AN: Holy fuck, this got so much response! I wasn't expecting that when my Fullmetal Alchemist fic hardly gets any response —Son of Hughes— but a huge thank you to my reviewers! I have this plotted all the way through but I'm afraid it won't be an overly long fic. Suggestions are welcome.
P.S. Originally, I was thinking Katara/Zuko, but what about Suki/Zuko? If this was canon, Suki/Sokka forever, but this journey is taking a different direction.
Chapter 2 - Polar
"What Temple are you from?"
Zuko blinked at the small Avatar, "What?"
"You're an Air Nomad, right?"
Zuko felt his confusion grow. No one had ever asked him that question before. "Um, I'm not…"
"Oh, sorry," Aang said, flushing slightly as he gestured to him. "You look like one of us is all, grey eyes, bald—" Aang shrugged. "I didn't mean it as an insult or anything. I like your tattoo by the way."
Grey eyes?
Zuko shook his head, putting that to the side for a moment as he placed two hands on Aang's shoulders, "You can't ever tell anyone that."
"Tell them what?" Aang asked, eyes wide but he didn't pull away.
The boy was far too trusting.
"You've been gone a long time, Avatar, and the world has changed without you. It isn't safe to be an air bender anymore and the Avatar is being hunted."
Aang pulled back then flustered, "I'm not the Avatar, I don't know what you're—"
"Exactly," Zuko said. "You're not an air bender either. By the Great Turtles, though are you going to have to get better at lying."
Aang's cheeks were flaming red, "I— who are you?"
Zuko rubbed his hands together, he was so flipping cold. "I'm Lee, the unfortunate messenger to tell you the world has been slammed out of balance and half the world wants you dead and the other half wants to use you."
"I'm not the Avatar!" Aang, the Avatar, finally yelled.
Zuko held up his hand with the dragon, "Save it. I've been through the spirit world. How else would I have found you—" he opened his arms. " —in the middle of nowhere?"
Aang looked around, seeming only now to realize he was lost, "Where are we?"
"South Pole."
"Oh," Aang said, deflating, then he perked back up. "We can go Penguin-seal tobogganing!"
"No!" Zuko said, losing his cool as he shivered in the frigid air. "This isn't a game! We need to go to the North Pole, which is literally on the other side of the planet which means we don't have time for penguins!"
How had Zuko lost to this idiot so often?
Oh, right, the boy was a master airbender while Zuko was trying not to kill him. Taking someone in alive was more difficult than running away, well, at least if you could physically fly away.
"Why?" Aang asked.
"So you can learn water bending."
"I told you I'm not—"
"And I told you, I already know who and what you are. And I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep you alive."
"Keep me alive?" Aang asked. "You can't be serious, I'm just a kid—"
"You're the most powerful bender on the planet with the capability of transcending the human and spirit realms at will. Whether you ever become that person doesn't matter, you have the potential to be and there are those who want you dead because of the hope you represent."
Aang stared at him, then asked with a profound perception that went beyond his lived years, "Who am I to you?"
My second chance.
"You're the only person I can help who I could regain my honour from," he said more truthfully than he planned to be.
"You lost your honour?"
Zuko looked away in shame, "I went back on a promise and I betrayed my uncle's faith in me." He hugged himself, "I didn't realize until it was too late all the things he was trying to teach me."
"I'm sure he will forgive you," Aang said, approaching him with kind eyes.
Zuko's heart ached, he didn't deserve the Avatar's sympathies. "Please, just let me help you?"
Aang hugged him.
Zuko startled but didn't pull away, he was shaking from the cold and even that bit of warmth was welcome.
"Okay, Lee, you can join Appa and me. But we should probably find someone to get some clothes from before you freeze to death."
Zuko was shaking but said through chattering teeth, "You can't tell them, you have to promise, Aang, not to tell anyone who or what you are."
Aang pulled back, taking Zuko's hand and leading him toward his flying bison. "Sure, but you realize our colouring and my tattoos will give away where I'm from, right?"
Zuko said nothing as he climbed into the saddle. He couldn't bend in front of Aang but as soon as Aang was seated, reins in hand, Zuko cupped his own hands and huffed hot air.
Only his breath cooled too quickly and the heat in his gut —the heart of his being— where his chi gathered and his flame was born, didn't flare.
Zuko shut his eyes, breathing deeply as his uncle had taught him, searching for the embers within himself.
But there was nothing.
Just a cold empty nothingness.
Zuko felt numb.
And it wasn't from the cold air sinking into his bones.
He opened his eyes, opened his hands, and risked summoning flame.
Aang didn't know the truth yet, he probably wouldn't freak out about his being from the Fire Nation but nothing came.
It was different from the feeling of the eclipse.
Because his power had still been their but he had been unable to light it outside himself.
This was different.
He wasn't a bender anymore.
He was cold, colder than he had ever been in his entire life because his fire was gone.
He blinked back tears.
He would take his scars back in an instant if it meant he could be himself again. He stared down at the dragon on his hand.
It stared back at him in watchful amusement.
"Lee?" Aang called. "You alright?"
Zuko looked up, Appa wasn't flying, just swimming in the icy waters and Aang was looking at Zuko with blatant concern.
Zuko shoved his own pains aside. It meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, it might even make it easier there would be no way to accidentally reveal his identity if he lost his temper. Which meant he could stay by Aang's side to keep the boy safe.
The boy whose heart Zuko was about to rip out of his chest.
"Aang, before we reach the water tribe, there are some things you have to know."
What followed was not pretty.
Aang didn't want to believe him, but Zuko knew too much and could provide too many details.
Aang was reluctant to accept everything he was being told, but that soon fell away to self-blame.
"It's not your fault," Zuko insisted. "If you had been there, they would have killed you too."
"But a hundred years!? Another Avatar could have been born—"
"The Southern Water tribe was destroyed as well, Aang. You'll see, they are nothing more than a village now."
"But why? Why would the Fire Nation be so evil? I have friends in the Fire Nation, they aren't evil people!"
Zuko flinched, Aang's earnestness was painful.
Was this the boy I fought so hard to feed to my bastard of a father?
"Because the Imperial Family is filled with monsters and power is addictive. The Air Nomads were a strong people, but they were not trained to kill and they were not prepared for war."
Aang looked away, big tears pooling and spilling from his eyes.
Zuko wrapped him in a hug from behind, "I'm so sorry, Aang."
The Avatar turned in his arms and began to sob, clinging to him.
Aang had no way of knowing he was clinging to his enemy.
But Zuko vowed, in this life, he would be on the right side of history and one day Aang could rely on him as a friend.
oOo
Among the things Sokka was used to seeing in the South Pole, a giant bison and two bald kids with tattoos —severally underdressed for the weather— were not among them.
On one hand, the older boy had swords and the bison was huge.
On the other hand, the younger boy looked how Katara had when Mom was killed and the older boy looked as if he was about to freeze to death, his fingernails were already blue.
"Who are you and where are you from?" Sokka asked, having already signalled to Katara to go get ready for guests.
Closer, he could see their strange grey eyes.
The older boy held up his hands, "I'm Lee, and this is my younger brother, Aang. We're from a small village on an island between the Air and Fire Nation, Pinako. Our families were destroyed by the Fire Nation and we fled… I think we got lost."
Sokka held back a snort. How do you get lost going all the way south, idiots?
But he didn't ask that aloud because of geography wise that seemed like a crap place to live.
North? Fire Nation.
West? Ocean.
East? Mountainous uninhabited islands and, wait for it, more ocean.
So South was probably the soonest they would run into people who might help them.
Sokka sighed, "Come on then, the sun is about to set, you'll die out there."
Relief spread over both the strangers' faces.
The tattoos and grey eyes were somewhat unnerving but they didn't seem like fire benders. Even if they were, they were kids and Gran Gran would kill him for letting them die in the snow.
Still, Sokka held out his machete as they neared the entrance, "But if you even think of hurting anyone in our village, I'll kill you myself."
The older boy, Lee, took off the sheath strapped to his back and held out the sword to him, "I promise, we won't endanger your people."
Sokka nodded, accepting the weapon as Lee wrapped his arm around Aang's shoulder and led him forward.
Sokka, knowing exactly what it meant to be the older sibling, let the conversation fall as he led them forward. The bison thankfully kept to itself, finding an open patch of snow and promptly laying down to sleep.
Little heads peeked out at them as they walked, the women pulling them back.
But Granny and Katara were ready for Lee and Aang.
Aang was out of it, and Lee got him settled easily enough beneath a pile of fur blankets. Lee himself went straight for the fire, he practically stuck his hands in the flames.
"Easy there," Katara cautioned. "Burning your hands won't actually help."
Lee looked up at her, his eyes lingered momentarily on her necklace, then to her face.
Sokka was ready to snap at him for looking at his sister, but there was sorrow not interest there.
Softening, Katara introduced herself as she laid a fur over Lee's shoulders, "That's our Gran Gran, Kanna—" she was pouring out bowls of food for them. "—And I'm Katara."
"Lee, and that's my younger brother, Aang," he answered. "Thanks for saving us."
Sokka helped take the bowls from Gran Gran as they sat.
Then Lee repeated what he had told Sokka.
Katara's heart shone in her eyes, "I'm so sorry. Sokka and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation as well."
"Where will you go now?" Gran Gran asked, kindly, but with an undercurrent of sharpness that made her the leader of their village.
Lee looked down into his almost empty bowl, "I don't mean to pry and you don't have to answer this question if you don't feel comfortable doing so, but I know why the Fire Nation attacked the Southern Water Tribe."
Sokka stiffened.
"And why is that?" Katara asked harshly.
Lee winced, "For the same reason they killed the Air Nomads. It was said the next Avatar would be born in the Southern Water Tribe and thus Fire Nation killed all the water benders here."
Sokka hated it.
Hated it so much. It wasn't enough that the Fire Nation had washed away an entire nation, they had to continue.
If water and air were gone completely, they wouldn't mind.
It was the definition of evil.
"What's your question?" Gran Gran asked.
"Are there any water benders left on this side of the globe?"
They all tensed and Sokka demanded, "Why?" Thinking for the first time that Lee might be a spy.
He wouldn't let anyone take his sister.
"Because my little brother is a water bender with no training," Lee explained with perhaps the only response that wouldn't make Sokka throw him back out into the cold. "Your tribe was the closest. My family typically did basic trade with small Fire Nation fishing communities scattered in the south, but we never had much to do with their military. It isn't safe for any of them to know what Aang is capable of."
"They found out," Katara said, horrified. "That's why they killed your family?"
Lee shrugged, "That and it's apparently a crime to live on Air Nation soil. For all we know, we could be descendants. We don't really know, neither of us really knew much about our parents."
Sokka frowned, "What's the size of your village?"
"Small," Lee answered. "We all spent more time away from each other. I spent most of the last two years in a boat and Aang has been doing the creators know what while travelling with his bison. But it's time, he can't keep running from his destiny. He's a water bender and I'm going to find him a teacher if it kills me."
"So you're going to the North Pole?" Gran Gran asked.
"Yeah," Lee nodded. "We just need to go a bit further East I think, so we can hopefully stop to eat without being murdered."
"I want to go!" Katara exclaimed.
"Katara!" Sokka and Gran Gran yelled.
Aang made a noise beneath the furs and turned away from them.
To which Lee glared at them all.
Katara's shoulders were set, stubbornness in every line of her as she said more quietly, "I need a teacher too."
"The saddle is certainly big enough," Lee offered. "If you want to go North with us."
Sokka rubbed his forehead, So much for keeping that a secret.
"Really!?" Katara asked.
"No," Sokka answered. "Katara, we have a duty to our people."
"Yes," Gran Gran agreed. "A duty to become exactly what the Fire Nation feared you to be."
Katara blinked, "I'm not the Avatar."
Gran Gran nodded, "You are not, no, but regardless, a water bender can sink a ship on their own." She looked at Sokka, "And you need training as well, Sokka. You will soon become a man and there is no one here who can help you become the warrior you could be."
"I could probably help you with that," Lee interjected.
"What?" Sokka asked, eyes swinging to the other boy.
"My uncle trained me and I've learned some stuff travelling." Lee gestured to the sword sheath still at Sokka's side. "Those aren't just for decoration."
Sokka stared down at them. The handle was red and gold, and looking closely, he realized they were duel swords.
"These look expensive," Sokka said.
"You would be surprised what people throw away," Lee replied dryly.
Gran Gran waved the conversation to a halt, "Enough, we all need rest, we continue this discussion in the morning."
"But Gran Gran—" Katara began.
"No," their Elder said devintatively. "It will be Sokka's choice in the end because I won't allow you to travel that far north with two strange boys. Your father should have been back by now, and the war is no closer to being over. If the two of you wish to leave to become warriors, it is a choice you must make together."
Katara looked a Sokka and he knew he was already lost.
As much as their village needed them, they needed strength more, and if they stayed… Well, there wasn't much the two of them could really do against an average bandit much less a Fire Nation invasion now, could they?
It burned to admit, but if he was being honest with himself, Sokka knew he needed a teacher too.
He needed his dad.
But he didn't even know if his father was alive or not anymore.
So when he went to his room, he knew he would be packing his bag.
oOo
Zuko woke to a bubbly hundred and twelve year old kid bouncing at his side.
He groaned consciousness bringing with it the awareness of how freaking cold he was.
Feeling as if he would never be warm again, he hurriedly pulled on the skins that Katara had given him last night.
Once the soft fabric and furs were on, Zuko wondered if he would ever willingly leave them. Blue was actually his favourite colour.
"Can we go penguin tobogganing before we go, Lee?" Aang asked as Zuko laced up his boots.
"No," Lee said without looking up.
"But—"
"No."
"Please, Lee—"
"I said no, Aang. We have to get to the North Pole. The longer that takes and the more people who see you, then the more dangerous this gets. The more danger you put other people in. Regardless if you ever achieve your potential, anyone who helps you will be in danger too."
Aang folded in on himself and looked as if he was about to cry.
Lee sighed, "Listen. It will be okay, you just have to trust me. Once we get to the North Pole, you won't have to hide. They are so isolated up there that they don't even trade with anyone. No one will spread rumours. But until then," Zuko lowered his voice. "No air bending."
Aang's expression turned sour.
"I mean it, Aang, not even Katara or Sokka can know. It can wait until we reach the North."
Something flickered across the younger boy's expression, "What about Appa?"
"Sky bisons don't live with humans anymore but they still exist. It's odd, not forbidden."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"You're a bender," Aang stated.
Zuko tensed, "No, I'm not."
Not anymore.
"I've never used water bending before, maybe you're a bender who just doesn't know it yet."
Zuko scoffed, standing up, "Yeah, no. Sorry to disappoint."
"Are you sure?" Aang pressed. "I've travelled the entire globe, aside from the North Pole actually, but still, I've never met anyone who looks like us who wasn't from the Air Nation."
"That doesn't make me a bender," Zuko argued, heart aching at the loss of his own element.
"How do you know? You said you travelled through the spirit realm, do you even know what they are capable of?"
Time travel, Zuko thought sardonically.
But he answered with, "Aang, drop it. Katara knows a bit of water bending, see if she can teach you something. It's going to be a long boring journey."
"Boring!?" Aang exclaimed. "But there is so much—"
"No," Zuko said, poking the Avatar's chest. "If you want us all to survive this, we are going North as fast as bisonenly possible. So, yes, boring is exactly what we need it to be. Because boring means safe."
Aang pouted.
"If you ever want to use your bending freely," Zuko coaxed. "Then the sooner we get there the sooner that will be possible."
Aang's shoulders dropped and Zuko led him out.
When they emerged, Sokka was arguing with his sister, arguing about what, he didn't know but it probably didn't matter.
Zuko kind of envied Sokka's relationship with his little sister.
He doubted Katara would ever try to murder her older brother with lightning even if she were capable of it.
The two shut up abruptly when they spotted them.
Aang brightened at seeing Katara, waving at them happily.
They must have already greeted each other this morning.
Sokka narrowed his gaze on the air bender, "You're nothing like your brother, are you?"
Zuko snorted, "No, he really isn't. Have you two made a decision?"
"Yes," Katara said, raising her chin. "We are coming with you."
Their grandmother commanded, "Sit, it will be a long journey. You need to eat."
Grateful, Zuko bowed to her, "Thank you."
Aang followed suit a moment later.
Okay, maybe if everyone just followed his instructions, Zuko could get them to the North Pole in one piece.
Too bad his luck was complete garbage.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, bison, or feedback, pretty please?
