An Unexpected Development

By TeraWatt

The shadows of the great cliffs of ice cast deep, bone-chilling shadows across the deck of Hakoda's ship as they sailed the familiar seas towards home. The great ocean spirit had blessed the tribe with a bountiful harvest of fish that would last the tribe comfortably through the long months of winter to come. The chieftain didn't need his mother's insight to realise that this blessing portended a special duty owed to the spirits. What he didn't know was exactly what form this duty would take, but he had his suspicions that the Fire Nation royalty grouped at the prow of his ship were to play some part of the affair about to unfold.

He had been wary when he docked at Kyoshi for news and trade to find that his embassy were in the process of provisioning a ship to come and find him. He was even more wary to find out why.

And now he was giving these fire-benders lodging on his ship and was bringing them to his own village. Guest right hadn't been extended to anyone from the Fire Nation since before the war began, and yet there was little he could do about it given the traditions and honour of his tribe and the circumstances that brought these particular fire-benders to Kyoshi.

A Nameless One was being brought to them. And Hakoda did not use that term any more lightly than his own father would have. The last Nameless One hadn't been since before he was a man grown. Thankfully that had been from another tribe across the tundra, but he remembered well the ashen look of the adults of his tribe as the news was received. And now he had to send word that one of their tribe was not only not among the honoured dead, but was Nameless.

The remains of the Nameless one were on his ship and the thought brought a hard scowl afresh to his face. It was not to be given to the sea. Had it been allowed he would have burned it on Kyoshi, but that was a political nightmare to even consider. The remains were in a sealed sack strung up on the port bow of the ship. With the wind at their back, any stench from the weeks old corpse would waft away from the ship.

Prince Zuko had been shocked and appalled at the callous way he had directed his men to secure the Nameless One to his ship, but Prince Lu Ten had laid a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder and quietly explained that with a ships space being at a premium and given both the smell of the corpse and the shame and dishonour it represented, there was no other place it could be secured for the trip.

Hakoda had seen the boy peer with morbid curiosity over the port bow to watch the oiled sack rock with the movement of the ship. The young prince probably didn't even realise how often he had been doing it, but it seemed that the other two princes had. The elder would guide the boy to a different area of the ship and offer him a game of Pai Sho (as he was wont to do with every crewmember not actively doing something else) whenever he saw the boy wandering near the prow. Prince Lu Ten wouldn't stop his young cousin from looking and lingering, but would simply stand nearby with a pensive expression and after a time would come and place a bracing hand on the boy's shoulder until the boy came out of his reverie on his own and walked deliberately to the stern of the ship without a word.

It was difficult to see the royals as the like of the inhuman monsters he had fought against for so many years in moments like that. The boy, Prince Zuko was of a height with Sokka and was slowly but surely approaching manhood. Hakoda surprised himself by feeling some comfort at the thought that this boy was so unaccustomed to death.

A rush of warmth and sunlight spread across the deck as the ship rounded the ice shelf and cut swiftly across the shining gentle waves in the late afternoon sun. Hakoda squinted his eyes at the sight of a huge furry beast in the sea ahead of them also heading for the village in the distance.

Was that Sokka and Katara on that creature's back?

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Sokka was done with this weird day.

He was wet, he was cold and now he was sitting in the saddle of a fluffy snot monster that had sneezed all over him. Once they got back to the village Gran-Gran could deal with this while he would wash himself and change his clothes.

He closed his eyes and determinedly ignored the sound of his sister nattering away at the bald kid with tattoos.

A buffalo-yak horn sounded in the distance behind them and he turned to see the blue sails of his father's ship. The kid and Katara startled and the snot monster slowed and turned to see what made the sound.

"DAD!" he called out enthusiastically, waving his arms.

As the ship approached, he saw the expected familiar faces of his father's crewmates, but he also saw a boy around his own age with a pale face dressed in red and black.

Was that an ash-maker on his father's ship?

Correction, Sokka thought to himself in stunned shock, was that THREE ash-makers on his father's ship?

The ship caught up with them and Sokka got a better look at the three, plainly Fire Nation men. Or rather two men and a boy, or young man he guessed depending on whether his father had taken him ice-dodging. Or whatever evil equivalent they had for coming-of-age ceremonies in the Fire Nation.

Probably something to do with setting innocent people on fire. Then again, the teenager was wearing a sword on his back, so maybe not setting people on fire. Perhaps just maiming innocent people then.

Wait. Was that a body-bag lashed to the prow of the ship? It wasn't lashed to the starboard side, so it wasn't one of the tribe, but who else would be getting brought back to the tribe if not kin?

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Iroh exchanged significant looks with his son and quietly advised his nephew not to say anything when the bald, tattooed boy was introduced as an air-bender and didn't look terrified at being introduced as such to Fire Nation royalty.

Chieftain Hakoda looked as genuinely surprised as they themselves felt at this introduction, and Iroh believed that after a week and a half in his company he had a decent measure of the man, so he believed that the surprise wasn't feigned. Their host knew as well as they did that being found to have hidden the Avatar away from the other nations while they were all actively searching for him was a sure way to sour the armistice and possibly resume the war. The man had been present when the terms of the search for the Avatar were decided and ratified. No one of the major parties of the war were to conceal the Avatar from the others for fear that they would try and convince or coerce the Avatar to their own point of view ahead of their impartial mediation of the war.

But as that was evidently not the case, it was just as well that the decidedly young Avatar was discovered by two of the sides of the war at once rather than just one or the other. But the boy's age may be an unexpected stumbling block to surmount. Everyone had been expecting an adult, jaded survivor of an air nomad who had somehow mastered the elements in the last hundred years. This was going to throw a wrench in the plan.

Once the introductions were done with, Hakoda decided that they should all continue on to the village and speak properly after their original business was dealt with. The young water tribe boy climbed into his father's ship and the young lady and the air-bender, Aang he said his name was, stayed on the bison, floating alongside the ship as they came the rest of the way to the village.

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Horrified understanding cloaked the faces of not just the villagers, but Katara and Sokka as the oiled sack was unlashed from the ship and then lashed once more, with no delay, to a sled by a grim-faced Hakoda and Bato rather than being brought into the village proper to be mourned.

Katara was witnessing the process of tribeless disposal she had once heard described to her but had never seen with her own eyes. A Nameless one was in that sack. No longer of their tribe.

She shivered, but not due to the chill breeze of the tundra.

Bato, as her father's right hand man, led everyone else into the village and started the process of guest right for the Fire Nation guests and Aang while her eyes followed her father taking the sled and its contents deep into the tundra away from the sea. The corpse would be given no rites, abandoned to the beasts that happened upon it.

She was not looking forward to the tribe meeting to follow once her father returned. Word would need to pass to their sister tribes across the south, but first the story would need to be spoken here, heard by all present and the lesson understood. A Nameless tale was never an enjoyable night at the bonfire, but they were never to be neglected lest the stories be forgotten and repeated by a new Nameless One.

Her attention was called away from the sled disappearing into the distance as she was called to do her part of the guest right ceremony, Aang being primarily her own guest.

Once the formalities were done with, the village busied itself unloading the rest of the ship and securing the unusually heavy load of fish that had been caught.

Gran-gran eyed the size of the catch with a solemn eye before glancing into the distance where her son had taken his sled and then looking at the four strangers the tribe had just welcomed. She then busied herself making tea for the four of them and had some of the men start working on a bonfire for that night's solemnities.

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Zuko understood with the appearance of the air-bender that the parameters of his mission had irrevocably changed. Despite being the youngest of the three royals present, he was the one in charge of their mission when the Avatar was discovered. Despite his uncle and cousin being both older than him and ahead of him in the line of succession for the throne, as the appointed representative of the Firelord on this mission, it was now his responsibility to see this through to the end.

On the journey from the Fire Nation to Kyoshi Island, apart from training, he had not had much to do on the ship but sit with his uncle and discuss the man's adventures in the war and his search for the Avatar when he was younger. So when the air-bender had introduced himself as Aang of all names, and the boy was adorned with the tattoos of a master air-bender despite his apparent age, Zuko truly believed that he wasn't clutching at straws to assume that the boy was checking a lot of boxes for identifying the Avatar, not just some other air-bender. The sages were certain that the cycle had not moved from Air to Water in the last hundred years, and in any case the Water Tribes wouldn't have been silent had they been raising a new Avatar to take on the Fire Nation in the war.

Just don't ask him to explain how the kid was still the same age he would have been when the war began. That question reeked of crazy spirit shenanigans. Zuko was adamant that he wouldn't touch a question like that with a twelve foot long spear if he could at all avoid it.

Likewise, since Lu Ten had joined up with them on the Water Tribe ship, they hadn't been sparring so as not to make the crew and their host uncomfortable. More than that, Uncle had warned him that everything on a wooden ship was very flammable, so fire-bending lessons were also on hiatus. And so there had been little to do but fish and talk amongst themselves. And play endless games of Pai Sho with Uncle Iroh the Tile-Shark of the West.

One of the topics they had found themselves discussing had been the specific terms of the armistice and how it all hinged on mediation by an Avatar that hadn't been found in a hundred years.

And now here he was. Chattering away without a care in the world about the prospect of penguin-sledding whatever that was, evidently missing the tone of the village in the wake of the situation with Hama's corpse.

Now the bald kid was pestering the son of Chief Hakoda about letting some of the little kids go and play when they were supposed to be helping untangle the fishing nets, and the older boy was quickly reaching the end of his patience.

"We don't have time for fun and games when the war could kick off again at any minute!"

The young Avatar then made the entire village freeze in shock when he immediately asked "What war?"

Just when Zuko thought the situation couldn't get more complicated.

He was only a second behind Sokka in asking "You're kidding right?"

AN: What's this? A new chapter? How did that happen?

AN 2: Save me from the dreaded Doc Manager.