The winter sun hung low in the sky as Lu Ten and Ayeshi loaded their supplies into the boat.
"Wait up a minute!" Suki came running down the beach. "I just remembered. Since you're going to the south pole, you'll need these!" She was holding a pair of traditional Southern Water Tribe parkas. "You'll freeze to death without them."
"Thanks." Ayehsi gathered them in her arms.
"Just return them when you return the boat.
"Of course." said Lu Ten. "Thank you for everything, Suki." Lu Ten boarded their boat and they pulled away from the island.
"I guess we should put these on." Ayeshi lifted the parkas up to get a better look. "It's only gonna get colder from here on out."
Lu Ten made a face. "Do we have to? I'm all for unity and harmony between the four nations, but asking a Fire Nation guy to wear blue is a lot. That's the opposite element from fire."
"Just put it on." Ayeshi pulled her parka over her head and wiggled into it. "They're warm and comfortable. You can see that a garment like this is meant to last."
"Water extinguishes fire, while fire evaporates water. Water is calm and collected, while fire is powerful and passionate."
"You wanna walk into the Water Tribe village wearing your apron from the noodle shop and freeze to death?"
Lu Ten shrugged. "I'll put it on later. We fire benders can keep ourselves warm with fire from breath, you know."
"Yeah, I know. Sometimes you exhale little puffs of fire from your mouth when you sleep, like a little dragon. It's very cute."
"I'm not cute." said Lu Ten in mock annoyance. "I'm a warrior."
"A cute warrior!"
"No, you're the cute one!" Lu Ten grabbed Ayeshi and tickled her, the both of them shrieking with laughter as the boat rocked in the water. "No, ok, but we do need to be careful here. Why anyone would choose to live this far south is beyond me."
"The further they went, the less living here made any kind of sense. The seascape was an unbroken monotony of frigid water and gleaming chunks of ice that slid by on both sides, sometimes so close that Lu Ten could reach out and touch them. It felt like being trapped under a great blue dome, where there was no point in continuing to travel because everything was the same.
At last a small village came into view, a collection of huts clustered together on an outcrop of ice. People bundled in heavy blue parkas bustled about, unloading canoes and building fires. Lu Ten couldn't get over the way everyone here seemed to cling to the edge of survival, and how all of it could just be wiped out by the next wave. Perhaps that was why his dad had once said that water was the element of change. Brows furrowed, he guided the boat towards the edge of the ice, trying to pretend he wasn't amazed at how the snow sparkled in the sun.
A stout woman knelt near the edge of the water, gutting fish. When Lu Ten and Ayehsi's boat grated against the ice she looked up, a bone knife clutched in her gloved hand. "Hello?"
"Err, hello." Lu Ten muttered, trying not to stare. He'd never seen someone with such wide, blue eyes before.
"You're not Water Tribe!" The woman said, dropping her knife in surprise. "What on earth are you doing here?" Her voice was calm, but her left hand was straying behind her for the spear leaning against her boat. With her other hand she picked up a tangle of fishing nets and handed them to a little girl who stood nearby. "Katara, go put these in my hut and then stay inside." The girl scampered away and the woman picked up her knife again.
"My apologies for startling you, ma'am, but we're not Fire Nation." Said Lu Ten. "We're Earth Kingdom, here on a rescue mission. We're looking for my cousin, who's gone missing.
"Are you sure?" She peered into his face. "You look an awful lot like the soldiers who used to raid our village."
"The Earth Kingdom is a large and diverse place, ma'am. Just because some of us look a little like the Fire Nation people doesn't mean we are. But how did you know we weren't Water Tribe?"
"Do you see the size of my village?" She gestured to the collection of huts. "I know everyone here. Besides, no one from the Water Tribe handles a boat that clumsily. Is your cousin Water Tribe? If he is, then I might know him."
Lu Ten shook his head. "Earth Kingdom."
"If he's not Water Tribe and he's lost in the south seas, then I hate to say it but he won't last that long."
"Thanks for reminding me." Lu Ten muttered. "I know it's tough here, but he's a strong kid."
"If he was patrolling the south seas, Chief Hakoda might know something about him. You can go and ask him, he's home right now." She lifted her knife and gestured to the largest hut. "Go on. He's a strong fighter and not afraid of foreigners like yourselves."
"Thanks. Um, you don't want to, uh, introduce us maybe?"
The woman snorted. "He's not the Earth King. Go in and talk to him yourselves. Besides, these fish aren't going to clean themselves."
Lu Ten shrugged. "All right then. Here goes nothing." He strode across the shimmering ice to the hut and pushed open the animal hide door flap.
Seeing Chief Hakoda made Lu Ten wish he hadn't left his sword on Kyoshi Island as collateral. The man was big and well-muscled, with sharp eyes and firm-set jaw. He was sharpening a bone spear, but looked up when Lu Ten and Ayeshi walked in. "Well, who are you? What do you want?"
"Good afternoon, Chief Hakoda." Lu Ten and Ayeshi both bowed.
"What brings a pair of Earth Kingdomers like yourselves here?" On seeing their expressions he added, "Only people from the Earth Kingdom bow like that."
"Well, chief, we're here on a rescue mission. I have a cousin who went missing somewhere in the southern oceans. The woman we talked to outside said that since my cousin isn't from the Water Tribe, he probably won't survive for very long."
Hakoda frowned. "Was this cousin of yours with the Earth Kingdom's army?"
Lu Ten nodded.
"And you thought I might know his whereabouts, since the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom have an alliance to protect the southwest seas from the Fire Nation."
Hakoda's face darkened. "Then you should know that right now, the only soldiers patrolling the southern seas are my soldiers. Ashmaker."
Lu Ten bristled on hearing the slur drop from Hakoda's lips. "He knows." He whispered to Ayeshi.
"Come clean." Ayeshi whispered back. "Tell him you're not here to attack."
"Chief Hakoda." Lu Ten set his knife on the ground and motioned for Ayeshi to do the same. "I must ask for your forgiveness, as I have not been truthful this whole time. I'm not looking for an Earth Kingdom soldier, I'm looking for a Fire Nation prince."
Hakoda's grip tightened on his spear. "If it's a Fire Nation prince you're looking for, give me one good reason not to slit your throats right here. I will not show mercy to any ashmakers, not after the pain and suffering they have brought my people."
"Please, chief, Ayeshi really is Earth Kingdom. At the very least, spare her, it's just me who was lying. Look, we are here peacefully. My cousin—he's only thirteen, he's been banished from his home. I just want to be able to bring him home."
"You need to leave, right now." said Hakoda. "If he is thirteen, he's old enough to fight and old enough to kill. He's old enough to snatch up our water benders and take them away. If you truly are here in peace," he said, his glinting like the ice that floated in the sea, "then you will leave before you cause us anymore pain. Leave now, before my children see you."
"But chief—"
"Let's go." Ayeshi muttered. "We hang around longer and we won't be leaving voluntarily." She took Lu Ten's arm and pulled him out of the hut. They hurried across the sparkling ice back to their boat, and soon Lu Ten's strokes with the oars were pulling them away from the village.
"The nerve of that guy." Lu Ten muttered. "We didn't do anything to him. We didn't have weapons, except your knives. And he won't even hear us out. Just tells us to leave, just because we mention the Fire Nation, doesn't care that it's a thirteen-year-old kid we're looking for. It's true—Water Tribe people are brutal."
Ayeshi, scrunched in the bow of their boat with the map in hand, frowned at him. "Chief Hakoda mentioned something about fire benders taking water benders from the tribe. Is that true?"
"I mean, yes, but it doesn't excuse the way he treated us."
"Is that why we didn't see anyone bending water? Lu Ten. A whole Water Tribe village, and not a single water bender?"
"Er . . . yes. I remember when the news hit that the southern raiders had finally captured the last water bender in the southern tribe. It was a few years ago now. They're all gone."
"You captured every single bender from an entire tribe?"
"We've been over this!" Lu Ten snapped. "It wasn't me! I didn't do any of these war crimes! Just once, I want someone to look at me and not immediately punish me for someone else's crimes!"
Ayeshi was silent, no doubt remembering the time she'd almost done just that.
"Zuko's not there anyway." Lu Ten grumbled. "No way he'd hang around hostile people like that. Let's keep looking." He went back to rowing the boat, gazing westward with a firm-set jaw.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ayeshi finally asked.
"Talk about what? Chief Hakoda? I already told you he was a brute."
"No, I mean your outburst just now. Do you want to talk about it?"
Lu Ten sighed. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. It's just . . . I'm so tired of having to atone for someone else's crimes. And people are always going to hold it against me that I'm Fire Nation. I always have to prove that I'm a good person. And I keep thinking that I'd have to murder the Fire Lord myself to make up fro being Fire Nation. But I can't just make everything right so easily."
"You don't have to change the world to show you're a good person." Ayeshi mused. "I think you just have to be good to the people in your own life." She took the other oar and sidled in next to him. "And you are good to the people in your life. That's why we're here."
He nodded. "I know. I just wish people would stop making snap judgements about each other."
"That goes both ways." said Ayeshi. "Chief Hakoda shouldn't have made snap judgments about us, but we aren't any better for calling him a hostile brute."
"Yeah, I know. Look," Lu Ten muttered, "we're just lucky to have gotten out of there without being stabbed. We know Zuko's not there, so we keep looking. Let's put today behind us."
"Sounds good to me." Ayeshi leaned up against him and they rowed their boat through the glittering frigid sea, towards the setting sun.