Chapter Text
Sokka looked up at the moon.
It was waning gibbous, technically. To the naked eye it was hard to distinguish it from the full moon of the night before. But Sokka, so familiar with the orb, could see the difference. The barest hint of shadow on her right side distorted the pure white circle. A darkness creeping in.
He also noted that she was far lower in the sky than she should have been. Sokka’d managed to sleep in. Again.
He groaned and pushed away his tangled blankets. He stood up and stepped into his pants, hopping across the room as he pulled them up. If he was going to finish his orders that night, there was really only one thing he could do. He stumbled towards the door, shouting –
“Katara!”
—
“No.”Katara’s voice echoed slightly in the small stone room.
It was the smallest of the rooms in their peat house. Sokka had slept here once, too, his sand filled mattress side by side with hers, so close that he could feel her breath at night. Even after he’d moved out of it she kept her mattress pushed against the wall, like she was waiting for something else to come and fill the space that he had left behind.
Like Sokka’s room, Katara’s had a small window. Unlike Sokka’s, her window was curtained. The room was so dark Sokka could barely have seen his hand if he held it up to his face, the black of it rivaling the deepest depths of the ocean. Only the narrowest streak of light crept in from the opening where Sokka hovered, holding the hide cover held back just enough to allow the intrusion. By its grace Sokka could see the outline of her body beneath her blankets, the soft skin of her cheek as she laid there on her back, eyes stubbornly closed.
“Oh, come on…” If he sounded like he was pleading, well… he was pleading.
“No, Sokka.”
“I’ll buy you those shrimp things you like! The pink tiny ones that only come to market once a year?” Maybe bargaining would work better.
Katara turned away from him and aggressively pushed her newly tattooed forehead into her pillow, the elegant crescent moon rendered in an azure hue that perfectly matched her scales lost in the folds up a lumpy pillow. “It’s three in the morning…”
“So you won’t need to worry about boats,” Sokka pointed out helpfully. “You hate swimming around boats!”
“Go away…” Katara moaned, but there was an element of resignation in her voice.
“Pretty please?” Sokka said, all but grinning. “Pretty please with kelp-crunch on top?”
Katara let out a bellow that could have been mistaken for a whale call as she kicked off her blankets.
Sokka looked down at her. When Katara was asleep she usually reverted to her most human form, just the hint of fin shaped ears and small patches of scale kissed skin signaling what she. But already, bleary eyes still blinking, she pushed her form.
The blue, fin-tipped ears extended up and out, growing three times their size until they fanned out at the sides of her head. Similar fins jutted out from her forearm, as blue, shimmering scales sprung up from the skin of her hands and feet. On the forehead, too, where they swallowed her brand new mark, leaving the blue line that ran vertically down her chin, lip to neck, as the only visible tattoo of their tribe.
His little sister. When they were kids, he used to call her his little “fish-ster.” She hated that, which only made Sokka say it more.
Katara was a lumpeguin—human except that yes, she had fins and scales in some places and could basically morph into a fish. Half a fish, anyway. This was why Sokka was dragging her out of bed in the middle of the night. He needed her fishy powers. Badly.
“All the things you make, Mr. Alchemy,” Katara said, sitting up, “and you can’t enchant yourself an alarm clock?”
Sokka grinned, looking at her over the rims of his red lensed glasses. “You know I’d sleep through it anyway.”
Her response was to throw her pillow in his face, then laugh at him when he yelped.
“Meet me outside in ten,” she said, planting her bare feet on the floor. Even in the low light, Sokka could see the blue hued webbing between her toes glimmering, almost as if Katara were emitting her own light. Which she probably was.
Katara. His little sister. An unstoppable force that could change the world.
Sokka usually tried to discourage her from doing that. In his opinion, the world was far too fucked to save.
“See you in ten,” Sokka affirmed as he turned and left the room.
–
They weren’t going far. The island where the mishepishus lived was only an hour away by canoe, no big deal except for the time crunch. It was fairly isolated, with no permanent settlements. As safe as a place could be.
Which was to say, not safe at all.
The legends said that long ago, the world was a hot, violent mess. The five sentient species—lumpeguins, cherufes, vampires, sylphs of lore, and good old regular humans—were basically trying to murder each other constantly. Alchemy and the arcane arts were invented so they could kill each other supernaturally when everyone got bored with teeth and swords and spears.
Until the Convergence came and five species merged into one. A single humanoid race comprised of both humans and half-monsters, perfectly in balance.
However, the thing about balance is it's precarious. Still snow heralds the avalanche.
The Vampires turned on everyone. For almost a thousand years, they’d been bathing the world in blood. They came to village after village, killing everyone they could. Leaving behind ghouls.
–
Sokka would do anything, anything, if it meant he didn’t have to remember the ghouls. To not remember her looking like that.
–
Sokka’s village had been safe until it wasn’t. Or rather, it had seemed safe. Sokka was never going to make the mistake again of thinking anything was safe just because it appeared to be. Was it likely they’d be running into Vampires that night? No, it wasn’t likely. Was Sokka going to be ready if they did? Fuck yes.
So he packed: Straight wooden stake, curvy wooden stake, rope dart, four vials of what should be holy water (though it was always hard to tell if you had good quality holy water: its effectiveness was very dependent on the mysticism of the shaman who’d blessed it), crossbow, a dual ended spear. Oh, and one more thing…
“You’re bringing all that?” Katara said, eyeing him up and down. Her breath made a faint white cloud.
“Full moon last night,” Sokka said, adjusting his backpack. “There might still be some weirdness lingering around. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah, but… a sword?” Katara said, her grin wide enough that Sokka could see the point of her teeth.
“Why shouldn’t I have a sword?” Sokka said.
Katara’s grin burst into a wide smile that shone almost as brightly as the sun. “Do you even know which end to hold?”
Sokka shook his head and started walking.
–
Zuko’s forehead was burning.
Not literally (this time)— but it hurt. Spirits, it hurt. Like there was a hot knife carving into his forehead—it just—
His forehead was adorned with the mark of the rising sun, the ancient symbol of the Coven of Agni, bestowed to him at fourteen as a testament that he belonged here. That he could stand shoulder to shoulder with his Father, his sister, and even the Great One himself.
But far from standing, Zuko was currently sprawled out on the ornate tiles of his Father’s throne room. He was burning, the pain in his forehead pulsing viciously with the fluttering beat of his own heart. Burning—burning—
Maybe he deserved it. Maybe this time he actually deserved it, he—
Two tendrils of flame,one red and one blue,sizzled as they circled through the air before him; remnants of his Father’s will. He lifted a shaky arm, calling them to wrap around his vambrace. They did with a sharp hiss, right in his ear. He winced.
Father had judged him and found him wanting. The spell of banishment had been cast. Zuko’s forehead was burning—his coven mark was burning—
Zuko’s footfalls echoed through the empty throne room as he forced himself to run.If he wanted to prove his father wrong—spirits, if he wanted to survive the night—he needed to leave.
–
Wolf Cove looked small at night. Or maybe it just was small, now.
In his mind’s eyes, Sokka still pictured a buzzing community. Colored flames dancing on street corners, cast by Arcanists who called them protection spells; though Sokka could usually find there was more to them if he pressed. Men coming up from the harbor dragging nets filled with still wiggling fish that would become meals for nights to come.How Sokka wished now to smell those cookfires. Children up to nonsense running back and forth, their hoods flapping behind them, and, if they were lumpeguins, their ears, too.
That was the town Sokka had grown up in. The mix of white igloos and stone peat houses that stretched before him looked lonely under the black sky only bore a passing resemblance to those memories. It was just smaller now. And, at night, far too quiet. Eerily quiet.
That didn’t seem to bother Katara. “Race you to the pier!”
“Hey— that’s not fair!” Sokka shouted as he began to run. It was no contest and they both knew it, but Sokka had woken her up in the middle of the night so he supposed he owed her the loss. He pushed his legs to pump faster, almost immediately feeling a burning sensation in his calves. Giving it his all, as if there was any way to beat a lumpeguin in an ice race.
While Sokka ran, Katara soared. She ran for all of ten steps before her body began to elongate. She dove, belly first onto the ice, her lower half sprouting its tail as she pushed herself into her full form. Her tail stretched far below her, nearly twice as long as her legs had been.
At its tip, it was dark as the depths of the ocean, but lightened into the same shimmering azure as her scales as it met her waist. Majestic white circles adorning the sides in precise rows of three, with each dot getting smaller—like the moon settling away in the horizon. Large dorsal fins fanned up at her back, forming precise azure peaks along her spine that sliced easily through both wind and sea.
Fish-ster.
Even though Sokka had seen the transformation hundreds of times, it never ceased to amaze him. He may have been biased, but Sokka was sure lumpequins were the most beautiful of the human morphs.
In this form, water was Katara’s element. She sailed through the streets, gliding over icy lanes more easily than a penguin otter. There was no chance Sokka could keep up. He kept trying, though. Whether it was some sort of weird pride, or just to make her happy, he wasn’t sure, but he kept running at full speed til he reached the pier.
When he arrived, minutes behind her, she was already in the water. She splashed him. “Hey!” Sokka shouted in mock indignation. “Can’t I maintain just a little dignity?”
“To maintain dignity, you’d have had to have had some in the first place,” she said. She looked so different now in her fish form. Freer. Sokka wasn’t sure how exactly the magic worked—lumpeguin secrets that Katara refused to give up—but whenever Katara transformed, she let her hair go free.
It floated in the water behind her shoulders. She also shook off her normal clothes (magic!), her upper half now covered only in a navy tank. Sokka could see her tribal tattoo on her upper right arm. Azure swirling waves, under a white circle moon. Sokka was still getting used to that. The necklace resting at the base of her neck was much more familiar.
“Jump in, let’s get going,” Katara said.
Sokka hesitated. He wanted her help, but he hated this part.
Katara rolled her eyes.Then her face shifted, her ears curling up as her still human lips stretched into a smile. She extended to him her webbed hand. And even though Sokka knew exactly what was going to happen, he reached out his own hand and took it.
They were under the water before Sokka even realized they’d jumped in.
Katara pulled them down and down and down through dark waters, her own bioluminescence their only light as they plunged into the watery depths, propelled by strong pushes of her pointed tail. Sokka glided beside her, along for the ride, protected in a bubble of air courtesy of Katara. The white spots on her tail and the tips of her fins glowed, allowing Sokka to see the world beneath the waves as it swelled around him.
–
Little fish, little fish, what could you be?
Do you say “blub-blub” or “oogie-oogie”?
Could you be a monster? (oogie-oogie!)
Could you be a trick? (Oh no no!)
Could you be a Spirit? (Amazing!)
Or are you just a fish? (Blub-blub-blub)
Little fish, little fish, what could you be?
Whatever you are - please! - don’t eat me!
It was a rhyme he used to sing with his mother. Sokka’s favorite part had been singing “oogie-oogie”.
It was just a stupid children’s song, but it was packed with the pathos of the preposterous world Sokka had, probably by divine error, been born into.
As Katara pulled him through the water, Sokka could see all sorts of life teaming around them. He caught sight of a raccoon cod—a five foot, hundred pound gray fish with a flat mouth, black ringed eyes, and black ringed fins. They were terrifying looking,but they were just fish. Normal everyday animals that ate and grew and were delicious when fried in oil, skin down. Normal animals were usually animal-animal hybrids with animal-typical features. No weird powers and they never talked.
Not far behind them was a small school of Kalullu, small-ish fish about a hand and a half long, with shimmering gray-green scales and teeny human heads. They had flowy hair. Some even had beads and braids. How? Kulullu were monsters.
Not especially intelligent monsters, based on their lack of speech and their perpetually wide eyes. Like most monsters, the kulullu were hybrids with some non-animal features—human heads in this case—and special properties. They were said to bring protection to households. Gran-Gran kept a carving of one in their house for luck.
Looking at those eyes, Sokka doubted they could do very much. Not all monsters were created equally. Some were paragons of grace in darkness, others bone-shakingly terrifying and so lethal even hearing them breathe meant death; And some—like the kulullu—were just a little weird, but mostly benign.
The other two lines in the rhyme were less common scenarios. A trick. Arcanist nonsense. Or worse, Word Magic, though that was so rare Sokka didn’t know anyone who’d actually encountered it. Arcanists, however, were everywhere. Even Sokka had been forced to learn a few spells. It was probably the only thing he had in common with vampires, who were well known for their depraved arcanists cults. Sokka had taken to wearing a pair of red glasses that let him see through deception spells. And looked amazing if he did say so himself (he’d crafted them).
And then there was the elusive fourth category. Spirits. They could manifest into animal forms, usually non-hybrids. When is a polar bear a polar bear? When it’s a Spirit manifesting itself from another plane. Or trying to reach across said plane and pull you in.
The Spiritworld. A place where down was up, up was down, and things had eyes that really shouldn’t. If a mortal entered, their chances of getting out again were less than promising.
At least Spirit Animals were usually oversized. Made them easier to identify and avoid.
Not always, though.
Strange. Strange was far too mild a word for this world that Sokka was born into. He lived in freaky bizzaro land, but it was home.
Katara continued to tug Sokka through the dark waters. Everywhere he looked he saw something wondrous. Sokka tried to stop thinking and enjoy the view.
–
Last time this had happened, Zuko had exited the temple half-dragged, half-carried away by his uncle. Leaving with only the burned clothes on his back. Since then, Zuko’d kept a packed bag underneath his bed.
Not because he thought he’d ever do something again that would test the limits of his father’s mercy… he just… it made sense to be ready to go.
The contents of the bag were light. Some clothes. His sai blades, his halberd. Dowsing rods. Candles, crystals. Herbs, incense sticks. The basic supplies Zuko needed to practice his arts. And a few less basic supplies, too. His cousin’s old athame. His uncle’s boline knife.
An earring. An amulet. Things that his mother had left behind.
Zuko paused for a moment, knowing he didn’t have time, and yet he opened the bag and pulled out her perfume bottle. His hands instinctively mimicked her motions as he spritzed it on his neck. Peony. She always smelled of blood and peony.
Slightly light headed from the smell, Zuko took out the long, red earring. He put it on, then he rose, ignoring the way that movement worsened the burning feeling in his forehead, and turned towards the mirror.
Her earring looked… strange.
Zuko was as morphed as he could manage, his gray, bat-like ears extended to twice the height of his head, eyes completely black except for their golden irises which shone like candle flames flickering in the night. The normally golden tattoo in the center of his forehead—three elongated diamond shapes that represented the sun’s rays as they rose from the edge of the world— was now flickering red, then gold, then red again in time with the wild pulse of Zuko’s heart.
The left side of his face was, as ever, marred by the true burn he’d received four years ago, but the right - it was perfect, adorned now by the ceremonial red flame painted beneath the eye. Now, just to the side of that mark dangled the earring.
It was a simple design, considering she had been the High Priest’s consort. Two simple red beads in the shape of tears. Zuko had no right to them. He knew that.
He could still see her in his mind’s eye, head bowed as she walked the grounds. He could see the earring, hanging there, sometimes blending in with the blood still fresh on the side of her neck.
The pain in his forehead flared again, making him hiss. Zuko looked at the mirror, saw the red of the tattoo holding, gold flickering less present. He was running out of time.
Hand shaking, Zuko opened his bedside table, grabbing Uncle’s old blue coin purse and shoving it in his pocket. He didn’t need the money, he had plenty of money packed already, but… there had to be something, didn’t there? Something else Zuko wanted to take.
Father would forgive him. He’d forgiven Zuko last time for what he’d done. Father would forgive him this time for what he refused to do.
He looked down at his wrist. Almost half the tendril flames were gone. He cast them off. They couldn’t help him.
Zuko rushed out of the room without looking back, and immediately felt hotter than he ever had in his entire life, like he was three feet from the sun.
Zuko could see him standing at the end of the hallway. His monstrous body overly wide, the tips of the majestic wings brushing the hallways on each end. Fire, the element of the vampires, made light. His body seemed to suck that light into itself, casting everything else in shadow as he radiated that light—that heat—like a living sun.
Sozin.
The Great One. Maker of the vampires.
Founder and leader of the Coven of Agni for one thousand years.
He made them Immortal when he sacrificed the Sun.
He was here for Azula’s Ascension, to bring her into his Glory. Despite being his direct descendant, Zuko had only seen the Great One a handful of times. And never like this. On the opposite end of a hallway. He could close the space between them if he wanted to. Kiss the Great One’s three toed, taloned feet.
Zuko’s heart was racing. He needed to run. He needed to run.
Zuko didn’t think, just acted. Sprinting across the empty hallway soundless on the balls of his feet while holding his breath. He pressed his palm into a groove below one of the sconces and a second later the wall popped open with a small hiss. Zuko nearly flinched. He turned and allowed himself the briefest of glances down the hallway. His heart nearly burst when he thought he saw the white hair shimmer, as if Sozin had tilted his head. Run. Zuko’s arms shook as he shut the door closed behind him, plunging himself into darkness.
He allowed himself to take a quick breath.
Servant’s passage. This was a servant’s passage. He knew it well. All the games of sneaking he and Azula used to play once. It had been years, but he…
He hadn’t been here in a long time.
He’s always had a torch before.
Zuko was a vampire. Fire was in his blood. He called a flame to his palm and could barely stifle a gasp as the pain in his forehead shot up tenfold. Spirits. His father, it seemed, didn’t want him to use fire. But he needed to. He took a deep breath, trying to soothe the pain… but it wouldn’t go away.
His hand shook as he let the flame die, then fumbled forward into the darkness.
—
It was a colder night than Sokka expected.
Katara laughed at him as he shrugged on his coat.
“Take off the sword!” She shouted up at him from where she lounged in the water, still fishy and fabulous. Sokka could see her pointed tail flickering beneath the waves, sending little fish off coarse as she disturbed the water. Sokka made a face at her before he turned to look at the tundra.
The island where the mishepishus lived didn’t have a name, but Sokka’d heard people call it the Isle of Frozen Thorns. Spikes of ice extended upwards from the tundra plain, like sharp, little fingers, or, well… thorns. Some small, just a foot high. Some so tall Sokka could walk under their arches.
No one was quite sure what caused them. It could have been the mishepishus, but… Sokka doubted it was those little buggers. Sokka could see a cluster of them not too far inland. It was going to be easy pickings tonight.
But safety first. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.
Katara was roaring. “Seriously? More?”
“Better safe than sorry,” Sokka said.
“You know you can’t morph into an armory, right?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Katara.” He took a deep breath.
“You’re paranoid and you need mental help,” Katara told him.
“Whatever! At least I won’t be vampire food. And neither will you, thanks to me! So you’re welcome!” Sokka hadn’t known he was going to yell until the words left his mouth. He suddenly felt hot. Spirits, why had he put that coat on?
Katara’s expression shifted. “Wait, are you actually mad? Sokka…”
Sokka ignored her. He turned around, walked a bit further inland to begin the ritual.
By trade, Sokka was an alchemist. The spells he crafted were methodical, orderly, and rooted in proven methodology. His work resulted in things you could touch. And sell. For money.
Arcanist rituals, in contrast, were often improvised and messy. Driven by feelings. Sokka hated them.But, since he didn’t have time to build an enchanted fence before he started hunting, a messy archaist ritual would have to do.
The knife, at least, was one he had crafted himself. The first thing he’d made after she died. It was a simple thing, long, with a carved turquoise handle. The color of her eyes.
Sokka raised it above his head and sliced it through air, a diagonal motion that started far above his right shoulder and ended nearly at his feet. He forgot the significance of the motion, Hama had tried to hammer it into him, but all he knew was that it worked.
He felt energy building around him. Despite his lackluster technique and heavy skepticism, an invisible barrier was forming around them. Sokka brought his knife up, touched it to his heart, then extended it forward. Slowly, he turned around in a circle, careful not to blink, eyes tracing the edges of the island. When he finished the circle, he took a deep breath, then released it as he plunged the knife into the snow.
With that motion, Sokka’s circle was cast. If any harm were to come for him before it was broken, he would know.
That out of the way, Sokka turned his attention to the mishepishus. Like the kulullu they’d passed earlier, the mishepushus were mostly benign. Unlike the kulullu, they were adorable. They were about one and half times the size of the average house cat and shaped roughly the same way, but instead of thick fur, they were covered in slippery scales that are the color of the sea. Large, copper horns jutted out of their cat-like faces, glowing almost gold in the moonlight.
It didn’t hurt them, taking copper. The horns eventually grew back.The tricky part was getting permission. Or at least, it had been. By now, Sokka was a pro.
“Here, mishy, mishy, mishy,” Sokka said, reaching inside his pocket and shaking the bag inside. A dozen little horned heads turned to him, a few climbing up onto the ice sprites to get a better view. Those little buggers loved their treats.
–
Zuko heard only the faintest screech before they opened their wings and descended.
Fire Bats.
For a moment, Zuko thought they were coming for him,that they would burn out his eyes the way they did in spirit tales. Yet even in that moment, he thought they were beautiful with curling flames trailing at the edges of their dark, leathery wings and veins glowing orange with a fire that burned within their blood.
They flew past him, rounding a corner and plunging Zuko back into darkness.
Their light had shone just long enough for Zuko to make out the edges of a door.
He wasn’t sure where he was. Ridiculous. His eight year old self would look at him with the deepest disdain. But he couldn’t change it. Zuko hadn’t navigated these tunnels in years, not since Father had become High Priest and Azula had decided games weren’t fit for the children of the sovereign. That door could open to anywhere. But Zuko had to get out. He was running out of time. Exposure was a risk he would have to take.
He took a breath. Then another. Then another. Then another.
He opened the door and saw the Candle.
–
Katara yawned.
“We could leave sooner if you had helped, you know.” Sokka groused at her, but it wasn’t really true. His mission had been a resounding success. Eleven sets of horns had been collected so far. Beside him, two mishepishus batted lazily at his dangling rope date with their scaly paws. Turns out one man’s weapon was another monster’s kitty toy.
Sokka looked up at the gibbous moon, low and large in the sky. There was an hour and a half or so before the moonset. With Fishster’s help, he’d make it back in plenty of time.
A sudden hissing made him jump, hands instantly reaching for his spear— only to find himself pointing it at the mishepishus, who had just started wrestling each other. Sokka watched as one bit the other’s ears with its fingers, then scampered off with its horns very much still in its head, dragging Sokka’s rope dart with it.
“Paranoid,” Katara said from across the ice.
“Shut up,” Sokka said, harsher than he meant to. He turned away from the look hurt on his sister’s face as he reached down to scratch behind the ears of the remaining beast. It pushed its scaly cheek into Sokka’s hand, giving him a gurgling purr. Then it was scampering away. But its horns— its beautiful copper horns— had been left behind in Sokka’s palm.
He looked at them, each one just a little thicker and longer than index finger.
“Are we done?” Katara said, perking up.
“It took my dart!” Sokka whined, stepping forward and slipping the new horns into his pocket.
“Can’t you just make another one?” Katara whined.
Sokka was tempted to say something sarcastic, but he forced it back. Instead, he flashed her a small smile. “It’ll only take a minute.”
He refocused on his task. If he could only see the bugger he’d already been working on… there it was! A big one, its scales mostly swampy green except for one copper colored paw, currently perched atop one of the larger ice arcs. It was still holding the rope dart in its mouth, the arrowhead dangling like an amulet. Sokka walked towards it, moving as fast he could while trying to appear casual.
“Hello, Mr. Mishy,” he said as he approached. “Come here let Uncle Sokka give you a hug.”
It jumped down and started bounding through the snow.
“Oh, come on…” Sokka started running after it.
He was being stubborn. He knew he was being stubborn. He had enough to make his orders now and Katara was right, he could make another rope dart. But he kept running anyway.
“Sokka…” He heard Katara’s call voice fading with the wind.
Sokka turned briefly. The shoreline had almost disappeared from his view. Stupid. He and Katara never went this far inland. They never needed to, the mishepishus loved the water. What was he doing? He could make another rope dart, he—
One second Sokka was running, the next second he was falling.
Free falling. Straight down through the howling wind until he belly flopped right on the ice with a large thud. It cracked dramatically underneath him with a sickening snap.
–
A white candle. Four symbols, known to all across the world.
A circle with waves that crested with three swirling circles—Water.
A squared triangle with a swirling circle in its center and three lines at its base—Earth.
A swirling circle in the center of a roaring flame—Fire.
And finally three swirling circles drawn together, pointed into each other, with open ends—Air.
Zuko had heard about it since he was a child, though he’d never seen it. One of the Great One’s most delicate spells, laced into the simple wax of a candle. A candle that had never been lit and would only light when the vampire’s greatest enemy returned to the world.
It was kept inside the High Priest’s private spell space. Once Grandfather's, now Father’s. Never a place Zuko had been invited to enter, though Azula had. Now here he was. Accidentally. Uninvited.
He needed to leave. However much he wanted to stay, to explore, to soak in this space and imagine it as his own. He needed to—
There was a hiss. Smoke without flame.
Zuko gasped.
—
It was quiet. Everything was still.
Sokka could see the copper pawed mishepishu sitting calming in front of him, grooming his head. “You suck,” Sokka said, pained, as he tried to convince his arms to move. He’d managed to fall… had he fallen off a ledge? Through a patch of ice?
Where was he? He looked around.
Okay… it appeared it was in some sort of underground ice cave. It was… it was actually really beautiful. A blanket of ice crystals coated the ceiling. Just enough of the gibbous moon’s light poured in from the mouth of the cave to make those crystals dance with color. Little ice rainbows that seemed to flicker and float as Sokka moved his head. Pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off them as he got himself to his feet—
And immediately the ice cracked beneath him, another sickening snap.
He expected to fall into deadly, dark waters.
Instead, Sokka was buoyed upwards, knocked back by a fierce wind. He fell back into a patch of waiting snow as before him snow began to swirl and shake on a twisting wind. Dangerous—beautiful, so beautiful—until it suddenly stopped. The snowflakes stilled, then drifted to the ground.
Except for some that drifted into… a snowman?
There was a form in the center of the cave. Short and skinny, with a big round head, every inch of it covered in snow. Not the silly three ball snowmen Sokka used to make in his youth and decorate with beads and feathers. This was something actually in the shape of a man… or a boy maybe… made of snow and ice.
It sneezed.
In the instant it did that snow scattered. The man in the center was gone. Now there was something in the air, something— orange?
Orange fabric drifted down from the ice crystal ceiling. It stopped abruptly three feet above the ground. Sokka was extremely confused. The fabric was just suspended there, snow settling around it, above a suddenly appearing pair of footprints. A pair of footprints made of nothing? As Sokka stared at them, suddenly they were replaced by thin, boot-cover feet.
Faster than Sokka could blink, he appeared, a thin boy made of wind and wisps.His translucent body shimmered in the center of the cave, coming into form from the bottom up: feet, then legs, then arms, and then finally his round, translucent, bald, head that was adorned with a deep blue tattoo.
The boy turned, his expression totally at ease as he looked about the cave. He saw Sokka and grinned, an expression that lit up the blacks of his eyes.
“Hi!” He said, grinning. “I’m Aang!”
–
The candle ignited.
The Avatar had returned to the world.