Chapter Text
“Y/N! Don’t let go of Yuna’s hand, okay?”
You nod, gripping your sister’s hand with a fierce strength to make sure there’s no way it slips out of your grasp.
Hakki thrusts his hands forward, always with that slight lack of grace that Y/N knows he gets scolded on. But the ice forms out of the ocean water anyway, forming a path between one chunk of ice and the next.
Kuten, more swift and careful, forms some barriers on the edge of the ice bridge, testing it out first before calling out to his siblings that it’s safe to walk on. Kuten goes first, then his twin, and then the two younger sisters, you still clutching the youngest’s hand tightly.
“How long do we have to stay out here?” Yuna whines, tugging on your hand.
“It’s an adventure, Yuna!” Hakki answers for you, grinning. “We’re almost there. It’s gonna be so cool, you’ll see!”
You continue through the ice, two brothers creating pathways for two sisters, on your way to something. You know what it is, and you don't care much about it. But Hakki and Kuten are the ones who decide what the four of you are going to do if your parents are busy with the Chief and elders the whole day. And today, they decided to explore.
“There it is!”
You squint, but you don't really need to. The ship comes into view after just a few more steps, the plane of ice and snow thicker and more stable out here. You don’t feel so nervous anymore, in fact, you can understand why your brothers ooh and ahh at the sight, running up as close to it as they can.
“Hey, be careful,” you call, half-heartedly. “We’re not even supposed to be doing this.”
“We snuck all the way out here and you want us to just look at it from twenty feet away?” Hakki exclaims. “No way!”
“Y/N has a point,” says Kuten, hands on his hips as you approach, keeping your sister close to your body. “If something happens, we’re gonna be in so much trouble. So, so much trouble.”
“I wanna go home,” Yuna sighs. “It’s too cold out here.”
“It’s cold at home too!” Hakki says. “We live in the North Pole.”
“Yeah, but it’s colder here.”
“Whatever!”
“Just don’t mess with the ship,” you interrupt. “It’s been here for eighty-five years. The thing could fall apart with one step for all we know.”
You keep yourself and Yuna a safe distance away as your brothers seem to heed your advice, at least to a degree. Hakki may be impulsive and adventurous, but Kuten isn’t. He’ll keep him in line.
“Woah, there’s a door!” Hakki shouts after a few minutes.
“Leave it alone!” you call to him, frowning.
They’re on the other side of the ship now, where you can’t see them and make sure they don’t do something stupid. You sigh to yourself, but your sister notices.
“Y/N,” Yuna says, tugging on your hand again. “Are Hakki and Kuten gonna get in trouble?”
“We’re all gonna get in trouble if they open that door,” you grumble in response. “Come on.”
You pull your sister along behind you as you tread carefully around the ship, taking the same path that your brothers did not long ago. You are painfully aware of the looming red symbol painted on the side of the hull, much higher in the air than it was ever intended to be by its creators.
The ice spikes around the Fire Nation battleship like a crystal cage, holding it up as a sign, a simple reminder to your enemy of what happens to their fancy technology when they attack your home. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of them around the outside border of the North Pole. This is just the closest one- the closest one ever got to the wall.
“Hakki? Kuten?” you call out as you come around to the other side of the ship, but your brothers are nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d they go?” Yuna asks, voicing your exact thoughts.
“I don’t know,” you mumble, panic beginning to seep into your chest. They must have gone inside the ship. The idiots! You thought Kuten was smart enough not to do something so risky.
“Do you see a door anywhere?” you ask your younger sister. The small girl looks around with wide blue eyes, and shakes her head.
“Nope,” she says, popping the p.
You sigh, more annoyed this time. Where in the spirits’ names had they gone?
“Y/N!”
Shocked, your head whips upwards, your eyes widening in horror when you spot both of your brothers standing atop the highest point of the ship.
“Look where we made it!” Hakki waves, grinning brightly.
“Get down from there right now!” you shout, thrusting a fist downward. The water behind you swashes around, splattering onto the ice. “Seriously! Kuten, make him come down!”
“You should come up!” Kuten answers happily. “This place is a treasure trove of history, Y/N. It’s fascinating!”
You resist the urge to snap back at him, and just let out a long breath, trying to feel calm like the healing teachers always tell you to.
“Fine. You two can stay up there, but Yuna and I are going home. And we’re gonna tell Mom and Dad what you’re doing.”
“What?” Hakki exclaims, sounding appalled. “Y/N, you can’t! What if we get banned from waterbending lessons?”
“I hope you do!” you yell back in a moment of frustration. You look down at your sister. “Let’s go, Yuna. They’re being dumb.”
“Okay,” Yuna shrugs. “But how are we going to go back if Hakki can’t make the bridges for us?”
You crack a smile. “Don’t worry about that.”
You begin to lead the younger girl back around to the front side of the ship, the one that still faces the wall.
“Are you really gonna tell Mommy and Daddy about the boat?” Yuna asks as the two of you walk back the way you came, going slower than on the way there so that you can just find the paths Hakki made earlier.
You shake your head. “Nah. I just wanted to put some pressure on them to get away from that thing quickly.”
You look back at the ship, that red symbol menacing even in its faded color, even halfway covered by the sharp ice. You shudder, remembering your most recent lesson about the early war at school.
“Does the Fire Nation still exist?” Yuna asks, hopping over a chunk of ice and landing hard on her feet. The ice splinters a little, and you tug her ahead quickly to the next chunk of thick floating ice.
“Of course it does.”
“Then why is that boat so old?”
“Because they left us alone when they couldn’t beat us. And that was a long time ago.”
“Oh,” Yuna stops. “Are Hakki and Kuten really not coming?”
You sigh, turning your sister to face you as you let go of her hand to gesture. “Yuna, I told you. We’re going back first because they want to act like idiots. Both of them are waterbenders and they’re older than us so it’s not a big deal for them to be out here alone. I don’t even know why they dragged us along in the first place!”
Yuna just shrugs, her big eyes innocent.
“Y/N! Help!”
A sudden, shrill scream makes you whip around, all that panic and nervousness from before striking you at once, washing over you heart like a massive, crashing wave.
“Help!”
It’s Kuten’s voice.
“Yuna, stay here, and don’t move!” you grab her sister’s wrist tightly, ordering her with a stern look. You know her voice is wavering, though.
“Why? What’s happening?” Yuna says, sounding scared. “Y/N, don’t go!”
“Stay there!” you shout over your shoulder as you bounds back the way you came, your feet easily finding the most stable places to run over.
The ship. It’s sinking.
“Hakki?” you yell, running around it helplessly. “Kuten? Where are you? Guys!”
“Y/N!” Kuten shouts again, and it sounds like it’s coming from inside the ship. “Help!”
“Where are you?” you shout again, running right up to the hull and running your hands along the edge as you follow it around to the other side, searching for that door they were talking about earlier.
“Inside! Hakki’s hurt!”
You try hard not to start panicking completely, instead steeling yourself and standing straight. What was it that Kuten taught you last week? Feet planted, open your hands, pull back and push forward, pull back and push up–!
The water spins around you, lifting you up, albeit shakily, until you can use it to push yourself over the edge of the ship and onto the deck. It falls down onto the ice, pooling there as though it’s waiting for you to need it again.
You look around wildly, feeling completely out of your element in the cold grey metal surface of this foreign vessel. “Kuten?”
“Down here!”
You follow the sound of his voice down some stairs, and as he shouts out again, down to the end of a hall where a door has been swung open. You step through the doorway and gasp.
Hakki’s forehead is cut open in a blunt, bloody line over his left eyebrow. He’s groaning, lying in Kuten’s arms with unfocused eyes.
“What happened?” you exclaim, rushing forward, then stop with another gasp as you take a hasty step away from a hole in the ground.
“That,” Kuten says, then gestures. “I can’t heal him. Can you try?”
“Sure,” you say, drawing water from the flask on his hip that Kuten pops open. You kneel by your brothers, the water glowing around your hand as you lay it on Hakki’s forehead. The boy whimpers. “What happened, exactly?”
Kuten sighs. “It was a booby trap. He rushed it here and the floor fell out. I grabbed him before he could fall all the way in, but he still hit his head.”
“This is why I said to come down,” you grumble in irritation.
“Where’s Yuna?” Kuten asks, suddenly looking around as if in realization.
You gently move the water around, seeing Hakki’s forehead wound begin to close up slightly. “I told her to wait where we were. In case something really bad was happening here.”
“You left her alone?” Kuten exclaims.
You turn on him with wide eyes. “Was I supposed to drag an eight year old onto a Fire Nation battleship?”
Kuten sighs, wiping a hand over his face. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have even come here. This was such a mistake.”
“You’re telling me,” Hakki mutters, groaning. “My head hurts.”
“Gee, I wonder why?” you flick him in the shoulder with your other hand. “Are you good enough to walk?”
“Yeah,” her brother pushes himself up to sit by himself. “That floor got me good.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Kuten says, standing. “We can’t leave Yuna alone for too long.”
“I agree,” you stand, flicking the water out of the window as it’s been bloodied. “Hakki, you’ll probably have a headache, but just deal with it.”
“Thanks, you’re so kind,” he responds sarcastically.
The three of you make your way back down the hallway, and up the stairs, and out onto the deck.
Creak.
“What was that?” you ask, pivoting every which way with wide eyes.
“What was what?” Hakki asks, pressing his hand to his forehead.
“I heard it too,” Kuten frowns. “We need to get off this ship, right now.”
Snap.
“It’s the ice!” you exclaim, leaning over the edge. “It’s cracking off! This thing is gonna sink!”
“We need to get off this ship, now!” Kuten repeats, more urgently. “Hakki, make the slide, make the slide!”
Hakki draws his hands up, but barely any water follows, and it drops weakly back down after just a few seconds.
Splash!
“The ice! It’s falling into the water!” Y/N points. “Kuten, you do it!”
“I’ve never done it before!”
“Just do it, idiot!”
He tries, lifting his hands up in the same way Hakki had, pulling them back with one knee raised. The water follows, but when Kuten freezes it, it freezes jagged. There’s no way you’ll be able to slide down that.
You groan and push your brothers out of the way. “Fine! I’ll do it, since you two are so useless!”
In one swift, strong motion, you draw your hands up to your chest, fingers neatly pulling to bring the water up. Both hands thrust forward with just the right amount of power, forcing the water into a smooth, frozen slide down to the ice below.
“Let’s go!” you shout, jumping on it first without any inhibitions. The boys follow after you, probably motivated by the creaking, groaning noises coming from the old ship as the ice holding it up begins breaking.
As soon as Kuten hits the ice, the ship crashes down almost all the way down, sending a wave of water crashing towards the three of them. You throw your hands into the air, forming a curved wall of ice just large enough that the water continues in its path over your heads, pouring back into the ocean.
“Ah!” Hakki shouts in fear as the ice starts cracking under their feet.
“We gotta go!” Kuten grabs his hand and starts running. “Y/N! Where’s Yuna?”
“Follow me, idiot!”
You head the other way, your hands in front of you the whole time, reinforcing the ice underneath the three of you with another layer as you run. You look over your shoulder periodically, checking that your brothers are still there.
The ship crashes down into the water completely, sending another massive wave directly towards you. The ice splinters again, and this time, you hear another panicked shout.
“Y/N!”
“Yuna!” you shout back, eyes wide with fear.
Kuten throws up a similar wall of ice to the one you made before, protecting you from the water pouring fiercely towards you three.
Another scream, this time high pitched and clearly terrified.
“Yuna!” you scream back, ditching the protective barrier your brother made and instead running towards the spot you remember leaving your little sister in. A horrified gasp rips from your throat when you see nothing but broken ice and water where Yuna should have been standing. “Yuna!”
“Y/N! Don’t jump in the water!”
“Shut up!” you cry at Kuten, pulling off your heavy coat and shoes as fast as possible. Without a second’s hesitation, you dive into the freezing ocean, forcing your eyes open to try and search for Yuna underwater.
It only takes a few seconds to spot her, but your sister is sinking fast, her thick furs weighing her small body down. You push yourself downwards, using your feet to propel the water behind her. You feel tears in your eyes even as they blend with the ocean as you loop your arms around Yuna’s, adjusting her to hold with one hand as you use the other to pull the water around you in a twist like before, pushing you to the surface with speed.
You break the surface of the water soon after, gasping desperately for air.
“Y/N! Yuna!”
You barely realize what’s happening as Kuten drags you onto some ice and you pass your sister off to Hakki, who starts pulling off her wet clothes.
“Y/N! You’re freezing! Are you crazy?” Kuten physically shakes you.
“We need to get back-” you pause to cough out water, pushing your wet hair back from your face. “We need to get back to the city. Yuna needs a healer.”
“She’s going pale,” Hakki’s voice shakes. “What are we gonna do?”
You push yourself up off the ice, grabbing your dry coat and hurriedly wrapping it around your younger sister. You do your best to pull the water off of her feet and shove them back into her shoes.
“We need to go now! Kuten, carry Yuna. Hakki, follow me and make sure the path doesn’t crack.”
You ignore your throbbing lungs, and how horribly cold you feel. You ignore your shaking hands and the sound of both of your brothers crying. You ignore the sound of the Fire Nation ship continuing to sink under the water. You just push your hands out in front of you and make the best path you can, keeping that white wall in sight the whole time.