Remember how I changed Yue a bit to soothe my annoyance? I might have turned her into a bit of a badass, quite by accident. Can't say I'm complaining, though. Also, even when Sokka can be a bit of an idiot, he knows what he knows, he picks things up fast, and when faced with something he understands, he makes connections quickly. That's something that some people don't get about him. It's fun to write for him, since he's always capable of being hilariously wrong.
The agent was unimpressed. For a royal, he had given a damned poor showing. But then again, he hadn't expected to have to deal with an assassin of the agent's capacities. It never worked well to underestimate an opponent's abilities; better and safer to assume the worst. That military twit would probably not be happy with the way this went down, but he didn't care, and probably wouldn't even tell him. There were things people didn't need to know.
In truth, this probably made his job easier. With the prince this close to the explosion, there wouldn't be enough left of him to fill a helmet, let alone a grave. Inside, never reaching his expressionless face, he smiled a bit. He enjoyed this job. They tried to tap him for the army when they learned he was a firebender, but he never worked well with others. None of them made it off of his front porch. Usually, his job just entailed him going to a hill or rooftop near his target, and bombarding them out of existence. Tasks like this were a bit trickier, but well within his capabilities. They always reminded him of his superiority to those mindless fools. The Fire Nation might win this war and rule the world, but it would be people like him who lived well off of it.
He walked away from the barrels, letting the trail of blasting jelly fall behind him. He even let it flow over the Prince's still form. Sometimes, his work was just too easy. With the trail finally extended to the door to the deck, he struck a spark off of his metal arm and walked away, leaving the Dark Prince to his dark fate.
Zuko could smell something stinking in the air. The smell called to mind blasting jelly, but he knew he couldn't have smelled that. He tried to look around. Everything hurt. He could barely open his eyes.
"Be careful, nephew," Iroh's instantly recognizable voice came to Zuko. "You were very badly beaten. And somebody tried to set you on fire," there was a long pause. "Destiny seems to lack originality around you."
"Wha... what..." Zuko slurred over split lips.
"Somebody tried to assassinate you, my prince," Iroh said. "And as far as he knows, he will succeed. Come, get up," Zuko found himself being hoisted and supported. He could barely move, his head was spinning so badly. "I promised that I would keep you safe from harm, and right now, the safest you can be, is if you are dead."
Zuko didn't really pay attention as he was carried out of the ship. He couldn't. Behind him, he heard and felt Iroh cast a small bolt of fire onto the deck, and a hiss erupted, which faded away into the distance. Rather than into the town, Iroh took Zuko along the rocky beach, until they stopped at a cave not far from the ship. A great blast rocked the sky, tearing the ship in twain. Zuko had to struggle not to vomit.
"We are committed to our course," Iroh said. "Come. You and I are going to the North Pole."
Yue was picking at her midday meal, her mind drifting happily to when Sokka was due to show up again. She hadn't expected to appreciate him as she had. He was a good man, even if he was young and a bit naïve. If only she could have met him a few months ago. If only she wasn't who she was. But that was interrupting happy thoughts. She'd just gotten back to remembering that warm feeling she got when they talked about life on the back of Appa, that magical beast of the Avatar, when Sokka came charging into her chambers.
"What are you doing here? You're early," she said, a bit surprised.
"Pakku is refusing to teach Aang," Sokka said, breathing heavy. He must have run all the way here. "He found out that Aang was teaching Katara at night, and now he says that Aang 'disrespected the laws of the Northern Water Tribe', and that he 'isn't a fit student'. He's cast Aang out!"
Yue shook her head. "He wouldn't be that stupid."
"He really was."
"He couldn't refuse to teach the Avatar. I mean... he just couldn't!" Yue said. She stood. "Where is the Avatar?"
"Packing! He's going to leave! You have to do something," Sokka cast around. "Talk to Pakku, talk to Arnook, find one of the other waterbenders, something!"
"Wait here," she said. She turned and went into the Chamber of Many, a short distance away. She strode right past the assembled elders and petitioners. Eyes watched her, and conversations quelled, as she moved past her father, and reached up the wall. Above the Chief's seat was the plaque of command, made of part of the progenitor's canoes, and the weapon of the first High Chief, Nannuica. It was unique in all the world. Its head was a rough stone which was harder than steel, sharp as a blade, and yet almost transparent. She grabbed Nannuica's Spear and strode away from her father.
"What is this madness?" Godou shouted.
"Yue, what are you doing?" her father asked.
"My duty," she said. Godou stood and began to shout his dismay.
"Restrain your girl!" he cried. "This behavior is unacceptable."
"Yue, please," Arnook said, "things are so delicate right now..."
"I don't don't care about your politics," Yue said, her voice still quiet, but she felt the spirits settle into her. They were her frequent companions, Tui and La. They were inside her now. Everybody could see it, just as fully as she could feel it. The room fell silent, and her words as well as boomed. "You forget who I am. In this, I am not the daughter of Arnook. I am High Shaman of the Southern Water Tribe. I do as I will with the spirits, and the spirits do as they will with me. They will I leave. Do you intend to stand in my way?"
Godou and those who had opposed her quietly sat down. Fear was in their eyes. She didn't like having to do this, but things were dire. Desperate. She strode out of the room, past Sokka who had been waiting at the door. "What was... I mean, I don't even..." he stammered.
"Pakku is going to destroy the world with his pride," Yue said. "The spirits won't allow that."
Sokka just shook his head. "You really are a powerful shaman, aren't you?" he asked. She just gave him a smile. But he recoiled a bit at that. Of course he did. Tui and La were still with her. They were old and fearsome spirits, each thousands upon thousands of years old. They unsettled people by their mere presence. By the time they reached the training field, Katara was already there, screaming at Pakku.
"What is going on here?" Arnook asked as he followed his daughter. He scowled, looking down at the field. Yue shot him a look, but did not speak.
"He refuses to teach Aang," both Katara and Yue managed to say in perfect unison. Katara's was enraged. Yue's was annoyed.
"He is a powerful man, and he is the leader of the waterbenders of this city..." Arnook said. "There is little I can do. This is his jurisdiction."
"What are you saying, that the only way I'm going to get him to teach THE AVATAR waterbending is to apologize for having the audacity of learning while being a girl?" Katara asked.
"I'm afraid so," Arnook said, sadly. Yue turned away from her father. Sokka cast glances between Yue and Katara, then ran down to his sister.
Pakku smirked. "I'm waiting?" he said.
"No. You think you're good enough to teach the Avatar? Prove it. See if you can beat a prodigy," she said. Yue's eyes went wide. Katara had just challenged Master Pakku, a grandmaster waterbender by any meaningful measure, to a waterbending duel? She must be mad. Yue began to descend the steps.
"This is crazy, Katara!" Sokka said. "This isn't a fight you can win!"
Katara tore off her heavy coat and threw it at Sokka's face. "I know! I don't care!"
"You don't need to do this," Sokka pleaded. "We can find another teacher for Aang."
"Where?" Katara asked, pulling off her gloves and throwing them aside. "How? When? Who in the world could do it? Besides, I'm not doing this for Aang," her brow drew down into an angry furrow. "Somebody needs to slap some sense into this guy."
She stared angrily at Pakku, who just looked at her, almost pitying. She cast her arms out.
"Well? Aren't you going to fight?"
"Against a pathetic little girl? Please, I have more dignity than that. Go back to the healing huts with the other women, where you belong," Pakku turned and began to walk away.
Yue had just reached the bottom of the steps when Katara let out an inarticulate roar and smashed Pakku in the back with a broad whip of water. Pakku turned, enraged. Yue fell still. She knew what was coming. "You want to fight so badly, do you? Fine. If you want to fight, then study closely."
He surged forward, sliding on a track of ice he conjured from the ground, sliding past her as he began to hurl frozen icicles at her. She deflected many with her bending, then began to counterattack. The fight surged against Katara, and Pakku began to utilize an almost condescendingly elementary trick to trap her. Katara swung her arm as though to bludgeon somebody, and the water trap exploded outward. A huge blob of the water smashed Sokka to the ground, followed by his resigned declaration of 'ow'.
Pakku glared for a moment, then moved on to higher level techniques. He began to attack the ground she walked on. He turned the ice under her into water, he turned her water into ice. She responded by using his own sliding trick against him. He tried to trap her in the floor, but she managed to bend her way out of that, too. "You can't knock me down, Pakku," she shouted.
"I was attempting to end this without harming you," Pakku said. He cast out a hand, and a ripple of water sprang up, flowing around Katara, when it turned to ice. She bent it back into liquid, which she then sent back to him, embedding him solidly as she was. Pakku's eyes widened in surprise. His condescending smirk was gone. He reached wide to his side, and slammed his hands down. The entire platform dissolved into fluid, then he cast his hands skyward once more, and the water leapt up, almost as steam. A final bend, and the steam snapped back into ice, embedding both completely and solidly.
That was Pakku at his strongest. It took the most complicated techniques he had to bring down one untrained girl. He breathed out into the ice, melting a space. From there, he maneuvered until he was in a pocket of water, which he manipulated to bring down the ice, turning it back into its original shape. All, except for a very close cage around Katara. He moved to her, bending the water out of his hair and clothing. "I have to say, girl, that I am impressed. You are an excellent waterbender."
"But you still won't teach me?" she said, her voice still in the grips of rage.
"No," he said. He turned away again. Yue took a step toward him, even though he still hadn't noticed her. She stopped again when Katara rebelled against her prison, using the same, grandmaster level technique which Pakku used, to free herself. She slammed him in the back with a wall of water, which she turned to ice. He immediately responded by sublimating it to steam and sending it back at her in a hail of spears. The spears knocked her back as he advanced, until she stumbled in her defensive bending and fell. The spears held her to the ground, and more yet hung in the air. He was now as angry in his features as she was. "This fight is over. You have lost. And I will not teach your Avatar."
"Don't speak so quickly," Yue said. All eyes, previously locked on the spectacle below, now turned to her. She walked forward with Nannuica's Spear. "The Spirits demand, Pakku. Do you know what the Avatar is?"
"The one who will unite the elements. The peace keeper, the balance tender, all of that spiritual mumbo-jumbo."
"Wrong!" Yue said. She knew that she, in the same breath, was speaking two languages. Her own Yqanuac, and another, the hidden language of Uou. The Spirit Tongue. "He is the great bridge between the worlds. He walks between both, one foot in the physical, one foot in the spiritual. And the spirits demand, Pakku."
Pakku pointed at her. "Don't you claim spirits stand behind your father's politics, little girl."
Yue was angry, but not angry enough to warrant the roar which came from her throat. As aggravated as she was, Tui and La were enflamed. "THE GIRL DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US! YOU STAND AGAINST OUR REALM. AGAINST OUR BALANCE. YOU WOULD DESTROY THE WORLD WITH YOUR PRIDE. WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS."
Pakku scowled. "Don't try your cheap theatrics with me, girl."
Yue's hand rose, and the Spear of Nannuica pointed at his heart. Its transparent tip began to shudder and darken, a red cloudiness spreading through it. When she told the gathered petitioners that the spirits did as they willed with her, she was not joking. "WE DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU BELIEVE. WE DO NOT CARE WHAT LAWS YOU FOLLOW. THE AVATAR IS VITAL. TIME IS SHORT. TEACH THE AVATAR."
"I will not fall to your political maneuvers, Arnook. End this game at once," Pakku demanded. Then stopped, when the ground under his feet began to buckle. He began to sink into it, and his furious attempts to bend his way free earned no purchase.
"YOU WILL LISTEN, PROUD, IGNORANT MAN. YOU WILL DO YOUR DUTY TO DESTINY. FAIL, AND YOU WILL SUFFER. YOU ARE OLD. YOU ARE MORTAL. YOU CAN DIE. YOU WILL DIE. WHEN YOU DO, WE WILL REMEMBER. YOU WILL BE INSTALLED AS A BRICK INTO THE WELL OF REGRETS, TO CONTEMPLATE YOUR FAILURES FOR ALL TIME. YOU CANNOT FIGHT US. YOU MADE US YOUR GODS, TO PROTECT YOU. NOW, SEE AS YOUR GODS ABANDON YOU," Yue said, suddenly extremely alarmed. "No, no, don't do this. Not now..." she glanced over to Katara, who was still under threat of impalement, even as Pakku was now trapped to his waist in that not-water. She staggered, one uneven step at a time, to Katara, and looked down at the blue soapstone necklace. She turned to Pakku, down her spear which had never went off of him. "Let him go. Please. He needs to see this."
In a flash, Tui and La were gone, back to their den. The not-water became water, and Pakku hoisted himself onto the she floor. Yue dropped the spear, which returned to its usual, transparent state. Pakku carefully and cautiously moved past her, and reached down to Katara's neck. A snap of torn cloth, and then he held it close to his eyes. "But this... this is impossible. This is my necklace."
"It's mine!" Katara shouted. "Give it back!"
Pakku's smug look was completely gone. There was a bit of disbelief, but more than that, behind those dark blue eyes was a haunted man. "I made this necklace sixty years ago... for the love of my life. For Kana."
Pakku's other fist opened, and all of the spears splashed into water. His voice quavered, and he now sounded every one of his seventy seven years. Sokka, now fairly certain that there wasn't going to be any more potentially dangerous waterbending going on in the near future, came to Yue's side and helped her to her feet, while Katara got up to a crouch, still breathing heavy for her exertions. "You were going to marry Gran-gran?" she asked, a bit bewildered.
"I carved this necklace for your grandmother when we got engaged. I thought... I thought we would have so many happy years together. I truly loved her," Pakku said, sitting on the rough ice like a lost child. Aang moved next to Arnook, looking thoroughly confused.
"But she couldn't live like that. Not here, in the North. It was an arranged marriage, wasn't it?" Katara asked. Yue felt a stab of guilt in her heart as she looked at Sokka. She turned away quickly, trying to hide the pain in her eyes. Katara moved to Pakku's side. "She couldn't let old customs and old thinking direct her life. So she left behind everything she had. It must have taken a lot of courage."
Pakku sighed, then reached into his pocket and looked long at another small, round object for a long time, before putting it back and handing Katara her grandmother's necklace. "I understand. For a long time, I didn't, but now I do," he said. He rose up as Yue backed away from Sokka's support. He looked a bit confused. Pakku looked to Arnook. "I was wrong. It wasn't my place to question my High Chief. Water is change; I've neglected that for far too long. We must grow or die. Any who would fight, I will teach them."
"Even me? Even a girl?" Katara asked. Pakku suddenly smirked again. This time, it wasn't the least bit patronizing.
"You're the first student in fifty years who could actually put up a fight on her first day of training," he said. She brightened.
"Does that mean...?"
"You and the Avatar will be here first thing in the morning for training. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly."
But Yue's heart was already breaking. Water was change, but it was too late for her. She pulled away from Sokka completely and ran off into the city. She had to be away from him. She could only hurt him. She found her way to a bridge that overlooked one of the side canals, and curled up, her back against the wall, trying very hard not to cry. It was very hard, and her breath came out in shudders.
Footsteps pulled her eyes up. "What do you want from me?" she asked as Sokka approached from one edge of the bridge. He just stared at her, concern plain and unmasked on his face.
"Nothing. Look, I just want you to know that... well, you're beautiful, and I never thought a girl like you would even notice a guy like me," he said, his voice quivering a bit.
"You don't understand," she said quietly, bleakly.
"No, I think I do understand," he said, sitting down next to her. His eyes focused on something far away. "It's because you're a princess, while I'm just some Southern Water Tribe peasant."
"You're the son of the chief. That would make you a prince," Yue pointed out. Sokka mulled the idea over a moment, then that goofy grin, that glorious grin came back for a moment.
"Yeah, I guess I am."
"But that's not it. Sokka..." she tried to find the kindest words she could.
"No, it's okay," he said, standing up, and hoisting her level with him. "You don't need to say anything. I guess... I guess I'll see you around."
When Sokka turned away, Yue gave up, and acted on the impulse that she'd held since that first afternoon when he shared all of those wonderful things with her. She grabbed him and locked him in a passionate embrace, a deep, drowning kiss. When she pulled back, Sokka's face was one of shock.
"I... bwah... glahr..." he said, before getting something to come out coherent. "Okay, now I'm really confused. Happy, but confused."
"I do like you. I mean, you're a wonderful person, and you've done more for me than I can ever truly express, but we can't be together. And not for the reasons you think," she said. She pulled down the neck of her coat, showing him her dark secret. A necklace, carved of soapstone, laying against her throat. A collar. "I'm engaged. I'm sorry."
Sokka did something she didn't expect. He pulled her close, into a hug which didn't hold passion, but a great deal of empathy. It was warm, comfortable, and safe. She just let it ease into her, like the fire on the coldest of days. "There's no reason we can't be friends," he said. But she could tell, his heart wasn't in it. When she pulled back, she forced a smile onto her face.
"No reason at all," she said. But he wasn't looking at her. He reached up into the sky, and then examined her hand. She frowned. "What is it?"
"Ash," he said, his face growing, fittingly, ashen. "Where I'm from, winds from the north blow warm air to the poles. I can assume the inverse happens up here?" she nodded. "When smoke mixes with snow, it falls looking like this," he said, showing his hand full of that black, smudgy stuff. "Depending on the winds, it gave us warning."
"Warning of what?" Yue asked.
"The Fire Nation is coming. And they'll be here soon," Sokka clambered up the facade and stuck an ungloved hand above the level of the roof.
"What do you mean the Fire Nation is coming? Are you sure?" she asked.
"Positive. The last time I saw snow like this was when they killed my mother," Sokka said, his expression hard. He dropped back down onto the bridge. "From the wind, they'll be here soon. A month on the outside. Probably two weeks."
"Are you saying...?" she asked.
Sokka nodded. "We have to get the Tribe ready for war. They're going to lay siege to the North."