disclaimer. fun fact: aujuittuq is actually an inuit village with the northernmost population in canada and literally means "the place that never melts" in the inuktitut language.

author's notes. i'm always so touched by your enthusiasm, it really means so much that you continue to show up even when i do unspeakable and unforgivable things like the entirety of last chapter.

on an unrelated and unfortunately grimmer note. i'm a fairly private person and don't usually hijack these notes for personal news but in this case i felt i had to make an exception. i was recently diagnosed with cancer and now find myself with a long and harrowing journey ahead of me. i want to make it clear that writing this has always been my number one passion and escape. i haven't allowed life to get in the way of it so far, and i plan to keep it that way. but in a time of global pandemic where we are all isolated from each other, i have to go through this experience cut off from my village. so my one request to you, dear readers, is if there is any positive energy or encouragement you could take the time to share with me, that would go a long way in supporting this girl through a really difficult and lonely time.

much love to aangsslut as always for beta-reading and being generally awesome.

i give you...

southern lights

chapter xxxvii. the gates of winter

they are born to kill and to be free
their life is hard, which is meant to be
the cry of the wild is the only way they can see

"wolves don't live by the rules"/ willie thrasher

The afternoon sunlight slants through the cracks in the red velvet drapes drawn tight against the windows, illuminating the faint swirls of dust mites. Their careless dance a far cry from the oppressive silence blanketing the small room crammed tight with an oversized low table, and too many people kneeling around it, trying to focus on the giant parchment map unfurled on its surface. A fire crackles in the hearth, its heat sweltering in the airless space.

Immediately in front of the long table sits the empty, ornately carved throne, overlarge and almost silly in the cramped room. But in spite of the grime and fingerprints left from its hasty transport from the wreckage of the throne room, it still glints malevolently.

In her corner, sweating under her crimson finery, Mai sits so perfectly still that everyone else in the room all but forgets about her presence. Just as her mother had taught her.

The low drone of crickethoppers in the distance punctuates the uneasy whispers of the men poring over the large map. Azula sits among them, at the foot of the oversized empty throne. Unlike everyone else, she is markedly silent as she studies the various coloured markers positioned along the drawn ink lines. To the untrained eye, she would appear regally impassive. But Mai recognizes the flare of her nostrils, the hard set of her mouth, the way her fingertips dig into the silk pooling in her lap...

She's furious.

Then suddenly a pair of reedy voices announce from outside the door, "All bow before His Radiance, Emperor of all the land, Phoenix King Ozai!"

That's an awful lot of pomp for a king who can barely walk unassisted, Mai can't help but think dryly to herself as Ozai slumps into his throne and waves his attendants away with a feeble motion. When did he have the time to acquire all those new titles?

"Well," the self-declared Phoenix King says hoarsely. "My faithful war cabinet. How assuring to know that even in my absence, you have not been sitting idle." He smiles before choking abruptly. His entire body doubles over, racked by a coughing fit.

Azula stirs in concern. "Father, perhaps the healers should take another look at you -"

He raises a hand to cut her off. Panting, he struggles upright. Even in the golden light, his face appears clammy and pale. "Tell me," he rasps, the words clawing out of his throat, "tell me of our victory at the Air Temples."

Zhao puffs out his chest even as Azula's eyes flash dangerously. "We deployed the experimental war balloons constructed by War Minister Qin," he explains proudly. "They successfully evened the battleground between us and those overproud Air Nomads."

"War balloons?" The corners of Ozai's mouth curl upward. "Ingenious. War Minister Qin, where did you come up with these?"

The former Interior Minister bobs his head nervously. A quivering slip of a man, Mai thinks privately, who appeared more distraught than honoured to have contributed to the war effort at all. "Our counterparts across the sea," he all but squeaks. "They supplied the designs. I merely ordered their construction."

Ozai chuckles softly. "No doubt the Dai Li are still squatting in their factories, trying to get their own prototypes off the ground. But they are no match for the machine of our industries, the drive of our people. And what a resounding success, to have finally defeated the Air Nomads in their home territory! Sozin himself could not have done so."

"This is a great victory for us," Zhao speaks up again, pointing to the white markers on the map. "By striking aggressively, we have put your brother's forces on the defensive. There is no shelter for them, no rest. We have doomed them to scurrying for their lives, like a flock of vole-mice seeking a safe hole to burrow in."

Snatches of laughter echo around the table. Azula's face remains impassive, but her eyes narrow slightly.

"Excellent," Ozai breathes. "You have done me great service. The great, proud Iroh, fleeing for his life. My perfect older brother Iroh, finally humbled." The flickering firelight reflects in his eyes, dancing madly. "What I would give to have him finally under my heel. To see the hope fade from his eyes."

"Zhao," Azula speaks up suddenly. "How large a force accompanies my uncle?"

A smirk flits across Zhao's face. "Six ships," he answers with a snort. "Only six ships, limping from shore to shore -"

"How large a force accompanies my uncle now?" Azula interrupts impatiently. "If you must report numbers, Commander, at least make sure they are up to date."

Zhao blinks, caught off guard. "Well, Princess -"

"By all accounts, six ships reached the Patola mountain range." Azula plucks a single yellow marker from a cluster at the edge of the map and turns it slowly between her clawed fingers. "How many left after your heroic attack on the Southern Air Temple?"

A line appears in Zhao's forehead. "Six," he answers stiffly, "and we leveled the temple off the mountaintop! And of all the defenders, we left none alive."

"So you did," Azula allows, sweeping half the yellow pieces off the map with the back of her hand. "What of the survivors?"

Zhao's smile strains at the corners. "I don't understand -"

"The survivors, Zhao," Azula repeats, the downward slash of her mouth mirroring the expression now slowly spreading across her father's face. "The Air Nomads who fled the wreckage of the Southern Air Temple before the battle. The Air Nomads who united with their brethren from the remaining three corners of the world. How many of them remain?"

"I -"

"Five hundred," Azula cuts him off softly, sliding the remaining yellow markers across the map to join with the white ones in a slowly deliberate motion. "Five hundred Air Nomads and their sky bison have also joined my uncle's forces, in the wake of your attack."

Zhao clenches his jaw as Azula continues to move pieces across the map, until at last a sizable cluster of yellow surrounds the small white marker. "Is this the victory you claim to have won in my father's name, Commander?"

"With all due respect, Princess," Zhao begins angrily, a vein pulsing visibly in his temple, "you made your position clear at our last meeting. You were against engaging with your uncle's forces at all. But as anyone with actual military experience will tell you, this is a tactical victory. We have sent a warning to all who would support him of the fate that will befall them if they cross us -"

"Commander Zhao," Azula interrupts, her voice sweet as honey, "I may not have as much military experience as you, but indulge me. If our enemies have left this battle with a greater number of forces than they entered, then how can this be considered a victory? Tactical or otherwise?"

"It doesn't matter. We struck fear in your uncle's heart, cut him off from all quarters and shelter." Zhao points to the map with a shaking finger. "He has only one place left to go."

"The Northern Water Tribe," spindly General Bujing agrees, as Azula slides the cluster of white and yellow markers toward the top of the map. "Our scouts report that Iroh's army heads north, with greater speed than we can hope to intercept -"

"Because they have gained sky power now," Azula concludes in a cutting voice. "Which will make attacking six ships all the more difficult. To say nothing of once they reach the North Pole."

"My daughter speaks with the wisdom of a seasoned tactician," Ozai breathes and Azula instantly brightens. "How would you propose to continue this fight, Zhao?"

The commander flounders under the unexpected scrutiny, but squares his shoulders resolutely. "Your Radiance, we have come too far to turn back now! So they have fled up north - let us follow them! We have naval and air power and plenty of it, I might add. Why hesitate? We can assemble a force greater than the world has ever seen and bring the fight to them."

Ozai nods slowly, considering Zhao's words with something like amusement. "Azula?"

Azula swallows before speaking. Mai watches her knuckles turn white, the knots under her skin straining visible and tense. "The North Pole is rugged and inhospitable territory," she says with hard-won steadiness, even as her nails dig into her trembling palms. "The Northerners know their land well, and they will control both sea and sky. It is a long journey north, and even if our forces do not deplete their strength long before they arrive, Commander Zhao has also forgotten one more thing." She taps at the top of the map, where the cluster of white and yellow lie in wait. "It is the heart of polar winter. They say entire days pass by in complete darkness up there. We draw our power from the sun. I would be fascinated to hear how Commander Zhao proposes to achieve yet another one of his tactical victories while readily giving his enemies such advantages over himself."

"Oh, don't worry, Your Highness," Zhao waves off Azula's concerns with a hearty chortle. "If firebenders draw their power from the sun, then the waterbenders similarly rely upon the moon." He smiles wolfishly, relishing some private joke that Mai doesn't quite grasp. "As your humble servant, I advise you to focus your considerable wisdom on governing, Your Highness. Leave the military tactics with the officers who have real experience under their belts."

"Well said, Commander Zhao." Ozai claps his hands together. "Your fighting spirit is exactly what our nation needs." He pushes to his feet unsteadily, heedless of the way Azula's face blanches at his proclamation. "As a reward, I entrust you with command of the entire fleet. May you lead them up north and deliver us the greatest military victory history will ever see."

"Father." Azula's voice is tight again as Zhao kowtows to the ground before Ozai's feet in gratitude. "With all due respect, Commander Zhao was promoted to his station only recently. Perhaps someone with more naval experience should be given command, like Admiral Chan -"

"Azula." Ozai's quiet voice lashes like a whip. "My word is final, a law unto itself. It will not be swayed. Certainly not by the will of an unseasoned girl."

It seems to Mai that he might as well have struck an open blow to Azula's face. She closes her mouth instantly, the muscle in her jaw clenching as her father turns back to Zhao. "I give you leave to muster all our forces at once. May Agni smile upon your journey...Admiral Zhao."

His attendants swarm back to his side with some unseen signal. With no small amount of fanfare, he sweeps out of the tiny councilroom.

"Well, Princess," Mai hears Zhao say as he gets to his feet. "I'll take my leave. You'll be hearing about my great victory any day now. I expect your presence to grace my welcome parade when I return."

"That would be a feat indeed," Azula says coldly, her golden eyes fixated intensely on the set of the pieces upon the map. "You were quick enough to dismiss my cautions out of hand. But when you are closed in at the ends of the earth, cut off from your supply lines and the sun itself, with your enemies drawing power from the long lonely nights, perhaps you will remember the misgivings of this...unseasoned girl."

Zhao tips his head in a show of acquiescence. "Surely His Majesty didn't mean it as a slight. But destiny is at hand. And I have known for quite some time that it would be mine to bring the proud Northern Water Tribe under our heel, once and for all."

Azula stares down her nose at him suspiciously. "You sound particularly confident about that, Zhao. It's almost as though you've kept something to yourself. What secret are you withholding from us, I wonder?"

Zhao's smirk widens into a bloodless, self-satisfied smile. "Well, knowledge is power, Princess. I see you understand that in theory, even if there have been few opportunities for you to practice it."

Mai's blood runs cold at the dangerous glint in Azula's eyes as Zhao continues loftily. "As for polar night...make no mistake, by the end of my time there, the dawn will come again. But not for our enemies." His teeth flash in a predator's gloating grin. "There will be no end to the darkness that awaits the Northern Water Tribe by the time I am through with them."

It seems to Mai that even Azula didn't know how to respond to the man's chilling promise. He's either delusional or a genius or some combination of the two.

"Hm," Azula sighs finally, her face drawn into an expressionless mask. "Let's hope it produces more impressive results than your last tactical victory, then."

Zhao's teeth grind together audibly.

Azula turns away from him haughtily, already preoccupying herself again with the set of the pieces on the map. "Oh, and Zhao? Send my regards to my traitor of an uncle and pitiful excuse for a brother when you see them next."

Zhao nods stiffly before turning on his heel and storming out of the room.

Mai silently rises to her feet and makes her way over to Azula as the crowd around the table disperses. "What a piece of work," she says lightly, as Azula picks up a single red piece on the southwestern edge of the map and squeezes it tightly between shaking fingers.

"Unseasoned," Azula hisses under her breath, clenching her fist so tightly the red piece in her hand begins to warp. "He wants seasoned, I'll show him seasoned. He can't treat me like Zuko. I will make Father proud of me."

Unbidden, a pang of pity flares in Mai's gut as Azula replaces the red marker back onto the board with shaking fingers. The piece is deformed at the edges, crushed under the weight of an invisible pressure.

She opens her mouth to say something but is interrupted by another arrival.

"My princess. Your Highness." Admiral Chan bows on one knee behind Azula, his mailed fist pressed into the palm of his other hand. "May I have a word?"

Azula doesn't even look at him, her gaze focused intently on the map with all its pieces. But Chan continues, his voice rushed and low. "It has been near a fortnight since I saw my son, Your Highness. I - I would happily do anything in my power to ensure his safe return home, Princess."

"Yes, you've said so before, Chan," Azula answers dismissively, without looking up. "Countless times."

The Admiral's body stiffens with ill-controlled desperation. "We will be sailing north soon. Zhao leads us, but with respect, it sounds like you have your own suspicions about how reliable the man can be."

Azula goes very still, a coiled spring waiting to unleash. "The emperor has spoken, Chan. Zhao leads the invasion of the north."

"A fool's errand," Admiral Chan says so softly Mai wonders if she imagines his words. "You recognize it as much as we do."

"There is no we," Azula snaps, finally turning around to face the Admiral bent on his knees at her feet. "There is only the will of the emperor, and those who would oppose it. One more word, Admiral Chan, and I will have that traitorous tongue ripped from your mouth."

The Admiral flinches under Azula's wrath but holds his ground. "If I sail north at Zhao's side and keep his worst impulses reined in," he breathes desperately, outstretching his hands, "would that be enough to satisfy you, Princess? To do my part in ensuring a decisive victory over your uncle's growing alliance...Would that be enough to free my son?"

Azula shrugs. "Perhaps."

"Perhaps?" Admiral Chan repeats incredulously, his clear face beginning to mottle. "What else would you have of me? When will you release my son, Your Highness?"

"When I am satisfied by what I have seen from the House of Chan, and you," Azula answers, with a sniff. "You are dismissed."

"But -"

"Dismissed, Admiral!" Azula whirls on him, the air around her seeming to positively crackle. A few of her hairs flutter out of place, dislodged from her pristine topknot. "Unless you would prefer to be reunited with your son in a far less honourable fashion."

And without a further word, she sweeps out of the room. Admiral Chan shakes his head and follows, muttering darkly under his breath.

At last, Mai remembers to breathe again.

Carefully avoiding the sight of her father's companions or anyone else important, she picks her way through the palace estate and back home, an uncharacteristic flood of panic welling inside her.

So Ozai's recovering from his injuries enough to start calling the shots again. And despite being outranked on the war cabinet, Zhao seems to be leading all the military decisions.

Not that Mai particularly cared. Decision-making and politics remained the same drudging bore as ever. But when the cabinet was being run by madmen supporting madmen, and all logical voices were being pushed to the side, Mai could no longer pretend to be bored by it.

War Minister Qin, so obviously uncomfortable with his role in decimating the Air Temple. Admiral Chan, who just wanted his son safe at home. Even Azula, her father's most terrifying right hand, had recognized the folly of pursuing Iroh's fleet.

But Ozai's ambitions could only be satisfied with blood and Zhao was willing to give it to him, no matter the cost. And everyone else could only be silenced or hold their tongues and look the other way.

Even Mai's own father had said nothing. He only sat at his place at the table, so silent he might have been invisible. A trait that Mai inherited all too well, spent a lifetime honing until here she stands, her father's perfect shadow. Content to walk like him, talk like him, climb like him.

Even think like him.

Now he would remain at his post, content with his cosseted existence behind the walls of the palace while consigning thousands of their countrymen to leave their homes and sail to the ends of the world. And for what? A chance to defeat the disgraced General Iroh and his men, when they were already so defeated that they needed to seek refuge in the most inhospitable place in the world to escape their wrath.

And Mai had sat so silently, watching the war cabinet plot to invade the north with as much force as they saw fit. General Iroh's fleet, mostly comprised of the soldiers she'd grown up with. She had never thought of them as friends, but she'd known them, experienced the world outside the capital with them.

For all that she'd derided General Iroh's soft touch to ruling, she never wanted the fate for him that Ozai and Azula seemed to want. And Zuko, he was in danger too - he needs to know -

Barricading herself in her father's study, Mai tries not to think of Azula as she sits at his desk and writes the first words of her treason with shining black ink onto fresh parchment.

Zuko,

I'm probably the last person you'd expect to hear from. I'm risking a lot writing to you like this, but I can't put this off any longer. You're in great danger.

All of you.

The cold smites with the blow of a thousand fists.

By the time the Northern Water Tribe materializes out of the eternal darkness as faint bands of white on the horizon, the sharp arctic air has gathered like a leaden weight in Zuko's chest until it feels as though his heart has been all but consumed by the growing icy mass. He coughs and buries his face into the woefully inadequate velvet cloaks that have grown stiff in the icy air, his entire body gripped in the kind of agony reminiscent of being burned alive - a sort of frozen fire that tore away mercilessly until only scars and bones remained.

"You just have to breathe through it," Aang had explained earlier, infuriatingly calm while the rest of them bundled up under layers of every scrap of clothing they could find. "Warm clothes and cold air are all just an illusion. Only your inner spirit is real."

"Twinkletoes, you're one word away from getting your inner spirit shoved overboard," Toph had grumbled in response, her skin tinged blue in the grey half-light.

Even Katara shivered relentlessly. Throughout the journey, she had been huddled with Toph underneath a pile of blankets for shared warmth, muttering to herself about being away longer than I thought. A part of him wishes she would sit by him instead of Toph. Maybe the touch of her body would do a better job of warming them than Aang's silly breathing tricks had. But he remembers the last conversation they had alone together, in the waterfall behind the Northern Air Temple, and so with a heavy sigh heaved through clenched, chattering teeth, he keeps his distance.

Now, though, there's nothing but unbridled joy at the white walls growing more monolithic by the moment. "The walls of the North Pole – we made it!"

"Hooray," Toph grunts without enthusiasm. "I hope it's warmer down there than it is up here, or I might just ask you to end my misery now. Quit while we're ahead."

"It's so big," Katara continues, her face scrunching up as she squints ahead. "I'd heard the North Pole was bigger than the South, but how did they manage to rebuild like that after the wars...?" She trails off, crawling to the front of the saddle, right behind where Aang sits atop Appa's head.

Toph huffs loudly, tugging the blankets tighter around herself to block out the cold. "Maybe Sparky's dad realized it wasn't worth sailing all the way to the ends of the earth just to stick it to you guys anymore."

Katara tosses her a glare that could peel flesh from bone. She opens her mouth to say something nasty in response but a sharp whistling sound cuts her off.

A large chunk of ice hurtles toward them. Zuko's instincts leap to action even as his frozen limbs struggle to catch up. Fire glows half-heartedly at his fingertips by the time Appa swerves out of the way.

The ice arcs over their heads. Pinpricks of shocking cold scatter down on them like a light rainfall.

"Wh - what was that?" he croaks through chattering teeth. He swivels around as the ice cuts through the air and crashes back into the waves roiling far below them.

"Looks like we have incoming!" Aang shouts, grabbing tightly at the sky bison's reins. Appa groans in protest as a barrage of ice chunks fly in their direction, before he plummets downward to evade the incoming salvo.

Zuko can barely hang on to the side of the saddle for dear life as gravity threatens to lift them all clear of its leathery surface. At its head, Katara struggles to find her footing as they descend to near the level of the cold polar waters.

With a twist of her outstretched wrists, the incoming ice missiles turn to streams of water, looping gracefully in a shining curtain before tumbling harmlessly back into the sea and forming a thick ice float, a smooth platform rising high enough above the surface for Appa to land on safely.

Zuko slumps with the impact of Appa's landing. He rubs his hands together, trying with no avail to find some spark of warmth left in him.

Something like the sound of drumbeats pounds in his ears. At first he thinks it's just the roar of his blood, but as he looks up in the distance, he spots four narrow longboats cutting across the water's surface with unnatural speed. The walls of the Northern Water Tribe loom stark and white behind them.

A cracking sound of the world splitting beneath them fills the air. Appa bounds back into the air with a roar of surprise and a slap of his flat tail. But the water churning beneath them rises more quickly, massive tidal waves surrounding them on all sides and swelling to their crests high overhead.

Then it comes crashing toward them with the unrestrained might of the furious sea. Zuko buries his head in his arms as the roar of the water drowns out every other sound.

As abruptly as the chaos started, everything suddenly turns still and chillingly silent.

Zuko peers upward, still bracing for impact. To his confusion, the cold dark swirl of water that envelopes them is now frozen solid, trapping them in the hollow of its icy depths. A sudden movement in the corner of his eye catches all of his attention.

Katara leaps to her feet. Before Zuko can say anything, or even think for that matter, the thick layers of ice trapping them explode.

Through the deafening commotion, he is still able to hear the distant cries of shock as chunks of ice punch the water's surface in an angry barrage. A grim slash of Katara's wrists reforms the float beneath them as Appa lands unsteadily with a relieved thump.

Then she jumps down from the saddle, landing cleanly on the ice. With a push of her arms that looked deceptively effortless in the half-light, the roiling water surrounding them goes dangerously still before carrying the four incoming boats back on a cresting wave.

"Stop!" someone cries in the distance - a man's voice. The boats flounder as the water slaps hollowly against their hulls. "Hold the attacks! There's a waterbender with them, can't you see?"

The boats bob along the water's surface as they limp forward, drawing close enough for Zuko to perceive the dozen or so men aboard each, hooded and bundled up in shaggy bulky layers that instantly fill him with envy. A man at the head of the foremost boat pushes back a fur-lined hood, staring at them in awe.

"A woman?" Zuko hears him say, his voice thick with confusion. A swell of murmuring from the boats rises and falls like the cold iron water sucking at the edge of the ice.

Then the water's surface freezes over, trapping the boats where they wait as Katara stalks to the edge of the ice. The arctic wind roars and whips her hair around her face like a strange dark halo.

"That's right," she calls back, her voice shaking with a newfound strength that makes Zuko's hair stand on end. "I'm the last waterbender to survive the war." She pauses and an edge enters her voice, as unexpectedly sharp as the ice cracking under the weight of the boat hulls. "From the Southern Water Tribe, at least."

Now the murmurings turn into a low angry buzz. Zuko is reminded of the hummingbees that clustered along the fire lilies lining the gardens back home.

From the depths of her blanket cocoon, Toph scowls in the direction of the boats. "Those guys sound awfully confused by the concept of a woman bending. I hope they're not all simple."

"I think there's more going on here that we don't understand," Zuko says cautiously, suddenly remembering a discussion from a lifetime ago, back in his uncle's pavilion over a cup of tea and a game of pai sho. "The Northern Water Tribe might be sister to the South, but they did things very differently."

Then the man at the head of the longboat straightens. "I am Atanek of Tunerk," he calls out, outstretching his hands to gesture at the silent men surrounding him and on the vessels nearby. "And these are some of our tribe's finest warriors. You must understand that the times are perilous...but no matter. It is our honour to receive you and your…" he peers dubiously at the six-legged sky bison towering behind her and the pathetic shivering strangers perched on its saddle, "...companions, Katara, daughter of Hakoda."

Katara starts, taken aback. "You know who I am?"

"Your reputation precedes you," the man, Atanek, answers simply. "And so did your brother."

Katara's back is to Zuko, but he perceives her crumple slightly, as though the words had struck her squarely in the chest. "Sokka," she says breathlessly. "Yes. He - he was here, some time ago..."

Somewhere in the distance, Zuko perceives the buzzing from the boats recede to a ringing silence at the mention of Katara's brother's name. A feeling of foreboding trickles like ice water inexplicably down his spine.

"He was," Atanek answers at length, and Zuko notices the men around him exchange glances with each other suspiciously. His face twists into a scowl as the Water Tribesman continues in measured tones. "Regrettably, he left us to pursue some...other endeavours."

Now it is Katara's turn to go very still, as though carved from the ice itself. "I see."

"Hopefully you will stay with us longer," Atanek cuts in smoothly, comfortably oblivious to the strange tension gripping everyone like the icy bite of the wind. "In times such as these, we in the Tribes must protect our own."

Katara remains quiet for so long, Zuko wonders if she's heard him at all. Somehow, he gets the sense that she's thinking very hard about something. He wonders how much of it had to do with the mysterious disappearance of her brother, and the way the Northern Tribesman had seemingly waved it off without another thought.

"Chief Arnook and the rest of his band chiefs will be pleased to welcome another of our sisters from the south," Atanek continues as Katara's silence gathers weight, seeming to press down on everyone like a cudgel. "We were fortunate enough to evade the brunt of the polar wars. Many of your Southern brethren were able to rebuild their lives here in the North with us, far from the Empire's reach."

As though to punctuate his sentence, the man casts a pointed glance at Zuko and his golden crown, glimmering bright as a flame dancing on the lifeless grey water.

"The Empire is partly why I'm here," Katara says finally, before swallowing hard. "But I also wanted to come home." She hangs her head, her arms crossing across her chest protectively. "I'm so tired of fighting…"

The men on the boats exchange more surreptitious glances with each other. For some reason, it fills Zuko with rage, his temper flaring hot enough to momentarily forget the unforgiving cold.

"Well, you've come to the right place, Katara," Atanek tells her gently. "Here in the Northern Water Tribe, you will never have to fight again. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Toph's face twists into a scowl. "That sounds like some patronizing bullshit right there," she complains darkly.

"I wonder if Katara sees it that way," Aang answers uncertainly. "After all she's been through, doesn't she deserve a break?"

"I guess. But this guy just seems sketchy, even though he talks all pretty," Toph mutters before she shudders and digs deeper into her pile of blankets. Her voice rises up in a small thread. "He reminds me of my dad."

Zuko's eyes narrow as Katara clears her throat and continues. "But the fight isn't over. Civil war is tearing the Empire apart. Whatever is left of the Empire's forces that are united against Ozai is following us, and they will be here soon -"

Atanek raises a hand, cutting Katara off. "Who is that accompanying you? He's from the Fire Nation, no doubt."

Zuko vaults off Appa's back, landing heavily on the ice behind Katara. As he brushes off his knees and straightens, he swears he sees the men on the boats recoil at the sight of him.

Katara gestures at him to join her. "This is Prince Zuko."

A rush of air, like a collective gasp of horror, fills the air alongside the groan of the boat hulls rocking in the water.

"Ozai's firstborn son?" someone asks incredulously.

Zuko straightens to his full height, as the chill wind unfurls his cloak and threatens to tease his hair out of its crown. "Yes. But I am my uncle's heir now, in the wake of -" He clears his throat as it closes up dangerously, and presses on. "Katara spoke the truth. We are trying to build a force to rise against my f - against Ozai, and we need your help in achieving this."

Out of the corner of his eye, Katara's lip curls upward, as though fighting a smile.

Atanek is the first to regain his voice. "It seems there is much for us to discuss. Are more of your kind to arrive on our shores?"

Zuko nods curtly. "Yes. We four flew ahead. But my uncle is coming, with a host of some ships and most of the Air Nomads who survived the attacks. They will be here by nightfall."

"Air Nomads?" A puzzled look crosses Atanek's face. "United with Iroh, the Dragon of the West? These are perilous times indeed." He turns to his men and barks commands at them in a sharp tongue that Zuko doesn't recognize. But as he glances at Katara, he is surprised to see her mouth drop, understanding dawning in her eyes.

"What's he saying?" he whispers suspiciously under his breath.

She shakes her head from where she'd been staring transfixed at the men on the boats. "He's telling them to take us into the city while the rest of them wait -" Her voice breaks off and she shakes her head. "Sorry. I'm really rusty. I haven't heard my language in such a long time…" She dabs at the corner of her eyes, which have misted over unexpectedly. "I thought I'd forgotten it."

Every part of him longs to take her mittened hand in his, right then and there. Instead, he shoves his hands under his armpits and kicks aimlessly at the ice, scuffing its shiny surface.

Finally, Atanek turns to them. "We have stationed our patrols to receive the rest of your company and bring them to host within our walls." To Zuko's surprise the man meets his eyes directly as he motions for them to follow. "But it is half a day's journey to Aujuittuq, and Chief Arnook will want to speak with you and your uncle directly."

"Where?" Zuko asks bluntly in his surprise.

"The capital," Katara hisses back, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow. "Our places have names too, you know."

"Oh. Right." Zuko blinks, at once feeling incredibly foolish. Blood rushes to his face as he bows his head. "Thank you. I'm honoured by your…hospitality."

Atanek smiles then, a thin smile that didn't reach his ice-coloured eyes. "Come. It is warmer inside."

The great white walls of the north loom behind him in wait.

As they follow one of the longboats to the shore on Appa's back, it strikes Zuko that he wasn't exactly sure what he'd been expecting to find up in the Northern Water Tribe. Maybe some desolate stretches of sparse tundra, a few settlements scattered in their midst. A stark, meager existence carved out at the ends of the earth, in defiance of his father's attempts to quash it out permanently.

But when he faces the walls of the north only to find them almost equal in height and grandeur to the Great Gates of Azulon guarding the southern sea, he finds himself shrinking in awe.

"They're huge," he hears himself say uselessly as the doors lower, allowing them passage into the locks.

Once they pass behind the walls and wait patiently for the filling water to raise them to the level of the canals leading inland, it seems to Zuko that it felt slightly warmer. Perhaps it was that they were mostly sheltered from the biting wind. Or more importantly, perhaps it was the blessedly thick blue fur-lined parkas the men in the boat guiding them ashore heaped upon them once they made landfall.

"Surely it can't be too cold up here for a firebender?" Atanek asks, smirking as he hands Zuko a third parka.

Zuko doesn't bother replying. The sting to his pride was insubstantial next to the cold of polar winter. Instead, he pulls it on over top of the two parkas he already has layered over his crimson velvets, not caring for how ridiculous he must look, and sighs with relief as sensation finally starts to return to his frozen skin.

A few paces away, Katara finishes buttoning up her parka and steps back, peering at her reflection in the stirring waters with too-bright eyes and cheeks flushed from the cold. The bulky winter garb somehow fit her better than any of the crimson Fire Empire uniforms ever did. A strange feeling rattles through him, the sense of never seeing her as she truly was until this instant, wild and free, surrounded by snow and sea, clad in the blue-and-white furs of her people.

And the sense of her never feeling further out of reach, as though the ice beneath her could break off at any moment and she would drift with the current of the water as it carried her back to her land, further away from him with every passing heartbeat...

Behind him, Toph was having a different problem. "How am I supposed to see with all this snow?" she demands, stomping her feet petulantly as she rounds on Aang. "Where the fuck did you bring us, Twinkletoes?"

Aang, declining the offers of sensible warm clothing, rubs the back of his neck and laughs nervously.

Then Atanek waves them onto another boat, bigger and flatter, meant for shallower waters.

Zuko scowls at the handful of Tribesmen seated on the boat already. Up close, he realizes they are all far younger than he initially thought, but still watching him with suspicious eyes. Feeling very much like he would have vastly preferred to stay on Appa's back, he sinks into the vacant seat next to Katara, careful to leave enough space between them to quell any idle talk.

Not that they needed his help.

"...no way she could stop all of us," grumbles one, with a milky complexion and feathers woven through the thin braids in his hair. "We just didn't expect there to be a waterbender with them. Even a weak one."

"What're you going to do? Go crying to Hahn again?" snorts another, a tall gangly fellow leaning against the side of the boat. "Tartok's just pissed he lost to a girl."

"Well, if I'd been serious, she wouldn't stand a chance," insists a bulky guy with a serrated tooth dangling in his ear. "All of us. Even Sangilak got caught off guard, and that never happens! Right Sangilak?"

A veritable mountain of a man with a warrior's brawny build and a half-shaven head simply grunts noncommittally.

"I'll bet we could all take her," continues the guy with the tooth earring, before he smirks. "But that would be beneath us, wouldn't it?"

"Says the guy who's only next in line for the chieftain's seat because his cousin's a girl," scoffs the gangly one, adjusting his sealskin belt. "You'd better be glad Bunik's a healer because I'm not convinced she wouldn't kick your butt otherwise."

"Shut up, Bastard."

"Go suck an iceberg, Unnuk."

Then Atanek jumps into the head of the boat and all the bickering halts immediately. At a nod from him, the men at the rear of the boat sweep into a waterbending stance in unison, propelling their vessel further inland.

True to Atanek's word, the journey to Aujuittuq spans half a day's length. In an attempt to stave off the cold and hunger that have begun to gnaw away at his insides, Zuko turns his attention to the settlements carved into the ice and all the people occupying them.

Huddled behind walls and watchtowers carved into the ice, clouds of smoke rise from clusters of simple structures, pitched from snow and deep-dyed cloth. People dressed in the shaggy furs of the Water Tribes mill about their business, tiny figures in the distance. Hauling buckets of water, traversing between the simple tents, perched atop the defenses with spears and shields in perpetual vigil.

It reminds Zuko of the numerous small villages strewn about the Fire Nation homeland. A humble existence for humble people of humble origins. They resembled more of what he expected to find in the aftermath of the polar wars. And as their boat sails further inland and the lines on Katara's face deepen, he wonders if she feels the same way.

As though reading his thoughts, she finally speaks out loud. "I'd heard the North had evaded the brunt of the polar wars. But Sivusiktok was far more developed than anything I've seen here."

"Sivu - what?" Aang asks.

Katara sighs impatiently. "The village I grew up in, Aang. We didn't really have a formal power structure like the North did, but we were the closest to a capital that the Southern Water Tribe had."

"Ah yes, we had heard that Sivusiktok was quite ahead of its time...for a village in the South," Atanek replies earnestly. Faint titters of laughter echo from behind them and Zuko watches Katara's mittened hands slowly curl into fists. "But over here, we have cities. You'll see."

And they did see, not too long thereafter, as the riverbend curved in on itself and the land beyond suddenly dropped away in sharp cliffs, and in the night-darkened valley below, the great city sprawled like a carpet of glittering gems.

"Welcome," Atanek announces amid the collective gasp of awe, "to Aujuittuq."

It took another long while for the curve of the river to bring them to another lock that gently lowers them to the bottom of the giant basin hollowed into the great arctic plane, so deep into the ground that Zuko can feel the heat of the earth rising up from beneath the water's surface. He marvels at the city with its structures of unyielding ice towering higher than the buildings in Caldera City, twinkling with candlelight and phosphorescent stone like it was carved from crystals.

"This is unbelievable," he breathes, slumping back in the narrow longboat as it cuts through the narrow canals crisscrossing throughout the city.

Even Katara is hunched forward in her seat, her widened eyes drinking in the majestic city from the elaborately carved spires of its tallest towers to the pristine undisturbed sheen of the bridges arching across the canals. "It is unbelievable," she mutters to herself with a slight frown. "How could they rebuild so quickly when our tribe was completely destroyed?"

By the time their longboat docks in the harbour, the sky overhead has darkened to an inky black and the only light comes from the glow of the white ice from which the city was carved.

Zuko wishes he had about a dozen more pairs of eyes as they are ushered through the grand avenue and into a huge manse hewn from the ice, glittering like everything else in the unearthly city. Atanek drops them off in a homely sort of room where they are fed an assortment of strange dishes that Zuko has never seen before.

"Stewed sea prunes!" Katara exclaims delightedly as he gingerly tries a spoonful of it. She closes her eyes, savouring every bite as she chews happily. "I haven't had this in so long. Is there any five-flavour soup, by any chance?"

The elderly woman waiting on them smiles kindly at her before spooning a thick brown mush in Katara's bowl, where it bubbles and gloops loudly.

At length, Atanek returns. "The band chiefs and General Iroh's party are all gathered. Follow me."

They fall in line behind him, as Atanek leads them into the band chiefs' hall.

Zuko cranes his neck upward to stare at the ceiling, soaring high overhead and decorated with pillars hewn in the shape of different characters from what he assumed were the local stories. Streams of water cascade down from holes in the back wall, pooling into a moat that wrapped around the perimeter of the hall. The ice beneath their feet was smoothed and cut into what resembled crystalline tiles, the walls etched with glowing stones set into sconces that cast the entire place in shades of glowing blue and green, making Zuko feel like they have wandered into some sort of secret underwater grotto.

A raised dais sits at the head of the hall, not unlike in the throne room back in Caldera. Except instead of dragon reliefs etched into the wall, the rush of cascading water frames the people seated atop the platform.

Zuko squints at the handful of simple chairs lined neatly in a row atop the dais. Each was occupied by a different man heavily bedecked in furs and strange ornaments woven from a litter of trinkets: a carved stone, an animal's sharp teeth, here and there a fluffy feather…

As they draw nearer, Zuko sees that they are not alone. True to Atanek's word, he spies his uncle and nearly two dozen of his company standing before the band chiefs, barely recognizable clad as they were in bulky layers of blue furs. Only the handful of Air Nomads were immediately visible, seemingly unbothered by the bitter cold in their bright airy robes.

"Uncle!" he calls out, as Atanek leaves them and climbs into an empty seat on the raised dais that apparently belonged to him. Zuko wonders briefly if, as one of the band chiefs, that made Atanek any more or less dangerous.

His uncle gives him a small smile before turning back to face the chiefs. His expression instantly turns intent, as though he were engrossed in a particularly challenging game of pai sho and devising a new strategy on the fly.

The somber man seated in the middle of the dais leans forward with a frown. "General Iroh. Dragon of the West," he intones, steepling his fingers together. "I did not imagine our paths would ever cross again. Certainly not like this."

His uncle bows his head. "Life is full of unexpected surprises, Chief Arnook," he says simply. "First among them is that I do not come here alone." He gestures to the four Air Nomads standing by his side, draped more heavily with large carved medallions hanging around their chests.

Arnook straightens in his chair, shrouded in the tribal chief's mantle, a thick cascade of deep-dyed furs with tassels carved in the shape of the moon and stars that hang along his breast. "Forgive me. It has been a long time since we had contact with any of the Air Nomads."

Gyatso nods his head sagely. "The fault lies with us, I'm afraid. For too long the Air Nomads have kept to themselves. I am Gyatso, Chief Elder of the Southern Air Temple." He sighs heavily. "My predecessor, Pasang, was killed in the strike against our temple."

Arnook's eyes widen; Zuko watches the row of old men conceal their surprise in different ways. "That…is truly shocking to hear. We in the Northern Water Tribe are sorry for your loss. We understand what it means to lose everything to the Empire's thirst for power."

"It appears this is something we all share in common," Gyatso answers, gesturing to the three Air Nomads standing next to him. "These are the Chief Elders of the Northern and Eastern Air Temples, Masters Vayu and Sutra. Regrettably, Master Iio is absent on some diplomatic business in the Earth colonies. But Master Rinchen represents the Western Temple in her stead. We have emptied our Temples and joined General Iroh on his quest for justice. We recognize that Ozai's madness transcends ancestral borders. If we do not unite against him, we will all fall."

"I see," Chief Arnook says slowly, thinking very hard. "But, forgive me. It wasn't so many years ago that our people were fleeing from you, General Iroh, seeking shelter and refuge wherever they could find it. And now, you come to us in these very same halls, as refugees yourselves."

His uncle keeps his head bowed, but Zuko senses the tension rising in him. "What happened was a tragedy," he answers bluntly. "I do not deny my responsibility. But I sought to end the war, not start it. That blame lies at the feet of my brother, Ozai."

"Your younger brother, Ozai," interjects the man sitting next to Arnook, a young square-jawed teenager wearing a smug smile that Zuko instantly longs to punch off his face. "Was he not beholden to you in any way? How can a man control an army when he cannot keep his own family in line?"

"Now Hahn," cautions Chief Arnook, laying a heavy hand on the teenage boy's wrist even as some of the other seated chieftains smirk knowingly among themselves, "General Iroh and his party are our honoured guests. We will treat them with all our hospitality and respect so long as they are here."

"I don't see why," Hahn continues, undeterred. "As far as we in the North are concerned, the Empire has no power here. We owe nothing to this man or his party."

"My son speaks no more than the truth, Arnook," says the short, balding man sitting on Hahn's other side, heavy-set like his son and appearing even more squat thanks to the impressive layers of furs draped about his short form. "How dare these people come begging for our help after what they did to us and our brethren? The Southern tribe still lies in waste, a smoking ruin, thanks to their actions." His voice rises, ringing off the keen ice walls in a rousing cry. "And now they have the audacity to bring their petty civil conflict in our midst and expect our sympathy? I say we show them the mercy they heaped on us!"

Satisfied, he settles back in his seat, his feet dangling off the floor as several of the seated chieftains echo their agreement vociferously.

"That will not do, Natok," Chief Arnook admonishes, fighting to keep his tone level. "We cannot move forward with our gaze fixed on the past."

"Besides," Atanek speaks up unexpectedly, "when have we ever seen the Air Nomads take up arms outside their borders? Ozai attacked their temple, which were as unreachable as any of our cities. Now that they are here, we can only assume Ozai's forces will follow in turn."

Hahn's father bristles, crossing his arms stubbornly. "Then send them away before it is too late! We have worked hard to rebuild our land and restore her glory, why throw it all away -"

"We will not deny them our hospitality, Natok," Chief Arnook says in a tone leaving no room for argument. "As the father of my future son-in-law, I will look to you as my strong right hand."

Hahn's father, Natok, shuts his mouth instantly, and Zuko finds himself impressed at Arnook's ability to command the room. While others seated by his side were bigger, stronger, or dressed more richly, it was very clear that he was the man who held the respect of them all. And yet, from the dark looks exchanged between Hahn and some of the other chieftains, Zuko senses that Arnook's power was, and would always remain, hard-won.

"Let us not forget that the firebenders draw their power from the sun," Arnook continues, his pale eyes glimmering keenly in thought. "I for one, am curious to see how they would fare in the heart of polar winter."

Uncle Iroh inclines his head. "With respect, Chief Arnook, if we make a stand here, I believe we could strategize a way to defeat my brother's forces. They are arrogant and will not think of all the advantages you have on your side here."

"Indeed," Arnook muses, running a hand along his dark bearded jaw. "To form an alliance with firebenders and Air Nomads? Times truly are changing... What would it mean for us in the Water Tribes if you were to oust your brother and win the throne for yourself?"

Uncle Iroh holds his gaze unwaveringly. "I would not forget those who helped me in my time of most desperate need."

Arnook glances triumphantly at Hahn's father. "Well, there we have it. Perhaps this would be worth a second thought after all. I will have to confer privately with the other band chiefs before we arrive at a decision. But I believe the time is ripe to act decisively."

"Decisive action results in dead bodies, Arnook," warns Hahn. "Remember our fallen brother Hakoda, and what his bravery wrought. And speaking of Hakoda...I understand his own daughter fights alongside these people also."

Katara's back stiffens at the mention of her father's name, even as Hahn's cold gaze lands on her. His lip curls contemptuously. "Stop hiding behind the backs of firebenders, Katara of Sivusiktok. Step forth and state your case."

Zuko scowls at the barb thinly veiled in the teenage boy's voice. But Katara, crossing her arms across her chest, steps forward with her head held high.

"That's more like it," Hahn sniffs, resting his chin atop his palm disdainfully. "Now. I suppose this is where you tell us we have to rally behind General Iroh and join another struggle that doesn't concern us?"

Katara holds his gaze unflinchingly, before turning to address Chief Arnook instead. "With respect, Chief Arnook. It's true, I am Hakoda's daughter. I know you know our story because you hosted my brother Sokka here earlier, so I won't repeat it. What I will say on General Iroh's behalf is that everything he's said is true. He bears responsibility for the start of the polar wars, for the actions of his brother and his countrymen, and for doing too little to stop them until it was too late. Now he and his brother are at war, and their conflict has already claimed the lives of innocents, both inside and outside the Fire Nation, and more will follow. You can do what you think is right in choosing how to involve yourselves in this next fight."

Chief Arnook's eyes widen. "That...is not what we were expecting to hear you say."

Katara shakes her head. "With all due respect. I've been fighting with General Iroh's army because they never really gave me a choice after they discovered my bending in the colonial schools. But I'm tired of it. My bending is not some weapon for them to use whenever they see fit, and I am not theirs to command, no matter how kind they were to me." Zuko's heart sinks at the stricken look spreading across his uncle's face, but Katara's hands clench into fists as her voice trembles. "I wanted to go home, Chief Arnook, but my home is gone. So I came here, to return to my people, to make my own life. Not be stuck fighting some unending war because someone in the Fire Empire told me to."

Zuko swallows the protest welling in his throat behind clenched teeth, and at a glance he can see Aang and Toph struggling to do the same. In fact, the entire hall falls silent in the wake of her words. Even the band chiefs exchanging scandalized whispers at the sight of her, seem to lose their voices. The hush following their sibilant whispers is almost deafening.

"Well," Hahn says at last, the first to regain the ability of speech, "I think that's all we need to hear from this woman on the matter." To the surprise of seemingly everyone, he smiles down at Katara from atop his chair on the dais. "If it's shelter she wants, we can offer her the same thing we offered her countrymen. And of course, this solves two problems at once for us."

A relieved smile flashes across Katara's face and it makes Zuko's heart ache to see it. "Really?" she asks, inclining her head gratefully. "How so?"

Hahn's smile widens. "Well, on one hand, you finally can have the home among your own people that you've been longing for. And on the other, this makes things less awkward for us." He exchanges a knowing glance with his father before continuing. "We could never support an army that allowed a woman to waterbend."

Katara freezes, her smile instantly withering. "Excuse me?" she asks incredulously, half-laughingly, unsure whether he was joking or not.

"Most of the Southern Tribe escapees reacted the same way," Hahn says smoothly, as though describing an unusual pattern in the weather, and Zuko feels his own blood beginning to boil at the hapless indignation mottling on Katara's face. "But surely you must have known that our tribe's customs were different from yours?"

"I..." Katara trails off disbelievingly, "I didn't realize you still followed them."

Hahn bursts out laughing at that. "Katara, women in the Northern Water Tribe only use their bending for healing. Surely by now you should see the sense of our ways? I thought you said you were tired of fighting."

Colour drains from her face as she shakes her head. "This isn't the answer! You can't just tell women not to waterbend because they're women -"

"Why not?" Hahn cuts her off, and to Zuko's mounting fury, he has the audacity to wag a finger at her. "Our culture is all about balance, Katara. Surely you remember that?"

"We draw our way of life from the creators of waterbending itself," pipes up an ancient chieftain, shrunken and hunched over in his seat. He peers at Katara with eyes slitted nearly shut with age, one of which had gone entirely white with blindness. "The great moon and ocean spirits! Tui and La, light and dark, push and pull. Man and woman, waterbending and healing. The two sides of humanity, the two faces of our gift. This is the sacred law of our land."

"I understand that," Katara grits out, "but times are changing! I was taught by one of your old masters, Pakku! If he could understand -"

"How dare you sully Master Pakku's name in our presence?" Hahn fires back, jumping impassionedly to his feet. "First you come to our land among our enemies, then you question our way of life, and now you have the audacity to lie about one of our most respected masters? And you expect us to take you in as one of our own?"

The ancient chieftain considers Katara with his remaining sighted, judging eye. "We suffered the so-called progress of your tribe as they abandoned the old ways, and we watched with horror at what happened to them. We must not allow the same thing to happen here."

Rage simmers in Zuko's veins as he remembers the snide commentary from all the Water Tribe boys on the boat with appalling clarity. We could all take her, but that would be beneath us, they had sneered. If he had known what they had meant, perhaps he would have been quicker to put them in their place. Maybe Katara would have too.

Instead, she takes a very deliberate step forward. "You'd better not be suggesting that we deserved whatever happened to us because we allowed women and men to live as equals, old man," she growls, her voice dangerously low.

"Oh no! Chieftain Tupilek would never say such a thing!" Hahn cuts in smoothly, slowly sitting back down in his seat, already calm again. "He only meant that we have a duty to protect our way of life at any and all costs. Surely you understand that? And forgive me Katara, but you're so young. You can't have been more than a child when all this started?" He glances entreatingly at the withered old half-blind chieftain who glowers and shrinks further into his seat.

Zuko thinks he might be sick himself as Hahn turns back to Katara with a beatific smile and outstretches his hands. "I'm sure we can look past all this if you promise to respect our traditions. Our tribe is vast and there is always room for one of our own. It's obvious that you would do well among the women here, Katara of Sivusiktok...what with your talents and all."

Katara frowns deeply as she sizes him up, him and the rest of the intractable old men on their thrones staring down at her with their heavy fur robes and their disapproving eyes. Zuko watches the lines etch into her forehead as she considers Hahn's lousy offer and opens her mouth, probably to spit in that obnoxious teenager's stupid face, Zuko thinks when -

"Fine," says Katara, to the shock of all. Including even herself as her own eyes widen with surprise. She steps back, seeming to shrink into herself with every passing moment. "If that's what you want. It's not a big deal anyway."

Not a big deal? Zuko thinks to himself in horror. Before he can stop himself, he stumbles out of line, reaching for her shoulder. "Katara, no -"

With the ferocity of a caged beast, she throws him a glare over her a shoulder, a glare that could stop a grown man in his tracks. Everything surrounding him seems to crash to a screeching halt as she jerks away from him, snapping, "Don't tell me what I can or can't do!"

Zuko is dimly aware of the movements around him: the disappointment in his uncle's face, the tight-lipped silence and clenched fists from both Toph and Aang, and at a further distance, the infuriating satisfied glances that the old Water Tribe chieftains exchange with each other.

Somewhere around him, the conversation continues, a mind-numbing exchange of promises and threats hidden under pleasantries. As his uncle's heir, he should have been paying attention, perhaps doing more to persuade the band chiefs than just scowling and sulking in his corner.

But Katara doesn't turn back to look at him and nothing else really seems to matter outside of that. I'm sorry, he whispers in his head, his thoughts clamouring so loud he swears she must be able to hear them, I didn't mean to, but how could you expect me to stand by quietly?

After what feels like another eternity, the chiefs finally dismisses them. "We have much to think about," Arnook says somberly as he gets to his feet. "In the meantime, it grows late. We have erected shelters for your company. Regrettably, they were somewhat rushed...but you should still find them comfortable and warm." His pale eyes glimmer in the dim blue light. "It is supposed to be cold tonight."

It seems to Zuko it couldn't possibly grow any colder as they are escorted out of the hall. He follows the silent Water Tribe men leading them back through the manse with unseeing eyes. Most of his attention is focused on Katara, already walking some distance ahead before she is intercepted in the corridor by another Water Tribe woman dressed in shaggy furs, with striking blue eyes and hair as white as the moon.

"Who's that?" Aang asks him, as both of them watch Katara follow the white-haired woman away from their party.

"No idea," Zuko answers flatly.

"Who's who?" Toph inquires, frowning at the ground. "I can't see anything in all this ice."

"Katara just left with some old lady," Aang answers in a low voice. His gaze drops dejectedly. "So this is it for us, huh?"

Toph blows her bangs out of her eyes angrily. "She can't just leave us like that! After all the shit we put up with from her?"

"Toph," Zuko says wearily, suddenly feeling exhausted beyond imagination.

"What? We're a team." Her face clouds over. "Or...I thought we were."

"She's got a lot going on right now, okay?" Zuko says without emphasis. "Let's just give her some space."

There is too much for Katara to think about as she follows the strange girl through the corridors under the band chiefs' manse, away from everyone else.

She should feel relieved to be here in the North Pole at last, surrounded by snow and polar night and her own people.

She should feel bitter and guilty and heartsick over the looks that her friends sent her when, after everything they'd been through, she announced that she wanted to give up her place in the army. The look in Aang's eyes, Toph's clenched fists, Zuko, Zuko -

She should feel furious at his outburst in front of everyone just like that, she should feel furious and indignant that he thought he could speak for her, for wanting more for her…

And to say nothing of what the men of her tribe were asking of her. It felt short of impossible.

She should be cursing her own short-sightedness, her blind belief that the old ways could change and she could settle into her old life here without another thought, without another fight. Because she was tired of fighting, tired of running, tired of not belonging anywhere.

Never mind the suspicious, judgmental stares of all the band chiefs, that they would sooner talk to General Iroh and Zuko about the oncoming war than with her. Never mind how much that stung inside, never mind that the Northerners weren't actually her own people.

Because everything that was once hers had been taken away and all she had left of it was her ability to bend. And now she was being asked - spirits, even agreed - to give that up in order to find a place to rest.

But that was all too much to feel at the same time, so Katara pushes it all away and instead, stares blankly at the white-haired girl as she leads them out the back of the manse. A small barge tied to the canalside bobs in wait on the water, manned by two silent guards who quickly spring to attention at the sight of them.

"My boat," the girl says softly, nodding at Katara to follow her on board.

Katara says nothing. As they climb onto the small craft, the guards bow their heads before swinging on board and untying the craft. With a synchronized push of their hands, the boat propels along the canal, drifting away from the heart of the sparkling city.

"Please, take a seat." The girl reclines into a seat padded with soft animal hides, and motions for Katara to do the same.

Katara obliges, studying the girl's luxurious furs, the elaborate twists of her beaded white hair, the carved necklace peeking through the collar of her parka. "You must be Princess Yue," she says slowly, clasping her mittened hands in her lap.

The girl blinks, her big blue eyes striking in the moonlight. "I am," she answers with a nod of her head. Katara gets the sense of being sized up equally shrewdly. "And you must be Katara."

Now it's Katara's turn to nod. "I am." She watches Yue intently, wary of princesses ever since her last encounter with Azula that disastrous night.

Yet to her surprise, Yue appears almost as nervous as she feels. "Sokka's sister."

Katara isn't sure whether to relax or tense after hearing her brother's name. "Yes." She wonders how much more to reveal of what she knew from Jun's letter, when so far all she's heard since arriving here are conflicting stories that don't add up, except to one disconcerting truth.

When it came to her brother, the Northerners were clearly hiding something.

Yue fiddles with her mittens, a surprisingly unladylike gesture for a princess. "I suppose by now you must have heard from your informant. You must know what I told her."

Katara is surprised at her candour after all the secrecy from the men of the north. "I - I do," she admits. "But I don't understand. Your father and the other chiefs, they don't deny that Sokka was here, but they all pretend that they didn't make him leave."

"They're ashamed," Yue answers with a bitterness that surprises Katara with its familiarity. "Sokka was brave and they were all cowards. Now they see you and lie to themselves that they had nothing to do with it."

"Why?" Katara presses. "Why not just admit the truth and be done with it?"

Yue plies her with the full weight of her gaze, the luminous blue of her eyes the only colour left in the night-darkened world. "Because they're afraid of you."

Katara chokes in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Why would they be afraid of me?"

"It would take a fool not to. Sokka was brave and Hakoda's son. But you, Katara, are more dangerous to them than your brother ever was. You're sixteen and already one of the most renowned waterbending masters in the world. Even here, we've heard stories of how you single-handedly defeated Ozai and demolished his palace during the night of the prince's wedding." Yue's unblinking gaze doesn't waver. "For all that the chiefs have dismissed these tales, deep down, they see you as the biggest threat to their ways. Maybe even more so than the promise of another Fire Empire attack."

Katara opens and closes her mouth, stunned. "I just turned eighteen, actually," she corrects blankly, her mouth very dry. "But I don't get it. The band chiefs probably have hundreds of masters at their command. I'm just one girl. Women don't fight in the North, they don't hold power. What threat could I possibly be here?"

"But you're not from the North," Yue answers simply, tucking her mittens into her sleeves and sitting back further in her seat as though it was a throne. "You're not one of us."

"Yes, I am!" Katara insists. "I may not be from the North, but I'm still Water Tribe. I speak the same language, I know the same stories. I've suffered just like you. Isn't that enough?"

"Not anymore. You've seen the world outside our borders," Yue points out in her quiet, even voice. "You know what it's like to be free."

A huff of sour laughter escapes Katara's throat. "I've never been free," she laments. "I just traded one captor for another."

"Welcome to the North," Yue says with only a trace of irony. "Now come. There's something I want to show you."

They fall silent as their boat sails further down the river cutting through the great planes of tundra, leaving the twinkling lights of Aujuittuq further behind until it fades to a distant glow pulsing faintly in the night.

The wind howling across the tundra grows colder. Katara's breath mists in front of her as she rubs her mittened hands together, shivering. You're not one of us, Yue's voice echoes in her mind as she glances furtively at the seated princess, pristine and seemingly unfazed by the brutal cold. Not anymore.

At last the boat bumps against solid land. Katara swallows her curiosity and silently trails the princess as they disembark and follow a narrow shelf of ice jutting out along the base of a towering ice cliff. The two guards remain behind, silently waiting by the boat.

"Where are we?" she finally asks through chattering teeth as Yue stops in front of a round door carved into the cliffside.

Yue pushes the door open, revealing a hole leading into darkness. "One of the most spiritual places in the whole North Pole. Follow me."

A small part of her warns against climbing into a dark hole with a complete stranger, especially one that was a princess of a tribe that she was learning to have no great love for her or her family. But Katara quells her doubts and follows Yue into the dark.

The tunnel carved into the cliff is at once warmer than it had been outside. Katara is astonished to feel sweat beading along her temples as her cheeks tingle in relief from the cruel cold. "It's so warm in here!" she exclaims.

Yue laughs. "That's the spiritual energy you're feeling. It keeps everything warm."

"I'm amazed it hasn't melted!"

Yue doesn't answer, only pushes at something else. A faint strip of light expands into what seems like another world entirely as Katara climbs through it and gasps in awe at her surroundings.

"We call it the Spirit Oasis," Yue explains with a smile. "It's technically part of Tomkin - old Chieftain Tupilek's territory. But it's the spiritual heart of our land."

After weeks of flying north and watching the land slowly grow dark and barren, the sight of so much green is a shock to Katara's eyes. But somehow, magically, ringed by protective walls of ice towering overhead, is a little island floating amid a steaming river, bedecked with green grass and trees.

"I've never seen anything like this," she breathes, closing her eyes and feeling the intense heat of the earth rise up from the ground to warm her through. The entire place radiates tranquility and positively seems to hum with energy, resonating through her with an air of renewal. The same feeling of falling into a trance during General Iroh's meditation classes a lifetime ago, but transmuted into a vibration.

Yue gestures vaguely at the small pond at the heart of the oasis. "I come here whenever I feel trapped," she says simply. "I felt that you might need this place also."

Katara stares at Yue, seeing her for the first time not as a strange regal princess, but as a young girl, soft-spoken, so slight under the layers of heavy furs, her shocking white hair making her seem older than her years. "Thank you, Princess."

The princess shakes her head with a shy smile. "Call me Yue."

Katara grins back, an indescribable relief settling over her. "Okay, princess - Yue, I mean."

They fall into a companionable silence then, basking in the wash of flowing water and the deep, low hum that vibrates throughout the oasis. Katara peels off her mittens and her parka, sitting back on the dewy grass, and wondering what kind of power could exist in this way, that could permeate the entire land with its calming aura?

"The spirits used to roam the world freely," Yue says, as though answering Katara's thoughts. "They say thousands of years ago, when the world was young, the spirits lived along humans. There was power in the world then. People were more spiritual, more in tune with their inner selves. Benders today are a mere fraction of what they once were. And everything was peaceful as long as the great bridge between our worlds remained."

Katara stares at Yue as the princess continues, trailing her fingers along the surface of the small pond. "But our link with the world of the spirits was broken. Discord spread where harmony once reigned, and the spirits turned their backs on us once we slew the Avatar. Now only a handful remain in our world, hidden, biding their time for the era of peace to return. They say some of them even made their home right here." A wistful smile crosses her face as she withdraws her hand from the water and sits back on her haunches. "That's why we in the north cling so strongly to the old ways. Why this spot is so sacred to us. We wait for the day that the spirits return to us, that the bridge between our worlds is restored."

"General Iroh started Team Avatar as a way to restore balance," Katara answers in a hushed voice. "I - I never thought of it as anything more than a vanity project."

"Team Avatar?" Yue repeats quizzically.

Katara snorts, shaking her head. "My friends and I - he assembled four benders, one from each nation, and tried to get us to bend like one." She falters, reflecting on that distant midsummer morning when Jeong-Jeong had first announced the task. How different things were now...and yet even after everything, the idea of it still seemed far-fetched. "It was supposed to be a step to restore balance to the world."

But Yue stares thoughtfully into the pond, where a pair of koi fish swim gracefully. "That's very wise of him," she comments. "And very brave of you."

"I don't know," Katara sighs, shifting onto her knees to watch the koi fish more closely. Somehow, the graceful movements of their shining bodies felt incredibly soothing to watch. Hypnotic, almost. "We're just four teenagers. It can't be enough."

"But you've done so much," Yue says in a whisper of a lament.

"And what difference did it make?" Katara asks bitterly. "I'm still as stuck as I ever was, and now I made a promise in front of everyone to follow these sexist old traditions." She sighs heavily, wrapping her hands around her knees. "I feel like I just made a huge mistake. But I don't know how to fix it. I can't trust Iroh anymore, and there's no path forward. What do I do now?"

Yue doesn't answer, only watches the surface of the water intently, and Katara feels a surge of inexplicable gratitude for her silence.

"You don't really believe in spirits and all that, do you?" Katara asks suddenly.

Yue breaks her gaze from the water to meet Katara's. "Don't you?"

"I always thought they were just stories."

Yue turns her gaze upward, to the fattening sliver of moon dangling overhead. "The spirits saved my life. I have no choice but to believe in them."

Katara frowns in confusion. "They...saved your life?"

Yue nods. "I'm not strong like you, Katara. I've always been fragile. Sickly. Weak. I was born that way." An unexpected darkness weighs down in Yue's voice as she continues doggedly. "My father needed a strong son but instead he got me. A daughter, born so weak she couldn't even cry. The best healers said there was no hope for me, that it would be a mercy if they just let me die and tried again for a son." Yue's fingers twist into the grass, tearing the small green blades from the earth. "My father gave up hope, but my mother turned to something more powerful."

"What?"

"Sacrifice," Yue answers with a twist of her mouth. "Men know how to dominate life. But only women know the price of creating it." She gestures all around her. "In her desperation, she brought me here, all the way from our home in Nutjuitok on the other edge of the tribe. It's a long journey in the heart of polar winter, and she made it alone with her dying child. She was no warrior, no bender, no wise woman of legend. Everybody thought she was crazy for trying. But she brought me here, placed me in this very pond, and pleaded with the spirits to save me. The moon spirit answered her prayer, but at a cost."

"What do you mean?" Katara asks with a twinge of foreboding, as though somewhere deep inside her, a part of her already knew the answer.

"The moon spirit imbued me with its life force. But spirit energy isn't enough to survive in this world." Yue scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand. "My mother didn't hesitate. My dark hair turned as white as the moonlight. So did hers." She swallows, continuing haltingly. "She lived until I was ten years old. She could never have a son for my father, not after whatever she gave up of her own life to save mine."

Katara touches her shoulder tentatively. "I'm sorry," she says simply. "Nothing is ever enough after that."

"My father loves me. But I know he must resent me for the son he never had," Yue says heavily, dropping her gaze back down to the circling koi fish. "I come here every time I feel lost because part of me hopes I can channel some of my mother's courage. That part of her remains here with whatever's left of the moon spirit."

"They say the people we lose never really leave us," Katara tries to say helpfully, but the words stick in her throat. "That part of them lingers on, watching over us."

Yue stares at her flatly. "Do you really believe that?"

Katara hangs her head. "No," she says honestly. "But it sure feels nice to think about it that way."

They fall into another silence, gazing at the pond. Then Yue smiles sadly. "I don't know how to make sure her sacrifice doesn't go to waste. I'm not like you, Katara. I can't fight or be brave. I can't change the world with my presence the way you do."

Katara is taken aback. "That's just the stories. It isn't me," she confesses in a small voice. "It doesn't matter if you're strong or weak, Yue. You believed Sokka. You told Jun the truth. You brought me here when you know your father believes I'm a danger to your tribe... You're doing the same thing I am. You're doing the best you can."

"It feels so insignificant. It doesn't feel like it's enough."

"No. It never does."