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Sokka’s eyes widened as the enraged waterbender split open the iceberg behind them. The siblings clung to the ice floe as the waves sloshed them about. “Okay, you've gone from "weird" to "freakish",” he declared.
“You mean I did that?” asked Katara.
“Yep. Congratulations,” Sokka deadpanned.
A large icy mass rose from the sea revealing a humongous furry creature and a boy with glowing eyes.
“He’s alive!” said Katara. “We have to help!” She snatched her brother’s club and hopped across the ice floes to reach the boy.
“Katara, get back here! We don’t know what that thing is!” called Sokka as he scrambled after his sister. She ignored him and whacked the iceberg with the club until it split open, knocking the pair back with a great gust of wind. A bluish glow shone from the water and blazed into the sky like a beacon. The ice cracked and a faint, young boy stumbled out. He stepped forward and collapsed into Katara’s arms.
“Stop it!” Katara scolded Sokka as he prodded the child with the blunt end of his spear. The boy looked up at the girl with big gray eyes as she lay him down on the ice.
“I need to ask you something…” he said in the ancient language of the airbenders.
“What did he say?” Katara asked in the Southern Tribe dialect.
Sokka threw up his hands. “I don’t know! He’s not speaking Water Tribe.”
“You don’t speak like the air nomads,” the boy said in his unfamiliar tongue.
Sokka nudged the child with the tip of his spear. “Who are you? And where did you come from? Why aren’t you frozen?”
The avatar blinked in confusion at the strange guttural sounds of the Southern language and eyed the spear nervously. “Okay, so we can’t understand each other,” he said to himself, “but I need you to know I’m friendly.” He put on a big smile and pointed at himself. “I’m Aang.” The siblings still looked puzzled. “Aang,” the airbender enunciated.
“Weird name,” Sokka muttered.
“Katara,” the warrior’s sister answered, gesturing to herself. “Sokka,” she added pointing to her brother.
"Hi, Katara. Hi, Sokka,” Aang replied with a wave.
A snuffling growl came from the iceberg. The avatar rushed over to his pet. “Appa! Are you all right? Wake up, buddy?” Appa peeked an eye open and licked Aang with his enormous tongue. Sokka spotted the sky bison; his jaw dropped open. “You’re okay,” Aang cheered hugging the bison’s nose.
“What is that thing?” Sokka demanded.
“Why are you asking?” Katara wondered. “He can’t tell us in words that make sense.”
Aang took a guess at what the pair was talking about and proudly waved his arms toward the bison. “Appa!”
“What’s an Appa?” Sokka wondered.
Katara shrugged. “Whatever it is. It’s huge.” The beast sneezed, covering Sokka in snot. The warrior squealed in disgust and rubbed against the snow to rid himself of the mucus.
“Don’t worry. It’ll wash out,” said Aang.
Sokka turned to his sister. “Is he making fun of me?”
“How should I know?”
Sokka pointed his spear at Aang. “I don’t trust you or your giant snot monster.”
The avatar looked perplexed. Katara scoffed and pushed her brother’s weapon aside. “Sokka, put that away!”
“He could be a spy for the Fire Navy!” Sokka argued. “He was probably trying to signal them with that crazy bolt of light!”
“Oh, yeah, you can tell by the evil look in his eye,” Katara answered sarcastically. “You’re being paranoid.”
Aang sneezed, launching himself a dozen feet in the air with his bending. Sokka looked stunned. “He’s an airbender!” cried Katara.
“Giant light beams, enormous Appas, airbenders. I think I got midnight sun madness. I’m going home where things make sense.” Sokka turned to leave only to remember his canoe had sunk.
“Wait. Don’t go,” cried Aang. “I can give you a ride on Appa. If you take me back to your village, maybe I can find out where I am and how to get home. Monk Gyatso must be so worried.”
“I think he needs help,” said Katara.
“We have no idea what he’s asking for,” complained Sokka.
“We should take him to see Gran Gran,” said Katara. Aang waved his arm in invitation, and the waterbender climbed onto the sky bison.
“You want to ride back on the Appa?” Sokka asked in disbelief.
“How else are we going to get back without the boat? Did you want to swim?”
“Fine. Giant snot monster it is,” Sokka grumbled. He joined the others in the saddle and directed Aang towards the tribe.
*****
Katara introduced Aang to the villagers, and he soon showed off his airbending with his glider. In spite of being unable to understand each other, Aang quickly bonded with the village's children. He distracted the youngsters from Sokka’s warrior training until he spotted the arctic animal he wanted to see most. “Penguin!” Katara and Sokka exchanged baffled looks as the avatar raced off. Katara offered Aang a fish and the pair caught hold of a duo of penguins to sled with. They laughed until they sledded out of a frozen tunnel and spotted an old Fire Navy ship scuttled in the ice. The avatar headed closer to the ship.
“Aang, stop!”
“Come on.” Aang gestured for Katara to follow.
“We’re not allowed to go near it; it could be booby trapped,” warned Katara.
“I have no idea what you’re saying, but it’s okay if you’re too scared to come with me. I’m going to check it out.” Katara sighed and followed the airbender unsure of how to convince him to stop without words.They wandered through the metal vessel until they stumbled upon an armory. “What’s all this? Why would the Fire Nation need all these weapons?”
Katara tilted her head, unable to understand the boy’s questions. She would have commented about how horrible the war was, or told him about the raids, or asked him if he knew anything about waterbending or the avatar, but there was no point when he couldn’t comprehend her words, so she pointed to what she thought was the exit. “Let’s get out of here. This place is creepy.”
A metal gate slammed shut as Aang triggered a tripwire. A flare launched into the sky. Aang picked up Katara and used his airbending to hop out of the ship. The pair ran back towards the village, unaware that Prince Zuko was watching them through his telescope and that they had just led him right to them.
*****
The children cheered as Aang and Katara returned. “I knew it!” Sokka accused as soon as he spotted the duo. “You signaled the Fire Navy with that flare! You're leading them straight to us, aren't you?” The airbender tilted his head in confusion, unsure what the older boy was mad about.
“Aang didn't do anything!” Katara protested. “It was an accident.”
“Katara, you shouldn't have gone on that ship! Now we could all be in danger!” scolded Kanna.
“I told you we couldn’t trust him! The foreigner is banished from our village,” Sokka declared.
“You’re making a mistake,” argued Katara.
“No, I'm keeping my promise to Dad.” Sokka pointed to Aang with contempt. “I'm protecting you, from threats like him!”
“Aang is not our enemy!”
“Is all this about the ship?” Aang asked. “I don’t know what the big deal is?”
“You and your weird talking and your stupid Appa get out of our village! Now!” yelled Sokka.
Aang looked crestfallen at the warrior’s harsh tone. “I should get home.” He waved good-bye to the children who responded with a farewell gesture he was unfamiliar with. “Thanks for penguin-sledding with me, Katara.”
“Maybe if we understood each other, we could be friends.” The waterbender patted Aang on the shoulder.
Sokka eyed his sister with disgust. “You can’t be friends with Fire Nation spies!”
“He’s not a spy!”
“Fine! Don’t believe me. Just don’t blame me when the Fire Navy shows up. I’m sure they’ll be here any minute.” Sokka turned to a cluster of the village’s little boys. “Men, ready the defenses!”
Katara sighed while the airbender slowly headed back to his bison.
*****
Armed and adorned with war paint, Sokka stood on his watchtower. Moments later Prince Zuko’s ship crashed into the snowy structure. Villagers screamed and fled as the vessel cracked the ice apart. Near the shore, Aang struggled to make Appa fly. “Come on, boy. Yip-yip!” The bison lowed and continued wading through the frigid water. “Maybe they can help us,” said Aang as he spotted the ship in the distance. He turned Appa around.
Zuko descended from the gangplank, tossing Sokka into a snowbank as the warrior rushed at him. “Where are you hiding him?” the prince demanded in High Fire Nation.
The members of the Southern Tribe stared back at him, unable to comprehend and waiting for him to make a move. Zuko grabbed Kanna’s parka and tugged her forward. “He'd be about this age, master of all elements?”
“Unhand me and go back to where you came from,” the old woman replied sternly.
Zuko pushed her away and huffed. “Right. You don’t understand me. Of course, you don’t understand me. This isn’t the Earth Kingdom; no one’s bilingual here. We’ll just have to search your village.” The prince gestured for his troops to follow when Appa walked up next to the ship. Aang propelled himself off the bison’s head with a gust of airbending and manipulated the wind to slow his fall.
“You’re the avatar?” Zuko asked in amazement. “You’re just a child!”
“Hi. I’m Aang. You sound kind of like my friend Kuzon, but I don’t recognize your language exactly. What part of the Fire Nation are you from?”
The prince stared at Aang. He didn’t know the ancient language of the airbenders, and he couldn’t make sense of the boy’s friendly demeanor. “I’m trying to get back to the Southern Air Temple, but Appa here is too tired for a long flight. Could we have a ride on your ship?” Aang pointed to himself and the sky bison then gestured to the ocean liner with a hopeful smile.
Zuko’s jaw dropped open. “You’re surrendering? Just like that?”
“We’d really like to go with you,” said Aang. He grinned as he headed up the gangplank, still unsure if he had permission.
“My luck is never this good,” Zuko muttered in disbelief. He quickly ushered the airbender aboard, and steadied himself on the railing when the sky bison landed on deck, rocking the entire vessel. Aang waved to the Water tribesmen as he sailed away with Fire Navy. Zuko, still stunned, whispered a prayer of thanks to Agni.
“I told you he was a spy!” Sokka howled.
Katara sighed and cast a forlorn glance at the retreating ship. “I’m sorry. I should have believed you.”