Chapter 11
Just before dawn, Zuko slipped from Toph's warm embrace and made his way quietly down the stairs of the guest house to the beach. The sun not yet up, he exulted in the darkness and coolness of the night, knowing that in only moments, the first rays of his element would begin to show themselves as gray smudges on the horizon.
That moment of when darkness gave way to light, coolness to warmth was something he cherished deeply. Each time he greeted the sunrise, he felt like a true firebender in touch with his deepest, truest self.
He could barely see the path as he walked down to the sand. For a long moment he just stood there in the darkness and listened to the distant whisper of the waves. Then he closed his eyes and waited for sunrise, allowing himself to greet the morning by feel rather than by sight. He began running through the basic firebending forms first in his mind, then in his body as the sun began to rise around him.
Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the globe of fire rising in the sky. He could sense the sun even before his skin began to tingle with the first touches of heat. After several minutes of warm up moves, he could feel the fire rising in him, demanding to be released in jets of searing flame.
But he controlled that fire, kept it in check, refused to give it the outlet it demanded. Part of firebending was learning to keep the fire contained and this was the part he struggled with constantly.
Fire without containment was destructive. Only firm control gave the fire direction and purpose.
At last Zuko had mastered the first rush of his element through his system and was ready to begin bending in earnest. Only then did he open his eyes. One never firebended blindly—the potential for collateral damage was too high.
And the sight that met his eyes as he opened them in the early morning light stopped him mid-move.
The beach was not bordered by open water. The sand was not lapped by waves.
Instead of a sun-drenched semi-tropical island, it appeared that he stood on the beach of the Southern Water Tribe's arctic continent. The ocean for the first twenty or so feet was frozen solid.
Further out, the waves still moved freely, but as far up and down the beach as he could see, the beach itself was locked in by ice.
Zuko stopped and stood there in amazement, sweat from his exertions in the morning sun beginning to bead up on his forehead. He walked down to what should have been the waterline and knelt down, his hand hovering over the icy edge.
It wasn't cold.
Frowning, he touched it with the palm of his hand.
It wasn't cold at all.
An insistent pounding at the door woke Suki that morning just at sunrise. She rose and quickly pulled her robe around her. Who could it be at that hour?
She was surprised to see a shirtless Zuko at the door.
"Where's Sokka?" he asked brusquely as he stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation.
"Asleep," Suki answered. "I'll get him for you."
But in only a moment or two, she had returned, her face pale and her hands trembling. "I can't wake him, Zuko," she explained, her eyes wide with fear. "Something's not right."
"No, something is not right at all," Zuko stated firmly. "I'll find Aang."
Soon Aang and Katara stood next to Sokka's unconscious form, Aang's tattoos glowing blue in the heightened awareness of the avatar state, Katara's globe of crystal blue water circling around and over her brother.
"How far out does the ice reach?" Aang asked Zuko, his eyes still glowing as he sought answers to explain Sokka's condition.
"Twenty feet at least," Zuko replied.
"Make that thirty," came the Duke's voice from behind them as he too entered the room. "I went down to check the boat this morning only to find out that we're ice locked in the middle of summer. What's going on here?"
Aang let go of the avatar state and looked at them worriedly. "I wish I knew," he answered. "I can't reach his spirit. He's not asleep, but he's not in a spirit trance either."
Katara sighed and ran her waters back into the flask at her hip. "All I can tell is that his water chakra is completely open. He's bending in his sleep." Then she looked down on Sokka's too-still form. "Or whatever state this is."
"If I had to guess," Zuko ventured, "I'd say it was a state similar to the fever that Toph had in Lian Shen's swamp. But he's not feverish, is he?"
"No," Aang responded, "but I think you are right. The two are very similar states. Unfortunately, Sokka isn't in the spirit world as I know it. Lian Shen did not do this."
"Then who did?" asked Zuko.
Suki looked up at them then from her seat next to her husband. She smoothed back the hair from Sokka's forehead and ran the strands of white through her fingers as she gave them the answer.
"Yue."
Back in her ivory tower in the spirit realm, Yue sat on the silvery gray sofa alone. She'd never felt so alone or so desperate. Sokka was unreachable. She didn't know if he'd ever awaken.
And if he did, Ocean would know that she'd lied to him. She hadn't ended anything with Sokka. In fact, she'd made it worse. She'd gone to him. She'd kissed him. She'd added to his already epic bending abilities.
She didn't know where to go, who to turn to. Miserably, she lay her head down on a pillow and tried to think.
"Yue!"
The voice was an angry roar as she looked up, startled by the sound.
"Yue!"
It came again, and she knew whose voice it was.
Ocean.
He knew. He knew what she had done.
"Yue!"
The voice was still angry, but now anguished as well.
"Yue!"
He called to her still and now he seemed quite near. In fact, he stood inside the doorway of her tower, his head bowed, leaning heavily on the doorway for support.
Though she was afraid, she still went to him.
"Ocean?" she asked cautiously.
"Oh, Yue," he whispered in agony, never meeting her eyes, "what have you done?" And with that, he collapsed to the floor at her feet.
In the Northern Water Tribe Spirit Oasis, the little pond where the koi fish lived began to freeze, its residents trapped in the unmelting ice.
Ocean had borne all he could stand. From the first stirrings of that unnatural warping of his element, he'd known that she'd lied to him. She hadn't ended this bender's powers at all.
Instead she'd strengthened them.
As the first few inches around Kyoshi Island had begun to freeze, he'd felt it, like the sting of jellynettles into his skin, a disturbance he could not ignore. Then as more and more of his water turned to that ice that wasn't ice, the pain had worsened exponentially. But it was more than pain—it was sickness, it was weakness, it was an aching void in his spirit.
As the ice sheet began to grow, he gritted his teeth against it and fought back the wave after wave of sickness than ran though him. He sent wave after wave against it, hoping to cause the unnatural mass to melt away, but it held firm.
Whatever Yue had done to this man, he was powerful. Too powerful.
And unprincipled. No bender had ever attempted to pervert water into this form.
He tried to find him, to stop him, but the pain and the weakness caused by the torturing of his element made it impossible for him to concentrate.
As more and more of the waters around Kyoshi Island slipped out of his grasp, he finally called out to the only person who could possibly stop this bender.
Yue.
He could find her anywhere and he did. He wanted to shake her, to demand of her what she was thinking when she created this monster.
But the ice had begun to close in on his consciousness as well and he could not think any longer. Pain wracked him, sickness made his head swim. He didn't have the strength to walk into the room. He felt as though he was suffocating, as if there were no air to breathe.
"Oh, Yue. What have you done?" And nothingness reached out for him with a terrifying rush.
Yue watched her consort fall to the floor of her tower in disbelief. How could this happen? What could possibly be wrong?
She knelt beside him where he lay face down on the smooth gray floor. Somehow she managed to turn him over. He wasn't breathing.
How could this be? What was wrong with him? He was a spirit. Spirits didn't get sick.
Spirits didn't die.
Then she noticed the white streak in his hair. It was no longer the white of moonlight. Instead, it was turning gray, as if the moonlight were being leached out of it.
She reached out to touch it, half expecting his hand to stop her. But Ocean lay still and unmoving.
As her fingers met the gray strands, she knew why he hadn't let her touch it before.
Memory rushed through her at the touch—not her own memories-Ocean's memories. Recent memories of speaking with her in the ballroom of his beautiful coral palace, memories of looking up at the moon from the back of a rolling wave, memories of showing her around the spirit world, of bringing her to this tower for the first time, memories of seeing her first inhabit the little white moon fish at the Spirit Oasis, all these rushed through her at the touch.
Further back, were memories of Tui as well. She could feel anger and grief as the little black ocean fish watched Admiral Zhao murder the whit moon fish. And even further back were other memories of Tui. Sad memories seemed to predominate. There was such loneliness as he watched the moon so far overhead. There was anger as Tui fought with him in the red palace. There was jealousy as he came upon her with her lover in the ivory tower.
The same tower where Yue now lived.
What had she done?
That white streak of hair was the mark of the moon on him. It was the part of him that belonged to the moon.
But she'd marked Sokka as hers instead. She'd taken what had been Ocean's right and place for millennia and had given it to someone else.
Now the moonlight was fading from Ocean's hair. And even worse, his very life was fading as well.
Aang snapped out of the avatar state with a jerk.
"Katara, you have got to wake him up!" he declared. "I don't know what he's doing, but it's having repercussions in the spirit world. Somehow this ice is damaging the balance of the four elements."
Katara looked at him in horror and sadness. "I would if I could, Aang," she declared. "There's nothing I can do. I've tried."
"And this ice cannot be melted by any waterbending means known to any of the avatars in the past," Aang sighed. "Plus I get the crazy feeling that the ice isn't just here. Somehow, it has run over into the spirit world. Sokka's not just affecting Kyoshi Island any more. He's linked in somehow to the spiritual plane—maybe through this link with Yue."
Aang noticed Suki's reaction, but had no time to pull punches or consider her feelings. "Suki, has Sokka said anything to you about that night he came home? Has he told you how he survived the shipwreck?"
Suki just shook her head no sadly, tears beginning to run down her face.
Aang frowned, then his brow wrinkled in thought. Entering the avatar state, he reached out one hand to touch the white hair that streaked through the dark.
Soon, he returned to his usual form, his frown even deeper. He knew now what Yue had done for Sokka—done to Sokka-that night in the water. He knew now how powerful the gift had been that she'd given him.
But he still knew of no way to reverse it.
When he said as much, Zuko stated seriously, "You removed my father's bending abilities so he could not continue to wage war against the world, Aang. Can't you this same thing now?"
Aang shook his head. "Fire Lord Ozai was conscious and present in the natural world. Sokka is not. To remove this ability now might cause his spirit to be stranded between worlds, neither in the natural nor in the spirit. I don't know what would happen to him."
Suki spoke up then, her voice rough and quiet with emotion, "Then can't you contact Yue in the spirit world. Can't you make her let him go before it kills him?"
"I've been trying to do just that," Aang replied sadly. "But something is standing in the way of reaching either Yue or La. It's like whatever Sokka is doing here is somehow blocking the way to them."
"And I do not know how to break through," the avatar added with a sigh.