Katara woke up the next morning in a spectacularly bad mood. She brushed her hair forcefully. She slapped on her preferred lotion. "Come on Aang, let's go," she snapped when he was still pulling on his boots. "We're going to be late."
"Late?" Aang blinked up at her. "But he said we should meet him at dawn. I was only getting dressed because I was done sleeping and you guys were doing stuff."
"Aang, this is the North Pole," Katara said. "Endless night, remember? In the middle of winter, dawn doesn't mean sunrise. It means moonrise. According to these mirrors…" She pointed to the small mirrors arranged to distribute light around the building in lieu of windows. "The moon's up. We're already late."
"Oh," Aang said. "I noticed they were making it kind of bright in here, but I didn't know what that meant." He pulled on his boots and jumped to his feet. "Let's go!"
Katara did her best to relax as they walked up the stairs to the training ground, which was partway up to the palace. She tried to focus only on how exciting it was to learn from a real master. It worked; she smiled a genuine smile. Real training! She couldn't wait to feel how different it would be from a lifetime of trying to train herself. They found Master Pakku practicing his waterbending. "Good morning, Master Pakku!" Aang called.
The master dropped his water. It splashed on his feet. "No, please, march right in. I'm not concentrating or anything," he quipped.
"This is my friend, Katara. The one I told you about," Aang said. Katara waved.
Master Pakku looked skeptically at the both of them. "I'm sorry," he began, waterbending himself a seat made of ice. "I think there's been a misunderstanding. You didn't tell me your friend was a girl. In our tribe, it is forbidden for women to learn waterbending."
Katara snapped. After everything else, now she was also being denied her only reason for coming here? "No way," she snapped. She stormed forward, ignoring Aang's feeble attempt to hold her back. "I didn't come all this way so you could tell me no."
"No," said Master Pakku.
"There must be other female waterbenders in your tribe," she argued.
"Here, the women learn from Yagoda to use their waterbending to heal," Master Pakku told her. "I'm sure she would be happy to take you as a student, despite your bad attitude."
"I don't want to heal. I want to fight!"
"I can see tha -"
"Do you know what I've spent the past months doing?" Katara snapped. Her voice rose to the verge of yelling. "We've had firebenders on our tail from day one. Maybe you don't know what that means, sitting here all nice and safe behind your wall, but I'll tell you what it means. It means I've had to fight. I've used my waterbending in real fighting to defend real people. I know more than all your students put together about fighting! And I'm going to go right back out there when Aang's mastered waterbending and I'm going to keep fighting. If you won't teach me how to do that, then you are a delusional old man who knows nothing about the real world!"
Master Pakku glowered at her. Now that she was done ranting, Katara could see she'd made a mistake. "In the real world, young people with more courage than sense don't simply get to do as they please," he told her. "The most valuable thing I can teach you is how to respect your elders and obey rules. Our tribe has customs. You are guests, and guests who ask for favors at that. You will respect our traditions."
"Gahhh!" Katara yelled into the sky. She stamped her foot, sending shockwaves rippling through the ice of the training ground. She then turned around and stomped away. Some master he was! Nothing but a sour hidebound old man! She would be better off learning by herself! Never, in a million years, was she going to accept training from someone so out of touch with the real world!
She paused at the base of the stairs to pant. She clenched all her muscles and tried to work the anger out of her system. So learning from a waterbending master wasn't an option. Now what?
"Are you okay?" She opened her eyes to see a boy around Aang's age. He looked concerned. "Did something happen?"
"I was just talking to Master Pakku," she told him.
"Oh. I see." He appeared to understand perfectly. "Yeah, he's really crusty. It's best to just do what he says. Nothing else works."
"That's exactly what I'm doing. Do you know where I can find Yagoda?"
.
Meanwhile, Zuko lay awake for hours both hoping and dreading to go back to sleep. The water vessels in his coat had made it nearly impossible to drift off, and then The Nightmare had struck. When the room began to grow lighter for reasons he didn't initially understand but eventually traced to tiny inconspicuous mirrors he hadn't noticed before, it was a relief. He sat up, waited for the room to stop tilting, then got to his feet. Iroh was still snoring. Good. I really don't have time for him to interfere. Zuko slipped on a real pair of pants underneath his ice pants, refilled his coat's water supply so it would stop annoying him, left the building and wandered around the moonlit city. The moon had left the glaciers and was now shining freely and clearly over the ocean. The ice acted like millions of mirrors, making it so bright that Zuko couldn't help but wonder how the people that lived here shielded their eyes in the summer.
Tarao had taken them to a large, fancy building at canal level. It was very close to the palace and joined by a neighborhood of other large, fancy buildings that towered above the streets. If he'd had the energy, Zuko would have wondered about Tarao's choice of lodgings for a two-person party of anonymous strangers. But he only yawned and tried to keep his mind on the mission at hand. He was reluctant to leave the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the palace, for surely it was there that he would find his answers. A short distance from his lodgings, he found a restaurant. It was still closed, but a man was approaching in a hurried way. Zuko let him enter the building and flip the sign around. Then he asked the man, "Where can I find information about water spirits?"
"Water spirits?" The man looked around and shrugged. "Around here, everyone knows a little something. My grandma says she saw one once."
Not this again! "I need to know how to get rid of one."
"What?" The man was shocked. "You don't get rid of water spirits. They're our allies, guardians. The spirits watch over us. It's why we've been safe for so long. Don't you know that?"
Zuko growled and pushed himself away from the restaurant. These people know nothing! He started to find more and more people walking or boating around. He asked how to get rid of spirits. By the looks on their faces, one would have thought he'd asked for the best recipes featuring roasted grandmothers. That didn't seem to be too different from how they actually felt towards spirits, either. One woman took personal offense, changing her course to pass close enough to give him a shove. He narrowly managed to avoid falling into the water, or rather, onto. He thanked his stars for the lucky escape and resolved not to ask any more people. He'd traveled here in the hopes that they would know things about water spirits, but clearly his hopes were in vain. He was going to have to figure it out for himself, as usual.
He definitely wouldn't want any witnesses, though. He looked around for someone else to ask, someone he hadn't already angered. He went back to the palace. There, he saw the white-haired girl, the princess, getting into a boat. "Hey," he called to her. "I need to ask you something."
"What is it?" She seemed helpful and cooperative. Zuko mentally categorized her as someone he could go to when he needed answers.
"Is there any way out of the city, aside from going through the wall?"
Her eyes widened. "You want to go into the wilderness? Well…we do have hunters that go out to catch turtle seals. They have paths along the side of the city. But please be careful! The glaciers aren't safe."
"I'll be very careful," he promised, then turned away. He wasn't concerned about the glaciers. Whatever danger was out there, the water spirit would protect him from. Now he just needed to find one of those paths and figure out what he was going to do…
In order to reach the side of the city where it carved into the glaciers, he had to cross several canals. He chose to use the bridges rather than walk across the water. I still have some dignity left. He found what had once been a waterbender-carved tunnel. Now it was mainly carved by footprints and hands. The tunnel led upward through the ice of the glaciers. He walked along it fearlessly. The tramp of footsteps here had made the ground uneven and kicked up loose ice particles, so it wasn't slippery. He could see the invisible flow of the ice in the marks left behind by the people who'd first used this tunnel and stuck their weapons into the walls to keep from slipping. The marks looked crushed, squeezed by a sideways force. In some particularly steep places, the marks were fresh. He stuck his fingers into them and stepped carefully.
He came out on a hillside. A man-made overhang kept snow from blowing into and filling up the tunnel, and the slope prevented it from piling up outside. Up here, he could hear the wind blowing relentlessly. It never stopped. Tattered blue flags that looked almost black against the snow flapped on sturdy spikes. They formed a path leading off towards the ocean.
Zuko walked uphill to get a better view and saw a ridge where the snow level abruptly dropped. Anyone else would have considered such a formation to be a hazard, since you wouldn't see it until you were about to fall into it. Zuko thought it was perfect. Going by his best estimate of the distance, the ridge looked wide enough for him to comfortably stand on its bottom. It might even be deep enough to practice firebending with relatively little fear that passing turtle seal hunters would notice the light. He followed the trail of flags to the third flag, then walked at exactly the opposite angle from the next flag. He climbed a small hill, and there it was - the ice crumbled beneath his feet, revealing that he stood at the top of a steep drop. Zuko patted his ice coat gratefully, then dropped to his side and slid down. The ice was coated by only a thin layer of snow that offered zero protection, and it was not smooth underneath. Such a method of travel would by itself have critically injured anyone else. Zuko only pulled the bottom of his coat down from where it had ridden up a little. The ridge was wide enough for him to stand and move in, as he'd thought. He walked a little ways along it and found a nook where some of the ice above had bulged out into an overhang. He firebended into the nook. The light did not appear to reach the top of the ridge. Perfect!
Now he needed to confront the water spirit once and for all.
"Come out," he called. This was not a confrontation to be had with a faceless, formless spirit entity. It was a face to face fight between two people who had been part of each other's lives but could be so no more. He waited for the water spirit to show its face.
For the first time in years, the ice before him turned to water and lifted up into the air. It streamed through the air to his right, zipped back, dove down and then up again. It landed like a turtle seal and began to recrystallize. Ice bloomed outward into a broad chest, a neck, a tail, wing bones. From there it filled in the details. All of the previous times he had seen it take this form were when he was in the Fire Nation, so the transformation was always a little rushed. But Zuko didn't think that was why it looked so different now. He was surprised by how tall the water dragon was, and the height of the crest on its head, and all the proportions of its wings and body and tail. It hadn't looked quite like this the last time he saw it. It was as if…as if the dragon had grown up like he had.
The water spirit tilted its neck from side to side, getting reacquainted with this form. It opened and closed its gill flaps, swept the ice with its tail. It pushed itself up on its flippers and walked around, slowly at first but then at a trot as it remembered how much fun having a body was. It settled down and faced him. It lifted one fin and waved, then began to sign. Hi! It's been a long time.
Zuko glared at it. "Stop the games," he snarled. "You know why I called you out here."
The water spirit tilted its head. Why?
He growled. That was one of its tricks: making him explain what was obvious. "To make you go away, moron. You seem to have missed the message, so I'll say it again: I don't want you in my life anymore. Leave."
The water spirit tilted its head again. Why?
Zuko roared fire into the air. "I said stop the games! This is no time for you to be playing tricks and making puzzles out of words. I'm not using wordplay. I'm not talking in metaphors. I mean exactly what I'm saying: Leave."
Why?
He swallowed his rage. The water spirit was powerful, despite how childlike it insisted on acting. He should at least try to be diplomatic. "You are a spirit of Water. You can destroy ships like they're nothing, buildings, people. You're associated with the Water Tribes, enemies of my nation. If my father knew you existed, he would have all the reasons it is possible to have to hate you. And if he knew I knew you? I might as well give up on trying to earn his respect. Nothing would ever redeem me in his eyes for that crime." He took a deep breath. "He's already exiled me from my home, and that's without knowing about you. What else would he do? By following me around and making yourself obvious, you are putting my life at risk! I am literally in danger because of you! And that's before we get into all the bad habits you've encouraged in me, contradicting my father's lessons, making me into a mockery of a prince. You're probably the reason I was exiled, too! You do not make my life any better by being in it, and I don't appreciate your company any more. It would be best for the both of us if we parted ways."
He stepped back, panting. That was the most diplomatic argument he had. It was also an argument the water spirit already knew. It had been there. It had seen it. Zuko did not expect his words to change its mind now.
The water spirit looked down. It twitched its gill flaps. It tilted its head. Finally it looked up at him, and it shook its head. I think that's wrong.
Zuko would have liked to be surprised, but he wasn't. The water spirit disagreed with the very foundational principles of his argument. Obviously, they were never going to reach agreement. There was nothing more to say. Only one option remained if it still refused to leave: force.
He raised his left hand and made a fireball. "I knew you would say that." He used both hands to push forward, turning the fireball into a great roaring flamethrower. Steam filled the air. When he lowered his hands, the dragon was gone, but the water spirit was still there. It had just given up its dragon form. A tendril of water reached out towards him. He batted it away with a fireball.
"I knew you would say that!" he repeated. "You've never cared about me! You know you're endangering my life, and you don't care! You like it, don't you?" He threw a massive fireball at the overhang, which sagged and crumbled, shattering into glittering pieces. "You barge in where nobody asked you to, where nobody wants you, and you try to order me around. You try to convert me to your ways. It's all a game to you, isn't it? You just want to see if you can. If you can change a prince of the Fire Nation into an honorary waterbender, then it wins you bragging rights with your spirit friends, doesn't it?" He believed every word he said. There was no other possible reason he could see for the water spirit to have invaded his life.
He reached inside and summoned up all the rage, all the hurt, everything he possibly could. He screamed and flooded the ridge with fire. The sound of ice melting into water pleased him, but not nearly enough to stop his rage. He screamed again, feeling like he was burning alive from the inside out. His legs twitched as pain shot through them like electricity. Instead of letting his legs twitch uselessly, he kicked fire along the ground.
"What is wrong with you?" he yelled. "You're not wanted! Nobody likes you! Nobody respects you! Nobody cares! Everybody despises you! Why do you still try to be part of their lives? Why do you waste your time trying to help people who would never do the same for you? Why do you try to earn the respect of people who will never respect you? I. Will. Never. Be. Your. Friend! Give up! Go away!" Every single word and sentence was accompanied by a new blast of fire, a new fireball, a new kick.
But still the water came. A tentacle snatched his feet out from under him. With a crack!, a water whip stung his forehead. He lashed back with fire. "You stupid, stubborn, delusional -"
The ice beneath him surged, throwing him back against the wall of the ravine. His ice coat disappeared, and the ice sliced into his back as he slid across the wall. He gasped, but drowned the pain out with more fire and ignored it. He kept lashing out with fire and insults alike, every insult he could think of. "You thickheaded lazybutt moron! Worthless layabout! Shameful scaly flip-flopper!" He didn't really care what he said, so long as it was hurtful. The ice beneath his feet threw him backward, forward, sideways. The ice walls were as hard and sharp as rocks and cut him just as badly. Each time he staggered to his feet again and resumed the fight.
"I can't believe you're stupid enough to do this," he panted. "I already have a patron spirit. It's Fire. It may be a lousy good for nothing, but together we're more than powerful enough to stop you!"
As soon as he said that, his fire went out. The ridge plunged into darkness.
"What the -" Zuko punched the air. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. He kicked and kicked, and nothing happened. No fire appeared. He groaned. His arm didn't feel right. Zuko tried punching the air again with that arm. Firebending always made him feel warm. He felt that warmth inside his chest now. But when he tried to throw a fireball, the warmth stopped at his shoulder. It refused to flow down his arm, to his fingers, erupt as fire. Zuko tried and tried, but he could not get that warmth to budge. His arms stayed cold as the fire inside his chest burned ever hotter, flaming up, scorching him. He clutched his chest and bent over, gasping. What is going on?! He tried to firebend again. The fire spirit jabbed him in the shoulder for his trouble.
The fire spirit. He could feel the fire spirit as a flame inside his belly. A warmth. Now he could feel that warmth stubbornly not flowing through his shoulder into his arms. Without it, he had no firebending ability. It was as if the warmth was his firebending.
He couldn't believe it. No. No!
A great big cracking sound commanded his attention. He looked up in time to see an enormous wave of ice detach from the wall of the ridge. It waved back and forth in front of him, taunting him with its size and power, which he was now powerless against. Zuko's eyes widened. The ice crashed to the ground right in front of him, knocking him off his feet and sending ice shards into his face. He scrambled backward as the ice picked itself up. It towered even higher than it had before, if that was possible. It blocked out the moonlight. It crashed again, the force picking him up as if he was only a leaf and tumbling him along the hard ground.
Zuko felt now the power of the water spirit. It had never used this much power against him before. His head spun. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to treat him. It wasn't supposed to get angry at him. It wasn't supposed to attack him physically. He was shocked by its anger, hurt and confused. How could it be angry? And why was the fire spirit angry? He was on its side. He was one of its people. But now it took away his firebending! Zuko had no choice but to admit it: the fire spirit controlled his firebending. It had never taken that power away from him before. Why were they both acting so unlike themselves?
The fight had turned into something Zuko had never imagined it could be and most definitely was not ready for. He scrambled to figure out why. He realized what his mistake had been. He forced himself up with shaking hands, looked up and saw another towering ice wave, felt the fire spirit burning his shoulders. It jabbed him repeatedly in the chest like a red hot needle.
Their nations might have been enemies, but Fire and Water were not. The truth of that was flung in his face now, as was their fury. As the towering ice wave came closer and closer, Zuko cried out, "Wait!" He lowered his head until it nearly touched the ground. "I apologize! I won't try to turn you against each other again!"
He shivered and shook, waiting for the moment when he would feel the ice crash down upon his head and then feel nothing ever again. The water spirit was so angry, he had no trouble believing it would do that. But the moment never came. There was another cracking sound, and a groan. He raised his head, which was suddenly hard to do - his vision swam - Ow - and saw the last of the ice disappearing into the wall of the ridge. The ridge was ridge-shaped again. His capitulation had worked; he was spared.
"Master Pakku was right," Zuko whispered. "It's too parrful. Ign't… I…" He started to gasp for breath. His head was swimming again. He felt so woozy. Ice bloomed in his chest, spreading outwards until his whole body was so cold he couldn't feel it. Even his head was cold. His mind became slow and sluggish. Zuko looked at something, but didn't know what he was seeing. Was he looking down or up? He couldn't tell.
Something pulled him to his feet. Zuko realized he had been looking down. The darkness he had been looking into, it was on the ground. Ink? He stared confused for a while, until he realized, Not ink. Blood. Because, as he only now noticed, his hands were also covered in the stuff. It dripped off. The ice coat had come back, and patches of it were dark and getting darker. Zuko remembered the rough wall, being thrown into it forward and back, the way it scraped him. The scrapes hurt in a dull, pulsing kind of way.
He didn't know what this meant, but was motivated to go back to the city for some reason. "Okay," he whispered, trying to turn around without falling over. "Okay, I will. Whatever you say Mommy." He trudged back along the ridge, climbed the wall. He had no memory of climbing it. He stumbled down to the nearest flag. His legs felt soldered now, stiff. It was a struggle to lift them. If he could just catch his breath, this would be so much easier. He wanted to sit down to catch his breath. Mother wouldn't let him, though. She reached out a tendril made of water and pulled on the collar of his coat. Zuko followed the flags in that direction. He saw the tunnel. He went into it and looked down. "...Weee?" Water flowed in from outside and formed into a sled. It lifted him bodily off the ground, put him down onto the sled, and strapped him down. Sokka was right! Best slide ever! Zuko grabbed the edge of a footprint and pushed off. He laughed in a way that sounded like it could have been laughing or crying all the way down. He kept laughing like that even after the sled stopped. Then he stopped. The sled dissolved, leaving him on the cold, hard ground. He struggled to his feet. "Ow." A particularly sharp-feeling bit of cold appeared in his belly. It led from the center of him outwards. I'm a giant compass now. He stumbled in the direction the needle pointed. Whose compass am I? Is someone going to pick me up? Sokka's going to come for me any minute now.
He was not aware of any people he passed. He thought he heard something once, but his breath was loud in his ears, and anyway he wasn't a person anymore. He was a compass. Compasses told direction, like the North Star. That's where Mother's taking me, he realized. To the North Star.
Spiraling staircases took him upward, into the sky. Of course they did; he was journeying to the stars. He did wonder why the houses seemed to be all curvy now. Weren't stars pointy? His vision wavered, and suddenly they looked pointy. That was right, now everything made sense. He entered one of the curvy houses through a tunnel. The people inside looked up. One of them was Katara. Hi, he wanted to say, but he fell down before he could, down, down into an ocean of darkness.