Chapter Text
KARKAT
Karkat sat in the back of the canoe, watching the clear water ripple with each motion his older brother made. At the head of the canoe, Ambrose tracked the movements of a large, silvery fish that seemed to be swimming alongside them. His spear arm was cocked back, and what little Karkat could glean of his brother's form through the thick parka was tensed.
Karkat went back to looking down at the water, knowing better than to antagonize Ambrose while he was focused on catching their dinner.
"Watch and learn," Ambrose said, voice brimming with confidence. "This is how you catch a fish. Finesse, analysis, prediction. Much cleaner than that impatient, erratic style of striking that you favor."
Karkat scoffed, rolling his eyes, but didn't deign to give his big brother a response. Instead, he slipped his thick mitten off his left hand. With Ambrose suitably occupied, he figured that now was as good a time as any to try to bend.
He took in a deep breath, fingers splayed out over the water, not quite reaching down far enough to touch. He didn't want to reach, he wanted to call, to have the water close the gap between them by defying gravity and leaping up into his hands.
For a few breaths, he just sat still, envisioning what he wanted from the water.
As he did so, he realized another fish had swum up near the canoe, and now followed alongside it, seemingly unbothered by the shadow cast on it by Karkat's hand.
His eyes widened as an idea struck... Could he use his bending to catch a fish?
There was only one way to find out.
Karkat breathed out slowly, and as he did so, he focused on loosening the stiffness of his wrist, on relaxing the splay of his fingers. He needed to flow like water, if he wanted to make the water flow up to him.
In a voice so quiet he barely heard it, he whispered to the water, "up," and pushed his wrist down, top of the palm tilting up, fingers curling slightly, until his hand formed the rudimentary shape of a wave.
"Up," he whispered again, as he inverted the motion, lifting his wrist, bending his elbow, scooping with his fingers as he lifted his arm up. The motion was a bit shaky, not quite as well practiced as he imagined in his fickle dreams, and the water seemed to sense that, the inverse teardrop he pulled up with the motion wavering at the edges, as though eager to break. But somehow, the water was large enough and solid enough to bring the fish up with it, and as he continued to raise his arm, standing with the motion, the fish began to notice its change in circumstances, increasing its speed as though hoping to escape.
"Oh fuck," he swore under his breath, and hastily brought his other hand up, making loose circular motions, bending the water around the fish and forcing it to swim with the tide. This extra dimension of motion, surprisingly, seemed to make his water, now fully detached from the ocean below, more stable, as he gave it something to spin around, rather than forcing it to hold still at his novice command.
"What are you doing back there?" Ambrose's voice snapped out harshly. "I told you to sit still if you weren't going to hunt, your rocking is disturbing the fish!"
Karkat turned towards his brother instinctively, and the motion of his body turning brought the bubble of water around with him, swinging from the side of the canoe to directly over its center.
As he moved, Ambrose was swinging around to face him, the head of the spear raising up so it would be pointed skyward, rather than at Karkat's face, when the lecturing began.
Unfortunately, the combination of their synchronized motions resulted in the head of the spear cleaving clean through Karkat's bubble of water, startling Karkat so much he lost control of it entirely, and it burst, splattering them both in ice cold seawater. The fish, no longer suspended, crashed down to hit the floor of the canoe with a wet thwap between them.
"Uhm." Karkat winced, watching as Ambrose looked from Karkat's clearly upraised arms, one sans glove, then down to the fish, then back up again. His brow was furrowed and his nostrils flared. Though cold water clung to his lashes and dripped down his face, he made no attempt to wipe it off.
"Uhm?" Ambrose repeated back to him incredulously.
"I, uh," Karkat stuttered, momentarily cowed by the impressive glower. "I caught one?"
"Youuu... " He drew out the word. "Caught. One." Ambrose finished slowly, enunciating each word as though he'd never heard such a thing before in his life.
The fish continued to flop erratically between them.
For want of words, Karkat fumbled around for his spear, abandoned hours previous at the bottom of the canoe, and made a valiant attempt to put the fish out of its misery.
His day, however, was not about to make a turn for the better, as he had grabbed the spear by the wrong end, and thus ineffectually bludgeoned the thing with the bone butt.
At this, Ambrose gave a long-suffering sigh, flipped his own spear around, and delivered a finishing move with such force that the tip of the spear struck through the fish and into the bottom of the canoe itself.
"Spirit's sake, Karkat, what the fuck were you thinking?" Ambrose suddenly shouted, shattering the silence. "Bending out in the open? Are you trying to get us killed?"
"It's the middle of fucking nowhere, Ambrose, we spent half the morning just paddling to put enough distance between us and the village! If there's anywhere that should be safe to bend, it's all the way out here!" Karkat shouted back, waving his spear around wildly for emphasis, at the towering glaciers that bracketed an otherwise empty expanse of ocean.
"Nowhere is safe for you to bend, Katya!" Ambrose responded, using Karkat's old name as a weapon, "or have you forgotten?"
"Don't call me that!" Karkat snarled, raising both his arms, bringing them down in a full body motion, coupled with slamming his feet against the bottom of the canoe. The small vessel shook with the motion.
Ambrose surged forward, getting right in Karkat's face, jabbing him in the chest with a mitted finger. "I think I will, Katya, because it sounds like you need a reminder! That's the name Mom gave you!"
Discarding his spear, Karkat smacked Ambrose's hand aside. "Katya is DEAD, Ambrose! She died when Mom did!" The canoe once again rocked hard with the motion, as though the whole world felt Karkat's anger.
Ambrose shoved Karkat, who fell backwards against the whalebone stern. "Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one that remembers her!" Ambrose bit out.
"Fuck you!" Karkat shouted, and shot back to his feet. There was a roar in his ears, like the ocean itself shouted alongside him. "I remember her, Ambrose! I remember how proud she was of my bending, how happy she was to see me practice. I'm trying to honor her sacrifice!" He punctuated his words by shoving Ambrose back.
Ambrose snarled as he stumbled backwards, his blue-black eyes hard. "You should honor her sacrifice by committing to staying hidden! What was the point of stripping Mom's names from us, of Dad leaving, if you're just going to bend anyway!"
"You don't think I carry that loss with me? That I don't fucking miss them? That I don't wish we were allowed to just be kids, instead of having to be the last men of the tribe?" Karkat's pulse pounded, his whole body shaking. He gesticulated wildly, the canoe surging with his motions.
"Last men of the tribe?" Ambrose barked out in a short, bitter laugh. "I'm the one who's been training the kids on the art of war, how to carve their first spear, how to make their first kill. I'm the one who manned the hell up. You wear men's garb, but you haven't grown up. You're still a little girl."
Karkat screamed, lunged for his brother, and punched Ambrose in the face with his ungloved hand.
BOOM.
The world shattered around them as a glacier behind Karkat exploded, hitting the water with a catastrophic force that flipped the canoe up out of the water and entirely upside down. Karkart felt himself go weightless, saw Ambrose reach for him as they were both flung out of the canoe.
By some impossible stroke of luck, Karkat slammed down onto a small iceberg, cracking his chin on solid ground rather than dropping down into the water, where his parka would have sunk him.
When the wave hit the place where he landed just moments later, he thus had something to cling to, something to keep him floating while he rode out the chaos he'd unleashed.
The small chunk of ice was barely wide enough for him to stay on, and as the water rocketed out from the impact site, it was all he could do to cling to it, to keep his balance centered and his limbs tucked in. His salvation smashed into and past other pieces, and water sloshed over his legs, the cold immediately sinking into his bones.
Karkat was sure he was going to die, and that he'd just killed his brother.
DAVE
On the deck of a small, dilapidated Fire Nation ship, one that by all accounts should have been drydocked in a military history museum, not dodging ice in the barren Southern Sea, Dave stood with his back to the railing, hands in fists, staring down two soldiers 20 paces away, each garbed in full Fire Nation uniforms, including the helmet Dave himself never wore.
Uncle Ni Kizu, the once-feared Orphaner General, sat off to the side, nursing his cup. "Again," Uncle intoned, his voice stern, the drunken slur in it well-hidden.
Dave yawned and stretched, giving off the impression of boredom, before suddenly shoving out both arms, forcing the fire to burst forth, twin streams of flame lancing out at the soldiers. Unfortunately for him, they were familiar with his tricks. The one on his right crossed both her arms into a guard, and from the lack of a scream, the one in his blind spot must have done the same.
"Tw0 ankle sh0ts, at y0ur ten!" Aradia shouted, and Dave leapt into the air, neatly dodging the twin balls of flame that shot underneath him. Still airborne, he kicked out with his right leg in a sweeping, circular motion, sending a half-moon of fire at both his opponents.
"Tw0 head-sh0ts, at y0ur eight!" Aradia called out, and Dave twisted his body, letting his torso swing down until he was falling more horizontal than vertical. He reached out with his arms, letting his palms and forearms hit first, using them to turn his fall into a somersault, flames still jetting from his feet as he sent them over his head.
By the time he'd sprung back to his feet, the soldiers were closer, 10 paces maybe. The one on his right began to move her arms, and Dave snapped his right arm forward, summoning a white-hot whip of flame that lashed the soldier across her chestplate.
"He's right behind y0u!" Aradia shouted, and Dave, without looking, ducked, barely avoiding the impact of the other soldier's flame covered fist. The soldier stumbled, unbalanced by his lunge, and Dave pressed the advantage, spinning his fist and whip around, sending the thin stream of fire slamming into the soldier's side. The man shouted as he fell, and Dave raised his arm to strike again—
"Quarter-turn left and shield, N0W!" At Aradia's command, Dave turned without hesitation to his left, bringing up his arms and reaching out with his bending for the blast of fire coming at him. He caught the front edge of it and tore through it, splitting the attack and sending the fire to rush past him on both sides. To his right, he heard boots scrabble on wood as the downed soldier scrambled away from the right stream of flame presumably now heading towards him.
As the blast petered out, Dave ignited his own fists, bringing twin daggers of flame up, ready to meet both soldiers, as the man had found his feet and circled around to stand beside the woman. Dave's pulse pounded with adrenaline, his breath catching for a moment. The flames in his fists sputtered in response.
In the heat of the moment, he wondered if he'd missed an order from his Uncle— from the way the soldiers had fallen into a relaxed pose, it appeared there was a call to halt. Dave felt his pulse jerk again as he studied the soldiers, just in case this was a fake-out.
"It's d0ne," Aradia informed him in a whisper, her voice carrying to feather against his ear despite being many paces behind him. He released his fists, letting his fingers run through the daggers and disrupt their shapes until they flickered out.
As though that were a signal, the female soldier removed her helmet, revealing the salt-weathered face of Masami, the older of the two women on the infantry fire team. "Wow," she said, "I really thought I had you with the last one, you and Ben-Ji there. You’re lucky to have such a good teacher.”
“Yeah, Uncle’s got me learning hella secret techniques,” Dave said, pressing his minutely shaking hands to his trousers, brushing off imaginary soot.
"You flatter me, nephew. " Uncle said, rising from his seat. He strode forward with such practiced grace that Dave was sure it could hide his inebriation from any who had not seen him drinking. As he drew in close and clasped his hands on Dave's shoulders, his eyes wet with tears, Dave could smell the sake on his breath, which shattered any illusion of sobriety.
“Flattery? No way Uncle,” Dave said, forcing mirth into his tone even as he felt Uncle use his body for support, those tears beginning to brim over. “I’m keeping it so real right now. You’ve done right by me, I promise.”
Uncle smiled weakly, his voice tight as he spoke. “I promised you I wouldn’t let her shadow hang too much over you, my boy, but I see her in you so clearly. Her fire-whip will save your life one day. It is good that you have taken the time to master it.”
Dave felt an old, familiar guilt squirm in his stomach, mixing with the nausea that had begun to churn. He swallowed roughly, his own choice unsteady as he replied. “I know, Uncle.”
Masami cleared her throat politely, coming up to interrupt with a knowing glance at Dave’s hands, still trembling at his sides. “General, the Captain wanted to speak with you regarding an issue with our supplies.”
Uncle’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, then he nodded sharply, pushing himself off of Dave and turning to face the woman. “Would the beauty care to give an old man an escort?” He’d managed to push levity into his tone. False faces were a trait the royal family shared.
“If you insist,” Masami replied, fluttering her lashing demurely, and she took his arm in a practiced motion, gently tugging Uncle away. Dave watched as Ben-Ji picked up uncle’s chair and cup, quietly shuffling after the pair as they disappeared below decks.
Dave let out a small sigh of relief, but it was frankly short-lived, as the nausea swelled with his exhale. He pinched his lips and scrambled to the railing, knowing what was coming.
He barely reached it in time as the first spasm hit him, hot acrid bile shoving itself up his throat and bursting forth from his mouth. He clung to the railing as vomit poured from him, falling the long way down into the dark water below. The sight made him wretch again, and he slammed his eyes shut as his whole body convulsed from the force of it.
With his eyes shut, his world was plunged into what should have been utter darkness.
But instead, with his living sight from his right eye no longer in play, Aradia was in much clearer focus, the dead flesh of his left eye making his cousin glow like a single, lonely star in an endless blackened sky. She was always visible to him, no matter what obscured his vision, because his left eye had none at all, seeing spirits and nothing more. It was a parting gift from the place he no longer called home, the place he only went through the motions of striving for in order to please his Uncle, broken by the loss of Aradia and desperate to go back to a family that no longer existed.
And it would never exist again, even if Dave told him that Aradia's spirit was with him, because their quest was fruitless, a fool’s errand to occupy their time as they searched for the man who held a thousand spirits inside him. That man was long-dead, his thousand spirits disappearing into the breeze, just as the bending of the last airbender had when he was cut down, a hundred years ago.
Dave knew this with utter certainty.
If such a man still existed, he would have seen him, no matter what walls and forests stood between them, a beacon in the darkness of his dead, left eye.