The water tribe village was tiny. Mai thought at first that it was simply a temporary camp - crude ice walls around tents built over simple
wooden floors. But the populace evidently weren't a fast moving hunting group - out of the dozen or so adults, more than half were clearly elderly and only
one of them was male. The population was filled out by a more or less equal number of children.
"Princess Yue," called man raising one arm in greeting as Kuku set down in almost belly deep snow. He was tall and lean, cutting an
impressive figure in blue dyed furs, dark hair bound up in a topknot. Were it not for his blue eyes and dark skin, he would have fit seamlessly into any any
circle of Fire Nation military officers. "You've returned sooner than expected. I hope that your patient is well."
"She is well," Yue replied pleasently and looked back at her passengers. "My friends, I would like to introduce my good friend
Chief Bato of the Southern Water Tribe. Bato, I would like you to meet Mai, Zuko and Toph."
"Princess?" Mai asked curiously.
Yue made a face. "My father, Arnook, is Chief of the Northern Water Tribe who relocated here. It doesn't really matter since the
title isn't hereditary, but it doesn't stop people from calling me a princess or trying to pair me up with Bato as some sort of symbolic unification of
the tribes."
Bato shrugged. "I keep telling you, Princess. If you want to quiet the gossips then find yourself a young man."
"It doesn't quiet them that you're out here with your harem of war widows," Yue smiled, "So I have my doubts. I'm
afraid my companions had to leave their current residence without winterwear. I'm sorry to impose..."
The man waved his hand dismissively. "Yue, your father is an interfering busybody, but you are an ornament upon the Water Tribes and any
service I can do you is a delight. I'm quite sure we can outfit the three of them for a trip south." He looked up at them all measuringly. "Come
into the village and enjoy our hospitality for the night."
"Ground? Great!" Toph said and made to jump off Kuku, only to be restrained by Mai catching hold of the back of the green
dress.
"Toph, you aren't getting off the bison until you have boots on," she declared flatly. "I've heard about frostbite and your feet
won't see anything every again if all the flesh on them is frozen solid."
Yue stood up to help Mai restrain the headstrong girl. "Could you bring some boots first, Bato?" she requested urgently.
Toph struggled - more out of principle than any desperate need to reach the ice, which would be a poor substitute for honest ground - to
escape. "It can't be that bad," she protested.
"It's as bad as fire in its way," Zuko said quietly from where he was sitting. "Veterans call it iceburn. There's a
reason that our soldiers cover every bit of their bodies when they enter cold climates."
"Really?" Toph relaxed suddenly and Yue let go of her, reassured. Mai, better acquainted with her sister, did not but for once Toph
was not feigning her switch of attention. "Is it quick?"
"I've never seen it myself, but it is said that a few moments can cause crippling injuries. Even brief contact can cause serious
damage unless it is treated immediately," Zuko said, not looking up.
"What sort of injuries?" Toph asked curiously.
"Mildly?" Zuko asked. "Scarring and loss of sensation in the exposed part of the body. At worst? Quite often they become
infected and have to be amputated. A lot of soldiers lose noses or fingers after serving in this part of the world."
Toph looked genuinely impressed. "I'm gonna have to figure out how to do that to people," she observed. Yue looked genuinely
appalled. "Bad people," Toph clarified. "People who deserve fates worse than death."
"Here," Bato called from below Kuku. Apparently he had hurried, or Toph had been more distracted by the prospect of burning people
with cold than she had expected. A boot came sailing up over the side of the saddle, followed by the partner. "They should be around the right size, if
not we can pad them."
Yue passed the boots to Toph and then jumped down to talk urgently to Bato in a low voice, obviously unaware that the blind girl couldn't
have failed to overhear her if she had been trying to. Which she was, because hearing a recital of the scandalous history of the three people still on Kuku -
or as much of it as Yue knew - was boring. Bato's reactions weren't all that much more interesting although she was pretty sure that he was genuinely
not romantically interested in Yue.
Instead, she wrestled the unfamiliar footwear on. And then off again, because she figured that they were so uncomfortable that she must have
them on the wrong feet, and Mai hadn't said anything because she thought it was funny. However, the other way around was worse and with a deep feeling of
despair, Toph accepted that the previous discomfort was the normal sensation of wearing boots and stripped them off again.
"Are you going to keep playing with them until the sun sets?" Mai asked, her voice bored.
"It won't set for months now," Zuko told her. "It happens when you're too far north or south. I think these parts of
the world are broken some how."
Mai thought about that and then decided not to as it was making her head hurt. "The question stands."
Somewhat unsteadily, Toph stood up with her feet inside the boots. "I can't feel anything at all through these," she warned and
then clambered over the side of the saddle and slid down Kuku to the snow. She sank past her knees into the snow and was glad that the boots were long enough
to reach the bottom of her pants. Spirits, the stuff was cold!
Not known enitrely waht she was looing for, she reached out the way she had for water, back on the beaches of Kyoshi Island. This was water
too, so it shouldn't be so very different. Harder with cloth and fur between her and it, but not different. Not entirely.
Snow was ice, she realised in surprise. Tiny little flakes of it. Different arrangement, same thing. About as distinct from the almost
rock-like chunk of ice that Yue had given her, as sand was from good honest stone but on a very fundamental level the same thing. She stomped her foot her foot
experimentally.
"If your bending talent burns out becauuse you push it, I'll let Ty Lee pick your wardrobe," Mai warned her dispassionately,
landing in the snow next to Toph. Everything that Toph had heard about Mai's other friend suggested that this would result in pink. From the way that Mai
used the word, it was unclear if she meant the colour or some other meaning of the word. Maybe a fruit, like an orange.
Toph shook her head. Focus. What had it felt like when she stamped? She did so again.
"What's she doing?" asked Bato from somewhere.
"Bending," Mai replied.
The water tribesman sounded puzzled. "Bending what? Nothing's happening."
"Herself, for all I know," said the fire maiden with a bored look on her face.
Yue pinched the bridge of her nose. "Toph, I told you not to bend until I was sure that your fourth chakra had recovered.
"I'm not sure where you got the idea that I take orders from you," Toph told her. "I'm grateful and all that, but
giving up bending is a bit much."
Yue's eyes tightened. "If your ability to bend is permenantly impaired," she pointed out angrily. "The consequences would
be dire. I am telling you this for your own good."
"That was what my parents said when they tried to permanently obliterate it," Toph retorted hotly, the snow melting slightly around
her. "I'll decide my own good from now on."
"Toph," Mai observed. "It may not be your own good to firebend on ice that's floating on very deep
water."
The avatar paused, nodded, and stepped away from the puddle that she had inadvertantly created. "I'll listen to suggestions,"
she said in grudging concession.
.oOo.
Zhao stared through the telescope. "Well, well, well," he mused triumphantly. "And I thought that there wouldn't be any
excitement down here."
The Fire Nation Admiral's squadron were drifting south, carried by a current that they had learned off from a captured Water Tribe map.
From long experience, Zhao knew that the smoke from his ships while under power could be detected before he could reach his targets. Where possible, he would
use the engines only in darkness where the columns of smoke were almost undetectable, but it was the wrong time of year and so he was letting the elements
carry him closer, until there would be no time to react when he raised steam.
And what a prize there was, Zhao chuckled. The huge creature outside the pathetic water tribe village had to be a sky bison. There hadn't
been a confirmed sighting in decades but there had been rumours for years that a few remnants of the Air Nomad's favored mounts had survived in remote
areas. And if the Water Tribe village knew where one was, they might know where to find more.
Sky Bison weren't exactly prey on a level with Dragons, but since the 'Fire Lord' Iroh had inconsiderately killed the last
Dragons when Zhao was a boy, he'd settle for this. The fur would make an excellent trophy and if any of the water tribe women were captured, it would be an
even better bed for demonstrating his domination of their people on.
"Signal the other ships," he ordered. "We have a target and for the moment, they haven't spotted us."
The captain standing on the bridge gestured sharply and a signaller started forming small flames inside a specially shielded lantern, each
little sequence of fire bursts signifying a particular code phrase. "If I'm any judge of the weather, it appears that there will be a heavy mist
rolling in," he told the admiral. "That will cover our approach."
"Good. Very good. Four ships will hold back as a reserve in case this is some kind of trap," Zhao decided. "We'll take the
other two ships in. There can't be more than a couple of dozen warriors in a small village like that, and three ships will be more than enough to overwhelm
that."
"As you command, Admiral," the captain agreed, following rules one and two of 'dealing with Zhao', as passed down in the
oral tradition of the Fire Nation Navy: 'use his rank, a lot' and 'never argue with him'. "What formation would you
prefer?"
"Are you an idiot?" Zhao sneered. "Trident formation, of course. I will lead our warriors directly into the village while
those of the other ships encircle it, to capture those who turn and flee." He slapped the rail. "It's been too long since we reminded these
savages of the might of the Fire Nation. They've grown complacent, building one of their villages here on the sea."
"And if they have information regarding Prince Zuko, Admiral?"
Zhao chuckled. "Do you really think anyone cares about one inconsequential princeling? Everyone knows that he wasn't as strong as
his sister or his cousin. Either one of them got their claws into him and the other reacted, or perhaps Ozai himself decided to get rid of an incompetent. In
either case, no one wants him found." He looked through the telescope again. "No, we're just here to make a show of searching for the little lost
prince, and because Prince Lu Ten wants to gain every last bit of glory he can at Ba Sing Se to counter Princess Azula's triumph."
.oOo.
Zuko was taking great comfort in the small blaze that crackled at the centre of the tent that the travellers had been loaned. In these frosty
climes, the smoky fire needed almost constant attention to keep it alive, fed with scraps and only the most useless of waste, so most tents only had lanterns.
Those would not suffice for warmblooded visitors however, and allowance was made for what was obviously a sign of weakness in the eyes of the village
women.
"Benders and their elements," Mai sniffed but she didn't make more than the barest pretense that she wasn't as glad of the
source of heat as any of the rest of them. Toph had stripped off the hated boots at the first opportunity and was sitting with her feet pointed towards the
fire, close enough to risk a scorching.
"We'll have to stay a little longer than I hoped," Yue said, laying down the bundle of possessions that she had carried from
Kuku. Bato had been erecting a tent around the animal to shelter him while he rested, not willing to assume that the creature's long winter fur would be
enough protection for the rare sky bison. "There's a mist rolling in, and flying over ice can be dangerous enough when it's
visible."
"What's so dangerous about it?" asked Mai and since it was she asking, rather than Toph, Yue concluded that it was a genuine
desire to understand rather than cocky derision.
"Ice formations can be deceptive. Without a frame of reference, it's easy to assume that something is large and distant when
actually it's much smaller, but right in front of you. Kuku has good instincts, but he isn't infalliable about these things." Yue shrugged.
"Besides, he is tired and while we could press on, I think a night out here will let you acclimatise before it gets really cold."
"Really cold?"
"Oh yes," Yue nodded regretfully. "This is fairly mild. If it weren't for the fire nation, most of the tribe would be
living here on the coast. As it is, we have to make our homes further inland. Even we find it chilly."
Zuko shivered and drew a blanket closer around his shoulders. "Being buried alive on Kyoshi Island is sounding better and better,"
he muttered.
"It's not too late to throw you into the sea," Mai offered coldly. "From what you said about frostbite, that should kill
you almost instantly."
Toph picked at her nose. "That was cold, Spiky." She examined the tip of her finger, before flicking the residue into the
flames.
The flap of the tent pushed aside and Bato stepped inside, his face grim. "There are fire nation ships in the area," he told them.
"You'd better leave, even if you have to do so on foot.
"What?" she called, but he had left again. "Get packed up," the waterbender ordered, and pushed out of the the flap
herself, not waiting to receive confirmation from the three northerners.
Zuko started obediently shuffling into the parka that Bato had offered him in loan, mind churning. If Fire Nation ships were
near...
"You're thinking about running," Toph told him flatly, as she wrestled the boots back onto her feet.
"If they picked me up then they would have to leave, to take me home," offered Zuko weakly.
"At best they'd send one ship back with you while the others keep coming," Mai contradicted. "Particularly once you tell
them about Toph. No Fire Nation commander would pass up the chance to capture the Avatar."
"I..." Wouldn't tell them? But it's my duty! Why wouldn't I tell whoever isn't in command there about Toph being
the Avatar? "I..." Capturing the Avatar would make my name, make father proud of me. But she's not just the Avatar, is she? She's also
Toph.
"It's touching that you'd hesitate about it, Sifu Broody," Toph told him, "But it isn't getting your clothes on.
And if I have to drag you, I'm going to be rough about it."
"You seem to forget who lost our Agni Kai," snapped Zuko angrily, rising to his feet.
"And you 'seem to forget' who wound up being chained up afterwards," Mai cut in. "You're in just as much danger as
the rest of us, your highness. Chances are pretty good that the soldiers on that ship will notice you're a man in blue furs a lot sooner than
they'll notice that you don't look all that much like one of the water tribe an it'll be hard for anyone to tell the difference once you're a
charred corpse on the ground."
Zuko blanched and made to remove the parka.
"Uh-uh," Toph told him, smacking his hands as she clambered to her feet. "If I have to suffer in this then so do you."
She had almost crawled into her own parka, which was clearly too large for her, hanging to her knees and covering her hands entirely.
"How can you tell what I'm doing?" he protested, conceding for the moment.
"I'm blind, not deaf. And this wood is so old it's almost as solid as rock," Toph told him. "Earthbender, remember?
Everytime you shift posture it's sending vibrations through the boards. Granted, wouldn't mean much to most, but I've had a lot of
practise."
"If you two benders are done exchanging notes, we need to go," Mai told them and pushed her way out of the tent.
Toph yelped an incoherent protest and barrelled after her, almost getting tangled up in the tent flaps before forcing her way through.
"What?" Mai said a moment later, clearly audible through the tent. "You want to hold my hand?"
"I can just about figure out what's around me in these things," Toph said, stamping her boots as Zuko followed them out of the
tent. The smaller girl had grasped Mai's left hand with her own right, in the process, capturing the firemaiden's entirely within the cuff of the
earthbender's parka. "That's not the same as knowing where I'm going."
"I'm not a great deal better off," Mai warned and Zuko could see her point. The other tents, only a few dozen yards away at
most, were reduced to featureless domes by the mist and the ice block ramparts around them was almost entirely invisible. The sisters didn't release each
other's hands though.
Bato was collapsing the canvas over Kuku as efficiently as he had raised it. "I know you can't fly in this," he told Yue,
overriding her objection. "But the children can't travel fast enough on foot to stay ahead of fire nation soldiers and we need to go now. They've
learnt not to just strike for the villages, but to surround them. Which means we all have to move, fast and now."
Yue stared at him and then looked at the children being led towards her by their mothers, clearly bundled out of their beds with little to no
explanation. Tired, understanding just enough to be scared and far too little to know what to be scared of. "You're the expert," she surrendered
and reached down for a moment before pulling her hand up from the ice. A simple stairway rose up after her hand, leading from the ground up to Kuku's
saddle. "Now then," she asked the children brightly. "Who wants to be the first to ride the bison?"
.oOo.
The cold bit into Zuko as he trudged alongside Mai and Toph in Kuku's footsteps. The massive sky bison was leaving an unmistakeable trail
through the snow, which was useful for the purposes of keeping the little column of villagers on the same course despite the mist, but would also make it
almost impossible for the fire nation soldiers behind them to mistake where they were going.
Despite Mai's worlds, Zuko was still wrestling with the question of whether this was good or bad news.
On the one hand, as a loyal son of the Fire Nation (and the Fire Lord) it was his clear duty to assist a Fire Navy expedition into foreign
and hostile lands. The fact that he was in immediate proxmity to one Water Tribe Chief, the daughter of the other Chief and the Avatar only made that
obligation more urgent.
On the other, it was difficult not to look at the line of women ahead of him, or to think of the children drowsing on Kuku's back,
without seeing other women and children. Those he had seen during his march through the Earth Kingdom. The women he had widowed, the children he had
orphaned... and in some cases those that his soldiers had killed. And then there were more personal attachments: Mai had been a friend, potentially more than
that; now she was a traitor to the Fire Nation. Yue had never wronged him - despite the fact that their nations were enemies she had actually shown more
kindness to him than Mai had since they were reunited. And if Toph was not entirely the somewhat shy girl he had taught to take joy in her firebending, she was
the spirited child he had sensed inside her: passionate as fire, stubborn as the earth and somehow he suspected as perfectly suited to the other elements in
her way.
It was hard to see enemies as people, and not as faceless beings as impersonal as the toy soldiers he had played with as a boy.
There was a whooshing sound in the distance behind them and Zuko half-twisted around to look, doing so complicated by the hood of his
borrowed parka. He thought he could make out orange lights rising and falling in the distance: catapult shots. The ships were probably bombarding the empty
village in preparation for - or in support of - an assault. It would depend how aggressive the commander was: would he hold his men back until the barrage
softened up the objective or push them forward under its cover, risking them being hit by their own catapults? Both approaches had their adherents, but Zuko
suspected that anyone willing to take time to harass such a tiny settlement would be very aggressive. There was a crash which he interpreted as a tent being
struck directly by one of the flaming projectiles. The village had been evacuated just barely in time.
There was a grunt of surprise from beside Zuko and he turned his head again, seeing that Toph had halted for a moment and was stamping her
feet deeper and deeper into the snowy ground. Mai, a half-step ahead of her sister, had also come to a halt. "This is no time for a toilet break,
Toph."
Toph shook her head. "There are... people walking..." she said slowly and then used her free hand to point ahead and to the left,
then to the right. "Heavy, they're either really huge guys or carrying a lot of weight. I can feel the vibrations through the ice."
"They must have sent forces out to encircle the village," Zuko guessed.
Mai looked at the women ahead of them. The column was already moving as fast as the oldest woman could walk. "Will they intercept
us?" she asked Toph bluntly.
The girl considered. "There's an ice formation that will block the group to our left," she concluded. "Whichever way they
go, they'll be behind us, but they'll see the trail. The other group will catch us though... unless, of course...?"
"Unless someone stops them," Mai concluded grimly. "You're not going to do anything, little sister. Fighting a battle is
different from fighting a duel. Get the women moving as fast as possible: carry them if you have to." She released Toph's hand and stepped away,
breaking into as near to a run as she could in the snow.
Toph automatically lunged after her, almost overbalancing in the unfamiliar boots. Zuko grabbed her by the shoulder of the parka, which
almost slipped off of the girl as she tried to keep going. "No!" he shouted. "Mai knows what she's doing and she's trusting you to do
your part."
"You tell them," Toph spat. "I'm going after my sister."
"Then I'll go with you," Zuko offered. The column would escape the group to the left, and he could order the group to the right
to withdraw, with Mai and Toph in custody...
Toph reversed the hold suddenly, twisting to break his grip on her parka and reaching back to catch his wrist. "No chance. Mai's
also trusting me to keep you from running off, that sneaky witch!" She pushed him forwards after the last woman in the column. "Let's
get this column moving." Ice began to move underneath her, almost clinging to her feet.
Zuko recognised the move as resembling the 'wave' of Earth that some earthbenders used to travel: the ice flowing forward following
the leg movements but far faster. Not anchored in the same way to the crest of the ice, he had to run on the moving ice to keep pace with the little girl,
something that was complicated even more when the ice wave scooped up the rearmost woman in the column and Toph handed the elder off to him to
support.
Mai had disappeared into the mists and Zuko felt the same fear that had touched him outside Omashu when she and Toph had vanished from his
sight there.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
wooden floors. But the populace evidently weren't a fast moving hunting group - out of the dozen or so adults, more than half were clearly elderly and only
one of them was male. The population was filled out by a more or less equal number of children.
"Princess Yue," called man raising one arm in greeting as Kuku set down in almost belly deep snow. He was tall and lean, cutting an
impressive figure in blue dyed furs, dark hair bound up in a topknot. Were it not for his blue eyes and dark skin, he would have fit seamlessly into any any
circle of Fire Nation military officers. "You've returned sooner than expected. I hope that your patient is well."
"She is well," Yue replied pleasently and looked back at her passengers. "My friends, I would like to introduce my good friend
Chief Bato of the Southern Water Tribe. Bato, I would like you to meet Mai, Zuko and Toph."
"Princess?" Mai asked curiously.
Yue made a face. "My father, Arnook, is Chief of the Northern Water Tribe who relocated here. It doesn't really matter since the
title isn't hereditary, but it doesn't stop people from calling me a princess or trying to pair me up with Bato as some sort of symbolic unification of
the tribes."
Bato shrugged. "I keep telling you, Princess. If you want to quiet the gossips then find yourself a young man."
"It doesn't quiet them that you're out here with your harem of war widows," Yue smiled, "So I have my doubts. I'm
afraid my companions had to leave their current residence without winterwear. I'm sorry to impose..."
The man waved his hand dismissively. "Yue, your father is an interfering busybody, but you are an ornament upon the Water Tribes and any
service I can do you is a delight. I'm quite sure we can outfit the three of them for a trip south." He looked up at them all measuringly. "Come
into the village and enjoy our hospitality for the night."
"Ground? Great!" Toph said and made to jump off Kuku, only to be restrained by Mai catching hold of the back of the green
dress.
"Toph, you aren't getting off the bison until you have boots on," she declared flatly. "I've heard about frostbite and your feet
won't see anything every again if all the flesh on them is frozen solid."
Yue stood up to help Mai restrain the headstrong girl. "Could you bring some boots first, Bato?" she requested urgently.
Toph struggled - more out of principle than any desperate need to reach the ice, which would be a poor substitute for honest ground - to
escape. "It can't be that bad," she protested.
"It's as bad as fire in its way," Zuko said quietly from where he was sitting. "Veterans call it iceburn. There's a
reason that our soldiers cover every bit of their bodies when they enter cold climates."
"Really?" Toph relaxed suddenly and Yue let go of her, reassured. Mai, better acquainted with her sister, did not but for once Toph
was not feigning her switch of attention. "Is it quick?"
"I've never seen it myself, but it is said that a few moments can cause crippling injuries. Even brief contact can cause serious
damage unless it is treated immediately," Zuko said, not looking up.
"What sort of injuries?" Toph asked curiously.
"Mildly?" Zuko asked. "Scarring and loss of sensation in the exposed part of the body. At worst? Quite often they become
infected and have to be amputated. A lot of soldiers lose noses or fingers after serving in this part of the world."
Toph looked genuinely impressed. "I'm gonna have to figure out how to do that to people," she observed. Yue looked genuinely
appalled. "Bad people," Toph clarified. "People who deserve fates worse than death."
"Here," Bato called from below Kuku. Apparently he had hurried, or Toph had been more distracted by the prospect of burning people
with cold than she had expected. A boot came sailing up over the side of the saddle, followed by the partner. "They should be around the right size, if
not we can pad them."
Yue passed the boots to Toph and then jumped down to talk urgently to Bato in a low voice, obviously unaware that the blind girl couldn't
have failed to overhear her if she had been trying to. Which she was, because hearing a recital of the scandalous history of the three people still on Kuku -
or as much of it as Yue knew - was boring. Bato's reactions weren't all that much more interesting although she was pretty sure that he was genuinely
not romantically interested in Yue.
Instead, she wrestled the unfamiliar footwear on. And then off again, because she figured that they were so uncomfortable that she must have
them on the wrong feet, and Mai hadn't said anything because she thought it was funny. However, the other way around was worse and with a deep feeling of
despair, Toph accepted that the previous discomfort was the normal sensation of wearing boots and stripped them off again.
"Are you going to keep playing with them until the sun sets?" Mai asked, her voice bored.
"It won't set for months now," Zuko told her. "It happens when you're too far north or south. I think these parts of
the world are broken some how."
Mai thought about that and then decided not to as it was making her head hurt. "The question stands."
Somewhat unsteadily, Toph stood up with her feet inside the boots. "I can't feel anything at all through these," she warned and
then clambered over the side of the saddle and slid down Kuku to the snow. She sank past her knees into the snow and was glad that the boots were long enough
to reach the bottom of her pants. Spirits, the stuff was cold!
Not known enitrely waht she was looing for, she reached out the way she had for water, back on the beaches of Kyoshi Island. This was water
too, so it shouldn't be so very different. Harder with cloth and fur between her and it, but not different. Not entirely.
Snow was ice, she realised in surprise. Tiny little flakes of it. Different arrangement, same thing. About as distinct from the almost
rock-like chunk of ice that Yue had given her, as sand was from good honest stone but on a very fundamental level the same thing. She stomped her foot her foot
experimentally.
"If your bending talent burns out becauuse you push it, I'll let Ty Lee pick your wardrobe," Mai warned her dispassionately,
landing in the snow next to Toph. Everything that Toph had heard about Mai's other friend suggested that this would result in pink. From the way that Mai
used the word, it was unclear if she meant the colour or some other meaning of the word. Maybe a fruit, like an orange.
Toph shook her head. Focus. What had it felt like when she stamped? She did so again.
"What's she doing?" asked Bato from somewhere.
"Bending," Mai replied.
The water tribesman sounded puzzled. "Bending what? Nothing's happening."
"Herself, for all I know," said the fire maiden with a bored look on her face.
Yue pinched the bridge of her nose. "Toph, I told you not to bend until I was sure that your fourth chakra had recovered.
"I'm not sure where you got the idea that I take orders from you," Toph told her. "I'm grateful and all that, but
giving up bending is a bit much."
Yue's eyes tightened. "If your ability to bend is permenantly impaired," she pointed out angrily. "The consequences would
be dire. I am telling you this for your own good."
"That was what my parents said when they tried to permanently obliterate it," Toph retorted hotly, the snow melting slightly around
her. "I'll decide my own good from now on."
"Toph," Mai observed. "It may not be your own good to firebend on ice that's floating on very deep
water."
The avatar paused, nodded, and stepped away from the puddle that she had inadvertantly created. "I'll listen to suggestions,"
she said in grudging concession.
.oOo.
Zhao stared through the telescope. "Well, well, well," he mused triumphantly. "And I thought that there wouldn't be any
excitement down here."
The Fire Nation Admiral's squadron were drifting south, carried by a current that they had learned off from a captured Water Tribe map.
From long experience, Zhao knew that the smoke from his ships while under power could be detected before he could reach his targets. Where possible, he would
use the engines only in darkness where the columns of smoke were almost undetectable, but it was the wrong time of year and so he was letting the elements
carry him closer, until there would be no time to react when he raised steam.
And what a prize there was, Zhao chuckled. The huge creature outside the pathetic water tribe village had to be a sky bison. There hadn't
been a confirmed sighting in decades but there had been rumours for years that a few remnants of the Air Nomad's favored mounts had survived in remote
areas. And if the Water Tribe village knew where one was, they might know where to find more.
Sky Bison weren't exactly prey on a level with Dragons, but since the 'Fire Lord' Iroh had inconsiderately killed the last
Dragons when Zhao was a boy, he'd settle for this. The fur would make an excellent trophy and if any of the water tribe women were captured, it would be an
even better bed for demonstrating his domination of their people on.
"Signal the other ships," he ordered. "We have a target and for the moment, they haven't spotted us."
The captain standing on the bridge gestured sharply and a signaller started forming small flames inside a specially shielded lantern, each
little sequence of fire bursts signifying a particular code phrase. "If I'm any judge of the weather, it appears that there will be a heavy mist
rolling in," he told the admiral. "That will cover our approach."
"Good. Very good. Four ships will hold back as a reserve in case this is some kind of trap," Zhao decided. "We'll take the
other two ships in. There can't be more than a couple of dozen warriors in a small village like that, and three ships will be more than enough to overwhelm
that."
"As you command, Admiral," the captain agreed, following rules one and two of 'dealing with Zhao', as passed down in the
oral tradition of the Fire Nation Navy: 'use his rank, a lot' and 'never argue with him'. "What formation would you
prefer?"
"Are you an idiot?" Zhao sneered. "Trident formation, of course. I will lead our warriors directly into the village while
those of the other ships encircle it, to capture those who turn and flee." He slapped the rail. "It's been too long since we reminded these
savages of the might of the Fire Nation. They've grown complacent, building one of their villages here on the sea."
"And if they have information regarding Prince Zuko, Admiral?"
Zhao chuckled. "Do you really think anyone cares about one inconsequential princeling? Everyone knows that he wasn't as strong as
his sister or his cousin. Either one of them got their claws into him and the other reacted, or perhaps Ozai himself decided to get rid of an incompetent. In
either case, no one wants him found." He looked through the telescope again. "No, we're just here to make a show of searching for the little lost
prince, and because Prince Lu Ten wants to gain every last bit of glory he can at Ba Sing Se to counter Princess Azula's triumph."
.oOo.
Zuko was taking great comfort in the small blaze that crackled at the centre of the tent that the travellers had been loaned. In these frosty
climes, the smoky fire needed almost constant attention to keep it alive, fed with scraps and only the most useless of waste, so most tents only had lanterns.
Those would not suffice for warmblooded visitors however, and allowance was made for what was obviously a sign of weakness in the eyes of the village
women.
"Benders and their elements," Mai sniffed but she didn't make more than the barest pretense that she wasn't as glad of the
source of heat as any of the rest of them. Toph had stripped off the hated boots at the first opportunity and was sitting with her feet pointed towards the
fire, close enough to risk a scorching.
"We'll have to stay a little longer than I hoped," Yue said, laying down the bundle of possessions that she had carried from
Kuku. Bato had been erecting a tent around the animal to shelter him while he rested, not willing to assume that the creature's long winter fur would be
enough protection for the rare sky bison. "There's a mist rolling in, and flying over ice can be dangerous enough when it's
visible."
"What's so dangerous about it?" asked Mai and since it was she asking, rather than Toph, Yue concluded that it was a genuine
desire to understand rather than cocky derision.
"Ice formations can be deceptive. Without a frame of reference, it's easy to assume that something is large and distant when
actually it's much smaller, but right in front of you. Kuku has good instincts, but he isn't infalliable about these things." Yue shrugged.
"Besides, he is tired and while we could press on, I think a night out here will let you acclimatise before it gets really cold."
"Really cold?"
"Oh yes," Yue nodded regretfully. "This is fairly mild. If it weren't for the fire nation, most of the tribe would be
living here on the coast. As it is, we have to make our homes further inland. Even we find it chilly."
Zuko shivered and drew a blanket closer around his shoulders. "Being buried alive on Kyoshi Island is sounding better and better,"
he muttered.
"It's not too late to throw you into the sea," Mai offered coldly. "From what you said about frostbite, that should kill
you almost instantly."
Toph picked at her nose. "That was cold, Spiky." She examined the tip of her finger, before flicking the residue into the
flames.
The flap of the tent pushed aside and Bato stepped inside, his face grim. "There are fire nation ships in the area," he told them.
"You'd better leave, even if you have to do so on foot.
"What?" she called, but he had left again. "Get packed up," the waterbender ordered, and pushed out of the the flap
herself, not waiting to receive confirmation from the three northerners.
Zuko started obediently shuffling into the parka that Bato had offered him in loan, mind churning. If Fire Nation ships were
near...
"You're thinking about running," Toph told him flatly, as she wrestled the boots back onto her feet.
"If they picked me up then they would have to leave, to take me home," offered Zuko weakly.
"At best they'd send one ship back with you while the others keep coming," Mai contradicted. "Particularly once you tell
them about Toph. No Fire Nation commander would pass up the chance to capture the Avatar."
"I..." Wouldn't tell them? But it's my duty! Why wouldn't I tell whoever isn't in command there about Toph being
the Avatar? "I..." Capturing the Avatar would make my name, make father proud of me. But she's not just the Avatar, is she? She's also
Toph.
"It's touching that you'd hesitate about it, Sifu Broody," Toph told him, "But it isn't getting your clothes on.
And if I have to drag you, I'm going to be rough about it."
"You seem to forget who lost our Agni Kai," snapped Zuko angrily, rising to his feet.
"And you 'seem to forget' who wound up being chained up afterwards," Mai cut in. "You're in just as much danger as
the rest of us, your highness. Chances are pretty good that the soldiers on that ship will notice you're a man in blue furs a lot sooner than
they'll notice that you don't look all that much like one of the water tribe an it'll be hard for anyone to tell the difference once you're a
charred corpse on the ground."
Zuko blanched and made to remove the parka.
"Uh-uh," Toph told him, smacking his hands as she clambered to her feet. "If I have to suffer in this then so do you."
She had almost crawled into her own parka, which was clearly too large for her, hanging to her knees and covering her hands entirely.
"How can you tell what I'm doing?" he protested, conceding for the moment.
"I'm blind, not deaf. And this wood is so old it's almost as solid as rock," Toph told him. "Earthbender, remember?
Everytime you shift posture it's sending vibrations through the boards. Granted, wouldn't mean much to most, but I've had a lot of
practise."
"If you two benders are done exchanging notes, we need to go," Mai told them and pushed her way out of the tent.
Toph yelped an incoherent protest and barrelled after her, almost getting tangled up in the tent flaps before forcing her way through.
"What?" Mai said a moment later, clearly audible through the tent. "You want to hold my hand?"
"I can just about figure out what's around me in these things," Toph said, stamping her boots as Zuko followed them out of the
tent. The smaller girl had grasped Mai's left hand with her own right, in the process, capturing the firemaiden's entirely within the cuff of the
earthbender's parka. "That's not the same as knowing where I'm going."
"I'm not a great deal better off," Mai warned and Zuko could see her point. The other tents, only a few dozen yards away at
most, were reduced to featureless domes by the mist and the ice block ramparts around them was almost entirely invisible. The sisters didn't release each
other's hands though.
Bato was collapsing the canvas over Kuku as efficiently as he had raised it. "I know you can't fly in this," he told Yue,
overriding her objection. "But the children can't travel fast enough on foot to stay ahead of fire nation soldiers and we need to go now. They've
learnt not to just strike for the villages, but to surround them. Which means we all have to move, fast and now."
Yue stared at him and then looked at the children being led towards her by their mothers, clearly bundled out of their beds with little to no
explanation. Tired, understanding just enough to be scared and far too little to know what to be scared of. "You're the expert," she surrendered
and reached down for a moment before pulling her hand up from the ice. A simple stairway rose up after her hand, leading from the ground up to Kuku's
saddle. "Now then," she asked the children brightly. "Who wants to be the first to ride the bison?"
.oOo.
The cold bit into Zuko as he trudged alongside Mai and Toph in Kuku's footsteps. The massive sky bison was leaving an unmistakeable trail
through the snow, which was useful for the purposes of keeping the little column of villagers on the same course despite the mist, but would also make it
almost impossible for the fire nation soldiers behind them to mistake where they were going.
Despite Mai's worlds, Zuko was still wrestling with the question of whether this was good or bad news.
On the one hand, as a loyal son of the Fire Nation (and the Fire Lord) it was his clear duty to assist a Fire Navy expedition into foreign
and hostile lands. The fact that he was in immediate proxmity to one Water Tribe Chief, the daughter of the other Chief and the Avatar only made that
obligation more urgent.
On the other, it was difficult not to look at the line of women ahead of him, or to think of the children drowsing on Kuku's back,
without seeing other women and children. Those he had seen during his march through the Earth Kingdom. The women he had widowed, the children he had
orphaned... and in some cases those that his soldiers had killed. And then there were more personal attachments: Mai had been a friend, potentially more than
that; now she was a traitor to the Fire Nation. Yue had never wronged him - despite the fact that their nations were enemies she had actually shown more
kindness to him than Mai had since they were reunited. And if Toph was not entirely the somewhat shy girl he had taught to take joy in her firebending, she was
the spirited child he had sensed inside her: passionate as fire, stubborn as the earth and somehow he suspected as perfectly suited to the other elements in
her way.
It was hard to see enemies as people, and not as faceless beings as impersonal as the toy soldiers he had played with as a boy.
There was a whooshing sound in the distance behind them and Zuko half-twisted around to look, doing so complicated by the hood of his
borrowed parka. He thought he could make out orange lights rising and falling in the distance: catapult shots. The ships were probably bombarding the empty
village in preparation for - or in support of - an assault. It would depend how aggressive the commander was: would he hold his men back until the barrage
softened up the objective or push them forward under its cover, risking them being hit by their own catapults? Both approaches had their adherents, but Zuko
suspected that anyone willing to take time to harass such a tiny settlement would be very aggressive. There was a crash which he interpreted as a tent being
struck directly by one of the flaming projectiles. The village had been evacuated just barely in time.
There was a grunt of surprise from beside Zuko and he turned his head again, seeing that Toph had halted for a moment and was stamping her
feet deeper and deeper into the snowy ground. Mai, a half-step ahead of her sister, had also come to a halt. "This is no time for a toilet break,
Toph."
Toph shook her head. "There are... people walking..." she said slowly and then used her free hand to point ahead and to the left,
then to the right. "Heavy, they're either really huge guys or carrying a lot of weight. I can feel the vibrations through the ice."
"They must have sent forces out to encircle the village," Zuko guessed.
Mai looked at the women ahead of them. The column was already moving as fast as the oldest woman could walk. "Will they intercept
us?" she asked Toph bluntly.
The girl considered. "There's an ice formation that will block the group to our left," she concluded. "Whichever way they
go, they'll be behind us, but they'll see the trail. The other group will catch us though... unless, of course...?"
"Unless someone stops them," Mai concluded grimly. "You're not going to do anything, little sister. Fighting a battle is
different from fighting a duel. Get the women moving as fast as possible: carry them if you have to." She released Toph's hand and stepped away,
breaking into as near to a run as she could in the snow.
Toph automatically lunged after her, almost overbalancing in the unfamiliar boots. Zuko grabbed her by the shoulder of the parka, which
almost slipped off of the girl as she tried to keep going. "No!" he shouted. "Mai knows what she's doing and she's trusting you to do
your part."
"You tell them," Toph spat. "I'm going after my sister."
"Then I'll go with you," Zuko offered. The column would escape the group to the left, and he could order the group to the right
to withdraw, with Mai and Toph in custody...
Toph reversed the hold suddenly, twisting to break his grip on her parka and reaching back to catch his wrist. "No chance. Mai's
also trusting me to keep you from running off, that sneaky witch!" She pushed him forwards after the last woman in the column. "Let's
get this column moving." Ice began to move underneath her, almost clinging to her feet.
Zuko recognised the move as resembling the 'wave' of Earth that some earthbenders used to travel: the ice flowing forward following
the leg movements but far faster. Not anchored in the same way to the crest of the ice, he had to run on the moving ice to keep pace with the little girl,
something that was complicated even more when the ice wave scooped up the rearmost woman in the column and Toph handed the elder off to him to
support.
Mai had disappeared into the mists and Zuko felt the same fear that had touched him outside Omashu when she and Toph had vanished from his
sight there.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.