Chapter 16 – Northern Lights
Katara laid a hand against the tree feeling its bumpy, twisted bark while the lemur bounced branch to branch tasting the cherries. It was a singular tree growing in the otherwise untended temperate forest of hickory and oak, and she thought it must have come from a settlement nearby, perhaps from a seed carried by a bird that took the fruit off elsewhere. Aang stood underneath the tree with Sokka holding open a canvas sack next to him, and the airbender took a deep breath before swirling up a dervish that stripped the red fruit into the air. Momo, who had been clinging to a top branch, was blown off and thrown high until he opened his wings and glided down, then trilled with vexation for being deprived of the cherries. Aang manipulated the wind-and-cherry cloud into to the sack as Sokka shut his eyes against the gusts. When it settled the ground was strewn with leaves and snapped twigs.
They had traveled by foot through the forest heading towards the northern coast. Suki was setting up camp as Zuko found a supply of firewood. Sokka hauled the cherries off to their supplies pile, tying a tight knot to keep the lemur's paws out, when Aang approached Katara and asked, "Would you like to forage with us?" The pair went off through the woods with the lemur on the shoulder of the airbender. Travelers dropping seeds often inadvertently started wild gardens along frequented paths, and it seemed where they were, somewhere ten miles west of the Su Oku river, was a popular hunting ground. More than once they'd come across a stick lean-to assembled as a hunting blind or a small cabin. Aang called to her and showed her a patch of bitter melon, then picked off a few of the spiny, long green fruits and tucked them into his bag. "These are good steamed." In another half-hour they found a large muskmelon vine spreading over a wide patch of soil, and the young man picked one up to shake it. "Ripe. Want to head back after this?"
"Yeah, this should be enough for us. We'll be at the coast tomorrow." Zuko had said there was a resort built over the river's mouth which had been established by the Earth Kingdom but was now property of the Fire Nation. He didn't seem concerned for his identity and mentioned it was quite laid back and open to any traveler, but they still thought it best avoided. Suki was standing next to the campfire, watching Zuko give some red hickory nuts in a cookpan an extra thorough roasting with assistance from above, and the area was infused with a nutty aroma. They set their haul out and Aang began preparing the vegetables. Her brother returned at that time, empty-handed, and lamented that dinner would be vegetarian.
"We're in one of the most popular hunting spots on the continent and you can't come up with so much as one hare for dinner?" she asked her brother incredulously.
"Maybe the other hunters already bagged everything."
"Maybe you're just a lousy hunter."
"Alright, you know what," Sokka replied, "I was going to make you a sleeping fur when I was done with mine, but if you're going to be like that, I won't." He then held up a blanket he was working on, canvas on one side and the other stitched with rabbit furs haphazardly, still in rabbit-shaped splotches with large gaps between them. "Suki and I will enjoy this one."
"There's not even enough rabbit on that for one person, let alone two," she said. "Do the bunny-bunnies watch your sweetie-time?"
"That's the last time I give you any furs," said her brother, and tucked his half-finished blanket away.
"Is this what having a sibling is like?" Aang asked Zuko, who was finishing up the hickory nuts.
"Pretty much, but at least Katara can't light his bed on fire."
By the time Katara woke the next morning, her brother was gone, and Zuko said he'd headed out on a hunting expedition just before dawn. She and Suki each took half of a muskmelon. "Well, that's great. Are we supposed to wait around here for him all day?" she asked, to which he shrugged. Before Aang could start on his own melon, his teacher was pulling him aside by the collar and sat him down with a leaf to meditate over. The center glowed with the smallest ember, dug out from their campfire, and he tried to limit its consumption of the leaf for as long as possible without letting it burn out. By the time he was allowed his melon-half he found the surface already scraped by lemur paws and frowned.
That afternoon Sokka returned at a jog, though again bare-handed. "Guys, come check this out. There were traps laid out about three miles northwest."
"We're not walking three miles to look at hunting traps."
"They had Water Tribe markings. Seriously, come on, it might even be Dad."
They loaded the baggage onto Appa, still not wanting to fly, and walked by his lead through the forest as the sun lowered to evening. Excited, he ran over to a trap and pointed at the marks. No one, however, was in the area, so they decided to camp nearby until morning when whoever laid them would return. She didn't understand why her father would have traversed the continent or how they would have gotten there without crossing paths with the Fire fleet patrolling the river.
A branch snapped an hour before dawn. She shot up in bed and looked around, but could see nothing in the darkness. Only she and Zuko had heard, and they shook awake the others. "Hello?"
Silence resounded. Just when she thought it must have only been an animal, one set of footsteps slowly approached. The man was in Water costume subtly wrong. The cut, the trim placement, and the exact pigment of the dye were all different than that used in the South, and the man was a complete stranger with blue-grey eyes and black hair bound with beads. He held a polearm and had a waterskin at his waist. She and her brother stood up to greet him, though they were both wearing their Earth clothing. He looked at them warily and was making to leave when she called out, "Wait!" He looked back and, unable to form an explanation, she took out her water and demonstrated bending for him. The man understood. "Who are you?"
"Atun, part of the hunting expedition under Captain Balik. Who are you? I don't recognize you."
"I'm Katara, and this is my brother, Sokka. We're Chief Hakoda's children, from the South Pole."
He was astounded and came over to have a closer look at them. "From the South? I see. You're a far way from your home. I have not met Chief Hakoda. Is he here?"
"No, he's in Chameleon Bay with his fleet. Could you help us? We are escorting the Avatar and wanted to seek tutelage for him in the North Pole." She brought over Aang and presented him. "He needs to learn waterbending from a proper master."
"It would be our honor to host him." Atun bowed and Aang returned the greeting. When Zuko stood up, however, Atun saw his eyecolor and leveled the polearm at him. "A Fire Nation?"
"It's okay, he's with us. He's my firebending teacher."
Suki stepped in to introduce herself and he recognized the name of the Kyoshi Warriors, who had a good reputation, and relented. They gathered their belongings and followed him to regather the traps and head to the shore. His captain greeted them and agreed on offering passage, even for Appa, on their ship. Two others were at the shore gathering shellfish and crabs and Sokka went to join them, and in evening they sat with fisherman's stew over noodles and cups of pu-erh tea, which had a bold, developed flavor that went well with the clams and mussels.
They left around four in the morning with help from the tide. Sokka was too excited to discuss their ship to complain about the early wakeup call. None of the crewmembers seemed to trust Zuko, and one or another kept him always in their sight. He said nothing, but it was clearly bothering him, so she went to see him on deck. "Are you okay?"
"Yes. I was thinking about my crew. Azula said that half of them died. I know Uncle would have done something to console their families, but I should have been the one to do so. I don't even have a way to contact them."
"Were you close with your crew?"
"No, but they were my men. We spent six years together, and then I got them involved in something idiotic. I'll never forgive Azula. She should have killed me and only me, not them. They had nothing to do with it."
"Well, I'm actually glad that she didn't kill you."
He glanced at her, then rushed back to looking out over the water. "You are?"
"We've already forgiven you. Isn't it time to forgive yourself?"
"I can't. It was my responsibility, I should have known better."
She tucked her hair behind her ear. Already they felt the cold northern wind and the sea below them churned more aggressively as they gained distance from shore. "One time our father took some men out on a training exercise navigating icebergs. My brother and I were very young at that time and didn't go. While he was out on the water, something happened, and one of the three ships crashed. They recovered most of the crew, but two men had slipped below the water, and he never saw them again. My father was devastated but he couldn't show it on his face, and he grieved for them for years afterward. He always thought it was his fault. But, as a leader, he had to move forward. If he let himself fall to pieces, no one else in the tribe would feel they could rely on him. These things happen, Zuko. It isn't your fault."
"That sounds like something my Uncle would say."
"Were you close with him? You talk about him a lot."
"He was like a father for me. Like a real one, not the one I had," he said, and tugged at the length of his hair to test how far it covered by then. "I'm sorry for what I did to your village."
"I know. No one died, by the way. Everyone was fine."
"I'm glad to hear it. I don't want the legacy of the Fire Nation to be nothing but ash and corpses."
Flying fish surfaced beside the ship in a large school. The two watched, and it wasn't long before Suki and her brother joined them. Aang, meanwhile, went on his glider to ride above them, which impressed the Northerners far more than the fish.
The journey took three days by ship, and even in summer the northern reaches were locked in ice and hyperboreal, far colder and less hospitable than the South. They were given parkas and thick wool-lined pants to wear over their own clothing. Suki took extra fabric and stitched together a coat for Momo, who accepted it gratefully. Ice choked the sea. The sailors told them stories of monsters under the waves and strange lights in the sky; it was the type of place one couldn't tell apart a spirit from an animal. Zuko puffed out fire and rubbed his hands to warm them, which made the sailors skittish. Aang pestered him to teach him that trick, and the two stood at deck the rest of the day working on it. He was still timid to create fire, though he wasn't shy to admire it.
Finally when they'd traveled so far north they thought they must have gone off the charted map, a line of ice came into focus across the horizon and the wide span of the front wall crested in the Water logo confronted them. They watched as they were taken through a waterbending-controlled gate, and the first wall they passed was so thick that their corridor resembled a tunnel. A canal lock system filled their compartment and lifted the ship up to level with the passage before them. The glacier had been carved into a wide cleft from which a city rose, the initial blocks flat and, after another wall, a dense multi-storied city flowed between five terraces. At the top platform a palace overlooked them as the northernmost structure in the world. Shining wall to wall, every building had been constructed from ice.
"On a bright day one needs to shield their eyes when venturing into Agna Qel'a, lest they go snowblind," said Atun.
They were presented before the chieftain and a council. Aang demonstrated air, water, and fire for them to a round of applause, then she and Sokka were addressed. "It's so good to meet our Southern brother and sister. After a hundred years of separation we are glad to see you well and, one day, we hope for a restoration of our correspondence and exchange." Chief Arnook introduced his daughter, a young woman with stunning white hair and blue eyes. She wore a necklace similar to Katara's own, and she realized she must already be engaged to marry. Despite being uncomfortable with the misunderstanding her own would cause, she was still reluctant to take it off after having been separated from it for so long between the Pitola Mountains and Ba Sing Se. Wanting to be earnest with them, they introduced Zuko without alias as the banished prince and son of the Firelord. The council whispered to each other, but Chief Arnook welcomed him as an ally.
They sat down to a meal in the courtyard under the palace. In the background a large five-part cascade descended into a pool which diverted to channels that ran down to the city below. Feeling in the mood for mischief, she took a sea prune and set it on Zuko's plate. He ate it hesitantly, then dropped his chopsticks and covered his mouth. A hard swallow was followed up with a long draft of tea. He asked, "I suppose this would be your sea prune?"
She nodded. "Well?"
"I'd like to say it's the worst thing I've ever eaten, but it's not."
Even in the height of summer, by evening it was cold enough that she saw his breath as he spoke, though evening bordered a night of only a few hours. Sokka explained what midnight sun madness was for the other three's benefit. Zuko, whose body was attuned to the clock of the sun at the equator, was less than thrilled. "If it's already this cold now, by winter the sun itself will freeze."
Sokka replied, "By winter we'll have twenty-two hours of darkness, so yes, pretty much."
The following day she accompanied Aang to the waterbending master reluctantly, as the others were busy or feeling ill from the sun's affects. The training yard was wide in level ice, which must have been destroyed and remade often enough that they left it plain and did not bother carving it to look like paving tile. Several wells provided water sources for the students, who were lined up and waiting for the singular new pupil to join them. She pushed Aang forward and wished him good luck on his first day, then turned to leave. "Katara, where are you going?"
"Women are not allowed to learn," said Master Pakku. "The healing hut is over there." He made a shooing gesture.
Burning with humiliation, she trudged out. When out of sight, she sat at the edge of a canal and ran her fingers through the water, feeling the gentle flow, and scooped some out, pushing and pulling it through the air as a swirling figure eight, during which time she thought of nothing else and let her mind go blank. When she was calm she let the water return and stood to find the healing instructor, who had a schoolclass of several young girls in a small cottage-shaped annex at the medical ward. She ducked inside and announced herself.
The trainer, an elderly woman with long grey hair bundled into a complex design, stood and introduced herself as Yagoda. "I've heard about your exploits already, Lady Katara," she said, though the level of deference sounded strange to hear from one herself proclaimed as a master. "You've already been working as a professional healer in the Earth Kingdom for two years, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"You've treated the Earth King himself?"
"Yes, though there was nothing wrong with him." The man had a nervous disposition and frequently asked any doctor passing to check his body over, just in case, despite his being young and in perfect health, and was an inconsolable hypochondriac.
"I'm not sure I have anything to teach you. You're already more accomplished than I am."
"No, please. I'm self-taught. I would be honored to attend a formal class."
"Very well, then, though you may find the instruction to be too novice a level. Join us," she gestured. The other pupils were very young, and Katara stood out sorely. At the end of the lesson Yagoda pulled her aside and stated that her level exceeded her own, and so Katara had tried two teachers and been turned away from both.
She wandered back to their lodging and found Zuko slumped over a table with Momo draped across his shoulders like a throw blanket. "You look terrible," she said.
"The climate doesn't agree with me. I can't live on two hours of sleep. Why are you back so early, didn't you go to the waterbending lesson?" She explained. "Are you going to accept that?"
"What else can I do?"
"When I can hear myself think again, I'll try coming up with something," he replied. "I haven't taken a nap since I was six."
"Where are the lovers?"
"Sokka screamed something about ships and ran out the door this morning with my guard in tow. Or last night. Or whenever it was."
She rubbed her forehead. "I could use a nap, too. Can we share Momo?"
"Take him. He's been drooling on my neck for ten minutes."
True to his word, Zuko did come up with a suggestion for her two days later. The pair stood on the snowy plain with their outer coats stripped off. They were across the canal from where Pakku was, at that moment, holding his own course. The old man looked up from half-drowning the young Avatar with a torrent and spotted the two setting up in the distance. A few of his pupils paused from slinging water at each other to glance at them. The area was a public training ground, and she'd had Suki, the previous day, carefully double check the pertinent laws regarding its use. There was something to say for his being raised as royalty—Zuko had a good handle on politics, and there was nowhere more ruthless than the Fire Nation to learn. For all his venom, Pakku was, by contrast, just a grumpy old man. Katara composed herself carefully, not even willing to acknowledge the old master standing nearby, as her companion had suggested such was the best way to get a rise out of his type. They faced each other and a hush swept through the yard.
"Get back to your training," Pakku shouted at his pupils, with the sound coming to the two of them at a low but sharp volume over a hundred and fifty yards. By the way he was forced to bark she knew the pair had caught their attention. Rumors of the Fire prince had spread through the city, and after a century of isolation everyone was curious about him. As of yet, having been bedridden with adjusting to the climate, no one in the city had seen him produce so much as a spark, and the only example of firebending the people had seen had come from a small demonstration from Aang, who was still at novice level and couldn't generate more than a leaf-sized puff. She looked to Zuko and asked if he was ready, to which he nodded. They took stances.
Katara swept her hand around, drawing from the nearby canal a supply of about twenty gallons of water, a human-sized volume and enough to be visible from where Pakku's students were lined up. Zuko held at ready with a fist beside his face and his core tight. They paced counter-clockwise three steps. Drawing the entire volume up into the air, Katara let it sweep down at a diagonal, heavy and fast, and Zuko countered with an equal intensity of fire to disperse it. Around the two splattered hot water and rose a cloud of steam. They rounded a quarter turn and repeated it, knowing the students would see it from a new angle, knowing the intensity of the impact and how bright the flash of sudden flame in the ice-locked capital city would be by contrast. Their world was white and grey-blue, and the punch of flame was the only gemstone on a silver coronet, visible for miles. Over the heat-softened ice with a sheen of meltwater, the fire reflected into a larger, brighter effect, trebling the cast of color.
They reversed. Katara sent an S-shaped curve towards him, a smaller quantity propelled faster, and he met it halfway with a straight blast directly at their center. They exchanged equal blows, neither overwhelming the other, at the highest, flashiest volumes and most stunning speeds they could achieve, keeping a circular form and level footsteps, spinning, and rotating the pattern like a composed dance. Pakku began screaming and blasting his own students with water to regain their attention, but, as they continued, even passerby stopped in their tracks and residents emerged from their homes and workplaces, and soon a large gathering surrounded the pair.
The air shimmered with steam and heat. Below them spread a pool of liquefied fire with every blast he generated, and the lights glinted off her own reprisal, twinning the orange and yellow, deepening the red. Neither partner slowed down, neither stumbled. They'd spent two months practicing daily, and Zuko had already gifted her what the North refused. Her tentative self-learned style had been elevated and sharpened by his formally-taught mastery. As the two exchanged movements they found the point of equalization at the highest level they could maintain in balance with each other, and comets and lights and glistening towers of ice flowed together, exploded against each other, and cast crystalline shards and smouldering embers to the air around them like fireworks. She was sweating, as was he; she was smiling, as was he. Her ability exceeded that of Pakku's students irrefutably. He watched with his fists clenched to either side and his teeth grinding, and the students had abandoned all discipline awestruck. The contrast of their two elements heightened their perceived brightness, and lights played across the icy expanse of Agna Qel'a, from cliff to cliff, casting fire into the canals that shimmered ruby and citrine and flowed up through her ice structures, lighting up pillars and daggers and frozen waves as a beacon.
Fire melted the field of ice. A frozen comet exploded into snow and cinder. She sent a tide to him, he returned with an inferno, and the two spun together, turned together, and sent lights into the northern sky.
They paused out of breath. Katara was giddy with the achievement. Zuko, who had been in a depression since the events of Ba Sing Se, looked animated again and the spark in his eyes returned.
Aang started a cheer. As Master Pakku scolded him to be silent, several members of the crowd and the students took it up, and the roar became unstoppable. Yagoda, surrounded by her flock of young girls, cheered the loudest of all, and their small, high pitched voices echoed across the field, drowning out the protests of the waterbending teacher. All eyes remained on them.
#
Summer turned to autumn. Zuko had started out wandering the city at a total loss, out of his element, with roads of rivers and every surface cold to the touch, but with months passed had grown to know the layout, every bridge, every sidewalk, and had gained mastery of the gondolas. He and Katara sat in one of the narrow wooden boats as they glided down the avenue. Half-moon bridges spanned the canals and they passed a narrow band of shadow underneath. The water was cold and pure, with neither fish nor algae, and was clear enough to see straight to the bottom. Every canal and building had been finely hewn from ice with love and artistry put into the details. They docked outside the teashop and he moored the boat to the wharf with a length of slim rope. While Sokka had shown him the knotwork, Katara had taught him how to paddle and how to lean his weight into turns. At first he was concerned for the length of the gondola making it through the tight ninety degree turns, but over the months of residence he had mastered even cornering. White fur wrapped his collar and he'd traded the earth-toned loafers he'd had in Ba Sing Se for shearling-lined suede boots as the others wore. Katara stepped from the boat to the dock and they climbed the narrow staircase of ice together to reach street level. The shop's balsam fir door had been decorated with a wreath of red berries and pine needles. The two slipped into the warm interior and took seats on a wooden bench covered over with a polar leopard fur, then gave their order. Katara received a dessert made with soft mochi stuffed with cloudberry compote, covered in a sweet glaze, with green tea. He ordered braised yak ribs with roseroot-leaf sauerkraut. While he missed spice and heat, the acidic vegetable preparations satisfied, to some degree, the same craving using vinegar. He had grown fond of a tea made with a mushroom which grew on the side of white aspen trees and had a strong, earthy flavor. It grew only at the northern latitudes and was unknown in Caldera City. He had Katara try it from his cup, and she said it tasted like mud. In return she shoved a bite of cloudberry toward him, which glistened yellow-orange and had a balance between tangy and sweet. "It doesn't taste anything like mud," he said, and returned her spoon.
In the mornings he was free to do as he wanted while Aang trained with Pakku, who remained furious and resentful. While Sokka and his lover galavanted through the area, he found himself with the waterbender most of the time. She was eager to show him around and quick to defend him from those who were suspicious of a foreigner, and it seemed that she saw in the North what a future might look like for her own village if, in the future, they could overcome their poverty and underpopulation alike and restore their previous glory. She told him stories her grandmother had told her of times in the past, when the South and North were equals, which the old woman had heard from her own grandmother-in-law. In a distant past the South, with a large territory and relatively mellow climate on its outskirts, had been wealthy and influential. Unlike the North, their territory was closer to neighboring islands where agriculture was possible and they had something like seasonal colonies spread through the unaffiliated islands. Once they had been in frequent exchange with the Air Nomads of the Pitola Range, hunting their lands and trading tools made from ivory and sinew, while the nomads gave them spun linen and hardwood lumber. The North had to make a long journey to the coast of the continent in order to find any flora surviving and, when the war arrived, they were already on the cusp of isolation and their fall into seclusion was a short distance further.
She told him about whales and seamonsters, of beasts frozen in ice with tusks longer than a gondola, owl-wolves and snow leopard caribou. Zuko returned with his own stories of hotsprings dense with minerals to the extent bathers floated weightlessly, volcanic eruptions and flows of lava burning intensely through the night only to cool into new islands of glossy black stone by morning, rocks with as many holes as seasponges which could float on water, the brilliance of wildflowers in high summer, and perfect azure skies punctuated by intense evening thunderstorms rolling in quickly and leaving in merely an hour after emptying a rapid cloudburst, when thunder clapped so loud buildings trembled.
When she grabbed his hand to show him how to hold his wrist performing a waterbending move, he didn't pull away.
The most recent hunting expedition returned. The city populace watched the ships under Balik progress through the central canal after arriving through the lock, the deck piled with crated wares and preserved fish and produce from the continent's wildlands. With autumn's arrival their season of travel was closing, and the frantic summer activity and endless spanses of daylight would diminish to perpetual night, when the city would settle into hibernation, waiting for the blush of revival in spring and the reopening of marine avenues through the frozen channels.
He and Katara pulled the gondola into dock at their group's residence and headed inside, but Zuko was called out to by a messenger and paused to receive a letter. Katara had already gone in to greet Aang, who was finished with his waterbending lesson and relaxing with the lemur. Zuko tucked the letter inside his pocket and joined them. His pupil was so beaten-up by Pakku that he hardly had endurance for his evening firebending lesson and, as the days shortened, their training schedule was pushed closer to sunset, reducing Aang's ability further. "Clean up, and we'll go to the training ground in twenty minutes," Zuko ordered, to which the Avatar flopped onto his back dejectedly. He left the note at his bedside for later and went to get ready.
They returned in darkness with the start of a snowstorm as Aang grumbled about his progress being hampered by the short term of sunlight. His waterbending master wouldn't budge on his own scheduling, and that left the pair of them making the best of what remained. The siblings and guard were playing a board game in the living area, sitting atop the stack of furs and with the portable furnace nearby supplying heat against the bitter evening. Zuko returned to his room with fire at his fingertips in lieu of a candle, then remembered the letter. He lit a lamp, then sat down and snapped the wax seal over the leather tie of the note and unfurled it.
His blood went cold. It had been over a decade since he'd seen his father's handwriting but would never mistake the distinctive tall peaks and aggressive strikes with which he composed his characters.
Prince Zuko,
In the absence of your beloved sister I feel the palace at Caldera City has come into dire want of presence of the royal family. My brother Iroh is still in recovery and remains bedridden, my youngest child is locked away in a foreign city, and my grandson is but an infant. His eyes have luminance of a strong bender, but it is too soon to train him or gain affirmation of his abilities. When you were at sea I felt your presence as an extension of my own field of influence, as you were my eyes abroad and could be ready at hand for recall, but now you have gone far from me, from your nation, separated as you were after the events of Ba Sing Se, which I still do not know the details of, except that you and Azula ventured into its walls together and now the Earth King retains only she in custody. I know that with your strength you had escaped, and I have sought rumor of your location ever since. Now word has come to me that you have penetrated the icy reaches of the north. I hope this letter finds you well—I am aware that you have infiltrated Agna Qel'a as you and your sister had Ba Sing Se. This alone should be an admirable feat of perseverance against the enemies of the Fire Nation. I see that my son remains strong and capable even faced with their resistance.
An opportunity has blossomed before your hand to strike against the Northern Water Tribe and bring glory to your nation. It is my understanding that the Avatar remains a juvenile. However, my son, you have within your reach a target more immediately salient than the immature Avatar—that of the chieftain and his only daughter, who will soon marry on this winter solstice. Should the bloodline of Chief Arnook be interrupted, the Fire Nation would benefit from a preemptive blow against this hereto elusive enemy. You have done well to hone in on them and gain their confidence. What Azula failed in, you can achieve. Strike down the chieftain and his daughter and destroy their line; do this and you will have earned your rightful place at the throne of Caldera City as my successor. I look forward to having you, my son, at my side once again.
-Firelord Ozai
He threw the paper on the blanket and backed away as if it were a viper, unable to articulate all the conflict it roused within himself, while the sharp memories, the burning longing for his home, and the sickness he felt at Azula's betrayal rose in his throat once more. He felt feverish and wanted a place to go to escape the confusion, but outside was already, in the darkness, inhospitably bitter, and windstorms were spiking over the city blown in from the vast tundra. By morning the streets would be blanketed in white to his knees. Someone approached his room and he glanced to the note, then stuffed it under his pillow and smoothed the blanket overtop.
"Zuko? There's tea," Katara called to him.
"I'll be out in a minute."
Instead of leaving, she paused at his door. "Is something wrong? You sound upset."
"No, I've just lost one of my mittens. It's around here somewhere." It was a hastily formed lie, but the young woman took it at face value and returned to the living area, where he could hear her brother celebrating a win in their game. He fell to the bed and put his head in his hands as heat flushed from crown to heel with his agitation.
"I'll sleep on it," he whispered. "I'll deal with it in the morning. For now everything is like it was before, I'm the firebending teacher of the Avatar, and that's all. I'm nothing else."
When she poured him a cup of tea she did so with the warmest, most trusting smile. No one in Caldera City had eyes her color.
She told him that tomorrow was the autumn equinox, the time when day and night would be the same length, and that after this the polar regions would shift into their period of annual darkness. Outside it was already night and heavy snow, unseen, pelted their doorway.
He'd lied to himself and hadn't managed to sleep at all. Head tangled in a migraine and heart racing with irritation, Zuko stood alone at a walkway above the canal adjacent to the lock. Ships hadn't been scheduled in or out, not with the weather still showing poorly, and the attendants were not on duty. He walked from one reservoir, filled to a level equal the city, and passed to the next, the central, where the level was that of the sea far below at a dizzying height. The pathway of ice he stood upon was five feet wide, which should have been plenty, but felt hopelessly narrow and left him with little margin against the peril of the drop beside him. If he laid across the width of the pathway, his head would not rest on solid ground. He held the letter and read it again. The handwriting was terrifying and nostalgic, he could smell the ink and the paper even as the post-storm frigidity stung from his nose to his sinus cavity with sharp, crisp pain. The panic of a small child in fear of disappointing his father welled within him as strong as an arrow shot one year to another, like no time had passed at all, like he had not changed at all from that terrified boy clutching the hand of his mother. Wind buffeted him, and to either side of the narrow path was a steep drop to water, one survivable and the other fatal. If his fingers slackened, the note would be ripped from his grasp and would fly out, discoverable to anyone who happened upon it. His group would not be able to answer for why he hadn't informed them immediately upon its reception. Perhaps Chief Arnook would imprison him, chained to the floor, as the Earth King had his sister. Both children of the Firelord would die hopeless in a foreign land, separated by hundreds of miles, at the hands of his enemies.
He'd read the note so many times that every word was memorized. He stared at the characters composing his father's name. 'Prideful carriage.' One of noble standing, written carefully in crisp brushstrokes of rich ink.
Zuko remembered the bitter pain of Azula's lightning, the heavy weight of the chains on his wrists, the warmth of Caldera City in summer, the fineness of the sand at the beach of Ember Island. He remembered the day he had almost drowned and his father had saved him. He remembered the hourless darkness in which his mother had vanished, and her face with an unfathomable expression as she spoke hushed words of courage to him.
In the gondola seated in front of Katara, the wooden vessel slipped through the gentle current of the canal with soundless ease; his own ship, lost in the explosion on the bay, cut through the ocean propelled by the combustion of fuel, which left a dirty taste on the air and rattled the contents of the metal hull. In the loft at the warehouse in the Lower Ring he had felt alone, agitated, and challenged even with his sister at his side; in Taku, in Yu Dao, and in Agna Qel'a he'd felt none of the irritation as if fire were nipping at his ankles, but rather there had been quiet acceptance, stories, jokes, strange meals cobbled together from wild vegetables and lingering remnants of gardens. He remembered the terror of the explosion, the terror of the Agni Kai, and the terror of waking to find his mother gone without a trace and his father's refusal to acknowledge her absence at all, like she'd never existed other than to her son.
He held the letter up into the air and let it ignite as flurries of snow blew against his face. The paper burned away every word struck in ink and crumbled to the wind. Nothing remained between his fingertips. With the offer refused, he was simultaneously free and in deprivation of everything. The Air monks wandered, with no possessions and no home, across the blue sky and green forests; they had nothing and everything as well.
A figure appeared through the curtain of white and crossed the narrow pathway, arriving at the central canal's extremes of difference with him. Pakku greeted him with a curious look. "I see you've refused your father's offer."
He took a step backwards, feeling the loose snow slide under his feet. "You knew about the letter?"
"I checked it when it arrived, then allowed it to be delivered to you. Congratulations on passing. Had you chosen otherwise, you would have been thrown off this cliff to drown in the seawater below." The old man reached into a pocket and drew out a small object, then extended it to him—it was a paisho tile. "Did your uncle teach you what this means?"
"What? No, I don't—you know my uncle?"
"I see. Well, I think it's time for an introduction. Let's go back to your residence. I've already sent the young Avatar home and my assistant will be rounding up your friends right about now." He turned and led them to solid ground, his hands clasped behind his back. At the living area the others were already seated, wondering what was going on. Zuko felt lightheaded as he sat down and turned the tile over in his hand. Pakku addressed the five of them. "I'm part of the White Lotus, as is General Iroh, as are others. We're a society in service to the Avatar, though the past hundred years has been a period of uncertainty for us. Avatar Aang, it's time to discuss your future."
"I've never heard of the White Lotus before."
"In your past lives, we've approached you to offer training and assistance, but with your current reincarnation you were separated from us before we could establish contact, while you were still under guardianship of Monk Gyatso. Yes, he was also a member. We searched in vain for decades, watching as the world fell to chaos. Just as we were on the last fumes of our hope, you reappeared in this world. As for you," he suddenly addressed Zuko, "I hadn't trusted your uncle's judgment of you. I saw a stupid, angry boy eager to follow the destructive path of his father, but that letter gave me a means of assessing you. Yes, it was a real letter—surely you recognize your own father's handwriting. It was genuine."
Katara looked at him questioningly, and he couldn't meet her eyes. "What do you want me to do, then? What does my uncle want?"
"Those are not the proper questions to ask. You should be asking yourself this: Who are you? What do you want?"
He thought, and they let him have that moment. He found the only answer he could live with. "I'm my mother's son, Iroh's nephew, and the firebending instructor to the Avatar. What I want is an end to this and a way out, a way for the war to resolve in anything but the total destruction of this world—a return to balance."
"Excellent," replied Pakku. "I see your education hasn't been wasted. You'll make a fine Firelord someday."
"What? I'm not—I mean, I'm banished."
"You're banished by your father's word, but in the end, that amounts to only a temporary quarrel between a waning power and his successor. You're the only suitable candidate to the throne. What, did you expect Aang here to seat himself as Firelord after the defeat of your foolish father?" Pakku laughed. "The Avatar is a neutral power, and he must rely on his allies to govern. You, our lost little prince, have a duty to the world and a destiny ahead of you, though it may not be the same you envisioned as a child." He looked to Katara and addressed her. "Of course, the Avatar and our next Firelord are going to need some help, so how about I give you that training? Though I need your word to keep it a secret, before you ruin my reputation. Our culture has a strong taboo, but our world, now, has a greater need. I hope you don't plan on sleeping anytime soon. You and I shall be training every evening in an underground facility, one on one."
Her eyes lit up. "Yes, I would love to. But why did you change your mind?"
Pakku walked over to her and reached his hand down, pressing a fingertip to the engraving on her necklace. "I carved that necklace sixty years ago for the woman I was in love with. Think of it as a favor to her granddaughter."
As they exchanged the story of six decades of heartbreak, Zuko looked down to the tile in his palm of a flower with eight petals.