AN: Time is a bit wibbly-wobbly in this chapter. It mostly moves forward, except when it doesn't.
Chapter 33: Applied Politics-Bending
"I don't think 'politics-bending' is a thing, little buddy," Sokka said, still snuggled up on his personal heatpack as the Gaang lounged in front of the fire. Aforementioned heatpack was not struggling nearly as much as he could be. You're stupid and you're going to freeze to death so I guess you can hug me this time but don't get ideas Prince Peasant.
"Uncle said it is," Zuko grumped. Which was clearly a final, so-that-was-the-way-the-world-worked sort of statement. He took in a breath, and let it out, and Sokka melted a little at how extra-toasty he'd become.
"So what should we do?" Aang asked, trying to lure Momo over with the promise of snacks. But the lemur had the same heatpack as Sokka, and was not moving until summer came 'round again.
"I don't know," Zuko said. "I'm terrible with politics. Why do you think I'm here?"
Sokka gave his nephson a that-sounded-like-trauma squeeze. Zuko gave his uncdad an elbow to the solar plexus. Sokka wheezed.
"What would your Uncle do?" Katara prompted instead.
Heatpack McSharpElbows took some thinking breaths as he contemplated this. Sokka and Momo puddled at the resulting heat. "Probably say something like 'The leaf does not see the tree, but the tree counts each branch before spring begins.'"
"What does that mean?" Sokka continued to wheeze.
"I don't know. But we should figure out what we're trying to do before we start. We want girls to be able to fight if they want, and boys to be able to heal, and Princess Yue to upset centuries of tradition in the name of her personal quest for power, right?"
"Close enough," Sokka agreed.
His nephew leaned back against his chest, scrunched up his almost-healed-except-for-the-huge-scar-but-seriously-that-was-a-big-improvement face, and thought.
His thinking was warm, and toasty, and started like this: "Princess Yue is the easy one. You just have to marry her, Sokka."
"...I what now?"
"But first you have to take down the competition."
"...This is what your Uncle would do?"
"Uncle is the Dragon of the West."
"I don't actually know what that means," Sokka said, with the feeling he was about to find out.
%%%
Chief Arnook received word with his morning meal that Prince Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe had nearly drowned last night, and had requested a formal meeting with him this morning.
The meeting was extortion, and made only plausibly deniable attempts to hide the fact.
"You wish me to break my daughter's engagement," Arnook repeated, with narrowed eyes.
The Southern boy shrugged. "I wish you to consider alternative options. She's been engaged for a day, and it hasn't even been made public yet. What is public is that her stellar fiance dumped one of the Avatar's entourage into polar waters for no reason."
"Hahn tells it differently."
"Pretty sure Princess Yue and all those witnesses tell it the same way I do."
They did. Arnook crossed his arms, and waited.
"Look, I know you haven't known me long. But you have known Hahn, and I'm betting that's a strike against him. Let me guess: powerful family, good connections, strengthens your own political position, and you're young enough that you'll comfortably hold onto all the political power until your grandkids are ready to take over, totally skipping him for any Chiefly title inheritance. 'Prince Hahn' is going to be a prince forever, because anyone who impulsively tries to murder a foreign dignitary and friend of the World Spirit isn't the kind of guy you'd let make any actual decisions for your tribe. Am I wrong?"
He wasn't. Arnook waited.
"So. You can announce your future son-in-law to the tribe, right after he publicly boomeranged himself in the head. Or."
"'Or,'" Arnook repeated.
The boy flashed a grin. "You could consider an alternative candidate. One from a powerful family, with global connections and a war fleet behind him, who won't single-handedly ruin your tribe if you have a heart attack before your grandchildren are ready to inherit. And oh hey: I respect your daughter as a human being. I'll only ask her with your blessings, but if she says no, I won't make her cry on bridges in the middle of the night. All I'm asking is for you to consider my proposal."
"And what proposal would that be?" Arnook asked.
"No, literally." The boy pulled a carved necklace from his pocket; an abstract piece reminiscent of a flying bison. "My proposal."
%%%
"Uh, no," Sokka said. "Veto. Abort. The whole point is to not put Yue under marry-this-guy-or-else pressure. Even if I am the objectively better option. I'm not forcing her to marry me. Or me to marry her. I am very young to be doing the getting married thing. Plus, Suki. You remember Suki? The girl who made out with me after you burned her village down?"
"You what?" his precious baby sister had very different priorities. "I thought you were running a fever!"
"Point is, there are many eligible women in the world, and only one Sokka. I'm not sure I'm ready to commit."
"You're not committing," Zuko huffed (it was an indignant, toasty sort of huff). "You're stalling for time."
"Not sure how that's gonna help us, little buddy."
Zuko rolled his eyes and, aww, he didn't flinch at the way it pulled at his scar. His nephson was all healed up and able to be condescending with his whole face again. "'The rhubarb-carrot grows deep roots beneath the ground.'"
"...What does that mean?"
"I don't know. But get Fire Flake out of the stupid pet sweater, we need her."
%%%
"I don't like either of them," Pakku said, when Arnook went to him for council. "But at least Hakoda's son isn't an idiot."
It did not occur to either of them until much later to ask for Princess Yue's opinion.
%%%
Princess Yue lay on her bed. The moon was new (her face full to Agni, as they spoke of many things), and the stars brighter for it (a thousand other cousins waiting in the sky).
A hawk pecked at her window. Not a messenger snowy-owl-hawk, warm in its plump white feathers, but a shivering creature of thin red.
Fire Flake, said its message carrier.
Want to join a revolution slumber party? said the note inside.
The moon showed the tiniest of waxing slivers, peeking with interest through the window outside. The princess didn't notice; she was rummaging for her best pajamas.
%%%
Lieutenant Jee. Was trying to decide whether he was more bored, or more cold. The Northern Water Tribe's hospitality leant itself so well to each, it was hard to decide. At least his cell walls were good for icing his bruises. And he hadn't even been given any new ones, since that game last night. He was pretty sure it was last night. Either that, or they'd been skimping on his meals.
The ice opened with an overly dramatic crack. The General's pai sho pen pal stood in the opening, posed like a twelve year old about to throw a tantrum.
"Out," he said.
Jee reclined against the ice wall, crossing one ankle over the other in a display of doing fine here, thanks.
The man threw a coat at him. Which… was not generally a prelude to interrogations. Or executions for figuring out nation-spanning secrets he wasn't supposed to know.
"It's been a long time since I've sparred with a firebender," Pakku growled.
Jee shrugged on the coat, and stretched out his legs. Cracked his neck. Flicked a bit of lint off his sleeve.
The cranky old master hit him with an ice spike in the back, one that sent him stumbling out of the cell. Jee rubbed at the spot as they walked. Nodded to the guards that scowled at him. Winced a little when they hit the sunlight. It was too damn cold to be so damn sunny.
The waterbender led him to a private training ground, and then proceeded to use Jee's bones to test its structural integrity. Or maybe that was the other way around.
"What's got you on the warpath?"
"Children," Pakku snarled.
Lieutenant Jee, fully able to appreciate the sentiment, wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. "You'll miss them when they're gone."
"I sincerely doubt that."
I did, too, he didn't say. Instead, he took his stance. "Another round?"
The man narrowed his eyes. "You seem awfully dedicated to this."
"Wouldn't want to disappoint my admiral," Jee said, meaning something entirely different than what the waterbender heard.
"Hmm," the old bastard said, and put Jee in the ice again.
He got back up. He'd seen some lessons in determination these past months, and they'd had the unfortunate habit of sticking. Zhao was coming; Jee needed to brush up on his combat forms.
%%%
Chief Arnook received word at lunch that the Avatar wished to speak with him and his council.
For some reason, he brought his girlfriend to the meeting with him.
For some reason, this gave Arnook a headache before either of them even spoke.
%%%
"Pakku's easy, too," Zuko said. "He's just like every royal tutor I've ever had. He'll tell you you're useless and refuse to teach you and complain to the Fire L—the Chief, and you'll get punished, and if you hug me Sokka I will let you freeze to death, but then in a few days he'll be back to teaching you because he has to. And besides, you're going to be awesome once you're trained. Both of you are; Aang is the Avatar, and Katara is Katara. Do you really want that jerk taking credit for being your master?"
"But he's the best," Aang said.
"But you're a beginner. What's wrong with the second best?"
Sokka, meanwhile, was just smiling that his nephson had recognized personal trauma before Sokka had squeezed him. This was just like training a polar bear pup.
%%%
"The… second best," Arnook echoed. "Have you found Master Pakku's teachings to be lacking in some way, Avatar Aang?"
"Well, no," the Avatar too-readily admitted. "But he doesn't think he's good enough to teach a woman how to train her chi for combat bending."
"Excuse me?" Master Pakku said, in a tone that redefined 'dry ice'.
%%%
"Just throw everything he's said back into his face and smile while you do it."
"That's… what your Uncle would do?" Katara asked, with some hesitance.
"Azula," Zuko corrected. "She's better with people. Uncle just makes them tea until they give in."
"You are going to be a terrifying Fire Lord, nephson," the stupid huggy backrest behind him said.
"Thank you?" Zuko said, because that was exactly the kind of compliment a Fire Prince was supposed to receive. He didn't really get it, though—he was just saying what Uncle would have.
%%%
"Master Pakku explained to us why your tribe don't teach women," the Avatar continued, with far too much cheer, "and it makes perfect sense! Fighting chi messes up healing chi and healing chi messes up fighting chi. But see, airbenders are naturally closer to healers in their nature, so I'm going to ask Master Yugoda to be my sifu so my airbending doesn't get messed up by all this waterbendy-fighting. And Katara's chi is already super messed up because she didn't have a teacher like Master Pakku to set her on the right path. We talked it over last night, and we decided that she should just keep being a fighter so she doesn't get even more chi-twisted. What would that even do, switching back and forth? Make her chi paths into a pretzel? I'll have to ask Master Yugoda…"
"Healer. Yugoda," Pakku corrected, through gritted teeth.
"Healer," the Avatar sighed, smiling. "I can't wait until I earn that title. There's so many bending masters in the world, but I've never met an honored healer before."
Arnook could have used a healer for this migraine. "I don't believe you understand, Avatar Aang. We do not train women as fighters. It is a part of our culture, just as the separation of women and men into different temples was yours. I had hoped that the Avatar would show more respect for the differing traditions of other nations."
The boy's face fell. "Oh. So you don't have any masters who can help Katara?"
%%%
"They're just going to shoot us down," Katara said.
"And I really really want to heal," Aang added.
Sokka could feel a huff building in his nephson's chest. He patted that foofy-short hair. "It's okay, little buddy, I think I can field this one. Hey Aang, how many Avatars are there in the world?"
"Uh, one?"
"Hey Katara, how many evil looming Fire Nation fleets are closing in on us?"
"Also one," she said, with a slow grin.
"Maybe," Sokka said, "just maybe, you should remind them of that."
%%%
"That's too bad," the Avatar said, sharing a glance with the girl before turning his attention back to the council, and… bowing. "Thank you for your hospitality. If it's not too much trouble, may we stay for another few days? There's a lot of supplies we have to gather before we can set out."
"Set out," Arnook repeated.
"For the Earth Kingdom," the girl put in, like she couldn't restrain herself. "Our Fire Nation Advisor informed us there's another tribe of waterbenders living there."
%%%
"Creepy swamp people," the firebender shuddered. "I went to them before the South Pole and it was—the bugs were bigger than mosquito-ticks, and they wore less clothing than Uncle in a hot spring, and the swamp was, was—"
"Worse than the spirit swamp?" Sokka guessed.
Zuko shuddered again.
There was a polite knock on the door. Aang hurried to open it; outside was Princess Yue, regal in comfy white pajamas with fur trim, carrying a shivering messenger hawk wrapped up in a blanket like the world's beakiest baby.
"Princess Yue!" Sokka greeted her. "Come in, come in! We were just deciding how best to threaten your tribe with the withdrawal of the Avatar's backing if all your men don't stop being dicks."
"It's phase one," Katara added, grinning.
"I see," the princess replied, with a sort of quiet dignity, and a crescent moon glint in her eyes that implied she really did see, just maybe not the same things Sokka did, and he could just look into those eyes until his nephson headbutted his chin and made his teeth clack together over the tip of his tongue.
"Stop being gross," Zuko grumped. "Princess Yue. Would you care to join our War Council?"
The Princess swept her eyes over their piles of fur and their fire-that-actually-hadn't-needed-any-new-wood-for-awhile-was-Zuko-doing-that and their grins and his own extremely shirtless self and then she was blushing and he was blushing and did it count as partial nudity if he was wearing the Prince of the Fire Nation over his chest? No. He was going with 'no.'
"I would love to," she said, and smoothed her skirts out. She settled down in the space Aang and Katara had made for her in their ring, kneeling with grace and poise and just a dash of mischief.
%%%
"You would abandon us on the eve of battle," Arnook said, like the words sat less strangely in the air than in his mind.
"We wouldn't be much use helping you fight if you don't have any masters who can train us," the girl continued to speak. The Avatar seemed content to let her be his voice. "Unless, perhaps, that second-best master cares less about what's under my clothes…?"
This conversation was making the chief uncomfortable, on many levels.
"You would blackmail our tribe," Master Pakku sneered, "for your petty self-gain? The fate of the world, thrown out for one girl throwing a temper tantrum because she can't accept the role she was born to?"
The Avatar raised his hand. "One boy, too."
Pakku's lips curled into the technical definition of a smile. "You think you're suited to fighting, girl?"
%%%
"Remember," Zuko said, "the more compliments you give, the more insulting you'll be."
"Only if they catch it," Princess Yue put in, her legs kicking in the air behind her as she lay on the furs. "...What?"
"You do have a very sincere voice," Sokka did-not-sigh, because his ribs were bruised from his nephson training the sigh-at-pretty-girls-being-casually-badass response out of him.
Yue smiled, and there was nothing in the world that would have stopped Sokka from tanking that elbow jab just to bask in her reflected glow a little longer.
%%%
"If the venerable Master Pakku wishes this humble girl to give a demonstration, perhaps he would be so gracious as to step outside," Katara said, her lips curled into the technical definition of unless you're too pig-chicken.
Two minutes later, Katara pulled a water whip on the master waterbender. Also, a knife.
And there was something very wrong in thinking the Fire Nation would be proud of me as she fought for the rights of Water Tribe women.
"That's my necklace," Pakku said, when he'd stopped her from fighting, but not beaten her. Never beaten her.
His voice was small, like a seal-puppy waiting to be kicked.
%%%
"So hey, Katara, fun fact," her brother's voice was as high as it had been before his last growth spurt, and he was looking anywhere except at the Princess. "Fun, not at all super awkward fact. Did you know you're wearing a betrothal necklace?"
"A what now?"
%%%
"No wonder she left you," Kana's granddaughter said, and walked away.
%%%
Lieutenant Jee. Felt a lot like he was bearing the brunt of someone else's problems.
%%%
"Why did you do that you can't do that don't ever do that again he's a fire—a, a waterbending master, and you disrespected him, and challenged him to a fight, and I didn't tell you to do that—"
Everyone hugged Zuko until he stopped shaking, including Princess Yue. Zuko hugged back, but only Katara. Who he might or might not ever let go of again. It really depended on whether she looked like she would challenge another old geezer. Which, yes. Yes she did.
Speaking of challengers, not-yet-a-prince Hahn was watching their hug with rapidly narrowing eyes. And oh hey, Sokka's hand was incidentally touching the Princess' arm. He raised a want to make something of it? brow.
Oh boy, did Hahn ever.
"Soaka, or whatever your name is—"
"Sokka," Sokka corrected, disentangling himself just enough from the group hug so that he presented a small, separate target. He rolled back his shoulders and channeled his inner royal, through the only example he'd ever known. "Prince Sokka. Is your peasant brain too small to remember two syllables?"
Sokka spoke this quietly and calmly, with only a hint of a smirk on his face. Which was all the people around them saw, right before Hahn bellowed in disproportionate rage and attacked him.
The humble Prince Sokka graciously allowed the benevolent Princess Katara to take the punk down. A few months ago, it would have hurt his pride to have his baby sister defend him. Both for the 'baby' and for the 'sister' parts. Now?
Now, he just enjoyed the show. The very very public show.
%%%
"I will do whatever you think best, father," his daughter replied serenely, which was not exactly a heartbroken response to having her engagement put off. "There is another matter I wished to discuss with you, if you have the time."
Arnook always had the time, for his daughter. She demanded so little of it, after all.
"I've been so scared since I heard of the invasion. Not for myself, but for our people—"
%%%
Prince Sokka had fallen asleep, still leaning forward on Prince Zuko. Agni's young son was nodding off slowly, leaning back against Sokka, startling awake with a glare at the occasional sound of soft, sister-ish giggling.
The Princesses sat together on a couch across the room, a single fur spread over both their legs, the Avatar asleep between them. They did as all girls left unattended at slumber parties did: plotted the systematic overthrow of the patriarchy.
"If they think we're weak," Katara said, "let's shove women-are-weak guilt down their throats and watch them choke."
"I like how you think, Princess Katara."
"Likewise, Princess Yue."
Zuko startled awake, then nodded off again. He dreamed dreams of not-messing-with-women.
%%%
Chief Arnook had had no such dreams.
"—our healers, carrying our injured men to safety, but who will protect them? Our fighters should be free to focus on the defense of the city, not on the burden of guarding able-bodied waterbenders—"
But he was starting to think today was a waking nightmare.
"—self-defense only, of course. Enough to escape, and find shelter elsewhere. Or to hold the Fire savages off at the healing huts until our men can arrive. Did you know that in the Fire Nation, they consider women combatants? The barbarians—"
Arnook was not sure why everything his daughter said made complete sense without making any sense at all. And why he wanted to say no, even as she kept serenely laying out reason after reason he must say yes.
"It's unseemly for women to fight."
"More unseemly then for them to die cowering on the ice of their own home, father?" There was something too-blue in his daughter's eyes, and too-white in her hair. Too much light in a room that was by all accounts as dim as it had been a moment before.
"Self-defense only. And only for those who wish it; I won't force this on any."
"Of course not, father. No one should be forced into a role they do not fit."
%%%
"You actually said that? Right to his face?" Sokka grinned. "Think he caught it?"
Yue blushed.
He held up a hand. And kept holding it. After a few awkward moments, he taught the isolated Northern Princess all about the ancient Earth Kingdom art of high fives.
%%%
Pakku was informed that he would not be taking on just the one uncouth girl, but as many as showed up to his school for training. The other bending schools had been ordered much the same. Self-defense bending, for their healers.
This was a slippery slope. As a waterbending master, Pakku had much experience with the concept.
%%%
The cell wall crashed to the floor. Lieutenant Jee cracked a bleary eye. It was the only part of him that moved. He'd earned a fur blanket after his last session of being this man's therapist, and he intended to stay under it.
"Up," the waterbender demanded.
Jee slowly pushed himself up. The ice under him creaked exactly like one man calling another out as a drama king.
%%%
The first class was only Kana's granddaughter. The first week of classes; only her. But other girls started watching from the sidelines—whispering, giggling, and in all ways comporting themselves in a manner unfit for fighters. Not just girls, either; full-grown woman, demonstrating that the inherent silliness of their gender did not grow out of them with time.
The first to show any spine—second, really, after Kana's girl, whose progress spoke well of her grandmother—stepped forward the next week. A thin-faced, homely thing. Teenage, likely set in whatever poor habits Yugoda had instilled in her.
She put five ice daggers through the center of his target with a flick of her fingers. "Party trick," she said, by way of explanation. "And I have to walk home alone at night a lot."
Pakku wondered, with no real interest, how fast she could fire.
...Very fast, as it turned out.
"Teach me that, and I'll show you how to stab someone in more interesting ways," Kana's granddaughter said. They clasped arms on the deal, disregarding his presence as if they didn't need him to learn. Pakku cleared his throat.
A handful of others drifted in as the days went on, despite the way his boys jostled them, and sneered, and whispered at how they were good for a few things but marriage wasn't one.
Pakku buried that particular gentleman in the snow up to his neck, and left him there. The other boys got a lesson in etiquette, reinforced with two hours of early morning combat practice against their firebending guest, before the girls were due to arrive.
"Must you smile like that?" Pakku asked.
"You just told me I can throw fire at all the punk children I want," Iroh's man continued baring his teeth in an entirely appalling way. "It's Fire Festival come early."
By the time the girls had arrived, his firebender was locked back in his cell humming to himself, and his boys were appropriately contrite.
More girls joined after that. Many more. As if the mere act of not tolerating disrespect from anyone in his classroom made them feel comfortable imposing upon his lessons.
One particularly small girl hugged him, and thanked him for the lesson. Pakku wiped at his clothes as she ran off, and found Kana's girl watching him with an expression. One impertinently close to a smile.
"Gran-Gran would be proud of how much you've changed," she said. "She's single again, you know."
%%%
"Why are you taking me hunting," Jee asked, making it more a resigned statement than a question as he trudged behind the waterbender, carrying enough gear for two men.
"Because I want to kill something," Pakku replied, carrying enough gear for zero men. And talk about my feelings went unsaid.
"...Can I be the thing you kill," Jee requested.
"No. Ah good; polar bear geese."
The most terrifying animal Jee had ever seen reared up from the snow, its sinuous neck thick with muscles and topped by a tooth-filled beak.
Honk, it said, and the rest of the flock rose with the flutter-scrape of wings and claws. Then Jee was fighting for his life, back to back with the bastard who'd brought him out here as a pack-mule.
It was the kind of talking that Jee could get behind.
%%%
"'The hippo-crane will not be moved from its mud, but when it steps on the fallen branch, the clever fox-monkey need but jump on the other end.'" Uncle said, via Zuko.
"What, I ask again, does that mean."
"You're the one who keeps asking for proverbs, you figure it out."
"How can I, they're all nonsensical Fire Nation proverbs based in cultural assumptions I don't share!"
"They're Uncle's proverbs," Zuko said. "He's his own culture."
"...Give me another. One of these has to make sense."
"They're so sweet together," Yue said, as Katara sat behind her, running a comb through her hair. Sleepovers had become a regular occurrence. "He's right, though. If we wish to accomplish anything else, we must act while we still have the leverage of the coming fleet."
"Is that what that meant?" Aang asked. He was sitting behind Katara, combing her hair. Momo sat on Aang's shoulders, staring at the Avatar's bald scalp and looking vaguely put out of this grooming loop.
"Phase two?" Katara asked.
Yue looked at her, and she looked back, and Aang looked too, and Sokka flopped down on the furs across the room and groaned about Uncle making no sense ("I know!")
"Phase two," everyone not hung up on proverbs agreed.
%%%
Hakoda's son had begun attending council meetings. No one was quite sure who had given him permission to; everyone assumed it was the person he was sitting next to on any given day. Or the chief. By the time it was ascertained that the permission-granter was himself, he was already offering too valuable of suggestions to casually ignore. Even if his fleet information was clearly coming from the Avatar's Fire Nation Advisor.
His suggestions were good enough that nothing he said could be lightly dismissed. Particularly not when rumor had it that he was, perhaps, to be their future chief.
"So all those kids are going to be huddling in shelters when the fleet attacks?" the boy asked, standing so he could peer more effectively over the city map. "Including the waterbenders?"
"You would have us send our children into battle?" a councilor asked.
"Naw. I'd train them to heal."
"The healing apprentices will already be in the huts—"
"Uh, yeah. The girls. But what about the boys? That's a huge untapped resource you've got literally sitting on ice, waiting to be utilized," the boy said, poking at the shelter marks. "Twice the healers, gentleman. Think about it."
Not so easily dismissed at all.
%%%
The first boy to throw a tantrum at being forced into a class with girls was given a look by Yugoda. It was a look that made him feel like he'd deeply disappointed her, but she knew he was a good child under it all.
The boy crossed his arms, turned his face away, and largely shut up.
%%%
Sokka low-fived Yue as he left the emptying council room. She returned the gesture, and went in.
%%%
At least his daughter had waited until the other men were gone, Arnook reflected. It wouldn't do for them to see him caving so easily; they would think him water-whipped.
"—What if the brutes were to invade the shelters, while our men are still fighting? Our non-bending mothers must be able to hold them off long enough for support to arrive. As a princess, it is my duty to lead by example—"
%%%
Being ordered to teach did not equate to teaching well. Not all were as tolerant of change as Pakku. Not all allowed for such tolerance. Not all sent the girls who came to them home with the same number of bruises as the boys who'd come to them, or in the same places.
"And that's enough of that," Sokka said, to his growing night class. "As you can see, two swords are flashy overkill and I completely meant to faceplant the snow. It was a valuable demonstration. Now, advanced class, grab your practice weapons and head off with Zuko. Newcomers, you're with me."
"...Are you serious?" a girl with a black eye that had come from training, but not from training, said. She was eyeing Sokka's fan.
"Deadly," Sokka grinned, and showed them how to disarm a man before he even realized a demure little lady was packing heat as well as fashion.
%%%
"Get up," the trainer ground out. "You want to fight like a man? Want to take my time away from training our boys? Then be a man, and pick up your weapon. We're not done here."
The woman clutched her wrist to her chest. There were catcalls around her, and laughs, and a steadily creeping silence from the back as the crowd parted.
Princess Yue and her ladies in waiting swept onto the training grounds. It was, the trainer thought stupidly, the first time he'd ever seen his princess wearing pants. She looked… strangely intimidating.
"Master Jakklo," she smiled. "We've come for lessons."
He found it significantly harder to push around his princess, in more ways than one.
Who in La's name had taught her to knife fight, and did they know the word 'defense'?
%%%
"And then you aim for the squishy bits," Princess Katara said, demonstrating. Her knife flashed in the sun, glinting a thousand colors.
"Is that the technical term?" Yue asked, with a sleeve hiding her smile.
Her fellow princess grinned. "That's about as technical as my teacher ever got, unless she was talking about engines."
"I'd like to meet this woman," Yue said, unable to imagine someone whose aggression scared even this Southern Princess.
"Engineer Hanako is terrifying," Agni's child vouched. "And really, really loud."
"Don't mind him," Sokka said, with a dismissive wave. "He's two for two on meeting crazy prodigy bending princesses. I think he's waiting for you to reveal you're secretly an all-powerful demi-goddess, or something."
Yue laughed in a way that made Sokka laugh too, and made the fire prince scowl harder.
(Agni and Tui's favorites, together at the top of the world, as the axis of all things tilted back towards the sun.)
"Stop thinking at me," the prince glowered, and Yue laughed like moonlight.
%%%
Aang spent his mornings with Yugoda and his afternoons with Pakku. Beginner classes, both. The latter because he always showed up exhausted and he'd already been bending for hours he didn't want to demonstrate a perfect water wall again. The former because he'd been trying and trying to make the water glow and it was the first time ever that bending wasn't easy and why couldn't he do this he was the worst Avatar ever come on past lives someone had to have learned this.
Didn't they?
Was he the first healing Avatar?
Maybe he would be, if he ever actually healed.
"As I understand it," Healer Yugoda said, "airbending is about finding another way around a problem, yes? But injuries are here, and they are not going away. They must be seen as they are, and met with bravery, for healer and patient both. Sometimes all you can do is stand firm on the ice."
A young mother smiled at him. In her lap, her son kept crying, because Aang couldn't heal the scrape on his arm. Aang was letting everyone down, they were all waiting for him and he couldn't do this, it was all his fault that the little boy was upset, why couldn't the other healers step in and help, why did it have to be him, he was the worst choice ever for this—
(Because the other healers didn't see patients with such minor injuries. They didn't even let them into the huts unless there was an apprentice around who needed practice. So Aang was the only one who could help him, the only one that would help him.)
Aang dipped his fingers into the bucket, and wrapped his hand in water again. And tried to smile. If he couldn't do this right, he had to at least do what he could. He couldn't run away.
(He was done running away.)
"I know it hurts, okay? But let's get it washed off, and we'll see how bad it is. And then I can put some ice on it! Would you like your icepack to be shaped like a seal-turtle, or a flying bison, or maybe a penguin-otter! You don't have those here in the North, but they have a ton down South and you can ride them—"
The boy's crying turned to ragged hiccups as he listened to Aang's stories, his big blue eyes fascinated.
Aang didn't even see it the first time his water glowed. When he realized the skin under his hand was whole and new-made pink, he almost cried.
%%%
Katara spent her mornings with Pakku, and her afternoons with Yugoda. Intermediate classes, both. There was so much to learn in healing, and so much to learn in fighting, and only so many hours in the day so why couldn't she join the night classes, too?
"Because you'll exhaust yourself, dear," Yugoda turned her down.
"Hmph," Pakku said, and didn't physically restrain her from attending.
Which was where she met the Fire Nation prisoners. The Northern fleet had been catching scout ships, and using the benders who surrendered for practice.
She wondered if Sokka knew.
%%%
"Yeah," her brother told her, later. "But, uh. You know what they'd been doing to the Fire Nation soldiers they caught before, right? And are still actively doing to the non-benders, because apparently non-benders are literal jetsam? But anyway, one of the first guys they caught was a good sport about the getting-beat-on-for-fun-and-practice thing, so when his execution came up at the council meeting Pakku had ideas. Ideas that didn't end in polar swimming contests. It's actually kind of hush-hush; apparently they're a wee bit afraid of political backlash from keeping enemy firebenders locked in cells made of melty ice, and don't even get me started on all the waterbent shortcuts in the architecture around here. Can we, uh. Can we not tell Zuko I knew about this? Because I wasn't hiding it from him on a permanent basis, just until I'd talked them around to my if-the-prisoners-cooperate-we-won't-kill-them-after-the-invasion deal, and the risk of Zuko Omashuing on behalf of his people was slightly lessened—"
%%%
"Hmph," Pakku said again, here and now, at the distaste in Katara's face.
So Katara squared her shoulders, put on her best Waterbending Warrior face, and faced off against a man who was wrapped up in a coat and scarf even more fluffy and ridiculous looking than Zuko's, and with a new polar bear goose cloak wrapped over his shoulders to boot. She didn't know how he planned to combat bend from under all those layers.
He waited for her to go first, with the surly patience of a man who didn't want to be here. It was… familiar.
"...Lieutenant Jee?"
"Waterbender," Zuko's Captain acknowledged, his voice muffled behind his scarf. "So you made it to the north safely."
He said safely weird. Like he was angry about it, or jealous, or simply put-off by the notion of her not being maimed in a ditch somewhere.
"Does Zuko know you're here?" Katara asked.
It should have taken more than five words to upset the order of the world.
%%%
"Everyone thinks I'm dead?" Prince Zuko was glaring the glare of an obviously-not-dead person. Or a really convincing corpse. "And the Northern Tribe has been using prisoners of war for training?"
"What monsters," Sokka said, in a tone that convinced no one but his intended target. "Who knew."
Lieutenant Jee pinched the bridge of his nose, and wondered if the warm feeling in his chest meant he was coming down with a fever. He was developing some kind of facial tick from seeing the prince again, too; his lips kept trying to twitch up.
%%%
"Everyone thinks the Fire Prince is dead," Chief Arnook echoed, at a council meeting that did not include any member of Team Avatar. "And this 'Jee' claims some believe the enemy admiral was behind it. How do we use this?"
%%%
Spring arrived.
Katara was in the advanced class. All of them.
Aang was an intermediate healer, and Pakku's second-most frequent cause of migraines.
Zuko shouted a lot and brought furs down to his captured countrymen by the overbalanced armload. The guards should not have found this as endearing as they did. The prisoners felt no such compunctions in appreciating their prince, who had come back from the dead to fuss over whether they were getting enough to eat and sufficient sunlight and were they were hitting the stupid Water Tribe peasants hard enough because if they want you to fight fight. He tried to join them at practice, even though he wasn't a prisoner like them. Pakku banned him after the first incident with seed lightning.
He also Pohuai Strongheld an owl-hawk to tell the world he was alive. The owl-hawk lived in a corner of their room, hooting from the blankets he tossed over it every time someone came in, until Zuko admitted he didn't know how to send messages with Northern birds. The hawkers were ordered, in no uncertain terms, not to teach him. Not even if he really really wanted to learn, and had an exotic fire hawk to tempt them with.
The stolen owl-hawk was well-preened and male. Fire Flake fell in love.
As much as Momo sniffed the air, there were no other excellent fit-for-mating lemur-bats here. Appa sympathized.
Sokka and Yue went on some activities. Some of these activities were bison rides, I'm borrowing Appa have fun at class Aang thanks bye, and some were weapons-shopping. Yue seemed both touched and mildly disappointed with the tasteful mother-of-pearl-handled knife he got her for her months late came-to-your-birthday-party-without-a-present present.
(The moon should only be outshone by the sun. The hilt Was Not As Gaudy As Her Teacher's.)
Black snow fell.
Zhao's fleet fired a catapult. Several, actually.
Chief Arnook fired a messenger owl-hawk. To the question of 'how do we use this,' there was only one answer: in the most confusing manner possible.
%%%
To the Honorable Captains of our allied Fire Navy fleet, and all soldiers loyal to the advancement of the Fire Nation,
Knowing the climate limitations of your messenger hawks, we bear you no ill will for this unprovoked attack, and will assure Fire Lord Ozai on your behalf that your actions have in no way impacted negotiations.
You may not be aware that your prince was declared dead through the treasonous actions of former Admiral Zhao; nor that Prince Zuko survived the attempt, and sought asylum in our court while the traitor forged orders and commandeered fleet resources to seek his own glory in pointless battle against a neutral nation; nor again that talks have been opened regarding the prosperous joining of our peoples through the union of Princess Yue the Moon-Touched, Daughter of Miakko and Chief Arnook of the Northern Water Tribe, and Fire Prince Zuko, Hero of Omashu, Advisor to the Avatar, Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, Grandson of Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe.
Your ranking officers are welcome to verify the truth of our claims, and enjoy the hospitality of our court until such time as the traitor Zhao can be secured, the safety and future happiness of your prince guaranteed, and your fleet mobilized to return to Fire Nation waters.
Regards,
Chief Arnook
%%%
They dropped a letter on each ship in the fleet. Several, actually.
%%%
"Did I. Did I just get politics-bent?" Zuko asked, staring down at a letter announcing a betrothal he hadn't been consulted on. He was a minor, after all. His legal guardian would have to agree if they were serious and this wasn't just a tactic to sow confusion in the fleet. Which it definitely was, but was it also a betrothal? Was he engaged to Yue? It was very important to know if he was engaged to a princess right now. And how could he be, if they hadn't talked with his father?
...Chief Arnook couldn't be serious. This was Definitely A Tactic And Nothing Else. Even if Yue had come bouncing into the last sleepover with the news that her engagement to Hahn was officially broken. And even if it was an objectively good move, since Zuko came with all the same perks as Sokka because technically he was Hakoda's grandson but he was also Ozai's eldest, so there was potential for peace between North-South-and-West but he couldn't be serious—
"Nephson," Sokka said, as he returned from the latest council meeting. "Blocking your uncdad is not cool."
"It wasn't my idea!"
%%%
Fire Lord Ozai watched the royal hawker bow before him, and had the inexplicable urge to leave the man there. Just… never grant him permission to rise, or to deliver that blue-wrapped scroll.
%%%
Arnook didn't expect the Fire Lord to agree. But he took some small pleasure in knowing that Ozai would have to deal with the restructuring of his world view, too.
The letter to Hakoda was far more incidental, but no less ice-shattering.
%%%
"They grow up so fast." Bato grinned, clapping Hakoda on the back. "Looks like we'll be in time for the wedding, eh?"
The Southern fleet continued its course north. Faster.
%%%
AN: So I have always been really uncomfortable with Pakku spotting that betrothal necklace when he agrees to teach Katara. Like, can we please make it unambiguously clear that Katara super impressed that punk and he took her on for her fighting spirit and would have done so even WITHOUT knowing who she was related to?
In our next chapter: Zhao destresses from recent events with a relaxing fishing trip. You've earned it, Admiral.
Tumblr is a thing I have. If you're wondering what the heck story is going to update next or about upcoming projects or just want to stare at fanart, that is the place to be.