Just Not Meant To Be
Six bodies were moving slowly across the ice plane, battered by wind and sprinkled with snow. It was debatable whether the most comfortable of them were the dead and now-frozen fish, or the dead and dragging tiger-seal. The other two contestants, Sokka and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, certainly didn't consider themselves to be in the running.
"This is the worst hunting trip you've ever dragged me on."
"I didn't drag you! You invited yourself along! Girls aren't supposed to go on hunting trips, even sisters."
"Well, who was going to fix you up if you got yourself injured? You didn't even pack any bandages! I had to bring all my own supplies! And I caught my own fish! We never have enough fish in the village."
"Ah, who worries about that kind of stuff? I haven't gotten injured so far, and we won't need any fish once we slice up this tiger-seal. It's got to be way- hn- over two hundred pounds of pure, succulent meat."
"No injuries? So what happened to the vicious two hundred pound tiger-seal that you said nearly bit your face off before you bravely managed to spear it? You said it threw itself on top of you and nearly broke your ribs."
"But I killed it okay, no problem."
"You're insufferable."
"Yeah, well you're whiney! No man is going to take a whiney girl for a wife."
"Then I won't be a wife! Waterbenders are more valuable to the village than wives, anyway."
The only reply was a scoffing grunt. Sokka stopped walking for a second to once again hitch up the body of the tiger-seal that he had slung over his left shoulder, and then he got himself moving again, stomping forward deliberately before his sister could notice how stiffly he held himself. The head of the seal was dragging in the snow, leaving a furrow that made it look like a man with a tail was hiking across the South Pole.
Katara shifted the spears in her arms, fish dangling from lines tied around the blades. She used a newly freed hand to brush a pile of snow off her hooded head. "It's really starting to come down."
"We should cover a little more ground before stopping for the night."
Katara frowned and jogged to catch up with her brother. "You're just saying that to argue with me!"
"Oh ho ho, trust me, I don't need to say things just to argue with you. I can say anything to you and get an argument. 'Good morning, Katara.' 'No it isn't, it's too cold, Sokka!' 'This fish tastes good, Katara!' 'It's the worst fish I've ever eaten, Sokka!' 'I'm a competent hunter, Katara!' 'That tiger seal was probably old and dying anyway, Sokka!' 'The sky is blue, Katara.' 'That's the water, Sokka!' Right?"
"I do n- I mean... You... I... Argh! You are insufferable!"
Sokka just smiled to himself.
The walking continued, as did the occasional traded griping, along with the snowing. The precipitation was growing more intense, driven by increasingly cold and hard winds. Aside from the snowy gusts setting the fish dancing on their lines again, Katara wasn't terribly inconvenienced by this, but Sokka was slowing as he tromped through loose snow. Katara didn't take conscious notice of the way her brother's body was shielding her from the worst of the winds, or that his footprints and dragging prey were clearing an easy path for her; such considerations were frequent enough to be lost in the general noise of life. However, the Waterbender did have an instinctual sense for when her brother needed her care, and that sense was frantically waving for her attention. "Are you okay? I can take a turn carrying the tiger-seal..."
"No!" Sokka didn't turn around, the main reason being that snow and snot had frozen on his face to make showing any expressions an unpleasant proposition. "I speared it! I'll carry it! Guys are stronger than girls, so I'm more naturally suited for it."
Katara felt a smirk growing on her mostly numb face. "I could say something about that, but I think it'll be humiliating enough when I have to carry both you and the tiger-seal back home."
"Katara!"
The traveling continued on. The sun was lower now, blocked by the peaks of the ice mountains in the distance, although its indirect light still illuminated the crystalline plains. "Hey, Katara, look!" Sokka waved a hand covered in a thick mitten. "We can take a shortcut!"
The Waterbender girl squinted through the snow along the vector her brother's hand was vaguely indicating. "Where? Oh, that ice valley? Sokka, that doesn't look safe."
"Safe? Of course it's safe! It's a thousand pounds of ice! It's not going anywhere in any hurry!"
"Gran-Gran always said to watch out for ice structures in the wind. Even the big ones have weak tips and outcroppings that get piled with snow and break off."
"Oh, Gran-Gran just worries too much. The men used to take these paths all the time."
"No one said 'the men' were smart."
"No one said you get to have an opinion, woman!"
"No one said I couldn't, blockhead!"
"No one said... uh... that... you could. So there."
"Smooth."
"Anyway, I'm the one lugging the three hundred pound tiger-seal, so that makes me the undisputed ruler of our expedition. And I say it will be good to get out of this wind. That valley will take us to the Crags, and we can set up camp there for the night." Before his sister could offer any argument, Sokka began hiking in the discussed direction.
Katara could have taken any number of actions here, but for all her feminine common sense, Sokka had explored these areas more thoroughly than she, and he could be just as stubborn as herself, when he wanted to. This was especially true when he was in an especially bad mood, as was becoming apparent. Moreover, the time spent trying to convince him could perhaps be better used just moving along before dark. The sun was at its most mobile, this time of the year, and night would fall quickly.
Katara sighed and chased after her brother.
Up close, the 'valley' seemed more like a trench, in some places only wide-enough for a tall man like their dad's friend Bato to lay stretched from head-to-toe. The walls of ice, however, rose high enough that their tops were lost to sight. As Katara stared up at them with worry, a chunk of snow tumbled down to land just a few feet away from her. "Sokka, I really don't think this is a good idea."
"Oh, stop your nagging. I'm going to get enough of that when I'm married."
That took Katara's attention off their surroundings. "Ha! You're never going to get married. Even if there are any woman our age in one of the other villages, no girl with any self-confidence would put up with a loudmouth like you."
Sokka didn't bother turning around as he took up the argument. "Good thing you're not going to get married, either. No hunter with any pride would want a woman who thinks she can run his life. You can just stay in my tent and cook for me, and I'll take care of you."
"Your tent? We're living in Dad's tent! And I don't need anyone to take care of me! I can do just fine on my own! Go ahead and cook for yourself, if I'm so annoying!"
"Fine! You won't get any tiger-seal, and I'll turn it into jerky myself and do a better job than you ever could!" The echo of Sokka's bluff rebounded throughout the trench, rising towards the open sky. The ice walls didn't so much as move, but the snow accumulated on their tops began sounding a quiet growl of disturbing promise. Sokka and Katara looked at each other, the argument forgotten, and having come to a silent accord, broke out into a run. Katara passed by her brother easily, as he refused to let go of his tiger-seal prize.
Neither was fast enough.
An avalanche of snow exploded into the valley, turning the air between the walls into a fiercer storm than was raging on the open planes. The siblings were buried in a sea of white, and after one last rumble of satisfaction, the icy corridor returned to quiet peacefulness.
It was Katara, of course, who shattered it.
No kind of bender is particularly safe to have around in a panic, especially when they're surrounded by their relevant element. It's not that Waterbenders stood out in any way, but Katara herself tended towards disturbing shows of strength when in a disturbed state of mind. The snow above exploded, and she threw herself out of the snow pile with frantic gasps for breath. She had barely ascertained that she was uninjured before she realized that there was another matter at stake.
Sokka.
She threw herself back at the snow, dividing her efforts inefficiently between digging with her hands and attempting to move the snow via bending with wild gesticulations of her arms. Things came to a brief halt when she unexpectedly discovered the slack-jawed head of a very familiar but unattractive tiger-seal. There may have been a cowardly shriek involved, but with no one around to hear it, Katara felt no need to preserve the memory. Fortunately, with the tiger-seal as a guide, she was able to quickly find her brother's body. He wasn't blue, or choking, or bleeding, which was a good start. "Sokka?"
He didn't move.
"Sokka?"
Still no response.
"SOKKA!"
"Hn, loud."
With one last cry of, "Sokka!" Katara happily threw her arms around her brother.
"...hi, Katara. We got hit with something, didn't we?"
"I could tell you about how I was right, and that icy mountains are dangerous in the snow, but you don't look like you want to hear about that now."
"You would be correct. About the last part, I mean. Hey, where's my tiger-seal?" More digging commenced, after which the dead prey was extricated. A short argument followed, leading to a longer bout of digging which was finally finished when Katara's fish were recovered.
Gathering them up with the rest of her supplies, Katara ventured another opinion. "We should make camp for the night soon. How about after we get out of this valley?"
"But I wanted to get to the..." Sokka saw the look on his sister's face, and remembered that he was standing with an untrained Waterbender in a trench of ice surrounded a snowstorm. "Okay, as soon as we clear the valley."
Hours later, the tiger-seal and fish were buried next to a round tent. Snow was accumulating on top of it, providing structure and insulation. Within, the siblings huddled together under a blanket, sharing heat in a lifelong tradition. They were silent for a while, before Sokka turned to look at his sister, her face so close to his. "You can live in my tent if you want, when we're older. You are a big help, but don't have to if you don't want to."
Katara smiled. "I like your tent. But we need to figure out how to get rid of the smell."
END
