Author's note: I took a short break after the holidays, then managed to get sick a few times. I should be back on track, now,
As always, please leave comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism! Please enjoy!
Warning: some adult content in this one.
Have you ever watched a flame, Kyala? I mean really watch it. There's this release from the fuel: a slow blackening stretching out like fingers. The subtle pull of air rushing to feed it. Hovering just above is the base of the flame - golden orange or blue - the last legacy of a life once lived. The flame curves up and, in undulating waves, licks the air. It stretches out as high as it can in a search for sustenance. Its singular purpose: to spread and grow and consume until there is nothing left. If it fails, its own fuel inevitably dwindles to nothing and it dies.
Hoka's fire burned brightly in the shelter he and Katara bent from ice and snow. Confined to a hand hewn black soapstone bowl, fed by seal blubber, the fire brought a life and warmth I thought I'd never experience again. Blessed relief. My limbs were so heavy by then. It took all my strength to stay present after the adrenaline high subsided. Hoka's hardtack, a type of hard biscuit, helped. Not the flavor, mind. It had none. Oddly enough, it was the act of chewing, gnawing. Like a favored bone to a dog, the act of working the hardtack tapped some primal source. I managed to relax without succumbing to exhaustion.
Nami, Hoka's snow-leopard reindeer, regarded us with no small amount of stoicism. She stretched along the fur lined floor languidly, her tail twitched back and forth. Every now and again a sound somewhere far in the distance would draw her attention to the shelter's entrance, a narrow 2 foot opening. She drew the night in with her keen eyes and ears for a few moments, then relaxed again. Her presence ensured we saw no more incursions that night, wolf or otherwise.
Much like his mount, Hoka had a quiet intensity about him. He nodded thoughtfully to Katara as she quickly explained the situation. He was a head taller than Katara and she had to look up to meet his hazel eyes framed by unkempt jet black hair. A patchwork of ill fitting clothes barely contained what I can only describe as powerful physique: the results of a hard life and a good lineage. Late teens, possibly older. I wondered at his state. How long had he suffered in the wilds with Nami as his only companion? Was he an outcast from the Northern Water Tribes or merely a lost soldier? Worse? We didn't have any other option.
Once Katara finished her account, he asked simply "And you have come all this way on mere hopes and dreams?" He is face betrayed no emotion.
"It's all we have left," Katara responded.
Hoka nodded and knelt beside Aang. Poor Aang. With a meaty hand, Hoka gently wiped the sweat from Aang's brow. I want to say I saw the slightest bit of surprise take over his features, then, but I could never be sure with Hoka. He was always very hard to read.
"Is the Northern Water Tribe far?" Katara asked.
"A day's ride. Less by your flying bison, I imagine." Hoka peeled back and withdrew the the layers of furs we'd heaped atop Aang to keep him warm. Calm and thorough, until Katara turned away. Hoka closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. His fingers glided gently along unseen paths on Aang's flesh. "It does not matter."
"Why?" asked Katara.
Without opening his eyes, he whispered, "Your friend hovers at the threshold of this life and the next. Infection feasts off his chi. These lines here, here, and here. They reek of corruption." He traced the infection lower to the festering wound in his leg. His head leaned back. "And here is the source. An arrow, but more the crippling poison. It disrupts and lies. I do not recognize it."
Katara sank to her knees. "He can't die. He just can't." She held Aang's hand in her own and squeezed gently.
Hoka frowned. "He must if we dawdle further." He gently removed her hand from Aang's and guided it to Aang's chest. "Protect his heart and drive the corruption back. I will engage the poison and its source."
Katara stammered, something I'd not heard her do before or since. "I don't know how. I've never been trained in…"
Hoka interrupted her, "It will feel like pouring water - the water in the ice and snow, the water in the air, the water in you - pour it all into his heart. Let loose a damn. Bring forth a tsunami. Use whatever mental image that crystalize your resolve. His life is in your hands, now." He lowered his right hand to the ice floor and bent knife of ice. Hoka fashioned it further until it resembled a hook. Katara's eyes bulged at the sight, but to her credit she didn't look away.
"How…?" Katara asked.
Hoka said nothing more for almost an hour.
That night I watched a master and an apprentice at work. I held Aang's head in my lap. He came in and out while they worked. He babbled incoherently. Katara, for her part, fell into a rhythm. She filled her lungs, then with a slow, steady out-breath she glided her palms along clammy flesh. I could tell she worked on the chi lines Hoka pointed out, but for all her effort and strain I could see no outward signs of her labor. She wielded no ribbons of water nor drove columns of ice. Even so, your father improved: his breathing grew less labored and in time his fever lessened.
From my vantage point, I could see very little of Hoka's effort. Whereas Katara personified quiet grace, Hoka grunted and toiled against a stubborn foe. Rivulets of blood streamed passed Hoka: deep black mixing with bright crimson. Hoka pushed Aang's leg one way while pulling the opposite direction, only to reposition and do it over again. Arrowheads are particularly insidious when lodged in bone, as it was in your father. I did not have the physical strength to remove it when I first met Aang. After a while, I was concerned that neither did Hoka. Finally, with a jerk of his arm and a wet crack, Hoka pulled the arrowhead free. He quickly encased it in sphere of ice.
Katara nodded towards the frozen arrowhead. "Why did you freeze it?" She asked, her quiet assault on the infection continued undeterred. From her motion and position, I guessed she'd succeeded in routing the infection back below Aang's hip.
Hoka carefully wrapped the sphere in seal skin and placed it on the ground next to Katara. "When you arrive at the Northern Water Tribe capital, present this to Yugoda. Let her know the arrow was loosed by the Fire Nation and that it delivered a potent poison - one unknown to us. One that almost felled the Avatar." Hoka returned his attention to the wound in Aang's leg.
Katara stopped her rhythmic motions and furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, "You won't take us to the capital?"
"No," Hoka placed his hand on Katara's, just where Aang's leg and hip join, and with one quick motion cleared the remainder of the infection from Aang's body. I'm not going to describe what I saw come out - not right before lunch. Let's just say that Hoka is a very powerful and skilled healer. We were lucky to find him.
"I don't understand," Katara said.
"At daybreak, I will lead you close enough to see the capital, but from there you must make your way yourself." With another swift movement of his hands, Hoka sealed Aang's wound perfectly. No scar. Not a blemish or line. Aang snored softly in my lap as if he hadn't been on death's door less than an hour before.
Things got a bit awkward, after. Hoka accepted our gratitude - Katara gave him a great big bear hug and thanked him profusely. He seemed unfazed. No, that wasn't what I saw cross his face. There was a slight upturn at the corners of his lips, ever so brief. A sense of pride or accomplishment? Joy, even, perchance? Whatever the feeling, Hoka crushed it as if it were a liability.
Hoka chose not to converse with us further, insisting instead we rest and that he would watch over Aang until daybreak. As you can imagine, this frustrated Katara to no end, but our savior would not budge. Hoka cleaned the operating area and then dressed Aang with the warm furs and blankets. Hoka then nestled with Nami near the entrance. He rest his head against her side and she nestled hers against him.
We did end up sleeping, if only for a few hours. We awoke as the pre-dawn light crept through the shelter entrance. Someone was gently shaking us. It was Hoka, a look of concern on his face.
"What's wrong?" I asked, groggily.
He nodded at the back of the shelter where Aang stretched and yawned under the furs.
"I had the most awful nightmare," Aang whispered absently, his eyes still closed.
"What about?" I asked.
"Mouths."