Chapter Text
High in the halls of ice and wintry waters, an iceberg cracks.
They tend to do that. It’s hardly a unique occurrence. Every day, babies are born, good men die, fires start, and ice breaks.
It is natural. It is meant to be.
(It’s a sign)
The only difference with this particular glacier is what it contains, and what is breaking it.
A hundred year old secret in the south.
And a girl, balanced on the prow of a canoe, arms outstretched and face scrunched in concentration, blue eyes glaring and glaring as if they can burn straight through the chunk of ice.
“Are you sure you aren’t just seeing things?” her brother complains, throwing his head to the side to shake off the frost that forms stubbornly on his eyebrows.
“I know what I saw, Sokka,” the girl snaps back. “There’s a shadow in there! What if it’s a secret? What if it’s a Spirit? We’ll have no idea until we break it open and look.”
Sokka scoffs but makes no motion to stop her. “If you break that thing, the entire ice flow is going to change,” he reminds her. “If we block our own river because you want to crack open some ice to get the fun shiny thing inside that’s probably just some old dirt, I will put you on kid-wrangling duty.”
“First off, it’s called warrior training, which I never even went through,” she reminds him, tilting her head and tracking the small fissures. “Second off, I’ll just clear it out again. Benefits to having a sister who can, oh, you know, bend water. My skills don’t translate well to tiny tots learning how to stab things good, they translate into telling water to do stuff like this.”
She moves her arms in a grand sweeping motion, fingers crawling like snowmelt as her arm mimics pounding sheets of rain. She focuses on the dead center of the iceberg and the cracks forming.
Water, says her right pinky.
Water, agrees her left thumb.
You are liquid, says the loose motion of her elbow.
And flowing, soothes the gentle roll of her shoulder.
Dripping, her sharp dip toward the ground orders.
And dropping, concurs the widening of her stance.
The Pull, the straightening of her spine demands.
The Push, the harsh shove of her hands commands.
You are water, her body announces.
Move.
The ice obliges. The words made from her motions are far from the poetry of the masters, and far from a warrior’s experienced shorthand. They are simple words and basic verbs tossed together into something mostly understandable. They are clumsily made, but they are commands nonetheless.
The water melts in a shaky line and the iceberg cracks in half like a geode, split to reveal the pretty, colorful treasure within. The halves of the iceberg crash to the water, and the girl frantically twists her arms, trying to slow it, but her form and words are sloppy and unpracticed.
Stop! Her body screams.
No, the water denies, and smashes onward. Stop is not a word that water recognizes. Water does not stop - it must be stopped.
Freezing cold washes over the boat and nearly knocks the girl from the prow. Sokka yelps and hides his face in his parka sleeve.
“Katara!” he yells, muffled by the sleeve. “Dry us off before we freeze to death!”
Katara shivers and sways back up to her feet from where the water knocked her down into in the canoe. “On it.”
Off, off, off, the flicks of her wrists chant.
Flow away, the cascade of her fingers demands.
Sluggishly, the water complies, sloughing off but leaving the icy chill clinging to their bones.
Katara shakes her parka loose, dislodging the chunks of ice held in the hood. “Alright, so it’s safe to say that neither of us actually knew what we were doing.”
Sokka groans and rubs his arms desperately, shaking his head like a polar-dog. “La, Katara!” he exclaims. “You can float ice! You can melt it! You can do a lot of things! What am I supposed to do? Throw a boomerang at a wall of water? I thought you had it under control!”
Katara snarls back, a wicked twist of the lip to remind her brother that it’s the female tiger seals that are the most dangerous to cross. “At least you don’t have to have a whole conversation with your boomerang before you throw it!”
That’s when the boy in the iceberg starts floating and glowing.
“HA!” Katara yells, pointing at their inevitable doom. “I TOLD YOU IT WAS A SPIRIT!”
“Priorities, Katara!”
-
Zuko wakes up coughing seawater, which is rather bizarre since he’s forty feet above the deck and, to his knowledge, has not recently drowned.
Salt and brine tangle his senses into knots as he expels the ocean from his lungs and onto the deck, far below. It is cold, near infinitely so, enough to ache against his teeth. He curls over the edge of the hammock, one hand latched desperately to the rigging to keep himself steady as the sea itself rises from his lungs.
(it is back, it is back, it is in my waters, the traitor to our kind,) the ocean says as it rushes out of his throat. (it is back, child of the sun,) La mutters, (i want revenge upon it)
Unbeknownst to him, the middle digit burnt into his back glows a heavy blue before fading away.
The water stops rushing out and Zuko hacks and coughs the lingering taste out of his mouth.
(it is back, it is back)
(you must come)
A hand settles against his back.
(burning, burning, a mother’s touch)
(blazing, blazing, a father’s affection)
(scorching, scorching, a sister’s love)
(danger, danger, danger)
Zuko reacts poorly.
Not bad enough that the owner of the hand is sent plummeting down to the deck, but it’s a near thing.
Bo has never been the smartest crewman when it comes to giving Zuko personal space, after all. Zuko has never been the best with people getting close.
Bo’s gotten very good at grabbing nearby ropes very quickly. It is likely the only thing that saves him from dying a horribly embarrassing death on a disconcertingly frequent basis.
Zuko swings over the hammock and twists his body between the surrounding ropes, carefully controlling his descent down to where Bo clings to the basis of his employment.
“You are very bad at announcing your presence, crewman,” Zuko says.
Bo wriggles his foot free of a messy tangle of rigging and sighs down at the mess he will now have to fix. “That one’s on me, sir. The ‘vomiting water’ thing threw me off my game. It won’t happen again.”
“You said that the last four times, crewman.”
“Yeah, that’s fair. Any reason why you’re throwing up sea water, or is that just a you thing?”
Zuko stretches in his rope cradle, then leans over to spit another stream of salt water over the edge of the ship. “A little bit of both, I think.” He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and flips over the rope to stand on one, carefully balanced. “Where’s the Lieutenant?”
Bo very carefully does not glare at his commanding officer as he struggles his way out of his tangled prison. “I think he’s inspecting the cargo hold, sir.”
“Good. I’ll have to tell him.”
“Tell him what, sir?”
Zuko takes one step backward off of his rope and plummets down to the open ocean, catching himself at the last second on the lowest section of rigging and sliding to a smooth stop on the railing.
He does not respond to Bo.
(“Well that’s rude,” Bo mutters to himself, extricating his body from the twisted ropes and setting to fix it before the rest of the crew comes up with the rising sun to do their drills. Bo has gotten more used to waking with Zuko than he has waking with the sun. It’s probably a non-bender thing.)
Zuko moves to the hold with a single-minded purpose and the tang of salt coating the back of his throat.
(awake, awake, the one who betrayed us lives,) La snarls. (the betrayer did nothing while our children suffered, and for that they must suffer in kind)
Zuko marches into the cargo hold and nods sharply at Lieutenant Jee. The Lieutenant is part of the way through a salute of his own before Zuko turns to the corner and lets out another mouthful of seawater.
Jee sighs. “Well, that certainly doesn’t mean anything good.”
“No,” Zuko confirms, “but it does mean a chance for us to go home.”
Jee falters and puts his clipboard - carefully and meticulously organized, to keep another drought at sea from occurring - on a nearby crate. “Dare I ask why?” Jee says, quiet and solemn.
Zuko closes his eyes, for one second, and then unties the fabric hiding his left eye. It doesn’t feel right to share this news half-blinded.
(Did you hear? Did you hear?)
(Did you know?)
“The Avatar’s awake. We go to the South Pole.”
Jee let out a woosh of breath - irresponsible, for a firebender - and closes his eyes as he resettles. “With all due respect, my prince, are you sure you want to deliver the Avatar to your father?”
Zuko smiles in the way he tends to do, with the edges pulled just a fraction of an inch too wide to be comfortable for anyone to see.
(A chance)
(A sign)
(A fool’s errand)
“Who said we’d deliver the Avatar to my father?”
(For just a moment, his teeth look sharper, and both of his eyes look slitted. For just a moment, Jee feels something heavy rising with the sun.)
Jee blinks once, surprised, and that is the only opening Zuko needs to slip out, unnoticed. Jee is left alone with a blank room of perfectly intact supplies.
(“Oh,” he says, “this is going to go horribly.”
He gathers up his clipboard and goes to find the helmsman. They have a course adjustment to make.
And Jee has an appointment with his private liquor stores.)