A/N: This chapter presents the second major departure from canon. (The basic premise of this story was the first.) The Northern Water Tribe canonically doesn't make much sense. They're supposedly at the poles, yet certain polar phenomena are not seen. In the spirit of realism, the Northern Water Tribe is going to look very different here.

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The next day, they got up nice and early, packed everything, and set off in a northward direction. Zuko held a hand out to feel the wind. It was no illusion; they were definitely flying faster than before. Just when I stop urging them to. He had mixed feelings about that. It meant that his instinctual responses were a mistake. He couldn't even think about that directly because it made him feel shaken inside like a box of puzzle pieces.

"What do you guys talk about up here?" he asked.

The Avatar was flying, so his Water Tribe friends were both in the saddle. They shared a look. Did Sokka glance at Iroh? Nah. Katara said, "All kinds of things."

She didn't elaborate. They flew in silence until Zuko asked, "Like what?"

Sokka sat straight up. "Like stories! You can speak something that's a lot like lemur but not lemur, right? Where'd you learn how to speak that?"

Zuko's pulse quickened. "...I had a childhood friend who was like a lemur but not," he answered.

Iroh looked at him. "Really? I don't remember the palace having any animals in it."

Zuko was aware his face was hot. "I didn't exactly show them around," he mumbled. "Where did you pick up your lemur? He wasn't there when I captured the Avatar at the South Pole."

"We traveled to Aang's home at the Southern Air Temple," Katara replied. "Momo was there. He was...the only living being in that place."

"It was horrible," Sokka continued. "We knew that the Fire Nation had attacked the Air Temples, and we found helmets there. But none of us were ready to find Monk Gyatso's body. Aang activated the Avatar State and nearly blew us off the mountain." He looked down, remembering.

Zuko looked away from them, toward Appa's head. "I wonder how Momo lived there," he murmured. "There were no other lemurs around? Nobody?"

"We didn't see any," Katara said.

So Momo is one of a kind. He was alone. I know what that's like. Nobody else seemed to be troubled by elemental spirits that caused problems. Zuko had nobody else to talk to who would even understand his words. He didn't feel bad about that; it was just the way he lived, and always had been. But it was still special to know someone else who had lived the same way.

"You're feeling bad for Momo and not Aang, aren't you?" Sokka said. Zuko refused to answer. Sokka threw up his arms in frustration.

"How did you know Zhao was coming?" Katara asked.

"I don't know," Zuko said.

"You don't know how you knew he was coming?"

Zuko nodded. "I just have a sixth sense for it. I always have. I don't know how it works or where it came from." He had a memory of being four years old, playing with the water spirit, and suddenly knowing his father was coming. The origins of his ability to sense that must be in the part of his life that he was too young to remember.

Sokka's face brightened. "You can detect firebenders? At that distance? Hey Aang, it sounds like we don't have to worry about accidentally running into Fire Nation soldiers ever again."

He thinks I'm going to stay with them that long?! Zuko knew it was a joke, but that wrong, bad assumption infuriated him. "More like the next two weeks," he shot back. "And it doesn't work on common soldiers! Only on people like Zhao." People like my father.

"It doesn't?" Sokka slumped. "Never mind, Aang. We still have to worry."

Katara looked down at the saddle, her eyes unfocused. She was looking somewhere else, somewhere very sad. "You have a sixth sense that only works on firebending generals."

"...Yeah." What is she thinking about?

Katara did not say. She continued to look into that sad, heart breaking place.

Sokka wavered back and forth, opening his mouth and closing it again while glancing at his sister. Finally he opened it. "Our mom was killed by a firebender like that."

Killed by a firebender? That explained why she had such a problem with out of control fire. It didn't explain why she insisted on treating him like a monster. It was the fire spirit that was reckless and dangerous, not him! But who wouldn't make that mistake when the fire spirit was always at his side? Wow. You really are a bad spirit. You tease me about my father burning half my face off. You tease her about her dead mother. I can't believe I ever thought of having you at my side! I only thought that because there was nowhere else for you to go! Well, I'm not going to be sympathetic any longer!

Zuko's hands were tight on his tense arms and he was scowling. "Tell me about the Northern Water Tribe," he demanded. Tell me about a place of ice and dark and quiet where I can be free of these burdens forever.

Katara came out of the past. "You tell him, Sokka."

"Why me?"

"Because I know you've been bottling it up," Katara said. "Go on."

"Okay." Sokka turned to Zuko and said, "You see this? All this sunshine and warmth? Soak it in, because there isn't going to be any at the North Pole."

Zuko nodded. That was exactly what he expected.

"We were just in the middle of spring when you and Aang showed up," Sokka ranted. "It had only been two weeks since the sun rose for the first time in forever. And now we're heading right back into endless frozen darkness. I hate winter."

"At the poles, the sun never rises in winter and the sun never sets in summer," Katara explained. "I like winter better." Sokka said something about her being loopier than an octopus.

Zuko closed his eyes and imagined it. His spirits rose. So it was true! The North Pole really was just as he hoped it would be, a paradise of cold and dark where all his concerns could be put to sleep. There wouldn't be so much as a hint of sunlight to awaken the fire spirit. The water spirit would be locked in ice. The more he thought about it, the more he longed to reach this place, until he felt such a desperate need that his heart was about ready to leap out of his chest and swim north ahead of the rest of him.

"What do you think, Nephew?"

Zuko opened his eyes. "I like the nighttime. Can this bison fly any faster?" Too late, he remembered that he had promised to stop trying to take over their travel plans. But he wasn't angry and he hadn't sounded like he was. He had allowed himself to sound full of longing. They should be fine with it.

They were. "You're loopier than an octopus too," Sokka said.

Zuko closed his eyes and leaned back. He wanted to fantasize for a little longer.

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Conversation moved on to other topics, but Katara could not stop thinking about what Zuko had said. He had a sixth sense that warned him about especially powerful firebenders. An especially powerful firebender had killed her mother. Katara felt a connection between those two facts. She knew there couldn't be one. Zuko's life had had nothing to do with hers until just months before. But she still couldn't stop thinking.

Why would he have a sense like that? Why would the prince of the Fire Nation have instincts that told him to disappear when someone high ranking approached? As prince, he outranked them. Even in exile, he had his own ship and free use of Fire Nation colonies and everything. So why would he have the instincts of a fugitive?

He was prince of the Fire Nation. He had had the power to do whatever he wanted to them. He had had authority. He had had (no he couldn't) but still it felt like he had some measure of responsibility for the crimes the Fire Nation committed against innocent people like her mother.

Didn't he?

Then why did he know how to disappear?

Katara looked at him again. He leaned back in the saddle with his eyes squeezed shut. As she looked, he let out a sigh and his face filled with such longing that her heart skipped a beat. It was gone a moment later, but she remembered. It had been there.

Iroh cleared his throat. "Why don't I tell a story?" he said. "A story of diplomacy, great danger, and the most delicious rice balls I have ever tasted!"

"Diplomacy?" Aang asked.

"I can take over, Aang," Katara offered. "Go listen."

"Thanks!" He scampered over Appa's head and into the saddle, and she took the seat between Appa's horns. Katara checked their course, looking around to see where they were and if they were heading the right way. Then she resumed thinking. The wind rushing past her distorted voices from the saddle, so she couldn't quite hear Iroh's quiet words. They did not distract her.

She tightened her hands on the reins. She couldn't let down her guard. He might long for the Northern Water Tribe badly enough to apologize to them, to be kind to Aang, and to play games. But that did not make him a friend or even an ally. He was keeping secrets. He'd learned to speak lemur from a "childhood friend" that not even his uncle knew about. What friend might that be? Was there someone else who could come chasing after them? Or possibly multiple someones - he'd said that he didn't exactly show "them" around. He could be using neutral language, or he might have had multiple not-exactly-lemurs that he'd hidden from his closest relatives. What did "like a lemur but not" even mean, anyway? Such a vague description just screamed that he was covering something up. Something he didn't want them to know.

And the water spirit. Was he really so stupid that he'd assumed the water spirit had to be following them just because it was evil, like the villain of a children's story? He didn't seem that stupid. Iroh had agreed with her that it sounded a little forced, but he wasn't worried because he thought Zuko would reveal anything he wasn't comfortable with in time. Katara didn't think they had that much time. There was no reason for her to think his secrets were harmless.

She still would not trust him. He looked more and more suspicious by the day. But Katara had to admit that there was a big difference. Her treatment of him did not have to change, because she'd always treated him as if he was very suspicious. Before, he hadn't really earned it. Now, he had.

It felt different to distrust him for distinct reasons that she could name. It felt better, weirdly. How could it feel better to have a reason to distrust him? Katara remembered what Iroh had said about trust having to be earned. Maybe distrust had to be, too. Her suspicions made so much more sense to her and she no longer worried that she might be acting unfairly. That made a world of difference.

As she flew, she realized something else. Her suspicions had changed. She no longer worried about him being close to Aang, sitting right next to him in the saddle. She no longer worried so much about him using his firebending. The risk of him burning somebody hadn't changed, but…

But he had the instincts of a fugitive. That man, long ago, who would burn a young mother with a smirk on his face, dressed up in proud Fire Nation armor… She couldn't see Zuko that way anymore. The pride was gone, and the smirk. He didn't seem like he would do exactly the same things.

Katara bit her lip. What was he? A prince or a fugitive? A jerk or someone kind? His secrets were frustrating. The more she thought about them, the more she wanted to pry him open with a crowbar. He couldn't hide everything forever.

She bet he didn't like the nighttime for the same reasons she did. At night, her waterbending was stronger, it was colder, and the darkness made everything seem peaceful. The endless sun of summer was harsher, hurt her eyes, made everything less peaceful. He probably had his own reasons. They probably involved sneaking around. She'd have to keep an eye on him at the North Pole.

Katara realized she couldn't remember the last several minutes of scenery they had flown over, and she could vaguely remember flapping the reins to make Appa go faster. The scenery just wasn't interesting. She wasn't here to sightsee. She had work to do, and that work needed to be done at the North Pole.

So she hurried north, leaning forward, her eyes straining toward the horizon as if they would leap out and travel north ahead of her.