Myoona: Can do. :P
Gate Keeper1073: Thank you. I am indeed though (because my winter break is over) I might update a bit more slowly. I have a second fanfic that I want to continue as well so I might alternate between the two depending on my mood. Odds are that this one will be the priority though.
Mogor: Thank you! More chapters are on the way. It's been too long since I've worked with Sokkla.
gemsofformenos: Thanks :D I think that I like this one a bit more. But I love them both. So many ideas, so little time. :v "Where has she been? How ended she up here at the South Pole? What happened to her?" Good questions, Azula would love to know the answers to them too. "The way you describe this freezing cold is perfect and so vivid as ever, great job!" Those images have been brought to you by me looking outside of my window, seeing some snow, and softly muttering, 'oh fuck, not this again.' Katara hasn't quite noticed yet lol. And Sokka still has some doubts; as far as the two know, she's still in the institution. "I would love to see both stories you have started to grow bigger" Thanks, I'd like that too, but I also really want to continue the one where she was chained to the grate. And I also have a comedy fic in mind. So many ideas...too many ideas lmao. Let me know if you were right! Thanks so much, I hope that you have a wonderful and warm new year as well! And that your family has some good times ahead.
The sickly feeling is growing in the pit of his stomach. Having fully slumped onto him he can hear and feel that her breathing has grown shallow again, irregular. The rise and fall of her chest is becoming increasingly inconsistent. Some dark part of him wonders if he should care. He tells himself that it might not be her at all, that it wouldn't make sense for Azula to be anywhere near the tribes. In that vein he couldn't chance letting someone innocent die.
Who is he trying to fool, even if it is Azula, he doesn't feel right letting her die either.
Katara comes back with a bundle of clothes. "Katara, watch her for a minute, I'm going to find dad."
Katara's brows furrow. "You're what?! Look at it out there!" She gestures to the window. "You're the one who told me to stay inside."
"She's not going to make it without dad, I don't know how to take care of her." He lifts her bundled form onto the sofa and lays her down. "I don't think that waterbending can fix this."
Katara kneels down and inspects the firebender. "Sokka, I can't lose you. Dad can't lose you." She watches him disappear into the other room.
"You're the one who always wanted to stop and help people out. Even if it could have gone terrible for us." He calls.
Katara sighs. "How are you going to find your way home? I can barely see the tree a few feet away from the house."
"With this." He reemerges with an armful of rope, netting, and cloth. "Dad and I keep them for fishing and hunting. I'll only go as far as all of this can get me."
She bites her lip. "Be careful, Sokka. I'll see what I can do for her."
Sokka nods as he tugs his parka on and then his gloves, and another set of gloves, and-this time-a pair of snowshoes.
"If you get too cold, please just go to the nearest house and stay there. Losing two people is worse than losing one."
And two alive is ideal, he thinks. He draws his hood over his head and casts a final look at who he assumes is Azula. He hopes that he has bundled her up tightly enough to keep her alive a little longer.
He takes his first step into the snow storm. With a piercing slap, it shows him exactly what his task is going to be like. The cold is already intolerably biting. The wind screams at him, a shrill banshee wail with a frosty breath. He refuses to look back at the house. The warm house with the blazing fire...he shakes his head and takes another step. He'd last seen Hakoda at the center of town, which isn't all too far from their own home. By the time he makes it to the first house, his teeth are chattering considerably and his fingers are pulsing. "Gran Gran?"
"Sokka, what are you doing here?"
He almost asks her the same before he remembers that she had volunteered to watch their neighbor's children while they vacationed in the Fire Nation. They certainly chose the right time. "I'm trying to find dad, I need his help."
"Sokka…"
"It can't wait, someone is going to die."
Kanna shushes him. "Not in front of the kids. What's going on Sokka?" She whispers.
Quieter he replies, "I found someone in the snow and now I need to find dad. I'm going to stop in each house to warm up until I find dad. When I find him we'll go as far as we can and if we start to get cold, we'll take a break in the nearest house that will let us in." He hopes to take as few of those as possible. "Do you know where dad is?"
Kanna nods, "Four houses over with Bato."
.oOo.
"...Gonna be fine." The voice is distorted.
"...warm..." Under the distortion she can't tell if the voice is male or female.
"...back soon...and…" Nor if there are one or many people speaking.
She fades in and out but she can't seem to ever wake herself in full. Even if she could she knows that she is too weak to do anything. Her body feels numb. Or maybe she doesn't have one at all. Maybe she is already in some sort of between state, well on her way to the Spirit World.
She tries to open her eyes again but they are so heavy.
She can't feel…
She wants to feel…
"Careful!" It is a different voice. "Be very gentle."
There is only blackness but she finally does feel something. That something is warm and it is on her forehead. She is starting to feel more things; a tingling in her right hand, a pressure on her left, a sense that something is horribly amiss.
"Not yet! Don't let her wake up yet."
Like that she slips away again.
She tries to fight it but there is no fight left in her.
She is warm, very warm. Warmer than she has been in ages. She savors it with everything she has. Out in that tundra she had feared that the cold would never leave her, would wrap its icy fingers around her bones perpetually. Her cheek rubs against something fuzzy...or furry? It doesn't matter, they are nearly the same in sensation.
She doesn't yet open her eyes because her head still spins. She rubs her fingers over the fuzz...the fur?
She inhales and opens her eyes. The light is glaring. She tries to sit up but her head is still dazed. The dizziness within it sends her head back down. She fights to stay awake but her fight brings no fruition.
"She's really hot." Says a voice. She feels a hand on her head. "We should give her some water." The voice is female.
Azula forces her eyes open, she squints against the light but only for a moment before the woman eclipses it. She utters a question but her moving lips make no sound. The once soothing warmth is now uncomfortable. She tries to sit up again but she is tangled in blankets.
She doesn't remember how she has gotten here.
She doesn't remember a lot of things.
She needs to remember.
She needs to…
"You're awake." The woman notes. "Sokka was really worried, we weren't sure if you would."
She stares at the woman.
"Here, have some water." She holds out a waterskin and helps to unravel the blankets. "Gran Gran has some seaweed stew cooking, I promise that she's a much better cook than Sokka."
"Sokka?" Azula murmurs.
"He found you in the tundra."
Azula's brows knit as she puts the pieces together. Some of them anyhow. "How bad was it?"
Katara winces and exchanges a look with someone behind her. Azula steals a look at this person and decides that he must be Sokka.
"It's...not good." The man replies.
"Why?" She finds that she doesn't have the patience for guessing games. "Just tell me how bad it is." Perhaps she shouldn't be so cross with the people who have saved her. She lays back down again, rolls onto her side, and presses her cheek into the cushion.
"You got frostbite and hypothermia. And now you have a fever." Says a third person. An older man.
"Look at your hand." The younger man adds. She isn't sure if he is Sokka or if it is the older man.
Instead of asking, Azula holds her hand out in front of her and flexes her fingers.
"The other one." Says the younger man. Azula holds up her left hand and flexes her fingers. Her four fingers. She swallows hard, feeling queasy.
"We had to amputate it, it was already dead." Noted the older man.
All she can muster is a soft and hazy, "But I needed that."
"You'll still be able to firebend and whatnot." Says the older man. "I've seen men and women with greater injuries…"
She isn't quiet listening anymore. She wonders just how much more she will lose. Her eyes linger on her left hand. She thinks that maybe she should shed some tears, but some how she can't manage. Instead she runs her undamaged fingers over the bandage until the woman says, "don't do that you're going to hurt yourself."
Azula withdraws her touch. "Am I missing anything else?"
"We were concerned about your toe." Answered the younger man. "We decided to let you keep it though." He laughs. She doesn't share his sense of humor.
"I'm going to see if Gran Gran has you stew ready." The woman gets up. The older man follows her.
"What were you doing out there?" The remaining man asks.
"I was getting away from them."
"Them?" The man questions. "Who are they."
She shrugs, "I don't know. They're them."
His eyes seem to light up with realization. "You need to go back there, it's for your safety and everyone else's, as soon as..."
She throws herself off of the couch and sends the both of them to the floor. She holds a small flame to his throat. It flickers orange as it licks dangerously close to his flesh. She hears footsteps and knows that she hasn't got a chance. She is already feeling faint. She crumples to the ground again.
"What's going on?" It is the woman.
"She tried to get up and she fell…"
She has to give him props for covering for her.
She wakes up on the sofa once more. Her entire body screams and scolds her for dealing it more abuse. While her body shouts, the man is quiet. She doesn't think that he realizes that she has come to. She gives a soft cough and he turns around.
"Sorry, I thought that you were someone else."
"Who did you think I am?"
"My friend's crazy sister." He shrugs. "She's dangerous...and completely nuts."
Azula eyes him blankly. "Oh."
"I'm Sokka, who are you?"
"That's a good question, I'll let you know when I figure that out."
Sokka laughs, "you can just say that you don't want to tell me."
Azula massages her temples. Her head was already pounding a good one and this man is somehow managing to hike it up a notch. "They did something to me...that's why I had to leave. I think that they did a lot of things to me…"
His smile fades, "you were serious? You really don't know your name?"
"I know my name and that I escaped from an institution." She replies. "But I don't know the person behind that name. I don't remember that person." Azula watches his expression screw into the image of concern.
"Your stew is getting cold."
"I just told you that I don't remember anything and that I escaped from an institution and you want to talk about rank-smelling stew!?"
Sokka flinches. "Look, eating makes me feel better when I'm all bandaged up. I'm just trying to help."
Azula exhales and her face softens. She holds her hands out. Sokka gives a half smile and sets the bowl in her hand. Truly the smell is unbearable, like fish and stale ocean water. But her stomach is empty and she can't particularly afford to be choosy. She reluctantly has a spoonful. The texture is slimy and gushy against her tongue. She forces it down and bunches her face in disgust. After the third spoonful Sokka snickers, "if you hate it that much you can just ask for something else. We can fry up some fish."
She puts the bowl aside. "How long were you going to make me suffer?"
"Three more spoonfuls but then you did that thing with your face and I decided to show mercy."
"I'll remember this, Sokka." She vows. "And I don't have a lot of memories, so it won't be hard."
He bursts out laughing again. "Just make sure you store that memory next to the one of me dragging you out of the tundra."
"Yeah, that one is a blur."
He leaves the room and in his absence she takes in her surroundings. The place is rather cozy; skins and furs line the walls and floors. They hang above the fireplace alongside a few pots, pans, ladles, and mugs on hooks. The fireplace is glowing warmly. She slowly gets to her feet and wanders closer to it, dragging with her a trail of blankets. She holds her hands out in front of the fire, taking special care to look everywhere but at the bandaged stub. The room is rather cluttered, the previously noted furs are spread out atop each other in a seemingly random array, some overlapping one another. She sees books and scrolls throughout the room and a chair pushed up against the wall. It has another blanket tossed over it. There are a few shelves lined with herbs and decorated with animal tusks and teeth. In another corner is a rack of weapons that ranged from primitive spears and clubs to rather intricate swords and modern hunting tools.
"Cod or salmon?" Azula jolts at the sound of his voice.
She shrugs. "As far as I'm concerned, I've never tried either."
"I'll cook them both." They sit in silence as the fish sizzle and pop. It doesn't smell all too bad, not compared to the hellish odor that her other meal emitted. He hands her the cod and she takes a regrettably large bite. Her face bunches up again.
"Alright, how about salmon?"
She takes a significantly smaller bite. "I'm starting to think that I hated seafood."
He chuckles. "You're definitely Fire Nation. Here, we had some fruits imported from your homeland and dad managed to get a moose-lion."
"Why didn't you mention that before?"
"Wanted you to try something new."
She picks out a mango and savors the taste as Sokka begins cooking the moose-lion meat. She still feels dizzy and nauseous. She tries not to think about that too much. "Why did you help me? You could have died."
"That's kind of what me and my friends do." He shrugs. "Besides, if I didn't I would have never gotten to see all of those priceless faces."
She lets her face go deadpan again.
He shudders, "alright, that's a scary face. You look way too much like her when you make it." He pauses. "You said that you know your name?"
"Only because they kept saying it to me." She confirms.
"What is your name?"
She tosses the mango pit into the fire. "They've been calling me Azula."
