A/N: Just another note on timelines: the events in the comic "The Promise" are canon but not much beyond that.

Here Be Dragons

Chapter 2

The first thing Hiccup always paid attention to as he flew back to Berk was the statue of his father carved into the cliffs. He and Toothless always did a lazy flyby near the statue before landing in the village below.

Hi, dad, he thought, smiling softly. By now, moss had started to grow on it, in little patches, marking the passage of time, but it was never something that bothered him. It just made him think of how it would get old, how it would be there for ages and ages, so that people would remember his father.

By the time he landed, most of the tribe had gathered, happily welcoming him back the way they always did.

"Welcome home, chief!" Spitelout called out.

"Spitelout, Phlegma, Mulch, Bucket, Bob, uh, everyone."

"How did everything go?" asked Phlegma.

"The Chief of the Green Isles agreed to the trade agreement and they're finally settled in with their local dragons sooo everything went great, actually. Which, you know, considering they were originally threatening war, I'm gonna call that one a win."

"Chief, we've been having some problems with -"

Oh, here we go, thought Hiccup and he held up a hand.

"Whatever problems are going on, I promise I'll get to them. Let me check in with Astrid. She'll update me and we'll get everything taken care of. Anybody know where she is?"

"In the Great Hall right now," said Spitelout.

"Good, I could use a meal that isn't dried-something."

He called it dried-something because it was either dried out meat or dried out fruit or dried...something. The travel rations made for him were always dried and always a something.

He smiled at his people and then he and Toothless moved through the crowd towards the Great Hall. Fishlegs ran up and caught him at the steps before he could get there.

"Hiccup, did you find it? Did you find where they're coming from? I've been keeping in touch with the dragonologists on the other islands through the post -" They had that now, a letter delivery system using Terrible Terrors "-and we were right that the Brightclaws are apparently only migrating in from the east. None of them have spotted them coming from anywhere else, and apparently their migration pattern arcs down south where it's warmest. Some of them are also flying back out west which suggest this is an extension of their hunting grounds instead of a nesting migration."

"I didn't find an exact island where they're migrating from but get this: the storms are gone." Hiccup gestured enthusiastically "You know the storms all the villages around the edges kept saying their ships couldn't pass through? Gone! And they're definitely migrating from the east now that it's clear, which means -"

"More islands or another landmass where they're migrating in from out east!"

"Exactly! I'm going to tell Astrid. We'll compare notes after I meet with her and eat. We definitely have some exploring to do."

Fishlegs very nearly danced in place. "Ooooh, this is so exciting! We haven't discovered a new species in over a year! I'm going to go tell your mom, she'll be excited about it, too."

"Tell her I'll be in to see her after I talk to Astrid."

"Will do!" With that, Fishlegs ran off.

Hiccup found Astrid inside the Great Hall, eating and talking to Bjorn about planning for the summer harvest. She really was good at this because she apparently had it all settled.

"Helloooo," he said to get her attention. "Getting up to a lot of chiefin' without me, I see. "

Bjorn walked away with his orders and Astrid popped up from her seat the moment she saw him. Behind Hiccup, Stormfly and Toothless greeted each other and started to goof around.

"Well, it is my job," she pointed out, running over and throwing her arms around his neck.

"It's just eternally a pleasant surprise to come back home and see that the village hasn't burned down or fallen into complete catastrophe."

After withdrawing from the hug, Hiccup inclined his head respectfully and grinned.

"Chief," he said, by way of greeting.

"Chief," she said back, doing the same.

It was their little joke, the two of them greeting each other with the respect you'd show a chief.

The little arrangement Hiccup had thought up, was, in his opinion, one of the best decisions he'd ever made as chief.

Berk was not like the other islands with their single chiefs - or like the mainlands with its single king. No, Berk had two co-chiefs, each with their own respective responsibilities. Astrid was the home chief, responsible for day-to-day goings on around the island and diplomacy with the chiefs on the closest surrounding islands. Hiccup, on the other hand, was the away chief, responsible for some of the things that were necessary to safeguard the long term prosperity of Berk. He was the one that met and made new alliances with the new societies they ran into, he was the one responsible for spreading the dragon peace, he drew up the trade agreements and peace treaties.

He didn't leave all the responsibilities of Berk itself to Astrid. For instance, she gathered up some of the problems she couldn't fix regarding infrastructure and tossed them at him whenever he was home so he could figure out solutions using his mechanical aptitude. But for the most part they each had their respective responsibilities and areas of authority. She had the final say on all things domestic, and he had the final say on all things to do with their interaction with the outside world.

And it worked. It really did, especially since they put their heads together on anything they disagreed on to find some kind of compromise - often one that was better than what they each would've come up with on their own. It was so much easier now than Hiccup trying to balance it all himself.

She'd earned it, anyway, by rallying Berk to its defense from the Outcasts when he'd been away on a diplomacy run to Hopeless with his mother a few years back. Seeing how well she'd done when he'd gotten home, seeing how the village had looked up to her afterwards, had made him decide to share leadership with her on the spot. A perfect solution to Hiccup's "how do I manage to be everywhere at once?" problem.

The village had been a little anxious about the change at first, as they so often were in regards to any change at all, but they trusted Hiccup and they trusted Astrid, and over time it had even become a point of pride for them. Berk was the village so great that it had two chiefs and that was definitely more chiefs than any other colony or village nearby.

The only downside…

"Hmm, you're not going to meet anyone if you let your beard get messy like that," she commented in a sly way as she sat back down again, sliding some papers across the table so they were there for Hiccup to look at as he say down.

"Nooot really my biggest priority when dodging axes being thrown at my heads by foreign chiefs."

The only downside was that their relationship had...well.

It wasn't really that it'd gone south. There had been no explosion or wild crash. Mostly it'd been sort of a slow...drift. They still loved being around each other, they still talked to each other, they still enjoyed certain fun activities while alone together, but certain things had changed with the distance.

Not really in a terrible way. But they'd decided that maybe if they were going to spend that much time apart it was best to let certain things go.

So they still enjoyed each other. They still spent time with each other when they could. They were still best friends. But they also had both decided to leave certain things...open. So that they could each find other people if they wanted.

And that was okay. Heck, they even encouraged each other in it a little, hoping they'd each find whatever made them happy, someone that might live in a way that was more complimentary to the both of them.

One thing was for sure, though, Hiccup constantly running around in his semi-nomadic lifestyle definitely did not work for the two of them.

"Oh no. The chief of the Green Isles didn't take us up on the trade agreement, I take it?" Astrid asked with concern, going over her own paperwork.

Paperwork was one invention both he and Astrid regretted but it definitely helped keep things in order. Hiccup took a look at the lists of problems she'd gathered for him to work on.

The windmills apparently needed a better design for the gear mechanism near the water pumps.

"Nah, I talked him into it in the end but Ironfist definitely has 'iron' in his name for a reason. He's tough ol' geezer for someone who's only five feet tall. Did you know he's eighty-five? Eighty-five and shriveled as a prune and he tossed a full-sized axe fifteen feet in the air."

Astrid laughed. "You still have your head so it's safe to say you and Toothless dodged it."

"Yes, we dodged it. Head's still firmly attach. So everything's fine there." He paused. "Also I maaay have added a little to the map, there's this really interesting -"

"Hiccup," Astrid chastised, "we agreed you'd stop adding to the map! Your mother and Eret are doing fine with it. No wonder you're three weeks late getting back."

"I had something important to check out! And I checked it out and found out something amazing."

Now she was at least listening. "What did you find out?"

"Okay, so -" Hiccup pulled out his map and stood up, spreading it out over the table. "-we've heard from all the villages and colonies around the edges that there's always been dangerous parts of the sea, right? Storms. It's always been storms, ones that never seem to stop, that have gone on for generations."

"The ones that block the ships and dragons," she said, leaning over it.

"The ones that block the ships and dragons." Hiccup pointed to the villages and islands on the edges, the ones closest to the giant circle of storms he'd penciled in. "North, south, east, west, they all confirmed it. Mom and Eret confirmed it in a few places where there are no islands, too, down in the northwest and southwest. But the Brightclaws were coming in from the east, so I asked Ironfist if they'd seen a lot of them and they had, and he said the part of the storm wall nearest the Green Isles was right up against a volcano. Toothless and I decided to check it out since that was a good landmark to find the storms -"

Toothless had nosed up behind him now and made a rumbling sound of annoyance and narrowed his eyes in a way that made it clear he was trying to dodge blame over going off-mission.

"Okay, so I decided we should check it out, and-" Hiccup pointed to the volcano. "It's gone. The part of the storm wall nearest the Green Isles? Gone. Nothing there. The volcano was exactly where Ironfist said it was and you could even tell from looking at it that there'd definitely been one side weathering some extreme weather. The way the lava formations had been built up and worn down was consistent with that. But it was nothing but clear skies - well, clear other than the Brightclaws migrating in from the east."

Her eyes went wide. "Which means there's a landmass beyond that and we're not locked in anymore. And any dragons that were past the storms aren't locked out."

"Exactly." Hiccup practically danced away from the table, wrapped up in his excitement. "There have to be islands out there for the Brightclaws to migrate from - maybe even a new continent! Astrid, we need to explore it. Those storms were supposedly there for generations, and on the mainland, they have all that stuff in the history records about migrating from somewhere that they thought was just legend, but what if it isn't? What if people migrated from some other continent, settled in the mainlands, and then our ancestors spread out to the islands from there?"

"There could be people out there."

"Entirely different societies that haven't had contact with the people in our neck of the woods for thousands of years!" A pause. "Or a continent that's totally unexplored, but I'd put my money on there being people out there instead. Just think of the trade we could open up and the -"

Astrid's face screwed up in thought. "Hiccup, this might not be a good thing."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, for one, we don't know why the storms suddenly went away."

"The weather changes sometimes. I mean we've had long-term shifts on Berk. Our great grandparents had record colds during the winter frost compared to us, for a couple'a decades."

"Exactly," she said, her eyes wide. "It shifts. What if we start traveling past it while it's open for a while but then it shifts back? We don't know how long this will last."

"It's still worth a look, don't you think?"

"And if there are people out there, they might not be friendly."

Now that was food for thought.

"Even if they aren't, we have our dragons and so do all the other islands and the mainland now. They wouldn't stand a chance if they tried to invade."

"Hiccup, think about it. If there are people out there, if the historical records on the mainland are right that all of our peoples migrated to this part of the world thousands and thousands of years ago, then whatever people they left behind on whatever islands or continents are out there have been developing differently from us for all that time. And we don't know that they've had to deal with dragons like us, they might only live in our part of the world."

"And? That's something to be excited about, if they are different from us. Think of what we could learn from them."

"Unless they're war-like. The dragons kept destroying everything we made, everything we did to build up our islands, and fighting them kept us from from traveling, exploring, and building things as much as we could have until you figured out how we could get along with them. If there are people out there and they've had all this time to develop without having to fight something like dragons, they could have technology that's much better than ours. They could have weapons that even our dragons can't fight."

That actually had not occurred to Hiccup, due to all his excitement. It should have, but it didn't.

"Ooooh," he said thoughtfully, sitting down at the table. Astrid sat down across from him, still looking at the map.

This was exactly why making her co-chief had been a good idea. He was much less naive than he'd been years ago, often figuring out things like this, but sometimes he still got caught up in his own excitement, thinking more about what could be discovered or innovated than how other people thought. Her considering the angles he hadn't had come in handy more than once.

"We have to go about this very carefully, especially since whatever languages they speak could be entirely different from ours," she said. "At least all the islands we've run into, and the mainland, all spoke something similar. And we do need to consider maybe trying to avoid contact altogether."

Hiccup rubbed his chin in thought. "Yeah, but if the storms are gone and we can travel past them, anyone that might be out there can travel past them, too. They could sail right up to us. Astrid, we need to try to make contact first, so we can control how we do it. The last thing we need is some strange people sailing a ship in and accidentally getting into a fight with one of the islands and their dragons. They might shoot first out of panic, whatever Vikings they shoot at might fire back to defend themselves, and then we could be looking at a war."

"And if they get into a fight with Vikings on dragons, it's not like they're going to be able to tell all the different islands apart. They'd go to war with all of us."

"Exactly. Our peoples are all different but it's not like outsiders would be able to see the differences. We're similar enough that it could be all-out war with all the islands and the mainland, not just whichever one they ran into first. That would be a nightmare."

"You're right, we do need to try to explore and see if there's anyone to make first contact with instead of waiting for them to come to us."

"And you're right that they might be hostile and have better technology. We'll have to do this very, very carefully. I think we should only send one of us, with one dragon. If we approach another culture on the backs of dragons and have more than one person they might think it's an attack."

She gave him a flat stare. "You're going to volunteer yourself."

"I am so going to volunteer myself," he said, not even bothering to hide it.

"You just got back!"

"I know, but I can take care of what I need to quickly enough-" he pointed at the papers full of problems she'd given him. "And who else is there? You're needed here, most of the other chiefs would think a headbutt was a proper diplomatic greeting, and we can't trust King Olaf to handle it when he's so domineering. His idea of diplomacy is trying to annex everything. Apparently one time he accidentally annexed an island that was already part of the mainlands. He annexed his own country into his own country. And my mom's still getting used to talking to people instead of dragons-"

Even after five years, it wasn't always easy for her, though it'd gotten easier.

"Eret's good at talking to people," Astrid pointed out, "He's done well enough at some of the places we've sent him to be an ambassador."

"He's done fine but do we want to throw him at some foreign court with foreign ladies that might have different social rules about people not having a different girlfriend at every court they're an ambassador to?"

Astrid stared at Hiccup for a moment. "And you just really want to go, don't you."

"And I just reeeally want to go," he admitted, thunking his head against the table and map. "I so want to go."

Astrid laughed and shook her head. "Well, you are the away chief. Things like this are your call."

"Yeah, well, with something this big," he said, lifting his head, "it's definitely something we need to agree on. If saying hello to any potential neighbors we have out there goes badly, they're going to keep saying hi back right up to the shores of Berk. Possibly by shooting arrows at us."

Astrid crossed her arms and thought about it. "I don't like the idea of sending you alone."

"Sending me alone is better than sending me with the twins and Snotlout."

"Well, that's a given." She traced her finger along the drawing of the sea of storms. "But your mom could always go with you even if it wouldn't be good to send her on her own. Or Fishlegs."

"Toothless carrying two of us will tire him out faster and like I said, one dragon will probably be one too many as it is. The whole 'run for the hills' to-do, while admittedly more fun than it should be, has bitten us in the butt before. Remember Luk Tuk?"

Astrid sighed. "I remember Luk Tuk. Okay, fine, it'll be just you. But you should take a Terrible Terror with you and release it with a letter and a map once you've made landfall."

"A perfect compromise, there we go."

"Also, we don't know how far it is out there. What if you get stuck out in the middle of the ocean without any land to land on? The Brightclaws can travel really long distances. Fishlegs said the dragonologists he wrote to said they've gone out as far west as the mainlands. We don't know that Toothless has enough endurance to reach where they come from."

Toothless whined at Astrid indignantly. What an insult! Of course he could make the flight!

Hiccup thought about it and then raised his eyebrows as an idea occurred to him.

"The Brightclaws can travel long distances. And they're really docile, docile enough they might be willing to give me and Toothless a ride. There are ones that migrate back out east regularly. Fishlegs thinks them flying our way is less that they're looking for mating grounds and more that they've widened their hunting range now that the way has been opened up. Hitching onto one of them might help Toothless can save up his energy and they have to be landing somewhere out there."

Astrid sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, a habit that had built up over time with her being chief.

"Provided you don't get eaten, that almost sounds like a plan, but you're not leaving until you fix everything that needs fixing, you better eat and get enough rest before you go, and we need to put together a gift you can give any foreign leaders."

"Will do, okay, and for the last part I was thinking maybe a bag of some trade stuffs. Maybe some silver, some metalwork, some herbs, something carved. A nice mix of things from the area so they know what we have to offer as far as trade goes."

"That sounds like a plan."

Hiccup bounced up from the table again, caught up in his own excitement. "So, I'm going to go do that and -"

"Hiccup," Astrid said, crossing her arms. "You're forgetting something."

"What am I forgetting?"

"When's the last time you've eaten real food?"

"Oh yeah. Yep, gonna go do that." He pointed both his pointer fingers at Astrid and she rolled her eyes affectionately. "Good plan."

Then he could start taking care of everything and get ready for what was possibly going to be the most amazing trip of his life.

This was the worst trip of Aang's life.

Actually, that wasn't really true, he'd had many other worse trips. Like the one to the South Pole that'd led to him crashing into the ocean and taking a one hundred year nap. Or the trip away from Ba Sing Se after he'd gotten hit by lightning and actually died for a little bit. Or the one away from the Fire Temple after the winter solstice, when he realized he had to defeat the Firelord before the end of the summer. Or…

Okay, there were a lot of them. He'd had a lot of bad trips.

This wasn't the worst but Aang felt like his limbs were filled with molten metal as he lay there at the bottom of Appa's basket. Molten metal, specifically, because his muscles were twitching and burning after the fights he'd gotten into. He wasn't even bothering holding onto the reins. Appa knew the way to the Fire Nation.

"Groooooooog," Appa rumbled up at him, checking on him.

"I'm okay, buddy. Not that hurt."

Just a little bit hurt. His clothes were what'd taken the brunt of it, burned and ripped in a few places. And he was really, really exhausted, even if he wasn't hurt that badly.

That was why this was a bad trip even if it wasn't the worst. He was so tired. And things were going so badly, badly enough that he needed to make this trip at all. And if he had to make a trip anywhere, west wasn't the direction he wanted to go in, as much as he liked seeing Zuko.

South. He definitely would've preferred south. South was his favorite direction to go in nowadays.

As he looked at the stars passing overhead, he drew in a deep breath and let it out again, but none of the tension in his body went with it like he was hoping. There was too much weighing on his heart.

Like the news he had to bring to Zuko.

And the news he wasn't going to tell Katara.

The former was why this trip was so miserable. ('Everything we've been building is falling apart' wasn't exactly a fun message to have to bring to someone.)

The latter was why he couldn't sleep right now even though he was exhausted. He just kept turning it over in his head, trying to figure out if what he'd been told was a lie. The spirit he'd heard it from wasn't a liar. He was a lot of things - a lot of horrible things - but not a liar. But he had to be sure before he told Katara. Absolutely, completely sure.

The sun was finally starting to rise which meant his chances of sleeping were next to nil. (His sleep was so messed up right now). They were close to the Fire Nation now anyway and Appa was starting to fly lower so Aang slowly sat up, stretching out his aching arms, and peered down. Sure enough the capital city of the Fire Nation was rising up from down below.

Appa came in for a landing in the main courtyard of the palace and Aang hopped out before he'd even landed, sliding down Appa's side, his glider in hand. Several of Zuko's servants immediately stepped forward to welcome him.

"Avatar Aang, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the palace," said Zuko's servant Ming Na, with a polite bow. She looked concerned over his condition. "Are you injured? Do you require the palace physicians?"

"I'm not hurt. My clothes are just a mess. I need to see Zuko right away."

"Do you or your flying bison require anything to eat? I can have something prepared for you to take with you while you speak to him."

"I'm fine but can you get Appa something?" He was already guzzling water out of a decorative pond. Aang felt too guilty for letting him get that thirsty to redirect him somewhere more appropriate.

"Of course, Avatar Aang." Ming Na signaled for some other servants to take care of Appa and then started to lead him to Zuko. "Firelord Zuko is having breakfast. Right this way."

Ming Na led him through the hallways of the palace briskly, picking up on the urgency in his voice, until they reached Zuko's vast dining hall. This was his private dining hall, with a very long table capable of seating around twenty people. His other dining halls were even bigger. His hair was only loosely pulled back out of his face and he was wearing a set of dressing robes. He had stacks of papers and scrolls around him, and was eating a bowl of spicy noodles.

He looked just as exhausted as Aang, with circles under his eyes, and was clearly trying to eat as quickly as he could and work on something important simultaneously.

"Firelord Zuko, Avatar Aang is here to see you."

Zuko looked up, noodles hanging from his mouth and quickly swallowed. First thing was first...

"Aang, are you hurt?" he asked wide-eyed. "Do you need the palace physicians?"

"I'm not hurt, I just need a change of clothes."

"Okay, good," said Zuko, turning to Ming Na. "Can you see to it that the Avatar gets a change of clothes before he leaves?"

"Yes, Firelord Zuko," she said, bowing, and going off to take care of it. They didn't even need to take his measurements at this point. The Fire Nation capital was a frequent rest stop of the Avatar's due to all the times he needed to speak to Zuko, and many of those times he needed new clothes or other supplies.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way..." Now that he knew Aang wasn't hurt, Zuko turned, looked at Aang, moved his bowl of noodles aside, put down his chopsticks, and slammed his head into the table and groaned. If Aang was here, in that state, it only meant one thing. "The talks fell apart didn't they."

"Yep," said Aang, confirming that Zuko was totally right to knock his head against the table, and he even joined him, leaning his staff against the table and taking the seat closest to Zuko, knocking his head on the table, too.

"Rioting?"

"Yep."

"And the community leaders are refusing to cooperate, aren't they."

"Also yep."

Zuko groaned again. Aang put his arms on the table now, resting his chin on them. Zuko eventually sat up.

"You look exhausted."

"So do you."

"You look more exhausted."

"I had to keep both sides from hurting each other without hurting them for eight hours straight, all over the colony, until the guards got it under control. My arms and legs feel pretty much like those noodles you're eating."

Zuko put his elbow on his table and rested his head on his hand.

"We're going to have to intervene with more force but the last thing the Hu Xin provinces need is a military intervention. That'll just agitate the Earth Kingdom separatists even more. Any ideas?"

"Nope," said Aang, his eyelids fluttering like he was having trouble staying awake. That made Zuko's eyebrows knit together in worry.

He could tell Zuko was concerned right now. Aang knew he wasn't acting himself. It wasn't like him to just shut off like that, to not have ideas on how to fix things, to lay there looking almost hopeless.

"You're not okay right now," said Zuko. "Are you."

"I'm exhausted, extremely cranky, and I have no idea how to fix this. I've tried everything! I can't even get them in the same room together."

Zuko thought it over. "Then we're going to have a different kind of intervention. I'm going to go with you and we'll get the others to come help."

Aang glanced up at him, looking relieved.

"You don't need me to tell you that's okay," Zuko reminded him. "You don't need someone to tell you it's time for you to rely on your friends. You do realize that, right?"

"I know," said Aang. "It's just you're just as busy as me and you're already doing everything you can to fix this with me, and Sokka's helping with organizing the United Republic government and city planning for developing Republic City, and Toph has her Metalbending school, and Suki and the Kyoshi warriors are busy training the new mixed police forces at the other colonies, and Katara's been training the new waterbenders and that's really important to her and -"

"And you're exhausted and struggling," said Zuko sharply. "It was going well for a while so that you didn't need us right there with you, but now it's not. We've hit a rough patch. That's going to keep happening for a long time. I know it probably sounds ridiculous coming from me -"

"Only a little. Teeny bit," Aang teased.

Zuko just rolled his eyes at him over that. "-but sometimes you'll be able to go it alone and sometimes you won't. If you can't, that's okay." More sharply, he said, "Stop waiting until people are setting your clothes on fire to ask for help."

"Okay, it's definitely a little late," Aang acknowledged, looking down at his pants, "but I need help."

"Go get the others and bring them back here. We'll think of something. I need to talk to my generals in the meantime."

"Your generals?" Aang asked with concern.

"Not about going on the offensive. About national security. I know the Earth Kingdom on the whole doesn't want a new war anymore than we do, but I have concerns about these radical elements getting into the Fire Nation and hurting civilians."

"Why are you worried about that?" Aang asked.

Zuko drew in a deep breath, knowing this was something Aang didn't want to hear.

"We had a small group of separatists that tried to damage the Jiang Hui dam yesterday. Fortunately, they were stopped by the guards before they did too much damage. My guards are investigating it right now but we think they got into the country by pretending to be merchants. It's just like the attacks we've had around some of the colonies and around the construction in Republic City."

Aang knocked his head against the table again.

"We can fix this," Zuko assured him, "It'll be hard but if we stop the conflict in the colonies it'll damage their power base and make it impossible for them to organize. They need the support of the common people to function; it's where they draw resources and manpower."

"It's just been a long…" Day? Week? Month? Couple of months? Year? Years? "A long time since I've had a break."

"Go home, rest up for a day or two, get Katara and the others, come back here, and we'll work on this together. We need to intervene in person but you have time for a day off at least."

"Okay." Aang felt at least a little bit of relief but then he usually did when talking to Zuko like this. For most of these conflicts, the two of them were in it together, and every time one of them was frustrated or hopeless the other was there to bolster them up.

"Get going. The sooner you get to the south pole the sooner you can rest."

"I really need new pants first," said Aang, looking down at his burned and tattered clothes again.

"Get new pants from my servants and then get going."

"Just push and pull, push and pull. Now, to do a water whip all you have to do is make that movement sharper. It still has to flow the same way but you do it faster and then...extend."

Katara demonstrated the movement and the girl imitated it. A whipcrack sounded in the air and the girl smiled.

"I did it! I did it!"

"Very good, Anaya!" Katara said encouragingly. "Now, keep practicing for a few minutes while I help Siluk."

Siluk was no longer the little boy running around underfoot in the village that he used to be. His long black hair often hung in his face and he had a perpetually surly expression. He looked devastated as he kept trying to do the water whip and whipped himself in the face yet again. He tossed all his water back into his pot.

"I just can't do it!" he said as Katara walked up. "It's way too hard."

He looked around at the other waterbenders as they practiced. Most of them seemed to be doing better than him, but what he hadn't noticed was that the reason they were was because Katara had worked with them, too.

"I'm never going to be as good as everyone else."

"You know, I was frustrated like that a few times, too, when I was learning," Katara said, drawing the water out of Siluk's pot again. She started doing a cooperative exercise with him, one of the ones she used to help her students improve their basic forms, a simple game of catch, full of pulling and pushing so they could work on shifting their weight. "I tried so hard to learn the water whip and I kept failing - I kept hitting myself in the face every time I tried."

"Really?" he said, sounding as if he didn't believe it.

"Mmm hmm. I was trying to learn it from a Waterbending Scroll so I could teach Aang and of course he figured it out it instantly while I was struggling with it. There was a lot I was able to teach him but since he was the Avatar, he was a natural at certain things. I was so jealous that I even yelled at him over it even though he didn't deserve it." She leaned into her movements to show him the right way to do it and he started to imitating the movement unconsciously. "Even the best Benders struggle with certain techniques and for some Benders it can take a long time to learn, but as long as you keep trying and keep practicing you'll eventually get where you want to be."

"I guess so."

"Trust me," she reassured him. "Remember how Sokka couldn't hit the broad side of an igloo with his club before we left to help Aang?"

"Yeah, he was really terrible! And he's really good at fighting now," Siluk said, mulling it over as he took control of the water again.

Sokka sometimes helped teach the nonbenders how to fight whenever he was at the Pole, alongside the members of their sister tribe that'd settled in the South Pole to help them all rebuild. One thing that was a huge focus was on teaching everyone to Waterbend and fight. Everyone hoped that the peace could last but after a hundred years of devastation because of the Fire Nation, everyone still wanted to help the Southern Tribe get in a position that they could better defend themselves in the future, to safeguard their growing prosperity as they rebuilt their tribe.

Katara stepped out of the way, standing next to him to show him the stances again. "You've just got to shift your weight through the stances."

He tried again and didn't quite get it but almost did, then again, and after the third try, he finally got it.

"Yes! Yes, I did it!"

"See? Don't be so down on yourself, okay?" said Katara. "It might take some time and hard work but you can do anything you set your mind to, and I'm here to help you with anything you have trouble with."

"Thanks, Sifu Katara!"

Katara clapped her hands together loudly.

"Okay, class, we're done for the day. Water back in your pots. I want you back here the same time as usual in the morning."

"Thank you, Sifu Katara!" most of the class said in unison, bowing to her, before they all scattered to go home or play for the day. As she started to walk away from the training grounds, she saw her grandfather standing near the entrance, watching her.

He had a smile on his face.

"You did very well today," Pakku said.

"I thought you said you'd be busy all day with the Council."

With the growth of the Tribe, a few things needed to change, and Pakku, her father, and other elders were working out ways to possibly reorganize the running of the tribe.

"We resolved a few things a little faster than we thought."

"Did you want to take over class again tomorrow?"

"No."

Now she was confused.

"The day after that?"

"Katara, I know you might still need my help sometimes, because learning to teach is something any teacher has to do alongside learning to Waterbend, but you've come such a long way. And more and more I want to spend more time with your Gran-gran in our old age. Maybe it's time you take over teaching the class completely."

Katara's eyes went wide. "Are you sure I'm ready?"

"You're a Waterbending Master, Katara, and one of the most talented Waterbenders I've ever seen! And you've done a wonderful job assisting me in training the class - and an even more wonderful job taking over on the days I can't. Watching you teach today has made me realize there isn't much else left to teach you - not even about teaching itself."

Katara held a hand to her chest. "I - I don't know what to say."

"How about you don't say anything and come over here and give your grandfather a hug?" Pakku said with amusement.

Katara ran over and gave him a huge hug. "Thank you so much, Pakku. I'm so honored. I'll do my best to make you proud!"

"You've made me proud already, ever since I trained you. And I'll still be here whenever you need me. If there are any questions you have about instructing them or anything you have difficulty with, I'll always be here to help - but I don't think you'll need to rely on me all that much anymore. I've been away so much that you've already been teaching your students more than I have."

'Your students,' he said. Katara' heart fluttered with delight as she realized that's what they were. Her students.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm due for dinner and your gran-gran will have my head if I'm late."

"Tell gran-gran I'll be over tomorrow."

With that, Pakku walked away, leaving Katara nearly bouncing in place. Her class. It was her class now. Her students! All her own. She couldn't wait to tell Aang and her brother -

As if on cue she heard a loud "hrrrrrrrrrooooog" echoing in from the distance and she saw Appa coming towards the settlement. A few people were already gathering as they so often did, including the gaggles of little kids that always came running over whenever Aang showed up. Her heart, which was already fluttering with delight, felt like it was going to fly right out of her chest now, and she ran over to where Appa was coming in for a landing.

"Aang, you're back!" she cried out delightedly.

Except Aang didn't jump out of Appa's basket after Appa landed. The crowd started craning their necks in concern.

"Aang?"

Worried now that maybe Aang was hurt or unconscious, Katara climbed up into the basket and found him -

Snoring softly, curled up into a sleepy little ball.

She didn't know whether to laugh at the fact he'd slept through coming back to the Pole or be concerned that he was that sleepy at all.

"Aang, you're home, it's time to wake up," she said, amused, brushing a hand against his cheek. "If only so I can get you in bed so you can go back to sleep."

There was no way she could carry him now the way she could back when they'd fought against the Fire Nation. He'd had a massive growth spurt back when he was fifteen and sixteen and now he was only a few inches shy of being six feet tall. It was starting to look like he might wind up a whole head taller than her in the long run.

The gentle touch and her words did absolutely nothing to wake him up so now she poked his shoulder.

"Aang!" she called out.

"M'up, where'sa fire?" he blurted out, shooting up so fast his head almost hit her in the chin, flailing wildly. "Can't sign the treaty for them, I need new pants."

He blinked sleepily, clearly very very out of it. Then he narrowed his eyes at Katara, peering at her more closely.

"Katara, what are you doing at the banquet? Only Bosco is invited."

Now Katara laughed out loud. "Oh, you are so going right back to bed after this. Come on," she said, tugging on his arm.

He blinked his eyes again and it seemed like he was finally alert, as he looked around and it occurred to him that he was surrounded by snow and ice now.

"Oh, I'm here."

"Yes, you're here. Up," she said, tugging on his arm.

He rubbed at his eyes with his hand and then it occurred to him that hey, he was home, and hey, Katara was right there, that was good.

"And you're here!" he said enthusiastically, hugging her tightly now. "Of course you're here. Man, I'm tired."

Katara hugged her boyfriend back just as enthusiastically, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. He kissed her back just as enthusiastically.

"Yes, you're here. Yes, I'm here. And you really, really need to get a good night's sleep. So, up. Get up."

"No no no, we really need to get going."

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"The talks between the community leaders in the Xu Hin provinces did not work out the way me and Zuko hoped so he told me to gather everyone up. We can't do a military intervention because it'd just agitate the Earth Kingdom separatists so he figured we should all go in as a small group and see if we can work out a solution."

"Well, it's late, and I had a long day training my students." Her students. Hers! "And you look exhausted. Did Zuko say we needed to leave right away?"

She trusted Zuko's judgment on these things more than Aang's anymore, because Aang was pushing himself way too hard. Aang froze for a moment, the way he did when he was caught in a fib, which he sometimes did before he even told the fib.

"It's pretty urgent," he said noncommittally. "I mean, he didn't say we had to leave right away, but -"

"So what did he say?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He said that I should maybe take a day or two to rest but -"

There it was.

"Come on. Up," she said, finally succeeding in dragging him to his feet, and she jumped out of the basket and slid down Appa's side. She briefly gave Appa a little hug and patted the fur on his head as she looked up to speak to Aang. "You can try all you want to leave today but it doesn't exactly work if I won't leave with you, now does it."

Aang sighed as he jumped over Appa's side, Airbending to cushion his fall. "Okay, okay, I'll take it easy for a little while. But we really, really can't take that long."

Aang was immediately mobbed by the children there, who tackled him to the ground so quickly it almost looked like a wolf taking down a fox antelope. Far from being upset by it, he cried out in delight, "Hey guys! Wow, Oki, you're getting so big, I think you're an inch taller than when I last saw you!"

He probably had grown an inch since Aang had last seen him. He'd been in a few times since he'd seen him last but he was often in and out so fast that he didn't have a chance to see most of the Tribe, just Katara herself.

The thought of it brought a pang to Katara's chest. She was doing okay whenever Aang was gone - it helped that she had her own important things to focus on - but it always stung whenever she was reminded of how infrequently she saw him and of how short the time was each time he stayed. Usually, it was the same thing each time: she'd make sure he actually ate, they'd talk for several hours straight, trying to cram as much conversation in the time they had that they could. Then sometimes they slept together (always nice) or he'd just fall asleep (something he always needed, definitely not as nice) and then it was a few kisses in the morning and he was on his way again.

It stunk. It wasn't really Aang's fault that it stunk but it stunk like a skunk fish.

After he gently shook off many small children, who then went to play with Appa (he was a good sport and used his tail to help them climb into his basket and slide down his side), she took Aang by the hand and led him towards her lodge. The little hut of ice and animal skins she'd had the last time he'd visited had gotten an upgrade since she last saw him.

"Whoa, that's new," he said.

"Nice, isn't it? Now that we don't have to worry about the Fire Nation destroying our villages over and over, we can make more permanent buildings. The Northern fleet has been helping us bring in lumber from the Earth Kingdom and the building supplies Zuko keeps donating from the Fire Nation."

She led him inside, taking off her heavy parka and leaving it on a little wooden chest near the door, moving the skins at the door to cover it again after he ducked his way in.

"Wooow, it's got a wooden floor and everything." He let go of her hand and looked around for a little bit, then took off his shoes and foot wraps to hold his feet near the fire and warm up his toes.

"I'll start reheating the soup from lunch," she said, going over into the little kitchen area and stoking the cooking fire. "And then we'll get some food into you and then we can talk. There's so much I want to tell you! We've managed to build so many things while you were gone."

They'd talk about everything, the way they always did. She could barely contain her excitement over what Pakku had told her, but she decided to hold it in until they'd both eaten.

"Sounds good to me!" said Aang, grinning at her, and then he started to nose around curiously, his attention temporarily captured by the new lodge.

Her new home wasn't that big, just a small one-room little lodge with a sleeping pallet on the floor covered in arctic hen-down quilts (a compromise because he thought animal skins were icky but at least if the feathers were inside the quilt he couldn't see them), a fire pit in the middle for keeping the whole thing warm, and another area with a cooking fire and a small little table with cushions to sit at for meals. But it was cozy and much more extravagant than what she and Sokka'd had while growing up.

The stone fire pit had a square area set into the floor around it, with wooden benches that had storage spaces under the seats and after warming his feet for a minute he started to lift up the seats and root around curiously.

"So this is where all our stuff is."

Sometimes he was like a hog-monkey with how his curiosity completely took over and he started getting into things. She had to suppress a laugh as he accidentally fell into one of the storage spaces head first, his rear end sticking up in the air.

"Ow."

Okay, he was wide awake now, clearly, and he was probably hungry but...she was a little hungry too, she thought, eyeing his rear end wiggling as he tried to pull himself out.

He had, in the last five years, grown in ways that were...interesting. He'd gotten taller and his voice had grown deeper, even if it hadn't lost any of the playful cadence it'd always had. His face had gotten a little more angular and his smile had changed to project far more confidence than innocence, even if he hadn't lost any of his previous humility. He'd also put on quite a bit of muscle, even if he was still lanky.

The most infuriating part of all of that was that he was completely oblivious to how attractive he'd grown, which meant, quite often, that he did things that caught her attention without realizing he was doing it.

Like accidentally getting into a position where his very well-toned rear end was wiggling in the air, for instance. Things like that.

Biting her lip, she put the pot of soup back on the table. Now was a bad time to put it on the fire again when she might not be able to check on it for a little while.

"The best part of the lodge is over there," she said in a faux enthusiastic voice, "do you want to see it?"

Aang successfully extricated himself and looked around.

"Where?"

She pointed at the sleeping pallet. "Past the bed. On the other side. Trust me, it'll be your favorite part."

He walked over and knelt on her-really, it was their- bed, looking past it, poking at the wooden floor, expecting to find something interesting, like some kind of secret compartment. She eyed his rump again as he knelt there.

"What's here? I don't see it."

That was when she went in for the kill, lunging and grabbing him by the shoulder to spin him around and press him down onto the bed. While he was still reeling in surprise, she straddled him and pressed a very forceful kiss to his lips. For a moment he flailed slightly in surprise and then she felt his lips move as his mouth curled into a smile and he kissed her back just as passionately, hands sliding up to her waist.

When she finally pulled away to look at him he was smiling at her.

"So, there it is. Yeah, I think this is definitely my favorite part of the lodge."

"It had better be," she said, sliding her hands over his chest and then sliding his robes down off his one shoulder.

"I wanted to talk, though," he admitted with a pout. "What's been happening while I've been gone? How are your classes going? What's -"

She cut that off with another long kiss. She didn't want to talk. At least not right now. She definitely wanted to talk after, but definitely not right now.

"Lots of new buildings, dad and Pakku are helping put together a council to help run the tribe since it's growing so much, and Master Pakku wants me to take over teaching the new Waterbenders - which is really exciting!" she enthused. "So we're going to be excited about it later."

Aang apparently couldn't stop himself from being excited about it now, because his face lit up, as he said, "That's great, Katara! You're already so goo-"

She cut that off with another kiss, before pulling away to look him in the eyes.

"Like I said, we'll be excited about that later." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Right now there are other things I want you to be excited about."

Aang raised both eyebrows. "Yes, ma'am."

Some time later, after they made the warmth of the lodge significantly warmer together, Katara lay there with her limbs tangled up with Aang's. After having their fun together, they'd talked for a while. He was half-asleep already and still trying to talk to her, still desperately clinging to every last shred of consciousness so he could catch up.

"You really are already teaching them mostly by yourself anyway," he said, yawning in the middle of the sentence, "and doing a really good job. Some of them are learning faster than I did!"

And that was saying something, considering how much of a natural he'd been with Waterbending. As the Avatar, mastering most of the elements had been easy after so many lifetimes of mastering them before. For her students, however, most of them were only just starting out and they were picking it up very quickly.

"Pakku's helped so much with it. He hasn't been teaching me Waterbending anymore - he says I just need practice like any master, not instruction, but he has been teaching me how to teach."

She squirmed away from Aang to get up and his arms tightened into an octopus-like grip.

"Noooo," he said in a little, high-pitched voice.

She laughed. "We both need to eat." She pressed a kiss to his forehead and teased, "So I take it this means we're not leaving right away now?"

That made his eyes pop right open and Katara immediately regretted saying it. He tried to sit up.

"You're right, we really should get going if you're up for the trip tonight, because -"

She shoved him right back down.

"How about we make a deal? We're both eating and if you can actually keep your eyes open after that, we'll leave for the Earth Kingdom to get Sokka and Toph tonight. If not, we're going to sleep."

"Okay, it's a deal," he said, confident he'd manage to do that.

Katara pulled on her robes, completely confident he wouldn't manage to do that because she was going to take her good old time while doing everything, and went over to reheat the soup.

"So what exactly are the separatists doing that's making it so hard to stop them?" she asked as she set the pot over the cooking fire again.

Aang rubbed sleepily at his eyes. "It's a combination of things. They keep attacking Fire Nation businesses and cultural buildings. And they do things to stir the pot with everyone in general. Like they have these newspapers they print and give out for free that get a lot of people on both sides riled up. The people of Earth Kingdom descent get all angry about things and the people of Fire Nation descent feel attacked by what's written in them, because they claim they're trying really hard to make things work, and then people get into arguments and fights, and sometimes it'll explode into riots that have to be calmed down-"

"All the mixed families must be having a hard time right now."

"Oh yeah, people are sometimes treating them badly now, with both sides calling them traitors," Aang said. "It's not right. They're the ones that are most comfortable with everyone living in peace. It's just like Yu Dao, where they feel attacked by both sides."

"That's terrible," said Katara, thinking about how grateful she was that she and Aang didn't have to deal with something like that.

They sometimes had problems they had to work through because of being from different cultures but it was so much easier without that kind of conflict going on around them. It was just between the two of them and quite a few parts of their culture were complementary, anyway. For instance, Aang loved spending time with the rest of the tribe. They'd accepted him very openly and she could tell that even though it would never replace his own people that he liked being a part of something again.

"Part of the problem is it was one of the most recently established colonies. Firelord Azulon captured the territory early in the war but the Fire Nation didn't send colonists right away."

"Unlike Yu Dao, where they had more time to integrate, because it's the oldest colony."

"Exactly. Back when we were moving the newest colonies back to the Fire Nation, we might have been able to take care of it by seeing if the Fire Nation colonials were willing to go back," he said blearily, "but now that we've committed to the United Republic we can't do that."

Good, he sounded like he was already almost nodding off again. The soup was ready, though so she had to get him up for that, at least.

"Soup's ready."

Aang yawned hugely again and squirmed his way back into his pants, crawling over and sitting on one of the benches around the firepit. He reached for the bowl Katara handed him and started shoveling soup in his mouth greedily.

"It has those leeks you like from Kyoshi Island and I think I finally found a way to make stewed sea prunes that you'll like," she said enthusiastically.

She hadn't known he was coming but she'd been trying out a new recipe ahead of time anyway. However, Aang suddenly pulled a face and seemed to be keeping the soup in his mouth without swallowing. He looked stricken, as if he had no idea what to do next.

"You're going to spit that into the fire the second my back's turned, aren't you," she said dryly.

Aang shook his head frantically, still not swallowing. Then, deciding it was probably wrong to lie, he shrugged in a way that suggested, 'eh, probably.'

She rolled her eyes. "Go ahead."

Aang opened his mouth and spat the sea prune into the firepit with a 'bleh,' and then looked apologetic.

"It's the texture, not the taste. I really like the rest of it, honest! All the other vegetables in it are good," he said, shoveling some of the other vegetables in his mouth to show he didn't mind those.

"I'm going to find a way to get you to like stewed sea prunes eventually, mark my words."

"I could live for another hundred years and you probably wouldn't be able to," Aang said, after swallowing, grinning. Then his expression changed, very suddenly, to one that was more thoughtful - and maybe even troubled. He stared at the fire for a moment, lost in thought.

Her eyebrows knit together in concern. "Is something wrong?"

He looked back up at her with a start. "Nothing. I'm just zoning out, I guess."

It seemed almost like he was hiding something but he wouldn't do that, would he? After all the times he'd gotten in trouble with her in the past for lying or hiding something, he'd long since decided that honesty was the best policy. While he sometimes told the odd fib it was mostly silly things, like him trying not to insult her cooking. He didn't ever hide anything serious from her anymore.

She decided that he was probably just really tired. Sure enough, as he ate, he started to have trouble keeping his eyes open.

When his bowl was empty (empty of everything but the sea prunes, at least) she took it out of his hands.

"Why don't you go lie down for just a few minutes while I clean up?"

"Just a few," he said, crawling back over and curling up under the blankets, "but then we really have to get -" he broke off to yawn again. "-going. You can tell me more about your students on the way."

"I'd like that. You should see how far Anaya's come along. Remember how little she was when you met her?"

"Mmm hmm," Aang said.

He was trying so hard to stay awake to listen that it almost broke her heart.

"She's already got the water whip down perfectly."

"That's good," he said, his voice slurring slightly

"Most of them managed to learn it today in class. Siluk is still having a little trouble but he managed a perfect one at least once. I just need to keep giving him some personalized attention and I think he'll do fine."

"That's great, you're really good at...things."

Oh, he was so far gone he was just giving vague compliments now. She decided to play with him a little.

"And Nasak grew a second head. It sings songs and the songs make pink arctic hippos appear out of thin air."

"Good for him," Aang said, clearly drifting off now.

She had to hold in her laughter as she finished washing their bowls. Then she walked over and crawled back into bed with him. He curled up against her unconsciously, burrowing his face in her neck.

"We really have to go," he muttered against her neck.

"Sssh," she said gently, reaching up her hand to gently rake her nails against his scalp, not hard enough to hurt, just enough that he'd feel a light scritchy scritchy. It helped him fall asleep. "Go to sleep. We can take care of it tomorrow. It's okay."

That finally seemed to be enough, her telling him it was okay.

"Love you," he said fuzzily.

She felt him breathe in deep and when he let it out, she felt the tension finally melt out of his body.

"I love you, too."

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, right on his arrow, and as she held him she felt tension she hadn't known was there melt out of her own body.

Tomorrow. Everything could wait until tomorrow. Because as she looked at him, he looked pale to her, almost translucent in the pale light of the fire, like something was draining the color out of him.

She didn't know what to do to help with it, and that scared her, because one thing was suddenly very clear: the world was draining him dry.