The ship jolted as it made contact with the icy shoreline, and Zuko grabbed hold of the wall to keep himself from falling over. He, Uncle Iroh, and a few of the men were belowdecks, in a small holding room right behind the bow of the ship. There were no windows, so Zuko couldn't see anything that was happening outside, but he could make guesses based on the sounds.

They endured several minutes of grinding and cracking sounds as the ship pushed its way through the ice until it finally came to a stop. After a beat of silence, Zuko nodded at one of the men.

He nodded back, then pulled a lever on the wall to his left. The wall directly in front of them let out a puff of steam. With a loud grinding noise, light began to peek through from above as part of the ship's hull folded outward and fell into place against the snowy ground far below, becoming a ramp.

Zuko waited until the ramp was firmly in position before he stepped out onto it and began to make his way down to the village, his soldiers and Iroh behind him.

The village was tiny, no more than a dozen tents and igloos arranged roughly in a ring, a closely packed circular snow drift serving as the "wall" around it. Zuko noticed, with a pang of guilt that he quickly banished, that the ship's ramp had destroyed part of that wall.

None of the villagers looked at all like they could be the Avatar. They were mostly women and children, huddled together in blue parkas and staring at Zuko and his men with unbridled terror. There weren't many older people.

But Zuko could see the bison just outside the village, so he knew the Avatar had to be here.

As Zuko made it to the bottom of the ramp, a boy burst from the crowd, screaming as he ran forward with an oddly shaped sword. Well—not a boy, exactly. He seemed like he was around Zuko's own age, maybe a little younger.

But his fighting skills were about the same level as a boy's would be. Zuko's guards tried to step in to intercept the kid as he raised his sword to swing it, but before they could, Zuko had already disarmed him and sent him sprawling headfirst into a nearby pile of snow.

That done, Zuko stepped off the ramp and scanned the assembled group of villagers.

"Where are you hiding him?" Zuko demanded. The villagers said nothing, just stared back at him in silence.

Zuko gritted his teeth and stepped forward, a small part of him feeling a sick bit of pleasure in the way the nearest villagers shied away. "I know he's here." He shot out a hand and grabbed an old woman by the hood of her parka, yanking her from the crowd to show the other villagers. Several of them gasped.

"He'd be about this old," Zuko said, "master of all elements?" He released the old woman, letting her stumble back into the crowd.

Still, none of the villagers spoke. Behind him, though, he heard a yell, and turned just in time to block a blow from the kid he'd knocked back earlier. This time, he put up a little more of a fight, but Zuko still sidestepped him easily, then turned and knocked him down as he came in for another attack.

Zuko stepped back. The boy knelt in the snow for a moment, but then pulled something from a sheath on his back. It glinted in the light as he raised his arm and aimed. Zuko prepared himself to dodge the knife when it was thrown, but the boy… missed? He threw, and the weirdly shaped object flew to Zuko's left and disappeared behind him.

Zuko frowned in confusion, but before he could realize what was going on, something hard smacked him in the back of the head, making him stumble forward. If it wasn't for his helmet, he probably would have gotten a major head wound.

The boy smirked as he snatched the thing—it was a boomerang, Zuko now realized—from the air and waved it mockingly at him.

Zuko growled, anger and embarrassment mingling inside him as he willed his hand to burst into flames and raised it, ready to strike.

Before he could, a feminine voice yelled, "Stop!" It was coming from the direction of the sky.

Bewildered, Zuko looked up with everyone else. He'd been so distracted by the fight that he hadn't noticed the bison flying toward them. It landed in the middle of the village, letting out a roar. On its back were two people—one was a pretty Water Tribe girl wearing a parka similar to the other villagers', her brown hair in a long braid down her back, two loops of hair hanging down on either side of her face. The other was a young boy whose nationality Zuko couldn't identify, with dark brown hair and gray eyes. He was dressed oddly, in brown pants and a short-sleeved shirt—both made of fabric that seemed far too lightweight for the frigid temperature.

The pair slid down from the bison's back. While the girl rushed over to the boy who'd been attacking Zuko, the boy approached Zuko. In his hands, he held a wooden staff.

"Are you looking for me?" the boy asked.

Zuko blinked. The fire puffed away as his hand fell to his side. Suddenly it all clicked in his head. The sky bison, the seeming resistance to the cold, the appearance that didn't match any of the nations Zuko knew. This little boy—he couldn't be older than twelve—was an airbender. He was...was…

"You're the Avatar?" Zuko asked.

It seemed as if thewhole world drew in a collective gasp. All eyes flew to the boy, and everything went silent.

"What?" the boy said, eyes widening. "No, of course not."

The spell broke. A part of Zuko's heart shattered, but a stronger part rose up, refusing to accept that answer as truth.

"No," Zuko growled. "No, you have to be. You're an airbender."

He could already feel his uncle's disappointed gaze on him, but he refused to look at him. He took a step toward the boy. "You're lying."

"I'm sorry," the boy said, "but I'm not. I'm…" He seemed to grapple with something, his eyes flickering uncomfortably to the gathered crowd, but after a moment, they landed back on Zuko's face, resolute. "I am an airbender, but I'm not the Avatar."

Zuko shook his head and attacked with a blast of fire from his fist. The boy yelped and spun his staff just as the fireball hit, dispersing the flame in a glowing pinwheel of orange and red.

"Aang!" The Water Tribe girl who had arrived with him on the bison ran over with the other boy in tow.

All three of them ran, and Zuko charged after them, snarling a quick, "Stay here!" at his soldiers.

That boy was the Avatar. He had to be. And Zuko was going to catch him.

Distantly, he heard his uncle yelling his name as he chased after Aang and the girl, but he ignored it.

The four of them ran past the outer walls of the village onto the snowy plains beyond. Zuko's body warmed to an inferno, the snow melting with each step he took, and he shot fireball after fireball at the trio ahead of him.

Finally, the three stopped running. The boy—Aang—turned to face Zuko. The girl and the older boy—he must be her brother—shared a glance, but they both slowed. The girl tried to reach for Aang's arm, probably to get him to keep running, but he waved her off. "It's okay, Katara."

He turned to Zuko. "You're wasting your time," he said, voice calm. He set his staff down in the snow and approached Zuko with his hands raised palms-out in front of him. "I swear to you that I'm not the Avatar. If that's what you're looking for, you won't find it here. You don't have to keep terrorizing this town."

"You think I'm going to believe that?" Zuko asked.

"It's the truth."

Zuko shook his head and fell into a fighting stance. "Even if it is true," he said, making sure his voice was laced with skepticism, "I'm not just going to leave you here. I'm sure my father would still be very interested in getting his hands on the last airbender."

Aang sighed.

Zuko shot a fireball at his face. He danced out of the way, floating several feet away and landing lightly in the snow.

"Look," Aang said as Zuko spun to face him, readying a fist for another fire blast. "If I go with you, do you promise to leave this village alone?"

"Aang, no!" the Water Tribe girl—Katara—yelled, but Aang didn't even look at her. Zuko studied him for a second, lowering his fist. Eventually, he nodded.

"Then take me," Aang said, holding his hands out to Zuko, wrists together and palms up.

Zuko grabbed his wrists and began to drag him away. Just outside the entrance to the village, his uncle was walking toward them.

"Zuko?" he asked as the two of them approached.

"We're taking this boy prisoner, Uncle," Zuko said. "Go tell the men—"

"No!" Katara's voice screeched from behind him. Zuko heard a crack beneath him, and then the ice where he stood wasn't ice anymore, but water. It pulled at his feet, tugging him down too fast to be natural.

Zuko's panic made time seem to slow. He saw his uncle's widening eyes, felt his hand slide off Aang's wrist. He looked down. Already he was up to his thighs in icy water. His legs were going numb, the cold shock making his vision blur as consciousness started to wane. And yet, a sudden calm clarity washed over him.

Acting on instincts he didn't know he had, he sucked in a deep breath of air, deeper than any he'd taken before, and blew it all straight down.

Time sped up again as Zuko launched into the air on a jet of wind. He twisted in midair, spinning wildly and out of control. The next thing he knew, he had crashed into the snow several feet away, his clothes now completely dry. Groaning, he sat up and looked around. Four pairs of eyes stared at him in varying degrees of shock. Aang's, his uncle's, Katara's, and her brother's. What had that been?

"Did you just...airbend?" Aang asked. Zuko's heart clenched.

Had that been airbending? No, no, it couldn't have been. It was just… it was just… Zuko scrambled for another explanation, any other explanation…but there was none.

He pushed himself to his feet and shoved that thought out of his mind. No, there had to be an explanation. He just needed to think about it, and he'd find it. There was no way that had been airbending. If it had been, that would mean that he was… He couldn't even bring himself to think the word. He couldn't be that.

Katara was staring at him as if he were a particularly nasty bug. Her brother looked confused. Aang's expression had lit up. And Uncle Iroh… Uncle Iroh just looked resigned. Somehow that cut Zuko deeper than any other.

"No," Zuko said firmly, looking away from the group. "That was nothing."

"It's okay," Aang said, stepping forward. He held one hand out toward Zuko, the other on his chest. "I understand now. I think I'm supposed to teach you airbending."

"No," Zuko repeated. "It was nothing."

Aang's face fell a little. "But—"

"Prince Zuko." Iroh's gravelly voice made Aang cut off whatever he'd been about to say. "Perhaps you should—"

"I'm changing the deal," Zuko said to Aang, ignoring his uncle. "I no longer want to take you prisoner, but I'll still take my men and leave this village alone. Come on, Uncle." He started to walk away, not bothering to check and see if his uncle followed.

"Zuko, wait," Aang called. "You need me. I can—I think I'm supposed to help you."

Zuko blocked out the words. His soldiers gave him questioning looks as he passed them empty-handed, but he simply gave curt instructions to leave, and they did as he said.

Just a few minutes later, Zuko, Iroh, and the soldiers were back on the ship, sailing away from the Southern Water Tribe. Zuko could tell the soldiers wanted to ask questions, could tell that Iroh wanted to say something, but he shoved past them all and headed to his quarters.

There had to be another explanation… right?