Day 1 Happenstance: n. coincidence

His feet drag through the snow as the flakes fall lightly onto his face. He tightens the wrap around his shoulders, shuddering from the cold.

Broadswords are strapped to his back, though they are about as useless as swimwear would be in wintertime.

His eyelids struggle to stay open as the wind starts to berate his face and sting his skin. Zuko can sense the frostbite creeping up his toes and fingers.

As Zuko continues to trudge through the tundra of the South Pole, he comes across penguins. His golden eyes stare as they pass. He wonders how good their meat is raw; his firebending isn't as strong as it should be in this weather.

Maybe the lack of sun is affecting him; maybe he is coming down with midsummer madness.

Zuko's feet lose traction on an ice slick, and he lands hard on his back. The snow bites through his clothes, but the numbness is welcomed as it calms the burning pain fire whips have left behind.

It hurts to stare at the sky though there is no sun. White flakes stick to his eyelashes as he tries to close his eyes but then forces them open with a sudden spark of determination.

From within, Zuko tries to call up his breath of fire, but all that comes out is a puff of smoke. His body still tingles from the cold, and his lips, almost to a shade of purple, turn down in a frown.

Chanting encouragements in his mind, Zuko forces himself to a wobbly stand. He yells at his feet to move; his voice echoes into the tundra, leaving him wondering if he does have a case of summer madness.

But his feet obey as he is left to keep plodding on.

Would Uncle have a proverb for this?

Zuko shakes his head, proverbs won't find him shelter.

A song might, though.

The thought forces him to stop, a song? Then his mind catches up to what his ears have been hearing all along.

The voice is of a spirit he thinks. The melody filters though his whole body, warming him up when his fire couldn't.

He starts running trying to find the source of this noise, of this beauty.

His feet fling snow behind him as he runs; the numbness starts to fade away from his mind.

He can hear lyrics now, not just the beautiful melody. Her voice coats him in a feeling of bliss that he doesn't realize he has closed his eyes.

Zuko realizes the darkness too late. When he opens his eyes, he is already stumbling into a ravine he can not see the bottom of.

The song cuts off the moment his feet leave the ground.

Is she a Siren spirit, her song leading him to death? It is the thought Zuko has as he starts to flail his arms aimlessly.

His back and head hits against the icy side of the ravine; his swords clink against his back digging into new wounds.

Zuko's first instinct is to look down. Chunks of ice from his impact with the wall fall from their original place and into the darkness below him. Zuko can't hear them hit the ground.

Gulping, Zuko looks up to see what had stopped his fall.

Who had stopped his fall, he mentally corrects.

With her snow covered gloves on, she has been practicing the art of waterbending. She has stopped the snow around her that she hasn't realized a miniature blizzard has sweeped in.

Letting the snow fall silently back to the ground, she freezes the water she had been bending with back into the ground. She decides it is a good time to head back to the comfort of her tribe.

Throughout her bending practice, she has been singing a song which had been her mother's lullaby.

She reaches the part in the song when she has to raise her voice to sing of the moon finding out she was in love with the sun.

Her mouth snaps closed when she sees a hunched stranger realize too late that he or she is headed into a ravine.

With a movement of her arms, she clears the snow away from her path, creating it easier for her feet to pound faster against the ground.

Her right hand stretches out in time to snatch his or her bare fingers before they disappear into the ravine.

His, she has finally decided the stranger is male, weight drags her dangerously close to the edge. She digs her feet into the snow, waterbending ice to incase them.

Her arms strain as she tries to keep the stranger steady.

If only he would help, she thinks.

When he lifts his head up, he is pleasantly surprised to see a pair of hands clutching onto his own. Zuko is too far below to see his savior's face.

He swings his body so his front is flush with the wall; his feet find crevices to hold onto as he starts to climb under the trembling grasp of his savior.

He eats snow when his body is parallel to the lovely snowy ground he has come to miss in the minutes of hanging in dead air. Zuko hears the panting of another human being, causing him to swallow the snow and flip over with a groan.

The sky is to painful to look at; he keeps his eyes shut.

"You better not have died. Not after I saved you."

His savior is female. Maybe she's pretty, Zuko thinks with a sly smile. Maybe you should stop thinking like a male and start thinking of survival, the sane part of him scolds back.

The only movement he has made so far was flipping himself onto his back and admitting a groan.

Now he is silent, and his eyes are closed. His breaths are shallow, and he doesn't have enough clothes on to survive the South Pole.

She thinks he must be crazy, but he looks in pain or, at least, in need of help.

She bends the falling snow away from him not wanting him to go into a cold sickness that was common in her tribe.

Like a curious child, she studies the foreign object in front of her.

His lips are a curious shade of purple. One of his cheeks is a rosy red; the other... the other...

She gasps; her lips part, letting her taste her the cold air on her tongue. She forcefully pulls off one of her gloves, not caring of the dangers of frostbite.

Her carmel fingers hover over a scar that mars half of his appearance. She leans her ear down to his chest, only satisfied when she hears a faint, but steady, heart beat.

He must be unconscious, which wasn't good, but at least he wouldn't be in pain.

Her blue eyes flicker back up to his face. His hair is a shaggy black mess that is littered with snow flakes. She flicks some long locks away from his face.

His scar goes into his hairline and wraps around his ear. This stranger must have been victim of a Fire Nation attack. How else could he have gotten a burn resulting in a scar when it had finished healing. She stares at his face, he couldn't have been older than nineteen, maybe twenty. He was no older than her brother.

"Who are you?" she whispers to the wind, to herself.

"Who are you?" The voice of the young man startles her.

His voice is deep and raspy, like he hasn't had water in weeks. Then again, maybe he hasn't.

"My name is Katara, lost one," she tells him kindly, brushing his hair away from his face.

He has yet to open his eyes.

"My tribe will help you. But we are still a few lengths away. Can you stand?"

"I-I think so. But it hurts to open my eyes."

"I'll help you stand."

She wraps an arm under his torso and helps him onto his feet. He leans heavily on her, and she notices his breathing is erratic. She has to get him to her tribe soon.

"I-I d-don't think I-I can-n wa-alk," he tries to whisper as his teeth chatter when a sudden gust of wind comes through.

She bites her lips. "We won't have to."

With a wave of her hand, they are both standing on a flat, ice harden board. Katara pushes off with her left foot, sending them sliding them away from the ravine and to her tribe.

His head lollies on her shoulder. He doesn't know what she is doing, or how she is doing it. The only thing Zuko is conscious of is the feeling of wind nipping at his skin.

As if by happenstance, he believes this girl is here to save him from more than just a fall of the physical kind.