CHAPTER IX

No Surrender

Southern Water Tribe

It was a long time spent alone in the dreary cold of a tent for Aria, and frankly it was time she needed to process what had happened to her. Disbelief had kept her calm thus far, and the trip back in the bed of Beloq's contraption was spent trying to distract herself with frivolous conversation, certainly carried by the guy's rambling and ravings about his various projects. While normally it would probably drive her mad, it had been unusually disarming, which probably explained why she hadn't reacted so violently when she first noticed the ropes tied around her wrists. Had she been her true self, the poor man may have been burnt to a crisp before he'd even uttered a word.

Had Elana's treachery shocked her that much? Was she already starting to lose her edge? Years spent with Aang had done much to show her there was more to the world than the wretched venom spat her way by Fire Nation nobles and their affiliates as her very dishonorable presence poisoned the sacred halls of the royal family. Years of seeing the beauty in nature and the foreign cultures of the other two nations…and even the ashes of the third…had brought to light the kindness humanity had to offer, the kindness only her father had ever shown her before.

And Elana.

Was it all a lie? Was the world truly as deceitful and treacherous as she had once thought? Who would betray her next?

What other lies still remained skulking behind her back?

Paranoia…it had to be. Surely Aang, Katara, Toph and Sokka could still be trusted. Surely her father could be trusted.

Could they? Her father certainly still held secrets about her real mother, how a woman from the Earth Kingdom could possibly seduce him so that he would break his vow to Mai and the Fire Nation. Such infidelity never struck Aria as his type, not to mention the scorn and hatred she subsequently endured from the Fire Lady herself.

There was so much she didn't know…so much she was yet to understand about her father. Aang had stood by her father's story, but Katara had been less willing to, something she'd always pegged as mere ignorance on the matter. However, Aria was six years senior to Katara's oldest son, which meant there was no reason for her not to be directly involved with their travels at the time.

Was her lack of willingness truly ignorance…or lingering guilt?

All the more reason to continue her task, regardless of its irrelevance. Like it or not, Katara was probably Aria's best bet to return to the Fire Nation and warn her father about Elana's betrayal.

Time was not on her side.

Movement at the front of the tent snapped her mind into an alerted state, and pulled her gauntlet back over her forearm as she finished redressing in her cleaned clothes. Through the front flaps of the tent emerged Beloq, followed by a middle-aged tribesman armed with a sharpened tomahawk and massive limbs. The very size of the man was impressive all on its own, nearly distracting her from his graying beard.

Aria figured the housing and clean clothes was worth a bow, so she rose to her feet and paid her due. Unsurprisingly, he was less inclined.

"Sorry to make you wait, Area," Beloq apologized, flashing her a full, bashful grin.

"It's…Aria," she corrected, looking away. "And it's fine. I wanted to thank your tribe for their hospitality. Your generosity is unparalleled—"

"I have no interest in Fire Nation pleasantries," the warrior boomed, his voice louder than the howling wind without any visible effort. "Our treatment of you is a matter of tradition, not pandering or obligation to whatever wretched perversion your people have yet to inflict upon our own."

His words drew a wince she did her best to hide, and she forced her gaze to meet his domineering own. "Of course. I realize my presence here likely has reminded you of…old wounds."

"Hardly old," he retorted, and then appeared as if a thought occurred to him. "But I assume a child such as yourself wouldn't know anything else."

She swallowed her instinct to snap back as her annoyance bristled. "You're right. I was born after the last war ended…b-but I can assure you that I had no intention of disturbing your village. My travels had gone astray, and I had no choice but to dredge myself here. Please…if you would just point me in the right direction, I'll be gone forever. You'll never have to see me again."

Abruptly, Beloq's eyes shot wide. "Leave? But Chief, what about the—"

"Quiet, Beloq!" the man bellowed, causing the teenager to stiffen faster than permafrost ice. "I was just about to get to that."

Aria reached up to scratch an itch manifesting in the back of her head. "Um – get to what?"

Outside the village, in the vast expanse of snow and ice, stood a structure at the ocean shore. Its armaments boasted bowcasters with rotting strings, and metal armor that looked more prepared to collapse on itself than defend the inhabitants inside. Certainly, it was a relic of a conflict long past.

"That…" Chief pointed. "Is a Fire Nation fort."

Aria gave it a double take, and sure enough she was able to spot the half-shredded red and black banner of the country she had left. "Sure looks like it…or at least it was one," she mused, her black bangs flowing in the chilling wind. "Are you asking me to get the deed?"

Beloq's grin glistened under his goggles. "A deed! Now there's an idea."

"Keep your focus, Beloq!" Chief insisted. "We are in enemy territory."

Beloq's teeth disappeared behind his mouth in an instant. "R-right! O-Of course. Uh…ready for duty, sir!"

Aria felt a frown bend her lips. "Are you even a bender?"

Beloq's goggles hid his reaction, but his body shrugged. "I can bend trash into treasure! That counts right?"

"Beloq can create things others can't," Chief said. "And a proud Water Tribesman doesn't need bending to destroy his enemies! A sharpened axe is all it takes."

Her arms raised in an easing fashion. "Okay! Okay…I was just asking — heh. I'm sure you'd manage just fine."

Manage to get yourselves killed.

When it seemed like both of them were expecting her to do something, she turned. "Um…thanks for the tour, I guess? I'm not sure why you'd want to show me this."

It took her a moment to realize they had backed off by about ten feet in the other direction, leaving her alone in the middle of the ice. Alarm bells went off in her mind, and she could feel the heat around her hands begin to melt away at the falling snow.

"Walk that way," Chief pointed. "I want to see if they shoot at you."

Bewildered, Aria jerked her head back towards the fort. "Shoot? What do you—," before she was able to finish her sentence, a ball of flame erupted from inside the fort, and proceeded to barrel its way towards her. In a moment, her feet spread wide to roll out of the way, but the slickness of the ice had her lose her footing, forcing her to catch herself with her palms. With no recourse, and the face of death staring her down, Aria forced her adrenaline into her extremities, converting it quickly into a jet burst of flame that launched her to the side, and just out of the range of the fireball. Tumbling through the snow, the heat of the blast evaporated the surface almost on contact, and already ice began to crack at her feet.

"Uhhh…that's kind of bad!" Beloq exclaimed from a safe distance. "Get off the lake, or you'll fall in!"

Aria's eyes widened at the prospect of being dunked into sub-freezing temperature water, followed by hours slowly succumbing to frostbite and hypothermia. Frantically, she tried to crawl to the edge of the lake, only to find virtually no traction with her ill-suited shoes and more strain on the already failing surface. The sharp cracks sent shivers down her spine, and panic nearly conquered her then and there.

She had no choice. She had to refreeze the ice.

She had to waterbend.

Rolling on to her rear, she reached out, feeling the glass-like shards of ice preparing to fall away from their collective entity, and tried to guide them back together. Initially, it groaned and cried, quickly reminding her she was being too forceful, and she attempted to compensate by letting up, and merely lowering the temperature of the water itself. She'd never done that before, and in her state of instinctual panic, her fire-based habits took center stage…meaning she was only increasing the temperature.

Aria had seconds left before she would be on the brink of an icy grave, and in that moment, she felt Katara's teachings flow through her all at once. Slowly, she redirected the damage towards stronger parts of the ice, pulling the strain off the weaker areas. The cracking slowed to a crawl, and before long…it stopped completely.

She'd done it. She could finally waterbend.

The ice shattered below her in a spectacular crash, and the first touch of freezing water against her rear filled her with an almost disarming sense of dread. She'd come so close…so close to reaching that first step towards mastering all four elements. Instead, she was probably going to freeze to death while the Water Tribe peasants could boast about how they let a Fire Nation princess walk into her own grave.

Before her body hit the water, she felt herself yanked backwards, and subsequently dragged across the solid ice before she could feel rocky snow again.

Somehow, she'd been saved.

"I don't know what you were trying to do there, firebender," Beloq said, his head upside down from her perspective, as he raised what looked to be a rope. "But aren't you glad I tied this rope to your belt?"

Aria huffed, trying to manage her rampaging heartbeat. So it was him…he'd yanked her back to safety.

Him.

"Thanks for the warning."

It took Aria about twenty minutes to warm herself dry once more, and if it hadn't been for Beloq's rope, she'd probably be in a lot more pain than she could ever imagine. Although, it then took her another ten minutes to chew their ears off for using her as bait in the first place…to which their explanation ended up being better than she expected.

"They're holdouts?" Aria asked, rubbing her hands together near the fire she had scraped together. "From the war?"

Chief nodded; his eyes fixed on the fort from the top of the dugout they'd already prepared beforehand. "Those men have been here for over twenty years. No one has come for them, and any time we've tried to get close…well—"

Aria frowned. "They lob a fireball at you."

"Basically."

For a moment, she felt anger that anyone would be so loyal to the atrocities that Ozai had committed that they'd spend a quarter of their expected lives manning a fort in enemy territory. Surely they should know by now that their command structure no longer exists, indicated by the seemingly hundreds of messenger hawks sent out with no reply. She even remembered her father issuing a blanket decree that all Fire Nation soldiers in either Water Tribes were to return home for reassignment or honorable discharge. They had to have received the orders to stand down.

Or – maybe along the way – the message was intercepted, and they were now cursed to carry out their orders endlessly…until someone relieved them.

Her anger turned to pity and remorse. Their loyalty wasn't to be condemned…but celebrated, and she would do whatever she could to bring them home.

She couldn't help Elana…but maybe she could help them.

Aria rose to her feet, straightening her garments as best she could, and proceeded to step over the dugout. Chief grasped at her wrist with his powerful hand, pulling her back to safety despite her protests.

"Let me go!" she shouted.

"Are you crazy? We already tried that! They'll just shoot at you!"

"They won't shoot at the Fire Lord's daughter!"

She could've sword they both froze faster than the chilling wind could ever manage, and Beloq himself had to practically scrape his jaw off the snow.

"You're…you're the Fire Nation Princess?!" Beloq exclaimed. "No…way."

"Yes, now let me go!" Aria shook her wrist free from Chief, who seemed to be more interested in staring her to death than anything else. "I'm going to send them a signal…one they know only a powerful firebender could manage."

Beloq scoffed. "Oh come on. Surely there were some powerful firebenders who served as just mercenaries or something. How would that—"

"Firebenders who defected from the Fire Nation either were executed or hounded to the ends of the earth," Aria responded harshly. "There were none left by war's end. They'll know."

Chief still fixed her with a stare of disbelief and distrust, unbroken by even Beloq's prodding. "You know, she's got a point."

"Sure, why not," Chief accepted, and only intensified his glare. "But no rope. If they kill you, they kill you."

Aria bit her tongue, blocking the problematic retort she had primed, and turned towards the edge. "Have it your way."

It was probably foolish to reveal herself to a middle-aged Water Tribe warrior, and the fact that he hadn't skinned her alive on the spot either meant she was very lucky, or he was extremely desperate to get these men away from his village. Only a moment more of consideration realized that was probably a false dichotomy, and perhaps it was only the matter of tradition he had mentioned before.

No matter. He'd given her his ultimatum.

"Hey!" Beloq called, and her sideways glance alerted her to the metal cone that was flipping her way, allowing her to catch it just in time. "You might need that."

It was a makeshift horn to project her voice, probably leftover from one of their other failed attempts. Cupping it over her mouth, she took a deep breath, and shouted:

"WARRIORS OF THE FIRE NATION! THE WAR IS OVER! I HAVE COME TO RELIEVE YOU OF DUTY!"

Promptly, with a snap of her fingers, her hand crackled with energy, and with a thrust, she launched a booming bolt of lightning towards the sky, its thunder resonating against the distant hills all around them in a powerful display. With its distance and brightness, it would be impossible for them to miss it.

Now…it was just her and the quiet, icy cold, waiting to see if their loyalty to Fire Lord Ozai would be her untimely demise.

If there were anything positive to note, it was the fact that there was literally no response to her lightning for some time…no words, but also no fireballs. Her ability to fend off the cold, however, hadn't been as effective, leaving her to shiver as she stood unmoving in wait for any kind of signal. By now, she wasn't even sure her rock-solid legs would obey her commands if she desired to take a break. If the cold was good for anything, it was numbing her lingering soreness from falling out of her war balloon.

She wasn't even sure if Chief and Beloq were still behind her.

"Hey, Princess!" Beloq called out, and her frozen body didn't even allow her to jump with the abrupt change in volume. "Do you want like a…water or something?"

Aria's dry mouth forced what moisture she had left down her throat, and the mere idea of water was almost enough to make her salivate. She turned for a moment, and it was just in time to see the flask he had tossed her way. Luckily, her firebending had been enough to keep her fingers warm, and catching the thing was no issue.

"Thanks," she managed, and proceeded to drink.

"Hey, uh…" Beloq trailed off. "Just wanted to say…what you're doing here…it's…kinda cool."

Aria breathed normally again after nearly waterboarding herself. "Being cool isn't the point."

"Right, 'cause like…that wouldn't be possible, with you being a…firebender and all."

She said nothing.

"Anyway," Beloq moved on. "What I meant to say is…the chief back there sort of thinks everyone from the Fire Nation is a blood-sucking demon, so I'm glad to see that obviously isn't true."

"Glad I've managed to vault over that bar. Have I been promoted to reanimated corpse?"

He laughed at that. "Maybe in his mind."

That managed to at least make her smile, and hopefully help forget about how cold she was. "Were you born here?"

Beloq sounded as if he was stretching. "Yep…been here in the middle of nowhere all my life."

"Parents?"

His answer didn't come as quickly. "Somewhat. My dad died when I was young, and my mom is our village representative, so she's not around very often."

Aria frowned. "You live alone then…?"

"Of course not. I've got the whole village," he corrected. "It's basically all I've ever had, other than my tinkering."

"Right…your Sledenator," she recalled the contraption he had brought her in on. "How do you get it to move on its own? Our tundra tanks use steam engines, but they're usually pretty big. I've never seen one as small as yours."

"Ah-ha!" Beloq shifted behind her. "That's because I discovered a way to use air as a propellant. Granted, it's not nearly as fast, but it has virtually limitless fuel…unless there's no wind, of course. I'm…still working out the kinks. I do, however, have a steam engine version that can really move…but I've never been able to keep a consistent heat to get it going."

"Hm," Aria mused, pretending to follow his ramblings. "How did you figure all this stuff out?"

"Eh…just poking around what your peop – what the Fire Nation left behind. All sorts of cool stuff is beached out here. All I had to do was look."

A breath escaped her as she finally allowed her eyes a moment to rest behind shut eyelids, and for a moment she felt herself begin to drift off. Why should she be ashamed for being of the Fire Nation? She'd quite literally contributed nothing to the countless beached war machines they left behind in this freezing hell-hole. It wasn't her responsibility to begin the apology tour, not when she only had second-hand knowledge of what she was apologizing for. The Fire Nation was the most prosperous civilization in the world, and to deny that would just be dishonest.

The thought felt good, at least for a moment.

"I am part of the Fire Nation," she said, reopening her eyes. "Its failures are mine to fix, not atone for."

She could tell Beloq was holding off a scoff. "Is there a difference?"

"There is to me," she snapped. "I'm not responsible for my forefathers' crimes, and I won't spend the rest of my life begging the world to forgive them. I haven't even forgiven them."

"That's…actually a good point, to be honest," Beloq admitted. "If the Water Tribe decided to go all genocidal on the world — not like they could — I'd probably feel the same way."

Aria chuckled. "What? Is the Water Tribe going to run over troves of Earth Kingdom villagers with your Sledenator?"

"Unfortunately, I don't think it could withstand an impact with that many people. Maybe I could look in to—,"

"I was kidding!" Aria exclaimed, feeling incredulous.

To her surprise, Beloq merely burst into a fit of laughter. "Ha! I got you! Finally!"

A growl rumbled at the bottom of her throat, and she felt the first hint of warmth around her cheeks in days. "Whatever…mister one hit and a thousand misses."

"Well, with someone more dense than the ice we're standing on, I'd say any hit is well worth it," he snickered to himself.

"I'm —!" Aria began, feeling utterly insulted. Dense? How could anyone call her dense? "I'm not dense! I knew you were joking!"

"Yeah, and I knew you were the Princess all along."

She felt her cheeks turn warmer than the sun above. "You did?!"

"Exactly!"

It took a few moments for her to realize what she'd walked in to, and his hysterical laughter didn't do much to help her process it. By then, her witty retorts were at an end, and all she could do was wear it. Her natural glare must've been terrifying, because Beloq's laughter began to flatline rather abruptly.

"Okay…sorry," he grinned again. "I'll stop rubbing it in."

Her glare persisted. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Abruptly, the dusk sky was illuminated with the beating heart of another fireball. Despite the surprise, Aria was ready, and immediately her solid limbs melted into loose file and a ready stance.

Only this time, the flame didn't advance, and instead faded into the air along its upward trajectory.

Whatever witty grab-bag of words Beloq had prepared was incinerated by its blaze. "That's good? Tell me that's good."

With a calming breath, Aria straightened once more. "Wait here. Don't want to give them the wrong idea."

It was probably best to deprive them of any more than she had.

Because she had none.

The edge of the frozen lake was lined with outcropping spikes, seemingly to prevent any boats from assembling at the shore. With the lake as it was, they served more as a warning than anything else, one Aria was able to slip her way through with relative ease. Around the fort itself was an assortment of tripwire traps that had strings cut, plenty from where she was to the actual structure to make it difficult to reach without setting one off. To top it off, the last line seemed to be a bucket with a pressure trigger below, the contents of said bucket no longer present.

Once she entered, the void was evident. The fort itself had to be far older than even the twenty years that had passed since war's end, and the quiet whistle of the wind outside was nearly enough to add to the shivers she was already experiencing. Every inch of metal was kissed by rust at its edges, steam pipes ruptured next to immovable turnstiles, and a stench of mildew that almost made her gag.

The sight gave her a whole new appreciation for proper engineers.

Luckily, the structure wasn't too large, and before long she managed to make it to the central courtyard. There she found three piles of dirt, marked out by wooden sticks with Fire Nation helmets nailed to the top.

Footsteps, moving fast.

Aria turned, her fist igniting in a blaze of orange, only to watch a somewhat skinny, middle-aged man fall to his knees before her, his forehead to the ground.

"Princess Azula…" he shivered, his limbs struggling to stay still. "At last, you have come."

Azula? Oh…right. Twenty years.

The initial shock managed to wear off. After all, the former Princess was her aunt, so it would only make sense someone could confuse her likeness without further inspection, and with what he'd gone through, she could give him the benefit of the doubt.

Still…did they truly look that similar?

The way he bowed…there was no dignity, only dogmatic worship. It made her feel sick; placed on a pedestal she'd never earned, nor deserved. How could anyone stand it?

Instinctually, she felt the need to reach down and pull him to his feet, but it had taken her far too long just to earn his trust in this moment. Perhaps…the only way to save this man was to be something she wasn't.

"Princess Azula is gone," she said, trying to keep her posture straight. "I am Fire Lord Zuko's daughter."

He didn't answer…in fact, she wasn't even sure he heard her. Time for a different approach?

"What was your mission here, soldier?" she asked. "What did Fire Lord Ozai send you here to do?"

"We were supposed to hold this position until the fleet could arrive to burn the Southern Water Tribe to the ground. Under no circumstances were we to retreat or surrender this fort, as it was a vital staging point," he answered quickly, each word sounding as if it had been recited hundreds of times. "I've held this place, just as your father asked, all for you to complete his grand vision of Fire Nation dominance."

It was almost maddening to hear him go on, and the raw insanity displayed by this obviously genocidal-scale task he had been given was beginning to ignite her fingers one by one. The Fire Lord had planned to wipe out the Water Tribe, mercilessly and without compromise, until there was nothing left…all for the crime of being in the way.

Why had her father hidden this from her? Did he even know? How many more holdouts still remained, waiting to carry out these barbaric orders when the time came?

"Stand up!" Aria growled, partly using the outburst to project power and release her own anger. The soldier did as she asked, proceeding to stand at attention. His armor was ragged but maintained, and she imagined with all the time he had on his hands, he had needed something to pass the time. "How long have you been here?"

He looked towards the now-darkened sky, before his gaze returned with adamant conviction. "As long as I've needed to be."

He has no idea.

Aria sighed, crossing her arms as she fancied a glance towards the makeshift graves beside them. "What happened to your team?"

"Dead, Your Highness. Two killed by Water Tribe raids. One, the most recent, died of exposure to the cold. I'm all that's left."

To think he wasn't the only one who'd essentially sacrificed themselves for this insanity. Perhaps she hadn't given her father enough credit for the work he'd done to de-tooth the most dogmatic aspects of their culture. Even so, she couldn't help but feel a measure of guilt for the three dead soldiers, whose loyalty ultimately lead to their meaningless and avoidable downfall.

Maybe that guilt could extend to this man as well. He'd lost enough already, even if he didn't know it.

"Do you have a family?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, Your Highness."

"No one? Not even a grandmother, aunt or uncle?"

Once again, he shook his head. "My father died when I was young, fighting in the Earth Kingdom. My mother succumbed to illness shortly after."

Aria furrowed her brow. "You were an orphan?"

He gestured towards the three mounds. "We all were. It is our duty to serve the Fire Nation, first and foremost, for the good of our people."

She managed to suppress a wince. "Yes, of course."

So, the Fire Nation groomed young children whose parents had died as a result of the Hundred Years' War into the military, then sent them out to die, hopefully leaving behind their own children. Over one hundred years, which in her mind was about four to five generations, the Fire Nation had somehow managed not to collapse from the inside out from a crippling lack of home-grown manpower. They probably made up for it with the some-odd billion people residing within the Earth Kingdom, but those soldiers wouldn't hold the same fervor as a native one. Which, in the end, besides Avatar Aang, was the primary reason the Fire Nation lost the war.

Millions of soldiers…millions of victims of her grandfather's insanity.

"What is your name?" she asked, feeling a renewed sense of purpose.

On cue, he clicked his boots and straightened. "Heruu, Your Highness. Ready to serve."

"With the pacification of the world at large, we can say that the Southern Water Tribe no longer poses a threat to our glorious nation. Thus, I can declare your mission is a success," she declared, mentally crossing her fingers. "Heruu, by the power vested in me as Princess of the Fire Nation and Her Colonies, I hereby relieve you of duty. Your unit is to cease all military operations within the Southern Water Tribe, and return to the Fire Islands for debriefing. Should recognition be deemed necessary by the powers that be, you will be notified."

Heruu's expression was unreadable, and at first, she wondered if he once again hadn't heard a word she said. As it turned out, however, the word of the Fire Nation's royalty overrode any objection he may have.

Falling to one knee, he bowed his head, and in a swift motion, he undid the strap around his waist to present a sheathed blade, a katana by the looks of it.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," he said, sounding more relieved than she thought. "Please, it would be my honor for you to accept this."

The hilt was beautiful; orange, red and gold twisted together until converging into a circular rendition of the Fire Nation symbol. Of all the things left in this wretched place, this blade looked as if not a day had gone by.

He'd been waiting for this moment…he'd been waiting all this time.

Reaching out, she accepted the blade. "I will keep it in a place of honor. That much I can promise."

Beloq had been underneath his much bulkier steam-powered 'sledenator' for the better part of the last half-hour, which gave her plenty of time to explain to Chief how Heruu wasn't worth killing. It was a long back and forth, but eventually she was able to leverage the same traditional obligations that had allowed her to be rescued in the first place…and the fact that he owed her one for taking care of the problem in the first place. In the end, she was assured that the retired soldier would be given safe passage to return home on the next boat to the Fire Nation.

"So, what is it you need me to do?" Aria asked, squatting beside where Beloq was laid out on his back. The powered sled reminded her of the watercraft her people had used to keep control of lakes and rivers, but Beloq had completely removed the underbelly, exchanging it for a rotating wheel and two flat skis for balance. The parts he used certainly didn't belong together, and yet he'd managed to adjust them one by one to complete a puzzle she wasn't sure how he'd seen in the first place.

He pointed towards the backside. "Keep that chamber hot. As long as it's warm enough to create pressure, we shouldn't stall out."

Aria smirked. Simple enough. "Thank you, Beloq. I appreciate you helping me with this."

"Ah," Beloq waved, and despite his hood and goggles, she thought she spotted a hint of a blush flaring his cheeks. "You know…got nothing else to do!"

That's for putting me on the spot earlier.

"Beloq! It's bad manners to leave a woman waiting in the cold, especially one from the Fire Nation!" Chief shouted as he approached, leaving a more jovial village behind. The knowledge of the Fire Nation's departure from their lands seemed to bring it back to life once more…and it was the least she could do after all they had suffered.

"I'm almost done!" Beloq insisted, and returned to his work, while Aria rose to her full height.

"I still have no idea how a Fire Nation Princess ended up all the way out here," Chief regarded her with that same intensity he had left her with, only to show his hand. "But I'm glad you did."

She accepted the gesture. "I know I can't bring back all your people have lost, but I can do my best to ease your pain. This place…this life you have, it's beautiful. It's worth fighting for."

"You've done more than most already. Perhaps there is a world in which the Water Tribes and the Fire Nation can live in harmony. I didn't believe that before…but if people like you are the ones to lead this world…I may have a reason to."

Aria wasn't sure how to respond to that. The truth was, she could never lead the Fire Nation, not with the half-pure blood that ran through her veins.

But he didn't need to know that.

Instead, she smiled up to him. "You know, I never got your name."

Chief's palm crashed into his fist, and he bowed. "Chief Uvenk. I lead this village and its peoples, and it has been a pleasure to have you walk our village, Princess Aria."

Aria bowed in return. "I hope to one day meet you again, Chief Uvenk."

Something popped behind them, and with a jerk of her neck, she spotted Beloq scrambling to reseal the chamber he had mentioned before. After a few moments, he had it screwed back in place, followed by a distracting smile.

"Okay!" he grinned. "All ready."

"Keep her safe, Beloq. And no donuts!" Uvenk warned. "Master Katara will never let your mother hear the end of it."

"Yeah, yeah," Beloq dismissed, mounting the sled, just as she followed. "Hey Princess, you ready?"

Aria felt the warmth slowly return to her fingers, and as the blaze ignited, she did as she had been instructed.

They were off in a trail of snow, leaving the village and Uvenk behind.

Republic City

"Your Majesty, we have a visitor."

Nikuya turned from her war map, drawing the attention of her assembled council of generals towards the back door. Her initial thought was to shoo them out in the midst of an important war meeting, but the visitor themselves buried that idea entirely.

It was the golden-haired Fire Nation girl, Elana.

"We will continue this discussion after a short recess. Dismissed," she directed, receiving a collection of bows, followed by the echo of armored boots congregating into their own groups. Nikuya herself did not move, and the mere wave of her hand directed Elana to approach in confidence.

"Tell me," she instructed.

Elana looked weary, yet resolved in her stature. "It is done."

Nikuya could see it in the unsettled movement of her gaze that she wasn't entirely sure. "I will send agents to finish the job, if necessary. We cannot underestimate her. Everything depends on her death."

"I know," she answered, albeit betrayed by the hidden crestfallen undertone. "I did my best with what I could."

"I'd hope so," Nikuya said, and the grimness of her own tone was plain to see. "Or the spirits will not find the mercy to forgive humanity for their transgression."

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned and stay safe.