Katara settled herself onto the fur bed of the guest room they'd been given to stay in.
"How's warrior training going?" she asked Sokka.
Her brother groaned and kicked at his bags, before throwing himself on his bed. "Princess Yue is acting weird. One minute she acts like she likes me, then she acts like she never wants to see me. Girls are weird. So how's the waterbending?"
Katara shrugged.
Aang looked up and said how Pakku-who he called Master Poophead- wouldn't teach her for being a girl.
It was Sokka's turn to shrug as he settled himself into a more comfortable position. "So find someone else. We saw on the very first day, there are hundreds of waterbenders here. I'm sure you can find at least one who'd be willing to bend the rules. Or have Aang show you what he's learning. Then you can both practice."
Katara gasped and sat up. "Sokka, you're a genius!"
Her brother grinned. "Yeah, I know."
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In Zhao's private 'office', a large tent outside the Northern Fleet's post, Iroh sat and sipped the green tea offered.
"I'm so sorry to hear about Prince Zuko's death" Zhao said. "It's so tragic to have lost someone so young. Do you have any idea who's…behind the attack?"
Iroh slammed his fist down on the table. "No" he lied. "But I do know that when I find out, they will pay dearly."
Zhao smirked. "So have you reconsidered my offer, General?"
"Yes and I would be honored to accept."
After the tea with Zhao was over, Iroh boarded the main ship and slipped away to the boiler rooms. He stood in the corner next to a young soldier.
"Our plan is going perfectly. Zhao doesn't suspect a thing."
"Did you expect him to?" the soldier asked. He removed his mask, to reveal Zuko's bruised face.
"No. But be careful anyways. Stay hidden until we reach the North Pole. Then you can carry on with your plan. You do have a plan don't you?"
"I'm working on it, Uncle."
Iroh nodded and started to walk away.
"Uncle!"
Iroh stopped and turned around.
"Thank you."
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"I'll be waiting outside if you're man enough to fight me!"
The hall filled with gasps as Katara stormed out. She was furious. How dare they refuse to teach her because she was a girl? And now Pakku wouldn't teach Aang? They'd just been practicing together for spirit's sake!
"Katara are you insane?" Sokka asked, catching up with her. "There's no way you can win a fight against Pakku. A few months ago, you could barely lift water."
Katara yanked off her parka. She knew she didn't stand a chance. "I don't care! No one's ever going to stand up to that jerk so I'm going to."
The three weeks sent on Zuko's ship had given her confidence. She knew her waterbending skills were a little above rudimentary, but she'd still come a long way then when she'd been trying to teach herself in the South Pole.
Pakku walked past her, telling her to go back to the healing huts.
Angrier than ever, Katara did the water-whip, slapping Pakku on the shoulder. The old man turned around and got into a fighting stance.
"You want to learn how to fight, little girl? Watch and learn!"
Katara ran at him, but with a single sweep of his arm, Pakku knocked her off her feet into the fountain. Icy water drenched her and swept into her nose and mouth. She stood up in the fountain, gasping and shaking. Pulling at the water, she froze a small pillar in front of her and stared shooting ice disks at Pakku. He dodged them all, though one came particularly close to his head.
Katara leapt out of the fountain and ran at Pakku, throwing as much water as she could at him. He froze it and slid out of her reach. With another wave of water, he knocked her towards the stairs. Katara leapt on the end of the banister and twisted ice around her ankles to keep her in place.
"Try and knock me down again!" she snarled.
Katara attacked Pakku again and the others-Aang, Sokka, Yue, as well as some of Pakku's other students- cheered her on.
Katara made another attack, but Pakku easily knocked her down. Furious, she scrambled to her feet to attack again.
But Pakku was ready. With an impressive wave of water, he threw it over Katara's head, turning it into frozen spears at the last moment, pinning her in place.
Katara struggled against her bindings. "Let me go! I'm not finished with you!"
"Yes, you are" sighed the old man. He started to walk away then stopped, and picked something up off the ground.
Her necklace! She hadn't even noticed it had come off. Katara made a mental note to be more careful with it. That was the second time in several weeks it had been lost.
"My necklace" she heard Pakku murmur.
Katara struggled against the spears again and this time freed herself. "No! That's my necklace!"
Pakku turned to her. "I made this years ago for the love of my life, for Kanna" he said, sounding genuinely sad. "But she disappeared before the wedding. I never saw her again."
Katara and Sokka's jaws dropped. "My gran-gran was supposed to marry you?" She'd only recently learned from Healer Yugoda that Kanna was really from the Northern Water Tribe and that the necklace was actually a betrothal necklace. Yugoda had told her it was customary for a man to give the woman he wanted to marry a necklace and if she accepted it, they were engaged.
A horrifying thought struck her. Zuko had given the necklace back to her-but that doesn't mean anything, she quickly told herself. He was just trying to be nice and had no idea what the necklace meant and neither did she at the time.
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A few weeks later, Katara was confidently fighting against boys older than her-and winning. Pakku had decided to take her on as a student after all, making her the first female-aside from Avatars- to learn combat waterbending at the North Pole.
"Almost a master-but not quite" Pakku would say to her. He gave her rare compliments on how eager she was, how quickly she was learning now that she had a master to study under, how she learned faster than any student he'd ever trained. It was hard for Katara to not feel proud of herself.
She quickly mastered the basics within those weeks, and had a couple of advanced moves down. It would be a couple of years before she reached master level, Pakku told her, not wanting her ego to get to inflated. But she had talent and was hard-working and he was sure if she continued studying she'd reach mastery eventually.
Aang was another story. He was talented too, but wasn't as diligent about training as Katara was. He'd learned his basics, but whether he'd mastered them or not was hard to say. Aang mostly wanted to play, and after getting up before sunrise and practicing all day, he would complain how he was too tired to practice in the evening when Katara wanted to. She tried to explain to him that in made sense to practice at night, since Pakku had told her waterbending was stronger then, but Aang didn't listen.
Sokka was honing his warrior skills, which he proudly boasted to anyone who would listen, mostly Princess Yue. The two had become surprisingly close, Katara had noticed, but she didn't question it. She liked Yue, and was glad to see Sokka so happy.
Coming to the North Pole had been good for all of them, it seemed.
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In the open seas of the North Mo Ce Sea, Zhao and Iroh overlooked the endless water.
"In a few days, we'll reach the Northern Water Tribe, General." Zhao said smugly. "Then, history will be made."
I'm sorry this is short and took me so long. I've been distracted by other projects. I will try to upload more.