Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's as simple as breathing. Just a moment's thought and there the water is floating above his fingertips. There's never been a time when Namjoon has called out for it, and it has not answered back. Out of all things he knows about life, he knows that this is a truth that cannot— will not ever change. No matter what obstacles or opponents or hardships Namjoon may face, by Tui and La's grace, water will always remain a steadfast companion to him.

Ironically enough, at a time like this, Namjoon feels awash with sentiments of both love and hate because of it. How can he not when the water he so dearly loves and cherishes is formed as a weapon against him?

It rushes at him now, a thick whip of water, and Namjoon's fingers curl at the sight of it. He grabs hold of it and redirects it. Breathes deeply as he circles the water above his head and then lashes it forward.

"Come on…!" he rasps, as the water moves towards the figure ahead of him. It moves closer and closer and closer and closer until—

The strike lands.

The opposing man stumbles back a step, but there's little time for Namjoon to feel any relief. The man swiftly summons an intercepting wall of ice from the snow on the ground and bats Namjoon's stream of water away like it's merely a bumbling fly. He then mercilessly launches the wall of ice Namjoon's way. Namjoon is only so lucky to be keen enough to cleave it into two haphazard halves with another whip of water.

The separated blocks of ice go soaring past him, bringing with them a large gush of wind in their wake. Namjoon feels the fur of the hood of his jacket brush roughly at his neck as the breeze whips by, and the small, beaded braid that always hangs from above his temple knocks harshly at it, almost as if in reprimand for the imminent danger he's found himself in. He swallows.

What a close call.

"Okay, Namjoon," he mutters to himself with a slight shake of his head, "Stay calm. Focus."

Inhaling deeply once more, Namjoon keeps his hands up in a defensive stance and watches as the opposing man tilts his head and meets Namjoon's gaze with one with as much warmth as one would give a stranger... though the other man is anything but.

Namjoon exhales.

They've been going at this for a while now. Longer than twenty minutes, he thinks. It's a little hard to tell when Namjoon might possibly be trying to avoid death by the hands of a man with over forty years of waterbending experience. A man who uses 'teaching' as a guise for ruthlessly attacking his students as he pleases. A man by the name of Master Pakku.

Master Pakku moves into a slight crouch and aims his hands out before him. Namjoon hardly has a moment to blink before long, unforgiving shards of ice are sent his way. With a flick of a hand, Namjoon deflects them, sending them crashing into the distance behind him. It does nothing to stop Master Pakku's onslaught of moves though. 

As quickly as the other man's shards disappear, waves upon waves of water emerge before Namjoon as the other man pulls them from practically every source available— the snow on the ground, the bursting fountain nearby, the basins of water settled by the buildings close to them, everywhere. It takes nothing more than a moment's glance for Namjoon to know that this is not something he can totally stop on his own. Not when he's as tired as he is now. His hands have already begun to tremble from overexertion.

He can still try though. 

Namjoon roots himself into the snow below him. Compels the snow that is around his feet into a thick, chilling ice that encircles them and keeps them steady. No longer than a second later, the wave is before him. He palms at the wave, pushing it back with all his might. The ferocity of the wave's own push against him tells him that Master Pakku is doing the same, forcing the will of his wave against Namjoon.

Namjoon pushes and pushes and pushes. Grits his teeth when he feels the water begin to lick at and surround him. Suddenly, he hears more than feels the ice around his feet make a deafening crack before it finally gives way. By then, it's only a second more before the wave consumes him completely, and Namjoon is both soaked wet and laid flat on his back. 

Needless to say, it's truly disorienting. 

As the adrenaline that comes with the battle begins to ebb away, Namjoon's left with his head spinning and a deep aching from the lashings he has just sustained. It's only the sound of approaching footsteps in the freshly wet snow that brings him back to where he is. He blinks upwards as a shadow moves forward and overtakes his face.

Of course, it's Master Pakku who bends over him. His smile is a little cruel, a little too mirthful.

"Nice try," he says, "Perhaps next time you'll know better than to attempt to withdraw from my lessons before I tell you you're ready to do so. I'll see you in class, Namjoon."

Then with his arms folded behind his back, Master Pakku departs with not another glance spared at Namjoon.

And, well, that's the end of that.

🌙

Well, not really.

See, as much as Namjoon would like to hope for otherwise, he's found himself to be in a bit of a predicament. A bind, one might say. Because in spite of Master Pakku's very clear command (or threat?) to him, Namjoon quite literally cannot make it to his bending classes. 

Perhaps if it was a matter of his own choice, Namjoon would relent and immediately give into his teacher's demands. In spite of Master Pakku being… Master Pakku, Namjoon has always been a diligent student. He always sits up front during demonstrations. Always takes time out of his leisurely visits to the North's libraries to read up on various techniques in scrolls. Always makes time to hone his waterbending skills after his lessons are over.

A small part of this is because Namjoon likes to learn. He likes to read. Likes to broaden his understanding of various phenomena in the world, whether it be related to bending or otherwise.

But the larger part of it though?

It's because water… water is a part of who he is. 

Namjoon, being both a member of the Northern Water Tribe as well as a dedicated waterbender, has been born and raised under the hands of the moon and ocean spirits, Tui and La. Two great spirits who, somehow, found something worthy enough in him to bless him with the ability to bend water at his convenience.

In all his years of life, he still has found no greater console than the feeling he gets when he dances water in the palms of his hands. Especially on a night where he's able to do so by the ocean's side while the moon is at her fullest. To feel the full moon’s gentle light caress him and guide his bending… to feel the ocean freely flow above his palms… It's a gratifying feeling. One that makes him feel the most whole. Like his heart is truly beating.

It's a feeling that he would never neglect if he had a choice… which is the crux of the whole entire situation. Namjoon hasn’t much of a choice in anything, really— not in the continuing of his bending lessons and certainly not in many other aspects of his own life. 

Truthfully, when it's all said and done, having his bending lessons be cut short is practically nothing compared to the other decisions the tribe's leaders have made for him over the years. 

Because, really, what is losing the privilege of attending his bending lessons compared to the misfortune of being a waterbender who has been forced away from the ocean's and the full moon's gaze for the majority of his life? 

How long has it been since it was decided, for the sake of the tribe's own wellbeing, to restrict him from something so essential? Some thirteen years or so? Just a few days after he turned seven, it should be.

Perhaps it's a bit dramatic to say when Namjoon's only twenty and still has so much time to experience and know the world, but… it feels much longer. A separation such as this cannot merely be quantified by days or months or years. No, it's something that is felt. Something that is simply known. 

And Namjoon knows it on the most primal of levels— the physical.

As he finally rises up from the ground and pulls the water from his encounter with Master Pakku out of his clothes, he can't help but notice the way his hands still tremble. There's an obvious disgrace in the resulting shape of water that forms as he moves it from his clothing to the air. The water's nothing more than a massive, unseemly bubble when for someone who's been bending for as long as he has— who loves water as much as he does— it should really be more smooth and rounded. 

Unimpressed, he drops it down to the ground with an unflattering splat.

"How shameful," he tuts with a quick shake of his head.

In quick, heated moments like the battle he just had, where the only goals are to attack and be attacked, the true state of his bending may go unnoticed for the most part. His movements may still hold touches of clumsiness, sure, but they are effective in what they set out to do. 

When Namjoon had compelled the water to lash forward and land a strike on Master Pakku, for example, it had done so. And that is fine to an extent. At the end of the day, a strike is a strike is a strike no matter the manner in which it is achieved. 

Still, it's in the simple, raw moments like these— a mere pulling of the water from one place to another— where it becomes most obvious: Namjoon has been away from the ocean and the full moon for too long. Far too long.

It doesn't take too much brain power to acknowledge that there's a  huge difference, really, between the level of skill in a waterbender who knows the ocean and moon on a personal, physical level, and one who doesn't. Even if Namjoon studied and practiced all hours in a day, there's nothing that could make up for all the time he's been forced to spend apart from them. Nothing except for time itself.

It's a weakness of his. A blatant one. 

One he thinks anyone could see if they watched him bend long enough— Actually, that's stating it lightly. It's one that he's sure not a single person in this tribe is unaware of. 

Because ever since that one fateful day Namjoon had lived all those years ago, things have changed. Namjoon had changed, the tribe had changed, their whole entire way of life had changed, and, quite suddenly, Namjoon was no longer allowed to know the ocean and the full moon. At least, not in the same capacity that the rest of the tribe is able to do.

Yes, from that very day and onwards, when little Namjoon, only seven years of age, raised his hands up to greet his loyal companion called water, there were no longer proud words of you are sure to be a powerful bender someday, the water already knows you so well, she loves you so, Tui and La has surely blessed you. Those words and all comments similar to them have long since gone.

Instead, now, what Namjoon endures is this: wary gazes as he moves water, the majority of his bending practices needing to be spent in private and away from his peers as a result; his placement in cold, unfeeling, windowless rooms at the onset of every full moon, Namjoon never being able to properly feel the moon’s light in its entirety again; his trips to the ocean's side limited, and his actions always having to be monitored whenever he had to be near it, especially on days of or nearing the full moon.

The only aspect of his life that hasn't changed in the aftermath of that day is this: water remains his steadfast companion. 

Even if Namjoon is awkward. Even if Namjoon is clumsy and bumbling with it in the air. Water will answer. Water will return to him. It's a fact as sure as the air in his lungs or the heart that beats in his chest. For that, Namjoon is grateful. Truly.

...If only that alone could negate the embarrassment he suffers from his current situation. 

After his confrontation with Master Pakku, the feeling all but swells within him, mixing with sentiments of disheartenment and humiliation. Because, like everyone else in the tribe, Master Pakku had been aware of all of this. Of the tribe's leaders' mandates to Namjoon. Of Namjoon's resulting incompetence. Of Namjoon's steadfast reverence of water, the ocean, and the moon despite it all. 

Master Pakku had been aware, and as Namjoon's bending professor, he was sure to have known that, in spite of it all, Namjoon, of all people, is not the type of person to ever neglect his bending lessons unless he had a true reason to do so. Not only has Namjoon's attendance been immaculate, but in the past, Namjoon had to fight to even be allowed to take such bending classes.

Yet Master Pakku still met Namjoon's simple request to withdraw from his lessons with a bending challenge. Instead of a simple answer of no, or the questioning of why, there had been if you are so ready to leave my classes, Namjoon, then by all means, you should be well equipped to face me in a duel. 

At the time, Master Pakku had been standing right outside of his school's doors, Namjoon having caught him just before he was set to begin his lessons. The man's hands were crossed behind his back, and his expression was completely placid. 

The chill had been so heavy in the air. It'd felt so thick, so stifling that Namjoon had almost thought he'd been inhaling frost straight into his lungs. 

Namjoon remembers in that initial staredown he'd shared with Master Pakku before the fight began that he'd had the distinct, but passing thought that, in the upcoming days, a storm was coming— one that would be heavy and utterly unforgiving. Since he was young, he could always sense a snowstorm's arrival like a second nature. Could taste its approach in the air.

Yet, in spite of this, as Namjoon met Master Pakku's gaze, he knew the pinpricks of a shiver he'd felt down his spine were not from the piercing cold. No, it surely was from Master Pakku's steely gaze alone.... The man was completely serious about his bending challenge to Namjoon.

Now, Namjoon is no fool. 

He'd known the battle to be lost the very moment it'd even been suggested. Master Pakku is a waterbending master, after all. What threat can Namjoon ever hold against him? 

Yet— yet.

Namjoon is a man of the water tribe— a man of pride, as meager as it may be. He's the descendant of countless men who've helped bring the tribe into the safe, enduring prosperity that it is in right now despite the ever-present dark threats that plague it. In spite of the many qualities Namjoon lacks, that blood still runs in his veins. He knows it does— he sees the culmination of such blood each day in the efforts of his own father.

So when Master Pakku had raised his hands and positioned himself for a confrontation… so had Namjoon. He had to. He could not let the affront of shying away from a proposed duel cling to his person. He couldn't. Not to mention the fact that if Namjoon did somehow manage to out maneuver Master Pakku in the battle, it would have been a valid way for him to honorably leave his classes. 

And so the rest, unfortunately, was history. 

As for now, though?

Namjoon stretches. Eases sore limbs that hadn't even had the opportunity to be warmed up before he'd been launched head first into a duel. Relishes the minor relief his muscles feel. Relishes the calm of the moment. 

It's only morning.

Despite the whirlwind of events that has just transpired, despite the whirlwind of thoughts that still swirl in his head— to the rest of the tribe, the day is only just beginning. 

People are still waking up; men and women alike are beginning to trickle out of their homes in order to start their days. Namjoon sees bender girls walking towards Master Yagoda's healing classes a distance's away, water pouches at their sides, and their chatter more hushed than typical. His fellow male bender classmates also pass him by, and Namjoon notices how their eyes fail to meet his own as they trail into the school. 

Briefly, he wonders how many of them witnessed his fight with Master Pakku and its dismal ending before, for his sanity's sake, he tries to stop himself from continuing down that embarrassing line of thought.

Tries. 

Almost immediately, as if hearing Namjoon's thoughts themselves, one individual separates himself from the stream of bender boys making their way into the school. He stands tall, with his shoulders squared and assured in a way only someone of his status— someone who is considered the pride and future of the tribe— could. His blue eyes are sharp and judging as he faces Namjoon directly.

Of course.

Sungho.

Out of all the people to have seen the fight, Sungho just had to be among them.

"What was that?" Sungho asks, a slight huff of incredulous laughter to his tone, "Did you actually think you could challenge Master Pakku? You of all people?"

Namjoon is silent for a moment. It's one thing for Namjoon to doubt himself. To recognize his own limitations. It's another to hear it spat from another's lips.

Namjoon swallows and forces himself to think over the sound of his heart thudding loudly in his ears and the feeling of the blooming heat in his cheeks. He thinks of the handful of straggling students still nearby, observing the conversation. He thinks about how they'll talk. He thinks about how somehow, some way every word of this conversation and every detail of his confrontation with Master Pakku will surely get back around to his father. 

And he feels it again.

That meaningless pride of his.

There's just something within it that is unfailing. Even when it's at odds with Namjoon's own sense of self-preservation. 

So Namjoon does what he probably ought not do— he doesn't walk away. He does not back down. Instead, he squares his shoulders too. Raises his chin up and looks down at Sungho with the few centimeters of height he has over him. The distance between the two of them, on more than one level, is not as great as it may seem, after all. 

"Thank you for the concern, Sungho," Namjoon answers, but there is little gratitude to be found in his voice. Only a bitter steeliness he's become accustomed to having over the years of confrontation with the other man, "If you really must know, it was actually Master Pakku who challenged me. Perhaps he saw something worthy enough within me to warrant it."

Sungho outright laughs now. Throws his shaved head back, clutches his stomach, and all. The intensity of such laughter is almost impressive to behold when all Namjoon can hear in its tones is cruelty, and all he can see in Sungho's eyes is cold, mirthlessness.

"Worthy enough? The only thing that I saw you were worthy of was the humbling you recieved. Look at you now," Sungho spits, and his eyes roam over Namjoon's form with unmistakable contempt, "Still damp. Can hardly even pull water out of your own clothes. Pathetic. Not even the help of Tui and La themselves can save you from the sorry state you're in. You're lucky Master Pakku didn't grant you your wish and remove you from our class anyways just for all the trouble."

Namjoon feels his jaw jut as he steps forward again. Despite the height difference, like this, Sungho and he are practically eye to eye now. Namjoon can almost see himself reflected in the depths of Sungho's cool blue orbs.

"Look, there's far more to the situation than you would be able to understand, it's senseless to make a scene about it. You're only making yourself look foolish."

"And that's where you're wrong. I don't understand?" impassioned, Sungho slaps a hand to his chest, "This is my tribe. My people. I know more about this life, about this world than you ever will. No matter how long you've lived here, no matter who your parents are, you will never be someone who will ever understand us. You will always be an outsider. An outcast. The sooner you learn that, the better." 

And before Namjoon can get another word in edgewise, Sungho scoffs once more and storms up the stairs leading into the classrooms. Namjoon is left standing with only the chilling breeze and overly nosy onlookers for company.

He can't help but think it's funny. 

Unlike Master Pakku, who rendered Namjoon powerless with the mere pull of water at the palm of his hands, Sungho manipulates the tides of shame and dishonor with equivalent adeptness, makes them mercilessly twist and turn and crash within Namjoon's core and ensures that Namjoon feels even lesser than he already did. 

Sungho has always been quite good at doing that. Really, Namjoon should be used to his words. He's heard them all before from both Sungho's lips and the mouths of others. None of it is new.

Yet.

It still hurts.

It hurts but there's so little Namjoon can do against the feelings such words have fostered.  He can only look at the shame and dishonor he feels in the eyes and try not to mind it too much when he only sees his own reflection staring back.

This is his fate.

Not just for the day, but for his life, really. Getting into uncomfortable situations and arguments and fights and for what? To uphold decisions he doesn't even agree with? To appease his elders even if it's at the cost of himself? What is he doing? What can he even do?

Namjoon wishes he could go back to yesterday. All the meaningless yesterdays where, perhaps he was not perfectly happy, perhaps he was lacking and deprived in various manners of himself, but at least he'd had his bending lessons, as arduous as they could be, to look forward to. At least there was that.

There was a certain peace Namjoon had within his spirit in just having that. A certain wholeness within himself that he could maintain just by routinely being allowed to have water in the palms of his hands.

If Namjoon could have yesterday, he would surely attend his classes, privately practice his bending off on his own later, sequester himself away in the tribe's libraries for a while, before quietly meeting his family at home for dinner, and being happy with it all.

How nice would it be to do that? To return to that normal? It would practically be a comfort in the face of his very present, current discomfort and shame. It's so easy to be drawn towards it. 

Namjoon so badly wants to follow that path and make his home there. He truly does. He would do it… were it not for the question he was proposed only a mere night's ago.

It had been slipped to him in the most disarming of ways, of course— at his family's dining table. In between bites of stew, Namjoon had to swallow down a new reality he hadn't really ever expected to be confronted with. Not anymore, anyways.

It was his father who had spoken the words, but in Namjoon's mind it was a chorus of voices. All older ones, all proper ones, all voices of those who had helped lead the tribe for a long time, who had seen more of the world before it'd grown dark, who knew more about peace in its most true and unadulterated form and not in the precarious state it is in now. Those voices melded into one, and they asked him: "Isn't it long past time for you to assume your duties, Namjoon?"

Now one truth that may be stated about Namjoon's father is this: a question posed like that wasn't truly a question, and it certainly wasn't a suggestion either. A question like that? Well, it's an order.

In that moment, as Namjoon had processed the request, he had, at first, only been able to gaze at his father. He took in the countenance that was almost a mirror of Namjoon's own save for the harder lines he bore from battle and age. He took in the darker shades of blue that lived in his eyes. 

His father had been sitting right at the head of the table, as he always does both inside and outside of their home, and he'd look both completely at ease and domineering in such a position. 

So much power was held in one man, and Namjoon inherited none of it.

Even when Namjoon had tried with fumbling, weak words to deny his father's question, it'd felt like the words were just words off a bland script. They'd had no impact or influence in the real world. They touched no one, and they helped no one, much less Namjoon himself. They were just words said to say words. After all, Namjoon knew, his father knew, and everyone involved in making the decision knew how this would all end.

How it's all ending now.

So as Namjoon stands outside of Master Pakku's building, he does not heed his teacher's command. He does not follow his classmates into the building. No, instead, he turns and walks away. 

What other choice did he have, really?

Chapter Text

When Namjoon was younger, there were quite a number of things about the North that were different from how they were now. 

For one, he was just like any other child within the Northern Water Tribe. There were no mandates by the tribe’s elders that he had to adhere to. No wary gazes that followed him when he so much as lifted a finger. There was none of that at all. He was just little Namjoon, a tiny teardrop swimming in the midst of the greater, mightier ocean that was the Northern Water Tribe. 

His biggest concerns back then were quite literally only what books from the tribe’s libraries his father might bring for him to read that day, what new bending tricks he could come up with that he might show to impress his mother, and what ways he could get his, at the time, new polar bear puppy Monie to listen to him for once. It's a simple type of living he didn't have much of a mind to appreciate until he grew older.

But aside from these things, the greatest difference between back then and his present day was that, in the past, dark spirit attacks on the North were much, much more frequent. On a daily basis usually. As a result, the tribe's warriors were constantly in a state of vigilance and attack. 

Namjoon, who was only at the cusp of being seven at the time of what many consider the worst of these attacks, could scarcely even remember much from that time period. Back then, women, children, and the elderly alike were not allowed to go out as freely as they do in the present day due to the fear that they would be next and defenseless against the dark spirits' attacks. When occasions necessitated their travel, it was always under heavily guarded pathways. 

Therefore, it stands to say that, for the most part, Namjoon's younger self had almost no reason to have ever encountered the treacherous creatures that were stated to plague the tribe and the rest of the world. 

Almost.

Because, of course, eventually the time would come where he’d encountered one of those very creatures, and it's only fitting that the night when he did, it had been something like a special occasion. 

It wasn’t very often, certainly not nearly as much as Namjoon would've liked, but back then there were a few times where his father would take him on trips to the ocean. These occasions would be on the nights when the moon was at its most high and full, her light like a shroud of protection over the tribe. 

Any spirit who was worth their salt knew not to disturb the tribe on a night like this. Not when the tribe was filled with heavily skilled benders who, in the presence of the full moon, were at their strongest. After all, the moon and ocean would not very easily allow their children’s hurt without consequence.

On the eve of Namjoon's seventh birthday, it just so happened that not only was it a full moon, but it also was the night before a supermoon was expected to arrive. The moment Namjoon had stepped outside he could already feel the difference in the moon's influence. 

The moon felt large— larger than he had ever known it to be before— larger than life even. Namjoon could feel her unyielding presence bear down onto the earth like the greatest stronghold. Could feel her embrace envelope him like a second skin. 

It was surreal. How was it only the night before the actual supermoon, but he felt her so strongly? There had been absolutely no doubt about it in Namjoon's mind: the moon was here in both the most physical and spiritual sense. He could feel her deeply within the recesses of himself. And what a comforting sensation that was. A true balm to his soul. He had never felt more safe in his life.

And so his father and he went out into the ocean.

Namjoon remembered the ocean's calm. Even as their boat sailed across her surface, the stillness of the night remained. Reciprocally, Namjoon felt such calmness in his heart. Felt such joy to be in the presence of the ocean and the full moon at once.

Pleased, Namjoon tilted his head up to the moon, out-stretched his hand, and waved.

“Hello, moon!”

Of course, the moon could not say anything back. But it felt almost like she could. Her light was streaked just so over their boat that it hit his face with a certain tenderness. Like a palm gently cupping his cheek. In its own way, it was a greeting, wasn't it? A hello.

"You and the moon," his father tutted softly, sounding more fond than anything else, "The way you love her, I'd think you were a child of the moon before my own."

"Well, the moon is pretty great," Namjoon agreed, "The ocean too. Hello, ocean!" He swirled his finger up in the air, and the two of them watched the resulting small bead of water dance in the moon’s light.

Namjoon's father huffed a small chuckle, but didn't say much more. Despite his very social occupation, he never was too prone to verbosity when circumstances didn't require it. He was someone who appreciated the quiet for what it was. Similarly, with so much of Namjoon's days spent (unsuccessfully) wrangling Monie around, Namjoon could find fondness in the calm of the moment too. In this expansive refuge they called the ocean, there was only quiet. What a reprieve it was.

A single guard’s yell from the shore was their only warning.

“Chief Daeseong, look out!”

With a sudden splash by some unknown force, the boat lurched back, sending their sails into a frenzy and some of the gear on their boat overboard. Stray water fell into Namjoon’s eyes, and he had to blink it away a few times before he finally saw it. 

Its lizard-like form was dark and long. Honestly, from Namjoon's smaller stature and limited perspective, it looked greater than several grown men combined. The creature skittered on elongated, sharp black claws, smacking its tail against the water as it approached. Its red eyes seemed to glow in the midst of the dark of the night, and as the creature hurried forward, they met Namjoon's own with a jarring intensity. 

Fear clenched his heart like a vice. Spread like ice throughout his body. Kept him frozen in place. He could only watch with wide eyes as his father drew the sword that always hung from his hip to meet the creature's clawed strike with it. Metal against the semi-solid make of the spirit's claws began to sing into the night.

The creature seemed to be one of great confidence. Between lapses of its strikes, it circled around the boat in an almost haughty saunter, surely aware of its advantage against them— a mere two people in a small boat. 

It was baffling. Harrowing. Completely unprecedented. Among the handful of trips to the ocean they'd made in the past, they'd never encountered anything like this before. Especially not on a night such as this with the moon hanging so prominently in the sky— a night before a supermoon even. The whole situation was unthinkable. 

They should've been safe.

Instead, there they were trapped in their small  sailboat with no one but themselves to fend off a spirit who seemed quite keen on attacking them. Even the guard from before seemed to be gone. It was just the two of them.

Immediately, it became obvious that there was little fortune to be won in attacking the spirit first, not with the way they were positioned in the middle of a boat, so Namjoon's father was forced to play the defensive against the spirit as it raised up and lunged at them in its cruel, teasing manner. Despite the coy play, his father met every strike unrelentingly.

Namjoon curled away from the fight. Clasped his ears as each clash sent a loud clang into the air. In a quick moment of cunning, his father ducked away from one swipe, and then bounded upwards, dragging his sword down the creature's neck and abdomen. Dark, phantasmic-like liquid oozed out of the newly established wound, looking like black ink as it dripped into the ocean, before the wound began to slowly reseal itself.

The spirit let out a loud, terrible sort of howl and with an anger-renewed vigor, increased its attacks, managing to successfully land one clawed strike down Namjoon's father's chest in its fury. The resulting sound that ripped out of his father in response was harrowing. Almost a mimicry of the creature's shriek itself. Namjoon felt chills shoot up his spine at it. Its tones would surely haunt Namjoon for years to come.

It was then that Namjoon knew: as skilled as he knew his father to be, with an injury and only himself to combat the creature, the odds were increasingly out of his favor.

Perhaps it was the fear. Perhaps it was the desperation. Perhaps it was the eyes of the moon still on him even in the midst of all of the chaos. Perhaps it was the fortitude in knowing the ocean was a companion rather than foe in this situation. Namjoon's not sure he'll ever know what it was, but, somehow, he mustered enough courage within his trembling frame to stand up.

He drew his hands behind him, and intuitively, he knew the water had followed him. Could feel his invisible grip on it guide the water backwards. Then with a determined huff, he swung his hands forward, sending a sizable wave at the spirit. 

It was enough to send the spirit flying, and the slight, oozing slit that was still healing in its chest now became a long, gaping wound down its middle. The creature let out one last blood-curdling howl before it dissipated into the night.

And then… silence reigned around them once more.

The only perturbance to the quiet was made by Namjoon and his father's heavy pants of breath. For a moment, Namjoon could only stare at him. The man returned his gaze, and Namjoon, in all his years of life, will never forget the state his father was in. His disheveled hair. His heaving chest. His blood dripping down his torso. His parted lips. His wide blue eyes.

It was perhaps the first and only time Namjoon could ever remember seeing pure fear and shock completely take over his father's face. And that… that was what finally sent Namjoon into a fit of tears.

“Dad!” he cried, running forth into his father’s chest and squeezing him as tightly as he could. He had to make sure he was still solid, still whole. The man winced, but didn't push him away. No, if anything he braced Namjoon and pulled him closer. Namjoon felt a strong, large hand run through his hair. 

“Hey, hey. Son, it’s alright. I’m alright. Look, I’m fine. You’ve done so well, Namjoon. So, so well.” Despite his father’s words, the tears were unrelenting. He felt his dad's coat get wetter beneath him. Ocean water and blood were already settled on the poor thing, and now Namjoon's tears were adding onto the mess. What a terrible combination. He hoped he'd never have to witness anything like it again.

There was the sound of a flurry of footsteps from beyond them on the shore. Likely reinforcements brought by the guard who’d originally noticed the dark spirit. 

Someone called out to them, urging them to sit so that the benders could bring their boat back to shore. Another cried out to call for a healer— their chief was badly injured. Another called for someone to send for more guards to help search for the spirit, who, with its absence, was more than likely assumed to still be on the loose rather than slain. It was rather rare for one non-bender, even one as skilled as his father, to take down a dark spirit alone, especially considering it was deep into the night, he was on a rowboat, and his only aid was a still blubbering child.

His father seemed to heed no mind to the noise on the shore, nor make any effort to ask any of the burning questions that he could've asked like where were all the other guards when the dark spirit first attacked or why did help arrive so late or how was a dark spirit able to attack on a night like this at all?

Instead, he only pulled back from the embrace he shared with Namjoon to gaze at his son's tearful face.

“You really did a number on that spirit, didn’t you?” the man asks, sounding tired, shocked, and proud all at once, “I've never seen someone so young take to water like that. It must've been the hands of Tui and La themselves on you. Oh, my dear Namjoon, you've done so well. I’m so proud of you. You already know water so well.”

Overwhelmed, all Namjoon could do was continue to weep. His father stroked his head once more, softly saying, "You truly are a child of the moon, aren’t you? My little moon child."

At the time, Namjoon was too shocked and immersed in his tears to answer, but in the end, it wouldn’t matter. Because only a day later he, his father, and the rest of the tribe would learn just how true those words could ring.

For now, though, he would cry.

🌙

If Namjoon stays in this meeting any longer, he thinks he might cry. No really. He will. 

Ever since he was banned from his bending lessons and directed to instead fulfill his newly appointed duties, Namjoon has found his days overwhelmed with a number of things, these meetings being one of them. 

It's all quite an adjustment to make.

Just days before, Namjoon was living as he typically did: quietly attending Master Pakku's classes or solitarily passing his time in the tribe's libraries. Most of those days, he spent feeling more like a shadow than anything else, like he was something to be ignored and be seen as untouchable. 

When eyes did happen to fall upon him, it was with immense, unmerited scrutinization. It was with those very eyes trying to see into him, trying to see what darkness laid within the blurry, obscured existence he lived. This had been the norm he'd grown accustomed to. 

Now here he sits amongst the tribe's council.

Somehow this is what is expected of him now… This is what is expected of the prince of the Northern Water Tribe.

Him. Namjoon. The prince.

Just thinking about the entire situation feels… off. Wrong. In a way. Even though, by all means, this is his birthright. 

Perhaps it's because he still doesn't know what exactly prompted the change.

He's gone years and years and years living in the heart of the tribe, as all members of the chief's family do. Yet, in spite of his lodging's location, he's always found himself being at the fringes of the tribe’s heart . The wariness and discomfort his mere presence arouses in his people has made it so.

An outsider. 

Sungho had snarled the words in his face, and with the little pride he could scrounge from being the chief's son, Namjoon had tried to argue back.

But was Sungho wrong?

Namjoon thinks back to their confrontation. To the way Sungho had scathingly impressed his words onto Namjoon before storming away. Really, Namjoon could have called out to him. Could have cursed him out. Could have fought a bit more. 

Yet.

Sungho had been able to walk away, and Namjoon had found himself with little more to say to him. Because, when he thought about it, what else was there to say? This is the life he's lived.

An outsider.

An outcast.

He hates the idea of it as much as he takes comfort in it.

Truthfully, there have been times where he's longed to be welcomed and respected as the son of Chief Daeseong. Of course, he's wanted that. When it comes down to it, Namjoon cannot deny that he's never quite managed to settle the swell of shame that arises within him when he thinks about all the shortcomings that he has as a person of his station.

How can he ignore the fact that he is the son of the chief, and yet he can hardly be amongst his people?

How can he ignore the fact that he's used to eyes that turn away from him and lips that pull downward when he walks into a room?

How can he ignore the fact that as the prince of the tribe, the members of the tribe look towards someone else as their hope for the future?

How can he ignore that?

He thinks it's that little bit of pride, so meager, but so, so unfailing, that had been instilled within him in the younger years of his life that makes him be like so. That little boy who had been so earnestly hugged by his father and told You've done so well. I'm so proud of you is still living within Namjoon, even after all this time. 

Even still… It has been quite some time since Namjoon began to live like this. Over a decade, even. With that much time at play, it can be so startlingly easy to settle with the quiet he's lived in. He's gotten accustomed to the quiet. The isolation. The loneliness.

Loneliness, as a matter of fact, he's found to be a companion.

It's as close of a friend to him as water is. He knows it well. Trusts it more than anything else. Because, like water, it always returns to his side. Like water, it lives inside him. It's something he can look in the mirror and find just as easily as he does his eyes that are just a little too blue and his hair that's just a little too pale. 

Even in this room full of people, Namjoon feels it stand by his side— is more aware of it than ever. Because though these are the people who've decided his fate for the majority of his life, he's close to not one of them at all. Only the loneliness is familiar. Only the loneliness is a friend.

And so, again, Namjoon can't help but wonder: what changed? 

What could have happened to make these people go from their unyielding reticence with having Namjoon mingling with their affairs to staunchly insisting on him fulfilling his princely duties? Decisions like these are not made arbitrarily, surely. 

It's a thought that's been quietly swirling around his head these days, but Namjoon remains unsure. At this point, he can only suspect the true reason will make itself apparent in time.

In the meantime, he continues to attend these meetings, and continues to have highly mixed feelings for them.

Most of the time the discussions can be interesting: there's been increasingly more detailed plans created for the tribe's outward expansion as their population grows larger, discussions on how to mitigate their fresh produce loss after the trades from the Earth Kingdom have thinned due to yet another uptick in dark spirit attacks within the other nation, ruminations about increasing contact with their sister tribe, deliberations being made for the upcoming snowstorm, and more.

But then there are the other times. Times like this. Times where they discuss the avatar.

That's when Namjoon starts to feel a little stir-crazy. 

Now, it's hardly been more than a few days since Namjoon has attended these meetings, so he's not exactly a complete expert on all of their happenings, but if there is one item he learned with absolute certainty about them, it's that every single one of these meetings became damned the very moment the subject of the avatar arised. Every. Single. One. 

This one, obviously, is no different. 

Currently, it's been half an hour since the topic came up and not a single moment of it has been productive, not a single piece of new information has been brought up, and not a single conclusion has been made.  Mostly, if there's any way to sum up the conversation it would be to call it all an unending cycle of triviality.

Namjoon is having such a miserable time listening to it all, he’s debating whether or not storming out, showing his face around Master Pakku's classrooms, and finally feeling the brunt of the man's wrath once and for all would be less painful.

It's that bad.

This is the sort of masochistic train of thought he continues to engage himself with for another ten minutes or so as the conversations surrounding the avatar prevails until, quite suddenly, Namjoon finds an admonishing finger and very sharp words are pointed his way.

"Alright, I've had it! He's The Moonchild, isn't he? Why can't he go ask the moon where the avatar's at and go find the avatar himself? What good is he doing bumbling around all day in our meeting room pretending to play prince? What more have we achieved since he's joined these meetings?"

Well.

That's certainly not the way Namjoon expected to learn their true motivations for having him be there. 

Namjoon has only one second to blink in surprise at the barrage of questions before the whole entire room erupts into chaos. Tribeswoman Jungha, instigator of all the noise, squawks at the outcry, attempts to raise her voice above it, but remains largely unsuccessful. 

Namjoon, now at the crux of the argument, can only sigh. Because though such a suggestion hasn't ever been mentioned in these meetings directly, at least not while he's been attending them anyways, this has been argued to him before in other manners and will probably continue to be argued for as long as any long standing issue within the tribe related to the still very much missing avatar remains unsolved. 

And though Namjoon's not unused to seeing himself being made the centerpoint of such discussions, there's not much he's ever been able to say. After all these years since he got tied up in this whole ordeal, everyone's already made up their minds on what they would like to believe is the best choice of action, after all.

"We need the boy to stay here," Namjoon hears another voice say in the midst of all the noise, and is unsurprised when he turns his head to see Tribesman Juwon, wildly gesticulating at him, his eyes fierce. "How can we ensure my warriors' safety if we send him away? Ever since he was touched by Tui, hardly a single dark spirit has ever been seen in the tribe again. Sending him away on some wild goose-duck chase for an avatar that may not even be around yet is like sending my men into battle with no drawers on."

There's an obvious irritation in Jungha's eyes as she scoffs and directs her fierce gaze at Juwon. Namjoon, in spite of the tense situation, can't help but be impressed. Despite their differences, the two of them are so very similar.

Jungha and Juwon, heads of the tribe's healers and warriors respectively, live quite opposing lives, and it shows quite blatantly. Jungha's frame is thinner and a hair bit taller. Her hands are long, unblemished, and unrelenting as she taps her nails against the table before her.

Juwon, however, is a few centimeters shorter, but stockier in stature. The build of his muscle is quite evident even with his large winter coat on. His hands, massive as they are, are hardened by the calluses he's acquired from years of battle and training.

With all of that being said, when they both sported twin scowls like that, the familial resemblance between the two is overwhelmingly plain to see. There's nothing quite like a pair of squabbling siblings to make an already disastrous meeting even more catastrophic. 

"Well," Jungha continues, "maybe then they'll finally be able to learn how to get something done around here. What more do our warriors do these days but sit around, drink, and play cards? What a waste of our tribe's resources and money."

Juwon rears from his seat, fists clenched. "How dare you say that! My men train and work ceaselessly to protect us all, and it would do you well to remember it."

Jungha does not back down. "Oh, I'm sure everyone felt so much safer when your men escorted the otter-penguins out of the children's playgrounds again. I was quite impressed when one of your men followed one into the play-tunnel and got his hindquarters stuck in it for hours. The resulting ring of frostbite around his arse made excellent practice for Master Yagoda and I's healing students.”

"You-!" 

In the midst of all the arguments, no one pays any mind to the chief as he saunters to the center of the boardroom. He stands appraisingly, watches the chaos unfold for a second more, before placing two fingers into his mouth, and heaving out a sharp whistle. Silence immediately falls over the room. 

"Alright," the chief begins, "I think we've certainly heard enough from all of you on this matter. Now does anyone have any reasonable suggestions?" 

The already ever present silence settles in the room and makes itself home. Though the room is filled with at least twenty or so of the most influential members of the tribe, not a single person attempts to answer the chief. Not at first. But the tension within the room is palpable. 

Namjoon eyes the general looks of consternation around the board and then takes in the chief's own unimpressed expression from where he stands at the center of the room. No one seems willing to make the first move. That is… until Jungha breaks the quiet. Her voice is a bit abashed, but still holds a great note of conviction within it as she speaks. 

“I just cannot help but feel that we are wasting time," she begins, "With each moment that passes, dark spirit after dark spirit enters our world and wreaks more havoc. While our tribe has been most fortunate in recent years and has not been on the receiving end of any major attacks, it does not mean that there is not a problem to be solved."

Jungha pauses for a moment, waits for an interruption, and when she receives none, continues.

"Look at the chaos within the Earth Kingdom. The unrest within the Fire Nation. The complete isolation of the Air Nation. The poor state of our sister tribe. We are living in a world at its most unstable. At its greatest need of balance. At its greatest need for its avatar. We cannot wait until it's too late. Spirits forbid, but what will we do when the world becomes so dark spirit infested that even our moon is not enough to protect us as she does now? Or The Moonchild falls into a situation much like the Fire Nation has with their Dragon Prince?"

At her words, Namjoon feels the stares of the members of the board fall upon him, and it takes everything within him to not bow his head down under the weight of their scrutiny. Instead, he watches as the chief nods and thoughtfully strokes his chin.

“I do understand your concerns, Jungha," the chief replies, "but what more would you suggest doing? We are already screening each child for their avatar status, and we have already prepared measures for what we will do when we find our next avatar. Beyond that, there is not much more we can do, but to continue to do as we always have in keeping our tribe safe."

Jungha continues to rap her nails against the table. It's a habit of hers that, if her words or tone did not give her exasperation away, her restless hands surely would have. "Chief, I do mean this as respectfully as possible, but I have to be frank here. The day your son walked out of the Oasis with hair as pale as snow, something changed in this tribe. Something that has managed to repulse dark spirits away from us. And it is not something that we've been doing."

Juwon, obviously feeling slighted by Jungha's words once again, opens his mouth to speak, but the chief stops him with a raise of hand.

"And to some extent," the chief concedes, "I can agree with that. But as I have said, there's really not much more we could be doing. It's not like we can just force the Avatar Spirit on someone. No, these processes must happen naturally. Also, as much as I hate to say it, there is no certainty that the next avatar cycle has even begun anew to even initiate them." 

And there's the crux of this whole situation. 

Because in spite of all of these meetings, in spite of all of the massive searches they hold, in spite of how desperately the world needs its avatar, the truth of the matter is this: the world does not know exactly how or why it lost its avatar. 

It’s only rumored that the former one, Avatar Park, after suddenly being stricken by some sort of unknowable grief, had condemned himself into exile and was never once to be seen again for the rest of his days. As a result, there is not a single soul who knows when he’s passed. Or if he’s even passed. If reports are correct, he was only in his twenties at most when he had vanished. Truthfully, he could very well still be alive. His last sighting was only some fifty years ago, after all. 

So much ambiguity surrounds Avatar Park and his possible passing that even making guesses about his succeeding Avatar is near impossible. The new avatar, if such a person is currently amongst the living now, can be anywhere as young as a second old or be well past their fifties. 

Thus, the Northern Water Tribe is stuck in a conundrum. How do you search for someone you haven't the slightest clue about? Who you're not even sure exists yet? Where do you even begin?

Still, they try. 

Year after year, the tribe's sages have performed the water tribe's traditional ritual for screening for the avatar spirit within the tribe's children at the Spirit Oasis. Each time they have done so, they have wound up empty handed. 

The only exception to their endeavors, of course, was Namjoon's own visit into the Oasis, but that's neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. Namjoon is not the Avatar. Namjoon will never have any part in saving the world. Not with the way he is now. His time would be better spent learning how to save himself, if anything.

And so the world continues to be in need, and the Northern Water Tribe remains stuck in a precarious position.

Because Jungha is right. Since Namjoon's trip to the Oasis, the dark spirit attacks on the Northern Water Tribe have tinkered off to a significant extent. Hell, they're practically nonexistent now. 

It doesn't take much to see it in the state the tribe currently is in: the kids have playgrounds they freely run away in now; the girls from Master Yagoda's and Jungha's healing lessons walk to and from their classes completely by themselves; the tribe's warriors have gone so long without a real threat, they would hardly be able to recognize the image of adversary if it stared them in the face. Hardly anyone in the tribe would, really.

It's a completely different way of living compared to the earlier days in Namjoon's youth. The Northern Water Tribe, in spite of all that is dark and twisted in the world, is at peace.

But for how long will it remain this way? How long until the tides change? Namjoon knows how fickle they can be. He knows how, without a moment's notice, they can suddenly turn themselves in a completely different direction. 

He'd seen it himself that night on the boat with his father.

To this day, Namjoon can still remember the light of the moon caressing his skin, the peaceful sounds of the ocean as she gently rocked their boat, the tranquility that had delved into his spirit from being in the presence of the ocean and full moon at once. 

That moment in his memory… it's something he can never forget. It's one he clings to in his deepest moments of turmoil. It gives him so much peace.

But, contrastingly, Namjoon can also remember the great splash of the tide that had whipped at him as the lizard-like dark spirit clamored against it. He can remember the clanging of metal against spirit as his father futily fought against it, and he can remember the wetness of the blood, ocean water, and tears that had spilled onto his father's coat as Namjoon had clung to it.

That spirit had managed to strike his father, but it had also left a lingering mark within Namjoon as well: fear. 

It was that very night that Namjoon had learned with startling clarity that safety and security… they're fragile things. Honestly, it's more reasonable to assume that they could shatter with less than a moment's notice…. If the rest of the world is plunged in darkness, who's to say the Northern Water Tribe won't eventually find itself submerged within the same fate? 

So the need to find the Avatar is imperative. But, again, how can you find someone you know so little about?

"Let me tell you one thing I know for certain about that Avatar Park,” another voice all but spits, drawing Namjoon away from his thoughts and back into the boardroom. His eyes find the source of the sound: the person sitting just left to the chief's currently unoccupied seat. In the wake of the man's obviously disgruntled features, the wrinkles on his face have become more pronounced than their usual state.

Wonshik. One of the oldest members of the council… and also one of the few people known within the tribe to have met Avatar Park before his untimely disappearance. He doesn't ever say much about the time he spent with the avatar, but whenever he does... it's never anything positive.

“That boy was an airbender through and through. A flighty boy with no sense of direction." Wonshik shakes his head, "Someone like him? You'd never be able to keep him in one place. Not even amongst the living. The boy is dead, and he's left us all to deal with the mess he's made. There's no mistaking it."

In response to Wonshik's statement, Jungha's lips press together and her eyebrows twitch twice, but she does not verbally respond to Wonshik. Not immediately, anyways. 

See, there's a balance to these meetings. Sometimes more delicate than others. Tribesman Wonshik has always commanded a certain respect. Before Namjoon's grandfather passed away, Wonshik had served as his right hand while he was chief. It is why Wonshik sits right next to the chief’s seat now. His long term influence in the tribe has earned him that spot.

So while Jungha can be as scathing as she damn well pleases to Juwon or even Namjoon, it's not as easy when she's speaking to Tribesman Wonshik. Namjoon can see the way she weighs her words before speaking.

"Thank you for your contribution, Tribesman Wonshik. That is precisely why I believe we need to take a more proactive approach to finding the avatar. If the new avatar roams amongst this world, we must take it upon ourselves to find him," she nods towards Namjoon meaningfully, "We have the means, and we need to use it. There must be a reason as to why The Moonchild has been… touched by the spirits in the way that he has. I understand that there is some… fear in doing so, but if we could be doing more to right the world and ensure our tribe's continued safety and prosperity, we certainly should."

"The spirits are never to be trusted. I've learned that long ago. Even the most pure ones can be tempted into darkness," Wonshik rumbles, his eyes boring into Namjoon's own as he speaks. Somehow, Namjoon feels chastised. He cannot help but lower his eyes in response, "But after all this time, perhaps it's worth considering. It does not look like the situation in the other nations are getting any better, and it's not like the boy has done much good here with us. What say you, Chief Daeseong? He is your son after all."

The chief remains where he stands, his face the very picture of impassivity. When his eyes flicker over to meet Namjoon's, they hardly even hold any sort of familiarity. But, truthfully, what is there for him to recognize in Namjoon? Sure, they bear similar faces, but in all other matters of life, there is not one single congruity between them at all. Not in status, not in spirit, and certainly not in heart.

The last time the two of their hearts had beat in tandem had been that night out on the boat. They'd been shocked, scared, and shaking, but when their eyes met, there had only been affection shared between them. That connection is long gone now.

The man before him is hardly his father. He is only the chief.

"My son is, of course, a servant to the tribe just as I was when I was a prince, and just as my father was, and so on. Perhaps the powers that be has set him on a different course from the rest of us, but if this is what his duties are calling him to do, of course, he will do it. Isn't that right, Namjoon?"

An order, not a question. It's never just a question. Never.

Namjoon doesn't even bother fumbling for words like he did at their dining table all those days ago. He merely nods.

Though he hardly even knows what he's agreeing to. What more could Namjoon know about the avatar than the average person in the tribe?  What more could he know than Wonshik, who had met the man himself? It's troubling and overwhelming to even consider.

Namjoon has no way of knowing what the future holds for him, but he already has the sense that he's in way over his head, and there's nothing he can do about it.

He can only hope the future treats him gently. When the idea of choice is nothing but a fantasy for someone like him, it's the most he can wish for.

Chapter Text

Even with all the recent changes happening in Namjoon's life as of late, there is one truth that remains consistent: the full moon is steadily drawing near.

Draped only under the dim light of his small lantern, the fact still presents itself with a distinct assuredness to Namjoon. Even with his body nowhere near a source of actual moonlight, he knows it to be true. He can feel it, the waxes and wanes of the moon. How she slowly changes in state. How she gradually offers more and more of herself to the world with each day.

He feels her reaching out to him.

Yet he does not reach back. He cannot. Because,  of course, the closer it gets to the full moon, the tighter the invisible collar on him becomes. As it is now, since he only has about another week till the full moon arrives, he's lucky to even be roaming around as freely as he currently is. Normally, he'd at least be confined to the grounds of his home. Normally, there would be a lot more eyes on him to ensure that is so.

But the tribe has bigger things to worry about right now.

While he sits alone inside his little room in the library, the taste of frost outside turns more and more potent, the chill in the air becomes more unbearable, and the winds blow harder. There's no mistaking the signs: a snowstorm is coming. A great one.

It'd only been some days ago that Namjoon had stood outside Master Pakku's doors, beaten and discouraged, where he had thought just that— a storm's coming.

The thought had come from a mix of things. There were, of course, the physical changes that he'd noted in the environment, slight as they were compared to the frigid, windiness of now, but there was also a certain sensation that hummed beneath his skin. A feeling of restlessness not unlike how the ocean became before or during a storm.

Back then, Namjoon had had some sort of sense to know that the upcoming storm would be one that would be heavy and unforgiving, but now that the storm is closer on the horizon, the reality of it hits with a greater severity, and the tribe works to prepare for it with equal intensity. 

Earlier in the day, Namjoon's mother, sister, and he had spent a great deal of time sorting through their stock, making sure they had all the food and supplies they'd need to weather out the storm. From the bustle outside his window, Namjoon could see other women of the tribe were in a similar flurry of preparation.

At the frontmost walls of the tribe, men, bender and nonbender alike, work to reinforce its foundations. Upon the blizzard's arrival, winds far more furious and unrelenting than the ones of now mean that even walls as massive and strong as the ones surrounding the tribe are vulnerable to its wrath. Not only this, but the waters surrounding the walls are also more turbulent, chipping away at the walls at a much faster rate than the norm. 

Usually, they have a team of people in charge with the general upkeep of the walls on a day to day basis, but with the actual storm still on the approach, they needed to have more assistance to ensure the walls are as durable as they possibly can be so that they may withstand the storm's battery. If the walls became severely compromised, the entire tribe's infrastructure could be overwhelmed by the onslaught of rough waters from the bordering ocean.

They have to ensure, at all costs, that this does not happen.

In spite of the increasing severity of the circumstances, Namjoon is not amongst the men who work to secure the wall. It's not surprising. The walls border the ocean. They'd never allow him to be close to the ocean when it is so near to the full moon. Not unless the situation becomes so dire that it is impossible for them to avoid it.

So here Namjoon sits instead.

It's a closet of a room. The shelves are spread apart just far enough for him to squeeze through them. The books that line them bore wearing spines and yellowing, fragile pages. The scent in the air is thick with dust, even after Namjoon's numerous attempts to clean the room over the years he's spent in and out of the room.

Outside of the small cushion and lantern he's brought to the room, there's not much else of note within it. A small, decrepit room like this is made for things that require little attention. For things that are meant to be forgotten. It's a little funny that Namjoon finds himself here so often. Willingly.

It's a place of peace for him. Not many know of this tiny closet of a room, sequestered in the back of the library. Or if they do, they choose to ignore it. Because of this, it's become a place where Namjoon can go and not worry about being scrutinized by others, but still have the comfort of books at his disposal. Usually when he is here, he passes his time reading books he's found within the library for either pleasure or for new bending techniques. 

Today happens to be a bit different. Today he has some homework.

After the council meeting, Namjoon realized he needed two things: resources and knowledge. There's so little he really knows about Avatar Park and so much more he needs to learn about the avatar in general. If he's going to be having a hand in this avatar scouting mission he's so suddenly found himself in, it's only logical that he spends at least a little time to prepare for it.

In front of him now are materials he's gathered from the library's archives on the avatar as well as the little resource material they had on Avatar Park. There had been a whole section dedicated to past avatars and their impact, but as far as Avatar Park goes…. For all the fanfare surrounding him, there is not much known about him. In fact, most of what's known about him is simply hearsay.

It’s not particularly surprising. When it comes down to it, his era as the avatar was quite short– the shortest, actually. It was, after all, only about twenty years into his life before he made his untimely disappearance. So unlike other avatars, who had time to carve their mark into the world, Avatar Park hardly left a trace.

Even something so simple as his appearance is mostly up to speculation here in the North. While Park had managed one visit to the tribe, back then, the priority of his visit was certainly not to build images of his likeness. The only place likely to have anything like that is the Air Nation, but they have long since closed their borders to the rest of the world, so that is just another dead end.

The most that the North has on Avatar Park is a letter. The one Namjoon holds in his hands now.

It details one of the few defining stories that make up Avatar Park's short reign. A story about one boy, a typhoon, and the three towns left devastated in their wake.

Namjoon begins to read it now.

Chief Nanook,

How are you these days? It has been some time since we've corresponded, and even longer since we've seen each other in person. The rebels in the lower parts of the kingdom have been keeping me quite occupied, and I imagine you are busy yourself, running the tribe while expecting a little one on the way. Tell your wife she has my regards.

It's unfortunate that I have to reinitiate contact with only bad news in hand, but I'm sorry to say that the produce that was scheduled to reach your shores this spring will not be arriving. Recently, the greater farmlands of the northern earth kingdom were subjected to a mighty typhoon. As of now, we are focusing on salvaging what life and land that remains there, but the outlook is not too particularly promising. 

It might come as a surprise to you, but Avatar Park was present during our efforts in securing our lands from the grips of the typhoon. He has recently begun to be active in his avatar duties and was visiting the Earth Kingdom as the rains began. By the time he had arrived, the rains were already becoming torrential, and the situation was becoming increasingly dire. 

With great confidence, the avatar assured me that with his avatar state, he could lessen the onslaught from the typhoon and preserve the lands. Imagine my surprise when, upon initiating the avatar state, the boy lost control, destroying not one, but two earth kingdom towns. We have refugees placed in a third, nearby town, but even it received some backlash from the avatar's volatile power.

Avatar Park's failure and his apparent capriciousness does have my worries regarding his capabilities, but it has only been a short time since he began his active duty as the avatar. Perhaps there is hope for him yet, but until then, I am hesitant to have his influence on my land. We have asked him to leave the kingdom as we wait for things to settle down. No doubt, beyond myself, he has garnered the ire of the people. It would be better for all parties to allow for this cool down period.

I expect him to make some rounds to your shores in the upcoming weeks. I have word from my men that it is the North he wishes to visit next. When he arrives, I caution you to make great strides in monitoring his actions. His inexperience is concerning to say the least….

Best regards,

Earth King Jian

And that is all.

Leaning his head against the nearest shelf, Namjoon closes his eyes and tries to imagine it all.

A man about his age. The man's airbender arrows and eyes aglow with a power beyond all comprehension of any person in this world. Those very powers careening out of control, ravaging two entire cities.

After twenty odd years in this world spent honing this power, perhaps it's reasonable to assume the avatar should have been able to handle the situation better than he had.

But then Namjoon tries it again. He imagines a boy his age in the midst of a massive, raging typhoon.

Now, Namjoon has never known rain. In all his life, he's only ever seen ice or snow. These two states of nature alone can be quite treacherous in their own ways, but rain? He doesn't know it. He has no idea how it would feel against his own skin or how it would strike the earth when it poured down. 

But Namjoon knows water. 

He knows how it can hurt as well as it can heal. 

He imagines a poor boy in the midst of water at its most hostile. He imagines a mere boy trying to counter what nature has willed.

And Namjoon wonders: were they expecting too much of one person? Are they still? Will finding the avatar now even be enough to resolve the deep darkness that has so insidiously poisoned the world?

He opens his eyes.

There will be no answers to these questions. It's a meaningless path to walk on. Just like trying to find the reason why a man who disappeared fifty years ago did so is an effort very unlikely to bear any fruit.

Yet here Namjoon is trying anyway.

He sighs, grabs the nearest book, and continues his research.

🌙

There's no telling how late it is when he decides he's finally done. All he knows is that he had felt the moon rise some time ago. The feeling of the rise, however, is quite odd compared to normal. Just like how he has a mental tether to the moon that allows him to feel when the full moon is near, this very connection allows him to sense when the moon rises and falls with each day.

Normally, the feel of the connection holds more clarity in Namjoon's mind, but tonight it is different. It feels like there's a haze covering their connection. Perhaps it's quite cloudy outside. Because clouds can obstruct the moon's light from reaching the earth, the moon's influence on the world is lesser on cloudier nights, and therefore lesser on Namjoon.

He also notes that there's a jitteriness that sits in his spirit. One that surely cannot completely be his own. He's been quite preoccupied, yes, but not in a manner that would make him jittery.

This he has to wonder if it is a result of the current state of the ocean. Like the moon, his connection to the ocean means that the restlessness the impending storm imbues into the ocean seeps not only into her, but into Namjoon's spirit as well.

The atypical feeling in his connection to both the moon and ocean leads Namjoon  to conclude one thing: the storm is getting closer.

It's likely still several hours out, but it's probably in his best interests to go home now. When he rises from the ground, he finds that there is a stiffness in his legs and lower back from sitting on the floor for so long. With a long stretch of his arms, he rises. It's as he's lowering his arms back down that it happens. 

Having grown a bit too tall and lanky in recent years, especially for such a small space, he's unfortunately more prone in knocking things over than he'd like to admit. Most of the time he tries to be careful and not to disturb the books within the room if he can help it. They're old and fragile in a way that he does not want to harm, but would like to respect.

Still, sometimes his long arms don't operate on the same waves as his brain. 

His arm knocks against one of the shelves, causing a few books to fall from their places and onto the floor. Worry immediately strikes him, and he begins to move to retrieve them, but just before he does so something catches his attention.

Out of one of the books has fallen a sheet of paper of some kind.

What strikes his eyes first are the colors. The paper is rich with it. Bright yellows and oranges and reds, brilliant blues, vivid greens. Aside from the blues, they're not colors he sees too often around the tribe. Intrigued, he picks it up to find that it is not simply just a sheet of paper, but a painting of some kind.

On the page, there is a man. The yellows, oranges, and reds belong to his robes, the blues to the sky and his arrows, and the greens to the grassy field he is laid out on.

An airbender.

Why is there a painting of an airbender here?

Though the feelings of confusion arise within himself, Namjoon cannot stop himself from gazing upon the painting. The details are intricate. Each stroke is intentional as if the artist wanted to capture their subject with the utmost care.

And the subject himself… he is quite a sight to behold as well.

The airbender's deep black hair is spread out on the grass and swept away from his forehead just enough to show the glistening blue arrow beneath it. The sharp lines of his jaw are juxtaposed almost conflictingly but actually perfectly complementing the soft, roundness of his cheeks. The small nose that centers the man's face adds an undeniable charm to his disposition.

And then his eyes.

It's the eyes that does Namjoon in. His eyes seem to be made honey brown by the streams of sunlight that strike him in the painting. They have a slight puffiness underneath them that crinkles slightly under the pressure of his smile.

The airbender is beautiful. 

Curious to know more, he searches the painting's front only to find it empty of an artist's signature. He turns it around. Settled just at the bottom of the page instead of a signature are the words: For my dearest, most beloved friend Mister Avatar Park Sir who, in spite of myself, I'd follow to even the coldest, most unfathomable places. I love you still. I always will.

The low simmer of curiosity that had entered him the moment he had seen the painting, now has his head spinning with questions. Who painted the painting? Did they know what happened to Avatar Park? Why is the painting here in this dingy room in the Northern Water Tribe's library of all places? Why in the world did they call him Mister Avatar Park Sir ?

Namjoon turns the painting back over and continues to marvel at it. He stares into Avatar Park's eyes for another long moment, taking in their honey tones and recognizing the happy kindness that plays within them.

These are the eyes of a young man who single handedly faced a typhoon by himself. 

These are the eyes of a young man who failed and destroyed not only two towns, but also the trust of an entire kingdom with them.

These are the eyes of a young man who, in spite of such failure, still had to carry on. Still had to hold the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.

These are the eyes of a young man who eventually would vanish without a single trace. His hold on the world relinquished, leaving it to fall into tatters ever since.

Namjoon wonders if he gazed upon these eyes long enough, will they reveal the secrets of the past?

"Who are you, Avatar Park? Where are you now?" 

Again, there are no answers to be given.

Before he leaves, he picks up and replaces the other fallen books, but he stops short at the book the painting had fallen out of. The lettering of its title on the spine is smeared, but he can make out some of it. Face Your it reads. It's obvious there is more to it than that, but it's totally smudged out. Opening the book up doesn't reveal anymore either. There's not even a title page.

Face Your what?

So many questions.

No answers. 

Namjoon sighs.

Quietly, he tucks the paper away into the book, and carries the items out with him. Somehow, he doesn't feel right leaving either the book or drawing behind.

🌙

Quite predictably, in only one night, the weather situation worsens.

By now, the frost outside his window looks so thick, he's sure one inhale would have it building a proper home in his lungs. The winds also sound utterly unbearable. Even from his bed, he can hear how they whistle and beat against the walls of his home. There's no mistaking it now. The snowstorm will be here soon. As a matter of fact, Namjoon is sure it will arrive today. 

There's a restless agitation that sings in his blood as Namjoon slowly drifts into wakefulness. It leaves waves of goosebumps across his skin and an odd stirring in his chest.

Normally, before or during a storm, due to Namjoon's connection with the ocean, he can find himself feeling tremorous as a result of the storm's impact on the ocean. Today, though, the feeling feels magnified. 

It could be that the impending storm coupled with the upcoming full moon has put him in such a state, but somehow that doesn't seem quite right. It could be that the stress with all that has to do with the avatar is weighing down on him as well, but that's not exactly it either. It could be the knowledge of the painting tucked away in the book he has in his bedside drawer has him unsettled, but even that doesn't seem entirely sufficient.

All he can ascertain is that there's a deep unsettling in his chest that will not resolve itself. Hopefully, it will pass with the storm like his usual  storm related jitteriness does, but he isn't too sure. Something is different.

The sound of the door of his room opening snaps him from his thoughts. At its entrance stands his father. His face is a storm of its own.

"You were late coming home last night," he accuses.

"I was doing research on the avatar," Namjoon answers. The chief nods slowly at that, his eyes narrowed in assessment.

"Any insights so far?"

The thought of the painting sitting just a distance away swims around in Namjoon's mind, but… he doesn't want to admit it yet. Something that precious… he wants to keep to himself. At least for a little while longer. It doesn't make much sense, but it's how he feels.

It's a painting. It's not going to change the moment he hands it over. The colors won't lose their bright hues, the strokes of the artist's brush on the page won't change their directions, and the thick texture of the paper won't suddenly thin. 

But then again. 

At the same time, something will change. The thoughts and perceptions of others will leave their mark on the painting, and Namjoon knows once that happens, the painting will be altered forever. He'll never be able to view it the same again.

What is obviously a sweet gift from one friend to another will now be a tool. A weapon, actually, formed against the painting's original recipient himself.

Namjoon doesn't think he wants that. 

When he first held the painting, there were a select few obvious emotions that swam in his mind. There was confusion. There was curiosity. There was appreciation for the great skill displayed in the artist that painted it.

And then there was a certain lightness.

The very same light, happiness and kindness that he'd seen swirling in Park's eyes, he'd felt like it'd been poured into Namjoon himself, and he drank it in freverently. He was thirsty for it. 

Happiness. Kindness. 

They're two things he's not too privy to on a general basis. Perhaps it's selfish, but Namjoon wants to preserve those feelings Avatar Park had inspired within himself for a little while more. 

"Nothing so far," is Namjoon's answer to his father. The man in question sighs with a slight shake of his head. His shoulders are slumped low as if Namjoon not finding the answers of a mystery that precedes his own birth is his own fault.

"In any case, it's the week of the full moon. You know you're supposed to be home by sunset. With the incoming storm, I have fewer men available to keep their eyes on you. Don't make me have to resort to that."

"I understand."

A brief silence passes between them. It's only one of many that they've shared, but the weight of it is never easy to bear these days. When Namjoon was younger, the silences they shared were a comfort. When they were under the moon's light and quietly sailed over the ocean's waters, the silence was a symbol of their closeness. 

Now, it only epitomizes their distance. Here his father is only a few feet away, and there's not even a simple good morning said between them. There's no warm affection in either of their gazes. 

More than anything else, what Namjoon feels is worry. Worry for the storm that is to come outside and the storm that rains away in his father's eyes.

The chief clears his throat.

"The reason why I'm here is that I've come to tell you that you'll need to get ready. Wear your warmest clothes and do not forget your gloves," he orders.

Oh.

The restless feeling in Namjoon's chest from before only worsens.

"Am I going to the walls?" 

The man nods. "We need more men securing the walls, so you will be coming with me today. But you are not, by any means necessary, allowed to bend. Do you understand me, Namjoon?"

The walls… Namjoon is going to the walls. To the ocean. It's been so long, but he's finally going again.

His chest stirs and stirs and stirs.

"Do you understand, Namjoon?" he repeats. He steps closer to Namjoon, and Namjoon has to mentally shake himself out of his reverie. 

He resists the urge to rub his hand against the irritation he feels in his chest. What is wrong with him today? What is so different about this storm compared to the others? Yes, he's felt restless before a storm before, but this is...

"I understand," is all Namjoon can bring himself to say. If he speaks anymore, he thinks the unsettlement he feels will only be made obvious, and he doesn't need to give the chief any more reason to revoke his permission. 

He can't let the opportunity to see the ocean pass him by. Even if the ocean's in a state like this— restless and stirring and unsettled and causing distress in Namjoon's own spirit— he can't miss this chance.

It's been a long time since he's seen the ocean with his own two eyes.

He misses it, misses it, misses it.

His father stares at him with hard eyes, and even harsher lines gracing his lips. It's a wonder what he's even thinking about.

"How long until the storm arrives?" he finally asks. 

Ah.

Usually, he doesn't probe too much into Namjoon's sensitivity related to the ocean and the moon. If anything, if it weren't from the constant mandates and directions he passes on from the rest of the tribe’s leaders and himself, Namjoon thinks his father would like to pretend like the unusual bond Namjoon had formed with Tui and La never existed. To ask about it now… he must be deeply concerned about this storm too.

"We have a couple of hours still," Namjoon answers. His father nods at his response, but the look on his face only becomes more severe.

"Then we will be quick."

Quick they are. 

They ride out on Monie, although the oversized polar bear pup doesn't seem to be too enthused about being out in the blistering cold weather. Before they can even leave, Namjoon has to coax him with extra treats to get him to rise up out of the spot he'd been curled up in in their home, and once they reach the walls, he'd let out a whine so petulant Namjoon felt guilty.

"I'm sorry, Monie. I'll make sure to give you a big treat when we get back." Monie huffs out a little bark, rubbing his nose against Namjoon's hand.

Watching the sight, his father says, "I'll have a bender erect a makeshift shelter he can stay in while we work."

"Thank you."

Namjoon looks ahead. 

Before him is the expanse of water that makes up the moat that separates the iced terrain of the tribe from the forefront of the walls. Here in the poor light from the gray sky, the walls loom over them, intimidating in their grandiosity. 

These walls, created long before Namjoon's time, are what protect the tribe from a world not only made dark by the spirits that plague it, but by the people who lived within it. Though the environment of the Northern Water Tribe can be unforgiving to those who are unaccustomed to it, the North is known for its prosperity, especially in comparison to its sister tribe. There are many who are desperate enough to try to infiltrate the tribe in attempts to take advantage of the tribe and its resources.

On any other normal day, the tribe's guards stay posted atop of the wall to monitor for any intruders or unauthorized vessels. For expected visits into the tribe, they can open and close entry into the tribe by bending the ice of the walls to their will. However, on days of storms, these entry points are completely sealed over with ice, thickened, and reinforced in order to keep harsh, stormy ocean water out.

Today, Namjoon can see those men are still present and atop of the wall. Protecting the tribe doesn't stop, even with all the efforts around them. There are men bustling around, carting crates of material over the bridge of ice that stretches across the moat, connecting the land to the walls. There are other men scaling up the wall and then down and out of sight to the wall's exterior side or vice versa through bending.

One such man from atop of the wall takes notes of their presence and immediately comes down their way. 

"Tribesman Juwon," the chief acknowledges.

"Chief Daesong," Juwon returns.

"How are the walls progressing?"

"It'll be close, but we're hoping to finish before the storm arrives. We only have a few smaller sections to go. Shall we go?"

The chief hums his assent.

They make their way to the wall. Right at the crevice of the wall, Juwon creates a raised layer of ice large and thick enough for the three of them to stand on. Once they've all been accommodated, he circles his hands once while raising his arms up. A tower of snow and ice begins to form at their feet. They rise.

Up this high, the wind whips at Namjoon's face with even more of a relentless fervor, but he forces himself not to balk at it. Instead, once they reach the top of the wall, Namjoon finds himself holding his breath as he steps forward. 

The sight of the ocean is just a few steps away.

Yet when he walks to the edge of the wall, it's not exactly the ocean he sees first.

Erected just above the ocean's waters is a large plane of ice where more men bustle around, deeply involved in their work.

It makes sense.  

Not all of the men present are benders. To mend the outer section of the wall, they likely needed a safe way for them to work near the ocean's waters, so they erected the ice field instead. Far, far beyond them, the ocean is present, but it's not exactly the sight Namjoon is expecting. It's not what he wanted to see. 

Even while being this close to the ocean, she is still too far out of range. 

He only wishes he could get a little closer… Even if the waters beyond them are upset and restless and dangerous. It would be fine. He just wants to feel the ocean dance in the palms of his hands once more. Only once more.

"Hey kid, are you coming or not?"

Namjoon turns to find Juwon and his father waiting on another tower of ice facing towards the wall's exterior. He hurries over. Juwon repeats the process he used to scale upwards, but instead of raising his arms, he lowers them down. Slowly, they descend onto the field of thick ice.

Even with how early it is, the men are deep into their work.

Ironically enough, they don't seem to be building up the wall, but breaking it down. They rap at it with their picks until chunks fall down. Other men are loading the fallen material into the same large crates Namjoon had seen some men carting near the inner wall. 

Namjoon is confused until they get closer to where they work. Suddenly, the reason why the wall restoration efforts are taking longer than their norm becomes quite apparent. Scattered throughout the wall are large chunks of debris that are brown and wooden looking. If Namjoon didn't know any better, he'd think they are bits of boat matter.

"There was an accident," his father explains somberly as they approach, "Typically, we have guardsmen monitoring activity from atop of the walls and by boat just outside the walls. Unfortunately, due to the harsh waters, a boat passing through the wall crashed into one of our guard's boats, and the rough winds and waters did the rest." 

"Why don't the benders just ice over it?"

"We'll have to if we can't finish in time," he answers grimly, "but it's unideal. With the way the waters are now, foreign objects in the wall would weaken the integrity of the wall. Imagine if we iced over the material, but the rough waters during the storm wear down the wall enough to expose some of this foreign material. These parts could fall out of the wall, leave large gaps in it, and make the wall even more compromised. The fallen material could also washback, hit the walls again, and further damage them some more."

What a situation. 

"It's mendable, we've gotten all but a few sections done, but there's not much time to do it." With that much said, his father seems done with the conversation. He turns away, and reaches into a nearby box. He pulls out the same tool Namjoon had seen the men rap at the wall with and hands it to Namjoon.

"The nonbender men are picking out as much foreign material as they can out of the ice while the benders mend it afterwards. You'll help with the picking."

The pick is heavy and foreign in his arms. It's the first time he's ever held one, and he, not for the first time in the past few days, feels a little out of his depth. 

He turns his head to look over at the benders who are a ways away and deeply engaged in the intricate process of mending the viable portions of a different section of the wall. The procedure looks complicated and time consuming. It's no wonder they're tasking the non-benders with picking out the debris in the wall in the meantime instead.

Unbidden, feelings of envy twist within him.

Here the ocean is so close at his fingertips, and it's not her waters that are in his hands, but a pick instead. It's hard not to feel bitter.

Namjoon looks down at the pick. 

Well, if there's anything it'll be good for, it will be a distraction. He adjusts his hold of the tool in hands, swings it overhead, and strikes. The wooden plank embedded into the ice before him doesn't even budge the slightest bit.

It's going to be a long morning.

Time passes by meaninglessly as he slowly gets used to the process. Eventually, a group of benders walk over to assess the area Namjoon and the group of men he'd been silently working with have cleared. There's a familiar face among them, but it's certainly not welcomed.

Sungho.

If there has been only one highlight being banned from his bending classes has given Namjoon, it's not having to deal with Sungho and his remarks. Of course, it'd been only a matter of time before his luck ran out.

"Well, if it isn't Namjoon!" Sungho trills, and if Namjoon didn't know any better, from the way Sungho grinned, Namjoon would almost begin to think Sungho is actually delighted to see him, "Took you some time to show up. Finally decided you're man enough to help?"

A wind blows by, harshly hitting both of their faces, and it saves Namjoon from answering. It unfortunately doesn't stop Sungho from continuing his tirade however. "I'd say I'm surprised you're working on this end, but it's probably not safe for a bender like you to be bending near our walls, huh? Once you get your hands on it, we'd probably have to start the whole restoration process all over again, wouldn't we?"

"Don't you have a job to do?" Namjoon mutters. To Namjoon's misfortune, Sungho only beams brighter at Namjoon's suggestion.

"You're right! Perhaps you can learn a thing or two. You might want to step back though."

With no more warning, Sungho dissolves a hole in the ice below their feet, and draws water from it. In a complicated series of gestures, he brings the water to the wall and begins to mend it. His dark brows are furrowed as he works, concentration evident all over his face. When he finishes, he pants with exertion, but the work he's done alone looks exceedingly remarkable. 

"Hey," one bender calls out jovially after having watched Sungho, "save some work for the rest of us!"

"You know Sungho," another person chimes in, "He's always been an overachiever. It's only a matter of time before he's second in command. When's your old man Wonshik stepping down, anyways?"

With the few men flanking his sides, Sungho doesn't even have the presence of mind to even badger Namjoon anymore. He's too busy having his head swollen up with all the praise. 

Meanwhile, no one has acknowledged Namjoon at all since the time he's come down here. Not even for something as bare minimum as instructions. He's had to figure it all out on his own.

Unbidden, once again, Sungho's words from days ago ring in Namjoon's mind.

An outcast.

Even in the midst of so many of his peers. Even when his hands are blistered by the same labor they all have undertaken, and his face stings with the same cold.

How long must he live like this? When will the tides change?

Another cold, bitter wind blows by, and it carries something with it.

A single snowflake.

Gently, it falls befores Namjoon's eyes, melding into the ice before his feet. It looks innocuous enough, but Namjoon knows with surety once a single flake falls, a downpour is sure to come.

The snow is here. They need to go.

As if the chief can hear his thoughts, his voice rings out: "The snow has started! Do as planned: non-benders clear out and take the supplies with you! Benders ice over what's left and then evacuate! Quickly! There isn't much time!"  

It's a flurry of movement then: men packing up their carts and tools; men running to the wall to be hoisted up by a guardsmen posted there; benders hastily spraying what vulnerable spots that are left in the ice, intricate precision completely disregarded.

Around them, a gentle trickle of flakes begin to fall, beautiful, but quietly dangerous in their descent. 

Namjoon fumbles to get the wooden pieces he'd retrieved from the wall into one of the carts, and then hurries back to go and retrieve his pick. After having been distracted by Sungho and his antics, his fingers have gone cold numb, and it boggles the whole process. Whips of wind from the incoming storm coupled with bursts of air from the men rushing past him only disorient him further, and it comes to the point where he blinks and finds himself being one of the last few standing on the ice aside for a small handful of benders finishing up their haphazard work.

The rest of the men had cleared out exceedingly fast. They're used to this, Namjoon thinks. They have lived through other snowstorms and have prepared the walls countless times before. Perhaps not exactly in a situation so dire where the front of the walls were so extensively damaged, but. They have the experience that Namjoon does not. It's just another difference that sets Namjoon back and apart from everyone else. It's that difference in experience that leaves Namjoon fumbling now. 

He's just about gotten himself in order when yet another shout rings out. This time it's not from the chief, but from a guard on top of the wall.

"Unauthorized vessel spotted northwards! Guards, prepare for immediate interception!"

"A boat in this weather?" Juwon, who is overseeing the evacuation from the iced field, asks. Incredulity is drenched all over his tone, "Who's crazy enough to be sailing at this time? The waters are a mess. I don't even have any of my men sailing out there now. It's practically a death wish." 

In spite of his words, the boat persists forward. Its dark, black body is a great contrast to the increasing outpouring of white from above.

"Shit, we don't have the time for this. The last thing we need is another boat crashing into our walls. Guards, don't let that boat come any closer! Initiate attack and prepare for immediate apprehension of its passengers!" Juwon bellows.

There's a brief pause then, and Namjoon's gaze shifts upwards. There are so few men left, it looks like there's confusion as to how to proceed forward with Juwon's ordered attack. Perhaps there's too few men to complete their usual formations. Perhaps they're hesitant with the increasing downfall of snow from above.

What happens next can only be described as a disorganized mess. 

The men from above launch a haphazard attack, aiming a combined burst of water at the ship, but the harsh winds redirect its course, and it comes nowhere near hitting the ship. Despite their efforts being thwarted, they attempt it again, this time creating long spears of ice, only for the same result.

"This is not going to work!" a voice nearby tuts, the tones of it reprimanding, but decisive.

Namjoon turns his head to see the owner of said voice sporting an equal amount of decisiveness on his face. Whatever conclusion he's come to, it's obvious it's one he cannot be dissuaded from.

With a boldness Namjoon had not even seen from their own guardsmen, Sungho runs forward towards the edge of the ice. The distance between himself and Namjoon makes his form look small, but the audaciousness of his next actions and words is anything but trivial. "We need to take the boat down from down here. Not from the walls!" 

With that said, Sungho separates the section of the ice field he stands on from the rest of the ice, draws his arms back, and then uses the water that now surrounds him to propel his board of ice forward. Once within distance of the boat, he uses one hand to launch a wave of water, freezing it when it comes in contact with the boat. The boat, now partially locked in place due to the ice, finally halts in its advance. 

"Now, that's how you do it!" Sungho whoops. Namjoon cannot see Sungho's expression from where he stands, but he can just hear the cocky grin in his voice. "So, who's with me?"

"What a gutsy kid," Juwon utters to himself. More loudly, he yells, "Surround the boat!"

It sets off a chain of events. The remaining benders follow Sungho's example, making planks of ice they use to stand on and propel themselves forward with. Once they've surrounded the boat, Juwon's voice rings out with authoritative clarity.

"On the count of three, we ice this thing in place. Okay?"

"One!"

Hands are drawn back.

"Two!"

Water dances at their fingertips, ready to be manipulated.

"Three!"

Namjoon watches as the men begin to swing their arms forward, but before they're able to complete the move, a figure from the boat leaps into a spin, and a ring of fire follows in the figure's wake. Noises of alarm rise out from the men surrounding the boat as, suddenly, before them stands a man.

"Geez," the man crows, voice so loud that not even the billowing wind could overwhelm it, "I know this is the Northern Water Tribe, but I didn't expect such an icy welcome."

There's a pause. 

Quiet settles around them with such a tense accent to it that Namjoon is unsure of what will become of it.

Until suddenly, quite inexplicably, the man begins to laugh. Not snort, not giggle, but full on, belly-holding, high pitched, squeaky laughter.

Namjoon, from where he stands, cannot see all that happens too well, but even from afar, he can sense the unimpressed looks the water tribe men now sport.

"What? Not even a chuckle?" the man continues, "Wow, I have such a cold crowd."

The man titters with laughter again.

"...Okay, apprehend him." Juwon orders.

The laughter cuts off abruptly. "Woah, hey, wait! We don't mean any harm. Let's talk a little bit first."

"You should've thought of that before infiltrating Northern Water Tribe land in the middle of a snowstorm."

Seemingly having no more to say, Namjoon sees Juwon's figure begin the motions of an attack, before, once again, he is interrupted. A projectile of some sort is launched his way, forcing Juwon and the benders next to him scatter and duck out of the way.

Two more men join the firebender on the ship. Weapons of some kind are in both of their hands, though they remain lowered.

"We truly don't mean any harm," a second voice says, his voice so soft and light it's hard to pick up on. Namjoon strains his ears to him. "Give us a moment to explain."

"Oh, I understand clearly. Not only are you trespassing on Northern Water Tribe waters and jeopardizing the safety of our tribe, but you are also guilty of bringing unsanctioned weaponry to our land," Juwon responds, "Men, apprehend these three intruders!"

"No, wait-!"

Things escalate from there. Water whips at the boat, bursts of fire shoots out here and there, and unintelligible shouts of men in and out of the boat ring out in the icy air.

It's strange though.

So much chaos is occuring before Namjoon’s very eyes, but here Namjoon stands only at the fringes of it. Snow, now at a formidable state of downpour, whips all around him, the men are deeply engaged in their battle, and the waters of the ocean are in a chaotic frenzy as result of both of these events.

Standing here now as a simple observer in the midst of all the controversy, Namjoon finds himself pulled into different directions.

There's the rational side of himself. The side that says he should go. Run away. He'll have to find a way to get over the wall though, and that's a problem. Despite the malintent in Sungho's words, he was right. Namjoon's terrible bending could inadvertently damage the wall, and that's absolutely the last thing they needed. Not to mention he's still banned from bending near the ocean.

He could also wait out the fight until someone is available to get him over the wall, but the snow is pouring down heavier with each minute. It's unideal to wait like this.

And then there's the other side of himself. The side that's been in a frenzy since the moment he opened his eyes this morning. The side of himself that calls to him to go forward. To greet the ocean, no matter how dangerous of a state she is in at the moment.

It's the side of himself that resonates the loudest.

With all the chaos around him, who would even notice what he's done? How can Namjoon miss this chance? To at least see the ocean in her complete glory after all this time? He already has some sort of niggling feeling that the restlessness he feels will only worsen if he turns away from her now. 

Just like the night before where he felt the pull of the moon calling to him, he feels the pull of the ocean as well. But this close to the ocean now, he can't force himself to ignore her. He simply can't. 

He needs to return to her.

Even for just a moment.

Even if he can't properlly hold the water in his hands.

Namjoon treks to the edge of the sheet of ice. The winds whip snow all around him, leaving him with a view filled with white, but he has eyes for only one thing. He looks down. There before him the ocean lays, stretching on far beyond what he can see. 

He remembers the time when he was seven. When the ocean was nothing but a sanctuary, a beacon of peace and tranquility. 

The waters are nothing like that now.

They toss and turn and twist with the fury of a creature who's been disturbed from a long slumber. It's then that Namjoon remembers what he had thought the night before: water can hurt as well as it can heal.

And both sides of water are a part of him.

The peace and the fury.

The hurt and the healing. 

The spirit of water lives within him. No amount of forced separation can ever change that. 

In the midst of chaos, Namjoon inhales and exhales gently.

He does not know how long he stands there for, simply taking in the ocean in its most natural state, but when he comes to, he notices the boat just ahead of him is completely encased in ice. There will be no budging it now. The intruders are certainly trapped.

The men are still engaged in battle though, and the brutality of it all does not surprise him, but something else does. 

As a matter of fact, he feels his breath stop in his chest.

"Stop! Don't attack!" Namjoon yells.

Too deeply engulfed in battle, no one pays him any mind. Namjoon feels his heart sink.

"Stop!" he yells, even louder than before.

Because Namjoon knows one of those faces on the boat. Has seen it before. Has spent longer than he will ever care to admit staring at this exact face just the night before as he had retired to bed.

This isn't just any other intruder. No, of course not.

"It's the avatar."

He might have breathed the words. He might have yelled them.

But it's too late.

Just outside of the avatar's periphery, Namjoon sees that Sungho has raised a stream of water  and pointed it right at him. It feels almost like Namjoon is watching in slow motion as far too late the avatar turns his head, and his eyes grow wide. He raises his arms up in defense, but it's useless. The strike is unavoidable.

It hits the avatar.

And the avatar falls right into the ocean.

Chapter Text

Namjoon wonders if he should have hesitated more. 

Shouldn't he have at least given it more than a second's worth of thought before he sent himself plunging headfirst into tumultuous, furious waters? For a stranger no less? Surely that's what he should've done. 

Instead what he does is take the dive.

He lets the waters engulf him with their unforgiving hands.

If Namjoon had thought the feelings of restlessness and unsettlement from the ocean had battered him before, they're absolutely nothing compared to how he feels while being in the midst of the thick of the ocean. In the midst of her true, unadulterated fury.

The waters push against him unrelentingly. They toss him around with the same indifference water gives to anything and anyone bold enough to stray into them during a time like this. 

Funnily enough, in this way, Namjoon finally finds himself to be equal to anyone else. He is not the scorned Northern Water Tribe prince. He is not an outcast. He is not The Moonchild. He is simply a mere boy trying to counter what nature has willed.

Trying to save a life that he may not be capable of saving.

It's terrifying. 

He wonders if this pressure, this anxiety, this immense feeling of futility is anything like what Avatar Park felt when looking into the eyes of the typhoon. Did he have fear then? The same way Namjoon has fear now? Did he feel as powerless as Namjoon feels now as he tries to swim through angry waters that toss him around without a second thought?

He struggles against the weight of the water on his form and the poor dexterity and visibility it grants him. He had seen Avatar Park fall nearby, yes, but in the midst of all this turmoil, Namjoon has lost track of him. The waters are too dark and anxious for anything to be remotely clear. The avatar is nowhere to be seen now. As the reality of the situation begins to settle in, fear and frustration threatens to overwhelm Namjoon.

Really, all Namjoon needs is a second. A single second. Just a mere glimpse of the avatar and then all of this won't be for naught. Yet time moves on, and he feels himself progressively weakening, and the burn in his lungs growing. Still, he forces himself to delve deeper and deeper and deeper.

Please he quietly begs to himself, to the ocean, as he remembers the kind eyes he'd seen in the painting. Remembers the lightness he'd only just begun to carry in his own spirit. Please don't let this be it. Please, please, please—.

It must've been luck.

Or something like serendipity.

Perhaps the ocean hears his plea.

He sees a flash of something pale— skin. A hand. Immediately, he dives after it, willing his tired body to make one last attempt in saving the sinking avatar. After this, if he's unsuccessful, he'll have no more strength to give, and it will only be his and the avatar's own demises to show for all his efforts.

Namjoon reaches his arm out and barely — just barely — manages to take hold of a hand so much smaller than his own.

He's got him.

He's gotten hold of Avatar Park.

He's got him, he's got him, he's got him.

With what little strength he has left, he forces himself to swim back to the ocean's surface. The moment he reaches the top, it's like a bubble's burst around him, and the pure adrenaline and instinct that has been driving him leaves him. He suddenly is startlingly aware of the deep, intense chill that has settled into his bones. He feels stiff. As if he's frozen solid. The cold has invaded every one of his senses. 

He won't last long like this. Neither of them will. He needs to get them onto land or some type of surface soon.

Frantic, he looks up at the boat ahead of him only to see someone is already leaning over the rail and looking down at him. The man's eyes are wide as they wander away from Namjoon's to the person who lays slumped and motionless in his arms.

"Jimin!" the firebender yells, shock and distress obvious in his voice. He turns away and calls for someone else aboard the ship, "Hoseok, help me get the rope. He's got Jimin!"

"Way ahead of you," says the other man, lugging the rope. He throws the rope down into the waters. "Grab on!"

It takes everything in Namjoon just to simply cross the distance from where he is in the water to the boat in order to get to the rope, but somehow he manages. With great effort, the two men from the boat hull Namjoon and Park onto the boat.

Breathless, shivering, and heart racing, Namjoon only has enough energy to sprawl himself flat on his back on the boat's surface. Beside him, the two men clutch at their companion, trying fruitlessly to awaken him.

"C'mon, Jiminie, please wake up," Namjoon hears one of them —Hoseok, was it?— plead as he jostles the unresponsive man.

The firebender is no better. The formerly jovial tone he'd taken on in his confrontation with Namjoon's tribesmen is long gone. Now, his voice borders on the edge of hysterical as he rubs at the avatar's sternum, trying to stir a response from the man. "Jimin, you're not going to let some water be what gets you, right? Not after everything that's happened. This can't be it."

As frantic as the two men are in attempting to revive Park, the avatar remains motionless, almost doll-like in their arms. As a firebender and a nonbender, neither one of them would have the ability to heal like a waterbender would.

But Namjoon… 

Namjoon is soaking wet. Has water literally dripping from his form. Has an ocean's worth of opportunity right here at the tips of his fingers. If he tried… maybe… maybe it's possible that he could help.

If only he could bring himself to do it.

In his great tiredness and stress from all of his recent exertion, Namjoon's mind wanders and his vision blurs as reality intertwines itself with the past. Memories flash by before Namjoon without him even granting them his consent. Suddenly, like a phantom, the image of his father appears before Namjoon's eyes. There's the stern set to his lips, his tensed form, the storm that had raged away in his eyes, and all. There he stands before Namjoon and he says: You are not, by any means necessary, allowed to bend.  

Then with the wisp of the wind, his image blows away, and in its absence forms Sungho's figure. His big, demeaning grin is splayed wide across his face as he jeers: It's probably not safe for a bender like you to be bending near our walls, huh?

Next, Wonshik is before him. The features of his wizened face are severe as his eyes glint with the insight only someone with his great wisdom and experience could have. As they bore into Namjoon's, he rumbles: The spirits are never to be trusted. I've learned that long ago. Even the most pure ones can be tempted into darkness.

The images all come and go before eventually they settle on the night from a few days ago that seemed to have started this all. The night that had started so unmeaningfully with Namjoon settled into his chair, and his father sat across from him at the head of their dinner table as he calmly passed off the tribe's council's newest decree onto him. 

But this time it's not his father's words that haunt him. No, this time it's Namjoon's own thoughts. Namjoon had seen his father, so comfortable in his station, so comfortable to act as chief rather than a dad, even at their own dining table. Namjoon had seen that and thought: So much power was held in his father, but Namjoon had inherited none of it.

Namjoon held none of it then.

He holds none of it now.

No matter how much he loves and respects water, the distance between him and the ocean and the full moon that he has experienced all these years has made this so. He lacks so much in terms of bending skill.

And so to even think about trying to attempt healing bending on the avatar of all people… Namjoon would only hurt him more than heal. He's sure of it. Being able to recover him from the ocean alone was a feat in itself. Doing anymore than that…. Namjoon can't do it. He would never even dare to try. Not with his current level of skill.

As Namjoon thinks this, a set of eyes, gold and calculating, falls on him.

"You're a waterbender, right?" Hoseok asks, but the manner in which he says it is less of a question, but more of a statement. "You were out there with the rest of them. You must be a bender too. You must know some healing bending."

His words were all assumptions, but the seriousness set to his face lets Namjoon know he won't accept any other answer but the truth. So Namjoon gives it to him. Part of it anyways. The only part he can allow himself to offer.

"Male waterbenders learn combat. It's only the female benders who learn healing."

It's not a lie, but it's not the entire truth either. Not for Namjoon. There's another part to it all that Namjoon clutches close to his chest. It's something he hasn't shared with anyone. At least, not with anyone who wasn't already in the know anyways. He doesn't know Hoseok, he doesn't know the firebender, and, really, he doesn't know Avatar Park. Why would he trust them with this?

Hoseok's frown only deepens, but he remains persistent. "You have to try."

"I…" Namjoon starts, but finds himself falling silent. He doesn't know what to say.

"Please," begs the firebender. Namjoon's eyes move to meet the other's, and he finds himself to be surprised. When they had locked eyes earlier while Namjoon was still ocean bound, they had been far apart enough that Namjoon had not noticed the firebender's mismatched gaze. 

One of the firebender's eyes is a familiar fire nation gold, while the other eye is a deep green. Despite their peculiarity, they shine with a sincerity that Namjoon cannot ignore. No matter how much it would be easier to.

Namjoon swallows audibly, but it's nothing compared to the loud thud of his racing heart in his ears. Unwittingly, he finds his mind, still so tired after all of today's events, drifting again. He thinks back to the last time his heart had raced like this. It was under the full moon, in a small sailboat, with only his injured father and a menacing dark spirit for his company.

Namjoon thinks of himself from back then.

Small. Defenseless. But determined.

Determined to protect his father and determined to protect himself. Determined to believe in the ocean who's serenity had soothed him. Determined to believe in the full moon who's light had surrounded him like a comforting shield. Knew that their love and support for him would surpass all adversaries.

Today, the full moon is still days off from her arrival, and the ocean is not filled with the peace and calm she had had that night. Physically, both forces of nature are not present to support him in the way in which they did that night.

But spiritually…

Since the day Namjoon visited the Spirit Oasis, aren't both Tui and La always living inside of him? Aren't their eyes always on him in some manner?

Even just the night before, he had felt the way the moon had called out to him, pulling him in. And as for the ocean… even now she stirs in his chest, reminding him of their bond and the inescapable draw she has on him. 

Standing near the ocean hadn't satisfied the unfathomable draw he had to the ocean's waters. Neither had diving headfirst into the water. After having literally been battered by the ocean's strong waves, he would think the pull would abate at least a little bit, but somehow, it hasn't. As if, even in the ocean's anger, she's still beckoning him. 

Namjoon doesn't quite understand it.

But there's a lot Namjoon doesn't know about their relationship. Part of it is due to the separation from them that he's had to endure thanks to the council's decisions. But another part of it is just simply because… no one has ever been touched by Tui and La like he has.

No one carries their spirit like he does.

The technicalities of their relationship still elude him. That is just an unavoidable fact. But Namjoon has to wonder… if Tui and La had protected and guided him back then when he was so young and inexperienced, why wouldn't they now? 

Why wouldn't they when, for whatever reason, the three of them are so intrinsically intertwined? 

At that thought, before Namjoon appears one last apparition. Once more, it's his father. He's battered, his hair is in disarray, and his coat is wet with blood, the ocean's water, and Namjoon's tears. In spite of this, his blue eyes shine with genuinity. They shine with a pride that only a parent could have when they've seen their child has done well. His father says: You know water so well.

Back then Namjoon hadn't even been the slightest bit trained in water. He knew even less than he does now.

But he knew to trust in the ocean and the moon. To believe in Tui and La.

To believe in water.

After all, hasn't it always returned to him?

Slowly, he raises himself up onto his knees, positioning himself just beside Avatar Park and his two companions. He ignores the ache in his bones as he pulls water from his clothes. 

"Give me some room," Namjoon orders. 

Gently, the two lay their friend down. Namjoon hovers the water above Avatar Park's chest. He's not done this in a long time. Not on another person outside himself, anyways. There's been a few bumps and scrapes on himself here and there that he's managed to quietly patch up on his own every now and then, but he hasn't had to try patching up someone so injured since… since his first attempt at healing bending. And even back then, things weren't as bad as they are now.

Avatar Park is completely still before him. Lifeless.

The image of his bright, sun lit eyes and gentle smile from the painting flashes in Namjoon's mind. And unlike before, when the thought of the painting had made his heart flutter with a light happiness, Namjoon doesn't feel any of that now.

All he feels is dread.

What if it is already too late to save him?

Slowly, the water in Namjoon's hands begins to glow with healing energy. At first, nothing else happens. Beside him, the two men shuffle in their places, and even without looking at them directly, he can sense their unease. It's infectious. Despite his efforts, all the anxiety and doubt Namjoon has only grows as time passes and nothing happens. He furrows his brows as he attempts to concentrate harder.

For another long moment there's nothing more. Not even a single rise or fall of Park's chest. No sign of life. Until— there's a slight flutter of Park's eyelashes. Then, with a sudden start, he gasps and begins to cough out water. His two companions support him, raising him up to a seated position as he coughs. Once he's done, he slumps back against them, weak.

Hoseok sweeps the avatar's damp hair off his face, relief prominently evident on his face. "Welcome back to the world of the living, Jiminie." 

"You really scared the living daylights out of us." the firebender adds on.

At their words, the avatar's smile is weak, and his voice is even softer than from before, when Namjoon had heard him try to placate Juwon and the other waterbenders surrounding the ship. "I told you before, didn't I? Death's got nothing on me."

The three of them laugh at that, but it seems to be less out of humor and more out of a deep sense of relief. The laughter is short lived, however, as the avatar's laughs peter off into harsh coughs that rack his entire frame. His companions scramble to support him.

"Cold," he whispers. Whatever strength he had managed to scrounge up upon waking, quite obviously has become sapped with his fit of coughs.

"Move him under the tower!" The firebender directs. Hastily, the avatar's companions lift the avatar's body away from the open area of the boat and place him under the shelter the roof of the conning tower of the boat provides, shielding him from the downpour from above. Two miniscule twin flames appear over the firebender's hands as he begins to run their heat over Park's body.

After a moment, the firebender pauses, turns around, gazes at Namjoon for a small second, before beckoning him over with a hand. "You too. Come here. Warm up."

Oh.

Somehow, in spite of having just saved their friend, Namjoon hadn't been expecting that much kindness. Something within him stirs, and for once, it's not the ocean. It's a feeling— gratefulness. He's grateful to have not been forgotten. It's more than he could have expected from anyone, let alone strangers.

Slowly, he attempts to shuffle up to his feet, but his legs are numb with cold. He falls down immediately. 

"Can't move," Namjoon grunts.

There's a pause then. The two men across from Namjoon share a glance.

"Hoseok, please," the firebender finally says. The other man, Hoseok, watches Namjoon wearily. His lips are pulled into such a tight line that dimples form at their corners. He doesn't deny the firebender though. Just merely nods and helps Namjoon stumble over to sit next to the avatar.

As the firebender runs heat over their forms Namjoon feels strength slowly seep back into him. Once he's been successfully warmed, at least, as much as he can be in the midst of a snowstorm, Namjoon finally feels his mind clear.

"Thank you…" Namjoon begins, before realizing after all this time he still doesn't even know the firebender's name.

"It's Jin," the firebender answers.

"Jin. Thank you, Jin." A moment of mutual appraisal passes. But with Namjoon's growing awareness comes more apprehension. "We need to get out of here soon. It's only going to snow harder."

Even now, the worst is yet to come. Namjoon can feel it. Beyond them, the ocean's waters stir with even more furious intent. Harsher snows are on the approach. 

"It's funny that you mention that," Jin begins, "As you can see, my precious, most beloved boat that I practically spent my whole entire life savings on is now caked in ice! Any way you can fix that?"

Namjoon shakes his head. "The water tribe doesn't accept visitors in times like these. The waters are too much of a hazard, and the walls are too thick for a mere bender like myself to open them. They froze your boat so it wouldn't come any closer to the walls."

Hoseok's brows draw downwards. "Does that mean we're stuck out here? How did the other waterbenders who attacked us get over the wall?"

The other waterbenders…?

That's precisely when Namjoon realizes that they are alone. He'd been so preoccupied with Avatar Park and not freezing to death to even notice his tribemates' disappearances.

"What happened to the others?" Namjoon asks.

"Well," the firebender draws out, "the moment you sent yourself diving like a madman into the water, everything stopped. We were waiting for Jimin, and they were waiting for you. The longer it took you to resurface though, the surer they were that you weren't going to come back up."

Namjoon thinks back to that moment of great weakness down in the ocean. The way time seemed to stretch on and on and on as he looked at the avatar. 

Had he really been down there that long?

"Some bald kid freaked out about the storm, and they ultimately decided since Hoseok and I would be stuck out here because of our iced out boat, it'd be easier for them to cut their losses and just leave us here. And then they hightailed it out of here."

So they essentially left Namjoon for dead. That's nice to know.

Namjoon sighs. "So we're all trapped out here." 

"Basically!" Jin replies.

Hoseok shuffles by Jin's side, frown set deep on his face. "Can you use some of your bending to… surfboard us out of here? That's what the other benders did."

Namjoon grimances, trying to imagine himself doing some of the maneuvers Sungho and the other waterbenders had done. He can barely pull water out of his clothes let alone all that. Not to mention the fact that he's only really practiced his bending with smaller pools of water. He's never had the whole entire ocean at his disposal like he does now. It's on a totally different level. It's definitely not safe. He shakes his head again. 

"I can't bend," he denies.

The statement garners two twin incredulous looks from Hoseok and Jin.

"Sure you can. We literally just saw you do it," Jin insists.

"No, I mean I'm not allowed to."

If even possible, their expressions become even more incredulous.

"What?" Jin asks, "Are you on timeout or something? Just do it."

Namjoon is really not explaining this well enough.

"No, for a long time I've been banned from bending near the ocean because… there are certain things that may happen if I do. Even within the tribe there's limitations to what I can and cannot do. What I can practice. When I can practice." 

Namjoon thinks back to all the practice sessions he's had alone. Uncritiqued. Unrefined. Thinks about the messy way he had handled water in his fight with Master Pakku. The way Master Pakku had been completely unimpressed by Namjoon's efforts to combat him. 

Perhaps next time you'll know better than to attempt to withdraw from my lessons before I tell you you're ready to do so. Master Pakku had said. 

Namjoon has a lot to learn. It's quite obvious to anyone who's seen him bend even just once.

He slumps down, ashamed. "Even the healing bending I did just now was a risk that I was unwilling to make. It wouldn't be safe for any of us if I tried anything more. I've never done anything like what you're suggesting before. Not out here by the ocean. It would endanger us all."

The two men share a look.

Jin sighs. "Look either you bend us out of here, or we all have to stay out here. That wouldn't be any safer either."

Namjoon swallows. 

He looks out at the water that had thrown him around without a second thought. The water that had just nearly claimed Avatar Park's and his lives for its own. 

It's the very same water that had seemed to have heard his plea… that had let him grab hold of Avatar Park. It's the same water that years ago had supported Namjoon as his younger self fought off a dark spirit.

It's the same water that could hurt Namjoon as well as it could heal him.

The avatar coughs, face looking pale. Namjoon looks from him to the grim faces of his companions. At their shivering frames. The way the three huddle near each other, quietly supporting each other with just their actions alone.

Namjoon hardly knows any one of them, but to give up and leave them in this state, especially after the past few minutes they've shared with each other… it doesn't feel right. He knows it isn't right.

But can he find it in himself to brave the water again?

So many things have changed in the past few days… What more is this? What more is trying a little bit more? He's already tried healing bending… Why not go the full distance and waterbend some more? Why not answer the pull of the ocean for once instead of ignoring it? Who's to stop him? All his tribemates are gone.

The only obstacle now… is Namjoon himself.

Carefully, Namjoon walks over to the rail of the boat. He's slow, letting his legs get used to movement again. Once at the rail, he leans over.

The waters swirl around the boat, looking just as angry and powerful as they had felt when Namjoon was in the midst of them. He feels that anger and understands it as well as he fears it. 

As he watches the waters toss and turn and tumble, a thought comes to Namjoon. A simple one.

The tides are changing.

The tides are changing and have been for some time now. And with these tides they've brought the avatar and his friends to him. There's nothing that will change this fact. It's just another thing nature has willed.

All Namjoon can do now is wait to see where these tides lead him.

Slowly, he raises his hand.

As always, water returns to him. Diligently flutters at his fingertips. This much, the pull of water to his hands, that is, is as simple as breathing.

Now he has to make sure this doesn't all fall apart.

He needs to trust in his connection with Tui and La to pull through for him. Just like they did all those years ago.

The type of waterbending he's about to attempt requires precision. He'll have to attach a sheet of ice to the boat for them to set on. He's created sheets of ice before in some of his bending practices in a pool of water. Sure, it wasn't in such a hostile environment, and a pool is very different from an entire ocean, but… the methodology should be similar, right?

He tries it, attempts to make a sheet form near the boat, but it's too thin. The waves wash his attempt away before the sheet is fully formed.

"C'mon, Namjoon," he mutters to himself, focusing harder.

Trust in the water.

Furrowing his brows, he tries once more. He can do this. They can do this.

This time, where the boat meets the ice that encases it, he extends a platform of ice outward into the ocean. In this way, the ocean doesn't wash away the ice before it's done forming. The plane of ice is large enough that it looks big enough to fit them all.

A sigh of relief leaves him. At least he managed this much.

"We'll need to get down there somehow," Namjoon directs.

"The rope," Jin points out, "We can get down with the rope."

Beside Jin, Hoseok crouches down over the avatar's curled form and pets his hair. Even while weak, Namjoon can see how the avatar leans into his hands. They must be close. "Jiminie, you'll have to climb on my back."

The avatar must have said something in response, but his words are so soft, the wind carries them away with it. The avatar does move though. Wraps his arms around Hoseok's neck. Once he's properly situated on Hoseok's back, Hoseok nods at them.

They move. 

Making it down the boat is an effort, but they manage to do it.

"What now?" Hoseok asks once they're standing on the ice.

"Now," Namjoon answers grimly, "you'll need to hold on.

Namjoon is pretty sure he hears twin yelps from Jin and Hoseok both as he separates the ice from the boat, and they all lurch into movement.

They're all completely at the ocean's mercy now.

Namjoon closes his eyes for a mere moment. Senses the way the water rocks them. Feels the way the wind whirls snow in the air around them.

Something in his chest stirs. Something familiar.

It's a feeling not unlike how he'd felt during that night out with his father on the boat. The eyes of the moon are not on him this time like before. But something within him settles. Something within him is assured.

He reaches into something deep within himself. Something he has had to ignore for so long. Finally, after years of ignoring the pull he's felt to the ocean and moon, he answers it. Grabs hold of the link he has with Tui and La and uses it as a lifeline as he raises his hands to command the ocean's waves to move their plane of ice forward.

The waters answer to him, and though they are rough, Namjoon does not falter. He meets the fury of the waves with equal passion. Redirects their energy in order to propel their plane of ice forward.

It's a rush.

It's a race.

It's a realization.

This is what he is meant to do. He's meant to have the ocean in his hands. He's not mean to fear this feeling. To hide away from it. He's meant to embrace it. Wholeheartedly. Without shame. Namjoon knows this now. Feels it.

Something in his spirit leaps free. The restlessness he's felt all day is no more. In its place is a carefree levity he has never known before that makes his heart race with its impact.

This is what it means to be free. This is what it feels to be unchained from the shackles of expectation. He's never felt so content before.

All too soon though, it comes to an end. They near the walls.

This close to the walls, it's apparent that the ice field from before has been dissolved, more than likely by Namjoon's tribesmen after they had retreated back. Perhaps if it had still been there Namjoon could connect his plane of ice to it without much worry. Now, instead, he'll have to reseal the gap between the wall and their plane of ice without damaging the wall.

No pressure, right?

Heart thumping wildly, once again Namjoon thinks to himself please, please don't let this be it.

The ocean's waters are fierce, and he hears another outcry from at least one of the other three men sitting behind him as they rise, the wild waters carrying them high up in a fearsome wave, but Namjoon does not falter. He only steels himself.

He can do this.

He gives in and lets instinct and his trust in Tui and La guide him once more.

Namjoon keeps them steady as they ride the wave. It'll be a close thing. He'll have to control the wave enough so that it tapers off instead of sending them crashing straight into the wall.

He focuses, gripping at the wave and forcing it to slow. It's not an exactly gentle end to their little trip, but it works. They meet the wall and Namjoon manages to seal the gap between their plane of ice and it. It's a bit of a clumsy effort, and he hears the other men make noises of surprise again as they bumpily merge with the wall, but the wall, from what he can see, looks more or less unharmed.

"What do we do now?" Jin roars over the loud winds of the storm.

"Now," Namjoon answers, "we rise."

He closes his eyes. Envisions how he saw Juwon carry his father and him up the wall. He circles his hands once as he raises his arms up. They rise. Once they reach the top of the wall, Namjoon directs them to cross over to the other side. Like Juwon had done, Namjoon creates a tower of snow and ice for them to stand on.

Once everyone climbs onto the tower Namjoon has erected, he circles and lowers his hands. They descend.

Somehow, he's done it.

Namjoon's somehow gotten them into the tribe.

He can't believe it.

It seems Jin is of a similar mindset. Next to him, the man bows down to the ground and literally kisses the snow they stand on.

"Land! Sweet land! Never leave me again," Jin cries.

Hoseok falls to his knees as well though he doesn't go as far as kissing the ground. He clutches his heart, looking dazed. "I didn't think we'd make it. I thought I was going to die."

Yeah… the ride really could've been smoother.

"I did warn you all," Namjoon reminds them.

Neither Jin nor Hoseok answer to that, both being too preoccupied with regaining their bearings. 

Instead, from beside the two flustered men, Namjoon hears something. It's soft, so light in sound if it hadn't been for Namjoon's close proximity, he wouldn't have heard it.

The sound of laughter.

Namjoon follows the sound to its source. There he finds Avatar Park. Though still huddled up by his friends' sides and looking worse for wear, his eyes are alight as he gazes upward and around him. Though the day's events have certainly not treated him lightly, there's something about the way he wears marvel on his tired face that Namjoon finds quietly inspiring.

"It's so beautiful," Park says, still gazing around at the sight of the Northern Water Tribe.

Namjoon supposes the great pieces of architecture that make up the Northern Water tribe can be quite the view to take in. The majority of the tribe has been carefully crafted with ice, from the tall buildings that make up the tribe's cities to the bridge that lays just before them. Even with the dull gray of the clouded sky and the heavy downpour of snow reducing the usual shine of these constructions, they are still enchanting in their might.

Park eyes his surroundings another moment longer before finally his gaze falls onto Namjoon. He looks no less marveled. Suddenly, this situation feels a bit too much to handle. 

Namjoon clears his throat and looks away. "Welcome to the Northern Water Tribe everyone. We'll need to find shelter somewhere soon."

"Do you have anywhere we can go?" Hoseok asks.

Namjoon nods, but uncertainty fills him. 

It'll be a long journey to his home. His father and he had ridden here together on Monie more for time's sake than anything else. Walking from their home in the center of the tribe all the way to the walls is possible, but would've taken more time than they could have spared given the circumstances. Now, walking back home like this with the snow pouring down so fiercely only seemed even more daunting.

Especially since the fatigue he'd felt since being pulled out of the ocean's waters never entirely left him. Now more than ever after not only swimming through turbulent stormy water, but also bending more than he ever has in his entire life, fatigue settles within him. He doesn't know how he'll be able to guide them through a long journey like this.

If only Monie was here… that would at least solve half of his problems. In all the chaos with the evacuation from the walls, Namjoon has no idea what has happened to Monie or his father… or what his father thinks has happened to Namjoon himself even.

If his father had left with Monie, then Monie is probably already curled up somewhere in their home asleep for all Namjoon knows. If he were nearby Namjoon could whistle and Monie would come to him and whisk them away from here and make this whole entire situation so much easier.

Namjoon doesn't see how the pup can be anywhere nearby, but… what's the harm in trying? Putting two fingers into his mouth, he blows and hopes for some kind of miracle.

A moment passes and all is silent but the wind. Namjoon sighs. It's really too much to hope for.

Beside him though, Jin stiffens and his eyes widen. "What is that?"

Namjoon turns in the direction Jin looks at as a thumping sound begins to resonate in the distance, and a large form begins to make itself apparent against the flurry of snow. Namjoon could recognize that shape anywhere.

"Monie!"

Monie just about mows Namjoon over as he licks his face. Laughter, unbidden, falls from his lips. Monie could be a bit stubborn most of the time, but little moments like these… they're exactly why this entirely too spoiled puppy is his best friend.

"I was worried about you too, big guy," Namjoon laughs. Beside him, Jin and Hoseok both gape. Even the Avatar looks surprised as he gazes at Monie with wide eyes.

"What in spirit's name is that?" Jin asks.

"This is my puppy, Monie!"

"Puppy? He's bigger than my boat!" Jin gasps.

Namjoon can't help but snort a little. This Jin guy is quite the character. "He's not that big."

"Is he what we're supposed to ride on?" Hoseok chokes.

"He's how I got here," Namjoon confirms.

Jin shakes his head. "You know what, I think I've had enough for today. I'll just pass. Maybe freezing to death is preferable after all. I'd make a handsome ice statue, I do think." 

Namjoon rolls out from underneath Monie. "Monie's not that bad."

"He seems sweet to me," Avatar Park murmurs, looking curious as he regards Monie. The avatar rises to a wobbly stand, still weak from all of the day's activities. Immediately, Hoseok is at the avatar's side supporting him as he slowly makes his way to the pup.

"Careful, Jiminie, careful. Don't overexert yourself," he cautions.

Though the avatar accepts Hoseok's harried assistance he doesn't falter, looking questioningly at Namjoon. "Does he accept pets?"

"You can try petting him," Namjoon begins and watches as the avatar raises a hand up to Monie's nose, "but don't feel too bad if Monie ignores you. He doesn't really like anyon—"

As if to spite Namjoon specifically, Monie moves forward and leans into Park's touch, nuzzling his hand with his head.

Park laughs again, delighted. "Aw, he really is a puppy!"

Now it's Namjoon that's gaping.

"It took me weeks of bribing him with food before he even approached me properly!"

"I guess I'm just lucky." Park leans into Monie, needing to stand on the tips of his toes and hold both his arms up wide to be able to wrap them around the underside of the polar bear dog's head in order to hug him. Park titters with small giggles again when Monie licks his face.

Hoseok, on the other hand, looks increasingly nauseous by both Monie's general existence and the avatar's total conviction in cuddling Monie in spite of his current physical state.

"We should really get going before the storm gets worse," he suggests.

Jin eyes Namjoon dubiously. "You sure this is safe?"

Namjoon nods. "I've ridden on Monie for years."

Both Hoseok and Jin still look queasy at the thought, but there's no more complaints. There really isn't no other choice.

It's a tough fit, but they all manage to fit on Monie. As he settles himself on Monie's saddle, Namjoon feels his vision swim for a moment. He's so tired.

A hand taps his shoulder. Jin. "You alright? I've never ridden on a polar bear dog in my life, and I'm absolutely terrified right now, but I can try to figure something out if I really need to."

"I've got it," Namjoon replies. Not to mention if Jin drove them to the wrong house, Namjoon can't promise him that some irate tribesperson wouldn't immediately have all their heads.

Perhaps rightfully so. What is Namjoon even doing guiding three strangers into the watertribe? Even if one of them is the Avatar, it's still dangerous. 

But he doesn't have a bad feeling about it.

Somehow he knows this is the right thing to do.

"Let's go, Monie!" Namjoon directs. Monie begins to run.

In spite of himself, the longer they travel, the more weariness seems to seep into Namjoon. They still have a little while longer before they can reach their destination, but as Namjoon's vision begins to blur again he knows his time is limited. They need to find somewhere else for them to rest at. Quickly. He won't be able to make it all the way to his home.

But there is somewhere closer.

Namjoon grips Monie's reins, stirring them to a house settled closer by to them. He's never been into the home, but he has met its owner before.

Once Monie comes to a stop at its entrance, Namjoon doesn't even have the mind to instruct the men behind him further. Just assumes they'll follow him. Once he reaches the door, he knocks furiously as black begins to creep into the periphery of his vision. When there's no response, dread swirls dangerously in his gut.

Namjoon knocks once more, and finally, finally, after what could only have been mere seconds but feels like decades, the door opens. At its entrance, Jungha appears, her blue eyes wide in shock.

"Please help us," Namjoon says simply.

And then he promptly passes out.

Chapter Text

Truthfully, healing bending should have been completely foreign to Namjoon.

See, from the very moment it was realized that his younger self could mold water at the palms of his hands, it seemed like there was a certain image crafted for his future as well. He was the son of the chief after all. 

During that time period, conjectures of an older Namjoon taking up the role of chief in a way his father never could were easily concocted up by both his parents and among the people of his tribe. Namjoon's father was already a heavily skilled, intelligent man and a bona fide leader. The only place in which he was lacking was in bending.

As a non-bender, there were limits as to how much he could guide the tribe against its confrontations with dark spirits. Thus, the majority of the efforts were helmed by the current leader of the tribe's warriors during that time. But with Namjoon… the design of his future looked different. Namjoon would not have to defer to someone else like his father did, but could helm the warriors himself. 

And so, from the very day Namjoon's younger self, intending to create a simple splash of his bath's water, but instead created a wave of water so large it managed to soak both of his poor parents, it had already been decided. Once Namjoon reached the age to participate in bending lessons, it was completely assured he'd be taught in the way all other male benders and future warriors of the tribe would be: in the arts of combat and defense. 

As for healing bending… Well, it was simply never a consideration. All healing benders of the Northern Water Tribe were female, after all. Nobody would have ever considered Namjoon would attempt it. It simply wasn't done.

And honestly from Namjoon's side of things, it's quite a difficult task, really, to look beyond the image you've already acquainted yourself with for so long. A smaller Namjoon had finished washing up his face and looked down at his own reflection in the water. There he could see himself. Could see the future both the tribe and his parents spoke of.

And he'd wanted it.

He wanted to be like the warriors, strong and skilled and dependable. He wanted to help lead and protect the tribe against its threats, dark spirit or otherwise. He wanted to perhaps even lead the world out of the era of darkness it was submerged in… He wanted it all. Given his status, it just seemed natural that he should. 

Up until everything went to shit, it seemed like the future couldn't come sooner enough.

Yet in spite of all of this, the first lesson in bending Namjoon's younger self ever had was not in combat or defense.

It was in healing.

The circumstances, of course, were not ideal. 

For one, he had been still reeling from having just single handedly fended off a dark spirit. Two, his father was profusely bleeding from his chest and abdomen, and what once was a hug of pride between father and son had quickly devolved into a matter much more harrowing as his father suddenly slumped over Namjoon's smaller form, grunting loudly as he finally succumbed to the pain from his injuries.

At the sight of their fallen chief, corresponding shouts of alarm from the members of the guard waiting at the shore rang out. Amongst all of the noise, Namjoon could hear a Bring them to shore, quickly! and see the frantic motions of men manipulating the tides to do just so.

Once the boat met the shore line, things moved quickly from there. While his father, barely conscious as he was, was hoisted onto a gurney and then swiftly carted away, a larger hand of one of the guardsmen grasped at Namjoon, tugging him urgently as they departed to where, in the future, would be Jungha's healing quarters, but at the time was Master Yagoda's.

In spite of all of the rush and fanfare so late in the middle of the night, Master Yagoda stood completely awake and alert as warriors poured into her quarters, carting along Namjoon's father. 

Now Namjoon cannot say he was overly close with the healer, but there have been a few spare times where, as the head healer of the tribe, Namjoon has come across her. Whether it be from official ceremonies she lead or simple meetings she had with his father in their home, no matter the circumstances, Master Yagoda always seemed to have a kind smile to give Namjoon— and when no one was paying them any mind, a sweet or two from her pockets as well. He liked her quite well.

That night, though, her usually kindly face was overtaken by a sternness Namjoon had never seen before. She held herself with the practiced ease only a seasoned medical professional who'd seen more than her fair share of injuries could have. As the men laid their chief on top of one of the cots in her quarters, her eyes roamed over her patient's form with an assessing gaze.

"What happened?" she asked, as she began to scissor open his father's coat to allow her a better visualization of his wounds.

"The chief had an encounter with a dark spirit," one warrior answered.

Master Yagoda's brows raised at that. "On a full moon?"

"We are just as baffled as well," said another voice. 

From a nearby basin, Yagoda pulled water and applied it over the chief's chest. The moment it began to glow, the barely conscious chief released a responding hiss, his brows furrowed with pain. Yagoda hummed at this, and then began to motion with her hands, urging the water to move across his chest. 

Her efforts were only hampered when she bumped into a stray warrior, far too close for anyone's good. As her arm met the warrior, the flow of the healing water was disrupted, and the chief let out another groan in pain.

Funnily enough, compared to earlier in the night when Namjoon and his father were left alone on their boat with only a single guard to note their confrontation with a dark spirit, now there seemed to be too many of them in Master Yagoda's quarters, and it was obvious the many bodies in the room were interfering with her work.

"I thank you all for your assistance," Yagoda began, "but I believe I can handle things from here."

Sputters filled the room. The concern for the chief was quite palpable. "But-!"

"I'm sure now that the chief has safely arrived, you all have many things to do or positions to return to. Don't worry, I have this little one if I am in need of anything." Here she sent a wink to Namjoon, and the smile that arose to her face was a tad bit teasing and familiar. Her tone, however, was firm. She was not making a suggestion.

The other warriors seemed to notice this as well. With only a tad bit more hesitation, the men began to filter out, leaving only Namjoon, his father, Master Yagoda, and her assistant in their wake. With their new found solitude, Master Yagoda took the opportunity to finally greet her patient.

"Well Chief Daesong, I can't say it pleases me to see you back in my quarters," Yagoda said as she reestablished her healing bending on the chief.

To that, all Namjoon's father could answer was another pitiful moan. It took another few moments under the embrace of the healing water before the chief seemed to gain enough strength and awareness to utter something, though it was quite garbled.

"My son…"

"Hmm?" Yagoda asked, immediately huddling down closer to the chief’s side to hear him better. Namjoon's father shook his head. 

"Please look over my son before taking care of me. Please," he rasped.

On a general basis, Master Yagoda wasn't one to stray too quickly to irritation. Not as far as Namjoon had ever seen. And perhaps it was not irritation exactly that was on her face, but there was a firmer set to her eyebrows now. Something  that was just implicitly written on her face that showed that she was displeased.

And Namjoon could understand why. Even from afar, Namjoon could see the quick, shallow rise and fall of his father's chest. How his wounds were so deep that he struggled to even swallow one breath down. The pain he must be in had to be severe.

Between Namjoon and his father it was quite obvious to anyone standing in the room who needed the medical attention more. Namjoon hadn't even been touched by the spirit once. Outside of the dried tears on his cheeks and his general disheveledness, he was perfectly fine.

"Your child looks quite alright to me."

"I insist," murmured his father, blearily turning his head to lock his weary gaze with Master Yagoda. 

After another long moment, Yagoda sighs. "You men. I've seen many come in with an uncountable number of ills or injuries, but there's nothing more deadly than your own pride."

His father let out a faint snort at that. "Hasn't killed me yet."

"Yes, but it sure has come close, hasn't it?"

His father exhaled a small puff of air, a weak mimicry of his laugh, but said nothing more. Simply closed his eyes and resumed his shallow breaths.

"Jungha," Yagoda called out, "please continue to heal our chief for me."

"Yes, Master Yagoda," Jungha said dutifully, replacing Yagoda from the spot she had been standing at by the chief's side. As Yagoda's chosen successor she was typically trusted with tasks like these.

After safely handing her patient off, Master Yagoda crouches before Namjoon, meeting his eyes. 

"Hello, little Namjoonie," Yagoda began, "How are we faring tonight?"

Namjoon swallowed. "I'm fine. I wasn't hurt. Not at all."

Yet there was still this terrible lurch in his chest. This terrible sense of fear. In his mind's eye, he could still see the swipe of the spirit's claws against his father's chest. Could still hear the clash of metal against the spirit's body. Could still feel the ring of the spirit's screeches in his ears. 

His body shuddered just at the thought of it all.

"Not all hurts are physical," Yagoda replied, simply, "I'm sure tonight must've given you quite the scare. A single encounter with a dark spirit can be quite harrowing even for one of our warriors. Come, let's clean you up. You've been through a lot."

Taking her hand, Namjoon allowed himself to be guided to a basin. Wetting a cloth, Yagoda gently cleansed his face. Namjoon was surprised at how much comfort he got from just that gesture alone. From the amusement that showed on Yagoda's face, how he felt must've been obvious.

"Better?" she asked.

"A bit," Namjoon assured.

"Hmm, that doesn't seem good enough to me. I think I have just the thing." From her pocket she pulled out one of her treats she always seemed to carry and offered it to Namjoon. Namjoon felt his eyes grow wide. "How about this?"

"Thank you!" Namjoon gushed as he clasped at it. Master Yagoda rustled his hair in response, looking fond. 

"You've had a long night, Namjoon. Take a moment to sit and rest. Your father will be just fine." Once she saw Namjoon do just that, Yagoda turned her attention back to her apprentice and her patient. "I'll be just a moment. I need to retrieve something from our supplies."

Jungha hummed her assent to this while Namjoon's father, on the other hand, said nothing. He had let slumber claim him.

As Yagoda disappeared into her chambers, Namjoon felt curiosity seep into himself. What did Yagoda need? 

Even from just sitting a distance away, Namjoon could see the physical evidence of Jungha's healing achieving its task: the gruesome appearance of the wounds had retreated into themselves by a significant amount, and the quick, shallow breaths his father had formerly been taking had become regulated. 

Yet in spite of this, Namjoon's father still looked pale, and his face seemed contorted– was he still in pain? Was the healing not working in its entirety?

It was right at this very moment that Namjoon finally began to feel distinctly aware of his lack of knowledge on healing bending. At least the other waterbending scrolls he'd been supplied with in the past had given him some sense of knowledge in combat and defense forms of waterbending. But as far as the limits and abilities of healing bending… Namjoon had hardly a clue about them. Was there more to it than just water? Did they need extra medical equipment as well?

Namjoon had been so hard at thought about all the possibilities of what Master Yagoda had gone out of her way to retrieve that when she finally returned, Namjoon had been expecting her to bring something ornate or an elaborate contraption of some kind.

Instead, all she carried with her was a single, small vial. 

His face must have shown his confusion because Master Yagoda laughed immediately as she glanced at him.

"You must be curious as to what this is, aren’t you?" Yagoda asked.

Namjoon nods.

"Can… Can you teach me a bit?" he asked.

"About the vial?"

"Yes," he answered, taking a deep breath before stating his audacious request, "but also about healing bending?"

Both Jungha and Yagoda looked surprised at that. And perhaps Namjoon felt some surprise with himself. Up until now, Namjoon had never even considered healing bending. Had simply written it off because… because, well, it just seemed like what he should do. No one had ever spoken to him about healing bending, so he hadn't thought about it.

But healing bending was water bending too, right? 

And Namjoon loved water. Loved bending. Loved all there was that Tui and La could give him. What was wrong about learning this side of water too?

"You want to learn healing bending?" Yagoda repeated. Namjoon nodded, and her features were still quizzical, but they weren't harsh or judging. Just confused. "There're not many boys or men who ask for such a thing."

"Yes, I'd like to learn," Namjoon confirmed.

Maybe it was silly to want to do so, but he still wanted to. Even if it was just a little bit. 

If he did so, perhaps next time he was in a situation like this he'd know what to do. Perhaps he would do more than shed tears over his father's body.

Perhaps he would be stronger.

Master Yagoda watched Namjoon for a second longer before something changed in her gaze. She smiled slightly and beckoned for him to come closer to his father's side, "Come here."

Jungha let out a small gasp at that, looking between Namjoon and Yagoda with concern blatantly written on her face, "But Master Yagoda, male benders are not supposed to—"

"It's fine," Yagoda said evenly, making Namjoon recall how she'd easily been able to send the warriors off. She had a way of ordering things, it seemed. It was never with too much force. Just the right amount of kind and firm.

"How old are you, Namjoon?" Yagoda asked.

"Six—" he began to answer before his breath caught in his throat. In all the chaos of the night, so much time had passed without him even realizing it, "No, seven. It should be my seventh birthday now. It must be past midnight by now." 

Master Yagoda smiled fully at that.

"Happy birthday. The seventh birthday is an important one, isn't it? It's when young boys such as yourself begin your formal bending lessons, hmm?"

Namjoon nodded.

His dad had stopped bringing by as many bending scrolls after he had flooded their bathroom again after attempting one of their moves. But now that would no longer matter. His classes would start soon, and he would finally learn some real bending with a real teacher. Not tricks he made up or badly recreated moves from a waterbending scroll.

He was quite excited about it. There was so much to water that he wanted to know.

"Well, honestly, I'm happy you've asked this, Namjoon. I've always thought a little healing theory would go a long way in strengthening many of our male benders' bending, but there's not many who agree with me. Tell me, Namjoon, what do you know of chi?" 

"Chi?" Namjoon cocked his head. He knew nothing of it. "What is it?"

"Chi is energy," Yagoda answered, "But not just any energy, it is all energy. It flows through you, it flows through me, it flows through water, it flows through the earth, it flows through everything. It is the energy of life itself."

With a simple gesture of her hands, Yagoda took over the water Jungha had been managing. Not even for a second during the transfer did the healing glow of the water falter. It was just another subtle reminder of what a powerful healer she was.

"What separates benders from non-benders is the ability to manipulate chi. As benders, we have the ability to manipulate the energy of the world around us— to bend the elements. This is widely known and practiced. In fact, I know you've already had some experience in waterbending yourself, correct? Come, feel the water that I'm bending."

Stepping forward, Namjoon raises his arms out. He doesn't attempt to sway the flow of it one way or the other as he's prone to do. Simply feels the water exist below his fingertips.

"Close your eyes. Rather than simply feeling the water at the palms of your hands, feel the energy that flows within it as well. Feel how it interacts with your father's own."

Namjoon brought his eyes to a close, and felt the water once more. Bending like this was different. Instead of directing the water one way or another, it was more as if he was a passenger to the water's whiles as it washed over his father's body, healing him. It moved whimsically, just like the water of a river or the ocean. It knew no bounds or confines until—

A block.

It was almost as if the water had hit a wall of glass. Namjoon could sense the way it was supposed to flow, could practically see the pathway in his mind's eye, but the water was helpless in reaching there.

There was a barrier of some kind.

Confused, Namjoon opened his eyes, only to find that Yagoda had retracted her hands. Now, it was not Yagoda healing his father but him . Even more confused, he looked up at Yagoda to find her watching him closely.

"You feel it, don't you?" Yagoda asked.

"There's some sort of barrier…"

"Look here," Yagoda pointed to the center of his father's chest. "Physically, the wound is showing good signs of healing, is it not?"

Namjoon nodded. Even under Namjoon's hands, the skin was showing tell-tale signs of mending itself. It was a slow process, the wounds had been deep, but there was no doubt about it.

"Yet it is obvious that there is something hampering your father's complete recovery."

Namjoon gazed at his father's face, taking in his poor pallor and terse expression, "Yes."

"What many non-healers do not recognize is that healing bending is as much spiritual as it is physical. Chi in humans is intrinsically connected to the spirit. When a person is spiritually distressed, naturally their chi will not be able to flow, and as a result, this person will not be able to fully heal. Because of this, as healers, we are not only focused on using water to help mend external wounds, but also using it to restore a person's natural chi pathways. A true healing bender must be in tune with their patient's physical ills, as well as their spiritual ills in order to be successful."

Namjoon's thoughts turn to his father's confrontation with the dark spirit. 

"So when the dark spirit struck my dad…"

"That's right. It disrupted the natural flow of his chi, and some of its dark energy is corrupting him now. It is why he's not completely recuperating as he should."

Nervously, Namjoon swallowed. Even now, Namjoon could feel the barrier halting the flow of the healing water. It felt insurmountable in his novice hands. Yet Master Yagoda seemed completely assured that everything would be well.

"So what do we do?"

Yagoda held up the vial she'd brought before him.

"There is more than one way to mend damaged chi pathways. Meditation, for example, is a common one. There are other spiritual practices that we could try as well, but they can be quite timely, and with injuries like this, time is valuable. When directly combating dark energy, the longer it dwells in a person, the more costly it is to a person's life force."

Namjoon watched as Yagoda began to unscrew the cap from the small vial. Once open, she poured the contents of the vial into the healing water still suspended above his father's chest.

Surprisingly, the contents in the vial looked just like normal water.

"What is that?"

"This, Namjoon, is water from the Spirit Oasis. It is made of the purest spiritual energy from Tui and La themselves. It cleanses even the mark of a dark spirit."

Just as she said so, Namjoon felt the barrier that had been halting his father's healing begin to dissipate. Slowly, the color began to return to his face. The look of consternation on his face began to melt away as well. The chief was not completely healed— not yet. It was obvious that a full recovery would take some more time. But… he was looking better.

"It's working!" 

"It is," Yagoda agreed, "You've done a remarkable job in so little time. I'd heard it before, but seeing you now makes it all the more apparent: you will make a great waterbender someday. Healing bending does not always come so easily for those so new at it. Some waterbenders are not able to take to it at all, even. Tui and La has surely blessed you, I can see it. "

With all the praise he'd received Namjoon simultaneously felt abashed, but proud. All he ever wanted was to be a good bender. To make Tui and La and the tribe proud.

"Today, since it is my seventh birthday, I'll be going to the Spirit Oasis to meet Tui and La for the first time. Do you think it will go well?"

Yagoda nods.

"You are a child of the ocean and moon, I wouldn't expect anything less. It is why a visit to the Spirit Oasis prior to initiating formal bending lessons is so necessary. To be a great waterbender, one must establish a relationship with the ocean and the moon. It's an honored rite of passage for all waterbenders."

Namjoon's heart fluttered at the thought. He couldn't wait.

"Now, it's been a long night, Namjoon. Jungha and I will take over from here. You may sleep in one of the spare cots if you would like."

"Yes, Master Yagoda," he replied as he relinquished his hold on the water and returned it to Jungha, who'd been closely watching Namjoon and Yagoda's interactions nearby.

After he crawled into a cot, Master Yagoda brought him a spare blanket, covering him with the gentlest care. She gazed at him for a moment longer, looking pensive.

"Namjoon, outside of this lesson we've shared today, I'm doubtful you'll have any more opportunities to learn healing bending. However, as you attend your formal bending lessons, don't forget: the spirit and the body are deeply entwined. One cannot live without the other as much as one cannot thrive without the other. When we heal, we heal both. When we bend, we rely on both. Not one. Not the other. Understand?"

"I understand," he murmured softly. The weight of both the blanket and all of the day's taxing events lulling him to sleep.

Master Yagoda patted his head once more, looking fond as she did so.

"I'm sure you will do well. Sleep well."

🌙

When Namjoon wakes, the first thought that occurs to him is that he aches. Everywhere. The ache is so deep and profound, it takes him several moments just to even think beyond it. Everything hurts. The way it hurts, you'dve thought he fought a mighty beast or something.

At that thought, flashes of memory strike him. Memories of being in the midst of the ocean's wrath, tossed and turned around like he was nothing more than a mere leaf in the wind as he tried to fruitlessly traverse it striking him. Perhaps thinking he'd fought a beast is understating it. 

With a long, pained groan he rolls over to his side, trying to adjust himself into a more comfortable position. The former view of the ceiling that he'd had is replaced with gray eyes staring back at him. 

The Avatar.

Right. He'd also met the avatar yesterday. And not only that, he had somehow even saved the avatar. All of this is not some sort of strange dream, but instead is a sudden, weird twist of his reality.

What is his life right now?

"You're awake," the avatar says. 

"Yes," Namjoon answers.

Silence begins to hang in the air. Though the quality of it, Namjoon is unsure what to categorize it as. Though Namjoon does not know a single one of these three men in this room, there is, he thinks, some profound camaraderie to be found after experiencing a near death situation with them. It's odd because at the same, he does not know these men at all. It's a strange situation to be in.

Namjoon eyes them all. Takes in how they all seemed to have had a change of clothes and perhaps some sort of bath as well in the time he's spent unconscious. They all seem in a lot better shape compared to when Namjoon had seen them last. Especially Avatar Park.

While his voice is still soft when he speaks, there's a lot more strength to it now. There's also a faint pink to his cheeks and nose too. His skin is no longer that sickly, ghastly pale color it was before. 

He looks so alive.

"Where are we?" Namjoon asks though he already knows the answer. He's only properly been in this room once when he was much younger, but the significance of the memory is enough for Namjoon to never forget it.

"The healer's quarters. We were brought here shortly after you, uh, passed out," Hoseok answers, looking apologetic, "You missed a bit. We got cleaned up and the healer brought us a change of clothes and food. She looked over Jiminie as well."

Quite reasonably timed, the avatar lets out a sneeze that jostles his whole frame. Then, with a groan, he slumps down into the sheets if his bed.

"Aw, Jiminie," Hoseok coos as he reaches over with a tissue and patiently dabs at the avatar's nose.

"Hobi, I can wipe my own nose," Jimin rather pathetically mumbles. Despite his words, he leans into the other man's doting actions.

Jin laughs. "Your words are not matching your actions, Jimin!"

For his part, Park looks part smug, part pleased, and part pitifiul, but does not deny Jin's accusation.

"You know our Jiminie needs lots of care." Hoseok adds, laughing along.

When the trio have wound down, Jin's eyes meet Namjoon's.

"So I have good news and bad news," Jin states breezily, "What would you like to hear first?" 

Namjoon eyes the man dubiously.

"...The bad news," Namjoon answers.

"Well, the bad news is that that Jungha woman may or may not be planning for all four of our demises. Let's just say she was not too happy to find us on her front steps and said some very unkind and, quite frankly, scary things. She also threatened to report us to the chief of your tribe at least ten different times. I stopped counting at the tenth time."

…Great. That certainly will not go over well. Though Namjoon supposes he should have expected as much. He did essentially just bring three strange men to her front door with no explanation, after all. Not to mention Jungha has obviously never been his biggest fan. Bringing the other three here had been his only choice at the time, but it was also only asking for trouble. 

"The good news is there's no way she can kick us out right now because we're completely snowed in. Water tribe snow storms are no joke!"

From beside Jin, Hoseok huffs a little incredulous laugh, "Can being stuck in a massive snowstorm really be considered good news?"

"At least we're not in the middle of the ocean," Jin answers easily.

Namjoon's eyes find the window. The storm is still in full drive. Not that he needs the window to confirm it— the restlessness of the ocean still stirs within his chest. It'd be another day or two before it slows down and it is safe for the tribe's benders to clear the streets. One more day after that before they are done with that and any confrontation with his father can be held.

They have until then to figure things out.

Namjoon sighs.

It is both too much and too little time. He fears what could come next. Too many things in his life are changing, and he is completely helpless to it.

Park gives them all a cheeky smile. "Don't worry. Jin's the charmer of the team. I'm sure he can win her over in no time."

Jin's ears turn red, and he whacks Park on the thigh in a way that is somehow both admonishing and gentle at the same time. "Yah! Jimin! Don't put all the responsibility on me! You're the one who wanted to come to this crazy place in the first place. You talk to her."

The avatar pouts. "It wasn't just me. Hoseokie agreed with me."

Hoseok raises his hands guilelessly, an amused grin on his face. "I'm with Jiminie. I'm sure our oldest member should be able to figure this one out."

"Yah, you two are really going to leave me to the tiger-wolves after I raised you both with my bare hands, allowed you both to live in my home, and wiped both of your noses and fed you when you were sick–" 

Before Jin could finish his impassioned  monologue, a knock on the door of their room ceases the bickering. It's almost harrowing the way the playful light in all three men's eyes immediately extinguishes at its sound. 

As Jungha walks into the room looking as stern as ever, what remaining dregs of levity that had been lingering in the room have all but been flushed away. The woman's eyes roam around the room assessing its occupants before they finally settle on Namjoon's. 

"Good, you're all awake now. I'd like some answers. Who are these men, Namjoon? And why are you with them?"

Leave it to her to get straight to the point. Now in spite of the trio's bickering, in a funny twist of fate, it's up to Namjoon to clear the air.

But how can he when he can barely even explain his actions to himself? All he knows is that it was the right thing to do. He can feel it in his spirit. That unsettled something that had been bothering him a while ago is at ease now.

Namjoon looks across the room to gaze at the avatar once more, wondering if he should be the one to say it. It's really not his truth to say, honestly. He has no knowledge of the other men's background or motivations. Just knows that this is the avatar in their midst, and he just had to protect him.

"Well?" Jungha goads, impatience obvious in her tone.

The more Namjoon thinks about it, the more he begins to believe there's no use hiding the obvious elephant-monkey in the room now. If he left Jungha's questions unanswered now, it would only make their situation even more difficult later.

It's not like they would even be able to hide the fact that he is the avatar if they wanted to anyways. Once Wonshik finds out there are guests within the tribe and sees Park himself, the knowledge will be out in the open. It's better to just get it over with and rip off the bandage now.

"I did it because he's the avatar," Namjoon breathes.

It's not like there is much noise or activity in the room to begin with at this point, but after Namjoon has spoken, it's almost as if everything goes still. 

Hoseok's eyes narrow, Jin goes ramrod straight, and Park's expression is absolutely unreadable. Jungha, for her part, widens her eyes and drops her mouth in shock before she swiftly gets a hold of herself and narrows her eyes in suspicion.

"The avatar…?" she repeats, looking at Jimin to confirm it.

Park's unreadable eyes watch Namjoon for a moment before sighs. A weariness seems to come over him before he answers, "He's right… I'm the avatar. I've come to the Northern Water Tribe because I need help."

"Help? With what?" Jungha questions. 

"I've completely lost my connection to the avatar state. I can't bend at all."

Chapter Text

"You can't bend." 

Jungha repeats the avatar's words, and Namjoon thinks the sheer disbelief written in her tone is only undermined by the pure shock that resonates within Namjoon himself.

"What do you mean you can't bend?" she asks.

The avatar pushes himself back up in bed and fiddles with his fingers. His gray eyes stray away from Jungha's probing ones, and the way he slightly curls into himself makes him look small and unassuming under her gaze.

"A while ago,” Park begins, “I was in an accident. Jin, my friend here, was the one who found me and took me to some healers. I had hurt my head pretty badly, and it took me a long time to recover. But even when I started to feel better physically, my bending ability never returned and my memories were affected as well. The healers who worked with me tried many things, but nothing was ever successful."

Hoseok rubs consolingly at Jimin's shoulder. "It's why we decided to make the trip here. Everyone knows there are no better healers than those of the water tribe. We had to take the chance. Anything to help our Jiminie get back in shape again."

Silence reigns in the room as Jungha, quite visibly, processes the information she has been given.

"So let me get this straight," she begins, "Not only do you want me to believe that somehow after all these years the avatar has appeared right at my door steps, but that he can't even bend. Is that right?"

"I know this may all sound unbelievable," Jimin answers, sniffling softly. His nose is so pink. Namjoon wonders if it's from the chilling cold he had suffered earlier or the emotions he holds, "but I've- we've all traveled a long way to get here. You can't even imagine what we've been through- alll to recover my bending. The water tribe has so many healers and… I just want to get better again. I thought someone here might be able to help me."

Jungha shakes her head disbelievingly. "But you look no more than twenty and it's been over fifty years. How do you explain that?"

To that the avatar gives a sheepish shrug. "Like I said, when I hurt my head, it affected my memories as well. There is a lot I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to."

Jungha turns her skeptical eyes to Namjoon. "And you believe all of this? Is that why you brought them here?"

It probably won't sound too impressive if Namjoon'd said he'd just very conveniently found a painting of the avatar's one day and the rest of it all was news to him as well, would it?

"...Uh, yes," Namjoon answers and briefly wonders how long it will take for this all to bite him in the ass.

Jungha, rightfully, looks no less swayed from disbelief.

"We'll have to talk to our chief and other leaders before anything else,” Jungha says as she begins to pace around the room. It's like the whirlwind of thoughts that have quite obviously began to race in her mind have captured her feet in a flurry of motion as well, “If what you say is true, this is incredibly groundbreaking, for not just our tribe, but the whole world, and we'll have to come up with a plan. There is so much to do! So many things to try!”

Suddenly, she stops as she lets her intense gaze flit across the four men before her. “If I find out you all are lying, trust me when I say that there will be consequences for all of you. I will personally make sure of it."

"Of course," Jin pipes in, "but you won't have to worry about that. I swear it on my honor to the fire nation."

Jungha says nothing to that. Instead, she raises her hand, summoning water from a nearby basin within the room to it.

"Let me take a look at the avatar," she demands.

Hoseok quickly scurries away from the avatar's side, "Sure."

Jungha lowers each hand to the temples of the Avatar's head, and they all watch as the water goes alight with healing energy. It takes some time before she wordlessly withdraws her hands, her brows furrowed as she watches the avatar.

"Well?" Jin asks, "Do you feel any different, Jimin? Try some bending!"

The avatar stands, going into what Namjoon presumes is a typical airbender stance. Even with the obvious fatigue and wear on his body from the past few days' events, he's light on his feet. A true airbender.

The avatar raises his arms up, and it's almost like everyone in the room holds their breath. He makes a few gestures with his hands, changes his stance a few times, but it is fruitless. Nothing happens.

Jungha shakes her head, but doesn't look surprised. Only a bit remorseful.

"I couldn't sense anything abnormal while I was healing you. I could only detect the general fatigue of your body, but that is to be expected given your current circumstances."

"Oh," Jimin sighs, and it's as if his whole body deflates with the breath, his shoulders slumping down.

"Older injuries like the one you have are tricky because sometimes the body and spirit can compensate or cope with them in unique ways. If all that you say is true, then it may be that your injury is a complex one that will require some more time and further assessments to mend, unfortunately. It also may be that your inability to bend is due to something else entirely that healing bending can not solve."

Namjoon thinks back to the last time he saw healing bending up close under the watchful instruction of Master Yagoda. Remembers the single vial of water that had changed everything.

"What if we tried water from the Spirit Oasis?" Namjoon wonders aloud.

"The Spirit Oasis?" he hears one of the three repeat.

Jungha blinks. 

"That's not something we freely advertise to outsiders, Namjoon," she reprimands.

"Ah, sorry," Namjoon flushes.

Hoseok is undeterred, “If there is something else that we can do to help Jiminie, we should try it,” he presses.

Jungha is unyielding.

"Here is the truth of the matter. The waters from the Spirit Oasis are not a resource I like to use unless I am absolutely sure it is needed. With how much uncertainty there is to your situation, I think it would be best to wait. There is one other healer, my teacher, who I'd think it would be best for you to visit before we make any other decisions. Until then, all we can do is wait until the storm passes so that we can consult with our councilmen on the next steps we will have to take. Do you all understand?"

The three men seem to hold a non-verbal conversation with their eyes as they contemplate Jungha's words. Not a single one of them look satisfied with the hand they've been given.

“If it's a matter of difficulty with retrieving these waters, the three of us would be fine with attempting to get some ourselves after the storm passes. Even just pointing us in the right direction would be fine honestly,” Jin suggests.

“And as I have said, not until I have spoken with my fellow councilmen and teacher,” Jungha repeats firmly.

“But what if we tried-”

Before Jin can get the rest of his words out, Jungha raises her hands, beckoning the water she had used earlier on the avatar to the air, and sending it careening forward towards Jin's head.

The room erupts in a flurry of noise and motion as Namjoon and the avatar gasp, Hoseok stumbles up to try to pull Jin away from the attack, and Jin lets out an affronted squawk as his own attempt at a defensive fire is aborted by Hoseok's unsteady grip on his wrist.

Just as the water is about to meet its mark, however, it stops. As it hovers, the whole room holds their breath for a moment.

“I said no,” Jungha states evenly.

She relaxes her hands, and the water falls in a loose shower over Jin, soaking him.

She makes eye contact with each person in the room, as if daring them to try questioning her decision once more. When no one says anything further, she makes her exit.

The four remaining men look at each other in silence.

"Well," Jin pipes up finally, looking astoundingly chipper despite being sopping wet, "that was absolutely terrifying. Do you think now would be a bad time to ask her if there was anything we could have for lunch?"

🌙

The next few days fly by quietly.

Despite having been designated the lead healer in the tribe for several years now, Jungha has always been one to keep to herself when not actively attending to her duties. Even with the five of them essentially all trapped within the same building, she remains in her room most of the time.

In regards to the other three, however, Namjoon simultaneously learns quite a bit and hardly anything important at all about them in the time spent in close quarters with them.

First of all, Namjoon learns not to mess with a scorned Hoseok. 

The heat of his wrath is honestly both surprising in its intensity and scary to behold – only because at any other given point of the day he seems to be quite the cheerful guy: he spends most of his time doting on his friends, fills any room he is in with the bright sound of his laughter, and seems physically incapable of going anywhere or doing anything without having a hint of a dance to his step.

Yet in spite of the other man's cheerful and seemingly carefree disposition, he is also orderly and exceedingly detailed. Namjoon learns quickly that lest he wants to be on the opposing end of an admonishing finger and lengthy scolding, he must take great care in ensuring his bedding in their communal room is always made after he wakes. He also should not leave the books he's been reading carelessly around.

“I swear, you are like a spoiled little prince, expecting us to clean after you like this, Namjoon. This is the fourth time in two days," Hoseok tuts as he picks up the book Namjoon had inexplicably left on a pantry shelf and replaces it back onto the shelf it belongs to. 

All Namjoon can do in response is chuckle awkwardly, apologize profusely, and try to redirect Hoseok away from how right he unintentionally is. Although Namjoon thinks spoiled is a bit of an unfair charge. He's just a little disorganized and unused to sharing his space with so many people is all!

Another thing Namjoon has come to realize is that Hoseok is also not too good at games. Either that, or Namjoon and he as a team are simply a terrible match because when they're paired up against Jin and Jimin, they always lose.

As the two of them undergo yet another loss at the hands of Jin and Jimin, Jin winks conspiratorially at them and says, "If there's one lesson you have gotta know about life, Namjoon, it's that Team Jin always wins. Always." 

Jin and Jimin, with their twin grins, recoup their winnings - a portion of the dried fruit snacks Jungha had given them earlier in the day.

And even after they had moved on from that game and onto Ice Marble, a Northern Water Tribe classic game that Namjoon has played for years and has had to teach to the others before playing it, somehow Team Jin is still undefeatable. 

However, since Ice Marble is a single player game, it's each man for himself. Therefore, Team Jin is only Jin himself. 

Jin, of course, lands on top once again.

"I swear he has to be cheating," Namjoon mutters.

"I've always thought so too, but I've never been able to prove it," Hoseok grumbles.

"And you never will!" Jin looks entirely too smug as he takes the majority of the fruit that he won. 

At least Namjoon had gotten in second place, so he has a small handful of fruit. Hoseok takes third and proportionally had won a measly three pieces of fruit. Sadly, as for Park as an individual, he had gone from all the glam and glory from being first with Team Jin to last while being on his own and has to forfeit his earlier winnings.

"Aw, I really wanted some too," the avatar whines. 

And then, Park turns his eyes to Namjoon. And how can Namjoon describe the sight? It's like looking into the eyes of a polar bear puppy or a baby otter penguin. It is a sight entirely too cute and precious to bear and anyone who denied him has to be heartless, a monster, or both.

Namjoon can say nothing, simply hands his share of fruit over to the other boy.

Instantly, Park's expression goes from puppy-eyed and sorrowful to full of impish glee in less than a blink.

"Thanks Namjoon!" 

He then runs off to go bother Jin for some more, leaving Namjoon feeling nothing but swindled. Hoseok pats his back consolingly.

"Ah, nothing like falling for the good old Jimin charm. Happens to the best of us."

Dazed, Namjoon can only blink. He is still not entirely sure what just happened.

"Is there anything we can do to stop him?"

"Nope!” Hoseok grins, “You just have to understand it's Jimin's world, and we are all living in it!"

Spirits help them all.

Funnily enough, after that ordeal, another fact Namjoon learns is that as full of mischief as Park is, he has his moments of quiet introspection as well.

One night while Namjoon had been quietly passing his time with a book, he eventually senses the presence of another hovering over his shoulder. When he peers behind himself, he is confronted with the sight of none other than the avatar watching him.

"What are you reading?" Park asks with a curious tilt to his head.

“Just some book,” Namjoon shrugs.

Not at all perturbed by Namjoon's brief answer, the avatar shuffles closer to Namjoon. “It looks like more than just some book to me. You were really into it. You didn't even notice me standing right next to you this whole time!” 

Namjoon sucks in his jaw a bit as he considers the boy before him, wondering if the book's worth explaining at all. He doesn't want to be a bore. After having more or less established good rapport with the avatar and his crew these past few days, he'd hate to ruin it all with one his spiels. 

"It's a piece on spirituality versus mortality. How the lines we delineate between the two are not as rigid as what many would think. You may find it a bit boring though."

The answer is succinct enough. Not as long winded as it could've been. Despite that, Namjoon still wonders if it is too much. He's been brushed off for lesser, after all.

But Park doesn't frown at him. 

Park doesn't say That's too much information, Namjoon . Park's eyes don't glaze over with disinterest. Instead, he squats down to a seat next to Namjoon. Offers a small smile as he shakes his head.

"That doesn't sound boring at all. Honestly, that sounds really cool. I wouldn't mind hearing more."

Namjoon watches the avatar for just a moment longer. He can't help but wait for that gotcha! moment to come where the avatar gets bored or changes his mind and leaves.

But it doesn't come. 

The avatar simply gazes at him with expectant grey eyes, and Namjoon finds himself quite deeply wanting to meet whatever expectations lay in those eyes.

"Did you know,” Namjoon begins, “that there are places around the world where the lines between what is spirit and mortal are so thin they are almost indistinguishable? Liminal spaces. Here in the Northern Water Tribe that would be the Spirit Oasis. It is where Tui and La, the ocean and moon spirits, reside. Though they are in their physical form, they are still spirits with unimaginable power. Their presence alone changes the integrity of the waters they swim in, granting them remarkable healing abilities.”

“That's incredible. Is that why you mentioned it earlier? When I was talking about my injury?”

Namjoon hums in agreement.

“Jungha obviously didn't want me speaking about it, but it's not like you won't hear about it soon anyways,” Namjoon shrugs.

“Wow. So do other nations have places like this?"

Namjoon nods.

“In the Earth Kingdom, there's the Foggy Swamp. It's said that the entire swamp itself is one massive spiritual organism. Or perhaps it is a collection of spiritual organisms that operate as one. There is still not a lot of knowledge since the people who live there are said to be very reclusive and protective of it.”

“I can't imagine how something like that would work,” replies the avatar, wonder painting his voice.

“Me either. But it's fascinating, isn't it?”

“It is.”

“As for the Fire Nation, there is the Forgetful Valley. The lore here is a bit obscure because it is said that those who enter the valley are known to never return, destined to be forgotten by mankind. Many say it is the work of vengeful spirits who have claimed the valley as their own. Perhaps at some point the valley was something more pure and sacred, but since the uprising of dark spirits, venturing into it is seen as walking to your death.”

“That’s horrible,” the avatar gasps, “Does the book say why anyone would ever want to enter into a place like that?”

Namjoon shakes his head. “It only says that despite its infamy, a handful of people are still lost to the valley every few years or so.”

“How sad,” Park sighs.

Namjoon hums in agreement.

“And for the Air Nation, the knowledge of their ways are, of course, private, since the nation is known to be rather reclusive, but it is generally understood that they are the nation with the most natural connection to spirituality. I'm sure they have their own equivalent to all of these places as well. Actually, I suppose you would know more than any book.”

The avatar's face, which up until now shone with a intrigued glow, dimmed slightly. He looks down and away from Namjoon now.

“Ah, bad memory, remember?”

“Oh! Of course! Sorry!” Namjoon fumbles, mentally scrambling to change the topic at the sight of the avatar's despondence, “Anyways, what I think is interesting is that these places are special because they are a point of convergence where we, as mortals, and they, as spirits, can meet and in the eyes of the world we are equal.”

The avatar hums at that. "That sounds kind of beautiful, when you think about it. In the end, we are all just creatures trying to live in our own ways."

Namjoon nods quickly in agreement. He feels... something unfurl in his chest. It's nice to have someone not only listen to his musings, but try to understand them. He feels heard in a way he hasn't in a long time.

"Exactly what I thought! I think these days with the threat of dark spirits we've all forgotten the beauty of spirits and spirituality. We don't understand them, so we fear them. But perhaps if we tried to understand them more, we might be able to do more to help undo the darkness that has settled around us. We can only appreciate the light, if we understand the shadow.”

Perhaps it's because Namjoon himself is not exactly a spirit, but not exactly what others would call a human either that he has a fascination with these places. Instead of fearing and rejecting spirits, what would happen if they embraced them more? Learned about them more? Maybe his life would have been a lot different. Maybe all of their lives would be.

Avatar Park's eyes roam over his face, and Namjoon wonders what he sees.

“You've thought about this a lot,” Park murmurs.

“Well, I've lived in the North my entire life. I can't help but wonder what it is like outside our walls. Wonder what other ways spirituality can be explored. I feel like I've lived so long yet know far too little about the world and life.”

Park runs a hand through his hair as he ponders Namjoon's words. 

“Recently,” the avatar starts, “I've traveled so far and to so many different places, trying to find an answer to my problems. The world is so big. For one problem, I've found so many possible answers, but no real solution. It feels almost like I'm chasing winds. I can feel the wind, but it's still out of my grasp, y'know? As much as I run and try to catch up, I can never catch that breeze. You can have the whole world at the tips of your fingers and still have nothing.”

Park pauses from his ramblings, flushes, and runs his hand through his hair again. It must be a nervous tic of his.

“Ah, I don't know if I'm making sense. If you can get what I'm saying. Maybe I sound silly. I don't know,” Park mutters.

Namjoon hums. He thinks he understands. 

“Whether you're stuck in one place like me, or stuck in an unending journey like yourself, you can still be lost. Although we come from opposite ends of the spectrum, we're not that unlike. Not at all.”

“Exactly!”

Park lights up brilliantly. His eyes scrunch into twin crescent moons under the weight of his pleased laugh, and his cheeks shine with a rosy glow. What a charming smile. Somehow seeing the real thing in person is so much better than a painting. 

“We're two banana peas in a pod,” Park nudges at him, still smiling.

“I suppose we are,” Namjoon huffs a laugh. 

Namjoon doesn't even know what it is about the situation that amuses the both of them. Perhaps it's because they're having such a deep conversation so late in the night, it's a little absurd and they're maybe both just a little delirious. Perhaps it's that it's such an odd thing for two people to bond over. Being lost.

Perhaps it's the fact that, despite that, even the smallest thread of mutual understanding can be something precious to have. To feel. 

It's quite a warm feeling, Namjoon finds. To be understood.

“Oh,” is all Park says. 

“Oh?” Namjoon echos, a bit confused.

Park's hands rise, pointer fingers extended, and land on the crevices carved into Namjoon’s cheeks. 

“You have dimples,” the other says.  

There's a pause as they watch each other for a moment. Park's fingers stay plugged into Namjoon's cheeks. His eyes are wide and surprised as he looks at Namjoon, as if it's Namjoon's fault his fingers have landed there.

Then they burst into laughter. 

“I suppose I do!” Namjoon gauffs, a little incredulous and a little pleased. Park, for his, part is a little red cheeked.

“I'm sorry. I just didn't notice until now! It surprised me!”

Namjoon shakes his head. “It's fine.”

Mentally, that's one more thing Namjoon adds to his growing list of facts about his three temporary roommates.

Namjoon learns that they are so lovely to befriend. 

As a matter of fact, he learns that Park is simply so lovely.