut into the river.

"Whoa," Toph breathes admiringly. The low thud of her approaching footsteps makes the inside of his head ache. "You came up with that all on your own, Twinkletoes?"

Aang rubs the back of his head bashfully. "Well...yeah. But I didn't know for sure if it'd work."

"You're mad." Toph shakes her head in wonder before she claps a hand on his shoulder. "A mad genius."

"I have to agree with Toph," Zuko says hoarsely, rubbing at his ears and frowning as the ringing sound persists. "How the hell did a pacifist Air Nomad come up with that?"

"And uh," Toph continues, cocking her head toward the direction the airships had flown from, "do you think you can do it again?" She points sightlessly at the horizon. "Because I think I can hear more of them coming this way."

The tinny roar of distant engines follows her words. Zuko throws his head back in despair at the sight of more airships, a long line of glinting pinpricks studding the sky and heading straight toward them. "This is insanity," he seethes. "How many did they even build? They never seem to end!"

Aang mops his brow with the sleeve of his tunic. "If only we had Appa with us! It'd be so much easier to take them out from the air."

"Well, whose dumb idea was it to leave the bison behind?" Toph asks scathingly. "Oh right, the unconscious guy. Why did we even listen to him?"

Zuko groans in agreement. The wind skims his face, ruffling the fur along his hood. A small distance away, the wrecked hull of a severed gondola gurgles as it slowly sinks into the river.

"This might sound weird," Aang begins tentatively, his face wrinkling disbelievingly, "but I swear I heard Appa just a second ago."

"What?" Zuko asks, rubbing viciously at his ears. "I didn't hear anything."

Toph's brow furrows with concentration. "That's weird," she remarks, tilted her head upward in confusion. "I thought I heard him just now too."

"I didn't hear anything," Zuko mutters, just before the whistling of the wind dies down. In the brief silence that follows, all he hears is the building roar of the approaching airships.

Then, suddenly, the plaintive animal roar of an approaching sky bison replaces it.

"It is Appa!" he exclaims, whirling around his spot to see the flying six-legged beast cutting a path from the city walls, bearing down right for them. He frowns even as his heart rises "Where did he come from?"

"Not that we're complaining or anything," Toph supplies quickly.

But Aang's face lights up as Appa draws nearer. "It's Katara!" he exclaims.

"What?" he and Toph chorus in unison.

But Aang points upward as the sky bison lands with a whump of his flat tail, spraying blackened snow into the air. He spots a hooded figure in mismatched armour huddled atop Appa's head, just before it leaps off. The force of the landing knocks her hood back, revealing Katara's rather sheepish face.

"Uh," she tries, clearly embarrassed as she waves a tentative hand at them, "hi?"

The sight of her, appearing so unexpectedly among their midst, knocks him back a couple of steps. To be honest, he had privately been relieved when Zhao's fleet turned up, for the welcome and necessary distraction it had provided. To see her so soon after their nasty fight, before he was properly prepared to face her, made him feel suddenly unsteady again.

"What are you doing here, Sweetness?" Toph demands, the first to find her voice.

"Uh," Katara says again, her face flushing deeply in the icy wind. "I came to help you guys? That is, if you still want me around." She hangs her head. "After the way I've been acting, I...I'll understand if you don't."

"What about your tribe?" Aang asks delicately, studying Katara's unbraided hair, the lingering redness in her eyes and puffiness in her face that betrayed earlier tears. "Won't...won't you be in trouble?"

Katara swallows, but continues to study the snow between her boots. "That...that isn't really a concern anymore, Aang," she replies very steadily.

"Oh." Aang lapses into silence. Zuko catches his puzzled stare - curiosity, concern, relief all flicker through his eyes. "Uh - I mean if you want to and you're allowed to...then -"

"What happened?" Toph interjects curiously.

Zuko rubs at his temples but says nothing as Katara sighs heavily. "Uh...I was trying to teach the other women how to waterbend, and when I got caught, I got cut off."

"What?"

"Cut off," Katara repeats, scuffing at the ice aimlessly with her boot. "You know… exiled? Cast out? Excommunicated?" She grimaces. "Hahn told me I was no longer part of the tribe, not after what I did."

"Wow…" Aang breathes, taking a couple of steps back in his shock. "That's, um...wow, I didn't know they could do that."

Katara's face hardens as she looks away. "I didn't think they could either. But...he said it. I'm...free now, I guess, and so I thought -"

"Wait a second," Toph says slowly, the frown on her face mirroring the feeling raging inside Zuko's chest, "You mean you could have joined us all along but you chose to help a bunch of random girls instead?" She scowls darkly. "What, are we just your sloppy seconds or something?"

"Toph," Aang admonishes quietly as Katara's face suddenly goes ashen, "not now, we should be supportive -"

"Screw that!" Toph bursts out, her face mottling angrily. "Look where being supportive got all of us! If we'd been straight with her from the beginning, maybe she wouldn't have taken us all for granted and maybe we'd be out on the battlefront actually fighting instead of being stuck here at the ass end of the defense with some second-rate waterbender!"

"You're right," Katara admits as Toph's outburst finally subsides. "You're right, Toph. I - I don't know what came over me." She hangs her head forlornly, and something clenches in Zuko's chest in spite of himself. "I...I just wanted so badly to fit in, to belong…"

"Katara," Aang says kindly, "you've always belonged with us."

She wipes at her face with the back of her hand. "I don't know why I couldn't see that," she confesses in a shaking voice. "You were all right there. The whole time, you were all right there and...and I couldn't see you."

"You're being awfully quiet, Sparky," Toph interrupts bluntly, and to Zuko's alarm, she turns to him. "What do you think of all this? Surely you have an opinion too."

He forces himself to breathe, as though he was trying to contain another fire raging out of control. He stares at the approaching line of airships to avoid facing Katara and the tumult of his crashing emotions instead. "I think we're in the middle of an important battle and down a waterbender," he makes himself say, his voice as tight and toneless as he can manage. "I think we would be best off putting our feelings aside for now, and dealing with those first."

He points at the streamlined ships floating low in the sky to emphasize his point.

Toph blows her bangs out of her eyes loudly but says nothing. Beside her, Aang grins widely. "And that's why he's the leader!" he declares, grabbing Toph by the hand. "C'mon everyone, time to hug it out -"

"Oof." Katara stumbles backward as Aang leaps forward, embracing her fiercely. Toph, dragged along reluctantly, gives her a quick hug. For all her indignation, Zuko watches the relief spread happily across the blind girl's face when Katara hugs her back.

"Thank you. Thank you," she chokes out, sounding dangerously close to tears. "I'm so sorry. I'll do anything - anything - to make it up to you…"

Zuko doesn't move as the others let go of Katara, remaining stubbornly frozen in place. A whirl of overwhelming emotions hammers in his chest - the hurt, the anger and tension lingering from the night before. But threaded through it all was the sheer relief of her presence...and a growing concern for the string of losses that had led her here.

As Katara turns slowly to face him, the smile fades nervously from her face. She bites her lip and he reads her penitence in the small lines that crease along her face, the sudden rigid set of her shoulders. "Um," she begins awkwardly.

He isn't sure what possesses him to step forward stiffly, and wrap his arms around her before she can continue.

Somehow, even dressed in thick furs and armour, she feels smaller and frailer in his arms. Her entire body quivers as she hugs him tightly back. "I'm sorry," she whispers into his ear, "Zuko, you were right, you were right about everything, I'm so sorry -"

"We can talk about it later," he interrupts, suddenly angry with everything. Zhao's fleet of airships was still heading toward the city and Katara had decided to return after months of meandering. Whatever she had said last night had hurt, but right now they had a siege to fend off.

He could wait for the full apology; he could wait to forgive. But no matter how irritated he was with her, she was sorry and he knew she meant it.

"R-Right." Katara backs away from him uncertainly. The uneasy moment dissipates as she spots Tartok's unconscious body lying in the snow and raises an eyebrow. "What happened to him?"

"Eh...piece of falling junk to the head," Toph quips, nudging Tartok's head with her boot. "He'll live."

"Right." Her gaze rises from Tartok to scan over the rest of them. "So what's the plan?"

"Uh," Zuko begins, relieved to change the subject to something, anything else. Even if it meant trying to explain the utter travesty that was the North's rabbit-harebrained defense strategy.

But Toph cuts him off, punching an open palm. "Screw the plan." Her eyes glitter triumphantly as she faces them all. "We're the plan."


The icy air whizzing past them makes his eyes water, the faint ringing in his ears still persisting even as they click and pop with Appa's swift ascent into the sky. Zuko grits his teeth in frustration, rubbing them furiously.

"What's wrong with your ears?" Katara asks him, her blue eyes watching him with concern.

He shakes his head. "Nothing. They just won't stop ringing."

Ducking away from her, he glances instead at the fleet of airships heading their way, dozens and dozens of giant structures floating in a single arrowhead formation. He gulps as the lingering sunlight glitters off the pointed edges of the airships' noses, their elongated balloons enveloped with metal all over and towering nearly as tall as an Imperial cruiser. If the war balloons had been meant for surveillance, there was no doubt in his mind that these airships, sturdier and dwarfing them by comparison, were definitely built for battle.

Aang whistles, even as his eyebrows lower into a frown. "That's a lot of airships."

Zuko stares at the fleet, growing steadily closer with every flap of Appa's flat tail. "I guess the other Air Nomads got busy."

"They must have had their hands full defending the skies and cutting the supply lines," Aang comments, lines of worry etching along his forehead.

"What? Why on earth would they have the Air Nomads doing both?" Katara exclaims, the shock in her voice grating against Zuko's ears. "Whose idea was that?"

"No time to play catch-up, Sweetness," Toph remarks. "Just get those metal monsters out of the sky."

Katara nods grimly, glancing down at the arctic plains spreading out a distance below, and the river snaking through it. Closing her eyes in sudden concentration, she reaches over the edge of the saddle and pulls with a strained grunt.

From far below, a broad stream of icy water gushes upward before rippling around her in a shining orbit.

"Um, guys?" Aang warns, pointing straight ahead. The leading airship, flying at the head of the wedge formation, bears down upon them. The decks below its gondola are already lined with uniformed soldiers, bracing to shoot. "Looks like we have company!"

Zuko blinks and the soldiers punch forward as one. Bright red fire spills out of the airship, roaring across the sky and directly toward them.

Katara leaps to her feet. With a slicing motion, the water propels forward, extinguishing the incoming fire with a harsh sizzle. Zuko winces as Appa jets through the clouds of steam emanating in its wake, droplets of boiling water spattering against his exposed skin.

"Incoming!" Aang calls out, as the firebenders force another plume of fire in their direction. Katara intercepts it with the shrunken remainder of her water, before batting the soldiers off their platform with a single sweep. Their piercing shrieks echo as they tumble through the air and fall into the river below with distant splashes.

Pulling the hot clouds of steam out of the air, she reforms her water into another pressurized jet as they fly past the lead airship. With a cry and a rotation of her arms, the water slashes against its hull, scraping the shining metal as though dragging a knife along its surface.

Toph leaps forward, her hands crushing into unfamiliar motions. As though in answer, the damaged hull deforms out of shape with a deafening grind, the streamlined shape crumpling like paper into a heavy metal ball that drops out of the sky. It slams into the land below, rocking the ground with dull angry explosions. A backdraft lashes upward, nearly grazing Appa's paws. The sky bison bellows angrily as Aang steers him quickly out of range.

Zuko jumps in, grabbing the explosive fire with a clash of his wrists. It spirals up beside them, its heat immense. With a roar, he shoves it straight into another airship gunning toward them, punching a hole straight through its hull and setting its engine alight. Soldiers drop like flies over the gondola railing as the rigid body is quickly enveloped in flames. The entire vessel spins wildly out of control and collides in a sudden violent burst with the airship flying directly behind it in the tightly-knit formation.

"Watch it!" Aang exclaims. The world tilts sideways as Appa dodges the falling carnage, the dry heat licking Zuko's skin with trailing embers.

They quickly fall into a harmonious rhythm, working in tandem to cut through the airship fleet as it flies across the breadth of the North Pole. Katara and Aang fend off incoming fire, while Zuko and Toph go on the offensive, destroying the hulls of nearby aircraft and knocking them down. When the resultant explosions reverberate out of control and threaten to knock Appa out of the sky, both Zuko and Aang work together to contain the combustion, bending in unison to redirect it toward the nearest ship and tearing it apart in a frenzied conflagration.

From the other side of Appa's saddle, watching steam pour out of the wreckage, Katara quickly realizes that the hydraulics powering the airships contain pressurized water. Instead of trying to damage the hulls with her bending, she promptly focuses on sensing the liquid inside the vessels' pipes and calling them to her. The bursting water and steam rips the airships apart, leaving Toph to fling the heavy metal debris into oncoming airships.

"Are we there yet?" Toph pants, massaging a cramp out of her stiffened forearms. "I swear we must have taken out a dozen ships already!"

Zuko doesn't answer, too busy fending off an approaching airship passing dangerously close. The firebenders assembled on its gondola sweep a blast of fire. He slides backward along the surface of the saddle from the force of it, straining as more pours toward him. "A little help!" he roars, glancing over his shoulder urgently.

But Toph is still doubled over, and on the other side of the saddle, both Katara and Aang are preoccupied with another ship bearing down on Appa's left flank. Growling, he clenches his jaw and forces himself to breathe. Finding his footing, he pushes back with all his might.

The swirl of fire careens back toward the airship, smashing the side of its hull and exposing the pipes running from the gas bag at its core. Zuko heaves in relief, brushing at the hair plastered to his forehead.

"I'm on it!" Toph yells in reply, too late. Before he can stop her, she jams her fists together with a sudden motion.

"Wait!" he calls out uselessly. The remainder of the intact hull buckles against the deformed, curling rudder and sending the entire airship spiralling closer. The pipes snap one by one, and Zuko curses loudly as jets of pressurized steam gush straight toward them.

He tries to push them out of the way, but to no avail. He couldn't bend steam, to do that, he needed -

"Katara!" he screams as loudly as he can.

She hears him.

Through the chaos raging around them, she leaps across the saddle, stumbling as Appa suddenly lurches. Zuko grabs her by the forearm and she glances up at him in surprise. But there was no time, the steam bearing down upon them so close he could feel its immense heat.

She springs into motion and he follows, every nerve of his battle-sharpened and somehow attuned to hers. Familiarity crushes deep in his bones as the steam clouds veer abruptly upward, coalescing into a pressurized column. With a deafening whoosh, the geyser pummels the ship attacking Appa's left flank, tearing off its elevator flap. The crash reverberates around them as the geyser finally fizzles out in a burst of fine mist.

As both ships plummet and Aang lets out a whoop of delight, Zuko only stares at Katara, panting heavily. She blinks back at him, stunned and finding it just as hard to breathe. His weariness mingles with shock at how effortlessly they had managed to blend their bending. That, in spite of everything dangling between them, they remained so innately entwined with each other. That she would still drop everything to help him, in the instant that he needed her.

It had been such a long time since he felt that way. But there was no time to dwell on that.

Through a sky full of burning airships and raining debris, the white walls of the southwestern harbour loom in the distance. In the setting sun, through the clouds of smoke and the choking smell of leaking fuel, he still sees the cool red flares crashing into them, an onslaught beyond reckoning.

And standing between them and the battlefront are the limping remains of Zhao's air fleet, a mere dozen ships reorganizing into a solid line blocking the path forward.

Toph collapses back onto all fours, gasping with exhaustion. "I can't," she heaves, clutching at her arms. "Metalbending isn't earthbending...I can't keep this up much longer."

"We'll cover you," Aang reassures her, leaping back to pick up Appa's reins. "You get some rest, you've done amazingly so far."

"I'm sorry." The distant explosions reflect in her clouded eyes. "I'm letting you down."

"No, you'd be letting us down by collapsing like you did back in that Dai Li bunker," Aang points out with a wry smile. "Come on. Zuko, Katara, do you think we can run this line?"

Zuko's eyes focus on the tiny shapes of the men filling the lower decks, sliding into position to attack. He shifts into a defensive form, his heart hammering. "We've faced worse odds."

Aang's hands tighten on the reins with a grim determination. His grey eyes sparkle as he digs his heels into the sides of the bison's head. "Appa, yip yip!"

With the force of the sky bison's acceleration crushing Zuko's chest, Appa bounds forward with an earth-shattering roar.

Aang leaps forward, aiming a spinning kick toward the row of airships. A sphere of whirling winds crashes into its centre, forcing the middle ships backward.

The outer ships hold firm, their benders pushing a fiery assault crashing toward them. The flames lick toward them hungrily, towering to heights that make Zuko's breath catch in his throat with fear.

But he pushes it away, catches the grains of lessons his uncle imparted to him so many months ago. Surrender. Be calm. Closing his eyes, he springs forward. His wrists crash together before rotating and pulling apart in a splitting motion.

With a swooshing motion, the incoming inferno flattens and rips apart in the middle like a parting curtain. A burst of dry heat batters his face but he holds firm, bending the remnants of fire out of the way.

Next to him, Katara rushes forward, her bared teeth a gleam of white in the corner of his eye. With a yell and an upward motion of her arms, the ships before them buckle and split apart in an explosion of hissing water. One by one, they burst apart at the seams, clouds of steam and boiling water mixing with leaking fuel, their ruined frames red with angry fires.

They fly over the wreckage of the last ships, descending slowly beneath them as they draw toward the battlefront and take in the ruinous sight sprawling out before them.

Bodhi hadn't lied about the size of Zhao's fleet, Zuko realizes with a feeling like a sinking stone in his stomach. Rows of gleaming dark battleships stretch out along the curve of the Northern Sea, some even managing to protrude into the mouth of the Adlartok Bay, which fed into the river leading the path inland to Aujuittuq. Their decks teem with movement, glowing fire and the snapping of catapults raining fiery blasts through the air. The echoing thuds and resulting explosions of ice and flames where they batter the giant walls, and the ominous cracking sounds that rend the air as the solid ice surfaces split and thread, chunks falling away into the roaring waters below.

Even with the setting sun and the pale sphere of the moon rising like a distant phantom behind the clouds, Zuko realizes quickly that the defenders were all but crumbling before the onslaught of Zhao's fleet. There were signs of a skirmish on the shores, with flying water and fiery punches clashing violently along the icy beach, the invaders not quite gaining ground but not being repelled either.

Elsewhere, the activity along the walls seemed to be in utter disarray. Squads of fighters caught too busy with repairing falling sections of the wall, and neglecting to repel incoming fire. An entire section of the gates manned by soldiers with no apparent ability to waterbend. Swarms of Air Nomads atop their sky bison torn between sabotaging the ships behind enemy lines, relaying instructions from one command post to the next, and ferrying the wounded inland.

"What a disaster," he breathes, chilled to the bone by the sight. From the sharp intakes of breath around him, he knows he isn't alone in the thought.

"What do we do?" Aang asks helplessly, as they finally clear the remnants of the airfleet and descend along the southwestern edge of the harbour walls. "They're really taking a hit out there -"

"Look!" Katara shouts, pointing a shaking finger in the air.

Zuko follows her gaze to the fraught battlefront, where a lone Air Nomad weaves through the heavy fire of the front lines. Climbing slowly through the air on a tiring sky bison, they watch in helpless horror as a flaming chunk of rock pummels her mount in the chest. It lets out a scream of pain before falling out of the sky and landing motionless in the pile of snow below.

"Help her!" Katara cries. Aang, white-faced in shock, quickly jerks on Appa's reins and galvanizes into motion.

They catch up with the Air Nomad and her fallen sky bison, landing atop a high cliff thick with ice, hugging the southernmost edge of the harbour walls. The ship-packed bay yawns out below the summit, glowing intermittently with fire and exploding ice.

Aang scrambles down and dashes toward the Air Nomad, head bowed mournfully as they press a shaking hand to their sky bison's unmoving chest. "Soma!" he calls out, his voice high-pitched in urgency. "Soma, are you okay?"

The Air Nomad glances up and blinks at him slowly, belatedly registering his presence. "He - he was getting so tired," she breathes, running her hand along the bison's long shaggy fur in long, slow strokes. "I told Chief Hahn we needed to swap out, but he insisted on another run to - to cut their left supply line." She swallows, the sharp lines of her tattoos stark against the extreme pallour of her skin. "Such a steep price, for so little gain."

"Hahn," Katara growls under her breath. "Hasn't everyone tolerated enough of his stupidity by now?" Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears as she stares at the dying beast, stricken. "Innocents are going to die - no, they've already died because of him. We have to stop this madness before it's too late."

"Welcome to the party, Sugar Queen," Toph speaks up, sounding just as hollow and resigned as Zuko feels. "What do you propose we do about it, exactly?"

"What about Zhao?" Zuko inquires, turning to Soma desperately. "If we take his ship and capture him, we could end this quickly and force a surrender -"

"We tried." Soma shakes her head defeatedly. "We managed to capture the flagship and a couple of others. Some high-ranking officers were taken prisoner. But Admiral Chan continues to lead the assault from a different vessel...and there was no sign of Admiral Zhao at all."

An unsettling feeling slides like cold water down Zuko's spine at her weary pronouncement. "That can't be right," he says stiffly, gazing down the peak of the cliffs to the array of ships below. "He's got to be down there somewhere. We just have to find him and end it."

Toph blows her bangs out of her eyes. "But how? We can't exactly march up to all those ships and personally search each of them for the asshole."

The roar of a distant blast punctuates her words. The cool red glow of a fireball curves past them as it hurtles straight for the section of battered wall immediately next to them.

With a sudden, desperate cry, Katara unleashes a flurry of movement. A thick column of water springs up from the ocean to swat away the incoming fire as though it was a hovering buzzardwasp. "I've had enough," she grunts, and in a trice the floating water turns to razor-tipped ice scythes that whiz toward the imperial cruisers and pierce them through. The shearing of metal and the sudden cries of the sailors as water gushes into their boats. "Sounds like it's time for a new plan."

As she straightens to her full height under the dying light of the sun, it seems to Zuko that an unspoken understanding flickers between the four of them. "Right," he recovers weakly, studying the battlefront with sharpened eyes. "This is a good position. We'll do what we can to support the defenses from here."

"Soma, you take Appa and get out of here," Aang says tersely, handing her the reins. "Let General Iroh know that we're here now...and we're holding this pass no matter what."

"Thank you, Aang," Soma says gratefully, inclining her head. She casts a last sad glance at the motionless body of her old sky bison, wiping away tears from the corner of her eyes, whispering softly, "I'll come back for you, I promise."

Then she scrambles atop Appa's head and with a grim look on her face, she flies off into the distance. Zuko watches her shrink until it becomes impossible to distinguish her from the other tiny figures enveloped in the fight.

"Right," Katara spits, cracking her knuckles loudly and squaring her shoulders from where she stands at the precipice. The wind whips blackened snow into her mass of long dark hair, hanging unbraided and heavy along her back. "Let's send those bastards packing."

And with the unrestrained force of the full moon floating like a ghostly grey eye watching the battlefield from on high, she lashes out. A tugging motion of her arms draws the water along the beach upward in a mounting tsunami, wrecking the first line of ships in the maelstrom frothing at its base. Then with a grunt and a powerful lunge, the water charges outward, breaking through the fleet's formation with the wrath of the boiling sea.

Zuko's jaw drops as he watches her rain down destruction, toppling ships over without a second thought. Tearing his gaze away with difficulty, he focuses instead on the ships further back from Katara's onslaught, still lobbing fire at the harbour walls from a distance.

"Aang!" he calls out, already dashing into motion.

Wordlessly, Aang follows suit. A strong gust of wind billows through the air, swirling into the incoming fire and deflecting its trajectory away from the walls. With a grunt, Zuko bends the remainder of the fire, redirecting it in a flaming loop charging back into the ships near the back of the bay.

Between the sudden redirection of their assault fire and the ferocity of the churning sea, the invasion stutters to an abrupt halt. The waterbenders lining the harbour walls resume attacking with renewed strength, their strikes buoyed by the full moon rising in the sky.

A sudden crash seizes Zuko's attention. He snaps around to see Katara stumbling backward, cursing loudly. A barrage of fire shatters the clifftop where she had been standing. It crumbles before her as she scrambles back to find solid ground.

He lunges toward her, sweeping the fire away as she finally finds her footing. Teeth bared in a growl, she sends the falling pieces of ice flying back toward the attacking ships, slicing off their chimneys and piercing holes in their hulls.

"They're starting to fall back!" Aang calls out, landing lightly next to him. "Look - on the beach!"

They scramble to peer over the decimated cliff's edge, at the skirmishes breaking out along the icy shore. Squads of firebenders struggle to fight their way ashore as the defending waterbenders push them back into the sea. Some even manage to leap aboard Water Tribe skiffs and jet through the turbulent waters, weaving through the sinking ships and capsizing them at close range.

"It's working!" Katara exclaims jubilantly, and the sound of it makes Zuko's spirits soar.

A faint animal roar alerts them to an approaching sky bison, with another air acolyte on its back. "I come with news from the Dragon General!" he says, ducking to avoid a fireball that threatens to pummel him out of the air. "He's thrilled to have you defending the pass. He says you couldn't have gotten here quick enough."

Zuko's eyes widen at the message, trying to imagine his uncle saying such a thing. "Does he need help anywhere else? We can try support him on the beach -"

"No." The air acolyte shakes his head. "He says there's enough fire on the beach as is. You can help by fortifying the defenses, repelling long range attacks so they can regain ground."

"Got it." Zuko nods. "What about the enemy ships? Do you need help there?"

The air acolyte shakes his head. "Thanks to your swift intervention. We've sent teams out to capture them."

"We noticed. Any sign of Zhao yet?"

"Not yet." The air acolyte shakes his head, his face falling momentarily. "But we will soon enough if we continue at this rate!"

"That's the spirit!" Aang chimes in, beaming excitedly. "Tell General Iroh we received his instructions...and maybe get him to move some of those non-bending fighters onto the beach where they can be more useful!"

Zuko frowns as the air acolyte flies away to relay the message. Narrowing his eyes, he studies the ravaged front line of the ships floundering in the sea. "Come on Zhao," he mutters, clenching his teeth. "Where are you hiding, you old bastard?"


Darkness settles quickly along the battlefront, visible only through the bright moonlight dappling the shoreline and the flashes of fire bursting through the air.

By now, the four of them have dug in along the high cliff top, bolstering the defenses on the wall. Down on the beach, the combined forces of Water Tribe fighters and Iroh's soldiers manage to hold their ground against the enemy machinery trying to crawl ashore. The clanging of metal tanks and boats echo noisily through the night, a confusing cacophony blending with the explosion and shouting littering through the air.

Yet, to Zuko's surprise, the besiegers still fight stubbornly on, trying to press their failed advantage into a desperate attempt to regain some sort of momentum. Tactical teams of soldiers jump on powered jet skis, ducking as close as possible to the Water Tribe skiffs sailing further out to sea. Light cruisers fling grappling hooks along the unoccupied cliffs of the Adlartok Bay, their soldiers trying to scale the sheer ice walls in a last ditch effort to gain a foothold inland. Aang and Toph only bring the hapless climbers down with laughable ease, slicing through the chains and blowing them into the air.

He tries to ignore the foreboding niggling at the back of his mind as the tide of the battle slowly begins to turn. With a movement like the sea unchained, Katara cuts the ice beneath their feet into a jagged platform and brings them whizzing down the cliffside. They land atop the white needley stalagmites growing out of its base, giving them a closer vantage point to the beachfront and its crush of invading machinery.

Struggling to regain his balance from the sudden steep descent, it's all Zuko can do to keep up with the chaos of battle unfolding below them. A giant armoured tank grinds steadily upward toward them, flanked by formations of enemy soldiers blasting nearby defenders out of the way as they try to gain ground.

Zuko pulls on their incoming fire, twisting it away and turning it back on them. Aang sends a mighty gust of air that forces the tank to stop in its tracks, while Katara brings up a blade of ice that slices off one of its broad rubberized wheels. The tank topples over to one side as Toph leaps forward with a crumpling motion, and its strong metal shell caves in.

Zuko directs another plume of fire into the tank's exposed interior and the entire thing explodes, sending the enemy soldiers running for cover. The defenders on the beach chase after them, hard on their heels.

"Not bad," Toph pants, ripping sheets off the destroyed tank and hurling them at the enemy soldiers scattering below. "We make a pretty great team, all things considered."

"Aw," Katara grunts, raising another tank atop a whirling funnel of water and dumping it on top of a third tank immediately behind it. The resounding crunch splits the air. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to us - fire!"

Zuko and Aang jump up to meet the flash of fire charging toward them, while the girls duck behind them for cover. In a coordinated motion, the fire curls into a rotating headwind before spinning back onto the beach, flattening a formation of enemy soldiers in the shallows.

"This is great and all," Zuko grumbles, redirecting a fireball away from the harbour walls behind them, "but shouldn't we have made some tactical gains by now?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aang grits out, blasting a cruiser out of the water with a ferocious gust of wind. "I swear we've taken out most of their heavy destroyers by now!"

"Not to mention their entire airfleet," Katara heaves, working with Aang to sink the toppled cruiser with an angry giant wave. "Face it, it's only a matter of time before they give up."

"Then what are they waiting for?" Zuko demands, suddenly irritated and paranoid with the sudden worry gnawing through him. "What commander in their right mind would continue fighting like this? That too with the full moon giving us a clear advantage?" He points at the glowing white orb, hanging swollen and heavy above the star-studded horizon. "And where is Zhao?"

"He's probably cowering in the back as far away from the battle as he can," Toph remarks, sending a couple of enemy soldiers flying through the air by their metal chestplates. "Relax, Sparky, he'll give up eventually. The night's barely begun, and time is on our side here!"

"You say that," Zuko mutters. "But I know Zhao. If he's not commanding from the front lines, it's because he's got something up his sleeve. Until we have him in chains, we can't breathe lightly. None of us."


The invading fleet has all but surrendered by the time General Iroh descends to the shoreline.

By now, the fighting has mostly stopped. The icy beach is full of Water Tribe fighters and soldiers in Fire Empire uniforms. In the moonlight, it is almost impossible to tell the two sides apart.

The shallows teem with the wreckage of countless ships, while behind him, ice continues to fall from the cracks in the towering harbour walls. It smashes into the ground every once in a while, shattering the growing silence abruptly.

The remains of Zhao's fleet still bob on the open waves, waiting like spectres promising destruction with the coming dawn. But the waters of the Adlartok Bay stretching out between them are impassable, gnashing under the command of countless waterbenders of the North, keeping the threat at bay.

Team Avatar still controls the mouth of the river inland. The four of them, safe atop the icy spires lining the base of the high cliffs, command the ebb and flow of the beach's defenses. A smile works onto his face as he glimpses them, small figures atop a jagged platform of ice, working together in harmony, their combined power awe-inspiring enough to rally the rest of the fragmented defenders.

There is no doubt in his mind that their sudden arrival had turned the tide of the invasion and earned the Northern Water Tribe a decisive win against the invaders. For a moment, he remembers them, four cranky teenagers grumbling about meditation boot camp, and his heart brims with pride to witness how much they have grown together.

And will continue to grow. This is but a taste of what they can achieve, as long as they are together.

The loud roar of a sky bison jars him from his silent reverie. Iroh glances up as Gyatso lands next to him.

"We took the ship that held their Admiral," the old Air Nomad reports.

"Zhao?"

Gyatso shakes his head. "No. Admiral Chan was charged with leading the invasion. He said he would consider surrender, but first asked this to be delivered to you. He said it was urgent."

Iroh frowns as Gyatso withdraws a scroll from his belt and holds it out. "Did he?" he comments dryly, glimmers of foreboding snatching at him as he takes the scroll and examines it.

The red wax seal of the Fire Navy Admiral's office gleams in the moonlight, cracking beneath his fingers as he unfurls the scroll. He stares at the words, inked in an elegant hand, his heart pounding as he tries to make sense of it all.

My most highly esteemed General,

As the oldest of friends, allow me to offer my congratulations on your victory. My delegate, Admiral Chan, has been so kind to act on my behalf while I am elsewhere occupied. I am sure you will find him most reasonable to negotiate with in my absence.

Regretfully, by the time you receive this, I will be undertaking a legendary feat of my own. You might understand, having defeated the last dragon and tried to rebuild the bridge between our world and that of the spirits. But dominion over this world belongs to the Fire Nation by rights, and soon even the spirits themselves will bow under our heel.

Do you believe in spirits, General? You should. They are about to cost you everything.

Enjoy your victory while you still can.


The full moon has risen to its apex in the night sky by the time the snow finally stops falling.

Far below, its reflection dances on the glassy surface of the pond at the heart of the spirit oasis. Yue stares at it in a trance, deceptively near enough to touch, hovering above the silent blackness.

In the unusual warmth of the oasis, the black snow doesn't touch the ground. A fine mist wraps around the verdant grass, choking the air with a blanket of deathly silence. Beneath the surface of the water, the pair of koi fish continue to push and pull around each other, their rhythmic pulsing movements frenzied somehow. As if they too could sense her meditative distress and were also calling out for help in their own way.

That would be nice, she thinks dryly to herself. If the moon and ocean spirits won't hear my prayers, maybe they'll listen to the koi instead.

A flicker of motion on the surface of the pond catches her attention. She glances at the white fish, fluttering in a panic in the depths of the water. Blinks, and suddenly sees her own glowing reflection, staring back at her solemnly.

They're coming, something whispers in her ear. Yue isn't sure if it's the voice of her own confused spirit or another's that pleads with her now. Only you can protect me.

"I don't understand," she says haltingly, even as her reflection shivers and vanishes from the water's mirrored surface. "What - what do you want from me?"

For a moment, only the white fish's thrashing motions seem to exist. The funereal quiet of the oasis amplifies the echo of her heartbeat in her ears, and the way it suddenly begins to race.

Then there's the sound of grass crunching behind her, and a hand clamping down on her shoulder out of nowhere.

She screams, but the grip on her shoulder tightens to a vice. A sudden flare of fire burns in the corner of her eye, its dry heat blistering against her skin.

"Take the Water Tribe princess," an unfamiliar voice commands, the satisfaction in it making her stomach roil with panic. "We're going fishing."


The paper slips from his fingers, clattering against the icy ground.

"What is it?" Gyatso asks as the blood drains from Iroh's face. "What did it say?"

Iroh stares at the star-studded sky with growing horror, the serene moonlight burning his eyes. "Zhao, you madman," he whispers hoarsely, "what have you done?"


Blood splits open the sky, a blinding red wound. For a moment, a single shrill scream rends the world into oblivion.

Then all that remains is silence, and a yawning chasm of darkness where the moon once shone.


For a moment, Iroh forgets to breathe. His gaze is fixed upon the gaping void in the sky, his ears full of the malevolent silence as the ocean itself goes entirely limp, as though releasing a dying exhale.

He struggles to find words, to say anything at all. But for a moment it's as though the voice has been ripped out of him as well.

"Iroh," Gyatso says from a million miles away, before his hand finds Iroh's shoulder, "Iroh, my friend, look -"

Iroh blinks and glances out to the sea, where the numerous ships lining the horizon light up in grim succession. One by one their engines roar to life, and the glow of fire illuminates the smoke pouring up in columns out of their chimneys.

Suddenly, the soldiers taken prisoner from the day burst free of their chains, overpowering their hapless Water Tribe captors. They assemble into formation quickly, bolstered by the boats rapidly cutting across the dead waters.

"We must go," Iroh hears himself choke, grabbing Gyatso's sleeve, "quickly, now -"

The world careens abruptly as the sky bison takes flight. A rush of fire chases them into the air but with a grunt, Gyatso bats it out of range. Blinking in disbelief, Iroh can only watch helplessly as the beach suddenly comes alive, packing with docking boats, more of Zhao's soldiers manning tanks and armoured komodo rhinos. Whirling morningstars on chains bite into the surface of the walls and tug them down. The unearthly roar of crumbling, collapsing ice fills the air.

And, to his alarm, the Water Tribe fighters struggling to fight back, their bodies limp and staggering, while the water and ice surrounding them remains dead and unresponsive to their bending.

"Wait!" he calls out, his eyes widening in shock as the incoming hordes of Zhao's soldiers cut down the Water Tribe fighters effortlessly. "Gyatso - they can't bend! We must help them."

Gyatso tugs on the reins of his sky bison, wheeling around in the air. He lets out a shrill whistle, and motions to the other Air Nomads circling the skies. "Fall back! Take who you can and fall back!"

Then the world pitches suddenly downward, as they plummet toward the shore. Iroh grits his teeth, blasting as many of Zhao's soldiers back as he can.

His ears still ring with the cries of the Air Nomads, winging through the air wreaking devastation, echoing Gyatso's cry.

"Fall back! Fall back!"


At first, Zuko thinks he imagines the shriek piercing through his ears and making his temples ring.

But then a blur of blue in the corner of his eye sends his heart scampering into overdrive. Katara crumples to the ground as he snaps around, writhing and screaming, her face a twisted mask of agony.

"What -"

Suddenly, a barrage of fire rises up from below, rushing toward them with renewed vigour. Aang, still not noticing anything amiss, leaps up to blast it away. But to his surprise, the oncoming fire intensifies, wrapping around the gust of wind to suddenly surround them on all sides.

"Zuko -" Aang cries, staggering back before charging forward again with another blast. A brutal gust of air whips the snow upward around them, raising a defensive snowbank around them. But the fire surrounding them on all sides only grows taller, and the raised slopes of the snow grow shiny and wet.

But Zuko's entire attention is fixed on Katara. He grabs her by the shoulders with shaking hands even as she shudders fitfully, crying unintelligibly. "Katara! Katara, what's wrong?"

Her eyes open, wide and for an instant, their vivid blue seems to fade. Gasping through clenched teeth, she points a trembling finger at the sky before she goes limp in his arms.

He follows her gaze to the empty void torn through the sky, a pit of blackness that sucked away all light.

The moon is nowhere to be seen.

"Come on. Get it together," Zuko hisses, even as dread rises in the back of his throat with the taste of bile. "You can't give up, not now!" He struggles to help her upright, but she doubles over, her hands clamped against her temples, her breathing laboured like a mortally wounded animal.

Aang lands with a blast of icy air. "The waterbenders just collapsed - all of them!" he shouts, waving his arms in panic. "Zhao's firebenders are breaking through them - they're capturing everyone!"

"This isn't good," Zuko grunts, as Katara thrashes against him, screaming again. "Aang, we have to get out of here, now -"

"They're heading straight this way!" Toph yells. She pivots around, her blind face scrunching uncharacteristically with fear. The glow of nearing fire reflects in her widened eyes. "What are we going to do?"

Zuko snarls, flame exploding from his nostrils. His grip on Katara's shoulders tightens. "Come on, stay with me." With an explosive grunt he staggers to his feet, bracing her weight against him. "We'll get you out of here -"

"How?" Aang demands, slamming his glider down into the snow. A gust of wind blasts outward. Bodies thump faintly in the distance.

Toph stomps her foot uselessly, her face straining with effort. "Ugh! If...only there wasn't…so much ice...otherwise I'd have bent us a tunnel out of here already!"

Aang bares his teeth, leaping into the air with a twirl. The force of the wind nearly knocks Zuko over; Katara sways dangerously in his grip, her screams fading into whimpers. Snatches of it catch his ears: "- hurts, they ripped it out, just ripped it out -"

"Katara," Zuko tells her fiercely, shaking her again. "What happened? Tell me!"

She meets his gaze and for a split second, she seems to see him. Then her face screws up again, her fingers digging into her forehead.

"We need you to bend some of the ice away," Zuko tells her anxiously, his eyes flitting around to the slope of the snowbanks encircling them, the red glow of firelight lapping away at its edges. "It hurts, I know, but we need you to, Katara...it's the only way we can get out of here…"

Katara gasps, her fingers clenching into fists. Through her heaving breaths, Zuko catches the words squeezed through her clamped teeth. "...can't - can't bend -"

Zuko's eyes widen in horrified understanding. "No," he whispers uselessly, his grip weakening enough for her to wobble dangerously and slide back down onto the ground. "No!" He lunges, grabbing her around the waist as she lolls against him, barely conscious.

He stares upward helplessly, the ominous black hole in the sky seeming to fill the insides of his chest.

"The moon," he breathes slowly, "they can't bend without the moon, none of them can -"

"What are you talking about?" Toph snaps, trying in vain to reach for the ground buried far beneath the layers of snow and ice.

"The moon. It's gone." He points to the sky, as Katara had. Aang stops attacking to stare upward in dawning horror. "Zhao must have destroyed it, somehow - I don't know, and now -"

"Now they can't waterbend," Aang realizes in rising panic. "That's why the waterbenders fell. All of them - even Katara - they lost their bending -"

A blast of fire smashes through the raised slope of the snowbank surrounding them. Aang redirects it with a swing of his glider, but more pours through the breach where the steep slope had melted, allowing the attacking firebenders easier access.

"They're coming!" Toph yells, now trying to reach under the snow with both hands and knees on the ground. "Fuck! What do we do?"

Zuko spins around helplessly, his eyes flitting everywhere, trying to find some way to escape. But Katara was now down for the count, unable to bend, and Toph was nearly the same in this snow-covered environment. Aang repels the incoming enemy fire with strengthening gusts of air, but he was only one person, and the approaching firebenders were consolidating in number every second. Even if he and Aang teamed up, they could only hold them off and delay the inevitable for so long…

And what would Zhao do to them once he caught them? Katara, the most wanted waterbender in the world, who had nearly killed his father.

He pulls her tighter to his chest, unwilling to wonder what would await her if Zhao captured her.

But there was precious little time and no way around it. If his father had been willing to challenge his thirteen year old son to an Agni Kai for speaking out of turn, what unspeakable horror would he unleash on the waterbender who had nearly killed him on the night of his ascendency?

A waterbender turned powerless, with the sudden loss of the moon. It wouldn't be a fight, it would be a slaughter.

And suddenly through the chaos of a thousand fears that grip him at once, only a single thought seems to matter.

He would die before he let that happen to her.

"Stand back," he spits at Toph, still scrabbling at the ground.

"What - ah!" Toph leaps out of the way, barely missing the jet of fire Zuko pushes into the snow beneath her feet. A furious stream of glowing orange fuelled by the cold sense of purpose flooding through him, melting through the layers of snow and ice covering the ground.

Toph sits motionless, no doubt feeling the heat of his fire warm against her face. "Sparky," she says cautiously, "Sparky, what are you doing?"

"Finding a way out," he grunts. "Help me dig through the ice. There's got to be earth down there somewhere."

Toph nods grimly, before her hands crash together. A grinding sound rings out in the distance as a disembodied sheet of metal torn from the hull of an armoured tank whizzes toward them. A sudden motion reforms its shape into a pointed drill. With a yell of determination, she forces it into the ice melting slowly beneath his fire.

Some feet away, Aang gets knocked off his feet by a huge blast of fire. He feebly waves it away from him, but smaller fires flicker menacingly, lighting the snow around them. "Zuko!" he yells, staggering to his feet unsteadily, "Zuko, I need help!"

Cursing loudly, Zuko scrambles away, managing to deflect the worst of another fire blast. He hisses as flames lick the armour along his arms, but forces all his energy into raising a solid wall of fire.

Behind him, Toph clenches her teeth together, trying to drill through the ice in vain. "Come on," she hisses, "come on, you stupid ice -"

With a sudden cracking sound, the ice platform beneath them disintegrates. Gravity hooks beneath his navel and he barely has time to scream before the four of them plummet downward, the jagged ice shelf at the base of the cliff flying upward to meet them.

Aang cries out and a swirl of wind cushions their landing. Zuko clambers to his knees, glancing at the pristine ice glimmering around them with growing despair. The water glittering in the distance remains as motionless as death.

Then, a roar of fire punches straight toward them from overhead. He jolts into motion, kicking it into the cliff face behind them. Tiny fragments of shocking cold burst everywhere. "Toph -" he chokes out as more fire pours down toward them.

"I'm on it!" she grunts. With a flex, she raises her makeshift drill, boring furiously through the gouge in the cliff face, struggling desperately to find the earth buried underneath. Katara lies huddled by her feet, her whimpers and thrashing now gone chillingly silent.

Chains whiz downward along the icy stalagmites growing out of the ice. The approaching roar of engines and clanking machinery grow louder, as more fire rains down on them from above.

Zuko pushes as hard as he can, but the incoming blasts overpower him. He grunts as it flattens him, covering his face as hot flames cascade over his entire body.

Aang charges ahead, batting upward with one sweep of his glider after another. The force of the wind nearly sends Zuko flying as he totters to his feet. Wheezing, he stares desperately up at the silhouettes of descending soldiers illuminated in the endless fire raging down wildly to obliterate them.

But then, through the crashing of fire and whooshing of wind and the nearing clang of soldiers scaling down toward them, a high-pitched chink of metal meeting earth shatters through the air.

"Got it!" Toph shrieks, flinging her drill upward. It pierces through a chain and a handful of soldiers land on the ground in front of Zuko with a loud thump. "Someone, help me with Sugar Queen -"

Zuko steps backward, gasping for breath as the piled soldiers grumble and stir, before glancing up to meet his gaze. In a trice, they leap to their feet, bending plumes of fire toward him and the others.

He nearly buckles, struggling to wave off the enemy fire when -

"Zuko!" Aang calls from somewhere behind him, "Zuko, let's go!"

He glances over his shoulder to see Aang and Toph, both struggling to support Katara's dead weight between them. Aang scrambles into the narrow round tunnel carved into the ice, toward the dark hole at its end leading toward the base of the cliff. Then reaches out to grab Katara and tug her unmoving body in after him.

Something smashes into the side of Zuko's face. He yelps with pain as he falls over, clutching at his smouldering cheek. His limbs paralyze with reflexive fear as the fire licks at his face.

Boots slam into the ice in front of his face, racing toward his friends. Forcing himself back upright, his eyes starting to glaze over in exhaustion as Toph struggles to swat the soldiers back. One of them aims a fire fist directly above the tunnel Toph had painstakingly drilled. Ice piles up in front of it, threatening to bury its inhabitants alive.

With a struggling gasp, Zuko lands a spiral kick, toppling the soldiers over. Toph shoves the ice out of the mouth of the tunnel and scrambles inside. "Sparky, come on!"

He manages to catch her blind, anxious eyes vainly searching for him through the ice. Her jaw, clenched white with terror, blending in with the snow surrounding her.

But the jingling of more chains and the thump of more soldiers landing behind him makes him whip around. He kicks another plume of fire before spinning around, and finding himself now circled on all sides by Zhao's soldiers.

And more were coming.

"Go!" he screams at her, his chest squeezing tight with desperation, "go on, get out of here, go go go!"

He doesn't stop to hear if she says anything back. Forcing himself into a flying kick, a red rush of glowing fire looping around him on all sides. It expands outward, knocking his adversaries over with a loud thud.

Panting, heaving for breath, he glances back over his shoulder. But Toph and the others are gone, the narrow ice tunnel now blind-ending into a solid earth wall.

Relief batters him even as one of the soldiers leaps up to his feet and sends him sprawling with a neat kick to the chest. A grim smile works its way across his face even as he clambers back on all fours.

They're safe. The enemy fire forces him to his knees and he gasps, pushing everything he has left into a final blow. Even then, the helpless smile on his face only widens. Nothing else matters.

The thought makes him so light-headed, a faint giddiness overtakes him by the time someone finally charges straight through his flagging wall of fire. The blast knocks him off his feet, sailing through the air and landing heavily on his back.

It doesn't matter. She's safe. Zuko pushes painfully onto his knees, head bowed as more soldiers rappel down to surround him on all sides. Gasping, he curls his hands into fists, and lays them in his lap.

"Well, well, well," drawls an unpleasantly familiar voice. "Who do we have here? It can't be Crown Prince Zuko, could it?"

Zuko glances up through the heavy curtain of his sweaty hair tumbled in front of his eyes. Dozens of Empire soldiers in their smoke grey uniforms and face plates encircle him in two solid rings, poised to attack if he made any sudden movement.

And marching to a halt right in front of him, the shins of his boots level with Zuko's face, is none but Zhao himself, wearing his satisfaction as smugly as the Admiral's crest on his chestplate.

"So it is," Zhao remarks, his teeth baring into a grin. "Why, isn't it my lucky day? Who knew destroying the moon spirit's mortal body would bless my fortunes this way!"

"You'll never get away with this, Zhao," Zuko forces out, breathing heavily. He tries to lunge and suddenly, the rings of soldiers surrounding him jerk forward threateningly. Zuko's teeth grind together audibly as he grudgingly stills.

Zhao only laughs. "Won't I? In one night, I was able to accomplish what your father couldn't over the course of the entire polar war! The moon is dead, and waterbending with it. They will never rise again. The North belongs to us, now." His tongue dashes out to moisten his lips, a predator contemplating the prey trapped in its clutches. "There will be no end to the honour that awaits me back home. Especially when I bring back as my prisoner none but Prince Zuko himself. Guilty of the highest treason in the land, to await his father's justice."

Zuko swallows the sudden fear that overtakes him as Zhao kneels down to face him at eye level and leans in close. "I will enjoy watching you burn a second time, Your Highness," he murmurs, almost tenderly.

She's safe. They're safe. That's all that matters. Zuko struggles to hold Zhao's gaze, his thoughts his only remaining defense against the crippling blows of panic.

"I depart for Caldera City at first light," Zhao announces to his soldiers as he gets back to his feet, arms clasped behind his back. "I will take a very small crew with me, to hasten our flight. Admiral Chan will oversee the occupation of the north in my absence." He smiles cruelly, stroking his bushy whiskers. "I'm sure he'll find some use for its inhabitants. They'll be most cooperative without their bending, I imagine."

"You won't find all of them," Zuko blurts out with all his remaining strength. The soldiers encircling him grow tense, ready to deal a deadly blow at any moment, but he doesn't care. "You won't find my uncle. That's who he really wants."

Zhao grimaces, stung by Zuko's taunt. "We'll see about that. The North is vast and remote. No matter where your uncle hides, we have the manpower and the resources to wait him out." He turns on his heel, raising a hand to gesture at his soldiers. "Lock him up."

Zuko snarls, lunging to his feet with fire brimming in his fists. But then the ring of soldiers closes in on him, holding him down as he struggles. Someone snaps a pair of cuffs around his wrists, forcing him back onto his knees.

"It's only a matter of time before General Iroh surrenders or freezes to death," Zhao's voice cuts through the din. "But don't worry. You'll be long gone from here by then."

A mailed fist slams him in the face. Stars litter Zuko's vision, falling from the sky as the world slowly fades to black.

"Accept it, Prince Zuko. You've all lost."