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mechazushi · 5 days ago

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⬆You see this? You done f*cked up now. I hope your happy with what you've done. *Slaps this onto the table and points at you* Enjoy the fic. @iceclew

Edit: ICCEEEEEE!!!!!! I WANT SOME FUCKING CHILD SUPPORT FOR THIS FIC! THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THIS LONG!!! I was going to treat this like how I did the Fantasy AU Season 1, but My Brain kept saying "Naw, I can segway this, I can Segway this pretty easily. It'll only take an extra paragraph." YEAH, NO. IT WAS FOUR EXTRA PARAGRAPHS, AND I TOLD THIS TO MYSELF FOUR TIMES, THAT'S SIXTEEN EXTRA PARAGRAPHS!!!! AND I HAD TO RETCON THE ORIGINAL ENDING BECAUSE I COULDN'T BRING MYSELF TO LEAVE IT VAGUE!!! THAT'S AN EXTRA TWELVE PARAGRAPHS!!!!! THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ME, WOMAN?!?!?!

Solstice Dispatch {An ATLA AU for Kaiju Number 8}

"Head North towards the center of the continent. Up and past the Twin-La mountains is where you will find the beast." Said the Southern Water tribe's leader, Laktua.

Soshiro had received a letter from the man less than a month ago, requesting his team's services. Since the current avatar had selfishly decided to stay and fix the broken world that was the Fire Nation's Ruling Families, Spirits and beasts of various natures have been overstepping their boundaries and have decided to push their luck with human patience. Soshiro had spent the better part of a decade gathering people with adept skills and an instinctual spiritual connection with the soul purpose of filling a fraction of what should have been the Avatar's duties. His group was small, but carried immense potential. So far it consisted of a firebender Prince named Narumi, a man disillusioned with the idea of becoming the head of his powerful family; Kikoru, a young earthbending prodigy plagued with spiritual visions from the beyond; Haruichi, another water bender from the Earth Kingdom continent with... unconventional methods of bending; and Aoi, a traveling monk they picked up along their journeys that had deemed their cause a noble one.

They had followed their guide as far as she would take them over the snowy foothills to the base of the mountains they were now tasked with crossing. Narumi complained about the quite monumental task ahead of them and had tried to convince the group to let Kikoru build a tunnel through the base of the mountain. The idea was quickly dismissed because while she was talented, she was nowhere near strong enough to take the mental and physical load that would come with the impressive feat. Without wasting anymore time, Soshiro, with Aoi's help, strapped up and instructed everyone on the basics of mountaineering. It was already a long journey by the time they reached what was considered the halfway point, but they eventually reached the steeper part of the mountains they were continuing to climb. They were trying to aim for the low point in between the two largest peaks since that's where most of the spirit's sightings were reported.

Soshiro had an uneasy feeling about this job ever since he received the letter. Even after confirming with the city's chief, this whole task ahead of them felt off. For starters, it had seemed like that this spirit in question hadn't done anything that would warrant such a drastic response that was ordering its execution. Soshiro had to explain and remind Laktua several times that they didn't execute spirits. They tried to either pacify them or antagonize them enough that they turned tail and ran off to somewhere else. But the chief seemed staunch on seeing that this supposed spirit was to never haunt the edges of their coastal town ever again and to have this all done before the Winter Solstice festival swung into high gear. Soshiro's uneasiness had gotten to the point where he felt like he was blaming every little snag and bump in the road here on the bad energy coming from this request. He wasn't one to be completely superstitious. After all, not all bad luck is because of an angered spirit. He had yet to encounter anything on this trip to sway his feeling on the matter.

It certainly didn't help that his troupe was about to be caught in what looked like to be the beginnings of a snow storm. They had reached the steepest part of the mountain they were climing just as the wind began to blow around them harder, whipping up the powdery top layer of snow they were climbing on. Even with Aoi in the lead next to Hoshina, trying his best to direct the brunt of the wind around the group, they could feel the slicing cold shred past the more protective layer of clothing they were wearing.

"Hate to break it to you Hoshina, but we're starting to look pretty stupid for being out here!" Narumi had to shout to be heard over the howling wind blasting down the peaks.

"I know we're climbing to conserve our bending, but I'm starting to think we're gonna need shelter faster than we thought!" Haruichi called up from underneath his leader.

Hoshina took all their commentary into consideration as he looked at both the way in front of them and at how far they had traveled behind them. The sky grew darker by the second, forcing him to come to an answer fast.

"We'll take shelter once we reach the top! Haruichi! Get up closer to me and we'll-"

A sudden crack of thunder interrupted his commands as all their attention was directed to the peaks before them. A bigger, more body rattling and eardrum bursting blast of thunder was heard as it was quickly followed up by a brilliant flash of lightning. It struck right at the valley between the two peaks, briefly illuminating a tall, horned figure. While everybody saw the beast in the mountain, no one got the chance to comment on it as the bolt of lightning broke the ground it struck and sent the snow cascading down the mountain, right towards the group. A powdery wave taller than a house had started to tumble its way quickly toward them.

Hoshina had to react fast and commanded the snow around them into a pointed shelter around the group, sacrificing his grip on the rope holding him to the mountain. As he turned around to check on everyone else behind him, a large rock had overshot the ice wall in front of him and had not only hit him in the head, but sliced away at his scalp as well. Losing concentration as his vision darkened, all he could hear was shouts of concern as he fell to the soft snow below. The shouting faded from his hearing as more and more snow blanketed what was left of his vision.

✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼

Hoshina didn't recognize the feel of the warm blankets covering his body, nor the salty smell of the sea-peat campfire cutting through the chill close to him. His mind was slow to start, but a deep part of him could still understand that something about this was wrong. Fighting the human in him that said to stay inside this bubble of comfort he had found himself in, he started off by opening his eyes to his surroundings at least. Looking around slowly, Hoshina found himself to be inside a very well lived-in cave. Lying on several pelts of different animals on top of a rare wooden pallet, he could see a low wooden table and several stoneware jars on the other side of the fire in front of him. He wanted to move, but could feel his mind screaming at even the suggestion of thinking. Continuing to fight himself, he settled upright at least and continued to take stock of his surroundings.

The first thing that came to mind was the size of the bed he was in. Not only was the wooden pallet he was on was over twice his height and width, the pelts were stitched together from several animals, making him almost feel like he was swimming in the blankets. While a nice feeling, it only brought more questions to his aching mind. Looking past the table and jars, he saw a hide tanning frame with an otter-penguin skin stretched on it as well as several well crafted pieces of hunting gear like nets and spears. At the foot of the massive bed was the pack he was wearing on his trip up the mountain. Slowly crawling over to it, Hoshina tried to ask the question of where his companions could be, but his brain could only send back a pained, blank answer. Grabbing the pack and putting on his shoes, he hobbled out toward the tarp covered entrance to the cave.

Stepping out from behind the tight tarps and a protective archway of round stones, he was met with the sharpest blast of chilling wind. Holding a hand up to the bright rays of the sun, he tried to get an idea of where he was. Only being met with a second mountain peak as sharp as the wind in front of him and dazzling views of the desolate winter lands stretching all around, Hoshina could only come to one conclusion. Somehow, he had made it to the top of the mountains. More and more problems became noticeable as he continued to look, starting with the position of the sun. Last he remembered, it was past midday when they made it halfway up the mountain. Now it was back at the horizon line, acting like it was rising up from the sea for the first time in history. Not only that, Hoshina couldn't see any sign that his companions were around. At the very least, he would have seen Aoi meditating above the ground, not missing the chance to find inner peace in these views.

He had only made it one more step before a large and heavy presence crash landed into the once undisturbed snow before him. The wind quickly blew the distracting powder away to reveal a tall and blood covered monster. Horns as wide and as curved as a hippo's tusk with coal black scales traveling up its arms, it stretched to its full height, making it appear as tall as the mountain's peaks they were surrounded by. Through the sun's glare, it appeared to have a hunched and furry back that dripped blood onto the once-pure snow under it. The shock from its entrance alone was enough to send Hoshina onto his back and scramble for the safety of the cave.

He ignored the beast's calls as he flew back into the cave, grabbing one of the spears at the door as he passed. Already aware of his mistake, Hoshina silently vowed to go out fighting and prayed to any spirit that would hear him to give him strength for the fight ahead. Dropping to one knee and bracing himself in between the bed and the fire, Hoshina held the spear steady, aimed at the now fragile looking tarps in front of him. He watched as they flapped and twitched, slowly breaking way as a large clawed hand slid its way inside. And there it held its place, unmoving. Hoshina shifted his grip on the spear as he watched the hand... do nothing? Soon he heard a booming voice call out from the other side of the tarp door.

"I'm not going to enter until I know you won't hurt me. I'll have you know that I mean you no harm as well." The deep voice said. Hoshina made no move to acknowledge the voice.

"I'm sure we could keep this tense stand-off all day. However, as some added incentive to let me inside, I've got a dead fox-boar dripping down my back that I'd really like to butcher sometime before the next winter solstice." The voice added on after a silent couple of minutes. Hoshina still made no move, but didn't react as the hand tentatively crept its way inside.

He watched as the hand grew into an arm, then part of a torso, then a leg attached to the torso. Soon a head popped into view as well and continued to shock Hoshina even more. Yes, the beast had horns as well as obsidian colored arms, but it had a surprisingly human looking chest and head. The chest bore no shirt or coat and the head had a long curtain of hair framing it. Its bangs covered most of its face, but were just sparse enough that he could make out a pair of unusually dark eyes. Its smile was visible and looked friendly enough, which was probably the only thing saving it from being run through with a spear.

Hoshina kept the spear trained on the beast as it shuffled its way over to the low wooden table as it plopped its kill unceremoniously on it. Kneeling next to a stone jug, it dug out a well used rag and began to wash the blood off its hands and back. Hoshina kept it to himself, but he couldn't help but marvel at the beast's height while in the cave. Even when kneeling, its horns threatened to scrape the ceiling. Its back was as broad as a yak, and had the quiet muscular definition of a polar bear-dog's. It had to have been over seven, maybe eight feet tall.

"I know you seem intent on killing me, but might I suggest a better use for that spear?" It said, speaking more quietly now that its voice didn't have to fight the roar of the wind outside.

"And what would that be?" Hoshina asked, keeping his tone cool and neutral as possible. The tip of a black, bone, plated tail that he didn't notice the beast had, came up and gently directed the spear's tip over to an open basket of fresh fish.

"Making yourself some breakfast. That head wound of yours made you miss dinner." It quietly chuckled as it finished up washing itself down.

Hoshina was about to politely decline, only to have his stomach loudly betray him with an audible growl. The beast's back rippled as it softly laughed at the noise, before turning to face its guest.

"Although your stomach might disagree, you can wait for this fox-boar instead if you'd prefer that." The beast gestured to the kill in front of him with the hand that looked more beast than human.

"Fish... will be fine." Hoshina answered tensely as he awkwardly shifted towards the basket, not letting the spear's tip drop.

He flinched a little, however, as he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. It was just the beast setting up a cooking stand over the fire and placing a pot handle on its iron hook. Peace returned to the room as It busied itself with the preparation of the fox-boar, turning its back to Hoshina and letting him spear his fish in private. After getting the fish plank set up over the fire in such a way as to cook it properly, Hoshina settled himself by watching both it and his unusual host closely. Being distracted with being vigilant didn't stop Hoshina from confirming what the beast had said and bringing a hand up to check his head. He didn't know why he hadn't checked it before now, but sure enough, he found what felt like a cloth bandage around his temples.

"The bandages aren't too tight, are they? I don't have the hand for delicate work anymore, but that avalanche did a number to that pretty little head of yours." The beast spoke, almost having sensed what Hoshina was doing behind him.

"The bandages are fine. What happens to the rest of the party I was traveling with? Do you know?" Hoshina asked as his hand whipped itself away from his head, startled at the perceptive question.

"They're fine, for the most part. They're lucky they had an extra water bender with them, but the force of the avalanche sent them back down the mountain. Fortunately they knew better than to try and hike back up so soon, so they camped out at the base for a bit before heading back to town. Unfortunately, they're pretty upset and think you're dead. Don't worry, I'll help you right that mistake in time." the beast threw a half-smile back as he continued to butcher the fox-boar.

"I saw you." Hoshina said as the memories of last night came back to him, "You were at the valley between the peaks, right where the lightning struck. Did you?... You didn't... summon that? Did you?" He questioned. He wasn't sure if this... being in front of him had those kinds of powers, or any for that matter.

The beast just laughed, "Summon lightning? That would be some party trick! But no, I have nothing of the sort. I was there, yes. I did see the avalanche strike your group and separate you from them. Don't think you would still be standing if I hadn't." It had stopped its butchering and started taking dried seaweed strips from a nearby jar and wrapping the salvaged meat.

"Then can I ask... what you are?" Hoshina tentatively questioned, " I was hired to hunt a spirit, but last I checked, spirits don't prepare their food or make weapons to hunt it."

"The story of how I came to look like this... is a long one." the beast sighed as it washed its hands again, "And I'm sure I look like no spirit you've ever come across." It reached into a small pouch attached to the belt holding its pants up and withdrew a small hair comb, proceeding to smooth as much of its bangs back as it could.

"But I certainly look like no human either, don't I?" It finished pulling it's hair back as it turned around, inviting Hoshina to gaze upon them fully for the first time.

What struck Hoshina first was their eyes. Both of them were black. Black and as shiny as polished obsidian with no indication of pupils or sclera. Despite being so off putting, the thin laugh lines around them helped carry an air of gentle friendliness. It was almost like looking into the eyes of an innocent turtle-seal. Surrounding both eyes was a patch of ash grey skin that was textured like stone. It reached up and connected to the longer horn that adorned its head on one side. The patch draped down down their face and curved away from their mouth. He noticed how there were two sets of canines of exaggerated length. They were so long that they cut a scar into their lips, forcing them to adapt to the teeth's size.

Hoshina's eyes unintentionally trailed down his host's body, taking it all in. Having no shirt on meant that he could see the extent of the animalistic arms the beast had. Matching the face, one side had been dipped in more scales than the other side, causing the hand on its dominant side to appear less human all together with it having only three fingers made mostly out of thick and wicked looking sickle-like claws. The other arm and attached hand were still covered in the same shiny black scales, but it didn't stretch all the way to the neck like it did on the other side and at least left it with all five fingers, just with sharp looking nails.

The exposed chest carried similar damage in equal amounts, like having the left side be covered in a broad diagonal swath that curved from the neck, down and past the hips like a brush stroke revealing a dragon's back. The scales flexed with their breathing, catching the firelight in a shimmering dance. It brought attention to these hairline cracks of glacial-blue light branching over the scales, having disregard for the scales placement. The cracks got brighter and wider as they pooled together and formed a cluster of pointed crystals that shot out from the left shoulder.

Their body, while showing no true muscle definition, carried instead a quiet depiction of strength. The light cast shadows over the beast's arms, highlighting it's taut and coiled muscles. Their stomach and sides was a round cylinder of solid muscle, giving off the impression of impassive stability, almost like the walls of the cave they were in. Their pecs, well.... they looked like they rivaled the size of some melons Hoshina had seen on his journeys. All in all, this was the figure of something that had been touched and strengthened by an unnatural force. The only thing that kept Hoshina from either fleeing into the inhospitable surroundings or making an impossible last stand for his safety, was their smile.

"I'll be back. Gotta go store this." The beast had said, rising as best it could to its feet and shuffled out the cave with the safely wrapped packages of meat. Hoshina watched intently as they left, thinking hard about his circumstances.

Sure, it had the fangs of a Tiger Shark and an appearance that only a dragon could appreciate, but there was something in its smile that made Hoshina rethink everything he had thought this... target would be. Even injured and terrified, they had done so much for him in the way of making sure he was going to be fine. No harmful or vengeful spirit would ever offer such hospitality to someone that had just admitted to being hired to hunt them. Hoshina didn't have many options for escape or survival at the moment. While he was here for a reason, getting back to his group suddenly seemed like the better course of action at this time. Whatever they were, they could certainly pose a serious threat if it ever wanted to be. But as of right now, they were being friendly. And that's just going to have to be enough for him right now.

The beast came back soon enough, and dragged over a pelt from the bed to be carefully folded up and placed down as a poor cushion. They pulled out two wooden bowls out from behind them and began to scoop out what looked like soup from the pot above the fire. They cleaned the edge of it as best they could before handing it over to Hoshina.

"Here. Something a little more substantial than just fish. I'm not sure what Northerner cooking tastes like, so I hope it's at least edible." They said before scooping out a portion for themselves, "Apologies for the lack of utensils. Haven't needed them for a while."

"This is fine." Hoshina replied politely before blowing on the soup and taking small sips.

A true born-and-raised Waterbender that was raised at either pole should be familiar with sea-prune soup, but it became very clear that the flavor of it meant two very different things to either side. Hoshina was shocked to have tasted something so smooth and pleasant with a slightly sweet aftertaste. Sea-prune soup in the North was something bitter that was served to sick children. He hummed a little in appreciation being that he had a bit of a sweet tooth.

"Is it good?" His host asked with quiet anticipation.

"Quite!" Hoshina replied as he licked his lips, "Sea-prunes are so bitter where I'm from." He was momentarily distracted at the sight of the beast's wide smile and the fact that it seemed to trigger its long, pointed ears to wiggle lively. The sound of its tail thumping against the floor in appreciation hadn't gone unnoticed as well. However, Hoshina's thoughts circled back around to what the beast had said while they were serving.

"How did you know I'm from the North?" he asked.

The beast chuckled again as he ate, "No Southerner can afford to have such deep blue colors around here." Its tail gestured to his clothing, "Not only is it expensive and hard to get a hold of, it's perfect for all the wrong situations in this place."

"You seem to be very knowledgeable... and observant." Hoshina complimented his host, hoping to butter them up and keep things favorable.

"It pays to be." They said with a sly grin, their tail tap, tap, tapping away again on the cave floor.

"You said earlier that you want to help me. That is... very kind of you to already offer." He said, keeping up the act.

The beast finished their bowl and dunked it back into the pot for seconds, all the while suspiciously eyeing Hoshina as they did with a knowing smile. It seemed to have already anticipated what he was building up towards.

"if it's not too much trouble, I would like to leave as soon as possible." Hoshina finished getting around to his request.

"I'm sure you would." They stated before taking a big slurp, "But for you, 'As soon as possible' is going to have to be early tomorrow." They said with a gently authoritative tone.

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Hoshina said, trying to take back control of his situation.

"You should feel more sorry about the fact you got knocked in the head. That's what's keeping you here." It replied, firmly solidifying the stance on the matter.

"You don't have to worry for me. I'm quite capable." He quipped back.

"As long as you're recovering from that head wound, you're not going anywhere today. Under normal circumstances, you'd rely on your bending to get back down. Never should you be bending with a head wound, had a sister that learned that the hard way." The beast advised as gently as it could, leveling a stern glare from across the fire.

"I do know healing." Hoshina tried to counter.

"So did she. Still too big of a risk to heal yourself." They countered back. It was clear neither of them were backing down easily.

"In any case, I'd figure you would be leading the way anyway. That's what you made it sound like." He retaliated, hoping his comment didn't sound too guilt-tripping.

"I would and I am, but it can't be the way you came up." They answered simply.

"And why not?" Hoshina questioned, already starting to get tired of this game he found himself in.

"Avalanche ruined the path down. One would need to wait a week before the snow settled back into something traverseable first. It also riled up the local wildlife something fierce, got all sorts of fur bunched up in all the wrong places." They answered again.

Before Hoshina could interject, his beastly host interrupted him to already placate his concerns.

"Don't worry." It chuckled, "I'm not gonna make you wait a week. Just give yourself a day. I've got a plan."

"And that would be? If you don't mind me asking." Hoshina questioned, trying to hide his irritation.

"You've caught me at an... important time." They said as they grabbed another scoop of soup, "During the Winter Solstice festival, I drag a sled full of food and supplies I've gathered down the mountain for the village. Usually, I just head down the front, but since that avalanche made the ground unstable, I'm going to be forced to take my Western path down. Now, I don't like to take this path on short notice, but our hands are quite tied up at the moment." This portion of soup went down faster that the last.

"How long does this path take?" Hoshina asked with a wary tone.

"Two days. If I'm lucky." They answered with an irritated grumble. They heard an irritated click of a tongue from across the cave in response.

"I know. But, with your help, things should go a little faster." They said, wanting to inject some hope into the situation. Pulling the lip of the pot closer to them, they looked inside before turning to Hoshina.

"Want another serving? 'Cuz I'm about to eat the last of this."

"No thanks. This fish is about to put me over my limit." He said as he lifted the freshly cooked fish out of the fire's heat. The beast gave a shrug before digging out the last of the soup for themselves.

"How exactly am I supposed to help? That is, if I'm not allowed to bend for a while." Hoshina asked as he pulled off a steaming chunk of white and flaky fish flesh off the bone.

"Just because you have a head injury, don't mean your arms and legs don't work." They said with a teasing smile.

"In fact, when you're done, I could use your help right now."

After Hoshina had finished the fish, his host waited until he felt comfortable with moving and led him across the flat valley between the mountain peaks to the other side. There, it was revealed that there was a cave of similar size that was hidden behind a very well shaped boulder. He watched as the beast strained with the weight of it, and eventually managed to roll it off to the side. Looking inside, he was confronted with a wooden engineering marvel. A flat, wooden sled that looked long, wide, and sturdy enough to transport thirty well-fed villagers standing up. With a curved front and thick runners, it was a love letter to simplicity, having no decorations or additional details. It looked big, looked heavy, and looked sturdy. Surrounding the sled and practically climbing the walls were barrels upon barrels that were made out of ice and filled with neat, green packages.

"This is... how do you?... Without bending?!" Hoshina rambled, being at a complete loss for words.

For a host that seemed overly protective about his charge's health, it had to sound ridiculous to have sick, little him lift and place all these barrels. The beast chuckled again, ears flickering as he squatted down at the outside of the cave.

"Dealing with these barrels won't be your problem. What I want you to do is at the back." They shooed Hoshina over to stand at the side while they pulled out the massive sled.

After it was removed, he saw that there were piles of other things way at the back of the cave. Walking before his host, Hoshina got a chance to marvel at the amount of supplies that were in such a small cave. Taking a closer look at his future task, he saw that there were piles and piles of stretched and treated animal furs, laid out nicely, but in no order. Hearing a call from the mouth of the cave, he turned around just in time to catch a large ball of sinew twine.

"What I would like for you to do, is separate and bundle up those furs. I'm going to be busy moving these barrels here, so it's nice to have an extra hand for the little stuff for once." They said as they reached for a couple of barrels.

Hoshina shrugged in defeat and started to pull some of the piles of furs more towards the center of the cave. He began to separate the furs by species first, quickly covering the floor with them. As he did, he felt more questions bubbling up in his throat. Seeing as his host had been amicable so far, he thought he could pass the time with conversation.

"Why haven't you had this all set up before now? Seems a little inefficient to not have this done already." He tossed out that question first.

"What I gather during my hunts is unpredictable. One must make a point not to over-hunt a supply dry, which means I need to find what is being overpopulated at that time. The reason it's not on the sled is because I need to set it all up in a balanced way, and I prefer to do that when I have everything altogether first. How the sled needs to be balanced depends on the path I take as well, so this is just an all-around headache for me this time of year." The beast said in-between the shuffling of barrels.

Hoshina watched his answer be put to work in real time, observing the beast dragging a couple barrels out at a time and weighing them by sight and heft before placing them in a specific arrangement on the sled. He dragged another pile over as he asked another question.

"This might sound like a stupid question, but why barrels of ice?" He asked next. The beast gave him a funny look, switching his line of sight from him to the outside.

"Ice is a pretty unlimited resource around here. And as you should know, fairly moldable if you know what you are doing. Ah! And before you ask, I'm not a waterbender myself. I made these with a wooden barrel I was left with." The beast continued to entertain Hoshina's inquiries, "That and the kids get a kick out of hacking at them with their daddy's weapons. Lights up my night seeing 'em do that." They snickered. Hoshina found himself giggling with them too, picturing little kids going ham with their oversized jaw-bone hatchets and dads yelling at the kids for using the good metal machetes.

Hoshina waited a little bit longer before he asked another question, suddenly finding himself engrossed in the organization of pelts. It did eventually dawn on him that this was a lot of work for a town that saw him as a lingering threat to their safety. If anything, it added on to the weird feeling he was having about this mission he was sent on. Typically, if something unnatural was viewed at the same time as a positive occurrence, then most people default to associating the two things together. Really, the town should have been treating him as a demigod of some sort. But if that was the case, then Hoshina didn't think that this beast would still be living alone on a mountain top, let alone reveling in the opportunity for company. (Even if they were making said company do menial labor.)

"Can I ask... why do you do... any of this. You have to know by now that the town hates you, right? This, all of this, on both sides, is completely unjustified. Either you should have left them alone or they all need an attitude adjustment and be eternally grateful!" He said with exasperation as he finally sat down and began to work on bundling the pelts into packages.

The beast had clearly heard the question as it paused in its task at the entrance. It looked somber for a moment before deciding to take a break and sit down close to Hoshina's improvised workspace. Folding their arms into its lap, he was reminded again at just how human they looked. He was having such a hard time trying to make up his mind as to whether or not the beast had any human at all, but seeing them be so expressive made Hoshina question more than his morals toward this particular quarry of his.

"It may not look like it, but I know what it's like to starve. To get so desperate for crumbs, only to look at your family and see that same expression. Desperation turning to grim resolve isn't an experience one should treat lightly. If my work and presence keeps them from crossing the peaks, from seeing what it's like on the other side..." They let the unspoken answer hang in the air as their head fell against the side wall, their eyes closing in quiet thought.

"Is it truly that bad out there?" Hoshina's words felt dampened by the new energy.

He wasn't sure what his host was, but now he was certain they weren't a spirit. Spirits... wouldn't treat such a sacrifice so lightly. Somewhere in this beast still beats the heart of a good man. An almost imperceptible puff of a laugh made his host's large chest bounce as they looked at him.

"There's a reason I call it my pass. If it was easier, you wouldn't have been hiking up a mountain." They answered as they rose from the floor and got back to work, "Out there made me into the creature I am today, and if I wasn't, I wouldn't be here to rescue you."

"If you weren't a creature, I wouldn't be here in the first place." Hoshina spoke bitterly to himself.

"Yes, because most of my village would be dead, thus having no one here to send for you." The beast playfully called out over his shoulder, his big smile on his face making his long ears wiggle again.

Hoshina decided to leave the conversation there for the moment, having grown tired of asking questions and wanting to save the rest of his energy to making sure the bundles weren't going to unravel easily. He got the hint that this trip was going to be more taxing than the trip up here. Eventually, he got everything wrapped well enough to his internalized perfectionist standards and helped the beast stack them onto the sled. He waited for them to push the sled back into the cave, now that everything was placed and sufficiently tied down with impressively thick ropes, before following them to their home on the other side.

Hoshina took a moment to marvel at the quickly dawning sunset, not unfamiliar to its rapid pace due to the winter solstice. In a few days, they were going to experience a day almost completely devoid of sun. The festival was to celebrate it, a century-long tradition dedicated to new beginnings. The North had the same thing, but about this time, they had a never setting sun. Funny enough, both of their festivals carried the same meanings. He quickly saw the poetry that lay within and shuffled away the thoughts for later since as with the setting sun, came a new level of cold. Rushing into the abode and planting himself by the fire, he kept himself from wanting to hop right into its hypnotic dance in an attempt to warm himself faster. As he shivered his cold embrace away, Hoshina failed to notice his soon-to-be travel partner messing with the pelts on the bed.

"Get your polite objections out now, because you're taking the bed tonight." The beast said.

Hoshina whipped his head around at the suggestion, "Are you kidding? That thing is massive and clearly built for you! It would make more sense for me to take the floor at this point."

"And yet, you will be taking the bed. Because I said so!" The beast joked as they threw down a couple of the largest pelts on the floor, dropping to their hands to straighten them out.

"You are worse than a stubborn ostrich-horse, you know that? Honestly, don't you think we could take a few minutes to come up with a different solution if you're that abhorrent to me taking the floor?" Hoshina questioned as his host stretched out flat onto their stomach, propping their head on their crossed arms.

"By that line of reasoning, the only other option is sharing." They said with playfully heated intent, "It's been a long time since I've had someone offer that to me. I'm not one to take advantage so easily, but for you I'd... make an exception." They turned to Hoshina with a lidded gaze and cheeky smile.

The rate that the heat absolutely flooded Hoshina cheeks accomplished in seconds what being at the fire was trying to do for minutes.

"I'll be taking the bed alone, thank you very much." He said as he stomped over to the bed, trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Works every time." Hoshina could hear the beast whisper to himself as he pulled the pelts back on the pallet. After shuffling his way into a comfortable position, he turned over and saw that his host hadn't taken a blanket for themselves.

"Forget to grab a blanket?" Hoshina questioned.

"Nope! Just a creature-comfort this creature doesn't need anymore," they replied back.

"Well you don't have to flex about it." Hoshina mumbled as he tucked the pelts under his neck. He laid there for a minute, as a debate slowly raged in his head. He sighed quietly as he gave into the winning side.

"Okay, one last question and then I'll stop bothering you." He said.

"You haven't bothered me with them once, but go ahead." They replied back.

"Can I ask... what does the path look like?" Hoshina questioned with hesitation. The beast opened one eye and gave a small smile before reaching over to the campfire and grabbed a smoldering piece of wood.

"First, we're going down the back of this mountain." They started as they took the piece of blackened wood and drew a crude diagram into the cave floor, "We're going to be traveling over most of the frozen lake that's back here and about halfway through we're gonna take a left. We keep going left until we hit the edge of the caldera and hit this wide gorge. There, I have to hand-transport the goods and the sled separately over the gorge because I don't know how to build a bridge. That, and the materials over here aren't good enough for one anyway. That's what's going to take a day in and of itself. After which is this really cool exposed lava tube I found and then down a glacier right into the ocean. I swim in that for about half a day and at some point I can reach a good, secluded area where I can drag the supplies up and over to a visible hill and wait for the night watchmen to notice it and drag in into the village. It's extra cold, super windy, and the first half of the trip had no landmarks or obstacles to break up the landscape in any interesting way, so the first half practically drives me insane while there's a 75% chance I'm going to get mauled in a tossup between the first or third half." The beast took a break from drawing out the trip to look at their future companion, "Any questions?"

"And this is the more dangerous route?" Hoshina asked.

"Yep. Wild animals, hidden terrain, potential landslides, I'm not even going to go into what could happen to the sled between hither and yon." They answered.

"And with that left on my mind, goodnight." Hoshina answered sarcastically as he flipped over.

"Yeah, it sounds painful, but at least I get company this time around." The beast said as they shifted themselves into a more comfortable position, immediately breathing deep and heavily.

Hoshina let himself fall into a deep sleep, recognizing how horrid this trip was going to be. It still surprised him at how easily it came to him, considering who he was rooming with. Although he knew that his new partner was right and that it would be safer to travel down the mountain with another person at his side, worry would not leave him as the beast's line about how his friends think he's dead revolved in a torturous lap in his bruised mind. Sure he had a head injury, but maybe he could get away with a little bending. They were in the Arctic, practically Hoshina's home territory element-wise. The whole environment was for his manipulation. And if his group really did care about him, by morning they would probably already be at the base of the mountain anyway, arguing over the best way to make their second pass up traversable. Hoshina really did care about his new... friend? Which is why he had to find himself awake before his companion did, so he could intercept his other friends and explain everything.

Hoshina woke up slowly, not wanting to test the limits of his gracious host's hearing while he was asleep. Pushing the covers off of him as quietly as he could, he crawled down and grabbed his bag. Getting everything set for him to tip-toe out the door while constantly jumping at literal shadows sometimes wasn't an easy task, but it had to be done if he had any chance of not being an inconvenience. If anything, a part of him was hoping his team was at the bottom so that they could make a plan to reset what the avalanche had done. That Western path of theirs sounded like a nightmare, and with the mission they had set before themselves, Hoshina thought it would be a chance to extend an olive branch from his team to them. But if he wanted to get that fixed before they left, he had to make it out the door now.

Pack in hand and boots on the feet, he had made almost to the door before hesitating. He took one last look at the being that had already done so much for him in such a small amount of time. Between saving his life, giving him food, and already including him in a plan that would've dropped him back at base, Hoshina wasn't sure what he felt more grateful for. He knew now that he wasn't a spirit, but was far from a man, and he still couldn't wrap his head around how they could be comfortable being so exposed in the cold like this! He was already going to perform an act of gratitude later, but it bothered him immensely that they chose to sleep without a cover. Quietly placing the pack down at the door, Hoshina crept back over to the bed and dragged one of the pelts off and tried to gently lay it over his host. They twitched a few times, but as far as Hoshina could tell, they hadn't woken up.

Turning around, he got back to the tarp covered door and stepped outside. The temperature had dropped a considerable amount of degrees with the wind howling like a million packs of hounds. Everything was a black as a komodo-rhino's horn because the sun had not even broken the horizon yet, which made Hoshina unsure of how much sleep he had gotten. He already craved a warm mug of his favorite blend of energizing tea, but of course had no way of getting his hands on it at the moment. As much as he hated to admit it, one truly must suffer for their work.

He had made it three steps away from the cave before an even more suffocating presence had forcefully enshrined his body. Writhing and fighting back with as strong as he could, he began to understand that what he was wrapped up in was a large animal pelt. As he felt his whole body being lifted from the ground, it became increasingly clear to him that he had not made as successful a getaway as he hoped he had. It didn't stop him from fighting, even as he felt the atmosphere change when he was sure he was being brought back into the cave he had just left.

"You know, for a hunter, you should really know by now that compassion-" His host talked as it wrangled the angry mass of pelt and hunter back onto the bed it had left, "is what separates a successful hunter-" they removed some of the pelt blanket from Hoshina's head before finishing their statement, "from a dead one." They finished with a smug grin.

"I told you I didn't need a blanket." They playfully jibbed as they turned around to grab something from a pot behind them. Hoshina looked at the door while they did, wondering if it would be stupid to try that again so soon. His host just sighed loudly as it turned back around with a handful of bandages and a wooden bowl of green ointment.

"Whatever you're thinking, just stop. I can hear how your heart changes its beat when you think about running." They said as they kneeled in front of Hoshina.

"Oh, that's gotta be some yak shit." Hoshina growled, infuriated.

"You see these long ears? They could pick up a snow-rat farting in a snowstorm if they wanted too." They said as they pointed to them, "Now, are you going to be good while I re-dress your pretty little head?"

Hoshina heaved an irritated sigh as he worked his jaw. After having a very intense stare-down with the very large affront-to-the-laws-of-nature, he gave in and tilted his head forward, indicating that he would be playing along for the moment. They took their largest claw on their left hand and gently snagged it under the bandages, cutting the coarse fibers as it sliced upwards. After removing the bandages from Hoshina's shoulders, their hand came back up to gently move his face to the side so they could get a better look at the wound. Humming in approval, they took a wet rag and cleaned the old ointment off before trying to apply a fresh coat.

"I could have made it down the mountain." Hoshina grumbled in defiance as he felt the cold slime smear into his hair.

"Yes. As a corpse." His host tacked on unhelpfully.

"Honestly, I think you're making this head wound out to be worse than it is." He retaliated

"Tell that to the patch of your skull that's going to have some trouble growing out hair for a while." They countered.

That last comment seemed to be enough to silence Hoshina while the beast finished wrapping the bandage around his head. After they finished, they put away the equipment and walked over to the barrel of weapons by the tarp. Pulling out a considerable length of rope, Hoshina watched as the beast began to twirl it an oddly threatening circle.

"What do you think you're going to do with that?" He asked with terror seeping into his voice.

The beast's smug grin only grew wider as they spun it more forcefully, before launching the looped end up and over Hoshina's blanketed figure. He felt the loop tighten as they pulled on the rope a few times.

"What in the name of the Moon!? This is unnecessary!" Hoshina exclaimed as he wiggled against his new prison.

"Once bitten, twice shy baby." The beast joked as they walked over and wrapped the tail end of the lasso around the rest of Hoshina's body, "Now I don't want you missing out on all the fun you're about to sleep away in the sled."

They walked out into the dark, leaving Hoshina alone in the cave. He let out a string of curses as they left, being as creative as he could now knowing that they could hear it anyway. After a moment, he calmed down but didn't feel any less angry about his situation. Even more time had passed before his captor came back. They grabbed Hoshina's pack as well as some extra sacks before slinging a package-wrapped Hoshina over their shoulder and carried him out to the sled waiting for them outside. He placed the bags down before he placed Hoshina, being gentle with all of it. They took the tail end of the rope holding a Hoshina together and tied it to the ropes holding the supplies to the sled.

"Okay, now this is definitely unnecessary." Hoshina managed to growl out over the screaming of the wind.

"Keep in mind, we're about to slide down the back of a mountain in the dark. This is your first time riding with me and I don't want you to panic and try something while I'm driving. This is more for me than it is for you." They said as they finished making sure all the precious cargo was secure, including Hoshina.

Hoshina's eyes grew larger in the dark as his heart kicked up several notches. He hadn't fully realized what the beginnings of this journey would entail. While he was the one to suggest climbing their way up to conserve their bending, Hoshina actually had a terrible fear of heights. Being strapped to a quarter of a ton sled traveling at who-know-what speeds -in the dark- down the back of a mountain sounded like a heart attack waiting to happen. He was brought back from the edge of a panic attack when he heard his partner messing with something that was attached to the front of the sled.

"Don't worry about it! Remember, I've done this before!" They called back as they started to pull the sled in a direction.

Hoshina's heart started to beat faster and faster, making it feel like he was about to break his own rib cage from the force of it. He could only wiggle slightly in his confines and whimper while the sled was pulled closer and closer to what he assumed would be an edge at some point. The anticipation was killing him faster than a one-sided fight, making him wonder if he was already wrestling with death just by sticking around. The last thing he remembered thinking was how he regretted placing that blanket as a kind gesture before his mind going blank from the sound of his screams.

✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼

Hoshina didn't remember when he passed out. He definitely remembered the sensation of tipping over the edge of the mountain cliff they were perched on. It might have been after the third or fourth abrupt drop in height that made him finally succumb to the sweet release of sleep. It was certainly hours later when his body decided it was time to wake up. Behind his eyelids, he could sense a slow rising of brightness, making everything look like a lovely shade of sky blue. When he was awake enough to notice the sound of the wind seemed different, did he blink his eyes open.

The outside world wasn't sky blue so much as a blank canvas of purest white. The wind sounded quieter, but blew in a flurry of snowflakes and obstructed everything in sight. Even brief breaks in the slipstream only offered darker, miniscule patches of grey that he assumed was the other side of the caldera the beast had mentioned. Hoshina was slowly becoming aware of how oddly warm he felt. Thankfully, this warmness didn't feel wet at all, so he could rule out pissing himself out of fear earlier. Waking up a little more, he noticed that he was wrapped up in about another three layers of blanket pelts with something hard and warm between his legs. He could feel his arms not being restrained anymore and moved his hands over to investigate. Feeling around, he recognized the sensation of a liquid filled drinking sack and a full and heavy bag.

"Hey, you! You're finally awake!" His traveling partner called out from behind them.

Turns out that those glimpses of grey in the distance weren't the mountains on the other side, but in fact what little Hoshina could see of their back. Since falling asleep, they had donned a white fur cape that covered a long rope that attached them to the sled. They were trudging along over the thick ice and snow, pulling the sled with their impressive size. They continued to move along, unbothered by the conditions Hoshina was currently overly sheltered against.

"How long have I been asleep?" Hoshina asked as he stirred inside the pile of blankets.

"Quite a while. It's about midday now." The beast called out over his shoulder, "I wouldn't recommend leaving your little shelter at the moment. This is the coldest part of the journey."

"This is a massive lake!" Hoshina commented. If they were still on it and it was midday already, how much longer were they going to have to travel altogether?

"We won't be on it for much longer. I had just made the turn right before you woke up." They assure, still trudging ever forward and not bothered by the conditions in the slightest.

Hoshina took a moment to bury himself in the blankets and started to root around in the bags that were stored with him. The heavy, lumpy, and quite stocked bag looked very worn and well loved for its appearance. From what he could see with the sliver of light he could make himself, it had light spots in areas where it would have been held repeatedly and had several miss-colored patches from where it had to have been repaired. It was clear there were two different qualities of stitching when he compared the ones on the patches to the lettering on the front that read 'Snak Bag'. Digging inside, he found more neatly wrapped packages of dried seaweed tied with more sinew twine as well as smaller, tied up, leather bags. Picking a green package. he unwrapped it to find dried fish pemmican.

"Hey, are you hungry?" Hoshina asked as he poked his head up.

"Sure! Toss me something!" His friend bellowed over the wind.

Hoshina took out a couple sticks for himself before hastily re-wrapping the package back up. He managed to wiggle an arm out of the fort and tossed the bundle in their direction. He didn't wait to see if they caught it because he was already focused on wrangling his arm back into the safety of the blankets. They weren't kidding when they said it was the coldest part of the journey! He frantically rubbed some warmth into his arm in the limited space before grabbing one of the jerky sticks. Nibbling on it, he pulled the drinking sack closer and popped off the top to take a sniff.

"Is this mulled wine?" Hoshina called out.

"Yeah, it's not that great though. The spices I find around here aren't really made for that kind of thing. It's at least drinkable and won't freeze at these temperatures." They explained around large chomps of food.

"I guess you're not going to take a break and eat." Hoshina muttered with slight irritation, meaning to keep that to himself. While having been roughing it in the wild for some time, a part of him could never truly lose his higher upbringing, especially when it came to others talking with their mouth full.

"Taking a break in this area is the last thing I should do." The beast spoke back.

"I guess he really can hear a fart in a snowstorm." Hoshina thought as he became slightly stunned at the revelation, before digging around in the food bag some more.

Brushing his hand up against one of the smaller bags, one had felt like it was a sack of small marbles. Being the curious person he was, he dug it out and undid the drawstring to look inside. There he was met with the wonderful sight that was a sack full of roasted hazelnuts.

"There's hazelnuts all the way out here?" Hoshina exclaimed joyfully before greedily digging out a handful and shoving them into his mouth.

"Found them, did ya? Have 'em. I'm not really a 'nut' kinda person myself, so I just end up eating those last on accident." The beast cried out, "There might be a bag of chestnuts too, if you're interested."

"How do you even get nuts all the way out here? Isn't most of the South Pole just ice and snow like the North?" Hoshina questioned after making sure he swallowed the lump of chewed nuts first.

"You would think!" His friend answered, "If you keep heading north across this lake, you can actually find a forest chock-full of spirits."

"And they're okay with you taking stuff from there? Most I've ever met were pretty territorial." Hoshina responded with intrigue.

"There's... varying degrees of spirits up there. Most avoid me, I've noticed. Some do get curious every once in a while, but I always end up doing something to spook them off. The ones that can talk are complete assholes, I've noticed. What about you? Have you ever met a talking spirit?" The beast finished the last of the jerky sticks as they kept on moving.

"Just once. To be fair, he was justified in his anger, but he was taking things too far." Hoshina answered, looking off into the distance as he remembered the encounter.

"Spirit still around?" They asked, the hint of apprehension was not lost to the wind.

"Yeah. Managed to point him in a different direction. You've ever had to do that on your hunts? 'Redirect' a spirit?" Hoshina returned the question.

"Not really. If one starts to yell at me, I just drop what I'm holding and walk away. They're not really something I want to contact too much." Kafka said, the apprehension becoming clearer this time.

"Shame. I think that would make for an interesting fight." He called out, mainly as a joke.

"I'm sure you've been in more interesting ones..." The beast retorted absentmindedly. They came to a complete stop as they swiveled their head from side to side, scanning an invisible horizon.

"Is everything alright?" Hoshina called out, suddenly getting nervous.

The beast held up their hand toward Hoshina's face, indicating for him to be quiet. They continued to circle back and forth, looking for something only they could see. Eventually they came to a rest, looking off to their right and far into the fog of snow around them.

"Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but don't be afraid." They spoke after awhile, trying to keep their tone slow and even.

"Here's some news for you, that is the last thing you should say to someone if you don't want them to be afraid." Hoshina scolded in a gruff whisper.

"Here's the thing. Right next to us, about a quarter mile out, is a pack of Polar Bear-dogs." They said as they slowly picked back up their pace, "People like to joke that they can smell fear, but it's actually true. As long as neither of us start to get nervous, we should be fine."

"Just don't be nervous. Fine, I can work with that." Hoshina said, actively trying to suppress anything inside himself that said to become very nervous right now.

He made a desperate grab for the wine sack and took a big swig of it. It immediately made him want to choke from its off flavors, but he swallowed it down quietly. It at least did its job for distracting him from his situation. He fought against every nerve that said to leave the pile of blankets and shuffled out of them so he could scoot forward to hand the wine bag over quietly.

"Hey, do you want a-... Why are you going faster?" Hoshina paused himself as he noticed the speed of the beast's footsteps

"Because they seem to be coming closer." They answered with a hint of nervousness.

"Closer with intent?" Hoshina reiterated as he mirrored the nervousness.

"Seems liKE IT!" They yelled as they broke out into a full run.

Howls from their right cut through the rushing of the wind. Hoshina brought himself to stand on the sled as he began to hear the arrhythmic pounding of several paws making landfall over the thick lake ice. Bracing himself as best he could, he shifted into a fighting stance.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" The beast commanded from the front of the sled.

"Are you crazy? They're coming right for us!" He yelled back

"Just hold on! We can make it!" They countered as a hand came up to the neck of the white cloak.

"At this speed you're making?" Hoshina tried to argue back, only to get hit with a face full of the discarded cloak.

Falling back to the floor of the sled, he pulled the cloak off his face just in time to see a disturbing change. He watched as the beast's legs grew longer and its knees snapped backwards. He could hear over the sound of the wind the snapping and cracking of what had to be their bones or muscle as their arms grew longer and furrier. Their hands became the size of their head and their head grew longer than their hair. Not breaking stride, they dropped to all four limbs and bounded onwards as their chest flexed in time with their new, longer, more powerful strides.

"Bless by the Tides..." Hoshina lay there in amazement, just absolutely stunned by the change.

The beast-man had turned fully beast. Thick ashen fur covered the body as the tail had grown longer. Their legs resembled a rabaroo's and their arms were just like a moose-lion. Their face was long like wolves and blasted jets of steamy breaths from the extra exertion. The amount of speed this had gained them was insane. Hoshina could barely bring himself to stand from the force of the wind that was blowing around them now.

"See! Told you we could make it!" The transformed beast looked back as they talked, their wide band of exposed teeth giving the illusion of a smile.

They seemed to have spoken too soon as Hoshina could hear the pounding of persistent paw pads bounding closer to them. He could almost see the bulky silhouettes of the menacing predators against the whipping of the snow's slipstreams. He could hear the desperate growling and the hungry snapping of jaws as the pack slowly encroached in the sled. Two of them had surged forward and started to snap and bash at the beast, rocking both them and the sled's path around. The distracted beast tried to bite back at their aggressors, but couldn't do much because of the cargo.

Shifting back into a standing position, Hosina whipped his head around to stare in fear of their surroundings. Some of the polar bear-dogs had started to knock the sides of the sled, making him almost lose his balance. Once he found a stable stance, he noticed a wrapped bundle of crude spears in the mound of supplies behind him. Ripping one out, Hoshina forgot to stop himself from admiring the weight and balance of the spear. Flailing himself around through another bump to the sled, he finally brought himself around to hitting the bear-dogs closest to him with the length of it, right across their eyes. Aiming more to disorient, Hoshina had heard somewhere that causing actual injury to polar bear-dogs was the last thing one should do as it will only cause them to be angrier.

A couple hard thwacks to each of the persistent predators was enough to cause them to back off from the sides. As the two that backed off caused a chain reaction from the others in the pack to back off as well, Hoshina turned to focus on the two that were harassing the one pulling the sled. Planting a solid foot onto the curved lip of the front of the sled, Hoshina launched himself over the short gap between them and somehow managed to grab a hold of the beast. He kicked at one of the polar-dogs incoming maw before he righted himself on the beast's back. Whipping the shaft of the spear from side to side, Hoshina successfully landed several blows to the faces of their pursuers. He turned around to see that while they had decided to increase their distance, they weren't going to leave them completely alone in the blistering conditions.

"Got any other tricks up your sleeves?" The beast called out, not breaking speed or stride.

"I was about to ask you the same thing!" Hoshina cried out over the racing wind.

From behind, Hoshina heard the desperate growl of a polar bear-dog suddenly pierce the air. He turned back to see one had lunged forward in a bid to tackle them both. As he brought the spear up to defend, A surprised drop in elevation knocked all three of them off balance. Now faced in front of them was a steep decline that stopped at a short ledge bordering what Hoshina assumed to be a deep ravine.

"Tides toss it all!" The beast cursed as they scrambled for purchase on the slick ice.

"What are you stopping for? They're still right behind us!" Hoshina warns as they continue to slide. nearly out for control.

"The gorge is too wide for me to jump across with all this weight! I'm gonna have to make a stand!" They replied back, nervous as ever.

Hoshina swung his head around quickly, taking stock of the situation. While he had no doubt that his partner could handle at least one polar bear-dog on his own, even he could see that going against a whole pack was a different story. Not to mention that they would have to fight them on what looked to be a very narrow cliff next to a deep gorge. If jumping across and staying to fight weren't available options, they were running out of anything less than insane. Breathing fast and shallow, Hoshina hyped himself up to say what was on his mind.

"Speed up!" He said as he tossed the spear far behind them.

"What? Why?! I just said I can't jump it with everything!" The beast grunted with exertion, bracing the sled against him as his grip continued to be ineffective.

"Trust me, I'll get us across." He countered as he raised his arms.

"WHAT HAVE I BEEN TELLING YOU! YOU CAN'T-" They started to rant.

"WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!" Hoshina interjected, "The faster you move, the less time I'll have to spend bending." He traded a resigned, stubborn look with the beast's terror filled one.

After a brief moment, they gritted their teeth and loudly groaned at their submission. Finishing with a shout, the beast launched themselves forward and began to pull the sled in earnest, rapidly gaining speed. As the two of them barreled down the slippery hillside and rapidly closed the distance, Hoshina started to pull on the strings of energy within himself. Feeling that familiar, chilling tug speed down through his veins, he could feel it shoot through his fingertips and into the environment. All the ice around them began to feel magnetized and charged with Hoshina's own energy. Large tidal waves of snow started to condense into tight balls of chilling water. He was scared to wait until the last second possible before he could start his plan, as he wasn't sure what was going to happen when he really started to put forth some effort. Concussion or not, they had to make it across.

As the beast hit the cliff edge and soared through the air, Hoshina attached the beginning of the ice bridge to one side and started to pull it out from under them. Turns out that pulling water wasn't a problem, it was the pushing. As the energy in his arms changed the shape of the water around them, he could immediately feel something change and push back. Like the water in his veins suddenly boiled and shot backwards through them, searing his muscles along the way to his head. A flashing, scorching pain flashed like wildfire through his mind, clouding his vision as the muscles in his arm wanted to cramp. He could feel a part of him lose control over the water and saw it struggle to form before them.

"HEY! Stay with me! We're almost there!" The beast called out from under him, providing enough stimulation to bring Hoshina back to the present.

Fighting every nerve in his body that said to stop and collapse, he pushed enough ice out to just barely reach the other side. He could feel his arms give out before he did, causing a small gap between the other side of the gorge and his makeshift bridge. The beast jumped over it, but it did make the sled violently jolt and made the both of them stumble from the accidental obstacle. Promptly becoming weak from the pain, Hoshina didn't even notice he had fallen from his partner's back and hit the thin layer of snow under them.

The beast swung the sled out to the side, causing it to somewhat slam into a rocky side wall. They turned back into their mostly human form and broke free from their harness, sprinting to the freshly made ice bridge. Seeing some of the polar bear-dogs hadn't lost their footing and were trying to cross the bridge themselves, the beast brought their foot to the edge of it and brought it down hard. The hit made ice cracked and shattered near-instantly, making spider cracks all the way down the expanse. The weight of the polar-dogs finished their fate and destroyed the rest of the bridge, causing a few of them to tumble into the cloudy abyss below. Not bothering to watch the rest of the gruesome show, they turned and sprinted back toward Hoshina, grabbing a blanket from the sled along the way.

"Hey! heyheyhey, I'm gonna need you to stay awake for me, okay?" They said as they wrapped Hoshina in the blanket and drew him on their large lap, all the while gently shaking him awake.

"Buddy, hey, I'm gonna need you to talk to me, alright? I can't tell if you're awake unless you talk to me." They tried again, this time getting a slow blinking from their friend.

"Everything hurts... It hurts so much... I feel dizzy too" Hoshina managed to whine out, trying his best not to move.

"I know, I know. It's gonna hurt for a while until you stop feeling dizzy. After you stop feeling dizzy, you'll be free to move again though. You'll still feel like you got kicked in the chest and flew into a wall, but you'll at least be out of danger." The beast chuckled a little at their description, but it was obvious that they were still incredibly scared.

"Di-didn't you say you had a sister that went through this?" Hoshina asked as he searched his brain for anything to talk about.

"Yeah, yeah." The beast sniffed, "Her name is Mina. She was bending a lot longer than you were and she's more or less fine now."

"Wh-what was she doing... that she needed to bend-" A deep and intense stab of pain coursed through Hoshina's body, making him convulse and curl up in the blanket.

"Woah, hey. You're okay." The beast cooed as he continued to hold Hoshina.

"I... I used to work at the docks." They sighed as they swallowed hard, "Mostly as a fisherman, but I used to help load crates onto those big trading ships too when it was slow, ha, not important. One night I had gotten really sick and I hadn't recovered enough to go to work again. It was just me and my sister then... She had taken my place on the boat for a few days. The ship got caught in a storm and in the chaos she... the sail's boom hit her in the head. She brushed it off and continued to work like nothing happened. It wasn't until she collapsed on the dock that anyone noticed something was wrong."

The beast looked melancholy as he recounted the tale, "Bending that long with a head injury... it really messed her up. We didn't talk about it, but I don't think her bending stayed the same after that. Not to say that she can't bend, but... She can't be subtle with it anymore, I've noticed."

"That you've noticed? Keep an eye on her a lot?"Hoshina asked with an attempt of a smile.

"Yeah." The beast let out a puffy chortle, "Not as much as I'd like. I deliver all of this around the time of the festival because it gives me a chance to check up on everyone, not just her. She's always the easiest to find, since she never goes to the festival." Their eyes became pinched and wrinkled in disappointment, "At least... not since I left."

Despite his continuing pain, Hoshina could feel himself becoming concerned for the beast on his behalf.

"You... never tried to reach out to her?"

"What is there to say?" They questioned, " 'Hey, I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm the brother that abandoned you. I didn't die six years ago and have been living up in the mountains, hunting and gathering every spare resource I could because I live in fear of not only you but the whole village starving again. Not only that, but I have a face that can send old ladies into the great beyond and a voice that makes children cry so I feel like it's just... better... for me to stay away all this time and just do... what I'm good at.' " They sniffed hard again and shook their head hard in an attempt to dislodge any tears, "Spirits abound, what's wrong with me? Here I am, taking up all your air time and you're the one who's supposed to be talking."

"It's alright. I can't really bring myself to talk right now." He said as he visibly winced from another surprising jolt of pain.

"Well, I gotta keep you awake somehow." The beast muttered as he thought aloud to himself.

"Feel free to tell me off, if this is too personal." Hoshina started, But do you think you could tell me about how... this all happened?"

The beast offered a soft smile, "I mean, sure, since we might be here for a while yet, but I have to warn you I'm not the best story teller. If I don't keep it interesting enough, I might just put you to sleep."

"Trust me, hearing the story behind this," He said as he poked a gentle finger into the ashen scaled portion of the beast's face, "Is going to be interesting enough."

The beast let out a small laugh as they pushed back against the finger on their face. They got to their feet slowly, trying their best not to jostle Hoshina too much. They walked over to the sled and used their feet to angle its load against the wind, trying to provide some shelter against the still bitter cold. Grabbing the spare blankets, they dropped one to the ground and used the other one to swaddle their traveling partner a little more. They sat down with their backs against the sled and found a position where the both of them could sit comfortably.

"Alright, well I already told you that I was a fisherman, and I already mentioned the village was starving at some point..." The beast mumbled as they tried to find a place to start their story.

"Could start with how it became like that." Hoshina offered. The beast bobbed his head in agreement before they started in earnest.

"Well the cause was pretty simple, this weird disease took out a large portion of our hunting grounds. First it started with the wolves and the bullwalrus, then the lack of predators caught up to their prey and then they overpopulated a bunch and ate up all of the available greenery we could get our hands on, after that happened the disease caught up to them too. We were all really struggling before that point. Just fishing alone wasn't enough to keep our village going, and it just kept getting worse when the pickings got slim." The beast appeared melancholy as he remembered those dark days of his past, but seemed resolved enough to keep going despite his feelings.

"We all got desperate fast. Brother turned against brother and the turmoil wasn't content to stay behind closed doors. We had lost over two thirds of our people by the time the chief made an announcement. He asked for anyone able bodied enough to take up a chance to explore what's on the other side of the mountains. I was part of a small group of people that could fit the request well enough, despite not being a practiced hunter."

"Nobody had tried to explore the other side before then?" Hoshina interrupted.

"Others had tried, but the conditions are so rough that no one had been able to find out anything useful." The beast chuffed pathetically, "I wish someone had, any information would have made the first part of the journey a lot less devastating. I had lost a couple friends and co-workers traveling in that group." The beast's gaze became far away and lost for a moment, before he blinked some life back into them and continued.

"We managed to cross over to the other side, but had lost several people and supplies in the process. None of us were sure we had enough left to make it back, let alone to continue forward. It got to the point where we had to move forward because if we didn't, we wouldn't have enough supplies to keep ourselves afloat. We struck a brief lucky streak when we found some turtle-seal hangouts, but the disease had gotten to some of them too. We were at this patch of coast to the east, so our leader made the decision to follow the coast around till we hit North and walked back as best we could. What we didn't expect was to hit a forest on our way through." They pinched their eyes closed for a second and took a deep breath.

"You-you don't have to continue if it's too much." Hoshina offered as he saw the beginnings of the story's toll on the beast, his hand coming up to sooth their heart.

"Made it this far, might as well finish." They said with a sad smile, "It's just... you would think I wouldn't feel like this after it happened so long ago." They took another deep breath and continued.

"We didn't know that there was such a place so deep inside this frozen wasteland. If you had asked us then what we would have found inside there, we sure as the stars wouldn't have said spirits. Very angry, very territorial spirits. It probably didn't help that we were dragging the poorly butchered carcasses of the turtle-seals through their land. They took more of our men and our food, leaving just a handful of strangers and no supplies. Everyone that was left had lost someone close to them at this point, making all that was left behind just a handful of strangers. To make matters worse, the only thing we had to eat was snow and scrappy pieces of lichen, and even then it was days past at that point."

"If there is anything you should take away from my story," The beast had paused before now, but had suddenly decided to address Hoshina directly at this point, " is that you should never let your men feel desperate. Something doesn't just happen to the mind when it gets like that, I think. Sometimes... sometimes I think the barriers that hold us back from altering our fate thin when a man gets desperate. Because I can't think of anything else that would have caused such a permanent chain of shit shows." They shook their head solemnly, their eyes wet with useless tears.

"Don't tell me." Hoshina thought. He wanted to say it aloud, wondering if saying it would somehow alter this man's fate and undue all the pain and hardship they went through.

"We were still in the forest when we made camp for the night, We didn't really have anywhere else to stay, really. We had found this location of this half buried, bright-as-the-sun, absolutely enormous ball of what I think was spirit energy of some sort. The spirits crowded around it, but made no move to come near it or us, and since it didn't seem harmful at the time, we just... had to make due. I fell asleep first since it was going to be my turn for night watch in a few hours. While I slept, everyone else had gathered and made a decision without me. They came to the conclusion that we had no food, no supplies, and no hope left. If there was any chance of the rest of them making it back to see their families, they were going to have to do more than scavenge for food."

"They came up with a plan to make their food come to them, and I was the best candidate. Or, I guess, the weakest link at the time. Sure, I was somewhat strong, but I was just that. I was a fisherman that moved crates around for extra money. I couldn't hunt or make traps and I was the largest member at that time. Plenty of meat on me for the rest of them, apparently." Hoshina felt himself suck in a gasp through his teeth, either it was from another twinge of pain or from him understanding the implications he wasn't sure.

"Joke's on them, they sent a coward to finish the job. I heard him coming as I saw the knife in the light of the sphere. When he hesitated, I lunged for him. The others found our fight and tried to help him. Between the fighting and all of us just being so angry with each other at the time, I'm not surprised we ended up riling up the spirits around us. Next thing I knew, I felt heat, like my muscles were being boiled under my skin. My whole body felt like it was being ripped apart and I could feel my bones snapping and stretching. For just a few seconds, I felt like I was being buried in pain. So much so, that I'm pretty sure I blacked out for a minute."

"When I opened my eyes again, I saw that I had tossed everyone off of me and sent them flying a few good feet. I knew then that something had happened to me, because there was no way I should have been able to do that, not with how far my body had deteriorated on this grueling trip. I looked down and saw some of my clothes had shredded themselves from the force of the change. As I looked back up, I saw everyone shaking themselves off and grabbing anything in reach. I got so... scared. I never felt as scared as I did right then. I watched as this... ghostly light, almost like a fog, start to leave my chest. Something inside me told me to grab it. I don't know how exactly, but I could, and when I did I kept listening to that weird little voice that said to turn around to touch the sphere. I didn't feel any pain this time, but it was still terrifying to see myself continuing to change."

"At that point something broke in me. Really, I just had this... moment of weakness... I let all that power go straight to my head. I turned on everybody. I hurt them all. I killed them for trying to kill me." Hoshina watched as they shut their eyes, pushing one lone tear over the edge. Their lips quivered a little before they continued, sucking in a sharp breath.

"I'm not proud of what I did, and I never will. I still spend night after night thinking about what happened, wondering what would have been better? Should I have blacked out like I did earlier or was it a good thing that I didn't? So that I always remember what I did and always remember why I stay up here, away from others but never letting tragedy strike them like it did me." The beast let out a shaky sigh as their clawless hand came up to wipe away a tear.

"I'm sorry. I know you asked to hear it, and I don't have a problem telling it to ya, but it's not the happiest story is it?" The corners of their lips curled up into an apologetic smile, but the sentiment didn't seem to reach their eyes.

"It's okay." Hoshina said as his hand soothingly brushed away the imaginary pain over the beast's heart, "You'd be hard pressed to find stories about spirit encounters that didn't end in some twisted tragedy."

The beast nodded their head in agreement, looking visibly less shaken as they continued to hold him. They seemed to have found some sort of solace in how Hoshina wasn't disturbed or unsettled by the story and felt fine enough to comfort them through it, even though he would still be in come considerable pain. They lifted him up, blankets and all, and placed him back at his place at sled. Afterwhich, they walked over to the side of it to gain access to the center of the pile of supplies and grabbed a small rawhide bag.

"I guess it's not all doom and gloom. One guy managed to run away and somehow made it all the way back to town." They said as they reached into the bag and pulled out a smaller one, "Here, My sister once made me help her and some elders make painkillers once, and I remembered the recipe. Do you think you're fine enough to watch me pull the sled for another seven hours?"

Hoshina pulled out a pair of white and green pills made out of hardened paste and tossed them into his mouth, swallowing hard. He shook his head from the intensely bitter taste and hissed as they traveled down his throat.

"Yeah, I should be." He joked, "Are they doing okay? The one that made it?"

The beast looked back apprehensively for a second as he put the bags back in the center of the sled, "Uh... yeah, He's doing alright for himself."

Sensing the hesitation, Hoshina tried to pry a little more, "Is he...working somewhere? Do you remember his name?"

"I don't think I ever caught it, no. He was one of the chieftain's sons, that much I remember." They said as they moved around to the front of the sled.

Sensing that he wasn't going to get anymore information on the subject, Hoshina took the hint and relaxed against the pile. He felt the pills slowly take effect as his throbbing migraine began to peter out. He watched the beast pull the sled around and slowly tugged it down a narrow fissure just wide enough for the sled to pass through. As his mind came back to a better state, he began to appreciate the view around him. The icy walls surrounding them were tall enough to block the sun, but were incredibly reflective. The sun warmed up the ice around them, causing an echoing crackle to be faintly heard as they traveled; A stark contrast to the shearing wind that was heard up on the mountain. The tall walls offered an odd sense of security as they continued down the shallow incline, something Hoshina had not felt as he was taken through the frozen caldera earlier. Sure, this location had its own sets of problems, but it made up for the fact that they could at least see anything wanting to attack. That and if anything wanted to, their only option would be to attack from the front or the back.

For the moment, the journey was peaceful. He watched the sharp edges of the cliffs around them jut out and crinkle back in at random intervals, winking away pain when the sun's rays caught the surface unexpectedly. The color was a slow gradient, starting with a brilliant white at the top and slowly faded to a shockingly brilliant blue. The colors at the base reminded Hoshina of the unusual bundle of crystals that protruded out of the beast's shoulders. As he observed the muscles in their back dancing and rippling as they walked, he slowly came to an abhorrent realization.

"Oh, steaming sponge shit!" Hoshina suddenly cried out as his hands came up to his face. Hearing this, the beast immediately stopped and turned around.

"Please tell me you didn't just remember that you left something important back at my place." They asked.

"No, it's not that." Hoshina said quickly before briefly pausing for a second and darted over to his bag. After checking around inside to make sure that wasn't also the case, he answered the question.

"Yeah, definitely not that. I just realized that... I never considered to ask if you had a name." He said as he shuffled up closer to the curled edge of the sled. The beast looked back with a puzzled expression that slowly devolved into astonished laughter. Hoshina's face developed a severe frown as the beast continued to laugh boomingly, nearly doubling over and clutching their sides.

"Look. I'm usually more on top of things like that, but cut me some slack! I have a head injury!" He shouted indignantly.

"No, no, it's fine." the beast wheezed, "It's not like you came after me knowing I was human once."

"Well, sure, but even spirits have names too. But the only thing the Chief would call you was 'Horned Demon'." He remarked.

"He couldn't have been a little more creative?" The beast said in playful astonishment. The beast stood still for a stretch of time, not looking at anything in particular. They eventually turned around and fully faced Hoshina as they spoke.

"If you really must know, my name is Kafka. Kafka Hibino."

"Thank you. By the way, mine is-"

"Don't." Kafka interrupted.

"Excuse me?"

"Don't... You don't have to tell me your name. It's just going to hurt me in the end." He insisted solemnly.

"How would knowing my name hurt you?" Hoshina challenged.

Kafka paused for a second before continuing to pull the sled, "I just feel like it... wouldn't be right, to start to know someone so fascinating just to never see them again. I'd have all this information rattling up around in my head and I'd never get the chance to talk about it or do something with it." He shot back a sliver of a glum look, "I already have enough ghosts to talk to." He muttered.

Hoshina propped his arms up on the ledge of the sled as he contemplated his answer. He could understand what he meant. He had met plenty of fascinating people that continued to pop up to the forefront of him mind every now and then. And he did talk about them a lot to his team members. They all like to trade stories about weird and fascinating people they've met before. He couldn't even begin to try and understand what it would be like to have something fun to talk about, but no one to tell it to. Even when he felt alone in his own house, he still had managed to make friends with some servants for gossiping purposes at least.

It didn't sit right with him anyway. Not only did it feel like a power imbalance, it left different avenues of concern to go down. Such as "What would Kafka call him in an emergency"? Well, this would only be a problem if they were suddenly in a group of more than two, but anything could happen from here to their final destination. That and Hoshina had been referring to Kafka as just 'The Beast' in his head, so now it made him wonder what Kafka was calling him in his head. Above it all, Hoshina was raised on a strict code of etiquette and as much as he would like to think he was done with it all, he couldn't escape that part of him at the worst times.

"Well, I wouldn't call myself fascinating." He said with sly indifference.

" A Northern man leading a rag-tag team of benders from across the lands, takes them up a mountain in a snowstorm to kill a spirit. Definitely not fascinating in the slightest." Hoshina could hear the eye-rolling from there.

"It wasn't a snow storm when we started!" He countered angrily, "But you are right, I was sent to kill you." He said as he slowly got to his feet on the moving sled.

" 'A good hunter has no excuse to fail their mission if they didn't try in the first place' Is what I've always been told." Hoshina recalled as he planted one foot on the curved lip of the sled and precariously balanced the other on the tether connecting Kafka to the sled.

Despite still having a headache, he balanced as best he could as he took one step, then another, and leaped off the cord on the third. He flew through the air the short distance it took to land solidly on Kafka's broad back. Quickly wrapping his hands around his neck to keep from falling off, Hoshina leaned in close to Kafka's ear.

"Soshiro Hoshina. Here to handle your demise." He teased.

Kafka went through various versions of shock, before accepting the joke and laughing at it anyway. His large hand came up and gripped Hoshina by the collar of his thick coat and carried him like that back to the sled.

"Oh, no. It seems that you have dealt a devastating blow. Whatever am I to do." Kafka spoke in a deadpan manner as he carefully dropped Hoshina down on the sled.

"Hmmm... Admit defeat and accept your death." Hoshina hummed with a coy smile. You could almost see an imaginary and mischievous fox tail wagging behind him as he spoke.

"Gonna be kinda hard to prove next year after I come back down the mountain." Kafka playfully countered back.

"Not if you're not here to come back down." He temptingly tossed back.

"Didn't I just finish a really depressing story as to why I do this?" The beast-man sighed.

"Kafka, I don't know if it's hit you yet, but you're not safe here anymore. I'm certain Laktua isn't going to stop until he sees your head on a silver platter and eats it." Hoshina protested, "If I don't come back with proof, someone else will. And I don't think they're going to be as grateful as I am for your help."

"What, you don't think I can handle myself?" Kafka teased, trying to lighten the mood.

"It's not about if, it's about how long. How long is it going to be until a mistake happens. Whether it's on your side or theirs, something is bound to happen to you, and the townsfolk aren't going to understand until it's too late." Hoshina leaned his upper body on the front of the sled, crossing his arms, "I understand why you do this, I do. I know you want to keep a good thing going for as long as you can, but if I managed to get this close to you, someone else can too. You have to know this too, right?"

Kafka was quiet for a while. Clearly, this was a truth that he had been neglecting this whole trip. Having someone to talk to had been fun, but Hoshina brought up some good points. He really wanted to keep the town safe, but that couldn't continue if he was dead or found out. Patrols would increase, hunting parties would be set out. He was pretty sure Laktoa wasn't above hiring mercenaries. After all, isn't that just what Hoshina was? Sure, he was for spirits, and he didn't kill them exactly, but if he went back down to the town and told the chief he couldn't kill him, that would open a whole different jar of worms. A very scared jar full of desperate worms...

"Where do you think I could go?" Kafka whispered, "I'm not exactly the easiest thing to hide."

"I don't think you would have to if you were with us." Hoshina offered, "I mean, we deal with spirits after all. I think it would make sense to have someone spirit-touched on our journeys. Give us some credibility... or something."

"Or something." he mocked, "You're bold."

"And you're big. That's pretty useful." Hoshina countered.

They continued in silence for a while. The words that were hanging in the air had soon passed, swept away by an invisible wind. The fissure they had traveled through slowly widened as they continued, and at some point had fallen away completely. The walls around them tapered off suddenly and had connected to the walls surrounding a steep drop into a curved, open-faced, tube. Hoshina braced himself as Kafka carefully guided the sled down the short slope into the peculiar terrain.

"And we've hit the Really Cool Lava Tube!" Kafka announced, "From here, we keep going until we hit the top of a glacier that ends up at the sea. After that it's a fairly short swim and then you're home free!"

Hoshina looked up from the floor of the sled and at their surroundings. The walls were made out of long hardened lava that had cooled to a deep grey. As the rock curved toward the sky, he could see where chunks of rock had broken off from their own weight and left what was there to be rounded by the harsh elements. Ominous looking fingers of stone lined the tops of the rippled walls all the way down another gentle slope with the tips of them covered in a layer of snow and dripping icicles.

"Wow! It kinda looks like a snake's rib cage, just upside-down." Hoshina commented.

Kafka pondered the comment as he traveled, "You know, maybe I should start calling it that. Snake's Rib Cage sounds a lot better than Really Cool Lava Tube."

"I mean... yours isn't wrong per se." Hoshina returned, "I mean, it really is a cool lava tube."

"Yeah, but Snake's Rib Cage sounds like a fight arena." Kafka countered with revelry.

"Speaking of which, we're not going to get into a fight here... are we?" Hoshina questioned nervously.

"Nah! We'll be safe on this section." Kafka assured.

They continued down the path and watched the sun burn a speedy path through the sky as it grew darker while they moved forward. Hoshina marveled at the formations encroaching on them as they passed. He was shocked to hear nothing around them, no wind blowing, no ice melting or cracking, just the sound of the sled's runners gliding over the snow under them. The lack of additional noise paired with the rounded walls of the exposed lava tube made it so that every step they took sounded like fire crackers going off. When he heard a watery growl echo off the walls, he had a sneaking suspicion what it could be about

"You need to stop and eat something?" Hoshina asked as he started to root around in the snack bag next to him.

"Uhh, n-no thank you. I'm good for right now." Kafka said apprehensively.

"Are you sure? You've been walking a long time. Not to mention that insane burst of speed you had when you ran from the polar bear-dogs." Hoshina said as he pulled out the bag of chestnuts that was mentioned earlier. He paused for a second when he processed what he had just said.

"Hey Kafka? Did you know you could do that?" He asked

"What? The wolf form?" The beast-man guessed.

"Yeah, is that... you can just...do that?" He left the question cryptic since he wasn't sure what he should be asking about it.

"You said you've met other... spirit-bound or something, right? Is that... not normal? I mean, it sounds like that should be a thing. Get cursed by a spirit, get something back out of it." Kafka inquired.

"Spirit-Touched, but yeah, one doesn't really get anything cool or useful half the time. I mean, unless you're adaptable and creative with whatever you're handed, but most of the time it's something like their face is missing or they can't stand up from a permanent lack of balance. The ones that get a, uhh... how should I put this... Facial...Rework? Get a small dose of poison immunity I've noticed, but nothing else really." Hoshina ruminated as he thought back to the small handful of cases he saw personally, not to mention the countless research he subjected himself to before going out into the field.

"Of course, this is just accounts from those that didn't just straight up die afterward." He thought to himself.

"Huh. Maybe it's because I touched that weird, glowing, dome-thing." Kafka thought out loud. The two of them went silent for a while before another disruptive stomach growl could be heard from the beast-man.

"Alright, you are sitting down so you can eat." Hoshina said after swallowing a handful of chestnuts.

"Really, I'm fine." Kafka tried to counter.

"What is up with you? What are you so afraid to eat now? It can't be because I'm here since you had no problems sharing a meal with me earlier." The spirit hunter interrogated.

Kafka had stopped walking and tensed up in the middle of the path. It was clear that there was something else he wanted to talk about, but Hoshina wasn't sure he had the confidence to say it first.

"Does it... have something to do with your transformation earlier?" He tried to pry gently. It seemed to be on the right track as Kafka gave a heavy sigh.

"Yeah. Yeah, it does." He answered with nothing more.

"Do you... need something specific?" Hoshina continued. There was a weighty tension in the air as he waited to see if Kafka would answer.

"Yeah, it's... pretty specific. The problem is that... it might be a little... disturbing. To watch me eat it, I mean."

"What is it? Like, raw meat or something?" He continued the investigation.

"Or something." Kafka painfully chuffed, "It's kinda... worse?" Hoshina watched as his face scrunched up into a tight wince, "It's... hearts. I... have to eat hearts."

"Human... hearts?" Hoshina's comment broke the unnatural tension that had developed.

"NO! No, no, no! Nonononono, absolUTELY NOT, no!" Kafka tried to assure him as he wildly flailed his arms around, "It's beast hearts. I just have to eat beast hearts."

"Oh!" Hoshina chirped gladly, "Then what's the problem? If you're hungry for something, go right ahead."

"You say that..."Kafka responded as he dragged out the syllables cautiously, " But watching me eat, well, that. It's just... it gets everywhere. The blood, I mean. It just- it starts gushing when I bite into it, then it dribbles all over my chest, sometimes it stains my pants-I mean it is a mess when I eat them. I know I don't exactly look the friendliest right now, but-I don't know... I'd just... I'd hate to bother you with it..." As his sentence trailed off, he started to hug himself while looking miserable. This did not stop Hoshina from laughing his ass off.

"BAHAHAHA! YOU THOUGH- I CAN'T BELIEVE- HAHAHA! OH THE MOON NEEDS TO SAVE ME- BWAHAHAHAH! Kafka let this continue for a few minutes as he disgruntledly watched Hoshina roll around on the sled, stuck in a fit of laughter.

"Are you done yet?" Kafka asked with clear irritation as he took off the harness.

"Hoo, maybe?" Hoshina wheezed,finaly stopping and getting to his hands and knees.

Kafka walked over to the back of the sled and pulled off one of the upper containers of ice before reaching into the one underneath it. He pulled out a deeply stained and wet looking sack as he leaned against the same side of the supplies Hoshina was aligned with. He slid down the side, hitting the snow with a heavy thump.

"I take it you have no problems if I just started?" He questioned, mainly just to remain polite.

"Knock yourself out." Hoshina gasped, "It's safe to say I'd rather have you strong than starving."

Kafka returned the sentiment with a crabby growl and pulled out a large heart from the bag. It was a little bigger than the man's clawed hand and had already started to drip full-blown rivulets down his arm. Opening his mouth as wide as he could, Hoshina watched with a startling level of interest as Kafka bit down as hard as he could onto the heart. Blood did certainly shoot straight out of every possible spot on the organ, staining the snow in front of Kafka and leaked profusely out of his mouth as it fell onto his bare chest. He sputtered out a string of colorful curses as he watched the incident unfold. All this did was send Hoshina flying into another laughing fit.

"THIS ISN'T THAT FUNNY!" Kafka yelled at him around a mouth full of muscle and tissue, making specks of blood fly everywhere.

"Oh Spirits ABOUND, this is hilarious!" Hoshina countered as he rolled around on the floor of the sled again.

"Yeah, well, get back to me after trying to eat a soup dumpling twice the size of your mouth and then we can talk!" Kafka said as he furiously stuffed the last of the heart into his mouth before grabbing another one.

"Oh, man! Maybe I should bring some by next time!" His traveling partner heaved without thinking. He stopped and looked over at Kafka once he heard the beast-man suddenly choke on his food. As Hoshina regulated his breathing, he flopped onto his back to stare up to the sky and really thought about what he had said.

"Well, I mean, the guy is pretty lonely." Hoshina thought as more heat flooded his cheeks, "Somebody should check up on him every once in a while. And as a Spirit Consultant and Hunter, checking up on a spirit's well being would technically fall under the job description. Alright, so he's not technically a spirit, but the town considers him to be one. Albeit they think he's potentially hostile, but I have to have a talk with the Chief anyway since I'm not going to be killing anything that's benevolent and, honestly, quite kind. Maybe after everything I could set something up with the sister in the interim. I'd like to think he'd appreciate that, getting to see his sister again. I would have to come up with a safer way for the two of them to meet. I'd hate to think she would have to climb up a mountain every time she wanted to visit her brother."

A few moments later, Kafka finished another heart and wrapped the bag back up. Hoshina watched him put the bag away and placed the barrels back where they needed to go.

"Just need a couple, huh?" Hosina asked.

"Are you kidding? I wish. I want to plow through this whole bag, but if I do then I won't have any after I finish pulling the sled though the sea." He replied as he dropped to his knees and tried to use the snow to clean off the blood from his chest.

"Wait, does that mean you have a second form or are you going to be pulling the sled with that wolf form?" Hoshina continued to question.

"Yeah, I've got a second one. I just turn even more scaly and develop these massive webbed hands." Kafka answere, walking around to the front of the sled.

"And what? You were just going to suprise me it that when we hit the water?" He asked with an indignant tone.

"I mean... yeah?" Kafka said sheepishly, "My original plan only had me using my swimmer form and I would have grabbed the hearts after you left for town. But then the polar bear-dogs showed up and, well, that plan is out the window." Hoshina decided to let the offence slide since he seemed really embarrassed about his unusual snack needs.

"Do you have any others?" He asked, shifting back into a sitting position.

"Just the two as far as I know. I haven't really felt the need to experiment with... all this" Kafka replied as he gestured to all of himself.

"Why not?" Hoshina questioned as his eyes followed Kafka, "What if you have something really cool or useful tucked away, like wings? Or maybe there was a way to look a-"

"A little more human?" Kafka interjected with a sad, but knowing smirk, "I've thought about it, but the cost of finding out is a little steep for me." He said as he slipped the harness back on.

"I guess it does sound taxing, having to collect all those hearts." Hoshina contemplated as he leaned against the sled's front.

"It's not just that." Kafka warned, "Every time I... discovered a new form, it was under stressful conditions. Like, 'I feel like I'm gonna die' kinda stressful. And after I get out of the problem... I'm not myself."

His words took on a cautionary tone as he continued, "Everything was fine the first time. I found the swimming form first when I tried to hunt this really stubborn tiger shark. I wasn't used to hunting large prey in the water and the bastard started kicking my ass. I got too deep and started to black out. Next thing I knew I was floating face up, twenty miles from shore, surrounded by blood, and sporting a new look. It wasn't my blood, so I wrote it off then. Finding the wolf form... went a little differently."

Kafka cut himself off and started to pull the sled. Hoshina wondered if that was the end of the conversation, thinking that he couldn't bring himself to talk about it. Having pried enough sob stories out of the man, he decided to leave the line of questioning there for now. Hoshina was pretty thankful to have gotten any questions of his answered on this excursion with minimal fight, a stark contrast to any other time he had to interrogate anyone while on a mission. Still, his mind drifted off on it's own and started to ask its own questions.

He had never heard of someone successfully bonding to a spirit like this before. Most spirit encounters that finished with physical contact usually ended with bodily disfigurement or death, either by the encounter itself or because the affected couldn't continue living in such a manner. This was his first time not only meeting, but seeing someone gain a wide array of tangible benefits from being spirit-touched. The encounter itself was odd to begin with. Why would a spirit select out someone who was at a disadvantage in a fight? What was its intent for that? To help? Or to hinder? And why would there be such a powerful increase by touching a strange, glowing sphere?

Maybe this sphere was made out of spiritual energy, but Hoshina would have to look at it for sure. The North had a spot just behind the royal palace that was a hot spot for spiritual energy, so it would make sense for there to be one at its Sister City. Still, Kafka had made it sound like touching it had caused him to permanently bond to the spirit, which made him consider the act itself to be impossible. Either that's not the case here, or Kafka is an incredibly strong person to have survived that. He took a sidelong glance at the beast-man pulling the sled, watching the surface of his back flex under a thick layer of protective fat. He wouldn't doubt it, Kafka being strong enough to survive a permanent bonding to a spirit. He survived this long with it, so it made Hoshina wonder how he was before all this happened.

"You alright back there?" Kafka called back unexpectedly.

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine. Is there a problem?" Hoshina answered back.

"Nothin'. Just sounds like you're thinking pretty hard." He explained.

"Don't tell me you can hear literal thoughts?" Hoshina playfully joked.

"Na!" Kafka joked with him, "Just heard your heart rate tank a little, got concerned is all."

"I was just thinking about how odd your spirit encounter is. It's not unusual to hear about spirits wanting something from the body, like their blood or their face, but this is the first time I'm hearing one craving hearts." He ruminated.

A brief pause filled the air as they continued down the path with Kafka breaking it first, "Do... do you have stories? About the First Hunter up in the North?" He asked.

"No, not really. Most are about how the Moon and the Ocean provide our every need and how we shouldn't take them for granted." Hoshina noted, "Stories about First Hunters tend to be an Earth Kingdom staple, I've noticed."

"That's funny. We've got one here in the South." Kafka started, "Wanna hear it?"

"Go right ahead. Stories are shockingly invaluable in my line of work." Hoshina answered.

"Well, it pretty much starts how mine did." He began plainly, "But instead of a group of people, it was just one lone guy. There wasn't a disease, at least not in the versions I've heard, but the guy's village was starving. So off he goes out into the wild white yonder and promptly starts dying."

"Cutting straight to the fun stuff, I see." Hoshina teased, the smirk on his lips audible in his voice.

"I'm giving you the abridged version." Kafka retorted sarcastically, "Anyway, he's on his death bed when he's visited by a spirit. The spirit comes up to him and says 'You idiot, you don't know how to hunt. You're supposed to start small.'."

"With severe paraphrasing as well." Hoshina mocked.

"Will you let me finish?" Kafka chortled back as he rolled his eyes, "The spirit gives the man enough energy and tells him to start hunting white hamsters. After he collects enough of them, the spirit returns and tells him what to do with the bodies. They say 'Their skin is your clothes, their blood is your war paint, their bones will be your needles and traps, and their meat shall be your bait.'. To which the hunter goes 'And what of their hearts?' and the spirit says 'Their hearts shall be your sustenance. Disobey my ruling and you will suffer greatly.'. Having suffered enough already, the guy listens and does as the spirit says, not thinking twice about it. He moves up through the food chain and starts hunting bigger and bigger animals. He keeps to the same rules as the spirit said, skin is clothes, bones as weapons, yada-yada-yada. But as he keeps to the rule about eating the animal's hearts, something starts to change."

"He starts growing taller, his hands get bigger, his teeth grow longer and sharper, and after he gets to the biggest animal he can hunt, he doesn't look human anymore. The guy is so excited about being able to hunt so successfully, he doesn't notice what has happened to him. As he gets back to the village, they turn on him and chase him back to the wild's edge from where he came because they don't recognize him, making him leave behind his bag of spoils. As the villagers make a grab for it, they watch as all of it quickly begins to rot right in front of their eyes."

"And from here is where the story kinda tapers off into different endings." Kafka finished, "Some say they find the hunter and apologize. Others say the spirit talks to the hunter and berates him, saying that this was all a punishment for forsaking the Ocean's bounty and the Moon's blessing. There's one where the spirit talks to the guy and instead of insulting him, he reassures him that this was necessary and that there will be a day where they will understand. That this is what he has to be to survive out there." He turned around and gave Hoshina a bittersweet smirk, "You can probably guess which one I prefer."

"Is this your way of saying that you think the same spirit you met out there was the same one from the story?" Hoshina inquired.

"Lines up pretty well, doesn't it?" Kafka offered to think about, "I just messed up how the story was supposed to go."

The two of them traveled in quiet contemplation after that. The silence didn't stick around too long as Kafka popped up with another thing to say.

"Actually, scratch that. I just remembered the ending I liked better." He said with a sneaky chuckle.

"Oh?" Hoshina said, his attention fully grasped.

"There's one my sister told me about after hanging out with the town's midwives association. It's still funny every time I think about it." He continued to chuckle, "So someone came up with an extended version of the story where the Hunter runs off and the chief's daughter is the only one concerned about the guy. She runs into the snowy plains thinking she's gonna find the guy the monster imprisoned. There were three separate encounters where the princess had a hairy run-in with the local wild life and almost died, The hunter shows up to save her, but he scares her so badly she runs off again. After about the third time this happens, the princess finally gets it and convinces the Hunter to go back to the village. Once they arrive, the townsfolk get all up in arms once they see them. To convince them that the Hunter is on their side, she outright kisses him on the lips!" Kafka had to take a second to stop laughing before he could finish. It didn't help that Hoshina was trying to hold back a fit of giggles himself.

"The story ends with the kiss turning the Hunter back into a human. After that happens, they get married, and once a month the guy ventures out into the wilds behind the village to hunt. Before he leaves, the princess gives him a kiss and it turns him back into a monster so he can survive out there." Kafka turned so he could face his passenger and showed him the wonky smile he had on his face, "Isn't that the sappiest thing you've ever heard?"

"I think that dynamic sure would have made their honeymoon interesting." Hoshina raunchily implied.

"And that's why I think that version of the old wives tale is total yak shit!" Kafka sputtered as he broke back out into a laugh, "Only someone desperate for a partner would come up with something like that."

"Or someone with a very specific preference." Hoshina giggled.

As they talked, they hadn't noticed the shifty blobs of movement happening on the curling fingers placed high above their surroundings. When one of these unidentified figures caused an unnatural shadow to cross Hoshina's eyes, did he finally look up. As he looked all around, he saw a herd of snow leopard-caribou perched on the ledges over them.

"Uhhhh, Kafka?" Hoshina droned anxiously.

"Yeah, I see them." Kafka said calmly as he tried to assure.

"Should we do something about them?" Hoshina countered, running through everything he could think of as far as what to do when encountering such a beast.

"Nah. She'll come talk to me when she's ready." He said, still moving at an even pace.

"I'm sorry, She?" Hoshina retorted shrilly.

Hoshina watched as one of the leopard-caribou stood taller and prouder than the rest. It hunched down as if to watch where it was going to land and quickly kept from its perch. As it landed, its visibly impressive weight tossed up the powdery snow, causing it to swirl around it with a majestic air. Even from this long distance, Hoshina could see and almost feel the size of the beast. It was clearly well fed and stared down the two of them with crystal intent. He watched as Kafka casually shed the harness once more and started calmly walking towards the horned animal.

"Kafka! Kafka!" He harshly whispered at him, trying not to startle the rest by yelling.

It wasn't long before Kafka stopped in his walk over to the beast and slowly dropped to a knee. A clear, warbling, moan could be heard echoing off the rounded walls. The noise repeated itself in what seemed to be a very specific pattern. Hoshina stared in amazement as the leopard-caribou in front of them started to respond back in a similar way. Kafka started a different string of loud mewls and growls before moving in a very awkward crouch-walk over to the talking beast. The beast moved forward as well, making the two of them meet in some sort of middle ground. Kafka had fully dropped to his hands now and was crawling in a circle, matching the path set by his animal friend.

They performed some sort of weird meeting ritual, walking in a circle as they playfully yelled at each other while being very much in each other's faces. Then the cat started to bat at Kafka, not with any true harm behind it, but very obviously in a similar way one would slap the back of a close friend heartily. Kafka rose to his knees and returned the affection, making the two of them start a very loud mock battle for dominance. It was all very absurd to Hoshina, watching a grown man roll around in the snow with a beast that had been known to sever limbs from those without common sense. Despite the confusion, he found the scene quite endearing. Like how an affectionate man would greet their very large pet after a long day at work. He even let loose a giggle as Kafka man-handled the leopard-caribou onto his back while in his lap and gave it aggressive belly rubs. He distantly heard the phrase 'Are you hungry?', which made the furry companion become very excitable.

As he saw the two of them start a race to the sled, Hoshina quickly ducked under the lip of the sled out of fear. His heart raced as he listened for the puffy pounding of their footsteps rapidly coming closer. His heart might have even skipped a beat as they became louder, but slowed drastically. He made out Kafka's heaving panting over the ringing in his ears. Hoshina was almost certain it fully stopped for a second as he witnessed the quite gentle face of the snow leopard-caribou whip its head around the corner of the sled.

"Aww, did you find him Sweet Pea?" Kafka said as his clawed paw came down to gently rub the beast's head, "Get out from under there! She wouldn't hurt a fly." He continued as he shocked Hoshia by hooking one of his claws in the hood of his coat and pulling him out from his hiding spot.

Hoshina gave a small yelp and quickly tried to back away from the beast, making it jump and place her paws on the body of the sled.

"Ooh! Bad move! Now she wants to chase ya." Kafka joked as he watched.

"I take it you're... friends... with this thing?" Hoshina's voice cracked a little as he resisted the urge to run screaming.

"Her name is Sweet Pea. And yes, I raised her from a cub. I tried not to let her be too desensitized to being around humans, but she might have imprinted on me a little. Wanna pet her?" He offered.

"N-n-no thank you! I-I'd like to keep my hands please." Hoshina stuttered as he continued to cower.

"Ahh, come on! it'll be fine!" Kafka insisted,

He sat down on the edge of the sled and held his hand out to Hoshina. As he tentatively took it, he was forcefully jerked forward and was pulled up next to Kafka. Hoshina felt his large body shift and a warm arm wrap around to the other side, fully trapping him to the spot. As the arm gently squeezed him, the other slid slowly down to his other hand and slotted their fingers into each other. Hoshina's whole arm trembled as he licked his lips nervously, watching it being slowly raised to meet the creature's head.

"You don't have to be afraid, I'm right here." Kafka whispered softly right into his ear, distracting Hoshina just enough until he felt their hand make contact with Sweet Pea's fur.

"Oh my moon and stars!" Hoshina quietly gasped, "This is the softest fur I think I have ever touched."

Kafka speechlessly guided their hands around the welcoming creature's head, helping him softly carding their fingers behind her horns and under its chin. Hoshina gasped again as the leopard-caribou started to purr appreciatively, her eyes closing in happiness. He yelped a little from shock as the horned cat's tongue reached down and licked at Hoshina's wrist.

"Like being licked by a slab of wet sandstone, huh?" Kafka laughed.

He moved away from Hoshina and guided his friend over to the sled. As Kafka left, it became very clear to him how he could walk around in the cold without a shirt. The man radiated about as much warmth as a Fire Nation standard blast furnace! He curiously watched as Kafka and the leopard-caribou inspected the side of the sled, sniffing every container with interest. The beast eventually batted a paw at one of the containers at the top, making it clear it wanted what was in that one.

"Yeah, you smell the liver in that one, don'tcha?" Kafka teased and he undid some of the ropes holding them in place.

He picked up the container and shifted its weight to one hand, tossing it lightly to test the heft of it. As he took a few lunging steps away from the sled, it looked like Kafka was rearing his hand back and taking up a throwing stance. With a powerful grunt, he sent the container up and over the walls of the tube, sending it clear and far away from them. They watched as the rest of Sweet Pea's herd stared down the flying package and hopped off their roosts to chase after it. Before Sweet Pea left with them, she turned and looked up at Kafka with an unusually clear and loving expression. Kafka returned the favor and knelt down to giver her one last hug.

"It's amazing. I didn't think Snow Leopard-Caribou could be that affectionate." Hoshina remarked, feeling completely floored.

"It's kinda hard not to bond with someone when all you've got left is each other." Kafka said somberly as he finished up another round of vicious head-rubs.

They watched intently as Sweet Pea darted away and nimbly climbed up and over the walls, quickly moving out of sight.

"Do you visit her often?" Hoshina asked casually.

"I try not to.' Kafka answered, "But we do have a habit of finding each other when I'm out hunting around."

"A true vision of majesty." Hoshina mumbled to himself, "Almost made me glad I ended up here."

"Good on me for managing to keep her alive." Kafka chuckled and he moved to put the harness back on.

"How'd you find her anyway?" Hoshina questioned innocently as he shifted to a different sitting position. He watched as Kafka began to visibly tense up again.

"I... I accidentally killed the herd she came from." He finally confirmed, deciding not to look back as he said it.

"Accidentally?" Hoshina buzzed to himself. His mind must have been feeling better as it jumped to some shockingly sensible conclusions. He thought back to a previous conversation about Kafka's different forms and the consequences of spiritual form shifting. The lines of connection suddenly became very clear as Hoshina realized why he seemed so guarded about his shifting.

"Oh." He gasped quietly.

"Yeah." Kafka confirmed when he understood what Hoshina figured out, "The least I could do was give her a chance, right? That's what any parent wants for their child." There was a long pause as this new information settled down between them.

"You're a very selfless person, I hope you know this." Hoshina tried to lighten the mood after they started.

Kafka shrugged, "That's because I'm strong enough now to not have it come around and bite me back in the ass."

For the rest of the journey through the Snake's Rib Cage, they traveled in silence. At first it was uncomfortable, being so quiet with each other. They had become so used to the consistent stream of questions that Hoshina seemed to be in no short supply of. It was a habit of his job description, to ask plenty of questions. Nothing about spirits is completely cataloged in any easy manner. Most anything that would be useful to know is passed around by word of mouth, and as Kafka mentioned earlier most stories have different endings. When it comes to the matter of spirits, any, all, or none of those versions could be true when it's about their weaknesses or preferences or just how to work with them in general.

This was all something the Avatar was supposed to deal with, but at the moment he seemed preoccupied with restoring balance and order to the warring Fire Nation Families. Hoshina's family had deep ties to shipping and trading companies, so he grew up with his fair share of hearing about delays and complications pertaining to spiritual disruptions. Since he was the fourth son and had no real goal bestowed upon him by the head of the family, his father, he decided to teach himself about the problems. Only for the outcome of this self-inflicted torture to incentivize him to take on the problem himself.

He knew better than to go into this with no plan and with an on-the-fly preparation. Hoshina gathered as much information as he could first, having tomes and scrolls sent to him before not being content with just words and pictures and deciding to travel for more. Not bothering with a proper send-off, he left a family that wouldn't have understood and decided to take on a never-ending goal of understanding spirits on a fundamental level. Eventually word got out about a capable warrior that had the deepest source of publicly available knowledge concerning spirits and, well, here he is now. Getting the unintentional cold shoulder from a half man-half beast spirit whose whole existence defied everything Hoshina had learned before this side quest. If he didn't have a headache before, he certainly had one now.

The quiet between them eventually grew less awkward and more... understandable. Hoshina did pry a lot of information out of the man, and while the man in question was pretty forthcoming with it, it was all quite the heavy subject material. Kafka seemed almost glad at times to have someone willing to take some of the burden off of his broad chest, so Hoshina eventually learned to emphasize that someone in this situation would probably like a breather from the bombardment. Instead, he focused on the currently changing environment. The walls peeled away and tapered off, almost melding into the still mountainous walls around them. The path under them started to sound less like snow over rock and more so snow over ice again.

Taking their time rounding through a wide curve in the natural road under them, Hoshina eventually began to see the horizon kissing the deep blue sea that surrounded the South Pole. The sun set the water on fire as it sat low in the sky, practically threatening to drop them into abyssal darkness. Still being quite high up, Hoshina felt the first few wild punches of that cold ocean air hitting his face, tingling his cheeks until they were pinker than a ripe peach. He felt the sled hit a large bump as the quality of the ice under them distinctly shifted. Kafka soon stopped and wrestled the harness back off and walked around to the side of the sled. Taking this opportunity, Hoshina jumped off and stretched his legs.

"What are we stopping for, if you don't mind me asking?" He said as he felt his muscles scream as he shifted his weight to pull on them.

"Just doin' last checks on the sled and supplies. Makin' sure everything is tied down well enough and all that." Kafka answered as he tugged on all the rope and knots holding everything together.

"Good call. Can't be losing all that effort to the sea's cold indifference." Hoshina said as he recalled an old sailor's hymn.

"So am I not the only one that grew up in a shipyard?" Kafka chuckled, grinning hard for the first time in a while.

"Not quite. My family managed a lot of shipping deals among other things. Mainly heard it from all the boats I've hitched a ride on." Hoshina corrected him.

Hoshina hopped back on to the sled and curiously watched Kafka pull up the harness from the ground, but not put it back on. He tossed the line onto the sled and grabbed the curled lip of it and started pulling.

"What are you doing?" Hoshina worriedly questioned as he looked down the slope created by the glacier they were resting on top of.

"Pulling the sled until it starts moving on its own?" Kafka returned back with his own questioning tone. He looked back to see Hoshina start to pale from fear as he continued to look down to where the glacier meets the sea.

"Do you have any extra rope slack I can use to tie myself to the supplies?" Hoshina inquired as he swallowed hard.

"You'll be fine! This isn't nearly as steep as the mountain. And you get to see it all this time!" Kafka tried to be cheerful and encouraging for his frightened passenger.

"That's the problem." Hoshina's voice trembled as he scooted as far back as he could in the sled.

"Don't worry, I'll hold ya through it." Kafka teased as he winked at him.

He suddenly started to sprint down the glacier, dragging the sled into his shocking pace. Hoshina began to scream obscenities at the top of his lungs as he helplessly watched the sled being dragged toward their doom. As the sled picked up considerable speed, Kafka jumped and pulled himself onto the sled with his back facing the water they were sliding towards. He pulled Hoshina into a crushing, protective hug as he laughed the whole time. Hoshina was left screaming still, it was just now muffled by Kafka's chest. They nearly fell off of the sled as it made an impact with the water. The freezing ocean came down all around them with Kafka's back and arms taking the brunt of the offence. As the sled's violent rocking eventually settled down, Kafka let go of Hoshina. Hoshina, in kind, harshly pushed himself away from the embrace.

"You idiot! You could have killed us!" Hoshina screamed at him as his chest heaved with deep, panicking breaths.

Kafka chuckled as he shoved his wet hair off of his shoulders, "And that's why I have to balance the sled differently for each trip."

"I regret ever leaving with you." Hoshina growled vehemently.

Kafka just chuckled again as he carefully moved to the side of the wooden platform and slipped into the arctic waters below. Hoshina waited for him to come back up and found a fountain of bubbles instead. Moments later, something rose up from the dark waters with a large splash in front of the sled-turned-boat. Out popped the changed face of Kafka.

He had certainly looked different than before. The edges of his ears had developed a translucent, scalloped ridge. His skin looked a shade darker and more greenish-grey. Hoshina almost thought he saw the patterns of scales that appeared on the black swath on his body continued across his whole chest. The horns on his head shrunk just slightly and straightened out, developing a twisting ridge. His canines shrunk as well, the tips of them were now just touching the plump parts of his lips instead of uncomfortably slicing into the skin above and below them. Kafka shook his head forcefully and pulled out the hair comb. He put it in his teeth as he pulled his hair up and back, twisting it all into a bun and shoved the comb through it.

"Thanks to that bridge you made, we've been making good time so far. It should still be dark by the time I get this pulled to where I can safely pull it onto shore." Kafka swam around until he could put his arms up on the edge of the sled and looked Hoshina in the eyes as he talked, "I'm gonna be honest with ya, this is probably the sketchiest part of the journey for us. I can only do so much in this form and you can't use bending to save yourself. Boats don't make it out this far and it's a long, cold swim to anywhere that you can safely walk on. If you see anything coming, let me handle it. Don't worry about me, I won't leave you here out in the dark and the cold so far from home."

Kafka moved a hand up in an offering hand shake, "Promise."

Hoshina looked at the hand with some apprehension before breathing deep and clasping it in earnest, "I know you will."

Kafka started to move to the back of the sled, but stopped short and looked back at Hoshina, "Also, could you do me a favor and call out anything that might block our path? It's the other reason this trip takes so damn long. It's like I have to stop every few feet and push something else out if the way."

Hosina reached back and pulled out another spear from the bundle in the supply pile, "I think I can help with that." He said as he brandished the spear proudly.

And on they went for tedious nautical miles. It certainly went quicker now that Kafka had someone to push errant ice flows out of the way. Every once in a while, Hoshina would call out to Kafka to come to the front so he could break up some of the bigger and thicker ice slabs. Icebergs and an unfeeling ocean wasn't the only thing Hoshina got to see. He got more than a life times worth of experience watching the penguin-otters, the pods of turtle-seals, and even got to see a bull whale come up for air near the sled. It wasn't much different from the wild life he grew up seeing on boating trips with his family in the North, and he had seen an exotic variety of animals on his far reaching travels, but he couldn't deny that it felt different this time.

Maybe it was the company, maybe it was what led him here in the first place, knowing him it was most likely the change of pace from having to hunt and fight and just... help a guy out for a day. Sure, subduing spirits was helping more people out, but it didn't really lead to the kind of intense connection someone could make when it was just the two of them. Not to mention the guy he was connecting with seemed really desperate for... anything really. Of course they both knew this wasn't going to last, but as he kept pushing ice flow after flow out of the way, he considered that maybe that's what felt so special about this, what was going on right now.

As Hoshina pulled himself back from the edge of the sled, trying to keep himself from falling into the freezing water, something flashed out of the corner of his eye. Far in front of them was an unnatural disturbance in the movement of the ocean's surface. He had gone fishing enough times to tell when a fish's back got too close to the surface, but from the size of the contrasting ripples, this had to have been a legendary size.

"Hey! Hold up a second!" He called out, not taking his eyes off of where the ripples originated from.

"Is it another chunk of ice?" Kafka guessed from the back of the sled.

"No. Something else I think." Hoshina's voice dropped a little as Kafka swam up next to him. His watchful eyes continued to scan the tops of the water for anything that matched what he saw earlier.

"I... thought I saw something like a fish, but... it looked too big for that." Hoshina clarified as he started to think he was just catching the last of the sun's rays off of the water.

"Spirits abound, don't tell me..." Kafka muttered anxiously as he made a quick lap around the floating sled, snapping his head around at anything moving close by.

"What? What is it?" Hoshina quickly asked.

"Don't tell me he migrated early again." Kafka said cryptically as he came back around in a full circle.

"Kafka, who's he?" Hoshina questioned again, matching Kafka's nervous state.

"This big, problematic fucker I tussle with sometimes." Kafka finally answered as he kept whipping his head around.

The two of them looked off to the left at just the right time to catch the dark, needle tips breaking out of the water attached to something moving towards their direction. Kafka immediately dunked his head under the gentle waves for a moment, only to come up gasping for air.

"Stay in the boat!" Kafka yelled as he briefly looked back at Hoshina.

"What's coming? What's going on!" Hoshina quickly fired back, dropping to his hands at the edge of the sled.

"Just stay in the boat!" Kafka worriedly commanded again before taking off under the water.

He came back quickly to take the spear out of Hoshina's hands, "Remember, don't worry about me." Kafka's stead fast gaze penetrated deep into Hoshina's scared expression.

He soon ducked back under the waves again, leaving Hoshina on his own. He could feel his pulse quicken and his breathing shallow out. He backed up from the edge and shifted closer to the supplies. His hands were shaking as he drew out another spear from the pile, taking a mental note of how many were left. He started wishing he had his bending back, or at least have Haruichi with him. Hoshina nervously chuckled as he thought about how ecstatic that hill-billy would have been at the thought of wrangling something twice to three times the size of him.

Miles out into the ocean, Hoshina saw periods of frantic movement, creating wide splashes as it happened. As the disturbances drew closer, he got a better and better view of what Kafka might have been talking about. Something long, dark, and serpentine was cresting out of the water in broad arches. Through the crashing of water, he could almost make out a chopped up string of colorful curses. Time felt like it was slowing the closer the possible danger came towards the sled. On the last arch that appeared before the sled, Hoshina got a pretty good idea what was coming for them.

A Woolly Unagi, a massive Arctic salt water eel the size and length of a dragon. Its skin was a midnight blue with a white mane made out of an almost hair-like material, growing out of its back as it lined the sides of its tall dorsal fins. Powerful enough to launch its upper body out of the water and loved to slam its mighty weight down onto innocent shipping vessels, this beast was only heard about from old sailor tales. Most had believed it was a myth or had been hunted to extinction. But one still existed apparently, and it was headed right for the sled.

Precariously attached to the topside of the head, was Kafka shouting every curse he could think of as he held on to the whip-like bundle of whiskers that perched on the beast's mouth like a comically thin mustache. He was pulling on them like how one would do with ostrich-horse reigns and suddenly screamed with effort. His tactic managed to narrowly direct the Unagi from crashing spectacularly onto the sled. The waves caused by the splash down happening so close to the sled nearly sent Hoshina overboard by their force alone. He scrambled to his feet quickly as he watched the long body slip back under the waves again.

"Kafka? KAFKA!" Hoshina shouted as he watched the disturbed ripples peter out.

It wasn't long before he saw the two of them rise out of the water again, a safer distance from the sled this time. The head of the Unagi shot out of the ocean and thrashed around in the open. It let out a deafening, pained wail as it stayed in the air. Hoshina could just barely make out Kafka as well, but he seemed to be stuck inside the beast's mouth. Hoshina heard more cursing as well as the sound of a large stick beating uselessly against hardened flesh. As the Unagi turned around, he got a better view of what was going on. Kafka was hanging out of its mouth and was beating the broken shaft of the spear on the upside of its head, the tip of the spear lodged in the beast's right eye. The Unagi couldn't hold its own weight up any longer and dropped back down under the waves.

Hoshina couldn't stop himself from shaking as he stood there, feeling useless. His breath became shorter and quicker the angrier he got. His fists came up to clutch his coat as he looked down at it, before violently shedding it in fear and rage. So what if he didn't have his bending right now, there was someone in trouble! Kafka had gone so far out of his way to make sure he was safe and getting him back to his team, and he wasn't just going to have him struggling by himself against this overwhelming threat.

After he got the coat off, he leaned back down to grab the spear. Walking to the edge of the sled, he hesitated for a moment, suddenly understanding what he was about to do. The temperature of the water out here was cold enough to send anyone into shock within minutes if they weren't careful, but anything had to be better than staying up on the surface. Just as his foot hovered over the water, poised to drop in, a large splash of water appeared before him that sent him flying backwards. As he righted himself off of his back, Hoshina looked down at his feet to see who had appeared.

"Damn me to the DEPTHS!" Kafka roared as he threw his upper body onto the sled, "I had him! I had him dead to rights!"

He tossed the broken spear onto the sled before trying to haul himself up. It became very clear that doing so was bringing him pain. Hoshina shot up and crawled over to help bring Kafka up onto the sled. Having him laid out on the floor of their boat, Hoshina got a pretty good look at the damage the Unagi had done. In a curved line reaching from halfway up his ribs and passing through his lower hips, was a series of dashed and jagged teeth marks. All of them were bleeding profusely, the color of the blood turning into pink watercolors as it mixed with the sea water running off his body. Kafka gathered just enough strength to turn himself over onto his back, groaning as he did.

"KAFKA!" Hoshina cried out as he looked at the extent of his injuries.

He turned and dug through the supplies trying to find if there was anything he could use for bandages. When he didn't, he turned and his attention zeroed in on his coat. As he grabbed and and was about to tear it into some sort of usable strips, he heard Kafka wheezing out to Hoshina.

"Don-Don't. I'm fine." Kafka hissed as he pulled out an errant tooth from his abdomen, "This'll all clog up in a minute or two."

"Kafka, you are not fine! This is the opposite of fine!" Hoshina berated him as he dragged the coat over to at least try to stop the bleeding from the wound he pulled the tooth out of.

"I heal fast. It's part of my spirit power yakshit." Kafka tried to chuckle but instead it turned into a cough.

"Fun fact," He added once he stopped, "Unagi are poisonous, so you get to see me walk that off too." Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth as he cracked a smirk, "Wanna tooth?" He handed over the one he pulled out of himself.

"Can you be serious right now! How can you have all these supplies on this sled and not have any bandages?" Hoshina continued to chastise as he rapidly scanned over Kafka, making sure he wan't missing a finger and not saying anything.

"Don't need to if I just heal quicker than needed" Kafka grunted as he tried to gently push the now soaked coat off of him, "Seriously, don't ruin your coat over me."

Hoshina just huffed as he continued to look down at him, "And you expect me to sit here and just... do nothing?" He hadn't noticed his upper lip started quivering until Kafka brought up a callused knuckle to his cheek.

"Hey, I get it. You're used to taking command, making sure people don't get hurt under your care. But guess what buddy, I'm the one that's gotta make sure you come out the other side of this." His hand dropped by his head as his gaze never left, "I'm used to taking a hit."

Hoshina's eyes and hand drifted towards Kafka's outstretched one, "You're sure you're going to be fine after this?" He asked quietly.

"For the most part, yeah." Kafka answered, "Poison's makin' me wanna pass out though, and I'd hate to leave ya hanging here."

The two of them sat there for a while, just enjoying being able to breathe. It wasn't long after Kafka decided to speak up again.

"Hey, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?" He asked, "Makes it your turn to help keep me awake." He chuckled weakly.

"Oh, I don't know." Hoshina deferred, "I'm not that interesting."

"Aww, don't be like that! That's just because you already know the endings to your stories." Kafka countered, "Why don't you take a crack at telling it to someone else for a change."

Hoshina wasn't sure about all of this, but he did make a point. Kafka already did the same thing for him earlier in the day, so it would make sense to return the favor.

"I mean, it would be kinda rude of me not to, having him pour his heart to me and all that." He thought.

And so he did. He talked about as much as he could bring up. His family, his life growing up in a rich house built on shipping trades and their protection, what made him decide to pick up a life of travel and research. He talked about his mother; an apathetic woman that only saw her twin daughters, his father; a man only interested in his oldest who was to inherit the family name, his brother; a spoiled rotten bully that liked to rub how he was better at almost everything. He despised his father, resented his brother, and somehow came to understand why his mother acted the way she did with the rest of the family, but only after he had left quietly and looked back with unclouded eyes. Talking to Kafka made him realize that, deep down inside, he was just a very angry man.

Angry at his family ignoring him. Angry at how the Avatar was the only one who was supposed to be dealing with these rampaging spirits. Angry that there wasn't any way for the common people to take care of this or have any way to learn about how to deal with this problem on their own. A part of him wanted to say that it angered him at how much effort he was having to put into all of this, but he held his tongue on that. Not because it would have made it sound like he was complaining about it, but that he wasn't actually angry in the first place. Just... tired. He was exhausted of trying to fill in a gap left by someone so incredibly powerful with lackluster solutions and a half-baked dream. That he did talk about.

It felt good. Talking it all out. He felt close to his party, but he never felt like talking about anything close to himself. He started to wonder if that was a mistake, that maybe it would have made them work better together if they weren't so closed off to each other. He could see why Kafka let everything loose on the first person that would listen. It must have been painful after a while, holding it all in with no one to talk to but to the shadows on the wall. Hoshina hadn't realized just how long he kept talking. The sun had fully dropped from view a long time ago, but the moon was so bright that nothing felt like it had changed. It wasn't until he started to see aberrant colors reflecting in the water did he look up to the sky.

"The Spirit Lights." Hoshina gasped in amazement, "I didn't know they happened at the South Pole as well."

"It's why we have the festival. We think it keeps the spirits happy, thus gifting us the lights." Kafka said, matching the quiet amazement.

The two of them watched the swaying and swelling strips of cool blues and bright greens blanket the sky, making the stars flicker in a rhythmic pattern only nature could read the beat of. It was a long pause, but it had only felt like seconds before Hoshina started to understand that they were still on a time limit.

"shit- How long does night last around here?" Hoshina asked as he scanned around where they were.

"Practically forever at this point. We've got time if you wanna watch a little longer.' Kafka offered with some veiled hopefulness as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"I'm sure I'll see plenty of it while we move. Here, let me look at you." Hoshina said as he gently pushed Kafka back to the floor of the sled.

He wasn't wrong when he said he healed fast. All of the wounds had closed up and were already a healthy, rosy pink color. He lightly pressed around most of the scars to make sure that there weren't any muscles tears hidden under the surface. He mainly checked out of habit, not really trusting Kafka's stance on his abnormal healing factor.

"Told you I would be fine." Kafka said as he placed a hand over Hoshina's, "I even feel fine enough to start pushing the sled again" He tried to move closer to the edge so he could slip off into the water, but was stopped by Hoshina before he could.

"Hold up, I think you lost your hair comb." He said as he noticed that Kafka's hair was falling down around his shoulders again.

"Wouldn't be surprised if I had. Feels like I'm loosing one every few months." Kafka answered as a hand came to pat at his hair.

Hoshina took a quick look around the sled to see if it had fallen out on the sled, When he didn't see it, he wondered if there was anything that would act as a good substitute. His eyes caught on the broken shaft of the spear and noticed that there was a long and fairly thick splinter stuck to the end of it. He reached over and managed to snap it off, having one end thicker than the other. Kafka had already dropped into the water, but Hoshina motioned him back over so he could help him pull his hair back. He pulled all the stringy lengths together and carefully wrapped it around the needle-like stick.

"There. Should hold until you can make something better." He said as he finished.

As he moved he looked over and saw the discarded tooth from earlier, "Would make for a crazy hair comb." He said as he picked it up.

"Naw, I've got better plans for that." Kafka returned as his hand investigated Hoshina's handiwork, "Hold on to it for me, would'ya?" he said as he tacked on a wink.

The rest of the trip went back to being uneventful. Hoshina went back to his appointed task of pushing away ice flotsam while Kafka slowly pushed the sled along. The amount of animals that Hoshina had seen earlier had greatly diminished, most likely being asleep right now. He wasn't wrong when he said he would see plenty more of the Spirit Lights as they traveled. They had continued well until they had reached shore, hitting landfall several miles away from the village. They could still see the lights of the festival from where they pulled up from the water, but they were dim in the haze of the wind that mixed with the snow.

After pulling the sled a safe distance away from any sort of ice or water and making sure they really had hit solid land, Hoshina had ordered for a dinner break. Kafka felt hesitant to eat again, knowing that all he was wanting was that bag of hearts. Hoshina argued against it stating that he didn't want to take any chances. They ate in quiet conversation with Kafka detailing what the last leg of the journey would look like. Should nothing surprising crop up, it was more or less a short jaunt over the foothills that rested at the base of the mountains. From there, Kafka would drop off the supplies on a mound he had selected years ago. It was in sight of one of the watch towers that lined the outer border of the town and it intersected a path a group of hunters took as they left town.

"There's a taller hill down the way that I hide the sled behind. I camp out under the snow once daylight hits and I stay there until someone shows up and discovers the drop off." Kafka talked about as he finished off a batch of seal jerky, having already finished off the hearts.

"Has anyone tried to camp out there before you show up? You know, to try and see who's been dropping off the food?" Hoshina asked as he dusted his mitts of food crumbs.

"Once or twice. I don't really have a reliable date for when I drop all this off, they just know it's during the festival. Until now, I've managed to just... wait them out." Kafka remarked, "They tend to give up at sunrise. I just wait until they leave to drop it off or just before the festival gets back into full swing. It's risky timing, but I can move fast when I need to."

Hoshina just nodded at the answer, thinking that it all sounded reasonable. The two of them got up and got ready to get the sled moving again. Hoshina opted to walk alongside Kafka at this part, having grown tired of sitting down all day. He had to borrow a pair of snow shoes that Kafka had crafted since the snow at this part was above ankle deep. Normally, this would have been solved with bending. Just another thing to curse his still throbbing head wound over. The walk was continued in silence as Hoshina had spent most of his concentration getting used to having snow shoes on his feet. This was fine as Kafka needed less distractions to keep vigilant for anything that could stop them.

They walked through several miles of uninteresting terrain. Mainly cutting through the foothills by using the shallow valleys in between them. They passed by some dead shrubbery and disturbed some snow rats, but ultimately nothing else happened. There wasn't even anybody camping out at his site waiting for him. The two of them blissfully shuffled all the supplies off of the sled and placed them right where they could easily be seen. As Hoshina finished moving the last of the bags and pelts, he caught Kafka staring longingly at the back gates to the town. He quietly placed everything down where they should and walked over to stand with him.

"It's no secret to say that you miss them, don't you? Being around people." Hoshina mused, wondering what it was like in Kafka's head right now.

"I promised her." Kafka started unexpectedly, "Every year I remember that I promised her that I would take her to see the festival when I got back from the trip. As cool and... aloof as she likes to act, she hates going anywhere alone. I sometimes worry myself to sleep, wondering if she's ever stepped out of the house after I left." Hoshina watched as the first rays of a new dawn got caught in the reflection of Kafka's tear, "That makes me a shitty brother, doesn't it? For not finding a way to make sure she could go anywhere without me... when I'm gone."

"Kafka..." Hoshina sighed warmly as a hand came up to rest on his arm, "You didn't know this was going to happen. You prepared for the trip like you were going to come back. And in any other case, you would have."

"I could have at least checked." Kafka's voice cracked as he held back a sob, "I've thought about a million different ways, I know that town upside-down and backwards, I could have found a way to check up on her by now. And I haven't." His other hand came up to wipe away the lone, hot tear, "Because I'm scared again. I don't want to risk it all and ruin the last image she has of her brother. I don't think I could handle it if she saw me now and ran screaming."

Hoshina looked away as Kafka continued to fight his small battle, "She's pretty lucky... to end up with a brother like you."

"What? To be related to a gutless coward?" Kafka huffed resentfully.

"To a man that continues to support her in any way he can." Hoshina retorted carefully, turning back to face him.

Kafka faced him as well, catching that stern, quiet, drive Hoshina held in his gaze that he tried to will back into Kafka. He looked away as his hand came up to pat at the one on his arm. Neither hand moved as they watched the rising sun blanket its warmth over the still buzzing festival.

"This... might be a bit selfish of me, and I'm aware this isn't really in your wheelhouse for me to ask, but..." Kafka hesitated as his lips were pursued in thought, "Would it be possible... for you to take my sister in my stead? I think it would be nice to have the chance to hear her voice among the crowd, just this once."

Their eyes met again. With Kafka's filled with sad hopefulness and Hoshina's with surprise that was soon replaced with empathy and resignation. His hand slid down Kafka's arm and met his other hand as they both clasped around the large, clawed paw. Hoshina said nothing, letting his actions confidently speak for themselves. Kafka returned a small smile as he looked back at the festival.

"Even if it's just for a moment."

✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼

"I didn't know you could get pig-chickens to grow out here." Hoshina said as he marveled at his cup of roasted and sauced covered meat skewers.

"Only out on the islands. They're shipped over for slaughter around fall. Or, what constitutes for fall around here." Mina, Kafka's sister, said as she kept pace beside him, "It's much warmer there than here, to the point that there can at least be lichen and truffles for them to eat."

Hoshina had left Kafka up on the hill and made it to where the main grouping of huts were to find his sister. It wasn't hard to figure out which hut it was since Kafka had mentioned that they lived close to the edge of the village, all that was left to find was which house was still burning the midnight oil. Hoshina had lots of practice breaking peoples guards down, so getting Mina to trust him enough to be let inside was the easier part. Convincing her to go to the festival with him tonight was a different matter. He couldn't be bothered to remember what he said that made her change her mind, as he was too focused on the pig-chicken skewers in front of him. It was the first warm meal he had all day.

"Mmmph, so that's why they taste more savory than normal." Hoshina tried to utter through ravenous bites of food, "These taste unlike any I've had in the other kingdoms."

Mina just held her neutral expression as she walked. It was almost starting to feel like she was an unimpressed guest to her own hometown. Hoshina was warned about her aloofness, but something told him this was deeper than just being unintrusive. He came into this thinking that he could at least get her to laugh, but Hoshina was starting to wonder if there was anything left in her heart that would let her. Off to his left he heard the sounds of something squishy hitting a pile of something hollow, causing a loud racket to echo through the thin crowd. Looking over, it appeared to be some sort of throwing game. A couple of kids were given some canvas sacks filled with a dark green goo and were tossing it at stacks of wooden cups.

"Wanna give that a try?" Hoshina tried to propose.

Mina gave the attraction a cold glance, "Why bother? Its just cheap protection charms." She wrote off harshly.

"Come on! Don't you ever want to try your luck?" Hoshina teased as he pulled on her arm, hoping to get any sort of reaction.

He dragged her over to to the stand and dropped some shell-coins on the counter. When his team arrived, they talked to the chief and he helped out by exchanging their money for local currency, should they need anything. Even through the avalanche, he had managed to keep it. He was handed three sacks as the man behind the counter used his bending to restack and clean the cups.

"Knock down one tower for small prizes, two for medium, and all three for the big prize!" The man declared as he quickly moved out of the way.

Hoshina picked up the first sack and drew his arm back. Halfway through the swing, he felt an unusual tightness in his upper arm and shoulder. The muscles in his throwing arm became painful so suddenly that it completely messed up his aim and sent the sack into the wall behind the first tower. He hissed loudly as his arm dropped to his side.

"Are you alright?" Mina asked, a touch of concern broke through the unfeeling veneer.

"I-I'm fine. Must have twisted something earlier." Hoshina covered quickly as he tried to massage the pain away.

He would have asked if Mina could offer some healing, but he already got that prospect turned down at her front door. Apparently, the concussion she suffered through changed her bending in a drastic way. Kafka wasn't kidding when he said she couldn't be subtle about bending water anymore. As it turns out, the smallest amount she can bend now is nothing short of cataclysmic, or in other words, anything capable of sinking a small fishing boat. Only being able to bend massive amounts has effectively cut her off from any chance of using water to heal as well, since the act would be the equivalent of taking a boulder to a wooden peg.

Hoshina rotated his arm around a few times before he tried to swing again. The pain never left and in fact seemed to grow as he moved it. Not wanting to ruin any chance of ruining what was supposed to be Mina's night, he quickly worked through the pain. Lobbing one sac after the other, he managed to keep enough focus to land the last two sludge sacks on their targets, sending the green gloop flying dramatically.

"And that earns you a medium prize! Take your pick." The man pulled out a woven basket filled with fist sized stone carvings, each one looking almost like an animal with a feature that was exaggerated, missing, or replaced with something else altogether.

Hoshina turned as gestured to the box, indicating he'd like Mina to pick it out. She rolled her eyes and sighed. She stared at the tray for a while before placing her hand inside and shifted some of the tokens around. Mina eventually pulled out what looked like an animal with the head of a tiger with wide cheek fur and long curled teeth. A loop of cord had been inserted and tarred into a hole made at the top of its head.

"Huh. Don't think I've ever seen that animal before." Hoshina observed as Mina held it up

"It's supposed to be the Saber-Tiger Spirit CaiWei, bringer of good fortune and happy endings." Mina explained sedately, "I just picked it because I like cats." She carelessly shoved the trinket into her coat pocket and walked away.

"Damn, love life not going too well?" The festival worker teased.

"I-I'm just here as a friend." Hoshina stumbled offhandedly as he turned to catch up.

"Sooo... Is there anything else interesting to do around this time of year?" Hoshina tried to gently pry as he caught up.

"Look. I get you're trying to be nice and help out some friend you just met, but I'm tired and I'd just like to go back home and..." Mina trailed off in the middle of her thoughts as she came to a stop in the middle of the street.

She started to sniff the air with exuberance, closing her eyes as she tried to focus. Moving her head around, she jogged away and eventually darted between some short tents, coming out the other side. Hoshina followed behind her as she remained dedicated to her mission while she ducked around other people. She soon stopped and opened her eyes as she came face to face with a food stall selling fried cuttlefish arms. As Hoshina came to her side, he stopped looking at the stall and instead paid attention to her expression. It was odd to see someone who had been firmly unemotional seem so close to tears. It was like her face hadn't remembered what to do about the water that was dripping out of her eyes in so long. Not bothering to ask if she wanted some, Hoshina moved to step in line. Before he could, he felt a strong hand suddenly grip his wrist.

"Don't. I... I promised someone we'd... we'd buy some together." Mina couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye as she gripped his wrist tighter.

"Who said I'm buying some for you?" Hoshina returned playfully, a plan slowly developing in his mind.

Mina let go of his wrist from the shock of the statement, letting him enter the short wait. Minutes later he came back with his cup full of crispy cuttlefish arms and pulled Mina away with him, walking the both of them to a secluded bench. He threw an arm into his mouth and tried not to openly wince from the taste. Hoshina then held the cup under Mina's nose temptingly.

"No thanks. I told you I was waiting for someone." Mina countered.

"What you said was that you were waiting to buy them with someone. I bought this for myself and now I'm offering you a bite. Totally different." He said as he shook the cup.

It was clear Mina wanted to resist, but Hoshina had a feeling that it had been a while since she had a taste of her favorite food. After all, who can track down something like fried food just by scent in the middle of a festival? Mina's hand hovered over the cup for as long as she dared before gently pinching a crunchy curl and shoved it into her mouth. Hoshina could hear a long drawn out sigh through her nose as her tongue made contact with the snack.

"Place sure has a big festival for such a small town." Hoshina said as he tried to make small talk to distract Mina from the fact that he was still holding out the cup.

"The Mountain Man's gifts have been helpful for that." Mina answered as she took another bite.

"Mountain Man?" Hoshina gave as a leading question but had a feeling he already knew who she was talking about.

"Mountain Man, First Hunter, Spirit of the Hunt. Horned Demon if you only listen to the words of our chief. He's a spirit that's been hanging out around the Twin-La mountains at the back of the village. He brings mounds of food and other things around the time of the Winter Solstice. I have no idea why our chief seems to have it out for the guy." Mina responded halfheartedly.

"First Hunter, eh? Name rings a bell. I think that friend of mine just told me about him." Hoshina mentioned purely just to keep the conversation going. The talk they were having was just distracting enough that Mina kept taking small bites out of food out of the cup.

"Did he tell you why the spirit is showing back up?" Mina chuffed bitterly in between bites.

"Enlighten me." Hoshina requested.

Mina sighed heavily as she remembered, "Six years ago a large group of our people were sent out to find food beyond the mountains. Only our current Chief made it back to tell everyone how dangerous it was back there. People now think that the spirit heard about what happened and now takes pity on us." There was brief pause as the two of them became content with people watching.

"I like to think it was my brother that told the Mountain Man." Mina ruminated. "Sometimes, when I look out at the mountains as I go about my day, I like to think that my brother is out there with him, helping him. That's why he hasn't come back home yet. "

"Is that the person you're waiting on?" Hoshina asked, curious as to how she felt about her brother.

"You think it's stupid, don't you." Mina jabbed back harshly, "Six years in a harsh, unforgiving environment that took the lives of nearly twenty people and he's just choosing to stay out there."

"Not at all." Hoshina soothed, "I work with spirits for a living, so I've heard weirder things happen."

Mina turned and leered with unbelieving eyes and found Hoshina's forgiving gaze instead.

"It's not wrong to have an unrealistic hope when there's no evidence against it." Hoshina offered as a life line.

Mina just looked away and took another bite of cuttlefish, "It is if it's the only thing you have left to go on." Mina went silent for a moment as her jaw worked away at the food.

"A lot of people thought just because my brother was big, that he was dumb as well. He wasn't. He could be pretty smart. His problem was that his heart... got in the way a lot." She was contemplative as she watched the clouds catch the morning rays.

Hoshina was shocked to hear an honest chuckle come out of her before she spoke again, "You could tell just by looking at him that he was a crybaby. It was his eyes. Big, watery puddles all the time."

"He sounds like a wonderful person." Hoshina smirked, covering the pain of his heart breaking as he listened.

Mina just nodded limply as she looked at him. She breathed a small sigh as she fidgeted in her seat. As she did, her gaze flickered down to see the once full cup was now empty.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eat all of it." She said with regret.

"That's fine. I'm not a fan of cuttlefish anyway." Hoshina countered, his plan now complete.

As they talked, they had passively noticed the sound of a scuffle close to them. As it grew louder, it was getting harder to ignore. Especially as the noises of the commotion started to sound out Hoshina's name. As he turned to face who was accusing him, he found himself at the other end of a fiery fist.

"THAT'S FOR ABANDONING US!" Narumi shouted as he was immediately pulled back by Haruichi and Aoi.

"Narumi, we were just talking about this! He might not have his memory!" Kikoru exclaimed as she came running up behind everyone.

"What is wrong with you! Shmoozing up women like nothing's wrong!" Narumi continued to berate his captain as he struggled in his hold.

"Be careful with him! He's already got a head wound!" Mina found her voice as she overcame her shock.

"Wait, seriously? Let me take a look at that." Haruichi quickly shoved the wriggling prince over onto Aoi, sending them both off balance.

He helped Hoshina get to his feet and settled him back onto the bench. He gently pulled off the bandages and pulled some clean water out of a leather skin to bend it around his captain's head. The water immediately began to glow and hum with soothing energy, melting the scar from Hoshina's head.

"You might want to go over his right shoulder too, he's been favoring it since we met." Mina added as she bent down to talk to Haruichi.

"What, did he hurt it slinging it around your shoulder?" Narumi called out vindictively as he pushed himself off of Aoi and the ground.

"I got it bending with a concussion, if you really want to know." Hoshina hissed out as the water sunk into the part of his head that was still throbbing. His words caught Mina's attention, but she kept any questions to herself.

"Yeah, you really don't ever wanna be doin' that. Got a cousin that hit his head on a tree branch and tried to paddle home, couldn't use his left arm for a year. Head wounds and bending can do some funky shit to ya if you're not careful." Haruichi confirmed colorfully as he directed the water to the affected shoulder.

"I think the most important question we should be asking is 'Where have you been?' We all thought..." Kikoru piped up only to trail off.

Hoshina remembered Kafka saying something about this, but he hadn't really let the thought sink in just yet. It was one thing to hear that people thought you were dead, it was another to get hit with the aftermath of them realizing they were wrong.

"We had mourned you. We had a ceremony and everything." Aoi brushed his orange robes off as he stood up, "It was a bit of a ramshackle ceremony. It was on short notice."

"The thought is... appreciated." Hoshina confessed.

"We were just about to head back up the mountain to kick that spirit's ass!" Narumi cried, "I had this whole vengeance speech planned. I worked all night on it!"

"Were you here all night and we just missed you or something?" Haruichi asked as he finished up with the healing.

"I have a lot of things I need to go over with all of you." Hoshina declared as he checked if his bending came back.

As a small stream of delicately swirling water moved and obeyed his command with no sense of pain or cramping, he let out a small sigh of relief. He stood up from the bench and handed the wooden cup to Mina.

"I'd love to walk you home if you wouldn't mind waiting. I shouldn't be too long with my people." He offered.

Mina quietly nodded her head as she watched the group walk to the center of the sparsely populated street. As the circle formed around Hoshina, he opened his mouth to speak but thought against as his eyes flashed over in the direction of where the supply drop was located.

"Can I borrow that?" He asked as he pointed to Aoi's glider.

The broad air bender gave him a quizzical look as he handed it over. Hoshina then used the end of the staff to draw his thoughts into the snow below.

"We can't kill the spirit." He wrote.

"Why can't you just tell us that?" Narumi insisted as he looked up at Hoshina.

"Because he had an abnormally incredible level of hearing. I'm pretty sure he could hear me scratching this out right now." Hoshina answered with the ground.

"Spent some time with it, have you?" Narumi goaded.

He got hit on the head with the staff before having it thrust into his hand by Hoshina. Kikoru then snapped it out of Narumi's hand and started to scratch into the snow.

"Why can't we kill it? Is it powerful?" She asked before she handed the staff back.

"Because he's not a spirit." Hoshina scribbled, "He's just spirit-touched. Maybe even beyond just being touched by spirits. He has powers."

At this point, Mina grew curious. Not wanting to intervene and cause them to break their conversation, she decided to try to use a trick she developed. As subtly as possible, she pulled off one of her boots and dipped her toes into the snow. She found out after the concussion that, while she couldn't bend small amounts anymore, she had the ability to read small disturbances in bodies of water. And while a blanket of snow wasn't exactly a sea, it was connected all the same.

"So? All spirit-touched have powers in a way." Haruchi took the staff from Hoshina before handing it back.

"Not this time. He has transformations." Hoshina wrote back, "Different forms that help him to swim and run faster. He used them to get me back down the mountain."

Aoi silently asked for the staff, "The spirit-man helped you?"

"Yes, and it's the same guy that's been bringing the food and supplies every winter solstice for that last six years." Hoshina wrote as he took the staff back, "He made me hitch a ride on the sled."

Mina had to make an effort to hold back any visible amount of surprise. She had to tamp down any measure of hope that her brother had any relation to the spirit they were talking about.

"He made you?" Narumi whispered teasingly, wondering if there wasn't something more to the story. Speaking out loud earned him another hit on the head with the staff.

"So I didn't really have a choice. He made it clear the concussion limited my options." Hoshina hurriedly scratched out, "That and he said he'd appreciate my help."

Narumi felt his arm being nudged by Haruichi next to him. The two men exchanged various glances, telling an unspoken story.

"Suckered in by the sob story?" Haruichi gaze communicated.

"Oh, DEFINITELY. Bonus points if the guy still looked hot after his transformation." Narumi answered with a dramatic eye roll.

"Can we focus?" Hoshina harshly whispered, only to get knocked on the head by the staff.

Aoi just offered an apologetic shrug, not really being sorry in the slightest. Hoshina angrily took the staff back before he scrolled out more words.

"The point is that we can't kill him. He's not a spirit, he's benevolent, and beneficial to the town. We're going to have to talk to the chieftain and clear the confusion. I'm not going back up there to hurt an innocent man."

"How do you know he's innocent? Maybe he's the one that caused the village to starve." Haruichi asked as he was handed the staff.

Hoshina stood there stunned, having not considered the possibility before. He thought about the situation for a moment before shaking his head and silently asked for the staff back.

"He was a part of the initial group that left to find food. Leaves a starving village and murders his party just to be the unsung hero of the same village? Too convoluted and he's way too nice."

Narumi immediately kicked some extra snow in the middle of them before stealing the staff and speedily scribbling in the fresh pile.

"OH, SO HE'S 'TOO NICE'?" He wrote grinning like a lunatic.

Hoshina wrestled the staff back before scribbling over what he had just written, "YES, HE'S INCREDIBLY NICE! SO NICE THAT I DECIDED TO HELP HIM OUT AND TAKE HIS SISTER TO THE FESTIVAL BECAUSE I FELT SORRY FOR HIM! HAPPY NOW???"

Narumi's jaw dropped as a chorus of gasps could be heard from the rest of the group.

"For shame, Hoshina." Kikoru teased as a hand came over her mouth.

"Man, why is it always you getting into all these side quests for other people." Haruichi interjected.

"I don't know why we bothered with the funeral. We should've known you were just fine." Aoi said as he started to walk away in exasperation.

"How hard was he batting those pathetic monster eyelashes of his for you to crumble this bad!" Narumi reveled, "What happened to being a 'Professional' that 'Doesn't get side-tracked'."

"HE SAVED MY LIFE THREE TIMES OVER! CUT ME SOME SLACK-!" Hoshina turned to yell at Narumi before noticing that Mina had left, "Hey, where did Mina go?"

"The lady you were talking to? She turned and bolted for the back gates. I thought she remembered she left the stove burning with the way she ran off." Kikoru mentioned as she pointed in the direction.

Hoshina's face began to crumble as he started to pray that he was wrong. He took off in the same direction and left his team without explanation. The team exchanged worried and confused faces before starting to run after their leader. Hoshina began to summon the snow under his feet to help him gain longer strides and make him glide effortlessly. His bending returned to him naturally and immediately like a fish taking to water. He was immensely thankful to Kafka for finding a way to help him back to his friends with a way to keep his bending intact. He wouldn't know how he would be able to go on if something happened to it, seeing as his bending is a corner stone of his whole profession. He began to hope he wouldn't need it should something happen to either sibling when they meet.

Once Mina had read the words about "Taking his sister to the festival" did it all click into place for her. Everything he had said, everything he wrote about to his friends, it all sounded too much like Kafka. She didn't care about the fact that he had been gone or that he had been so close this whole time. If what they were implying was true, then she might have a chance to meet him again if she found the supply drop. Her lungs started to quake as she got close to the back of the village. Her legs burned with a fire equal to what she felt in her heart. She started to pant louder and louder the closer she got to the edge, and drew in the largest breath of air as she crossed the threshold.

"KAFKAAA!" Mina cried, her voice cracking under the weight of her tears.

She called his name over and over again as she ran. She ran and ran until she came to the top of the first foothill she came to. Stopping to catch her breath, she quickly scanned the lands in front of her as she hoped to catch any sort of sign of where he could be. As she found an uncharacteristically bright glimmer in a spot off in the distance, she took off towards it, not caring if it wasn't what she was looking for. Mina ignored the voices warning her and continued to call out Kafka's name as she got closer to the shimmering beacon of hope in the distance. She had gotten pretty close to the drop off point before Hoshina caught up to her.

"Mina! Mina, wait!" Hoshina called out as he accidentally slid into her.

His arms tried to wrap themselves around her in an attempt to slow her down. Mina was having none of it, constantly trying to push herself out of his reach as she continued to trudge to the supplies. He eventually got a firm grip on her wrist and held on to her until she would face him.

"Mina, you have to understand, you can't see each other! At least not yet, not until I-"

"I don't care!" Mina cried out, "I want to see him , I'm going to see him!" She pried herself out of his grasp and walked up another small hill to the side of the one the supplies were on.

"Mina! Things are complicated right now, but I need you to trust me! I can get you two back together, but I need time!" Hoshina tried to convince her, but it was hard to do since she wasn't in a mindset to listen.

"He's had plenty of time!" She wheeled on him suddenly, "I'm going to hunt his fat ass down so he can explain things himself ! Especially as to why he hasn't come home in six years!"

"You can't see him right now! Not while it's light out at least!" Hoshina countered as he tried to get a hold on her again.

"I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!" Mina ranted a she waved an arm at him.

Not realizing it until it was too late, she had unconsciously summoned her water bending. A mound of dense snow twice the size of the Wooly Unagi's head was about to come crashing down upon Hoshina. It was too close to Hoshina for him to react and it happened too fast for Mina to take it back. As his friends were too far out to help, time felt like it had slowed down for Hoshina. He could feel his body shifting its weight against his will, almost as if something else was moving him instead. He felt the snow hitting his back first before he felt it hit anywhere else. His arms came up to block his face but had nothing to defend against.

A second later, he opened his eyes to find a well familiar sight of a good friend's backside. Hoshina's friends came around him to help him back up as they all watched an eight foot tall human looking beast stand up against the full force of Mina's accidental bending. The snow pounded against the beast for almost a full minute before it let up. Just before the snow's barrage had let up completely, Kafka dashed forward through the thick curtain and entrapped his unsuspecting sister in a suffocating bear hug.

"Did-did he just-? Pop out of the ground?" Narumi questioned incredulously.

"Shh!" Hoshina snipped quickly, knowing this was going to be a sensitive moment.

"Wha-what? Kafka?" Mina asked in a small and confused voice. She felt the strong arms around her tighten as the body she was held up against shook uncontrollably.

"I know," The voice sniffed loudly, "I know... that I hurt you when I left. And I hurt you again when I didn't come back. I never wanted to... To hurt you in the way that I have." All Mina could feel was the being that held her dropping down to one knee so she wouldn't be stuck in such a weird angle in the awkward hug, "But you have to understand, coming back would have hurt you more than just staying away. I'm not... I can't be what you want me to be anymore."

Mina tried to pull back to get a better look at the beast holding her, but a hand came up and gently forced her head back to his chest.

"No, don't." He said quickly, "I can't... let you see me like this. I don't... I don't know what would happen... if-" Kafka tried hard to hold back the deluge of tears, but could do nothing for the hiccuping gasps he made as he continued to shake.

Mina just stood there in her brother's arms, as unfamiliar as they looked. She listened to his voice, as rough as it sounded. She felt that seeing warmth that ebbed out not from his chest, but from deep within his heart, just as it always had. She closed her eyes and fell forward into his arms, recognizing the way they always made her feel safe, even if he didn't feel it himself. Her arms could only come up to his ribs now, but she squeezed his sides all the same, returning the hug as best as she could.

"You haven't changed a bit, you crybaby." She muttered into his heart.

Kafka held nothing back as he collapsed fully into tears. His grip on his sister loosened as he slumped over her. The fight to protect her from himself left him as he heard her words. He was mindful enough not to fall over on her, knowing that there wasn't snow soft enough in the world to dampen that amount of weight. His hands came up to her shoulders to gently pull Mina away from him. He was still shaking as he did, but felt like he had to rip the bandage off once and for all. He was feeling like he couldn't take a deep enough breath as his gaze slowly flickered up to meet his sister's. He began to feel better once she made it clear she wasn't going to run from him.

"Well, isn't this a lovely sight." A not completely familiar voice rang out from behind them.

Kafka got up to turn around and was met with an unpleasant sight. Chief Laktua had come from the festival and brought with him a small platoon of warriors from the village. Some were benders and had captured Hoshina and all of his friends. They were being held above the ground with their mouths gagged with a tendril of ice. The others that had come along brought spears with them and pointed them at the brother and sister. Kafka felt ashamed in the moment, wondering how he let this happen. He should have heard them all coming!

"Laktua, please! You don't have to do anything drastic." Kafka pleaded as he raised an arm to keep his sister behind him.

"Oh, but I've wanted to. I've wanted to for a while now." Their chief confessed, "Ever since I had a feeling that I knew where and from whom these gifts had been coming from."

Laktua walked before his men and got closer to Kafka, his presence making the spirit-man cower if only to cover his sister from sight.

"Do you honestly think that your little presents would be enough to forgive what you had done." Laktua hissed as he got in Kafka's face.

"It was never about forgiveness. I've come to terms with what I did, it's why I never came back!" Kafka whispered back, "It's all just to keep the town alive!"

"Just like it was my job to keep the party alive!" Laktua rasped back violently, "And I would have done a damn good job of it had you just. Stayed. Asleep."

Kafka's face dropped as he listened to his words, "You.. you can't expect anyone to willingly go along with such an answer. You have to know what you were asking, what you were about to do?"

"We all had families to come back to! You weren't any more special than the rest of us then!" The chief shouted back.

"Kafka, what is he talking about?" Mina asked with an air of innocence. Kafka hadn't forgotten she was behind him, but had forgotten that she didn't know what he had done.

"Laktua, please." He begged again, "Your problems lie with me, not with anyone else here. Please, can you let them go? We can work something out!"

"WORK SOMETHING OUT?" Laktua roared, "Work something out with a man that killed four men in cold blood?" He rallied out as he turned to his men.

"Laktua please!" Kafka cried as he tried to shuffle away.

"Work something out with a man that willingly lends his body to a spirit, that willingly and actively chooses to be the monster before you!" The chief continued to rant out to his people, making the air around them inhospitable.

"No, please, it's not what you think!" Kafka pleaded, now directing his cries to everyone holding him and his sister at spear point.

Tendrils of water came up and ensnared his arms and legs, pulling down to the ground and making him hunched over. The water made his arms pull tight behind his back and kept his legs and chest level with the floor. He pulled against them as best he could, but the held fast at the moment, forcing his head to hang low.

"Kafka!" Mina cried as she was pulled away from the trap by another set of icy restraints.

"You want me to work something out with the man, no -the monster-, that hadn't had the decency to plead himself before his people, asking for them to find his actions justified?" Laktua came around to face Kafka once again, "You want me to work out a deal... with a coward?"

As tall as Kafka was used to being, he might as well have looked like an ant hill compared to Chief Laktua.

"Please." He whispered as he tried to look up at him, "Just leave them out of this."

"Well..." Laktua drawled on contemplatively, "That entirely depends on them."

A long pole of ice started to rise out of the ground, forming right into the chief's open hand. The Chief took a firm grasp of the handle and ripped it out from the ground, pulling out a long, pointed blade with it. He twirled it a few times, knocking off any errant flecks of snow. Kafka started to pull against the restraints more earnestly now, wanting to avoid fulfilling a gruesome end in front of his sister.

Laktua didn't get vary far with his weapon. As he waved it around to have it come down onto Kafka's neck, it was halted in it's path. A pair of the cleanest blades made of ice appeared just before the tip touched his neck. Hoshina had appeared before Kafka and held back the weapon's force, overpowering Laktua with surprise. As Hoshina held the spear trapped, Narumi came out from the left and broke it in half with a flame-covered kick. The Chief stumbled backwards from the force of the attack.

"What do you think you're doing?" Laktua shouted at them.

"Is this any way to treat the man that's been keeping your precious village alive?" Hoshina taunted as he menacingly flicked his swords.

"You dare attack the people's chief?" Laktua bellowed as he prepared another amount of water for a return attack.

"You dare harm the man that's been so generously bringing food and pelts to your people for six years!" Hoshina shouted over the chief and stood his ground.

"He murdered people! He needs to be brought to justice!" Laktua commanded

"YOU WERE GOING TO EAT HIM!" Hoshina bellowed out loud enough to be heard by everyone within radius, "Missing a bit of crucial information, arn't we?"

Whispers of discontent began to pass around the warriors all around them. It was a confusing set of circumstances. All Laktua could hear was the power he had over the situation slipping away with every conflicted breath.

"W-we were starving! And nearly dead! We had to do something!" The chief tried to defend himself.

"And you chose to pick up the knife." Hoshina countered quietly, "Both of you made hasty decisions that impacted both of your lives. Neither of you wanted this, but you both chose to live. All that was left to take was the worst way out."

As Hoshina talked, he slowly moved to put down his weapons. As if following his lead, Laktua moved his arsenal of water closer to the ground, but hadn't dropped it completely. He looked at the ground in contemplation, developing a faraway gaze in his eyes. Hoshina wondered if that was the end of it, that Laktua had finally considered that, maybe, nobody was entirely in the wrong here. But that didn't seem to be the case as his gaze hardened and his brows furrowed. The chief drew back up his weaponized dose of water.

"No. No, I wouldn't be having any problems now had he JUST DIED!" Laktua called out as he lunged his liquid weapon forward.

Hoshina sliced the attack away and dove forward, sliding water over his hand and turned it to packed ice. He ducked two more attacks and slipped behind Laktua's defenses. He jumped up into the air just high enough to bring a hand up into a strike to the chief's head. Making contact, he followed through with his strike and dealt a blow to his head, assuredly giving him a concussion.

Seeing their chief get into a scuffle, some of the guards jumped into action. Narumi had freed Kikoru by this point and the two of them began to go after the other two members of their party that had yet to break free from their restraints. The one keeping Mina contained started to panic and tried to drag her away from the fight. Kafka heard her distressed cried and began to pull his hardest at the restraints. Something deep inside him burst forth unexpectedly, causing to draw upon a deeper level of strength that he had ever felt before.

He broke out of his icy restraints with a roar loud enough to bring pain to those holding him down. As he felt the water losen up, he took the opportunity to strike. Kafka lunged forward with terrifying speed, aiming for the warrior that was roughly handling Mina.

All this work, all this effort, Hoshina saw it all melting away the closer Kafka got to the guard. Knowing that if he got over there before Hoshina did, then there would be another body to add to Kafka's already heavy consciousness. He had to do something otherwise everything he worked for would fall apart at the seams. Using his bending to overtake Kafka's speed, Hoshina slid himself in between the raging beast and the offending culprit. As he could see Kafka trying to reign himself back from hurting him, Hoshina took the chance to place his hands on Kafka's face and planted a firm kiss on the lips.

Everything dropped to a standstill at that moment. No one moved and few bothered to breathe. A weighty thud was heard as Kafka's long limbs dropped to the ground and all of his muscles relaxed in an instant. They both found themselves to be enjoying the kiss a little more than expected, with Kafka's eyes slowly fluttering closed and Hoshina's lips gently moving around the protruding teeth. He slowly pulled back as he wanted to get a good look at the beast. Once he found that that nothing had changed physically, he clicked his tongue in disappointment. Any words of complaint was quickly silenced as Kafka's lips came crashing back onto Hoshina's.

"Hey! W-wait-stop! I-I don't like you like that!" Hoshina tried to fight against the rapid attacks of affection, but could only wriggle in his newfound hold inside Kafka's tight arms.

"Oh? Then why did you kiss me?" Kafka playfully retaliated as his quick pecks traveled further down Hoshina's jaw, the wet, quiet pecking noise they made were drowned out by the sound of his tail wacking against the snowy ground at a blinding pace.

"W-well, you told me about that stupid old wives tale a-and I just thought - Would you stop! Your teeth are tickling me!" Hoshina continued to squirm even as he felt the arms tighter more around his waist and his feet left the ground.

"And you thought it would work?" Kafka cried with raucous laughter as he lifted his newly discovered lover into the air, "And you thought you could act as the princess! Is that what you want to be? Are you my princess, Little Soshi?" The beast continued to mercilessly tease with both voice and lips.

"Don't make me regret telling you my name!" Hoshina shouted as he tried harder to pry himself out of the pleasantly crushing grasp.

Everyone became thoroughly distracted by the display. Having it all be so unexpected and absolutely ludicrous made it seem that everyone had forgotten what they were all fighting about. Even Laktua had no idea what was going on, but that might have been more so due to the severe headache he was suffering through. The silence had already been broken by Hoshina and Kafka's antics, but that didn't stop other people from throwing in their two cents.

"I FUCKING KNEW IT!" Narumi obnoxiously crowed, "YOU DID SLEEP TOGETHER!"

"You absolutely did -fucking- not." Haruichi challenged, sending the two of them into a loud argument that inadvertently, and very quickly, roped Kikoru and a few guards into it as well.

Taking charge of the divided attention, Aoi took the opportunity to gain everyone's attention and smooth out the situation like only an Airbender could. He calmly walked up the closest foot hill and adjusted his robes before speaking.

"As we can all see, there seems to be some differing thoughts on the matter at hand." Aoi boomed as all the attention gathered on him, "I'm sure that a lot of us-" He spared a searing glance at the still recovering chieftain as he spoke, "don't really feel like such a man should die. But it seems we do not have all the information. If your chieftain truly cares about justice, then I'm sure no one here would object to a fair trial for the sake of equality and integrity."

Aoi turned and now stared down the semi-accused chief and spoke to him directly, making sure to call attention to his next words and actions, "Doesn't that seem fair to you, Chief Laktua?"

The man in question pulled himself off of his feet and looked around suspiciously at those he brought with. He dusted himself off to buy him some time to think about his answer, before silently conceding and straightening up in front of the crowd.

"That... sounds appropriate. The festival is over tonight. We will convene tomorrow morning." He officially declared.

Everyone looked around with confused and suspicious expressions. With nothing else asked of them, they ultimately dispersed and headed back to town. Hoshina's group stuck around however and immediately started to gang up around Kafka, who was still holding up Hoshina. Mina had recovered as well and kept giving the pair of them knowing sidelong glances.

"So was I right or what?' Narumi bombarded them as soon as he approached.

"Bayou bless you, child. It's called manners." Haruichi countered.

"Captain, when you get a minute, we're going to have to... discuss something." Kikoru interjected as he gave Kafka her own sidelong glances, this one having a more worried undertone.

"Incredible job today, Aoi." Hoshina commanded over everyone, "It's safe to say that I had no idea how I was going to continue from there."

"That little speech bought you a day at least. I assume we should be spending it preparing for his trial?" Aoi requested influentially.

Hoshina was about to answer, but was interrupted when he felt Kafka getting tugged away rather insistently.

"Come on!" Mina whined as she hung off of Kafka's elbow in an attempt to drag him away, "You promised!"

Kafka was stunned for a second, but then a fit of hiccuping chuckles. The chuckling quickly grew into full-blown laughter that rattled not only his frame, but Hoshina's as well.

"I guess I did, did't I? Well... If I've only got a day then." He assessed playfully and let himself be dragged off by his sister.

"You can't be serious." Narumi protested with a deadpan tone.

"YOU HAVE A TRIAL TOMORROW!" Kikoru loudly berated them as they walked away.

"Speaking of which." Hoshina stated as he was continued to be carried by one arm, "Mind putting me down? I should probably help them find a way to defend your case."

"Are you kidding?" Kafka retorted before he slung Hoshina over his shoulder, "I'm gonna take this wonderful opportunity to show my fiance around my hometown with your new sister-in-law."

Hoshina's face rapidly went pale as he heard the news, not taking a second to wonder if it was a joke or not. He started to struggle as hard as he could in the prison he was put in, quickly giving up and resorting to waving down his crew for help.

"HEY! GET ME OUT OF HERE!" He cried for any salvation All he got back was a chorus of snickering.

"Might want to look into betrothal necklaces while you're out partying!" Narumi taunted. They could hear Hoshina sputtering as he was carried away.

"BETROTHED? I'M NOT GETTING BETROTHED TO THIS... OAF!" He corrected as his face went completely red.

"If anyone is receiving a necklace here, it's probably going to be Kafka." Mina corrected playfully.

"Now Mina..." Kafka's face turned bright red as he tried to dismiss the thought.

It looked like one person wasn't entirely unhappy with the idea. If only his fate looked a little less drastic.

✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼ ✼

ALRIGHT! NOBODY ASK ME FOR A PART TWO. I'M DONE! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH THIS A WHILE AGO!! BUT NOOOOO!!!! MY BRAIN COULDN'T LET THIS BITCH GO!!!

There is art I want to post with this, but I'm tired of looking at this document page and I told myself that I was going to be done with this before January was over. It turned February First almost forty minutes ago at the time I am posting this. There is other shit I want to talk about, detail wise and some creative decisions I made, but AGAIN, I am tired of looking at this thing. This portion will be updated later after I remember all the shit I wanted to talk about. Also the quality of this might be iffy because I haven't double checked for spelling/sentence structure.

I'm putting in the appropriate tags, I'm porting this over to Ao3 (I just looked at the clock, maybe after work tomorrow), and I am getting off my ass and lifting some weight/do dishes/finish laundry- SOMETHING.

God, does my ass hurt.

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