'We hear you,' the soft cry of a flute answered from the village, 'raid.'

Saikla smiled a fierce, wolfish grin and marched towards the village. A lot of things were her ideas, with the men gone and so many dead; a simple flute code to pass on messages was one of them and the one that the kids liked the best.

Except for when they heard that specific tune: B,GG,A,C,CC. That sound was intertwined with fear and mourning.

"Settle, Yaqona." Kyut patted the little girl's head through their shared hood. "Don't worry, little penguin." He struck the arm of the sled, shattering it half from the blow, half from 'bending.

"Scared," she replied in a miserable, childish whisper.

"That's okay." He kicked, stomped, and hit the sled, then he picked up the larger pieces and threw them every way. No evidence of waterbending should be left, or else the hunting could begin again. Mindless murder at the hands of the Fire Nation until the final waterbender is 'caught' once more. Or maybe they would find the right one this time…it wasn't likely. His throat closed up just thinking about either option. "I'm a little scared too."

The child—not even fully four years old—settled down with a miserable whimper. Kyut jogged silently to catch up.

The siblings entered upon a scene of organized chaos. The tribeswomen were out in full force; sorting goods, organizing the little ones they were responsible for, brushing off sleds, and taking the odd, wide-eyed look in any direction danger might come from.

"They're a ways off still!" Saikla yelled to the general crowd. "They're approaching far off from the east, but we saw the snoot falling! They're out past the Greater Head at least."

Women and older girls nodded at the hunter, continuing the evacuation at a slightly less frantic pace. At that distance almost everything could be packed away, hidden in caches Kyut had managed to build after much trial and error. There were three little rooms just outside the village's wall, tunneled down into the blue ice and covered with thick sheets of ice. Only a waterbender could get them open easily, but one or two people jumping up and down on them could also do the trick.

Possessions were hidden; only the necessities were packed onto sleds, each waiting for a turn to be hauled away by polar bear-dogs. They were tamed cousins to the bear-wolves, though visually almost identical, both animals mostly white with a grey stripe down their backs, some reaching from nose all the way down to the tips of long, wagging tails, but usually much shorter. Bear-wolves were slightly larger, though, and their paws dramatically bigger proportionally.

It had been nearly a year since the last time they'd had to evacuate to the concealed shelter two miles off. Nevertheless, the tribe women remembered how to pack their children tight and safe into sleds, and the village's children, too. Enough meat for a few days would go, as would the sleeping furs and the sewing that needed to be done, lamps and their oil, and the little familiar things to calm the children, if there was room.

One young widow was packing in a singing-drum, the one that made a low, mellow sound that ice could easily muffle.

"Hey-ya." GranGran frowned at them, deepening all the creases that marked her face. "What were you doing out east?"

"Fishing, GranGran." Fourteen-year-old Kyut, her doubtless favorite, flashed a smile at his grandmother, lying through his teeth. She knew it, though, so it was hey-ajuk: lies whiter than the falling snow. "The fish've been going somewhere. Myqota, y'know?" Their grandmother liked when he used the old words she'd taught him, this one being 'swimming patterns.'

"You're always saying that migration goes in cycles. East is next, after last year, isn't it?" Saikla was too combative for many of the older women's ease or the younger women's respect. It was not entirely unheard of for a female to hunt in the South, but a non-bender girl becoming a warrior, keeping their habits and appearance as best she could—always agitating for the rights of a warrior? Even for the more liberal pole at the brink of extinction, this stretched the bounds of what could be allowed.

Their grandmother won the skirmish Saikla tried to start by doing nothing but gazing at her steadily, making the fight itself seem childish. It was just one more minor battle in a war Saikla had been waging all her life. Against what or who, she couldn't say. If asked why, she wouldn't say.

Normally, this was when Saikla would flush from a mixture of embarrassment, resentment, and frustration, but she was too energized with the evacuation. She turned to her brother, impatient to be off supervising, coordinating, and encouraging speed. "C'mon, Kyut, drop him off with Unluq and we can get everything moving."

"Yaqona—as in she, Saikla—" He was amazed that she could remember who was loosely responsible for each orphan, yet not know their genders. "can stick with me, right little penguin?" Kyut craned his neck around to smile at the little girl.

"Uh-huh." Yaqona kissed his cheek, a bit slobbery, but a sweet gesture all the same.

Saikla wrinkled her nose at her little brother, while Qanna smiled and moved on. "Whatever, just don't move like a sea slug this time, huh?" She strode towards the closest opening in the wall to oversee the teams of polar bear-dogs. There were nearly thrice as many sleds in the village as bear-dogs, not even counting that you have to pair them up. It could get tricky trying to time it so the animals got some rest.

Kyut jogged to a hidden cache, feeling around the edges of the sheet he knew would be there. The weather had cemented it in place, so the only thing he could do was melt it while pulling that water up over his shoulder; it had taken him weeks to figure out the motions that would do that, but it was almost easy now.

The steps curved slightly downward, but were undamaged and not-quite slick, so the waterbender trudged around to open up the next one. Women of the tribe—with the aid of the older children, six and seven years old—formed a chain to store things away. Delicate and artistic sculptures passed down generations, or the whittlings made by absent husbands and father, kept around to remember them by. The dry ink made of lampblack as well as the brushes and parchment. (Every summer, a trading ship would come from Kyoshi, offering to take letters for this or that little carving, in addition to the raw ivory the tribe exported for their dye-components and odd pieces of wood- and metal-work.) The tribe's double handful of scrolls got stored away, their subjects mostly spirit-tales or history (often both at once) from other cultures. The Southern Water Tribe wrote very few things down; centuries of history taught them that they often couldn't keep what they couldn't carry with them.

Pretty cases of jewelry—most passed down through several generations—stacked up neatly against one wall. Some were made of ivory set with old soapstone, some were formed of countless strips of bones, and a few were made of leather or wood. They held stories all by themselves, and the objects within had stories of their own. (Great-grandfather gave this to his daughter, your Gran, on the eve of her child's birth, Uncle Koryk. He marked the back—see here? These marks mean love and acceptance. This is how he showed her he accepted her husband at last.) Delicate earrings carved of ivory, pendants made of rare blue soapstone only found in the North. Several cases had no true owner, as of yet. Daughters had to grow up to be more than children before they could be given responsibility of those stories, and little boys must have wives to carry the legacies. Many held a tyaqeh or five, left behind so they would not be lost forever to their children and grandchildren, the men going back to the ivory or bone of their childhoods.

Also hidden away were the spiritual possessions of their young shaman, the masks and figures, rattles and dancing drums, the ceremonial shark-whale tooth knife with the handle of darkest blue soapstone. The tiny bells used to ward off snatching spirits were taken down from wherever they hung, as the village emptied out, and put with the odds and ends of their community. The meat that needed to be stored against the lean times—a supply to be proud of—was hidden, as were the unused bones and hides, the lop-sided cushions stuffed with feathers so that old joints could rest easier, and all the extra lamps.

Sleds packed with children went south first, a tribeswoman standing on the skids, then sending an older child back riding a bear-dog, keeping them on track. Then another sled would go out, and another and another.

The chief's children (and by extension, Yaqona) were the last to leave the village. "Tui and La, guide our enemies' sight from the homes of your people, I ask this of you. May the ice shred their metal-skinned boats and the current pull them under. May they never see the light of spring. May angigetaq di omayan. Hisaq itah, maliyat. For this I pray, Lapato."

Saikla waited impatiently at the sled for her little brother to get his stupid duty to ritual prayer over with. Waterbenders may be blessed and beloved by the Spirits themselves, but did they have to make it so time-consuming?

"Hurry up, kiddo!" the hunter called, rubbing the nose of one of the bear-dogs, Frost. His shoulders were only a hand below her own, and his great white head was roughly twice the size of hers; Frost was young, yet. It wasn't easy to keep two pairs of polar bear-dogs fed, but it was well worth it when days like this came.

"Don't call me that," Kyut admonished her quietly with a scowl. Yaqona had fallen asleep. "I'm barely a year younger than you, and that's old enough to be a man of the tribe."

"Don't pull that with me, oh mighty bender of things that go swish." She punched his arm hard enough to hurt through all the layers. Her flash of anger faded and she sighed. "Watch the snow."

It fell down in flurries of heavy grey snoot.

He swallowed, climbing onto the sled as Saikla walked around to stand at the back.

"Y'pleta!" she cried in the snow-muffled air, watching as it became stained many colors by the Lights. "Frost, Drift, y'pleta!"

Bear-dogs are, as a rule, strong and enduring, but their speed takes a hit when the sun goes down and the temperature drops. It didn't help that they had been up for many hours, and it was approaching midnight. They got to shelter, eventually.

"Thank Tui and La." GranGran sighed in relief as they stopped in front of her. "Everyone's getting settled; go find yourselves a place before they're all gone." She herded her grandchildren before her, then crawled through the small opening after them.

Saikla didn't miss the way her eyes were pointing when she thanked the Spirits. Waterbenders are blessed of the moon and beloved of the ocean. Since Kyut learned to talk, GranGran has been teaching him how to give and ask for blessings. A pregnant woman, a new sled, a sick child, a rebuilt home, or a litter of polar bear-pups were all things that required someone close to the Spirits to say a prayer, place ceremonial pieces just so, mark the snow with such and such parts water and animal blood, offering words of supplication, thanks, and request in the correct way. The songs that must be sung on the important days, full moons, new moons, solstices, and every other holy day. A waterbender must take care of the spiritual possessions of the tribe. He must know all the stories and chants because he is the hub of culture; without them, the tribes would cling on the bare edge of survival.

'Well, with one we're not doing so hot, either.' Saikla observed her whole village in one small space. There was room to spare.

It was, in essence, a dug-out snow drift with several pillars to brace the roof and a handful of tiny vents for air, once they cleared off the fresh snow. A few blubber lamps lit the interior to see by. Children clustered close to their mothers or, in a couple cases, their older sisters. When they had no mothers or big sisters to guard them, they clustered together, all the village's children in one spot. Sure, they had aunts, or older cousins, or second cousins, or even more distant relatives in the tribe, but children and siblings came first. If there was only so much meat, if there was only so much space, if, if, if…the village's children, with their mothers dead and their fathers off to war or worse…they would suffer that lack the sharpest.

Thank the Spirits it hadn't come to that yet.

Saikla let her brother pull her in their direction, still sunk into the deep thought their grandmother's favoritism had thrown her in. Kyut learned all of the things GranGran taught, even figuring out an impressive amount of waterbending by himself, but his sister doubted he had a warrior's heart. He loved penguins and the stories with happy endings far too much.

'How long? How long would it take before he realized that everyone is a child, grown up? How long before Kyut would see families and stories behind every skull mask? Fathers and older brother gone to war, with wives and children waiting for them at home?' Saikla watched him, already pulled the limp Yaqona from his amanti, two brothers fighting over his lap. She already knew mortality, from its most innocent form in the hunt, where it was a necessity and the animals were honored, to its most monstrous shape: that of the soldiers marching into her village to destroy. 'Thank the Spirits my little brother won't have to go to war. Thank Tui and La and all the others that he's the only waterbender we've got.'

"Muyuk! Muyuk, play something?" One of the little girls tap-tap-tapped at her mother's elbow.

"Aunt Umay, play, please?" Another called and another until they were all pleading for her to sing a song for them.

"Quietly," Saikla protested, her lap already occupied with a sharpening stone and her little jawbone machete.

"A quiet song," the young widow laughed, standing to collect her drum. "The Tale of Kuruk and Ummi?"

"Here, I'll help." Qonu took a drumstick, settling herself by the young woman. She had had two children in her time, a son and a daughter. Both were lost to the war in different ways, though they'd left behind a total of three little grandsons and two daughters, one nearing marrying age. It was fortunate that little Vasi had grown up to become sturdy, since Qonu was the oldest woman in the village by almost a decade.

Even beats with emphasis on every fourth strike, the Umay's voice hummed in, low and sweet. Most songs soared above the drum, but the Tale of Kuruk and Ummi was a sad one, a slightly shameful one. One of the few quiet songs to be sang alone.

As was traditional when singing by oneself, Umay excused her poor voice and memory in her own verse, including 'please do not expect much, I'm sorry if I ruin this beautiful song.' Her voice was pure and lovely when she sang of their Avatar's arrogance, his exploits, his love of fun—showing that the opening remarks were nothing but traditional irony. Umay told of his meeting Ummi, the love of his life, and their happiness together. Her song did not falter as Koh stole Ummi away. She sang of Kuruk's failure to retrieve his bride-to-be, sang again and again, quieter and quieter until there was only the low beating of the drum.

Though they'd heard the same song sung the same way a hundred times before, most of the children were sniffling. The rest had all dropped off into the land of sweets and penguin sledding, nestled against their mothers and each other.