Noatak didn't know if he were angrier at Tarrlok for being a spineless whiner, or at Yakone for frightening his little brother. He settled for a combination of both and walked in sullen silence. He didn't even know what their father had threatened from his sickbed-for once, Noatak hadn't been there. He could easily imagine it, though.
Behind him, his brother's boots thumped lightly against the snow. Tarrlok drew a breath, as if about to say something—then let it out, then gathered himself again, then stopped, back and forth, over and over. Noatak was starting to twitch every time he heard Tarrlok inhale.
"Will you stop it?" he snapped.
"I'm sorry," said Tarrlok, his voice low. As usual, it rang with sincerity-and misery, even without Yakone here.
Almost despite himself, Noatak felt his fury bleeding away. It always did. His temper ran cool rather than hot—his and Tarrlok's both, suitably enough for waterbenders, but sometimes Noatak thought he could almost feel his native ice crackling inside him, spreading through his veins. He understood the anxious, wistful looks his brother sent his way, even if he didn't know what to do about them.
Noatak protected Tarrlok as much as ever—more than ever, when it came to their father, and if there were none of the laughter or games he remembered from before, neither brother had time for them. They couldn't just master waterbending, they had to perfect it, practicing day in and day out, and on top of it, there was bloodbending and hunting—or, most often, some combination of both. Not just on full moons, now. Noatak's mind was full of everything he had to do and be, and Yakone's plots against the Fire Nation, and worrying about Tarrlok.
Even Tarrlok, he was sure, didn't suspect the last. Noatak dreamed of running away, escaping it all, but then he always remembered Tarrlok: too young to survive the wilderness, too Tarrlok to bear their father's expectations alone. Sometimes Noatak dreamed, too, of the ice slowly overtaking his body until he was just a sculpture of himself, then creeping beyond him, climbing up and over Tarrlok as well. Every time, he woke up frozen in place, his skin cold and clammy, and fled to the nearest cliff. His mind ran in circles over his father's plan, his destiny, his brother's—his baby brother, still, more helpless than any bloodbender had a right to be.
Noatak cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. It was impossible to stay angry at Tarrlok for very long, anyway—it felt like kicking a baby seal. Unless you were Yakone, of course, and frankly Noatak thought him perfectly capable of kicking every baby animal unlucky enough to cross his path. Humans included.
"What's your problem, anyway?" he asked. "You're not getting queasy over hunting, too, are you?"
"No," said Tarrlok.
"Besides, it's just us. No Dad, no bloodbending. That should cheer you up."
Tarrlok was a wimp about bloodbending, even though he'd just managed it under a half-moon. Noatak was better, of course. He was better at everything. He was also three years older, which nobody but Noatak himself seemed to ever consider. He was still convinced that Tarrlok would be every bit as good as he was, or nearly, if he could just get over this stupid block. But still. It was nice to hunt without all the bloodbending drama, for once. And it was definitely nice to get away from their father.
Tarrlok gave a startled laugh. "Okay. Yeah, it does, some." His heart sped up. "You're not going to make me bloodbend?"
"Me?"
"You could. You're stronger."
Noatak didn't know if he meant size or bending or what, and didn't much care. There was a sick, twisting sensation in his gut that he hadn't felt for a long time, since almost the first time he'd bent an animal. "I'm not going to force you to do anything!"
"Well, thanks."
Noatak felt strangely insulted. After a moment of mental flailing, he settled on a reason for it.
"I'm not Dad."
"I know that," said Tarrlok, after an infinitesimal hesitation that screamed in Noatak's ears.
"I'm not like Dad, okay?"
The hesitation was longer this time. "Okay, Noatak."
Noatak whirled around, the butt of his spear smacking the ground. He was just fast enough to surprise the same expression on Tarrlok's face that he'd seen hundreds of times before, but only ever directed at their father. After everything he'd done, everything he'd put himself through because still circled endlessly in his brain, Tarrlok was afraid of him. How dared he look like that at him-look wary, as if Noatak were a wild animal that might attack at any moment-
"I can't believe you," he snarled, and even he knew that couldn't help but make things worse.
Instinctively, Tarrlok stepped back, then held his ground. His face had already smoothed over, even as his heart pounded in Noatak's ears. When had Tarrlok learned to do that? What had he started hiding things-hiding things from Noatak?
"I said you weren't like him," said Tarrlok, his voice short and snippy and perfectly younger-brother-ish. If he didn't know better- "What else do you want? I'm not going to pretend."
"You are pretending!" Even Tarrlok's heartbeat had begun to slow down. But Noatak could tell he wasn't calming down, not really. Tarrlok was controlling his own pulse.
It'd been years since bloodbending had bothered Noatak. He could bend every wolf in the North Pole without a qualm. This, though-this seemed far more perverse and unnatural than anything Noatak had ever done. As bad as Tarrlok thought normal bloodbending was.
"You're pretending you're not afraid of me," he said, brows snapping together and dropping into a scowl. "You're bloodbending yourself! I can hear you!"
"Well, you don't have to listen," said Tarrlok sulkily. "It's practically eavesdropping. And I'm not afraid of you! I mean, sure, for a moment, but that's only because you surprised me."
His face was still carefully blank. Still wary. A few feet to their right and many more down, the ocean roared; the hunting route had taken them along the southern shore. Noatak felt everything, the moon and the sea and the snow beneath their feet and his brother's blood mingling together, calling to him.
"Stop lying."
"Fine," said Tarrlok, and the creepy empty look vanished. He just looked angry now. Even that was a relief. "Yeah, it scares me, and half the time you scare me too. You're a completely different person now!" He waved his arms. "You always used to play with me and look out for me and- These days you look like you want to feed me to the wolves when you even remember I'm here! I never know what you're going to do but it's always horrible!"
The water swept halfway up the cliff, unnoticed.
"Oh, grow up, Tarrlok," Noatak said, if less forcefully than he'd have liked. "Playing games won't help us get revenge on the Fire Nation."
"I don't care about stupid Dad's stupid revenge. I just want to save our tribe!"
"-and I am looking out for you! I protect you all the time and maybe if you weren't such a weakling then I wouldn't have to be perfect every moment of every-single-day!" He punctuated the last three words with furious smacks of his right fist against his left hand.
Tarrlok's arms jerked down to his sides, his hands tightening into fists. "I'm not weak!"
Sea-spray splattered over Noatak's left cheek. Frowning, he glanced over the edge, and his eyes widened. The waves were bursting upwards with each of Tarrlok's careless gestures.
"Uh-"
"And you're not perfect, you're a monster! You like it, I know you do! You like torturing those helpless animals! What's going to be next? Wild polar beardogs?"
Noatak scarcely heard him. "Tarrlok, you need to stop!" He lifted his hands to try and bend the water back down, but it'd built so much power by now that he didn't have much hope.
"Oh, I guess I'm next? Or maybe Mom-"
Noatak shot him a panicked look. The water had so much momentum- "Shut up and help me bend!"
"I'm not shutting up! Yeah, I bet you don't want to hear-" The waves were slipping out of his control, loud enough that Tarrlok broke off and followed his gaze. ". . . Bend what?"
With an ear-splitting roar, the waves burst free, surging up and over the cliff. The land between them split open. Tarrlok shrieked, finally releasing the water, though it couldn't help now. Noatak, abandoning all efforts to control the ocean, sprang over the widening crack, bending the water beneath him into an icy slide and flinging himself towards his terrified brother. His body rammed right into Tarrlok's, both of them flying into the wall just as the entire side of the cliff splintered. They both screamed, desperately bending frozen footholds out of the cliff. Noatak encased the lower halves of their bodies in ice.
That was all that kept them from flying off and falling to their deaths-or at least, to severe discomfort. Instead, their chunk of the cliff crashed down to the ocean. One last wave swept over them, soaking them both. Coughing, they freed themselves from Noatak's ice-hold and crawled towards each other, Noatak helping his brother sit up.
Tarrlok, his outrage forgotten, stared up at the broken cliff in wonder.
"Did I do that?"
"Congratulations," said Noatak dryly. He couldn't help but think of the dozens, if not hundreds, of times he'd said Tarrlok would be a great waterbender, if he could just get over himself. "Tarrlok?"
Tarrlok rubbed his eyes and looked again. He shook his head. "Yeah?"
"I told you so."
Tarrlok gave a shaky laugh. Before he could respond, or (as was rather more likely) Noatak could continue gloating, the fractured chunk of land beneath them shuddered, splintering further. They scrambled to their feet and fled to the safety of the ocean, freezing the surface beneath them as they went. Noatak already felt better, supported by their waterbending rather than brittle earth, but he was glad enough to reach a nearby ice floe. Only then did they look behind them.
An iceberg. Nothing unusual, here-or it shouldn't have been. At first, they could only make out the pale tip, jostling the bit of land they'd abandoned. Then it kept rising, and it wasn't just pale, it was glowing.
Spirit shenanigans, Noatak suspected.
"Come on, let's check it out!" Tarrlok said brightly.
Noatak had never fought a spirit before. "All right," he said. Tarrlok blinked. "You do the left, I'll take the right."
They bent the water on either side of the floe, propelling themselves towards the still-rising, still-glowing iceberg.
They lowered their arms in unison. Noatak thought he could make out two dim shapes within the iceberg; he flung out an arm in front of his brother.
"Stay back."
"But-"
Noatak silenced him with a glare. Tarrlok subsided into grumbling obedience, and Noatak stepped forward. His eyes narrowed as the iceberg finished rising, towering over them in all its uncanny blue-white radiance. He peered into it-the larger of the shapes looked like a polar beardog, of all things. Well, it might be a spirit. The figure beneath the beardog, though, seemed vaguely human.
He leapt over to the base of the iceberg, trailed at a cautious distance by his brother. The humanoid figure resolved into the shape of a-a girl? Yes, a girl in Water Tribe gear, wearing her hair exactly as he used to, her legs crossed, fists pressed together, and eyes shut.
"What?" said Tarrlok.
Maybe it was just the corpses of some unfortunate travellers, preserved by the ice? But there was something oddly . . . alert about their posture, as if they'd never fallen unconscious at all, just-
The girl's eyes flew open. Noatak lifted an eyebrow. She had no irises or pupils, or even whites; where they should have been, there was only blue-white light, glowing the exact same shade as the iceberg.
All right, maybe a spirit.
A spirit wearing Water Tribe clothes. And Noatak's hairstyle.
He lifted his arms. Behind him, he could feel his brother shaking, but Tarrlok didn't say anything. That was the thing about Tarrlok; he almost never did say anything. No matter how terrified or miserable he got, he followed Noatak everywhere. That made it easy to overlook how pathetic he could be, sometimes. It made it easier to hate their father, too.
"I can help," Tarrlok said, scrambling forwards, until he stood just behind Noatak. Noatak just sighed and nodded. They'd only begun to chip at the iceberg, though, when it burst into a cloud of snow, throwing them both back. The boys crouched down and shielded their faces, squinting as the snow raced up the iceberg, slicing it neatly down the middle, then enveloping the entire thing. A bolt of light shot towards the sky.
Noatak, still crouching, wrapped an arm around Tarrlok, fingers digging into his brother's shoulder, and held the other in front of them, ready to bend. Tarrlok was too stunned to protest.
They glanced at each other nervously, then got up, dusting themselves off.
"What's that?" Tarrlok breathed.
The girl, her eyes still glowing, crawled out of the crevasse. Noatak stepped in front of Tarrlok, both hands held up.
No spirit magic confronted him. The girl's eyes fluttered closed and she collapsed, her body sliding down the remains of the iceberg. Instinctively, Noatak reached out to catch her. Tarrlok stepped out to help him settle her against the base of the iceberg.
She gave a small moan. Her eyes opened half-way: normal eyes, now. Normal Water Tribe eyes, her irises a clear blue-green. She blinked up at Noatak.
"Are you . . . me?" she said faintly.
Tarrlok snickered.
"Shut up," Noatak told him. He turned back to the girl. "No, I'm not. Who are you?"
She blinked at them several more times. Then her eyes opened wide and she smiled.
"I'm Korra!" she announced, jumping to her feet. She rubbed her hands together, then with a frown of concentration, lit a flame on them.
"You're a firebender!" Tarrlok gasped.
Both brothers backed up, lifting their hands and eyeing her suspiciously. It occurred to Noatak that he'd never bloodbent another human before. He'd figured for a while now that Yakone would be his first. She should be easier, though. She was smaller. Apparently, she wasn't a waterbender, either.
"Well, yeah," said Korra, closing her hands on the fire. She looked at them and only grinned more broadly. "I'm the Avatar!"
In the years since the fall of Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation's control over the Earth Kingdom had continued to spread. Scarcely any corners of the vast territories were not overseen by Fire Nation officials.
The most desperate, like Zahra's family, never stayed in one place for long, but moved further and further north. Their newest house was on the far northern edge of the most northward Earth Kingdom island. When she climbed the mountainside, Zahra could make out the southernmost reaches of the Northern Water Tribe-on clear days, anyway.
Today wasn't clear. It didn't matter; Zahra was tired of listening to her father and uncle talk anxiously about where to run from here. She was tired of running. She clambered onto a small plateau and threw herself on the snowy ground. It was quiet and peaceful here-finally, she thought, letting herself drift off.
She'd only slept for a few minutes when something blazed against her eyelids. Zahra jerked awake.
She still couldn't see the opposite shore. But she could see a brilliant bolt of light shooting up into the sky. Everyone for miles around could.
Zahra's amber eyes widened. She scrambled down the mountainside as fast as she could.
"Dad!" she shouted, running towards the fence around their house. Her father was standing at the gate, still staring north, though the light had disappeared by now. "Dad, did you see that?"
With an effort, her father tore his gaze from the sky.
"I saw it," said Zuko.
Nera: Here!
Jokermask18: Thank you! I plan on it. :)
Guest: Here you are. The picture is at http colon slash slash paandra dot tumblr dot com slash post slash 25871282154 slash the-girl-in-the-iceberg-will-someone-please
Avatar Sangmu: Well, the idea honestly never occurred to me until I saw the picture, though I'd been wracking my brain for some way to get teenage!Noatak and Tarrlok and Korra all together. It...isn't really possible to be a rewrite, since there are hardly any of the ATLA characters (though a few do show up, but those ones are obviously very different from canon), but the Korra characters' circumstances are pretty wildly different from canon, too. And yes, there are more pieces than what I've posted. I ... hope it's special? I guess?