Chapter Text
The Avatar was dead.
This was not news to the people he’d shepherded for the last several decades. The rest of the world might have mourned, if they ever learned of his passing, or maybe they wouldn’t have cared at all. Some might have even rejoiced, knowing the cycle would finally continue, that there might soon be another Avatar, someone who wouldn’t hide away from the turmoil of the world. Most no longer put stock in spirits tales. The war still raged, same as it had for almost a century. The Avatar was dead, had been for more than a decade, and that meant the time for the next Avatar to be trained was fast approaching.
To the last remains of the Air Nomads, this meant the search for the newest reincarnation was becoming more desperate, a race against the looming specter of their greatest tragedy poised to replay itself again, laying waste to the world’s last bastions of resistance.
To a scarred and disgraced prince, banished to roam the oceans on a fool’s errand, it meant his quest was nearing its end, but not in any way that he ever could have expected.
To a pair of siblings, their family already torn apart by the ravages of the war, it meant everything was about to change, completely, again.
None of them knew what was about to be set in motion when a young airbender climbed onto the back of her sky bison, and leaped into the wind currents that would carry her south. To her, it was a chance to make amends, and prove her grandfather’s sacrifice had not been in vain.
The fish was huge, at least as long as Sokka’s arm. As he lifted his spear for the perfect strike, he could already taste it, sizzling over a fire as it dripped juices. Or maybe smoked? Oh ohh, or dried and ground! He did need to hike out to Split Hoof and trade some of their excess tiger seal furs after all, and it would be a perfect trail snack if–
“Sokka, are we done yet?”
If bratty little sisters would stop pestering him, and let him work .
“No one made you come with me.” He snapped back, then readjusted his angle for the drift of their boat, and the lazy circling of the fat salmon cod.
“You asked if I wanted to help! Now I’m here, and you haven’t let me do anything.”
“I let you paddle! I even showed you how to hold the spear.”
“But you didn’t let me throw it.”
Nope, it was clear she wasn’t going to let him tune her out this time. Sokka sighed and closed his eyes against the little spot of tension growing right between them. “We’ve been over this. Throwing is an advanced step. If you do it wrong, you lose the fish and your spear. Look, pay attention to how I do it.”
“Sokka, I have watched you throw the stupid spear. I’ve watched you throw the stupid spear all day, and we’ve been out here for hours.”
“Yeah, Katara. Fishing is usually an all day activity.”
“Only because you’re doing it the slow way.”
Sokka bit back his first sarcastic reply, and instead said, “I’m doing it the right way. What other way is there?”
“Just pick it up.”
Sokka’s mental track hiccuped as he turned to look over his shoulder. “Come again?”
Katara was giving him that look. The look that said he was being dumb by being too smart. He hated that look.
“Just–,” she mimed scooping something up in both bemittened hands, “pick it up.”
“What? No. No! That’s cheating.”
“It’s not cheating! Waterbending is an ancient tradition, and we–”
“– Do not use it for scooping fish. Now shoosh, and let me concentrate, so we can go home and eat!”
He pointedly turned his back on his sister, and began scanning the water for his prey once more. All their arguing had probably scared it off, which meant he was going to need to wait for another fish to happen by, and hope that Katara didn’t run that one off too. He loved his sister, really, but this was why girls were lousy at fishing. They just didn’t have the fortitude to–
Something heavy, wet, and slimy slapped against Sokka’s exposed neck, splashing icy water down the inside of his coat. He shrieked, a very manly shriek of surprise, then followed that up with a much more manly snarl as he spun on his sister. Katara sat primly at the other end of their canoe, arms crossed over her chest as she looked him dead in his eyes.
“Got your fish, so let’s go already.”
For a moment Sokka considered leaping across the boat at her, but that would only end with them both overturned in the water, and all of the day’s catch sent to the bottom of the ocean for the otter penguins. The fish, still thrashing in shock at finding itself abruptly removed from the water, flopped across his feet. Sokka’s eyes fell to it, and then a wicked smirk cut across his face.
“No, no, sis. You did the work, that’s your fish.”
At her end of the boat, Katara went very still. “Sokka, don’t you dare.”
“Dare what? I’m just giving you the spoils you’re due.”
For a moment they were frozen in a standoff, silent save for the breeze and the water lapping against the sides of their boat. Brother and sister looked into each other's eyes and both knew: peace was never an option.
When they sprang into motion it was together, Sokka kicking the fish into the air the same moment Katara jerked her hands up in a graceless snap, dragging a wobbling glob of water up from the ocean in front of her. They watched, faces falling, as the fish bounced off the surface tension hard enough to shatter it.
Sokka’s instinctive reaction to dodge came a second too late, and got mixed up with his second instinct to catch something flying toward his head. He did catch the ricocheted fish, of that he was vaguely proud, but his heel also caught the coiled stack of the canoe’s tie lines. An instant after, the back of his head caught the edge of the canoe. Pain splintered through his skull in a burst of visual snow.
He could hear Katara sputter and snort, trying to dislodge sea water from her mouth and nose. “Okay. Okay, truce?”
Sokka blinked, trying to clear the remaining stars from the edges of his vision. “Yeah,” he said when he could finally feel his tongue enough to talk. “Truce.”
“Can we go home now?”
Above him the cloudless sky overhead was starting to darken toward indigo. Katara’s fish wriggled once, weakly, in his arms, and he knew that his parka would be covered in oil and scales. In spite of sisterly shenanigans, he couldn’t say it was an unsuccessful day. They had enough fish to fill their bellies tonight and still have enough left over to save for later meals. To take more would just be greedy.
Sokka opened his mouth, only to have his words drowned out by thunderous crack. The canoe suddenly lurched beneath him. “Katara, we said truce!”
“That’s not me,” she yelped, and of course it wasn’t, neither of them could summon thunder from a clear day. He was obviously still rattled from the hit to his head. For a brief, panicked second, Sokka’s subconscious dredged up late night hearthfire stories of a girl who called out to the sun spirit to avenge her family, and they sent lightning to her hands. Then Katara snapped him out of it with her next shout. “I think it’s a calving wave!”
“Fuck!” Sokka scrambled to get upright, hampered without the use of his arm until he remembered he didn’t actually have to hold her fish, and let it plop unceremoniously into the bottom of the boat. He wobbled up onto his knees just in time to see the growing hump of ocean rising into an actual wall of water as it rushed toward them.
“Fuck,” he hissed again, then turned to Katara. “I don’t think we can stop it.”
“Then we’ll ride it out. C’mon!” Katara rose to her feet with a fluid motion, and settled into a low stance, feet braced and arms outstretched. Sokka did his best to imitate her, but he didn't feel quite so smooth. He might brag about his survival skills, but in moments like these he would be the first to tell anyone his little sister was the better bender of the two of them. She moved with the water's flow, natural as a tiger seal, while his own movements came more stiffly, a moment behind.
Still.
Still, when he crouched, when he called, Sokka could feel the ocean, rise to meet him, rushing up, endless and inevitable as its tides. He could feel the momentum in the calving wave, ice returning to the sea that spawned it in a mighty crash, shoving water out and away. He could feel all the energy that coiled behind it as the rush built to an enormous peak like tension in his blood; a push too great for either of them to hope to shove back against, even working together the way they always did, which left only the pull. Sokka swept his hand out, following his sister’s gestures. The water beneath them swirled then arched as they drew off the rising swell, pulling part of the ocean forward, ahead of the main ripple. The nose of their canoe tipped up, slowly, and began to turn into the wave. Too slow and the water would overtake them, but too fast any they’d capsize themselves, flip their tiny boat either way, plunging them into an icy grave.
They held the water together, ebb and flow, brother and sister, lifting their hands and the boat with them, rising up, up on their smaller wave. And then they met the overwhelming force, and La’s will overtook them.
“Hang on!” Sokka warned, looping his arm around Katara, and tugging until she was tucked safely up against his side. Her hand closed around a bunch of his parka in an iron grip. They both grabbed the edge of the canoe, and crouched as the world tilted.
Time seemed to slow, crawling as they rose to the crest of the swell, then paused, hovering on the moment.
Their weight shifted. The bow tipped down. Sokka’s stomach dropped at the same time his heart leapt, leaving him breathless, with his head spinning even faster than before. And then suddenly they were careening down the slope.
Katara shrieked, and it wasn’t entirely fear. Sokka let out a whoop, pulse pounding, eyes crinkled by a grin and stinging with wind tears. They hit the trough between the main wave and the next giggling.
“Woooo!” Katara joined Sokka in a boneless sag, letting the successively smaller ripples toss them much more gently. “I sort of want to do that again. Think we could control how big the glacier chunks and waves get?”
“You’re crazy.” Sokka let his eyes close. He could still hear his own pulse rushing in his ears.
“Oh come on, you had a blast.” Katara nudged him in his ribs. Sokka only grunted, so she did it again.
“Fine. That was. Actually kind of fun.”
“Are you kidding me? That was AMAZING!” Both siblings froze and looked at each other. Neither of them had said that. Sokka patted around the bottom of the boat until he found the haft of his fishing spear– by some spirit’s favor it hadn’t been launched into the ocean– then carefully sat up.
The piece of glacier drifting toward them he discovered quite abruptly, was not a piece of glacier at all. It was a very furry, very, very big… yak. Thing.
“Those moves were so cool,” the voice came from that huge fluff monster, though Sokka couldn't see it speak. “Are you guys waterbenders? Everyone said there weren’t any left in the South, but that’s just dumb, because everyone says there’s no more airbenders too, but here I am, obviously!”
“Uh,” Sokka said.
“You’re an airbender?” Katara saved Sokka from his riveting, one-sided conversation with her own question.
“Yes!” A girl’s face popped up from the top of the creature’s head; young, maybe even younger than Katara, framed in brown hair pulled up in a pair of buns and comfortingly human. As she clamored onto the top of the big creature's head, he could see she was wrapped in cheerful yellow and orange that seemed entirely unsuited for their climate. At least Sokka could thankfully rule out hallucinating a giant talking buffalo due to concussion. “Sorry about almost drowning you, I didn’t know the ice wasn’t solid when we tried to land on it. Glaciers look so big and unbreakable.”
“They like to break up in the summer. That’s where icebergs come from,” Katara helpfully informed her.
“Ooooh, that makes so much sense! They’re like little baby glaciers.”
Amused, Katara smiled. “When the pieces break off like that, we call it calving.”
The strange girl squealed, and smooshed her cheeks in her hands. “Just like a momma and baby sky bison, that’s sooooo cute!”
“Right? I’m Katara. This is my brother Sokka."
"Don't give her our real names," he hissed.
Katara ignored him, like usual. "We’ve never met an airbender before, you must have come from a long way away.”
“My name is Ikki.” She grinned down at them, and reached to pat the poof of fur between her monster’s eyes. “And this here is Juniper Spiceberry.”
Juniper Spiceberry rumbled.
“Katara, stop talking to her!” Sokka had finally recovered his wits enough to interrupt whatever the fresh freeze this was. He nudged his sister behind him, and leveled his spear at. Well, the behemoth’s nose. He doubted he could actually kill it without a proper hunting spear and a head start, but if either of them made a threatening move he could at least make them wish very hard they had never come to the South Pole. “This girl is from who knows where, she could be a spy.”
The look Katara leveled at him was unimpressed. She never took his warnings seriously, even when he was right. “A spy for who, Sokka?”
“Who do you think? Someone claiming to be an airbender shows up and starts asking about waterbenders? This has Fire Nation trick stink all over it.”
“The only thing that stinks here is your coat.” Katara wrinkled her nose. “I’m not washing that out, by the way.”
“I came here from the North Pole, actually,” Ikki offered with a cheerful smile. “And I’m here to find the Avatar.”