Standard disclaimer applies. I do not, nor will I ever, own either of these, which is actually damn shame.

Anyway, those who read my profile will notice that this isn't a oneshot like I said. It's so much bigger than that, and nowhere near done. So I've decided that, rather than post this as a one- or two-shot and run the risk of never finishing, I'm just going to post the segments as I get them written. I actually have a few, so I'm breaking them up into POV's.

WARNINGS: There might be some really long warnings. Time skips will be frequent and occasionally announced. Italics may or may not indicate an unmentioned time skip. POV will probably change by the chapter. Chapters will likely never be longer than this, but they might. They might also be as few as 300 words. This first chapter is incredibly boring and stupid. Oh, and there will be tendershipping.

Now that all of that is out of the way, thank you and enjoy the fic!

~100 years later~

"Amane, hand me that anorak will you?"

A plush wad of fur-lined fabric smacked Ryou in the face, taking him by surprise. He pulled it away and pouted at his laughing sister before pulling it over his shoulders, a small chuckle of his own finding its way to his lips before he could help himself. As he fumbled with the fur, Amane stood, and he followed her out of their ice-walled home.

Outside, he could feel the cold air pressing down on him, and he shivered once in spite of himself. He wasn't sure how the other members of the Northern Water Tribe could put up with so much snow and icy wind when he could barely tolerate it. The breezes that wailed down the canals like banshees always managed to chill him to the bone, despite his nearly 16 years of living beside them.

As they ran, he could just catch sight of his reflection in the water. Same long, colorless hair, same dark brown eyes, same pale skin as always. Not average water tribe, but normal for them. The plaited loops of hair that framed his gentle face gave him an effeminate look, as did the girl's clothes. It was exactly as he expected.

Amane's clothes, of course, fit him perfectly. They were twins, after all. They were identical in every way, except for the only obvious difference- the fact that they were, in fact, different genders. Worse yet, they'd been born the wrong sex for their personalities.

Don't get Ryou wrong, he had nothing against being a girl, nor did he enjoy the cross-dressing charade. That had been Amane's idea. He was just going along with it. The thing was, in the Northern Water Tribe, Ryou's home, boys born as waterbenders were expected to learn to fight, while girls became healers. Ryou possessed no inclination to fight, and would have rather learned how to heal. Amane had always been the fighter. It had been her who had wanted to join the boys.

Ryou, for all that he didn't like the idea, agreed to it even though he knew it was wrong. He secretly agreed that the rules were just a little ridiculous. Amane was one of the best fighters in the city already, and she hadn't even turned sixteen. Ryou had a natural flair for healing. That's why he, rather than going to study with the other boys his age, was masquerading as his sister. They went to class as each other and, upon returning home, filled each other in on the exploits of the day. He knew that eventually somebody would figure it out, but he hoped that they'd be able to cross that particular bridge much later.

He was silent beside his sister, listening to her babble about what they'd be doing in her class today. There was a move involving tentacles of water that she was excited to learn about. She wanted to be the first to master it. She would be. She always was.

He nodded at all of the appropriate moments as they approached their respective schools; Ryou's being Yugoda's healing huts and Amane's lessons with Master Pakku. When the time came, he bid his sister goodbye where the path split in two and they went their separate ways for the day. The closer he came to the huts, the more students he saw. A few fell into step beside him, but he said nothing to them, pensive as always.

"Good morning, Amane!" a girl chirped brightly, fingering something around her neck in an unconscious motion.

"Good morning, Kuoko," Ryou replied softly, his usual, mild-mannered smile adorning his face with practiced ease. He pretended to widen his eyes in surprise, locking them onto the necklace the girl wore as if he was only just now noticing it. "Is that-?" he asked, trying to sound shocked. He prided himself on his relatively good acting skills, and the girl, her mind obviously on the necklace and its significance, didn't notice Ryou's falsification.

"Yes!" she squealed. "Takuro carved me a betrothal necklace! Oh, isn't it beautiful?"

Ryou nodded enthusiastically. He had heard all about it yesterday from Amane. Takuro was in her class and had apparently driven his sister near-crazy over the last few days with all of his excited talk of carving it. She didn't think he'd ever finish it and just shut up, but it would seem he had.

"Of course! You're so lucky," he said wistfully, playing his part well. He didn't have much to his act, other than pretend to gush like the other girls. It wasn't difficult, and the moment he'd said as much as he had to, he drifted to the back of the room where the life-sized mannequins were set up, ready for practice. He'd just leave the others to their twittering and be done with it.

Amane never would have put up with any of it, but Ryou always had. He was simply to nice too say no to anything, even talking to people he could care less about. In class, he was always the civil, focused one. He worked hard and chatted when necessary. He even listened closely to everything that Yugoda, the elderly woman who led the class, said. It was second nature to him, just as it was to, when class was over, walk briskly to where the path split to wait for his sister.

Today was no different.

As soon as he and his fellow healers-in-training were dismissed, he walked to the crossroads. Today, however, he felt somewhat nervous, as if some bad omen was lingering over him. The necklace had served as a reminder that eventually, one of them would be found out. How Ryou reached that conclusion was a bit of a stretch, but it had still reached the same result. The two of them would be sixteen in a matter of days. Engagement for both of them was expected. If even one were engaged, it would just make it that much more difficult for both to pretend to be each other. It was already getting difficult, with Amane having to bind her chest tightly in order to fit in.

He stared down at the open canals below him, resting his arms on the railing that lined the bridge. This whole situation was a mess. No doubt making a name for themselves in their respective fields had been bad. If, and when, they stopped trading, someone would figure out that they'd been switched all along. Ryou knew little to no combat, and Amane was hopeless with healing.

What would they do then? A strange thudding built in his chest, and his throat tightened with worry. They could be banished. Ryou had never been outside of the Northern Water Kingdom. The furthest he'd ever been from home was when his dad taught him to sail. How would they make it on their own? And what if they weren't? What would the others think of them afterword? Nobody would trust them anymore. He groaned to himself.

This was Amane's fault. She just had to switch... Speaking of Amane, where was she? Ryou glanced around, curious. His sister was nowhere to be found. Was she late?

Suddenly he was tackled, and the wind was knocked out of him as he hit the icy road. Amane was lying on top of him, already scrambling back to her feet. "Ryou, bad news. We gotta run, like, now," she said, pulling him up.

"What is it?" he asked, slightly worried.

"Less ask-y, more run-y," she commanded. She took flight immediately, her mitten-covered hand still wrapped around her brother's wrist. Boots thudded against the ice as they made their way out of the city. For whatever reason, Amane was in a great hurry, tugging her reluctant sibling completely over the thinner canals and forming small ice floes in the larger ones so as to hop across them like they were stepping stones. She didn't bother taking the time to skirt them as they usually would have done.

"What's wrong?" Ryou asked, sounding slightly panicky at this point. Amane was frankly beginning to frighten him.

Amane completely ignored him, choosing instead to lead him to the back wall of the city. Nobody ever went back here, for there was no need to. There was nothing back here but empty alleyways. Glancing behind herself nervously, Amane placed her gloved palm on the wall, melting the foot-thick ice just enough to clear a gap large enough for the both of them.

"Just a little further," Amane urged, nudging Ryou through the hole before joining him, bending the wall back into place after a final suspicious glance through.

She turned and gazed up at the empty ice before her. There was nothing of any great importance for miles, notwithstanding the towering icebergs that rose from the snow-covered ground like jagged glass mountains. She let out a sigh of relief as they reached the one spot they would never be disturbed.

"Alright, let's walk and talk." She smiled at Ryou as if absolutely nothing was wrong, but he wasn't taken in. Amane was every bit as good an actor as he was. Slowly Ryou began to move his feet again, his breath still slightly ragged from the running. "So, you're probably wondering what that was all about, right?"

"Of course I am! You really had me worried," he grumbled unhappily.

She seemed put out. "I'm sorry, I just... I didn't know what to do. I heard something during class and I kinda panicked," she rambled.

"What happened?"

She bit her lip. Ryou didn't like that. He and his sister shared many of the same nervous habits, and Ryou only bit his lip when it was really bad. "Well, I might have overheard one of the guys... talking..."

Ryou nodded suspiciously. "Yes, talking about?"

"Well... Eh... one of them might have had certain plans for 'Amane' after class, and it may or may not have involved a necklace very similar to the one Takuro carved for Kuoko," Amane said, her lips stretching back into a grin that wanted to be optimistic, but was only questioning.

It was Ryou's turn to look genuinely surprised. "What?"

"You heard me," she accused. "I panicked. There, I said it again. We're still switched up and I didn't want it being awkward for you." Amane sounded just a little angry. Ryou smiled softly. It was just his sister's way of showing her affection.

His sister was the oldest of the pair. She thought it was her job to protect her little brother, to hell with the beliefs of the Tribe. She'd always wanted to protect her little brother, even though he was only younger by an hour. It had been that way since they'd been born.

Nearly sixteen years ago, Ryou and Amane had been born very sick. An illness had spread through the few pregnant women in the city for a short while, infecting only those who were with child. The women themselves showed no symptoms, but the children who were born months later were all born ill, silent as the grave and still as death. Most shocking, of course, had been the newborn princess, Yue.

But the girl had been saved. Her mother and father had taken her up to the Spirit Oasis and prayed to the spirits, dipping their child in the mystical waters. Her hair turned silver as the moon, and she began to cry. She was alive, she was well, and it was all thanks to the Moon Spirit, Tui.

Twins were rare. No, they were almost unheard of. Brother and sister twins were even rarer. So when the time came, and the children were born as still and quiet as the princess, no one had objected to allowing the grieving parents their own trip to the Oasis. The parents had been uncommonly blessed, as good fortune often shone down on twins.

Just as the parents had been about to take the children inside, however, a mound of snow had fallen on the pair, completely covering the children in the soft powder. To the great surprise of the parents, the snow wasn't cold. It was warm, like a mother's tender embrace. It enveloped the newborn babies in its loving caress.

And, before the mound of snow, stood a fair maiden with hair stark white and eyes that were the softest blue imaginable. She regarded each of the parents in turn with a slight inclination of her head before she knelt into the snow, taking one child in her arms. She gave the girl a soft kiss on the forehead, her white rose petal lips meeting the dark brown locks. All traces of color bleached out of the girl's hair, her skin, giving her the appearance of being as fair as the maiden, as fair as the snow that covered the ground.

The spirit wordlessly placed the girl in her father's awaiting arms. Amane's eyelids fluttered open, revealing irises of the darkest brown, and she let out a loud wail.

Now the spirit knelt again, picking up Ryou from his powdered nest. She stared lovingly at the baby boy for a moment, doing nothing more than holding the motionless body. The spirit's eyes didn't escape the mother's notice. They were filled with a strange longing, an unusual tenderness. But that wasn't the strange part, not at all. What was strange was that the eyes had darkened, becoming a color as black as the snow that had fallen the last time the Fire Nation had tried to invade. Her eyes were like flakes of purest obsidian.

The spirit bowed her head low, kissing the baby's forehead just as she had done with Amane, her eyes closing as the baby paled. When she reopened them, they were as blue as the open sky again. She gave the mother the baby boy without a sound, seemingly enjoying the sound of Ryou's cries.

And, the moment she let go of the tiny little baby, her body turned to snow. Just like that, without a word, she had disintegrated into the very thing that had saved the two children. Kisara, the White Spirit, had saved them.

Ever since then, Ryou and Amane had grown up knowing that the White Spirit had, unbidden, come and saved them from a fate like death. It was Ryou and Amane's favorite bedtime story.

They had almost died, they should have died, and they hadn't. Something had wanted them to live. Kisara had wanted them to live. And now, Amane saw it as her mission to carry out that belief that they should live, both literally and figuratively. She made most of the excitement in Ryou's life, too. She was very mischievous, after all. But it was Ryou's job to keep things sane, something Amane wasn't as good at. His sister was often a girl of extremes, and it took level-headed and rational Ryou to balance his high-strung sister out.

"Thank you for the thought," Ryou said, offering Amane an awkward one-armed hug as they walked. "Do you think we should switch clothes? Maybe you need to practice your surprised face for when he asks you, too..." Ryou said thoughtfully.

Amane laughed, but it wasn't a pleased sound. It was too forced, and it ended up sounding very half-hearted. "Thank you for the thought," she said, "but I think I'm going to say no. It isn't like Dad's said anything about it to me yet, so I have no reason to say yes right now. I don't even like the guy," she added.

"But Amane," Ryou began, but he frowned and didn't finish his sentence. His sister wasn't paying attention anymore. She was staring at one of the icebergs that stood at full attention in the ice field. More specifically, she was staring at a glint of gold hidden inside of the ice just in front of the icebergs.

She crouched down, squatting low enough to brush what little snow there was free of the ice pack. Ryou was shocked she had even noticed it in the first place. Although, they hadn't exactly received a whole lot of fresh snow this season, so that could very well be how she saw it. There wasn't much of the powder yet to cover it up. He joined her, and saw the strange shape embedded deep in the hoarfrost.

"Let's dig it up," she said suddenly, whipping her head up to face Ryou, her eyes glinting with excitement.

Ryou shrugged. "Alright," he said simply, knowing this was a lame answer and that his sister had wanted something more exciting than that. He put his hand on the ice beside hers, and together they defrosted a column of the ice all the way down to the strangely glinting object, using the water to bring it up to where they could reach.

It was Amane who snagged it from the watery recesses, and she held it up with a puzzled look on her face. "What is this?" she asked, turning it this way and that. It was a large ring with a concentric triangle placed inside of it, each of the three points touching a place on the circle. Five strange, pendant-like objects dangled off from it. The top had a smaller ring, as if designed to have something tied to it to make it worn like a medallion. She frowned at it and tossed it in the air, not liking the way it felt in her hands.

"Well this is stupid," she said. "Just a weird piece of metal." She handed it to Ryou, who turned it over in his hands, looking it over carefully.

"This is..." he muttered, not sure what to say. The metal, though it had just been pulled from ice, felt warm in his hands, even through his gloves. But his sister had grabbed it first, so perhaps it had been her hands that had warmed it. But that didn't explain why it felt so very warm. It wasn't just warm from body heat, it was almost unnaturally so. It piqued Ryou's curiosity. "Can I hold on to this?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure. Take it. Think of it like an early birthday present," Amane said with a grin. She winked. "Wear it every day for me, 'kay?"

Ryou smiled. "Thanks!" He glanced down, as if realizing for the first time that he was still wearing woman's clothing. "Uh, Amane? Do you think we could trade clothes real fast?" he asked.

"Aww, bored with being me?" she asked teasingly.

"Is being me so exciting you don't want to give it up?" he replied easily.

"You wish!"

Shortly after exchanging coats (quickly, as it was very chilly outside of the city), the two made their way back to civilization as themselves, splitting up again.

Amane had to, as she put it, break some hearts, and Ryou didn't feel like sticking around and dealing with the repercussions. He was more interested in finding something to string through the loop on the strange ring that they had found and see how well it worked as a medallion. It really was quite beautiful in a strange way. Plus, it still felt so very warm as he held it in his hand, and he could only imagine how nice it would feel to wear it while walking in the snow.

As soon as he had returned and stripped off his heavy coat, he dug through the drawers in the kitchen until he found a very long, thin strip of leather. This he folded in half before poking the looped end through the solid gold hoop. He took the two loose ends and tucked them inside of the leather loop, pulling it tight until the loop became a knot. Satisfied that the ring would not slip around on the strip of leather, he tied the very ends of it together in a complex fisherman's knot he'd seen his father perform time and time again.

He grinned to himself, pleased by his handiwork. It did look nice. He slipped the string around his neck, allowing the plain side of the ring to lie against his chest gently. He could feel its warmth even through the shirt he was wearing. Yes, this was very nice. He slipped the ring under his shirt so it would be hidden from sight. He had just enough time to wonder vaguely what Amane was doing before everything went black.

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