#also not happy with barbs top for the second one gonna rework that and also her hands a bit

[nocturnalsleuth]

not sure when i'll work up the motivation to finish this, have some Trollhunterverse Barbmura and changeling!Barbara

[willowdove]

Eyes Like Fire: A Soulmate AU

A couple months passed by.  The green in Katara’s eyes started to morph into a rich yellow-gold.  Kya found herself lost in them as she bounced Katara in her lap.  Perhaps it was temporary.  Maybe they would shift again, into a brown, maybe.  Brown eyes, at least, were potential allies.  Golden eyes, though- golden eyes were dangerous. 

Since there’s been some interest in this I’ve decided to post an update.  My work pace is slower than a snail- BUT I haven’t abandoned this WIP by any means.  This is not all of the work I have so far (please note that there are chapters in between that are missing) but it is what I’m happy with.  I’ve included the first couple chapters again because they’ve been slightly reworked.  Hopefully it’s not too much to put it all in one place here.

PROLOGUE

“Her eyes are darkening,” said Kya, watching her two children play nearby.  The eldest, Sokka, rolled a ball towards his sister Katara.  She scooted excitedly to grab it in her chubby little fist, then spastically hurled it at the ground between them.  She giggled with delight when this made Sokka toddle after it.

Kya’s husband Hakoda squeezed her shoulders and kissed her on the forehead.  “Sokka’s eyes changed about this time too,” he remarked.  When Sokka was born, he had possessed the crystal blue eyes of any Water Tribesmen.  But before he was a year old, they had lightened to a pale green.  Hakoda claimed this meant Sokka was destined to be an adventurer.  He would have to leave home if he wanted to find the person those eyes belonged to. 

Katara’s eyes were changing too, but they weren’t getting paler.  Green was blazing up from underneath the blue, vibrant and consuming.  Green definitely would point to an Earth Kingdom origin.  “Maybe they’ll go on their adventure together,” Kya suggested.  

Hakoda chuckled.  “They certainly do seem to get along,” he said.

***

A couple months passed by.  The green in Katara’s eyes started to morph into a rich yellow-gold.  Kya found herself lost in them as she bounced Katara in her lap.  Perhaps it was temporary.  Maybe they would shift again, into a brown, maybe.  Brown eyes, at least, were potential allies.  Golden eyes, though- golden eyes were dangerous.   

She must have been staring a little too intently, because Sokka seemed to pick up on her concern.  “Katara eyes pretty,” he declared.  He clambered up Kya’s knee to sit with his sister and hugged her tightly.  Katara popped her thumb out of her mouth to hug him back, babbling happily.  

Kya forced herself to smile, kissing them both on the head.  “Yes,” she agreed.  He was right, they were pretty.  But that didn’t stop a dark ache from tugging deep at the center of her being.

***

Kya was preparing sea prune stew for the family when her daughter asked the question.  “Mommy, why does everybody look at me funny?” she said. The spoon in Kya’s hand clattered into the pot as she quickly turned.

“Who said people were looking at you funny?” she demanded, bristling.

Katara seemed to shrink in the fur lining of her dress collar.  She looked down at her feet, mumbling, “Nobody said.  I just see them do it.  You look at me funny too, sometimes.”

The air went out of Kya and guilt pricked at her like a barb.  She knelt slowly, taking her daughter’s face in her hands.  Katara resisted the gentle tug at first, but quickly gave in and met her mother’s gaze with wide, golden eyes.  A stranger’s eyes.  “I’m sorry, baby.  We’re just… worried about you.”

“Is something wrong with me?” Katara asked, tears welling up on her thick lashes.

“Oh, sweetie, no,” she shushed, giving Katara a tight hug before holding her out by the shoulders.  She struggled to put together the words she needed. “…Has anyone told you what a soulmate is?”

Katara sniffled loudly, but managed to contain her tears.  “Gran-Gran said it was someone special who will love me forever and ever.”

A thankful smile quirked at the corners of Kya’s mouth as she nodded.  “Do you know that until you kiss your soulmate, you’ll have each other’s eyes?”

Katara’s brows furrowed in confusion for a second before she gave a little shriek, pressing her fingers into the top of her cheeks just under her lower eyelids.  “These aren’t my eyes?” she asked, horrified.

Kya had to laugh a little at the unexpected outburst.  “No, those are your soulmate’s eyes,” she reiterated.

“Why?!” Katara demanded.

“Well, it’s to help us to find each other, I expect,” she explained.

Katara considered that for a long moment.  She walked over to her mother’s bed furs and pulled out the mirror.  Her fingertips brushed lightly over the metal as she peered studiously at her reflection.  “My soulmate… isn’t from here, is he?”

“No,” Kya answered softly.

“Are people worried I will have to go really far away?” she asked.

Kya followed and kissed her daughter’s forehead fiercely, trying to blink away the tears that were welling in her own eyes before Katara could see them.  “They’re worried… you’ll have to go to the Fire Nation,” she replied.

“Oh,” Katara said, “Well, I won’t then.  I’ll just tell everybody I’m not gonna go.”

The ache in Kya’s chest was so great that she could barely breathe.  “Ok, baby,” she agreed, “I’ll try not to worry so much anymore.”

***

CHAPTER 1: THE SOUTH POLE

When the black snow began to fall, Katara felt her heart seize. The last time she had seen such snow fall was the first day Katara ever saw eyes like hers. It was also the last day she ever saw her mother.

 She ran to the middle of the village, to stand with her brother. He was the only man left in the tribe, and she was the only waterbender. They were only two, and untrained, but it didn’t matter. They were all that stood between their people and the enemy.

 The Fire Nation steamer that had carved through the icy harbor to their port was small compared to others that had come before, and alone. Still, it was formidable looming over the tattered remains of their village. Its stern detached with a metallic hiss, then slowly lowered to form a ramp. Sokka tensed beside her, his club raised.  A figure in red metal plate began to descend the ramp.

 Sokka gave a yell and charged forward as Katara started to gather water into her palms, but inexplicably he stopped midway up the ramp, casting a look of fear and confusion over his shoulder towards her. The armored stranger stopped in front of Sokka. Both boys were about matched in height, but the stranger’s position on the ramp allowed him tower over her brother. Sokka pressed his club into the center of the boy’s chest, muttering a low warning. The stranger growled something in return and pushed past him roughly, nearly knocking Sokka off the side of the ramp in the process.

 Once he got closer, Katara had to stifle a gasp.

 His eyes were as blue as the heart of a glacier. Water Tribe blue.

 She stumbled backward, reeling, reflexively bringing her hand up to shield her own eyes. He hadn’t looked at her directly yet. He hadn’t seen.

 “Where is the Avatar?” the stranger demanded. The villagers in the square shifted uneasily. Many of them were casting worried glances between him and Katara. She pulled the hood of her parka close to the side of her face.

 The stranger reached into the small gathered crowd to grasp her Gran-Gran’s wrist. “They’d be about this age-“ he started to say. Panic and fury spiked hot in the pit of Katara’s stomach, and she forgot herself. The ice beneath the stranger’s feet lurched upward like a living thing; twin maws swallowed his feet whole.

 He looked at her then. Her hood had fallen away and a few strands of hair had come loose from her hair loops. She was panting with exertion, the air in front of her fogging like smoke from a dragon’s mouth. Their gazes locked, and her eyes were like fire.

 The stranger’s brow furrowed. He had since dropped Gran-Gran’s wrist, and he brought the now free hand to his good cheek, as if he could feel the color of his eyes through the pads of his fingers. His other cheek was marred, a thick red scar beginning there, traveling over his left eye and ending just above where an eyebrow should have been. As she studied him, steam started to issue from the ice encasing his feet and rivulets ran down the sides as it melted.

 “Who are you?” Katara asked.

 The stranger frowned harder, his gaze dropping to the snow between them. His jaw ticked, but as it did, something in his demeanor seemed to fall away. When he looked back up at her, it was with such unguarded, raw hope that it took her aback.

 “I’m Prince Zuko,” he answered, finally. “Will you help me find the Avatar?”

 She was so startled by his vulnerability that she almost let it sway her.  A part of her was drawn into the depths of his too familiar blue eyes. But he was Fire Nation, and she was Water Tribe.

 So she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody’s seen the Avatar in over 100 years.”

 It was as the surface of his open soul froze over, suddenly, so that it hissed and popped and cracked. His face twisted into hard, angry lines, and fire burst from his clenched fists.

 “I know you’re hiding him. I saw the light!” he insisted.

 Katara took a wary step back, reaching for the snow on the ground and trying to pull it into her grasp. It shifted, turning to slush, but it did not flow up to meet her. She tried desperately not to let her panic show. More Fire Nation soldiers were descending the ramp, hands ablaze and ready. There were too many. She had shared a grim look with Sokka, who reached behind his back for his boomerang.

 And from out of nowhere, a powerful gust of wind guttered out all the flames. The Airbender had returned, and he landed himself protectively in front of her.

 The stranger- Zuko’s fighting stance faltered. “You’re the airbender?  You’re the Avatar?” he asked with disbelief.  “But you’re just a child!”

 Aang tilted his head to the side.  “Well, you’re just a teenager,” he pointed out. 

Zuko shook his head once, and then with a surging roar punched a fireball at Aang.  Aang spun his staff to disperse it.  The prince let loose a couple more fireballs, one high and one low, before launching into a torrent of blows.  Aang was able to dodge and deflect all of them, but Zuko’s soldiers started to draw in from his sides, and the villagers behind him started to press together in fear.

“Wait!” Aang said.  Zuko paused midform, his arms still flexed and ready.  Aang held his glider out to his side, his hands up in a gesture of surrender.  “If I go with you, will you promise to leave everyone alone?”  Aang asked.

Zuko looked over the villagers again as if he had forgotten they were there.  Straightening, he nodded.  

“Aang, no!  Don’t do this!”  Katara cried, rushing forward.  Zuko gestured wordlessly to his men with a jerk of his chin.  The soldiers encircled the Avatar, taking away his staff and roughly grabbing him to restrain him.  Zuko stepped around them in order to block Katara’s path to the boy.

“You can come with him,” he offered, almost quietly.  With me, he implied, unspoken.  His too blue eyes pierced into her, confusing her, beckoning her.  She had a kinship with those eyes.  They looked like… they looked like her mother’s.

“You should leave him here,” she countered.  A blaze of indignation was starting in her chest and clawing its way up her throat.  

“I’ll be okay, Katara,” Aang assured her.  The soldiers started dragging him up the ramp to the ship. “Take care of Appa for me while I’m gone!” 

Zuko held Katara’s eyes for another moment before he ripped himself away.  Her heart guttered with an inexplicable feeling of loss.  “Head a course for the Fire Nation,” Zuko called to his helmsman, “I’m going home.”

***

After Zuko finished doing the rounds to make sure his ship was in order, he retreated into his private cabin.  After three years of hard, fruitless searching, they were finally underway towards his true destination.  He was supposed to be feeling triumphant.  He was supposed to be feeling relief.  He had accomplished an impossible task after all.

But he didn’t feel that way.  Nervousness eddied around him like the tide washing over a rocky shore.  He felt unbalanced.  How would his father react when he brought the Avatar home?  What if something went wrong along the way?  What would be the young boy’s fate once he was taken from Zuko’s hands?

That last thought disturbed him most of all.  He leapt from his seat on the bed and began pacing, trying to force his mind to quiet.  Instinctively he reached out to the torches along his wall, connecting their energy to his breath.  In, and out.  Ebb, and flow.  Rise, and fall.

Panic crashed over him when he heard one of his soldiers call out, “The Avatar has escaped!”

Zuko began to rush for the door when he spotted the boy’s staff sitting in the corner of his room; he’d had that delivered to his quarters for safe-keeping.  The boy had used to fly into their first encounter.  There was a good chance he would come back for it, if not out of nostalgia, then out of necessity.  Zuko could use it as bait.  He hid himself behind the door and waited.

The Avatar child flew into the room without even looking.  It should have been easy to trap him; Zuko immediately shut the door after him.  But somehow the young boy had deflected all his attacks and wrapped him in a tapestry.  Zuko had to chase him up through the control room to the main deck, and only just barely managed to catch him by the ankle before he flew off.  He moved to pin his opponent, with a fiery hand raised in warning, but he was interrupted by a loud, guttural lowing.

Zuko and the Avatar both looked up.  “What is that?” Zuko asked in shock.

“Appa!” the Avatar cheered.  Two of the Water Tribesman were mounted on a giant, floating, furry… thing.  One was the boy who tried to rush him.  The other was his water-bender girl.

But Zuko wasn’t one to lose focus for very long.  The Avatar had shimmied his ankle out of Zuko’s hold and was moving to get up.  Zuko kept the newcomers in his peripheral as he blasted incapacitating shots at the Avatar.  The boy was able to deflect most of them, but the force of the last one sent the Avatar tumbling over the edge of the ship.  He hit his head on the way down.

The Water Tribe girl screamed.  Adrenaline surged in Zuko, who immediately began shucking off his armor in preparation to dive in after the boy.  He had tossed his shoulder guard aside and was reaching for the clasp on his breast-plate when a strange white glow came from the water.

A raging waterspout surged forth to tower over the ship, the Avatar at its top.  His narrowed eyes and tattoos were glowing with white light, and his face was crossed with a severe frown.  He was different than he had been before.  More powerful.  Angry.  The icy cold spray from the waterspout bit into Zuko’s skin.  He took a step back.

With a wide circle of his arms the Avatar flowed down to the deck, bringing the water with him in a great protective sphere.  Gathering his determination, Zuko made to advance, but a torrent of water was sent blasting into his chest and he was thrust backwards. His back hit the rail and suddenly he himself was spinning towards the Arctic water below.  

His outstretched hand banged against a protruding metal bar.  The service ladder.  He forced himself not to flinch away so he could catch the next one down.  Pain exploded in his shoulder as his fall was yanked to a stop, but he managed to haul himself into the curve of the ship, planting his feet on the ladder.  

On the deck he heard the water slosh to the ground and a soft thud.  The Water Tribesman jumped aboard, calling out to the Avatar in concern.  Zuko gritted his teeth and climbed.  

His waterbender appeared at the rail above him just before he was able to pull himself over.  He thought he saw relief flash in her eyes, but that emotion was quickly followed with concern and fear.

If it was anyone else he would have yelled at her to move.  Instead he simply requested, quietly, “Get out of my way.”

Her eyebrows creased.  “No,” she said.  They looked at each other.  Zuko reached across the rail and shoved her to the side.

She stumbled and he hauled himself onto the deck of the ship, now slick with ice from the Avatar’s water attacks.  Zuko turned to face the direction where he’d heard the Avatar fall.  The Water Tribesman was helping him fend off attacks from Zuko’s soldiers.  

“No!” his water bender repeated, planting her feet.  She siphoned ice from the deck to form globules of water that she suspended from her hands. 

Zuko growled at her in frustration. “This isn’t your fight, peasant!” he snapped, gesticulating.  Why did she keep trying to stop him?  “Get out of my way!”

She scoffed with clear distaste, saying, “My name is Katara!”

He found himself committing that to memory.  Katara.  Katara.

The Avatar and the Water Tribesman were able to retreat onto the giant fluffy monster.  They flew around the nose of the ship to Zuko’s side of the deck.  The Water Tribesman reached out his arm to scoop the water bender into the saddle.  

There was an odd look of regret on her face as she swung out of his reach.  

The fluffy thing was getting away fast.  “Shoot them down!” Zuko ordered frantically.  His soldiers coordinated together to launch a huge fireball after the fluffy beast.  As it arced through the air Zuko’s heart went into his mouth.  It needed to hit them.  But it couldn’t hit them.  He didn’t want to hurt them, not really, he-

At the last second the Avatar gusted it off trajectory, right into a cliff above the port-side bow.  Zuko barely has time to jump back out of the way before snow and ice came crashing down in an avalanche onto the deck.  

***

CHAPTER 2: KYOSHI ISLAND

Something compelled Zuko to look over the rock.

Katara hoped faintly that it hadn’t been the force of her eyes on him.  She and Aang had been smashed against the shore by the Unagi’s wake, beneath a large outcropping of rock.  Unfortunately the prince’s ship had landed just to the other side.  And he was headed this way, flanked by more komodo-rhino riders.

“Katara!” Zuko called.  Lightning shocked through her stomach at hearing him say her name.  She tamped it down, frantically shaking Aang’s shoulder to rouse him from unconsciousness.  The boy gave no sign of waking.  His head lolled to the side.   Katara‘s gaze flicked around with growing panic, finding only sand and rock and surf, before lighting back on Aang.  She started digging through his pockets.

“Surrender the Avatar!” Zuko demanded, his rhino just stepping around the rock.  The sun glinted off the tips of his metal helmet as his soldiers filled in around him.  Cloth, cold metal discs, slippery round marbles, fluffy lint... Katara‘s fingers closed over something smooth and wooden.  “Step away from him!” Zuko demanded again.

Katara gathered Aang’s unconscious body up in her arms, awkwardly heaving his arm over her left shoulder so that she could balance his head against her cheek. With her right hand, she brought the bison whistle to her lips, and she started backing up into the sea.

Zuko let out a sharp breath.  He tapped his heel into the side of his Komodo-rhino and it trotted dutifully into the rocky surf, its great feet kicking up big arcs of water.  “Get back!” Zuko insisted, “You have nowhere to run!”

The rocks were uneven underfoot, but Katara refused to turn around.  She strained her senses to map the terrain behind her, where the water flowed and caught and eddied.  She took another careful step backwards, and another, wincing as her ankle turned just the slightest bit.  The water was up to her knees now.

The other rhino riders hovered uncertainly at the edge of the beach.  One called, “Permission to engage, Prince Zuko?”

The prince’s eyes were locked with Katara’s.  “No! Stay back!” he said quickly.  Then, his right hand opening to produce a small font of flame, he added, “Hold your position.  I’ll capture the Avatar myself.”

Katara stumbled backwards further over the slippery rocks.  The water was lapping at her waist.  ”Not today you won’t!” she denied hotly.  

“You can’t swim with him like that.  Surrender,” Zuko pressed, advancing.

The adrenaline burning her veins was drying out her mouth.  She was out of options.  She was cornered.  She was going to do something incredibly, phenomanally stupid.  “I don’t need to swim,” she said, half as affirmation, half as prayer.  She tucked her knees, sinking her and Aang both in up to their necks, and pushed.

To her hysterical relief and dread the water flung itself away from her outstretched hand in a forceful jet, just as it had earlier, propelling them backwards towards the center of the lake.  Zuko swore, calling for his men to fetch the boats.  He dismounted and started shucking his armor.

She stretched and stretched her senses, deep into the water until the reaching wisps of her concentration felt taught enough to snap.  Fish wriggled thinly through the net she had cast, and seaweed brushed against it in a whisper. The Unagi was so deep it was almost out of her reach, undulating far below them in the water column, a vast yet smooth obstruction to its flow.  Katara sensed it’s head turn to track their movement.  It’s great muscled coils tightened beneath it in preparation to launch upwards.  The edges of a scream started licking up the inside of her throat.  She was going to have to dodge, somehow.  At the shore, Zuko was running into the surf.  He stumbled.  And suddenly, inexplicably, the Unagi’s great head turned towards him instead.  

A bellowing roar signaled the arrival of Appa.  He landed in the water with a huge splash, and Katara heaved Aang onto the bison’s leg so she could clamber up into the saddle.  Sensing urgency, Appa flicked his tail to launch himself from the water as soon as both passengers were aboard, still balancing Aang on his leg.  As they climbed, Katata reached down to pull Aang up the rest of the way.

“Back to the village Appa!” she urged the bison, “We have to go get Sokka!”

***

Zuko roared in frustration, slapping the water as the Avatar was carried away on his bison. He had been so close!  If his soulmate hadn’t insisted on getting in the way...

It was just his luck.  A Water Tribe girl, of course.  A stubborn, meddlesome, distracting girl for a weak, honorless, useless prince.  Was it too much to ask that she was at least a supporter of the Fire Nation?  Zuko had always assumed it would be someone from the colonies- with Water Tribe heritage surely, but a Fire Nation citizen nonetheless.  Someone loyal, and helpful, and kind...

Well, it didn’t do to dwell on that now.

“Riders!”  he called.  They snapped to attention.  “You’re letting him get away!  Follow that bison!”

Zuko hobbled to shore, blood trailing from a cut in his heel that he had sustained on the uneven rocks below the water.  Ignoring how each step ground more sand into his wound, he and threw his armor into a carry sack on his own mount before climbing on, figuring he wouldn’t bother with putting it on again.  It would take too long, and besides, it kept getting in the way.  

When the riders reached the village, they were met with a wall of female warriors, dressed proudly in green armored dress.  

“Halt!” called the one in the center. Her pale amber eyes glinted with mistrust.  “Foreign combatants are not permitted on Kyoshi soil.  This is neutral ground!” 

“I demand to be let through!” Zuko responded with fury.  Taking a breath, he ground out, “You are in defiance of the Fire Nation.”

The warriors took a ready stance, their golden fans sharp and gleaming in the sunlight.  Their leader continued, “We do not want to violate our peace with the Fire Nation.  Dismount and remove your helms, and I will take you to our governor for negotiations.”

Zuko’s scowl deepened.  “We don’t have time to talk.  You’re in my way.  Bring me the Avatar before his bison leaves, or I’ll go through you.”

“The Avatar is our guest,” the warrior hissed.

“Then you’re on his side!” Zuko replied, ordering, “Riders, engage!  Break the line!”

Fire surged forth, and the warriors burst into motion.  More seemed to pour in from above and the sides, dashing up the long torsos of the rhinos and vaulting over them to strike at their riders.  The leader zeroed in on Zuko, slashing at his legs in the saddle.  Zuko yanked the reigns to the side, his rhino dodging beneath him as he punched retaliatory fire at his attacker.  She followed, making a dash at the komodo-rhino’s side.  Zuko angled his foot so he could flick flames from the toe of his boot, unbalancing her approach, and in the same motion dug in his heel to urge the komodo rhino forward.  It surged beneath him.  But even as he streaked past the Kyoshi guards, a sky bison rose into the air.  

He had lost.

***

CHAPTER: THE NORTH POLE

“Are we there yet?” Sokka complained loudly, shaking Katara out of her reverie. They had not seen the Fire Nation Prince for several weeks now. The memory of his face was haunting her. The dark, severe eyebrow, the gaunt, angular cheekbones, the red, leathery scar, and the too blue eyes. She wondered if he was searching the sky for them right now. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought, though whether it was a pleasant or unnerved shiver it was hard to say.

 “We’re getting close!” Aang replied cheerily to her brother. “We should be able to see the walls soon.”

Suddenly, they were jolted off balance as Appa careened to the right.  Then Katara saw a battering ram of ice launch towards them from the sea on her side.

“Incoming!” she screamed, scrambling back to her spot so she could grab tightly onto the saddle.  

Bombarded with icy projectiles,  Appa was gradually forced lower and lower until he was snagged by the foot and slammed into the water.  The wave that formed from his hapless impact was frozen around his body, encasing him in place.  He roared in frustration, the sound reverberating through Katara’s body, and thrashed against his imprisonment.  Ships appeared around the icebergs on all sides, carrying waterbenders that hurriedly refreshed the cracks in the ice that Appa was making.

“I thought they’d be friendlier,” Aang said before hailing them.  “Hey!  We’re here to find a waterbending teacher!”

 One of the boats approached closer, headed by a severe old man with a thin mustache and pointed goatee. “Show yourselves, intruders!” he demanded.

Katara and Sokka stood up in the saddle by Aang, raising their arms.

 “It’s just me and my sister, Katara,” Sokka said slowly.  “We’re with Aang.”

 He looked searchingly past them for a moment before accepting that they were the only ones on the flying bison.  “I see.  I assume not all of you require a teacher?” the old man asked.  He looked dubiously at Aang, taking in his pale skin, grey eyes, and bright autumnal attire.

 “Well…” Aang began, trailing off as Sokka cleared his throat.

 “Aang is the Avatar.  My sister is the last remaining waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe.  I am not a bender- I came to protect them on their journey.”

 The other benders on the boat behind him exchanged an incredulous glance, but the old man appeared unruffled.  “And you are?”

 “Sokka, son of Hakoda.”

 At this he did seem surprised, his eyebrows raising just a fraction of an inch.   “The Avatar AND the Chief’s children.  Of course.  You can verify this?”

 The question silenced Sokka, who looked at once alarmed and perplexed.  Katara reached tentatively for her necklace.  Aang shrugged, then jumped off of Appa’s back towards the man-made ice sheet that extended a couple feet all around his bison.  In the span of an instant the old man dropped low, and as he came up, an ice spear flew forward from the water in the direction of his thrusting arm.  Wide-eyed, Aang produced a gust of air to propel himself backward.  The ice spear stopped just short of where he would have landed.  

 “I was only getting down to show you my airbending,”  Aang protested, clearly a little shaken.

 The old man retracted the ice spear, straightening.  “We don’t have many… pleasant visits here.  I have to assume that you’re attacking when you move that suddenly.  Next time, give some warning.  In any case…” he signaled to his crew members and to the boats around him.   “Chief Arnook will want to deal with this matter personally.  I will escort you."  He brought his arms together in front of his face, hands clenched into fists above his head and, exhaling, released them so his palms were open towards the ground in front of his hips.  With that release, the ice around Appa melted and crashed back into the sea.

 Katara tried to file away how he moved, and watched enraptured by the easy way the waterbenders propelled their craft through the sea.  The bending that had been displayed to apprehend them was more powerful than she had ever dreamed it could be.  Once they reached the city she would finally be able to find a teacher. She eagerly searched the horizon for a sign of the gate.  When it finally appeared out of the maze of ice, it took her breath away.

 The structure was absolutely immense, carved into a towering glacier at least 500 feet high.  Even with the aid of master waterbenders, the construction of this glittering behemoth must have been a massive undertaking.  And everything in the city beyond those gates had to be cut from the heart of the glacier itself.  Beholding it filled Katara at once filled with profound awe and profound loss.  THIS was what it meant to be Water Tribe. 

 They were waterbended into the city through a series of several draining lock chambers which emptied into a series of canals.  Inside was a glittering expanse of buildings that stretched so far it took Katara’s breath away all over again.  She watched with wonder as Appa floated them down current.  

 ***

Sokka had studied scrolls on the history and architecture of both the Southern and Northern Water Tribes, so he had had a fairly good idea what to expect when they passed through the gates.  Still, seeing the grandiose, glistening city in person was moving.  He had to admire the sheer craftsmanship of it all, particularly in the detail work.  It was while he was considering ways to replicate the building of a small tower they had passed that he saw her.

 The most beautiful girl that he had ever seen was riding in the back of a small rowboat, being guided along the canals by the smooth motions of a waterbender.  She had a rounded face and full lips which were quirked into a serene smile.  Her shockingly white hair was coiled in sections, one high atop her head and two in plaits that hung almost to her waist.  There was a regal bearing about her- her back was straight, her shoulders squared, her chin held high.  The most entrancing thing about her, though, was her wide, black eyes.

 Sokka had to shake himself out of a daze as they were finally brought before Chief Arnook.   

 The throne room was just as vast and dazzling as everything else in the city.  At its center sat the Chief upon a stark white, tall, crystalline throne draped in blue furs.  The Chief had a wide, open face and a strong square jaw.  His posture was entirely neutral as they were herded before him, his gaze appraising.  “I hear we have distinguished visitors,” he said by way of greeting, “The Avatar.  Sokka and Katara, children of Chief Hakoda.”

 “Uh, yes, that would be us-” Sokka confirmed as Aang zipped forward, holding out his hand enthusiastically for Chief Arnook to shake.

 “My name’s Aang.  Super nice to meet you.  Do you think you could help us find a water bending teacher?”

 The Chief seemed a little taken aback by Aang’s brashness, but he took his hand nonetheless, a smile stretching across his face.  “Indeed.  I will be happy to arrange adequate accommodations and tutelage for your group.  In fact, Pakku,” he addressed their escort, “As you are our best instructor, I will charge you with the Avatar’s instruction.”

 “Yes, Chief,” he replied.

 “Katara, you will report to Yugoda in the morning.  She will be notified that she has an honored guest joining her female class.”