Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, when the pipes go quiet and the roof stops shaking, I hear my Gran-Gran’s voice echo through the dark.

She says the world used to turn in balance. That water, earth, fire, and air moved like breath in a sleeping giant—slow, steady, peaceful.

But I’ve never seen peace. Only rusted valves, ration lines, and the red bloom of war on white snow.

We live under the ice now. Not out of choice, but because the sky burns too often, and the earth doesn’t bury the dead fast enough.

They say the Avatar disappeared long ago—maybe fled, maybe killed, maybe hiding like the rest of us.

And so we wait. In tunnels. In silence.

For a sign. For a name. For someone who might finally end this.

Or maybe… the war ends with the Avatar.

Or because of them.

Gran-Gran says the world will shift again soon.

I just hope I’m still alive to see it.

Winter, 99 AG. Seven months into the Southern Uprising.

Katara dreamed of drowning.

Not in water—she never feared that—but in ice. Crushing, suffocating, the weight of a glacier pressing down on her ribs. And beneath it, something moving. A shadow in the blue-black depths, stirring like a sleeper beneath thin ice. A boy’s face, pale and gaunt, eyes wide and unseeing—

Then the shelling started.

She woke to the distant thump-thump-THUD of Fire Navy mortars chewing through the glacier above Taluqqriaq. The caverns trembled. Frost rained from the ceiling.
“Katara!”

Sokka’s voice was raw, frayed at the edges. He stood in the doorway of their dugout, his parka streaked with soot and something darker. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tight she could see the muscle twitching.

“Get up,” he snarled. “Now.”

No good morning. No, did you sleep? Just a hand yanking her to her feet, shoving a half-frozen medkit into her arms.

The wounded man in the tunnel beyond was barely recognizable as human.

He sat slumped against the ice wall, breathing in wet, shuddering gasps. His face was a ruin—burned on one side, the skin blistered and peeling. His left arm ended at the elbow in a blackened stump, hastily cauterized. His good hand clutched a rusted Fire Nation rifle, fingers locked around the trigger like rigor mortis had already taken him.

But his eyes were worse.

Empty. Fixed on nothing. The thousand-yard stare of a man who’d already left his body behind.

Katara swallowed bile. “What happened?”

Sokka’s laugh was a sharp, broken thing. “Ambush. Firebenders hit their patrol before they even reached the depot. Someone talked.”

He didn't say it like a question. He said it like a verdict.

Katara’s hands stilled over the dying man’s chest. The air in the tunnel was suddenly too thick, too still.

Then—movement. A shift in the shadows near the tunnel’s mouth.

A figure slumped forward, collapsing into the dim light.

It was Nukilik. One of the younger scouts. Sixteen, maybe. His parka was soaked through, one side blackened where a fireblast had grazed him. His lips were blue.

"They—they knew," he gasped. "Knew the route. Knew the signals." His fingers clawed at the ice, trembling. "Hama—she was at the rendezvous point before us. They were already waiting. She—"

A wet cough. Blood speckled the snow at his knees.

Sokka was already moving. He grabbed Nukilik by the front of his parka, hauling him up. "Where is she?"

Nukilik’s eyes flickered toward the tunnel’s dark mouth.

They didn’t need to follow the look.

Another shell hit overhead. Closer.

The ice screamed.

Nukilik’s breath hitched. "She tried to run. They—they didn’t even take her. Just—"

He didn’t finish.

He didn’t need to.

Sokka let him go.

The scout crumpled to the ground, his shoulders shaking. Not from the cold.

Sokka turned away, his boots crunching on frost and frozen blood. "Move him. Now."

Katara didn’t argue. She hooked Nukilik’s arm over her shoulder, half-dragging him deeper into the warren of ice and shadow. The dying man stayed where he was. No time. No supplies. No mercy left.

The tunnels narrowed, then opened like a wound.

Taluqqriaq.

The city—if you could call it that—was a gutted, gasping thing. A carcass of ice and desperation.

It had been Wolf Cove, once. Before the Fire Nation burned it to the waterline. Before the survivors clawed their way into the glacier’s belly and called it home. Now, it was a maze of half-collapsed caverns and smuggler-cut passages, lit by flickering oil lamps and the sickly glow of spirit crystals embedded in the walls. The air stank of sweat, burning seal fat, and the iron-tang of old blood.

And it was loud.

Voices echoed off the ice—shouts, sobs, the low, constant murmur of people who had stopped praying and started bargaining. A child wailed somewhere. A mother hissed at them to shut up, shut up before they hear us.

Sokka didn’t slow. He shoved through the press of bodies, his face a mask. Katara followed, Nukilik’s weight dragging at her.

They passed a group of warriors sharpening whalebone spears. Passed a huddle of elders picking through a meager haul of stolen Fire Nation rations. Passed a man with a gut wound moaning into his hands while a waterbender too young for this shit tried to knit his insides back together.

Then—the command post.

Such as it was.

A hollowed-out alcove, barely big enough for five people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Maps were carved into the ice walls, scratched and re-scratched as routes were burned and safe houses collapsed. A rusted Fire Nation radio hissed static in the corner.

Bato looked up as they entered. His face was all hard lines and deeper shadows.

"Sokka."

"They knew." Sokka’s voice was flat. "Hama’s gone. The depot’s gone. The patrol’s gone."

Bato closed his eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough for the ice to creak under another distant impact, for the lamplight to shudder against the hollows of his face. When he opened them again, his gaze went straight to the radio—that fucking radio, its cracked speaker still spitting static like a dying man's last breaths.

Yuka caught the look. Her bandaged fingers twitched away from the dials. "Nothing but spirits on the air tonight."

The words hung there, sharp as a skinning knife left out in the cold.

Sokka exhaled through his nose, fogging the air between them. He reached for the map knife—not Bato's, but his own, the one he'd ground from a Fire Nation bayonet. The blade caught the light as he dragged it across the ice-wall, carving a fresh line through the old scars.

"Eastern fissures are shit," he said, too calm. "Half-flooded. No cover once you're past the first bend."

Bato's jaw worked. "Better than a straight shot through a Fire Nation kill zone."

Nukilik made a wet sound in the back of his throat. Katara didn't turn to look. She already knew what she'd see—the glaze in his eyes, the way his fingers kept flexing like he was still trying to clutch his spear. Like his body hadn't realized yet that he'd dropped it back in the snow.

The radio crackled.

For one stupid, breathless second, everyone froze.

Then—nothing. Just the static, and the ice groaning overhead, and the drip-drip-drip of meltwater eating away at their fucking lives.

Yuka's laugh was a broken thing. "Guess that's our answer."

Sokka drove his knife into the table. The vibration ran up Katara's arms like a second pulse.

Outside, the wind rose to a howl. Somewhere in the warren of tunnels, a baby started crying—thin, reedy wails that cut off too quick. Smothered. The way all good warnings were these days.

Bato finally moved, rolling his shoulders like he could shed the weight pressing down on them. "Seal Tunnel Three. Reroute at dawn." His eyes found Katara's. "You're on medic rotation."

She opened her mouth—to argue, to scream, to ask when the fuck this became normal—but Nukilik slumped against her shoulder then, his breath coming in ragged bursts.

When she looked down, his pupils were blown wide. Shock. Or maybe just the realization, finally sinking in.

They were all going to die here.

The knife trembled in the table. The static hissed.

And beneath it all, so quiet she almost missed it—the ice itself seemed to hum.

Not a sound, exactly. A pressure. A vibration in her bones, deeper than any shelling. A low, constant reminder that the glacier above them was not dead. It shifted. It listened. It remembered.

Katara moved.

Not out of choice. Out of habit. Muscle memory. The same way you breathe, the same way you keep walking after seeing a body you know. No thought, just inertia and the stink of adrenaline clinging to her clothes.

She dragged Nukilik down a side corridor toward the overflow barracks—what used to be cold storage before the wounded overflowed every clean bed. The deeper she went, the tighter the walls got. Ice pressed in from every side, blue-black and striated with old stress lines like veins through glass. Spirit crystals flickered overhead, weak and dying, casting everything in a bruised glow.

They passed under old hanging tarps, stitched from Fire Nation tents and whalebone frames. Some still smelled like napalm.

She turned a corner—and stopped.

Children.

Three of them. No older than seven. Two boys and a girl, hunched in a circle around a pile of carved snow figures—crude shapes with soot-smudged faces and painted flame insignias on their chests. Fire Nation soldiers.

The girl stood tall, arms outstretched, a makeshift spear in one hand. Her other hand mimicked a waterbending stance—sloppy, stiff, but unmistakable.

“I get the eyes,” she said flatly, and drove the stick down with a grunt.

The snow figure cracked in half. One of Nukilik s grabbed the “corpse,” flipped it onto its belly, and mimed cutting its throat with a shard of bone. “He screamed like a pig-seal,” Nukilik  said.

They laughed.

Not loud. Not the shriek of children playing. A quiet, practiced laugh. Like they were mimicking something they'd seen grown-ups do after a kill. One of them glanced over at Katara, not embarrassed, not ashamed—just watchful.

Like a scout.

Katara looked at the pile of figures. There were ten. Four lay in pieces. One had red berries where the eyes used to be. She didn’t ask what that meant. She didn’t need to.

Nukilik stirred behind her. A low groan.

The children didn’t flinch.

The smallest boy turned back to the game and said, “My turn to play the firebender.”

They kept moving.

Past the overcrowded sick dens, where moans bled through stitched-together walls of tarp and whale hide. Past the woman cradling a swaddled bundle that didn’t cry anymore. She was humming to it. Off-key. Rocking gently, as if that could reverse rigor mortis.

Past a whisper-fight between two half-starved men, clawing at each other over a dented can of condensed fish. One of them hissed, “My kid needs it more.”

The other didn’t answer. Just raised his hand—and Katara didn’t wait to see if he used it.

Nukilik beside her—barely sixteen, face still swollen from the cold—kept his head low and his steps close behind.

He finally spoke, voice cracking from the dry rot in his throat. “How long has it been like this down here?”

Katara didn’t look back.

“How long?” he asked again.

She stopped beside a split in the tunnel and adjusted Nukilik’s weight over her shoulder. He was limp now, breath shallow and wet. The heatstone had barely helped.

“Define ‘this,’” she said, voice flat.

Nukilik  hesitated. “The—smell. The—”

He gestured vaguely. At the dark. The rot. The blood on the walls that nobody even scrubbed off anymore.

Katara shrugged. “This is Tuesday.”

She kept walking.

He didn’t follow immediately.

It was a pit. A gullet carved into the glacier’s underside. A grave with torches still flickering inside it. It had once been a smuggler's depot—quick routes, escape maps, caches for weapons and salt meat. Now it was home. If you could call a body cavity a home.

The walls dripped. Not water—just melt runoff thick with god-knows-what from the upper tunnels. Ice etched with soot tags and smuggler runes, now buried under graffiti, kill marks, warnings, names. Whole families had written themselves into the ice. We were here. We lived.

Some of those names were scratched out, deeply, until the wall scarred white. Katara didn’t ask why. No one did. You could live long enough to be hated for it.

They passed a sleeping quarter marked by crates and bloodied sheets. Someone had hung a windchime made of shell casings and chipped porcelain from the refugee barges. It clinked softly when they passed—almost sweet, if you didn’t know those casings were still warm when they were stripped off bodies.

“Is that a—body?” Nukilik asked, pointing at the form slumped by the side.

“Yeah,” Katara said.

“Should we—?”

“No.”

Nukilik opened his mouth again, then stopped. He didn’t ask why.

Good. He was learning.

They reached the barracks.

If you could call it that.

The tunnel widened like a wound, scraped open by water pressure years ago. Someone had wedged three rows of bunk frames in there, stacked like coffins. Blood-stained blankets, limp lanterns, and a smell like hot meat and old leather filled the air.

The wounded coughed in the dark.

One of them whispered prayers in a tongue Katara didn’t know. One was already dead, mouth open, frostbitten fingers still curled like he’d tried to grab something that wasn’t there.

Katara lowered Nukilik onto an empty cot.

He whimpered as the warmth left her shoulder.

Nukilik  knelt beside him. “What do I do?”

Katara pressed a wrapped heatstone beneath Nukilik’s ribs. Checked his throat. Still had a pulse—barely.

“You keep him warm. You keep him quiet. You wait.”

“For what?”

Katara stood up, adjusted her coat, and stared at the flickering lantern above.

“For the bleeding to stop,” she said. “Or for his breath too.”

That was it. That was triage.

The hum in the ice hadn’t stopped.

Not a noise. More like pressure. Like something behind the glacier was awake and restless, scratching at its walls. A hum that buzzed through her teeth and lived in the hollows of her bones.

“Is it always like that?” Nukilik  asked, staring at the walls. “The noise?”

Katara nodded. “Sometimes louder.”

“Is it—earthquake? Spirits?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just looked at the wall across from her—at the old burn mark in the shape of a hand, charred deep into the ice.

“Something stopped answering,” she said finally. “Up top. HQ, patrols, supply routes. Even the relay radio.”

Nukilik  swallowed. “What does that mean?”

Katara didn’t blink.

“It means the screaming’s about to start again.”

She turned and walked back into the corridor.

And the ice, always listening, hummed a little louder.

Chapter Text

The officer’s boots crunched across the ice.

He did not speak. Neither did his guard. Neither did the villagers.

Only the wind muttered through the long, cracked bones of the settlement’s outer wall. It dragged ash across the sea ice, remnants from the last signal flare, gray against white. Nothing burned clean here anymore.

They stopped at the mouth of the longhouse.

Inside, someone had already begun boiling water. Not out of hospitality. Habit. Survival. Delay. Didn’t matter.

Lieutenant Xin tapped the side of his crimson-lacquered clipboard with one gloved finger. The ink on the page hadn’t frozen yet. He was pleased. The last village’s scribe had spilled seal blood on his last report.

A flick of his hand. Two soldiers moved forward and entered the longhouse.

No screams. Not yet. That was what unsettled the newer ones.

The ones posted closer to the longhouse kept their voices low, tighter than the wind-dried leather over their gloves. They’d learned what loosened tongues brought. Last month, a private in the 42nd had called Azula’s security decree “paranoid.” His bunk was empty by morning. No blood. No signs. Just gone. Like he never bunked there at all.

One of the younger corporals, too new to know better, whispered anyway.

“I thought he got it by dueling some pleb or something.”

A grunt from an older sergeant. “You’re thinking of the old story. That’s what the bulletins say.”

“I heard it was some rebel op. Field inspection, couple weeks out of the Academy.”

“Yeah. Right outside the Capital. Caldera City. He was with the officers—midnight check on a prisoner convoy. One of the fuckers lobbed a bottle right at the command line. Glass, pitch, and rusted nails.”

“No way it got that far in. Security was tight—”

“You ever seen a molotov fly? Doesn’t take much. One step off-pattern, one half-second miss on the sweep patrol… boom. I knew the guy who threw it. Didn’t even get the flame to stick to the commander.”

“So why Zuko?”

The sergeant’s mouth tightened, voice lower now. “Wrong place. Right face. Half the bottle hit him square while he was pulling a cadet back. Kid lived. Scarred his shoulder. Zuko took the rest.”

The corporal fell silent.

“They were aiming for the officers?”

“No.” A pause. “They were aiming for him.”

A beat of wind pressed ash against the wall. One of the soldiers spit into the snow.

 "Like what happened to Jun’s squad after they questioned—"

“Shut the fuck up.”

A gust slammed through the space between the outer buildings, scattering soot and snow.

Both soldiers froze.

Zuko had been standing there the whole time, just beyond the frost line, still as a polearm in the snow.

His cloak hung heavy on his shoulders, the edges burnt to curling tatters. Bandages covered half his face, fresh but already stained. The other half—the untouched half—held no expression at all.

Neither soldier said a word.

He walked past them without acknowledgment, cloak trailing soot.

The burn on his face throbbed with every gust.

The longhouse smelled of blood, boiled fat, and the acrid sting of oil lanterns.

Inside, the heat barely held. Frost clung to the beams. Shadows stretched long over the packed earth floor.

Kya sat in the center, hands folded in her lap, spine straight. She had the posture of a woman who had seen war before—more than one—and had learned how to endure it.

Lieutenant Xin stood across from her, fingers drumming lightly against the edge of his lacquered report. The tapping was rhythmic, deliberate. He didn’t look up.

“Loyalty,” he said, “is not a feeling. It is an action.”

Kya said nothing.

Outside, the wind keened through the gaps in the wall, sounding almost like a voice trying to claw its way back into the room.

Then the door creaked open.

A wave of frozen air swept in, followed by boots. Heavy. Controlled.

Prince Zuko stepped inside.

The firelight caught the soaked edges of his cloak, and the steam that rose from where it met the warmth. His boots left dark prints on the floor—melted snow and soot and something older beneath. His face was half-swallowed by white bandages, but even those couldn’t hide the way the skin beneath pulled taut and red. Blood had stained through near the cheekbone.

He didn’t speak.

His good eye moved once—from Xin to Kya—and stopped.

Waiting.

Weighing.

The silence was no longer a courtesy. It was an extension of him now. Heavy. Inescapable.

"Lieutenant," he said, voice rough.

Xin straightened. "Your Highness."

Zuko didn’t acknowledge the title. He walked to the fire, holding his hands over the flames like he was testing their heat. "What’s the situation?"

Xin gestured to Kya. "Suspected of harboring rebels. Healing fire wounds. Sheltering a waterbender."

Zuko exhaled through his nose. His breath fogged in the cold. "Evidence?"

"Eyewitness testimony."

"From whom?"

Xin hesitated. "A local informant."

Zuko’s jaw tightened. He turned to Kya. "Where are they?"

Kya met his gaze. "Where are who?"

"The rebels. The waterbender."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Zuko stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned to Xin. "Search the house."

Xin nodded to his men. Two soldiers moved toward the back rooms, their boots heavy on the wooden planks.

Zuko watched them go, then leaned in slightly, voice low. "If you’re lying, this won’t end well for you."

Kya didn’t flinch. "I know."

The soldiers returned empty-handed.

Xin’s mouth thinned. "Your Highness—"

"Outside," Zuko cut in. He didn’t wait for a response, turning on his heel and striding back into the cold.

Xin followed, his expression carefully blank. The door shut behind them, leaving Kya alone with the fire and the silence.

Outside, the wind bit like teeth.

Zuko stopped at the edge of the village, staring out at the ice fields. "Who’s the informant?"

Xin hesitated. "A fisherman. Claims he saw her treating burn wounds."

"Claims?"

"He’s reliable."

Zuko’s fingers flexed at his side. "Or desperate."

Xin said nothing.

Zuko exhaled, his breath a white cloud in the dark. "If there’s no proof, we move on."

"Your Highness—"

"That’s an order."

Xin’s jaw tightened, but he bowed. "As you command."

Zuko didn’t watch him leave. He stood there, listening to the wind, the distant crack of ice, the muffled sobs from the longhouse.

Zuko didn’t watch Xin leave.

He stood there, just beyond the smoke-smeared window of the longhouse, listening. The wind scraped across the snow-hardened earth like claws across bone. A sharp, distant crack—ice shifting on the lake, or maybe something else.

Then the scream.

Short. Wet. Cut off mid-breath.

Inside, Kya had not moved. Her eyes stayed fixed on the flames, though the sob had come from her. A sound carved from someplace deeper than lungs.

Zuko came back in quietly. Sat across from her, the fire casting jagged shadows across his bandaged cheek. He didn’t speak for a while. Just held his hands out, palms cupped near the flame like he was warming more than just his skin.

“You know what kind of rifles they carry now?” he asked, voice low.

Kya didn’t answer.

“Type-95. Gas piston. Semi-auto or burst fire. They jam less in the cold.”

She looked up.

He kept speaking, not looking at her. “Those men outside? Not regular infantry. Intelligence Corps. Half of them don’t have units. They’re assigned to people. Commanders. Governors. Whatever field officer the capital trusts more than the ones already here.”

He didn’t say Captain Zhao’s name. He didn’t have to.

Another shout outside. Someone pleading. Muffled thumps of boots in snow. Then the metallic punch of rifle fire. Once. Twice. Then a third to the chest as the body hit the ground.

Kya’s jaw trembled, but her posture stayed firm.

“You weren’t supposed to see this, were you?” Zuko said, finally meeting her eyes. “The liberation campaign. The healing. The honor. All the words on scrolls.”

Kya’s voice was dry. “Is that what you call this?”

“I don’t call it anything anymore.”

They sat for a while, listening. More movement outside—boots dragging something. Then the unmistakable, bone-deep whine of a Breaker suit’s engine spinning up.

Kya’s hands curled tight in her lap.

Zuko saw it—the way her shoulders went rigid, the way her eyes flicked once toward the door, calculating.

“You’ve seen them before,” he said.

She didn’t reply.

The Breaker suit cracked the ice beneath its weight as it lurched into view—seven feet of Whitened alloy and hydraulic snarl, its armor not polished for parade but seared with blast marks and old blood. The pilot inside was faceless behind the polarized slit of his helm. He didn’t need expressions. The rotary cannon on his shoulder did the talking, its barrels spinning up with a soundlike bones dragged through gears.

Kya flinched just once as the sound built.

Then: fire.

A stream of it erupted from the suit’s arm nozzle—raw, roaring, and without warning. It washed over a shack across the street. The wood and straw roof caught instantly, glowing orange as smoke climbed into the sky.

Screams came next.

Inside the longhouse, neither of them moved.

“They do that to clear nests,” Zuko said flatly. “Insurgents. Waterbenders. Doesn’t matter if anyone’s inside. Just makes a point.”

Kya stared at him. “And what’s your point?”

“That I don’t light the matches. Not anymore.” He stood slowly, brushing ash off his gloves.

Another body was being dragged past the door now. The soldier doing it looked barely out of childhood. His face was pale, hands shaking as he pushed the corpse into line with the others.

“I’ll be back,” Zuko said, nodding at the fire. “Later. For more... chitchat.”

Behind him, the longhouse groaned in the heat—quiet compared to the firestorms outside.

Zuko stepped into the wind, the snow burning against his cheeks like powdered glass. Smoke coiled up from the ruined house—black and bitter, carried low on the air. The heat of the fire didn’t reach far. It never did.

The Breaker unit was still active. One of the suits—six feet of ceramic plate, boiler stacks, and scarlet unit markings—stood idle now, its fuel tanks hissing as it cooled. The house behind it had collapsed, walls melted into a skeleton of timber and ash. The villagers called it a community hall. Command called it a staging site.

Off to the right, Xin was at work.

He knelt in the snow beside a man—mid-thirties, face torn open by frostbite and fear. One of Xin’s gloves was off. Bare fingers, red from the cold, gripped the man’s left hand tight against a rock. The wrist was pinned, forced flat. His boot came down slow.

The man’s scream cracked high and sharp. Bone followed.

Zuko watched the man writhe in the snow, blood smearing into slush.

“Still not speaking?” Zuko asked.

Xin didn’t look up. His eyes were locked on the man’s hand—his other boot now pressing down on the elbow, forcing it flat. Another twist, another crack. The sound didn’t echo—it just sank into the snow like rot.

“He says he’s just a carpenter,” Xin said evenly. “But he was seen crossing the north ridge two nights ago. Same trail as the last courier.”

Zuko’s breath ghosted out in white curls. “That’s not evidence.”

Xin finally looked up. His face was blank. “He lied. So, we’re correcting him.”

“Enough,” Zuko said.

Xin stood. The man was still screaming; one arm bent at impossible angles.

“Line him up,” Zuko ordered.

Two soldiers moved wordlessly, dragging the man toward the firing line. His heels dug furrows in the snow. One of them tightened the grip on their Type-95 as they reached the perimeter—flat black finish, muzzle already steaming from the cold.

Another unit was already there—three villagers kneeling, hoods off. One old. One middle-aged. One barely out of childhood. Each had their hands zip-bound behind their backs. No one cried anymore.

Across the square, a soldier shoved a fourth man to his knees.

The boy tried to resist. He caught a rifle stock across the cheek. His head snapped sideways, blood painting the snow.

“Civilians,” Zuko said under his breath.

Xin walked past him without answering, pausing only to nod at the corporal.

BANG .

The boy slumped sideways.

The rest waited for orders.

“Suspected sympathizers,” Xin said. “We found Red Flag literature in the old man’s hut. And two ration tokens from the coast—wrong sector.”

Zuko’s lips tightened. “That’s not enough.”

“Doesn’t have to be.” Xin’s voice was low. “Fire Nation Civil Statute 8B. Authority under active counterinsurgency zone, paragraph three.”

“Zhao’s orders.”

Xin didn’t smile this time. “Exactly.”

Zuko glanced at the remaining villagers. One woman was mouthing something. A prayer maybe. Or names. Maybe both.

He turned toward the longhouse. The flames were lower now, but the structure was gone. A Breaker suit stood nearby, soot-streaked and idle, its armor pocked with ash and blood. The pilot stood still in the armor’s cradle, watching Zuko through polarized glass.

Then the order came.

“Secondary structure,” Xin said, pointing at a half-collapsed Igloo. “Torch it.”

The breaker suit hissed to life. Igniter coils clicked. A gout of fire shot out, bathing the side of the building.

“No,” Zuko said, louder than before.

The flamethrower stuttered—paused mid-cycle.

Xin turned. “Problem, Captain?”

The title came sharp. Too sharp.

Zuko swallowed the taste of smoke. “Torching shelters without confirmed enemy activity—this isn’t protocol. This is abuse.”

Xin’s head tilted. “And you’re not in command. Not anymore.”

It stung. Not because it wasn’t true.

The breaker pilot hesitated, eyes flicking between them.

Zuko stared him down, then looked at the Igloo. Children had probably hidden there. Or livestock. Both dead now.

“Do what you want,” Zuko said, voice flat.

He turned.

The Igloo lit up melted behind him.

Fire roared.

A scream cut short.

And still—snow kept falling.

Click

Click

Click

The keys sounded brittle in the cabin—tinny and cheap against the bulkhead steel. Each strike echoed louder than it should’ve. The boat’s engine hummed beneath him, steady, like a long breath held underwater.
Zuko didn’t look up.
His fingers hovered, then pressed.

Click

OPORD 7B-9 “THRESHER”

SECTOR: Northern Tributary, Coldstream Ridge

UNIT: 5th Special Intelligence Detachment, Fire Navy Forward Recon

MISSION: Confirm/deny insurgent cell presence. Conduct suppression operations. Interrogate known persons-of-interest. Neutralize suspected sympathizers.

A drop of condensation rolled down from a pipe overhead and hit the desk. He didn’t wipe it.

RESULT: 9x KIA (CIVILIAN, tagged). 3x DETAINED (POI-LEVEL). 1x STRUCTURE DESTROYED (CIVILIAN). 1x STRUCTURE DESTROYED (SUSPECTED ASSET). 0x FRIENDLY CASUALTIES.

He paused. Backspace. Rewrote it:

2x STRUCTURES DESTROYED. BREAKER UNIT DEPLOYED AS PER DOCTRINE.

He didn’t type the part about the boy’s teeth landing in the snow. Or the woman mouthing her daughter's name as the fire reached the roof beam. That wasn’t relevant. Not to Command.

Zuko reached for his canteen. It was empty.
The ship rocked gently—not much, just enough that the overhead bulb swayed on its cord and sent shadows crawling across the steel. Footsteps clanked in the corridor. Then a knock.

He didn’t say anything.

The hatch swung open anyway.

Lieutenant Xin stepped inside. He was stripped down to his thermal undershirt, jacket hanging loose off his belt. His gloves were gone. His fingers were red and raw from the cold or blood—maybe both.

“Didn’t think you’d be doing paperwork this fast,” Xin said, brushing snow from his sleeves. “You always that efficient, or just that pissed?”

Zuko didn’t look up. “We’re on the clock.”

Xin leaned against the bulkhead near the small electric heater. It buzzed. Smelled faintly of melting plastic. He dug out a cigarette, lit it against the heater grille. No one was supposed to smoke in the officer’s cabin. No one cared.

“You did good out there,” Xin said.

Zuko didn’t answer.

Xin exhaled. Smoke hung in the air like smog.

“Some of those villagers were feeding Red Flag. One of the bodies had a hidden satphone. Repeater model. Battery still warm.”

Zuko looked up, finally.

“You sure?”

“Sure enough,” Xin said, mouth tight. “Zhao’s gonna write it into the sitrep either way.”

Zuko said nothing.

Xin shrugged. “You think it’s cruel. I know. I’ve seen your face. Doesn’t change anything.”

Zuko turned back to the screen. The after-action report blinked in front of him.

Cursor steady. Waiting.

“I saw a boy,” Zuko said quietly, “with the same scar I had when I was twelve. Same burn pattern.”

Xin’s jaw shifted.

Zuko kept typing.

Outside, the ship's engine throttled up—turbo hiss rising. Someone shouted on deck. The Arctic wind scraped across the hull like fingernails.

Neither of them moved.

Xin flicked ash into a metal tray. “You’re thinking too much,” he said finally.

“I know.”

They sat in silence a while longer.

Then came another knock.

This one was louder.

Zhao didn’t wait.

The hatch opened with a hiss. The man filled the doorway like a storm cloud—wet coat still steaming, medals catching the light like shards of broken glass.

“Well?” Zhao said, voice like gravel dragged across rusted steel.

Zuko turned. Slowly. One hand resting on the typewriter’s carriage return. The other curled into a fist.

Zhao’s eyes flicked to the page half-fed through the roller. Lines stamped in black ribbon ink. Blunt. Clean. No emotion.

A grunt. “Good. You’ll brief the admiralty in the morning. Be sure to include the part where we crushed a rebellion before it could bleed south.”

Zuko didn’t blink.

Zhao turned, already walking. One boot squeaked on the wet deck plating. “Oh—and burn the original field transcripts. No need for Command to see internal squabbling.”

The door slammed shut with a dull clang.

Xin let out a breath and flicked ash into a cold cup of tea. “Told you.”

Zuko didn’t answer.

He looked at the page again.

Then shifted the carriage.

clack-clack-clack

The typebars snapped down like falling teeth.

RECOMMEND: Tactical reassessment. Civilian intel unreliable. High probability of false positives under current protocol. Risk of long-term insurgency increase due to overreach.

He rolled the paper up a little. Reread it.

Didn’t sign it.

Didn’t cross it out either.

Just sat there.

The hull creaked as the ship nosed south again, riding the frozen dark like a ghost.

Somewhere behind the steel walls, the breaker suit hissed as it powered down.

And outside, the cold waited.

Chapter Text

The blizzard had teeth.

Sokka crouched in the wreckage of what used to be a Fire Nation halftrack, now a gutted husk of blackened steel and frozen blood. The wind screamed through its open hatches, carrying the stink of burning fuel and something worse—charred meat, still clinging to the seats.

He shouldn’t be here.

The ambush had been a trap.

They’d hit the convoy at dawn, just like planned. Ice mines cracked the lead transport’s treads. Guerrillas in white parkas rushed the flanks, bolt-action rifles (Type 37s, Qianchan surplus, five-round mags) snapping shots into the driver slots. For a second, it worked.

Then the screaming started.

Not human.

Mechanical.

The Tetsuzame came in low, twin turbojets howling like damned spirits. Its belly cannon thumped once—a 50mm shell punched through the ice, detonated underground, and turned three fighters into red mist. The strafing runs came next, 20mm wing cannons chewing snow into steam and bodies into rags.

Then the mortars.

Then the Breakers.

Sokka’s breath fogged against his rifle’s scope as he scanned the kill zone. The snow wasn’t white anymore. It was pink, trampled into slush by Fire Nation boots. Bodies lay half-buried, some still smoking. Most weren’t whole.

He found Niki by her coat.

Or what was left of it.

The Breaker suit had stepped on her. Not on purpose—just an afterthought, a oh, this one’s still moving crush beneath a five-ton armored foot. Her ribcage had exploded outward, lungs painting the ice in ragged, frozen blooms. Her face was intact. Eyes open. Mouth parted, like she’d been about to say something when the weight came down.

Sokka didn’t vomit.

He’d run out of bile months ago.

Instead, he pried the ammo pouch from her belt. Four rounds left. He took her knife, too—good steel, Fire Nation issue, probably looted from a corpse. Her fingers were too stiff to open, so he broke them.

The wind wailed.

Somewhere past the burning wrecks, something moved.

Sokka froze.

A shadow in the storm. Not a Breaker—too small. A scavenger, maybe. Or a survivor. Or a Fire Nation cleanup squad, picking through the dead for intel.

He raised his rifle.

The figure staggered. Fell. Didn’t get up.

Sokka waited.

Nothing.

Just the blizzard, the creak of cooling metal, and the tap-tap-tap of Niki’s frozen blood dripping off his sleeve.

He exhaled.

Then he crawled forward, rifle ready, boots crunching on shattered ice and spent shell casings.

The figure wasn’t Fire Nation.

It was Nukilik.

Or it had been.

Now it was just a kid with half a face, his parka soaked through with something too dark to be snow. His remaining eye rolled toward Sokka, unseeing. His lips moved. No sound came out.

Sokka knelt.

Listened.

Nothing.

The boy’s chest didn’t rise again.

Sokka closed the eye.

Then he took the kid’s rifle (Type 37, scratched tally marks on the stock—three kills) and his last heatstone.

The dead didn’t need them.

The living did.

He stood.

The blizzard swallowed the battlefield behind him.

Somewhere out there, the Fire Nation was laughing.

Somewhere out there, the ice was humming.

Sokka adjusted his sling, checked his rounds, and walked into the storm.

Alone.

Again.

The storm didn’t care about the dead.

It buried them all the same.

Sokka trudged through the whiteout, rifle slung, breath coming in ragged bursts. His fingers had gone numb an hour ago. His toes might be next. He’d stopped feeling his cheeks entirely.

This is how it ends, he thought. Not on fire. In ice.

The Southern Water Tribe had once been warriors. Hunters. People who sang to the spirits and carved stories into bone. Now? They were vermin. Digging tunnels. Scavenging bullets. Dying in ditches for scraps of Fire Nation steel.

He wondered if the ancestors were watching.

If they were ashamed.

A shape loomed in the blizzard—another corpse. Frozen upright, kneeling in the snow like it was praying. Sokka didn’t recognize the face. Didn’t matter. The dead were all the same now. Just meat that hadn’t been processed yet.

He kept walking.

The rifle on his back weighed more than it should have. Not the physical weight—the other weight. The tally marks. The lives taken. The lives lost.

How many had he killed?

How many had he failed to save?

The numbers blurred.

The wind screamed.

Somewhere behind him, the battlefield was already vanishing, the snow erasing the blood, the bodies, the proof that any of them had ever been here at all.

That was the worst part.

Not the dying.

The disappearing.

No songs. No pyres. No stories carved into bone. Just gone. Like they’d never existed.

Like none of it mattered.

Sokka’s jaw clenched.

His fingers tightened around the rifle strap.

The storm howled.

And he walked on.

Because that’s all there was left to do.

Chapter Text

The barracks stank of blood and burning herbs—tansy for fever, frostpine for pain, the acrid bite of cauterized flesh beneath it all.

Katara peeled off her gloves, fingers stiff from hours of bending frozen wounds shut, her sleeves crusted in a spectrum of red—bright arterial sprays, old blackened stains, the thin pinkish smear of infection fought too late. The lanterns flickered, casting jagged shadows across the ice walls. Somewhere in the dark, a man whimpered through a leather gag.

Hama—the Doc—didn’t look up from her work.

The old woman sat cross-legged beside a gut-shot teenager, her gnarled hands moving with methodical precision as she knit muscle back together. No water. No ceremony. Just pressure, will, and the quiet, wet sound of flesh obeying. Her fingers were steady, her face impassive—a healer’s focus honed over decades, not the frenzied desperation of a battlefield medic.

This was different from the Hama of stories.

No blood bending. No vengeance.

Just work.

Her father had been a bonesetter before the raids. Her mother, a midwife. The Southern healers had never needed scrolls or temples—just cold hands and colder pragmatism. "You don’t pray over a wound," she’d told Katara once, grinding frostpine bark into paste. "You seal it."

Now, she pressed a palm to the boy’s stomach, feeling the shift of organs beneath. No water. Just touch. Just knowing.

"Punctured," she muttered. "But not perforated. He’ll live. Probably."

Katara exhaled.

Hama’s eyes flicked up—dark, depthless, the kind of eyes that had seen too much to still flinch. "They’re bringing one in," she said, voice like wind over gravel. "Fire Nation. Alive."

Katara’s throat tightened. Alive was rare. Alive was trouble.

She wiped her hands on her apron, the fabric stiff with old gore. "Where?"

Hama jerked her chin toward the back tunnel. "Harvak’s pit." Then, softer, as if to herself: "Waste of bandages."

The prisoner was younger than she expected.

A boy, really—eighteen, maybe, with the sharp-cheekboned gauntness of a conscript who’d missed too many meals. They’d stripped him to his undershirt, bound his wrists with wire, shoved him onto the ice floor like cargo. His left eye was swollen shut. His right darted between faces, too-wide, too-white.

Harvak stood over him, a whalebone knife in one hand, a stolen Fire Nation lighter in the other.

"You know what we do to invaders?" he asked, conversational.

The boy shuddered. Said nothing.

Harvak flicked the lighter. The flame reflected in the prisoner’s pupil. "We give them a choice."

Katara knew the script.

Choice one: Talk. Die quick.

Choice two: Don’t. Die slow.

She’d seen it before. She’d helped before—stopping the bleeding just enough to keep them conscious, bending the pain away just long enough for Harvak to start again.

Necessity, he called it.

Rot, she thought.

The prisoner’s breath hitched. "I—I’m just a mechanic. I fix the Breakers’ hydraulics, I don’t—"

Harvak crouched, bringing the flame close enough to singe eyelashes. "Where’s the 41st Division stationed?"

"I don’t know!"

"Wrong answer."

The knife went in just below the collarbone. Not deep. Just enough to peel.

The boy screamed.

Katara’s fingers twitched.

Hama’s voice slithered through her memory, "You save them after. Never during."

Later, when the prisoner had passed out from pain and the walls were sticky with things she refused to name, Harvak tossed a scrap of cloth at her.

"Patch him up. We’re not done."

Katara bent the water from the ice floor, her hands steady, her stomach leaden. The boy’s skin was fever-hot under her fingers. His pulse fluttered like a dying bird.

Then she saw it.

A tattoo. Faded. Almost hidden in the hollow of his wrist.

A winged spiral.

Air Nomad.

Her blood went cold.

Harvak noticed her stillness. "What?"

She almost lied.

Then she didn’t.

"He’s not Fire Nation."

The boy let out a wet, broken laugh, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "Fuck—fuck you mean Air Nomad?" He wheezed, shoulders shaking with pained amusement. "That's—that's just some shit my unit made me get. Said I flew through basic training like a fucking leaf."

Harvak's grip tightened on the knife.

The prisoner kept laughing, hysterical now. "You think—you think the Fire Lord would let one of them live? Fuck, even the kids know—" A cough, red spattering his chin. "—know airbenders are just children stories. Like fucking—like badgermoles or some shit."

Katara stared at the tattoo. The lines were crude, uneven—done by an amateur, not a master. But the shape was unmistakable.

Harvak's voice dropped low. "You telling me that mark means nothing?"

The boy's grin was all teeth and blood. "Means I lost a bet. Means my sergeant had a fucked-up sense of humor." He sucked in a shuddering breath. "Means nothing."

A beat of silence.

Then, from the shadows near the tunnel entrance, a voice:

"Liar."

Hama stepped forward, her hands still stained with frostpine paste. Her eyes locked onto the tattoo—not the boy's face.

"The Air Nomads weren't stories," she said, quiet as snowfall. "And that mark isn't a joke."

The prisoner's smirk faltered.

"It's a brand."

Hama moved like glacier ice cracking - slow, inevitable, carrying terrible weight. She knelt beside the trembling boy, her stained fingers closing around his wrist with the certainty of a bonesetter realigning a fracture.

"Look closer, fire-child," she murmured, pressing her thumb into the faded ink. "Your masters let you play with symbols you don't understand."

The boy tried to jerk away, but her grip was iron. "It's just a stupid tattoo! The sergeant said—"

"Your sergeant knew exactly what this mark means." Hama's voice never rose, but the barracks had gone deathly quiet. Even Harvak stood frozen, his knife hanging slack. "This spiral? It's not some barracks joke. It's the mark they put on the cages."

Katara felt the cold seep into her bones. "Cages?"

Hama didn't blink. "When they first took me, at Hǎifēng Keep, there were cells beneath the boilers. They kept the children there." Her thumb traced the swirling lines with terrible familiarity. "All the little ones who still woke up screaming about flying. They branded them with this, so the guards would know to watch for... accidents."

The prisoner had gone corpse-pale. "You're lying. The Air Nomads were—"

"Were what?" Hama finally looked up, her eyes black and depthless. "Tell me, boy. What exactly did they teach you about the people who built the temples your bombers now use for target practice?"

A drop of sweat slid down the boy's temple. His mouth worked soundlessly.

Hama released his wrist with a push that wasn't quite gentle. "That's what I thought."

The silence that followed was broken only by the prisoner's ragged breathing and the distant, ever-present hum of the ice. Katara realized her hands were shaking.

Harvak recovered first. "So what? Even if he's got some airbender blood three generations back—"

"He's Fire Nation," Hama interrupted, standing with a creak of old joints. "Through and through. Look at his eyes." She turned away, already reaching for her mortar and pestle. "The only thing that mark proves is that their lies run deeper than we knew."

As she ground frostpine bark into powder, the rhythmic crunch of stone on stone filled the barracks like a funeral drum. The prisoner had begun to weep silently, his earlier bravado crumbling under the weight of truths he couldn't comprehend.

Katara watched Hama's hands - those steady, bloodstained hands that had delivered babies and set bones and now calmly prepared medicine beside a sobbing boy they would likely execute by dawn. There was no hatred in her movements. No vengeance. Just the terrible, weary certainty of a woman who had seen the world's cruelty and no longer expected anything else.

The ice hummed louder.

Somewhere beneath their feet, in the deepest tunnels, a child's laughter echoed - bright and brittle as a icicle shattering.

The ice hummed louder—a deep, vibrating groan that rattled the lanterns and sent frost dusting down from the ceiling.

One of the younger fighters flinched, eyes darting upward. "Shelling?"

Harvak didn’t even glance up. "Does it fucking matter?" He grabbed the prisoner’s chin, forcing his head back. "Last chance. Who’s in your garrison? Where are they moving next?"

The boy’s breath came in short, panicked bursts. "I—I don’t know troop movements, I just fix the Breakers ok—"

Hama sighed, still grinding herbs. "If he passes out, wake me. Otherwise?" She jerked her chin toward the door. "Do your shit somewhere else. I’ve got real patients."

Harvak’s grin was all teeth. He hauled the prisoner up by his collar, wire-cutters glinting in his free hand. "Oh, we’re gonna have a chat, fireboy."

As they dragged him toward the interrogation pit, the boy’s screams blended with the ice’s endless, droning hum.

Katara stared at the bloodstains on the floor.

Hama didn’t look up from her work. "You gonna faint, or you gonna help me reset Pekka’s shoulder?"

Katara didn’t answer right away. Her eyes lingered on the smears of blood, on the wire indentations around the boy’s wrists, on the tattoo that wasn’t a joke.

Then she turned.

“I’ll help,” she said, voice hoarse. She knelt beside the next cot, where a broad-shouldered Water Tribe brawler lay pale and unconscious, his right arm jutting at a sickening angle. The shoulder had been dislocated too long—it would take precision, and pain, to set it right.

Hama gave her a glance—not approving, not disapproving. Just noting. "You pull on the forearm. I’ll brace the clavicle."

They worked in silence. The crack of bone sliding back into socket echoed sharper than the boy’s fading cries. Katara flinched, not from the sound, but from the ease with which it came. Familiarity.

She pressed ice to Pekka’s shoulder, numbing it. A motion she’d done too many times. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"

"Which part?" Hama didn't look up, binding the shoulder in thick, clean strips of boiled sealhide.

"The tattoo. The cage."

This time, Hama paused. Not long. But enough.

"I think truth and propaganda are sisters," she said. "Raised in the same house. Speak the same language. One just lies prettier."

Katara stared at her. "But… if they were caging children—airbender children—"

"They were," Hama said flatly. "And they still might be." She rose, knees popping, and wiped her hands on a rag blackened from days of work. “The north’s not just empty. It’s cleansed. Someone’s been tying off old ends. Burning out the roots.”

Katara swallowed. “You think the boy knows?”

“No,” Hama said, too quickly. Then softer, “But his superiors do.”

A cold gust blew down the tunnel. It carried a stench beneath it—old smoke, fresh ash, something chemical and unfamiliar.

Harvak’s men returned without the prisoner.

No one asked where he’d gone.

They didn’t need to.

Harvak’s hands were wet with more than snowmelt. He tossed a coil of bloodied wire onto the ice and spat to the side, his cigarette dangling from his lips. “Waste of time.”

Katara stiffened. “He talked, didn’t he?”

“Barely.” Harvak flicked ash onto the floor. “Mechanic. Knew hydraulics, not strategy. Gave up a supply route near Tazal—useful, but no officer intel.” He exhaled smoke, eyes narrowing at Hama. “Then he started babbling about that fucking mark. Said he didn’t know shit. Just that his unit branded ‘problem recruits’ with it. Some inside joke.”

Hama’s fingers stilled over her mortar. “A joke.”

Harvak shrugged. “Or a way to mark deserters. Or cowards. Or whatever the fuck the Fire Nation calls men who break.” He ground the cigarette under his boot. “Point is, he wasn’t lying. Just another grunt who didn’t matter.”

Katara’s throat tightened. “But the mark—the cages—”

“Means nothing to us.” Harvak’s voice was flat. “Even if the Fire Nation’s branding their own now, we’re not here to save prisoners. We’re here to gut them.” He jerked his chin toward the tunnel. “41st’s pulling back from Sablak. That’s what matters.”

Hama said nothing, but her knuckles whitened around the pestle.

Katara looked down at Pekka’s unconscious form, her fingers numb. The boy’s screams still echoed in her skull. “So that’s it? You just… drop it?”

Harvak paused at the door, half-turned. “You want to chase spirits, be my guest. But while you’re digging up old stories, the Fire Nation’s burning villages today.” His smile was all edges. “Priorities, healer.”

Then he was gone, the ice groaning in his wake.

Hama stirred the frostpine paste, her face unreadable. “He’s right.”

Katara’s head snapped up. “What?”

“About priorities.” Hama’s voice was quiet. “But some spirits don’t stay buried.” She pressed a poultice to Pekka’s shoulder, her hands steady. “And when they crawl out? Even pragmatists like Harvak won’t be able to look away.”

The ice hummed louder. Somewhere, deep in the tunnels, a child laughed—high, bright, and gone too fast.

Beat.

Beat

Beat.

Beat

Beat.

Chapter Text

Beat.

A pendulum swings in the dim light of the Ignis’s war room.

Tick.
A clockwork automaton—a Fire Nation invention, all brass and precision—marks the hour.

Tock.
Admiral Zhao exhales smoke, his reflection warped in the polished table.

Around him, officers sit stiff-backed, their reports stacked like burial tablets.

The bridge conference chamber hums with the low thrum of engines beneath steel-plated floors. The scent of iron, salt, and burning coal mixes with the faint ozone tang of recent lightning-bender drills.

A massive tactical table dominates the space, its polished surface glowing with enchanted fire-maps that shift in real-time. The walls are lined with communications officers, their heads bent over crackling messenger-hawks and signal-flare reports.

At the head of the table, Admiral Zhao leans back in his command chair, idly spinning a dagger between his fingers. His reflection warps in the black lacquer surface.

Tick. The brass automaton in the corner marks the hour.

Tock. Every officer in the Southern Garrison stiffens as one.

Zhao exhales a stream of smoke from his long-stemmed pipe. "Let's begin with Sablak Crater."

A junior logistics officer clears his throat. “The 41st completed their withdrawal by dawn, Admiral. No enemy contact. Just… snow and old trenches.”

Muted laughter rolls through the circle of veteran commanders.

Captain Zuko stands near the viewport, stiff-backed and silent. Firelight from the harbor flickers across the burn-scar on his face. His hand rests on the hilt of his dagger, fingers twitching.

Lieutenant Xin leans in the shadow behind Zhao’s right shoulder—his cloak still dusted with snow, boots crusted in ash. He says nothing. Just watches, a faint nod acknowledging the report, eyes scanning each speaker in turn.

Commander Ryo—bearded, broad-shouldered, bloodied from the last campaign—slams a meaty palm on the table. “Ice shifts. That’s all. We shelled Wolf Cove two winters back until the ground cracked. Not even vermin would’ve survived.”

Zhao’s gaze flicks to Zuko. “You scouted the ruins last month. What did you see?”

All heads turn.

Zuko’s jaw tenses. “Burnt timber. Frozen corpses. No signs of movement.” A beat. “But the ice caves run deeper than the old charts say. Too deep.”

Silence.

Tick.

Tock.

Xin steps forward at last, drawing a roll of blood-specked parchment from beneath his coat. He places it gently on the table.

"Seven convoys lost," he says, voice low, precise. "All near the cove’s western ridges. Routes were staggered. No pattern. Just... disappearance."

His eyes, dark and unreadable, linger on Zuko for half a second too long. Then shift back to Zhao.

A young signals officer stammers: “Could be Qianchan mercs! We intercepted coded—”

“Think, boy,” grumbles a grizzled colonel. “This reeks of Water Tribe sabotage. Tunnels. Their old game.”

The chamber stirs. Theories collide—Rebel survivors. Earthbender deserters. Spirits.

Zhao lets the storm rise, then raises one calloused hand.

Silence. Immediate and brutal.

The fire-map glows beneath his knuckles, shifting to display the blackened sprawl of Wolf Cove.

“Commander Ryo,” Zhao says, voice flat. “Take the Maw and three squads of engineers. I want the caves sealed. I want the ground to scream.”

Ryo grins, savage and eager. “Consider it done.”

“Captain Zuko.” Zhao doesn’t look up. “You’ll lead the forward scouts. If they’re tunneling, bring back prisoners. I want names. Faces. And fear.”

Zuko nods once, jaw clenched.

Xin’s expression doesn’t change. But his gloved hand rests on the hilt of his shortblade.

"And the Northern Fleet's—" a liaison begins.

Zhao’s dagger whistles across the map table, quivering in the wood. An inch from Xin’s hand.

"The North is ash," Zhao hisses. "The South will follow. That is the only ‘overlap’ worth discussing."

Even Ryo falls silent. Cold wind howls through the wall vents.

Xin slowly draws the dagger free and hands it back to Zhao without a word. Not deference. Not defiance. Just something unreadable.

Zhao takes it and smiles without humor.

“Dismissed.”

uko left the bridge with a nod, coat slung over one shoulder, footsteps echoing in sync with the other officers as they peeled off into adjoining hatches.

 The innards of the KSS Suzaku breathed and hissed like a living beast—steam vents exhaled with a rhythm, pipes rattled with boiling water, the hum of the engines ever-present like a second heartbeat.

The corridors narrowed, twisted—bolt-seamed walls lined with lacquered signs, stenciled orders, and the occasional bloodstain that hadn’t been scrubbed quite right.

 A sailor passed him, brushing the bulkhead with a bow and a muttered, “Shōgun-sama.” Another cursed quietly as he kicked loose a jammed valve with a clang that echoed down the length of the passage.

The Suzaku was old, but proud—an 18,000-ton, built to kill convoys and outgun lighter ships. Eight 203mm guns, twelve 100mm dual-purpose mounts, and layers of flaking red paint made her look like an armored dragon with peeling scales. She reeked of oil and discipline. You didn’t walk her decks—you marched them.

Zuko stepped out onto the aft deck. Instantly, the cold hit him, but so did the heat bleeding up through his boots—engine warmth, trapped under armored plates. The snow melted on contact, turning into mist around his ankles. 

A squad of conscripts scrubbed the metal clean with steam hoses and stiff brushes, skin raw and uniforms damp. One looked up—barely sixteen—and froze at the sight of the prince. He saluted with trembling fingers.

Zuko gave him a nod, silent, and kept walking.

Beyond the railing, the port city spread across the shoreline like rust and smoke. Low buildings of red tile and black steel. Gantry cranes and signal towers silhouetted against the gray sky. The town's name Yakutokai was painted in black kanji across a corrugated water tower. 

The Southern wind carried the scent of coal, soy broth, and engine grease. Despite the ice on the hills, it was warm here, unnaturally warm—furnaces ran all day in Fire Nation towns, even those near the old Glacial Temple.

It reminded Zuko of the mainland. Of an average day in a dockside village, maybe in Shuhon or the inland rivers near Shu Jing. The same vendor carts. The same chatter. The same tired faces.

He passed the port gates, guards saluting as he moved through checkpoints. Overhead, a red banner snapped in the wind—two phoenixes circling a gear.

The Intelligence Bureau compound stood three stories high at the edge of the district, walled in stone and iron. It had no name on the outside. Just a number: Building 17.

Zuko stepped through the main entrance. The receptionist didn’t ask questions.

Up the stairs, turn left. Second door.

His office.

Warm light. A kettle on. The faint crackle of a tube radio whispering propaganda from home.

He closed the door behind him.

The kettle clicked off with a sharp tunk. Zuko poured the tea absently—two cups, even before he registered why.

She was already there.

Mai stood by the porthole, back half-turned, arms crossed. The brass-framed glass glowed faintly with sunset, staining her silhouette in gold and smoke. She didn’t look at him, just said flatly:

“You’re late.”

“I was on the bridge.”

“You’re always on the bridge.”

He set the cups down. One beside the chair. The other at her usual spot on the desk’s edge. She didn’t move to sit. He didn’t ask her to.

The room was warm—steam-fed pipes ran beneath the floor, radiating quiet heat—but her presence was colder than the snow outside. Not angry. Just practiced. Polite distance. The kind they’d both been raised to maintain.

“You’re early,” Zuko said.

“I didn’t trust the rail convoy. Too many sympathizers in Yakutokai these days.”

She finally turned, her expression unreadable. The same slight frown she wore at the last diplomatic banquet, the same one from their youth in the palace gardens. Still as sharp as ever. Still, in spite of everything, here.

Outside, somewhere below deck, the Suzaku exhaled a long, low rumble—boiler test or muscle memory from a war game. A few bulkheads creaked. The ship had scars on her hull, and so did they.

Mai walked to the desk, picked up the cup, didn’t drink it.

“You know,” she said, glancing around the room, “this place smells worse than your tent during the Qianchan Battle.”

He gave a short breath, almost a laugh. “You liked that tent.”

“I liked that it didn’t leak when it rained.”

They stood in silence, the way two people do when too much is understood to say out loud.

Through the window, the sun sank below the harbor cranes. Somewhere beneath, the Suzaku’s gun crews were still at their drills—chatter, metal clank, the distant whump of a powder check. Even a year after the standoff, the crew ran simulations like they’d never left the line. The paint on the #2 turret was still darker—newer—than the rest of the ship.

Mai leaned slightly against the desk. “We’re still pretending this isn’t political, right?”

Zuko looked down at his tea. Steam curled upward. “It’s not pretend. Not entirely.”

“Right.” She tapped the edge of the desk once, slow. “You’re still the prince. And I’m still the knife in your back pocket.”

He looked at her then. Really looked. She wore her hair shorter these days. Her uniform coat had a diplomatic clasp. Not military, not civilian. Somewhere in between. Like everything they did.

“You don’t have to be here.”

“I know.” She took a sip. Winced. “Still too hot.”

Then, after a beat: “But if you’re going to start another Cold War in the south, someone has to make sure you don’t burn down the whole damn hemisphere.”

He didn’t reply. Just reached for the map case under the desk. Unrolled it on the table. Sea lanes, patrol paths, and a red circle drawn too close to the border.

Mai set her cup down with a clink.

“So,” she said, voice cool. “Who are we pissing off this week?”

Zuko exhaled through his nose. She didn’t know yet. Good. He reached for the map—

A knock. Three sharp raps.

"Enter."

The door swung open. Lieutenant Xin—broad-shouldered, scar bisecting his left eyebrow—strode in, then froze at the sight of Mai. His eyes flicked between them.

"Ah. Didn’t realize you had… company."

Zuko kept his voice flat. "Mai, this is Lieutenant Xin. Xin, Mai."

Xin grinned, leaning against the doorframe. "This your wife?"

A beat. Zuko didn’t flinch. "Soon."

Mai’s fingers twitched against her cup. She hadn’t moved, but the air in the room dropped five degrees. Then, smoothly, she stood.

"I should go."

Xin raised his hands. "Shit, no, I didn’t mean—"

She cut past him, pausing only to press a kiss to Zuko’s cheek—light, deliberate, theatrical. "Don’t stay up."

The door clicked shut behind her.

Xin winced. "That was a joke, sir."

"I know." Zuko unrolled the map. "Close the door."

“Orders from High Command,” Xin said, sliding a sealed scroll across the desk. The wax bore Zhao’s personal insignia—a stylized flame encircling a kraken. “You’re to take Wolf Cove. Again.”

Zuko cracked the seal. The script was precise, bureaucratic, and utterly merciless:

"By authority of Naval Operations Command, Prince Zuko will lead a detachment to Wolf Cove to pacify insurgent activity. Assets assigned: 3rd Breaker Unit (reinforced platoon), ITN Shiriyu (Cruiser). Mission parameters: investigation and eradication of Southern Water Tribe resistance elements. Full authority granted under Martial Protocol Seven."

No request. No options. A command.

Zuko’s thumb brushed the edge of the parchment. “The Shiriyu a cruiser. Not a garrison ship.”

Xin’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Admiral Zhao’s words, not mine: ‘If the locals want to swim with their fish, let the guns encourage them.’”

A political answer. Xin was here to ensure Zuko didn’t hesitate.

Zuko rolled the scroll shut. “Tell the Hayate’s captain to prepare for coastal bombardment. Breaker Unit embarks at dawn.”

“They’ll want a speech,” Xin said.

“They’ll get one.”

Outside, the Suzaku’s deck guns groaned as crews switched from dummy rounds to live shells. The sound echoed like a promise.

Chapter Text

Drums.
Drums.
Katara dreamed of the boy again.

A bald child, small and thin, crouched in the dark. His skin was smudged with soot, his blue arrows faintly luminous in the shadows. He reached out—not to her, but past her, as if something behind her was far more terrifying than the shellfire trembling the ice above.

CLACK-

The first shell hit like a god's fist.

Katara jolted awake—not to the sharp crack of distant fire, but to something deeper, heavier, a sound that punched through the ice and settled in her bones. The second impact came before she could breathe. Then the third. The dugout’s ceiling trembled, shedding dust in ghostly veils. Somewhere in the dark, a support beam shrieked as the glacier groaned around it.

It’s going to collapse.

She didn’t think—she moved. Parka half-on, boots unlaced, she hit the corridor just as the sirens began their animal wail. The tunnels were a living thing now, writhing with bodies. Elders dragged by their wrists, children wailing against shoulders, warriors shoving crates aside as the ceiling spat chunks of ice like broken teeth. A militiawoman roared over the din—"EASTERN DOCKS! MOVE!"—but the words dissolved into the thunder above.

Katara turned against the current. The armory. Sokka was supposed to—

"KATARA!"

Sokka crashed into her, his face a mess of frost and panic. His breath came in ragged bursts, steaming in the frigid air. "They’re not just shelling us," he gasped. "They’re carving the glacier apart. Like they know where it’s weak."

A fourth impact. Closer. The ice shivered beneath their feet.

"The destroyer," Sokka panted. "The Ship—I saw it anchored at the pressure ridge. They’re not just firing. They’re watching."

Katara’s gut twisted. "Did they follow you?"

"I don’t—" His voice cracked. "I took the blind routes, but the tracks—"

She seized his wrist. "Stop. This isn’t on you."

The fifth shell hit the weak point.

The world split open.

A sound like the sky breaking—then the ceiling dropped. Katara had half a second to see Sokka’s eyes widen before the ice rushed in. A wall of white, a crushing weight, and then—

—nothing.

She floated.

This wasn’t the warm, liquid dark of sleep—this was the suffocating black of buried things. The kind of dark that pressed. That slithered into her ears and filled her lungs like freezing oil.

Then—

A wrongness.

Not sound. Not touch. The vibration of something that shouldn’t be—something that had curled itself into the cracks of the world and waited.

The hum started in her teeth. Traveled down her spine. Settled behind her ribs like a second heartbeat.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Katara tried to scream. Her mouth wouldn’t open.

The dark moved.

A shape—no, the idea of a shape—detaching itself from the nothingness. Small. Fragile. A child’s silhouette, but the way it unfolded from the shadows was all wrong—joints bending too many directions, head tilting at an angle bones shouldn’t allow.

A hand emerged first.

Pale. Soot-stained.

Alive.

It hovered inches from her face, fingers twitching like a spider testing its web. The tips glowed—not with light, but with the absence of it, drinking in the dark around them.

Katara’s pulse hammered in her throat.

The hand reached closer.

Closer.

A fingertip brushed her forehead—

—and the ice screamed.

White light detonated from above, magnesium-bright, searing through the glacier’s flesh. For one fractured second, Katara saw him clearly—

—a boy-shaped wound in reality, eyes wide and empty and knowing, blue arrows bleeding into the ice like veins—

—then the world shattered, and she was falling, and the thing that wasn’t a boy fell with her, its mouth open in a soundless wail that vibrated in her bones like a funeral bell.

Katara's vision swam—blurred torchlight, jagged ice, Sokka's soot-streaked face hovering above her. Something warm and metallic trickled down her temple.

Iron. Blood.

She tried to sit up. A hand—not Sokka's—shoved her back down hard.

"Stay down," Nukilik growled. The warrior was propped against the ice wall, his massive chest wrapped in bloodstained bandages, his breathing wet and ragged. But his grip was iron. "You hit your head. Hard."

Katara blinked up at him. The world kept tilting. "The destroyer—"

"Quiet." Sokka's hand clamped over her mouth. His eyes were locked on the tunnel ceiling.

Silence.

Not the quiet after a storm. The quiet of a predator coiled to strike.

Then—

There.

A sound. Not from above. From below.

A low, resonant hum vibrating up through the ice, through Katara's bones, settling behind her teeth like the aftertaste of lightning.

"Do you hear that?" she whispered.

Nukilik shifted, wincing. "Shelling stopped."

"No—the humming."

Sokka's head snapped toward her. "What humming?"

The ice shivered.

Not from impact. From within.

The warriors stiffened as one. The oldest—a grizzled hunter with a broken spear—pressed his palm flat against the wall.

"Tui's teeth," he breathed. "The glacier's singing."

Cracks spiderwebbed across the ice, pulsing with a sickly blue glow. The hum crescendoed—not a sound anymore but a pressure, throbbing in Katara's skull like a second heartbeat.

Nukilik grabbed Sokka's shoulder. "Move. Now."

The ice screamed—a sound like a dying thing—and the world dropped out from under them.

The first magnesium shell hit the surface far above.

The blast wave tore through the cavern. Ice shattered. The sphere screamed—a sound that wasn’t a sound, a vibration that locked Katara’s teeth and filled her skull with white noise.

Then—

Silence.

The sphere lay broken.

And the boy inside opened his eyes.

Katara’s breath fogged in the sudden, unnatural quiet. The air smelled like burnt metal and old snow.

The boy— because that’s what he was, just a boy, maybe a year younger than her —blinked up at the cavern ceiling with gray eyes too wide, too aware. His shaved head gleamed in the eerie blue light still pulsing from the shattered remains of the sphere. The arrows on his skin— tattoos? —were smeared with meltwater, bleeding indigo into the cracks of the ice.

He sat up. Slowly. Like his bones weren’t sure how to work.

"Who’re you?" His voice was hoarse, cracked from disuse. "Why’re you dressed like that?" A pause. "You look kinda funny."

Katara didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her fingers were numb, her thoughts sluggish from the concussion and the cold. This isn’t happening.

Then the boy’s gaze slid past her—and his face lit up.

"Momo! Appa!"

A chittering noise. From the shadows, a small, bedraggled winged lemur launched itself at the boy, chattering madly. Behind it, something massive shifted in the gloom—a six-legged, shaggy beast the size of a tank, its fur matted with ice. It groaned, shaking off centuries of frost.

Katara’s brain stuttered.

Underground. We’re underground. How the fuck —

Sokka’s hand clamped onto her shoulder. "Katara," he hissed. "What the hell is that?"

Another shell hit. Closer. The ice shrieked.

"Move!" Sokka hauled Katara up by her arm. She stumbled, vision swimming—concussed, definitely concussed —but the adrenaline punched through the fog. The boy— who the fuck was this kid? —was already scrambling toward the tunnel, his weird little lemur clinging to his shoulder.

Then the thing behind them stood up.

Katara's breath caught.

Six legs. Ten feet tall at the shoulder. Fur matted with centuries of frost. It blinked massive, liquid-black eyes at them and made a low, questioning sound that vibrated through Katara's ribs.

"Holy shit," Nukilik wheezed from where he leaned against the wall, one hand clutching his bandaged chest. "That's a sky bison."

"Appa!" the boy chirped, like that explained anything. "C'mon, buddy, we gotta go!"

The bison— Appa? —groaned but lurched forward, shaking off ice. The entire cavern trembled.

No time. No fucking time.

They ran.

The side tunnel shuddered around them, ice groaning under the bombardment. Behind them, the distant clang of armored boots echoed through the glacial passages— sharp, metallic, wrong in these frozen halls.

"Fire Nation!" Nukilik snarled, his voice ragged with pain. "They're breaching the tunnels!"

Katara risked a glance back. Through the swirling ice dust, she saw them—white helmets glinting in the eerie blue light, rifles raised. Then one soldier spotted Appa.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"

Aang skidded to a stop, eyes wide. "Uh. That's—"

"No time!" Sokka yanked him forward. "Run now, questions later!"

Katara didn’t think. She moved .

Slamming her palms against the tunnel wall, she pulled . The ice surged at her command, fracturing in jagged sheets before collapsing behind them in a roaring cascade, sealing the passage.

"GO!"

They ran. The soldiers’ shouts were muffled now, but the muffled thump of explosives against the ice barrier told her it wouldn’t hold for long.

Aang kept pace beside her, Momo clinging to his shoulder. "That was amazing!"

Katara didn’t answer. Her head throbbed, her vision swimming. But they were alive.

For now.

Katara's boots slipped on the ice as she sprinted after Sokka and Aang, the tremors of Fire Nation boots pounding through the frozen walls. The soldiers were close—too close. She could hear their muffled shouts, the metallic clatter of rifles being primed.

Ahead, Nukilik staggered, one arm wrapped around his ribs, but his free hand was already digging into his bandolier. He didn’t need to say it. They all knew the plan.

Sokka grabbed Aang’s shoulder, shoving him forward. "Keep moving—don’t stop!"

Aang opened his mouth—to argue, to ask—but then the first black-helmeted soldier rounded the bend behind them, rifle raised.

Nukilik didn’t hesitate.

The explosion wasn’t loud. It was deep —a gut-punch of sound, followed by the shuddering crack of ice surrendering to pressure. The tunnel ceiling behind them collapsed in a roaring cascade, burying the Fire Nation squad under tons of glacial debris.

The shockwave sent Katara stumbling. Aang caught her arm, his grip surprisingly strong.

"Did you just—"

"Run now," Nukilik growled, blood flecking his lips. "Questions when we’re not dead."

They ran.

Behind them, the ice settled—but the distant, echoing thump of secondary detonations told them the Fire Nation wasn’t done digging.

Chapter Text

Thump.
Thump.

The rhythm wasn’t his heartbeat. Zuko hadn’t felt that in weeks.
It was the hydraulic legs of the Breaker Unit, slamming into ice and permafrost as it chewed into the collapsed tunnel. Each thud echoed through the frostbitten ribs of the ruined town like a war drum—distant, dull, mechanical. The ghost of the machine's roar rebounded off the hole where Taluqqriaq used to be. Now it was just a crater rimmed with blackened snow and teeth.

Zuko stood on the edge of the blast radius, boots crusted in salt and blood, staring into the earth's open wound.

No one spoke to him directly. They’d learned not to.

A few meters down, a team of Fire Engineers in orange-and-gunmetal arctic rigging were threading drill charges into the tunnel mouth. The detonation—some bastard mix of waterbending and dynamite—had collapsed more than just ice. There were corpses fused into the walls. Civilians, mostly. Children curled into frozen, blistered sculptures. A woman with her fingers still clawed around a jagged spirit lantern.

“Fucking rats sealed themselves in,” muttered one of the engineers, shaking his head. “Some of ‘em didn’t even get time to scream.”

Zuko didn’t answer. His eyes scanned the impact zone—no movement. Just steam bleeding from the cracks. One soldier insisted he saw a creature through the smoke earlier. Big. White. Fur-covered. Flew out through the top air shaft before the tunnel collapsed.
“A what?” another asked.

“Don’t know. Looked like a bear, but with six legs. And it flew.”

“Flying bear? That some snow-rot in your brain?”

They laughed, then quieted when they saw Zuko still watching.

He hadn’t said a word since they arrived.

He walked up to the broken edge, where the bones of the underground city jutted from the crater walls. He’d seen the blue-glass columns beneath. The spirit crystal veins turned black from sudden combustion. Bent steel girders like broken ribs.

He saw the scorched mural, half-melted—Water Tribe prayer lines winding around an image of the Moon.

THUMP.

The Breaker Unit's horn split the air—a deep, shuddering bellow that rolled across the ruins like thunder. Zuko didn't flinch. The sound was familiar by now. A beast calling to its pack.

Inside the tunnel, the machine's floodlights cut through the gloom, painting the ice walls in jagged shadows. The drill-head spun, its diamond teeth screaming as they bit deeper.

 Chunks of permafrost rained down, some still clinging to frozen limbs—a hand here, the curve of a ribcage there. The heat from the Breaker's engines made the ice weep, droplets sliding down the walls like the place itself was sweating in fear.

"Pressure spike!" someone shouted.

The Breaker lurched as its drill hit something solid—not ice, not rock. Something that clanged.

The operator cursed, slamming the release valve. Steam hissed from the machine's joints as it shuddered to a stop. For a second, there was only the sound of dripping water and the distant, hollow groan of settling ice.

Then the light hit it.

A door.

Not wood, not stone. Metal. Thick, riveted steel, the kind the Fire Nation used for bunkers. But this wasn't their design. The symbols etched into its surface were old—older than the war, older than Sozin. Spirals within spirals, like a frozen whirlpool.

The soldiers fell silent. Even the Breaker's engine seemed to quiet.

Zuko stepped forward, his boots crunching on frost and bone. His reflection warped in the door's pitted surface—a scarred ghost in a dead city.

Then the humming started.

Not from the machine. From beyond the door. A low, resonant vibration that made Zuko's teeth ache. The ice trembled. Cracks spiderwebbed up the walls.

The Breaker's operator crossed himself—a gesture Zuko hadn't seen since the Academy.

"Sir," he whispered, "we shouldn't—"

Zuko placed his palm against the metal.

It was warm.

The mountain hissed as the pressure equalized. 

The bunker reeked—sweat, blood, piss, and burnt seal oil. Thick air, stale from weeks of hiding, clung to every surface. Lanterns sputtered in their sconces, shadows jittering across concrete walls like ghosts waiting to speak.

Civilians huddled behind overturned crates and scavenged sandbags. Elders, shaking. Mothers whispering prayers over wide-eyed children. Scattered among them were six Southern fighters—bearded, starved, cracked-lipped. But their rifles were steady, shouldered. Loaded. Ready.

At the front stood a man in a patchwork parka, the Fire Nation crest stitched into his sleeve—torn from a corpse, no doubt. His breath fogged between them in shallow bursts, but his voice came out steady.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

Zuko didn’t answer. He simply looked at him. Looked through him. Behind his eyes was smoke and ash and more names than he could carry.

Behind him, Lieutenant Xin stood silent, pistol drawn, finger resting lightly on the trigger. His coat hissed slightly with condensation from the melting frost. When he spoke, his voice was ice.

“Doctrine is clear, sir.” No emotion. No doubt. “No survivors in fortified positions. Risk of rigged demolition charges. Risk of infection. Civilian cover doesn’t exempt.”

One of the rebels lowered his rifle a fraction. A child started sobbing. Someone whispered a prayer to Tui.

Zuko raised his voice just enough to carry. “You have one chance. Lay down your weapons. Come out unarmed. We let you live.”

The silence was thick.

“I sur—”

BANG.

Xin pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the steel chamber, sharp and final. The man’s skull burst backward, blood spraying over the sandbags behind him. He collapsed without a sound.

The room froze.

The child screamed.

Everyone else gasped or flinched—or reached for their weapons.

Zuko didn’t blink.

Xin didn’t raise the gun again. He just lowered it slightly, muzzle still hot, and spoke in the same dead tone.

“They were never going to surrender.”

The truth hung in the air like smoke. Zuko didn’t correct him. Didn’t argue. He looked at the girl clutching the dead man’s coat. Her knuckles white around a kitchen knife. No older than Azula had been, once.

He nodded once.

“Tank,” he said into his transmitter, voice hoarse. “Clean the chamber.”

The walking machine hissed in response. Its pilot inside barely spoke—just flipped the ignition. A slow rumble built in its gut, like the throat of a dragon.

Then the nozzle rotated forward. One click.

Fsssshhh —then whhhooomph .

Liquid flame burst through the doorway in a roaring arc. The heat hit like a wave, searing Zuko’s skin even from outside. Screams followed—real ones, high and sharp and awful. The fighters returned fire, but it was useless. Bullets pinged off Breaker's armor like rain on stone.

The bunker’s steel walls turned orange, then red. The oxygen inside flash-burned. The last scream cut off mid-breath.

Zuko turned before the chamber collapsed.

Xin didn’t. He watched the flames writhe until they started to fade, until nothing moved behind them.

He stepped back, calmly pulled out a cigarette, and lit it on the edge of the Tank’s still-glowing chassis. The ember flared red in the dark.

“Fuck,” he muttered—not remorse. Just weariness. Doctrine fulfilled.

The silence held for three heartbeats. Then Xin straightened his coat, the ghost of a smirk playing at his lips.

"One of those drills, then?" His voice was light, almost conversational, but his fingers lingered near his sidearm.

Zuko exhaled smoke slowly, watching it curl into the frigid air. "Must be."

They stepped out of the tunnel mouth and into the corpse of Wolf Cove.

The village wasn’t rubble. Rubble implied something left. This was a carcass picked clean—blackened bones of homes still standing in jagged silhouettes, their walls scorched but stubborn, their roofs caved in by shellfire years ago. The snow didn’t soften the edges here. It clung in dirty patches, unable to fully bury the scars.

Most of the civilians had been dragged out of their holes by now—huddled in the square under the watch of Fire Nation rifles, their breath fogging in the cold. A few officers had taken over the less-damaged houses, their banners hanging limp from broken eaves. Tents sprawled where the market once stood, their canvas stamped with the insignia of the 41st Division.

Xin nudged a half-buried toy with his boot—a carved otter-penguin, its face melted into a grotesque smile. "Charming place."

Zuko didn’t answer. His gaze traced the bullet holes stitched across the walls, the old bloodstains bleached gray by time. Some of the damage was fresh. Some wasn’t.

They walked past a row of houses that had been commandeered for officer quarters. One still had a Water Tribe crest above the door—chipped, but legible. A soldier leaned against the frame, picking his teeth with a knife. He saluted lazily as they passed.

Xin chuckled. "Think the locals miss it?"

Zuko stopped at the threshold of the largest standing house—what had once been the chieftain’s hall, now a command post. The door was splintered, held together by nails and spite. Inside, a map of the Southern Waters was spread across a table, weighted down by empty cups and a half-empty bottle of firewhisky.

He didn’t look back as he stepped inside.

"No," he said at last. "I don’t think they do."

The gunshots outside were crisp, methodical. Three rounds. A pause. Two more. Paperwork of a different sort.

Zuko stepped into the commandeered longhouse, the heat from the iron stoves hitting him like a wall after the frozen waste outside. Officers moved between desks with the brisk efficiency of men who had done this in a dozen broken villages before. Reports were filed. 

Maps updated. Prisoner tallies marked in neat columns. War as bureaucracy.

His temporary office was little more than a partitioned corner, its walls still bearing the soot stains of the previous owners’ final stand. Xin followed him in, shutting the flimsy door behind them.

A clerk stood by the filing cabinet—a woman in nondescript Fire Nation uniform, her hair pinned back severely, her posture perfectly forgettable. She didn’t look up as they entered, her fingers flipping through dossiers with practiced disinterest.

Xin smirked. "Now there’s a beautiful sight. Efficiency ."

Zuko ignored him, shrugging off his coat. The clerk gathered her papers and slipped out without a word.

Xin dropped a folder on the desk. "Local whispers. They’re calling him the Ghost Boy."

Zuko flipped it open. Sketchy reports from terrified conscripts: A child with arrows on his skin. Moves like the wind. Seen with Water Tribe rats.

"Superstitious garbage," Xin said, lighting a cigarette. "Probably some painted-up tribal brat they’re using for morale."

Zuko’s finger traced the crude drawing—the arrows, the shaved head. His stomach tightened. He’d seen those markings before. In books meant to be burned. In histories no one was allowed to remember.

Airbender.

The word sat in his skull like a stone. But that was impossible. The Air Nomads were gone. Erased. And even if by some madness one had survived—what was a child supposed to do against an empire?

He closed the folder. "Focus on the intel. Not fairy tales."

Xin exhaled smoke, amused. "As you say, Captain."

The door clicked shut behind him.

Zuko waited a beat. Then another. The muffled sounds of the command post continued outside—boots on floorboards, the scratch of pens, the occasional burst of static from the radio operator. Normal. Routine.

Then his eyes fell on the envelope resting atop his field desk.

Thick parchment. Black wax seal.

Kanbukyoku.

Azula’s personal stamp.

He broke the seal with his thumb.

Dearest Zuzu,

Congratulations on not freezing to death in that white wasteland. I’d say I miss you, but we both know I’d be lying. (Do try not to take it personally. Sentiment is so terribly inefficient.)

Uncle sends his regards—from the Si Wong front, no less. He’s taken to desert warfare like a komodo rhino to sand, which is to say: messily, but effectively. Father was pleased with his handling of the front. A rare compliment. Treasure it vicariously.

Speaking of treasures—the 43rd’s new recruits are delightfully malleable. The Academy’s standards have slipped since your ahem graduation. A shame, really. Though I suppose the Southern Pole does have its uses as a… sorting mechanism.

Do write back if you find anything interesting in the ice. Or don’t. I’ll know either way.

—A.

Zuko held the letter over the stove’s grate. Let it hover there for a long moment. The edges curled black, then caught—flame licking up the page until it was ash between his fingers.

Outside, the wind screamed. Inside, the silence was worse.

He stared at the war map pinned to the wall. The Southern Water Tribe was a smudge of ink, barely worth the space it occupied. A footnote. An afterthought.

Chapter Text

The boy didn’t speak.

Not when they dragged him through the tunnels. Not when they wrapped him in spare furs, their fingers brushing the strange blue arrows on his skin—tattoos? scars?—that seemed to pulse faintly in the dark. Not even when Katara pressed a heatstone into his shaking hands and whispered, "You’re safe now."

He just stared.

Past her. Through her. At something only he could see.

The resistance fighters didn’t like it.

"That’s not a kid," muttered Harvak, sharpening his knife with slow, deliberate strokes. "That’s a fucking spirit. Or worse."

Around the dim fire pit—a shallow bowl of burning seal oil—faces turned toward the boy. Suspicion. Fear. Hunger.

"Fire Nation experiment," said one of the scouts, a gaunt woman with frostbitten ears. "They grow ‘em in labs now. Heard it from a defector."

"Bullshit," snapped Nukilik, wincing as he adjusted his bandages. "Look at him. He’s scared shitless."

"Then why won’t he talk?"

A pause. The fire crackled. The ice groaned.

Katara stepped between them and the boy. "He’s in shock."

Harvak’s grin was all teeth. "Or he’s counting exits."

The oil-lamps guttered low in the passage. Smoke clung to the ceiling like a second skin, turning the air thick and sour. Somewhere deeper in the ice, someone was coughing blood into cloth—wet, rhythmic, unending.

Katara kept her hand on the boy’s shoulder, though he barely reacted. His skin was clammy, clothes soaked in meltwater and streaked with soot. She’d peeled away his scorched outer layer and tried to dry what she could. The strange arrows across his limbs and scalp shimmered faintly now, like they didn’t belong in this world.

The others gave him space, but not kindness.

"Still hasn’t moved," said Nukilik from across the room, voice lowered. He sat slumped against the tunnel wall, half his face bandaged, the rest pale and drawn.

Harvak paced near the fire pit, boots crunching salt-crusted ice. “He’s listening. I know it. Look at his eyes.”

Katara had. They were gray—pale, unfocused, but deep like old skies before the bombs fell. The way he looked around made her stomach twist. Not frantic. Not confused.

The tunnel stank of unwashed bodies and burnt seal oil. Civilians huddled against the walls—elders with hollow cheeks, mothers clutching silent children, wounded fighters propped up on scavenged Fire Nation bedrolls. The council wasn’t a council here, just a circle of exhausted faces lit by a single flickering lamp, their breath fogging in the frozen air.

Harvak leaned forward, his knife glinting as he picked at the ice between his boots. "Qianchan’s offering antibiotics for prisoners. Real medicine. Not that bark-paste shit we’ve been choking down."

A murmur ran through the crowd. Eyes darted to the boy sitting motionless against the far wall, his blue arrows barely visible under the furs thrown over him.

"He’s not a prisoner," Bato growled, his voice roughened by cold and old smoke damage. "He’s a kid."

"He’s a thing," Yuka snapped, her frostbitten ears twitching. "You don’t crawl out of a glacier after a century looking like that unless you’re either blessed or cursed. And I ain’t seen any spirits handing out miracles lately."

Sokka exhaled sharply through his nose, rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes. "So what? We just toss him to the Fire Nation and hope they’re feeling generous?"

"Better than hoping he is," Harvak shot back. "You seen his eyes? That’s not shock. That’s waiting."

Katara didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. "He’s scared."

"Or counting exits," Harvak muttered.

A child in the crowd whimpered. The sound cut through the argument like a knife.

Gran Gran shifted then, her bones creaking as she pulled a yellowed scrap of paper from her sleeve. The silence that followed was heavier than the ice above them.

"You’ve forgotten," she said, unfolding the brittle page with hands that had buried two generations. "What they did to the airbenders wasn’t just killing. It was erasure."

The paper held a child’s drawing—crude, smudged, but unmistakable. Arrows. A bald head. A figure floating. Beneath it, in shaky script: Target Priority: Stormborn.

Hama’s voice slithered from the shadows near the tunnel mouth. "They branded the ones who survived the first purge. Marked them so the guards would know which children to watch." She stepped into the light, her fingers tracing the spiraled tattoo on her own wrist—a match to the boy’s. "This? This is a ghost walking. And the Fire Nation burns ghosts."

Harvak’s jaw worked. "So what? We’re supposed to protect him? We can’t even protect us."

"No," Gran Gran said softly. "We’re supposed to use him."

The boy’s head tilted—just slightly. His pupils caught the lamplight, reflecting it back too bright, too knowing.

Katara stood. "Enough." The word wasn’t loud, but it carried. "You want to trade him? You go through me."

Harvak’s knife stilled. "You’d really die for some stranger?"

"I’d die before I let us become them," she said, quiet and final.

The tunnel held its breath.

Then Nukilik coughed, spitting a wad of blood into his glove. "Great. Another fucking stalemate. That’s exactly what we needed."

Chapter Text

The clerk—her name was Lian—moved through the Fire Nation command post like a ghost.

No one looked at her twice. She was just another faceless aide, another pair of hands shuffling reports, another body in a uniform slightly too large for her frame. The perfect spy.

She adjusted her wire-framed glasses—Qianchan-made, the lenses subtly tinted to filter glare from snow—and pretended to organize supply manifests. In reality, she was counting.

The square had gone quiet except for the wind and the muffled sobs of the kneeling prisoners. Frost glittered on the cobblestones like shattered glass, crunching under Lieutenant Xin's boots as he paced the line.

Lian watched through the commissary window, the steam from her tea fogging the glass. She didn't wipe it away. The condensation helped blur the worst of it.

Xin stopped in front of the first prisoner—an elder with a face like weathered driftwood, his left eye swollen shut from earlier "questioning." The wire around his wrists had bitten deep, drawing thin lines of blood that dripped onto the snow between his knees.

"Let's try this again," Xin said, his voice almost conversational. He crouched, bringing himself eye-level with the old man. "The eastern ice tunnels. The ones your people collapsed yesterday. Where do they lead?"

The elder worked his mouth slowly, then spat a glob of bloody phlegm onto Xin's polished boot.

A beat of silence.

Then Xin straightened, sighing like a disappointed schoolmaster. "Alright."

A flick of his fingers. The flamethrower team stepped forward, their fuel tanks hissing as they primed the nozzles. The lead operator adjusted his grip—Type-12 incendiary unit, Lian noted automatically, modified for polar conditions—and waited.

Xin lit a cigarette. "Last chance, grandfather. The tunnels."

The elder lifted his chin. "Rot in Agni's light, fireboy."

Xin took a long drag. Exhaled. Nodded.

The flamethrower coughed to life.

Lian's knuckles whitened around her teacup as the napalm struck—a thick, clinging stream of gelatinous fire that wrapped around the elder's legs like a lover's embrace. The smell hit first—burning hair, melting sealhide, the unmistakable pork-sweet stench of cooking flesh—before the screaming started.

The elder didn't beg. He howled, a raw, animal sound that echoed off the blackened buildings as he thrashed in the snow, trying to smother the flames. It only spread the sticky fire.

"Someone help him!" a woman shrieked from the line.

Xin turned, amused. "By all means." He gestured to the still-burning elder. "Volunteers?"

Silence.

A child—maybe six, clutching his mother's parka—started wailing, the sound high and jagged in the frozen air.

Xin flicked ash onto the elder's smoldering body. "Next."

He moved down the line to a teenage boy shaking so hard his teeth chattered. "You look smart. Where do the tunnels go?"

The boy's lips moved soundlessly.

Xin leaned in. "Speak up."

“I—I don't—"

"Wrong answer." Another nod to the flamethrower team.

The boy broke. "The old docks! They go to the old docks under the ice!" He was crying now, snot freezing on his upper lip. "Please, I—"

"Good boy." Xin reached into his coat pocket and produced a wrapped bundle. He unfolded it slowly, revealing a steaming bun - real wheat bread, the kind reserved for officers. The scent of yeast and honey cut through the stench of burning flesh.

The boy stared at it, trembling.

"Eat," Xin said, pressing it into his hands. "You've earned this." He snapped his fingers and a private hurried forward with a tin cup of spiced tea, the steam curling in the frozen air.

The boy devoured it, crumbs sticking to his chapped lips. Hope flickered in his red-rimmed eyes.

Xin watched with the satisfaction of a man feeding a stray dog. "Now you understand how this works, don't you? Cooperation brings rewards." He leaned close, voice dropping to a whisper the whole square could hear. "Private Hana? See our helpful friend gets extra rations tonight."

Then, just loud enough for the other prisoners to catch:

"We'll need him rested for tomorrow's... demonstrations."

The hope died in the boy's eyes as the meaning settled over the square. The bread turned to ash in his mouth. Around him, prisoners lowered their heads - some in shame, others in dawning understanding.

Lian's teacup met its saucer with perfect precision. Not a sound out of place.The message was clear: talk and you'll be fed today, only to suffer worse tomorrow. Either way, the Fire Nation always collected its due.

The porcelain cup clicked softly against its saucer as Lian set it down, her fingers lingering just a moment too long—steady, controlled. The tea had gone cold. Outside, the boy who had betrayed his people was being led away, his shoulders hunched as if already feeling the weight of tomorrow’s betrayal. The other prisoners didn’t look at him anymore.

A shadow crossed the commissary window—one of the new half-tracks rumbling through the square, its treads crushing the pink-stained snow into slush. *Model 44-C*, Lian noted automatically. Polar-modified, reinforced plating, likely retrofitted after the Ba Sing Se campaign. She could hear the whine of its engine even through the glass, a sound like a wounded animal.

"Lian."

The voice came from behind her—low, edged with the sharp consonants of the Fire Nation’s educated class. She turned, schooling her face into the placid deference expected of a clerk.

Prince Zuko stood in the doorway, his scarred side turned slightly away, as if out of habit. He didn’t look at her directly, his gaze skimming past her to the square beyond. "Commander Ryo wants the supply manifests before noon. The ones for the Breaker units."

Lian bowed, just deep enough to be respectful without groveling. "Of course, Your Highness."

Zuko’s eyes flicked to her then—gold, like the rest of them, but duller, as if the cold had leached the fire from them. She met his gaze for exactly half a second before lowering hers again. Long enough to see the exhaustion, the tension in his jaw. Not long enough to be impertinent.

He hesitated, as if about to say something else, then turned on his heel and left, his boots silent on the wooden floor.

Lian exhaled through her nose and straightened. Around her, the commissary hummed with the usual midmorning activity—officers barking orders, clerks shuffling papers, the occasional burst of static from the radio room. No one paid her any mind.

Lian adjusted the stack of reports in her arms as she navigated the dimly lit corridors of the Fire Nation’s Southern Command outpost. The air smelled of ink, damp parchment, and the faint metallic tang of coal dust from the nearby boiler rooms. She passed a cluster of junior officers hunched over a map strewn with markers, their voices low but urgent.

"—Qianchan’s Mountain Warriors hit the supply depot on Crescent Island again. Took out three artillery batteries before vanishing into the cliffs."

"Tch. Like ghosts. How’d they even get past the patrols?"

"Same way they always do—scaled the southern ridge at night. Scouts say they’re using those grappling hooks, no firebender can track them in the dark."

One officer jabbed a finger at the map. "And now their Iron Guard’s pushing up the eastern chain. Saw the reports from Ryuujin’s crew—those power-armored bastards tore through our forward bunkers like paper. Command’s scrambling battleships to bombard the coast, but…"

"But it’s a damn stalemate," another muttered, rubbing his temple. "They take an island, we burn it to slag. We land marines, their cliff wolves pick us off. Rinse and repeat."

"Worst part? Their navy’s got those new icebreaker hulls. Faster than anything we’ve got in polar waters. If they push further west—"

The chatter died as Lian passed. The officers eyed her—a clerk in Fire Nation olive, her insignia marking her as just another cog in the machine. She kept her gaze down, her pace measured. Their suspicion was routine; no one trusted the paper-pushers, especially not when the Southern Air Temple islands were bleeding resources like an open wound.

The Fire Nation owned the archipelago, yes. But holding it? That was another war entirely.

The half-tracks rumbled through the snow-choked square, treads biting into the frozen earth. Their exhaust curled into the twilight like ink in water—thick, deliberate, a reminder of occupation. Breaker units, faces obscured by fur-lined masks and goggles, checked their gear: flamethrower tanks, satchel charges, compact submachine guns. Tunnel sweeps tonight. Again.

Zuko stood at the window, his reflection a ghost over the glass. His fingers flexed against the sill—too warm, always too warm here, even in the dead of winter. The Southern Water Tribe’s guerillas had melted into the tundra like mist, leaving only scorch marks and traps behind. Every patrol came back lighter. Every report was another scratch on the ledger of this damned, frozen war.

Outside, another half-track growled past, its machine gun turret swiveling toward the perimeter. The gunner’s breath fogged the air as he scanned the white nothingness.

Lian kept writing. The numbers didn’t lie: rations dwindling, fuel consumption unsustainable, frostbite cases stacking up in the infirmary. The Fire Nation held the territory, yes—but holding meant squatting in the ruins of a people who refused to die.

Zuko exhaled, and the glass fogged over. Something was coming. Something the snow would swallow before the scouts ever saw it.

Lian’s pen scratched the paper dry.

Chapter Text

The cavern exhaled frost with every breath taken within its ribcage of ice. A hundred bodies packed the hollowed-out glacial chamber, their heatstones scattered like dying stars across the black expanse—tiny orange suns guttering in cupped hands, wedged between boots, balanced on makeshift altars of salvaged armor. The air tasted of burnt fat and unwashed fur.

Near the eastern tunnel mouth, a cluster of warriors hunched over a map carved directly into the ice wall, their knives chipping fresh paths through old scars.

"—Qianchan won't take more than twenty," a scout hissed, her parka sleeve stiff with frozen blood.

A man with frost-whitened knuckles slammed his fist against the map. "Then we pick who goes by who can still hold a rifle—"

Three paces away, a grandmother rocked a silent child, humming a war chant that hadn't been sung aboveground in forty years. The tune frayed as shouting erupted near the supply cache:

"You'd trade him like seal meat?" Katara's voice cracked across the cavern. She stood between Aang and a ring of hunters, her water skin already half-iced over.

The boy in question sat cross-legged atop an overturned crate, his borrowed parka swallowing his frame. His fingers traced the blue arrows on his wrists—not nervously, but like he was counting them.

Harvak spat onto the ice between them. "Fire Nation's offering antibiotics per head for unregistered benders. That's enough medicine to—"

"To what?" Sokka's boot kicked a heatstone, sending embers skittering. "Keep us alive long enough to watch them burn the next tunnel?" His knuckles were split. Freshly.

Nearby, an elder methodically snapped frostbitten toes back into place with wet cracks. No one flinched.

The cavern swallowed every word, every breath, amplifying the scrape of blades being sharpened, the wet coughs of the wounded, the relentless drip-drip of meltwater eating away at their last refuge.

Then—

A walking stick struck stone. Once. Twice.

The arguments didn't stop so much as suffocate mid-breath, heads turning toward the sound.

Harvak leaned forward, his knife tapping against his boot. "We trade him. Simple. Fire Nation wants benders? Give them one. Maybe they’ll back off long enough for us to regroup."

Katara’s hands clenched. "He’s a child."

"He’s a thing," Yuka snapped, frostbitten fingers flexing around her rifle. "Crawled out of the ice like some spirit-cursed—"

"He saved our asses!" Sokka cut in, though his voice lacked its usual fire. He looked exhausted. They all did.

"Saved you for what?" Harvak’s laugh was a dry, broken thing. "To starve slower? To get burned alive next week instead of today?"

The bickering rose again, overlapping, sharp as knives. Aang sat silent in the corner, knees drawn to his chest, his gray eyes too wide, too old. The blue arrows on his skin seemed to pulse faintly in the dim light.

Then—

"ENOUGH."

Gran Gran’s voice cut through the noise like a harpoon through ice. The cave fell silent.

She stood slowly, her bones creaking, her parka worn thin from decades of war. The firelight deepened the lines on her face, carving her expression into something hard and unyielding.

"You squabble like seabirds over scraps," she said, her voice low but iron-edged. "While the Fire Nation burns our history above us. While they dig deeper every day. While they win ."

Harvak opened his mouth, but she silenced him with a look.

"You want to trade him?" She gestured to Aang, who flinched. "Fine. But know this—they will still hunt us. They will still burn our children. Because this?" She swept a hand around the cave. "This is not the first time we have been here."

A beat. The ice groaned overhead.

Gran Gran exhaled, her breath fogging in the air. "Seventy years ago, I was your age, Harvak. Eighteen. Strong. Stupid." Her voice softened, just slightly. "The First Uprising had just begun."

Winter, 39 AG

Gran Gran’s fingers curled around the walking stick, her knuckles as gnarled as the ice roots that clung to the cavern walls. The heatstones flickered, casting long shadows that danced like the ghosts she was about to summon.

"Wolf’s Cove still stood then," she began, her voice carrying in the hollow silence. "Not as you know it now—broken, buried. No. The towers still reached for the sky. The great ice bridges hadn’t yet cracked under Fire Nation boots."

A pause. The cave held its breath.

"But they had already taken the harbor."

The docks had been the first to turn red.

Kanna had seen it from the cliffs, long before the smell of burning pitch reached them, before the iron prow of the Tatsu split the ice with a groan that would echo through her nightmares. The warships had arrived with no fanfare—just the steady churn of their engines and the cold cut of their iron hulls through the bay. They had stayed there, still and imposing, their massive bodies like predators waiting for the right moment to strike.

"When did it start?"

She still couldn’t answer the question. Had it started when the ships first came, or had it started before? When the villagers had begun to hear the whispers of taxes—small things at first, easy enough to ignore. A barrel of oil per household. One child per family for 'civic service.'

When the Fire Nation soldiers had come ashore, their boots crushing the brittle snow, the townsfolk had looked away, pretending it wasn't real. But the ice beneath their feet had been cracking from the start. It was only a matter of time before it gave way.
Her fingers tightened around the walking stick—worn and gnarled from years of use, the whalebone beads rattling faintly in the wind as if they could still remember the old stories.

"We didn’t have a choice. You don’t say ‘no’ to them."

Her voice was hoarse now, not with age, but with the weight of remembering. She could hear it all again: the governors' voices, the thinly veiled promises, the official documents. Their fire-lit words, slick with politeness, drenched in lies.

"It’s for your protection, Kanna," they’d told her—so many years ago. "For the good of the tribe. The Fire Nation is not your enemy."

But they had come as invaders all the same, their warships like great metal leviathans, blocking the docks, and the children—her cousins, her neighbors—had been swept away to ‘serve the empire.’ "Recruited" they called it, but none had returned.

"I remember when they took her," Kanna muttered, her voice thickening. "I still feel the hole in my chest where she used to be."

“Who?”

Aang’s voice—quiet, tentative, coming from behind her. His shadow loomed over the cracked stone of the longhouse. His hair, like a flame that refused to be extinguished, waved in the cold air, though there was nothing burning here.

“My sister,” she said without turning. The wind howled like the ghosts of the past, pressing against her skin, and yet, it was only her breath that escaped in misty clouds. She had grown used to it.

“How did they do it?”

The question wasn’t directed at her, but Kanna answered anyway, her tone cold and hollow, like the sound of a distant rifle shot.

“They came in the night. Took her and a dozen others.” Kanna’s voice cracked as she stared out into the distance, but there was nothing to see but the endless white void. “The second winter, they brought the whips.”

Aang blinked, clearly confused. “Whips?”

Kanna turned to him, her gaze sharp. “The whipping posts, they called them. A public demonstration, they said.” She spat the words as if they burned. “I watched it. An elder. They beat him to death in the square, right in front of us. No reason. Just because.”

Aang’s brow furrowed, his face full of the kind of innocence that made her blood run cold. “What… what did you do?”

For a moment, Kanna couldn’t speak. The wind howled between them, the distant noise of the Fire Nation soldiers carrying through the frozen air, but she couldn’t find the words. She didn’t want to say them. Didn’t want to remember. But she had to.

She finally spoke, her voice low and heavy. “We watched. What else could we do? We had no weapons, no power. You don’t fight back against them. Not when they can burn the whole town to the ground for one person.”

Aang’s eyes widened, still not understanding. “But... why didn’t anyone try to stop them?”

The question hit her like a slap, and Kanna snapped, her grip tightening on her walking stick until her knuckles burned. “Because we were nothing. Don’t you get it, Aang?” She threw her hands out, gesturing toward the desolate landscape. “We didn’t have a choice. The whole village was scared, beaten down, waiting for the fire to reach us next. There were no heroes. Just a bunch of people waiting to die.”

Aang’s silence filled the space between them. He didn’t understand. He couldn't.

“Did they know what was coming?” he asked, voice small. It was as if he was still trying to make sense of it all, piecing things together in a way that didn’t make sense to Kanna.

“No,” she snapped, turning her face away, the bitter wind biting her skin. “They never see it coming, Aang. They never do. They think that if you make it slow enough, if you make it gradual, it won’t hurt so much. But it does. It always does.”

Her hand loosened on the stick, the weight of her words sinking in as she stared into the blank horizon, wishing she could be anywhere but here. “They thought the slow knife would be easier to bear.”
Katara, still standing beside her, didn't speak for a long moment. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, until finally, her voice broke through it. "How did it start? The revolt, I mean."

Kanna didn’t look at her, but the question hit like a fresh wound. How? She had thought it was obvious. They all knew, didn’t they? But she could see it in Katara’s face—her eyes wide, her lips parted, waiting for the answer, the one thing that made it all make sense.

Kanna exhaled, and for a moment, she saw the fires again—the ones that burned Wolf’s Cove, the ones that hadn't yet gone out. She shook her head, then turned to Katara, her gaze hard. "It started with a stolen crate of salted fish."

Katara frowned. "A crate?"

"Yes," Kanna said, the bitterness creeping back into her voice. "A Fire Nation quartermaster caught a boy—barely twelve—trying to drag it into the alleys. His father tried to stop them. The punishment was twenty lashes. But the boy’s father... he stepped forward to stop them. And they shot him. Right there in the square." She paused. “No trial. No pyre. Just a body left to freeze to the cobblestones. A lesson.”

The words fell into the space between them like stones, the weight of it dragging on Kanna’s chest. She could feel the memory of the cold, that bite in the air as it had all happened.

Katara’s eyes widened, her mouth parting in disbelief. “They… just killed him?”

Kanna nodded, her jaw tightening. “The people didn’t know what to do at first. But that night…” She looked away, her mind painting a picture. “That night, the fishermen sharpened their gutting knives. The weavers unraveled their nets and made nooses. And the last of the waterbenders—those still in hiding—painted their faces with ash.”

Katara’s hand reached out instinctively, as if she could touch the past through Kanna’s words. “But how did it spread?”

Kanna’s eyes flashed cold. “It wasn’t just about the father, Katara. It was about everything that had come before. The constant raids. The food they took. The children they stole. It had been building for years. But that night—when they killed him—it all snapped.” She paused, her voice lowering, the edges rough with something sharper than grief. “People took matters into their own hands.”

She looked at the ground, as though the memory were too much to bear. “Some of them stole Fire Nation rifles from the armory. Others sabotaged their patrols. Over time, people started to hide things—small things, at first. Just tools, just weapons. But after that, it grew. The revolt spread.” She lifted her gaze, her eyes burning with something that wasn’t anger, but something deeper, older. "It started as whispers. The fisherman who had once stolen salted fish now had something heavier in his hands. The weavers? They turned their nooses into traps."

“Did you... did you fight ?” Katara asked, her voice small, tentative.

Kanna’s lips twisted into something like a half-smile. “What do you think? You don’t stand by and watch when the Fire Nation’s boot is on your throat. But fighting wasn’t the hardest part. No. The hardest part was knowing it wouldn't matter in the end. Knowing they had enough power to wipe us out, no matter what we did.”

The wind howled louder as if to emphasize her point, the starkness of the icy air biting their skin.

"Then, the temple," Kanna said, her voice thickening with pain, "the old glacial temple... the one where we first lost so many. It became the heart of the rebellion. And by the end, it wasn’t a temple anymore."
Katara’s brow furrowed. “What happened to the temple?”

Kanna’s face hardened. “They took it. The Fire Nation. They tore down the statues, burned the tapestries, dug into the sacred ice. It became a stronghold. And after that, after we lost it...” She shook her head, her voice quieter now. "There was no turning back. The whole South was in flames. The old temple became a symbol of everything we lost. But the Fire Nation twisted it, made it their own.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and unbearable. The flicker of the fire from the heatstone seemed to cast shadows of those who had fallen, of the blood spilled, of the rebellion that had grown so quickly and was crushed just as fast.

“The temple’s gone, Katara. Everything we fought for... lost. The Fire Nation controls it now. And we—" Kanna's voice cracked, then she regained herself. "We’re left picking up the pieces. But maybe that’s the only way we survive. One piece at a time."

Katara’s eyes searched Kanna’s face, and for a moment, the air between them felt thick with unspoken truths. The cold didn’t feel so biting anymore. It felt like a weight on their shoulders, a shared burden that neither of them could escape.

"Some of us, though," Kanna whispered, "we’ll never stop. We’ll keep fighting, even if we’re the last ones standing."

“They didn’t fight us head-on,” Gran Gran murmured, the wind outside carrying the faint rattle of the distant snowstorm. Her voice was low, like it had been scraped raw from years of telling the same story. “Oh no. Clever, the Fire Nation. They waited until midwinter, when the ice storms came.”

She paused, her eyes narrowing, as if the past were unfolding in her mind once more, piece by piece.

“Then they…” Gran Gran’s voice hardened. “Burned the food caches. Granaries first, smokehouses second. They set fire to everything we depended on.”

Sokka’s brow furrowed. “They burned your food?”

Gran Gran nodded without looking at him. “Aye. They were thorough, and they made sure no one could stop them. They knew what the storm would do. And they didn’t stop there. They sank the fishing boats—axes through the hulls under the cover of blizzards. They sealed the tunnels—earthbenders conscripted from the colonies, their faces blank as they buried every escape route.”

Katara’s hand trembled slightly, but she kept her composure. “And... and after that?”

Gran Gran didn’t flinch. “By the end, we were eating belt leather. No game left. No food. The collaborators—those who sold their souls for a little extra—got extra rations for turning in ‘agitators.’”

Her voice thickened. “My cousin Hessa sold out her own husband for a sack of rice.”

There was a sharp inhale from Sokka. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Gran Gran’s gaze dropped, her face tightening. “He’d already starved to death in the pits by spring.”

The words hung in the air like an icy fog. The wind outside howled louder, but in the cave, it was deathly still.

Aang had gone very still. His eyes were distant, lost in the weight of Gran Gran’s words. He glanced at Katara, then back at her. “You—what happened to them? To those who betrayed you? Did they—did they win?”

Gran Gran’s eyes were dark with something deeper than pain. “No one wins, Aang. Not in war. Not when you fight like that.”

Her lips twisted bitterly. “You think trading him will buy mercy?” Her laugh was dry and broken, like the sound of ice cracking. “The Fire Nation doesn’t want peace. They want silence. And silence…” She turned her gaze upward, her eyes tracing the frost-rimed ceiling above them, where the distant thump of Fire Nation drills pulsed through the cold like a heartbeat. “…is what happens when no one’s left to scream.”

There was a long pause. The words lingered, unanswered. The heatstones guttered in the quiet, their flames flickering weakly against the cold air.

Somewhere in the dark, a child coughed, the sound echoing through the cavernous space, the only sound of life in a room full of death.

No one spoke.

Finally, Sokka broke the silence, his voice rough, as if it were a struggle to get the words out. “So... what do we do? Just sit here, and wait for them to come for us, too ?”

Chapter Text

Harvak’s calloused fingers rasped over the coarse stubble of his beard. His eyes, sharp as flint, cut through the dim firelight, scanning the hollow faces gathered around the dying embers. The flames spat and hissed, casting jagged shadows that twitched like hunted things.

"Alright, alright." His voice was gravel, worn thin but edged with something harder. "We don’t wanna do that." A pause. The drip of meltwater from the cavern ceiling echoed like a ticking clock. "She’s right. Trade the kid, and we buy a week. Maybe less." He spat onto the ice, the saliva freezing before it even settled. "And whatever’s left of our honor goes with him."

Silence.

Thick. 

Suffocating.

The distant thrum of Fire Nation drills pulsed through the walls, a relentless heartbeat. The air stank of seal oil and sweat. Eyes darted—Harvak, Gran Gran, Aang, the tunnels—black mouths yawning into nothing.

Then— movement .

A chair scraped. A young man near the back lurched to his feet, his knuckles white around the grip of a rusted rifle. His breath came too fast, too loud. "I’m not sitting here waiting to freeze or burn." His voice cracked—too high, too desperate. "There’s a way out. North. Someone always makes it north."

A woman stood beside him, her cheeks sunken, her eyes two pits of shadow. "He’s right." Her whisper was a blade. "The old smuggler paths. Staying here is just… waiting to die."

Harvak exhaled, long and slow, like a man already mourning. "Those paths are watched. Breakers. Scout planes. You won’t make it ten klicks before they turn you into a goddamn bonfire."

The young man’s jaw twitched. His fingers flexed around the rifle. "Better than rotting in this fucking tomb!"

A murmur rippled through the cavern. Heads lifted. Hands clenched.

Harvak’s stare didn’t waver. "Fine." The word was a death sentence. "Go. Be ghosts on the ice. But don’t look back for us."

No hesitation. The four of them moved like hunted animals—grabbing heatstones, canteens, rifles with bolts stiff from cold. Their breaths fogged the air in frantic bursts. Too fast. Too eager.

Gran Gran’s voice was barely audible. "May the spirits guide you."

No one else spoke.

Sokka’s fists tightened. Katara turned her face away, her throat working.

Then—footsteps. Hurried. Unsteady. The four figures vanished into the tunnel’s throat, swallowed by the dark.

The snow at the entrance churned once. Then settled.

Silence.

They were never heard from again.

Memory slipped in like cold water through seams.

Aang’s eyelids fluttered, heavy as stone. The cavern’s warmth pressed against him, the murmur of voices fading into the hum of rain.

It was raining the night he left.

Not in the temple proper—no, the Southern Air Temple floated too high for rain, suspended in the dry, thin breath of the mountains. But down in the lowlands, where the earth met the sky, water fell in sheets. Where Earth Kingdom farmers bent their backs over soil the airbenders never touched, where the world wept in a way the monks never acknowledged.

Gyatso had tried to stop him.

Not with words. Words were too easy, too light. Instead, a hand on his shoulder. A grip just tight enough to say wait. A look that carved into him like wind over rock.

"I can’t sit in that room anymore." Aang’s voice had been small, swallowed by the drum of rain. "They talk like I’m a… weapon."

"You’re more than that."

"Then tell them!" Aang’s voice cracked, too loud, too sharp. His hands clenched at his sides, fingers digging into his own palms like he could crush the frustration out of himself. "They keep saying I have to—to master all four elements, that I have to be ready, but they won’t even let me go to the festival! It’s just more scrolls, more lectures, more—"

"Aang." Gyatso’s voice was steady, but his fingers tightened on Aang’s shoulder, just a little. "They’re afraid."

"Of what?!"

A distant sound cut through the rain—a low, unnatural drone, like a hornet’s nest stirred by a stick. It hummed beneath the storm, wrong in a way Aang couldn’t name. His head jerked up, scanning the clouds. Nothing. Just the dark and the wet.

Gyatso’s eyes flicked skyward for half a breath before returning to Aang. "Of losing you."

"I’m not gonna break just because I get to have fun for once!" Aang kicked at the mud, sending a glob splattering against the stone path. "You let me do stuff! You trust me! Why can’t they?"

"Because I know you." Gyatso’s mouth quivered, but his eyes were sad. "And they know the world."

Aang swallowed hard. The whirring noise faded, swallowed by the wind. Maybe it had been nothing. Maybe just some Earth Kingdom machine, some new farming thing the merchants had brought up from the cities.

But the air tasted metallic.

"I hate this," Aang muttered. Not a shout. Not even really anger anymore. Just something small and tiring.

Gyatso opened his mouth—to argue, to comfort, Aang would never know—but Aang was already turning away.

One foot in front of the other. Mud sucked at his sandals, cold and greedy. Rain needled the back of his neck, his bare arms, like the sky itself was scolding him.

He didn’t run. He didn’t yell.

Kids weren’t supposed to carry the weight of the world.

So he just… left.

Aang's eyes flew open to utter blackness.

Not the soft dark of sleep—this was the hungry dark of deep ice, the kind that swallowed sound whole. Katara's breathing, steady. Sokka's snoring, rhythmic. His own pulse, too loud.

Then—

Light.

Sudden.

Wrong.

The cave walls melted into sunlit furs. He smelled sea prune stew, felt wooden planks under his palms. Real. More real than real.

Katara's face filled his vision, backlit by golden morning. Her mouth moved:

"—last dumpling, Aang!"

Her voice hit him like a physical blow. This wasn't memory. The angles were wrong—Sokka's parka had a mend he'd never seen, Katara's hair loopies slightly uneven like she'd done them herself.

"Hungry," his own voice chirped from a throat that wasn't his. Twelve years old again.

Sokka's whetstone scraped—shink, shink—but when Aang turned, his friend's eyes were closed. Not sleeping. Not awake. Wax-figure still.

Katara threw the mitt.

It never landed.

The world stuttered.

For one fractured second, he saw double—Katara laughing in sunlight / Katara screaming in firelight, same mouth, same teeth—

Darkness.

The cave rushed back in a sickening lurch. His stomach heaved.

Katara still slept. Sokka still snored.

No time had passed.

Aang pressed shaking fingers to his lips. He could still taste the coldness.
Outside, the wind howled through the ice tunnels. Somewhere in the dark, meltwater dripped.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Like seconds ticking down on a clock he hadn't known was running.

Chapter Text

Lian’s pen scratched across the page like claws over bone. The ink bled heavy and dark, leaving no room for doubt in her reports. She kept her back straight, posture neat — clerk-standard — but her mind was anything but.

Day 5, Wolf Caverns Sector.
Local infrastructure remains unstable. Tunneling crews losing one to two per shift due to collapse and heatstroke. Prisoners untrained, unruly. Attempts to regiment met with mixed results. Subject pool includes a high ratio of ‘waterbenders’. They remain non-compliant, defiant, or broken.

She paused. Her hand didn’t tremble. It hadn’t in years. Still, her lip twitched at the edge. She adjusted her glasses — affectation, the lenses were clear — and added another line.

Resistance activity down since last sweep. High Command suspects underground cells remain. Interrogations ongoing. Extraction methods… uncompromising.

A scream echoed faint from the lower levels. The stone swallowed most of it, like a beast digesting meat slowly. She didn’t flinch.

Lian — no, the real name, buried deep — tapped her pen against the edge of the desk. The makeshift office was a carved niche in the cave wall, reinforced with prefab metal plates and salvaged panels from broken tech. Still smelled like rock dust and sweat. Still too hot. Still too loud.

She picked up a second file, this one internal — not to be logged in the official chain. Her own record. The truth no one asked for but someone needed to remember.

They want to make this a city.
An industrial city.
From this cursed hole where the rocks weep and the air chokes. From these tunnels riddled with blood and ghosts and labor lines.

The idea, on paper, wasn’t stupid. Strategic location. Natural shielding. Access to geothermal vents, water supply, and scavenged tech from previous warfronts.

Okay, she thought, biting the inside of her cheek. Could work. Might even be smart, if they weren’t strangling their own logistics with sadism.

But they weren’t building a city. Not yet. They were breaking one.

Every bender brought in had two options: a bullet, or a collar. Waterbenders especially — treated like contaminated tools. She’d watched one yesterday, no more than sixteen, get dropped in the trench shift line with shackles and a melted brand on her shoulder. The girl had coughed blood on the foreman’s boots. Didn’t slow them down.

They’d dig the vents anyway. Benders or not.

Shot or slaved.
That’s it. That’s the policy.

No one said it officially, of course. But it was in the numbers. In the work schedules. In the unmarked graves at the back end of Tunnel Seven.

She tapped the pen again. Heard boots outside. Officers, likely. Or worse — handlers.

The report needed finishing.

Locals are still uncooperative. Resistance remnants suspected in western cavern sectors. More bodies were pushed into the ‘queue’. High Command orders priority on resistance structure — names, ranks, safehouse chains.
Result: torture. Ongoing.

The word didn’t deserve euphemism.

She flipped the file closed, slipped it into a coded slot, and locked it with the same lazy grace she’d used to shelve reports back in the Capital, before this mess.

Then she looked out of the longhouse window — if you could call a blast-scored gap in stone a window — and saw the labor line marching. Shackled. Head down. One woman collapsed; kicked back to her feet.

The city wasn’t being built. It was being bled out.

And someone — probably her — would have to decide when to let the knife go too deep.

Because the resistance wasn’t dead. Not really. Just hiding.

And if they sparked up again?

Hell would be the second fire.

The door burst open, hinges groaning under the force. Lian didn’t flinch — again. She was past the flinching stage. She looked up with flat, tired eyes.

Lieutenant Xin filled the doorway like bad weather. Coat half-off, boots streaked with cave filth, and a smear of someone’s blood down one sleeve — probably not his. His left pauldron clinked against the rock wall as he shoved inside.

He dumped a stack of field files onto her desk. Half slid off, scattered like falling ash across her floor.

"Sort this shit," Xin barked. "The stuff that matters."

Then the BANG — sharp and heavy, a real rifle crack — echoed down from somewhere above them. Not close enough to be her problem, but not far enough to ignore. Another gunshot followed, then another. Single shots. Executions.

Xin didn’t blink. "That’s Sector Six finishing the list." He shoved a blood-crusted glove back into his coat pocket. "They pushed too many prisoners into the holding pit again. We’re making room."

Lian stared at the mess on her floor.

"Field logs?" she asked, already bending to scoop up half-folded reports.

"Reconstructions. Patrol logs. Interrogation outputs. Some command memos." Xin scratched the back of his neck with his gun hand, lazy, like he was brushing off a fly. "You figure out what’s relevant. Toss the rest in the firepit."

"You're using me like a mailman."

"You’re a clerk ."

A clerk.

She bit her tongue before saying something smart . Or stupid . Instead, she picked up the top folder — stamped with Sector 3 Tunnel Collapse – Status Red — and opened it.

Crude sketches. A half-page typed report. Two engineers listed as dead. Three prisoners vanished. One breaker suit was damaged. All handwritten.

"What’s the criteria for ‘matters’?" she asked.

Xin smirked. Not pleasant. "You’ll know it when you see it."

And then he was gone, leaving damp footprints and a stench of cordite behind.

Lian sat down, floor still littered. She pulled the rest of the stack up onto her desk and started flipping pages fast, scanning for flags. Her fingers were smudged with someone else’s dried blood before long.
Somewhere behind the stone and steel, there was a tap-tap-tap — a rhythmic metal knock, distant but steady. Not gunfire. Not footsteps. Machinery, maybe. A signal. Or maybe just the wind turning one of the half-dead vent turbines on the upper platform.

BWUUUUUUUUUSHHHH-

Wind tore across the deck in howling gusts, dry and salt-bitten. The harbor crane arms swung like broken limbs over rusted track lines. Below, the sea boiled where it touched the geothermal vents. The old icewalls that once protected the Wolf Cave rose jagged and blackened, mostly melted, some collapsed, barely standing after the Uprising of 94 AG. Charred remnants of ice and soot clung to the base like infected wounds.
Zuko stood on the forward deck, back straight, shoulders squared, the wind snapping at his long coat. One gloved hand held a cigarette down by his side. The other rested on the railing, fingers curled tight, white-knuckled. Smoke curled past his cheek, lost in the cold.

He wasn’t supposed to smoke. Not anymore. He didn’t care.

He watched the ruined horizon — the warped scaffolds, the cratered cliffside, the ash-washed shore where resistance fighters were shot and dumped — and asked himself for the hundredth time:

Why this shithole?

Why not Caldera City, where the walls were clean and the water hot and the people bowed out of old habit, not out of fear?

Why not any of the actual ports that weren’t rotting from the inside out?

But no — here. Wolf Cave . The broken dog of the north.

He exhaled smoke like venom. It caught the wind and vanished.

The Shiriyu wasn’t his ship, not really. An intelligence captain’s rank got him deck privileges, not command. The real officers—career navy men with oiled hair and polished boots—watched him from the bridge like he was a lit fuse. Let them.

Boots clanged on the metal grating behind him.

“Transmission from Yakutokai, Captain.”

Zuko didn’t turn. The title still tasted bitter. “Decoded?”

“Yes, sir.” The ensign hesitated. “It’s, uh… personal.”

Mai.

He held out a hand. The folded slip of paper was crisp, the ink smudged from hasty decryption.

>>YAKUTOKAI RELAY STATION 4

>>ENCRYPTION LEVEL 2 (PERSONAL)

>>FOR CAPTAIN’S EYES ONLY

The message was brutally short:

DAY 18. THE TEA HERE IS SHIT. WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK?

No signature. None needed.

Zuko’s mouth twitched. Mai’s version of I’m bored and I miss you rolled into one blade-sharp line.

He crumpled the paper in his fist. The ensign shifted, waiting.

Zuko exhaled sharply through his nose, the ghost of a smirk fading as quickly as it appeared. He smoothed the crumpled message against the railing with his thumb, the paper resisting his attempt to undo the damage.

"Tell her—" he started, then stopped. The wind snatched at his words. He tried again, quieter. "Tell her I'll be home soon. Just... tell her to wait for me. Okay?"

The ensign nodded, but hesitated. "Sir, should I include—"

"Did Ty Lee come?" Zuko interrupted, his voice rougher than he intended.

The ensign blinked. "The, uh—the actress? Yes, sir. She arrived in Yakutokai three days ago. Opened her new show at the Swaku Theater."

Zuko's grip tightened on the railing. Of course she had. Ty Lee never waited for anything—least of all war.

"Good," he muttered, though it wasn't. Not really. "Just—send the reply as is."

The ensign saluted and turned to leave, but Zuko caught his sleeve.

"And tell her—" He swallowed. "Tell her the tea's shit here too."

The ensign's mouth quirked, just slightly. "Yes, sir."

Alone again, Zuko watched the horizon, where the smog from the refineries blurred into the ashen sky. Soon , he'd promised.

He just wasn't sure if he was lying.

The ensign turned back abruptly, as if remembering something vital. "Oh—and the reinforcements just arrived, sir. Arctic warfare specialists and one Armored Platoon."

Zuko exhaled through his teeth. "About fucking time."

He cast one last glance at the ruined horizon before pushing off the railing. The wind howled after him as he strode toward the ship’s interior, his boots ringing against the steel deck.

The Shiriyu’s corridors were narrow, lit by flickering electric bulbs that buzzed like angry wasps. The walls, once pristine white, were streaked with grease and soot, the floor grates clogged with trampled snowmelt and ash. Maps and coded dispatches papered the bulkheads, their edges curling in the damp. Somewhere deeper in the ship, a radio crackled with static-laced chatter.

Zuko shouldered past a pair of engineers arguing over a leaking pipe and ducked into the command hub—a cramped room dominated by a large tactical table, its surface cluttered with pins marking known resistance hideouts.

And there, leaning over the map with a smirk, was Keirō.

"Took you long enough," Zuko muttered.

Keirō straightened, grinning. He was shorter than Zuko, wiry, with a face that looked permanently amused—even now, months out of the academy and already thrown into the frozen hell of Wolf Cove. His uniform was crisp, untouched by the grime of the front, but his gloves were fingerless, the knuckles beneath scarred.

"Nice to see you too, Captain," Keirō said, dragging out the title. "You look like shit."

Zuko ignored that. "Why the hell are they calling you Kei Lo now?"

Keirō shrugged. "Because some idiot at HQ read my name wrong on the deployment orders, and I decided I liked it better. Less stuffy." He tapped the map. "Besides, 'Kei Lo' sounds like the kind of guy who survives this frozen graveyard. 'Keirō' sounds like he dies in the first act."

Zuko snorted. "You’re still an idiot."

"And you’re still smoking," Keirō shot back, nodding at the faint scent of tobacco clinging to Zuko’s coat. "What happened to 'I quit'?"

Zuko didn’t answer. Instead, he jerked his chin toward the harbor outside. "You seen the mess down there yet?"

Keirō’s smirk faded. "Yeah. They weren’t kidding about this place being a shithole."

Zuko grunted. "Welcome to the front."

Keirō exhaled, long and slow. Then, quieter: "You really think we can turn this around?"

Zuko looked at the map—at the pins, at the scribbled notes, at the bloodstain near the corner where some frustrated officer had stabbed a knife through a failed report.

"No," he said. "But we don’t have a choice."

Keirō nodded. Then, after a beat, he clapped Zuko on the shoulder.

"Well. At least we get to freeze together."

Zuko almost smiled.

Almost.

Zuko and Keirō stepped off the gangplank and into the frozen bedlam of Wolf Cove’s docks. The air reeked of diesel and brine, the pier groaning under the weight of offloaded crates and armored vehicles. A massive transport ship loomed beside them, its ramp lowered like a beast’s gaping maw, disgorging the Fire Nation’s latest gamble in this frozen graveyard: reinforcements.

Arctic warfare specialists in thick white parkas moved in tight formations, their breath fogging in synchronized bursts as they unloaded gear. But it was the armor that drew Zuko’s eye.

A line of T-41 "Scorcher" light tanks rolled down the ramp, their treads biting into the packed ice. Sleek, low-profile, built for speed over brute force—the kind of machines that belonged on open plains, not this crumbling, half-drowned ruin of a port.

Keirō whistled. "HQ really is desperate."

Zuko didn’t answer. His gaze locked onto the nearest Scorcher as its crew disembarked. The commander—a firebender, judging by the way he rolled his shoulders like he was already itching to burn something—jumped down from the turret and barked orders. The tank’s 50mm high-velocity cannon glinted in the weak sunlight, its flame-projector MG still dripping residual oil from testing.

Fast. 

Lethal. 

Fragile.

Perfect for hunting guerrillas in the tundra.

And utterly useless if the Earth Kingdom remnants had kept any of their heavy artillery hidden in the ice caves.

Keirō nudged him. "Think they’ll last longer than the last batch?"

Zuko watched as one of the tank crews struggled to secure a loose track link, their gloves slipping on frozen metal.

"No."

A crane swung overhead, hauling a pallet of incendiary shells toward the armored column. Somewhere in the distance, a sergeant screamed at a group of conscripts to "MOVE FASTER, YOU BASTARDS."

Keirō sighed. "Yeah. Me neither."

The wind howled between them, carrying the scent of snow and exhaust.

The war had just gotten heavier.

The wind cut like a knife as Zuko and Keirō trudged through the churned slush of the harbor, their boots crunching on ice and discarded shell casings. The armored column rumbled ahead, their tracks spewing black smoke into the pale sky.

Keirō pulled his parka tighter, his breath fogging as he spoke. "You hear the latest intel dump? Rumor is the SWT remnants from the uprising didn’t just scatter years ago—they’re building something. A new capital. South. Way south."

Zuko’s steps slowed. "How far?"

"Near the pole. Few hundred klicks from here." Keirō smirked, though there was no humor in it. "Guess they got tired of getting shelled."

Zuko’s jaw tightened. The Southern Water Tribe had always been nomadic, their settlements scattered and temporary—until the Fire Nation turned them into kindling. Now, it seemed, they’d decided to dig in where the ice was thickest.

"Intel’s shaky," Keirō added, "but if it’s true, they’ve been hauling in materials for months. And—" He hesitated. "Those missing tanks? The ones that vanished during the last push? Scouts think they might’ve been dragged there."

Zuko stopped dead.

The idea was absurd. Insane. Brilliant .

Tanks required fuel, parts, trained crews—things the Water Tribe shouldn’t have. But if they’d somehow salvaged even a few of the lighter models…

"Yeah," Zuko muttered. "Those bastards would be that resourceful."

Keirō barked a laugh. "Bet they’re using them as fucking stoves."

Zuko didn’t smile. His mind was already racing. A fortified position that far south would be a nightmare to assault—blizzards, whiteouts, terrain that chewed up machinery and spat out corpses. And if the Water Tribe had armor now, even jury-rigged…

The Scorchers ahead of them growled as their engines revved, their flame projectors spitting test-fires into the air.

Zuko exhaled, watching his breath curl and vanish.

The deep growl of a heavier engine cut through the harbor’s noise as the ramp of the transport ship lowered further. With a metallic groan, the T-75 "Inferno" rolled into view—a hulking beast compared to the nimble Scorchers. Its sloped armor glinted dully under the weak sun, the 88mm semi-automatic cannon mounted in its turret radiating quiet menace. A crewman perched atop it, adjusting the high-intensity flame MG with gloved hands.

Keirō let out a low whistle. "Well, that’s a problem solver."

Zuko eyed the tank’s thick frontal plating—80mm equivalent, enough to shrug off most Earth Kingdom field guns. But his gaze lingered on the treads, already crusted with ice. "Logistics are going to be a nightmare," he muttered.

Keirō snorted. "That’s an understatement. These things drink fuel like a sailor drinks shitty port wine. And in this cold?" He gestured at the frozen harbor. "Half the systems will seize up before they even see combat."

Zuko didn’t disagree. The Inferno was a jack-of-all-trades—powerful, versatile, and heavy. Perfect for breaking enemy lines in a conventional war. But this? A grinding siege against a dug-in enemy in the worst terrain imaginable?

One of the tank’s crew—probably the commander—jumped down from the hatch, his breath fogging as he shouted orders. A firebender, no doubt. The Inferno’s flame MG wasn’t just for show; it needed a bender’s precision to keep the mechanisms from freezing solid.

Keirō crossed his arms. "You thinking what I’m thinking?"

Zuko didn’t look away from the tank. "That High Command just dumped a bunch of expensive scrap metal on us?"

"Pretty much." Keirō smirked. "Either that, or they want us to fail."

Zuko’s jaw tightened. Neither option was comforting.

The Inferno's engine growled like an agitated komodo rhino as it ground forward, its massive treads pulverizing the remnants of a supply crate into splinters. Somewhere behind them, a red-faced sergeant bellowed about "protocol" and "goddamn regulations," but his voice was lost in the metallic din of offloading war machines.

Keirō stretched his arms behind his head, cracking his neck with a grin. "Ah, screw logistics. We've got air support from the Southern Air Command  and the Western Air command. We'll just push—straight through the ice, straight through their defenses. Easy."

Zuko shot him a look.

Keirō shrugged. "What? I'm joking. Mostly." He knocked his fist against the side of his skull. "Ice does weird shit to your brain out here. Gotta joke or you'll start counting how many days it's been since you saw the sun."

Zuko exhaled sharply—almost a laugh, if you squinted. "You're an idiot."

"An alive idiot," Keirō corrected. "Which, statistically, is better than most of the poor bastards they're sending into this frozen meat grinder."

A gust of wind howled between them, carrying the scent of oil and cold iron. The Inferno's crew was already cursing as they wrestled with a frozen track pin.

Keirō watched them struggle, then smirked. "See? Even the tanks hate this place."

Zuko didn't answer. His gaze drifted south—toward the pole, toward the rumors of a city rising from the ice.

Chapter Text

The cave mouth exhaled frost into the night as the survivors crouched in its jagged maw. Aang pressed against the icy outcrop, his breath fogging in short bursts. Behind him, Katara's fingers dug into Gran Gran's parka sleeve, her other hand hovering near her waterskin. Sokka knelt at the front, his boomerang a dull gleam in the moonlight, eyes scanning the tundra beyond.

Then—

A vibration through the permafrost.

Sokka's head jerked up. "That's not wind."

The sound came again—a deep, throaty growl cutting through the howling gale. Not the high-pitched whine of Fire Nation skimmers. Something lower. Heavier.

Familiar.

Katara leaned forward, snow crunching under her knees. "Spirits above—"

A flash of light pierced the snowdrifts—once, once, then a sustained beam.

Morse.

Sokka's weapon arm went slack. "They made it."

Through the swirling snow, dark shapes resolved—five hulking Qianchan TQ-47s plowing through the drifts, their sloped armor sheathed in ice, exhaust fumes pooling like dragon's breath in the negative cold. The lead halftrack's spotlight swept across the cave mouth, illuminating the ragged survivors in its harsh glow.

The gunner's hatch screeched open.

Hakoda's silhouette appeared, backlit by the APC's interior glow, his parka hood stiff with rime. "Need a ride?"

Sokka didn't realize he was running until the arctic wind hit his face, until his boots pounded the frozen earth in a dead sprint toward the idling machines. Behind him, the cave disgorged its occupants—weary faces alight with disbelieving hope, hands raised against the stinging snow as the armored column rumbled to meet them.

The evacuation unfolded in frantic bursts of movement.

Five armored transports—three Qianchan TQ-47 APCs and two repurposed Earth Kingdom cargo trucks—sat idling, their engines growling against the rising wind. Survivors scrambled toward them, their movements stiff with cold and exhaustion. A woman hoisted a child into the nearest APC; an elderly man was half-carried, half-dragged by two teenagers. The snow was coming down harder now, thick flakes melting on warm metal, the beginnings of a true storm.

Aang stood frozen in the chaos.

This wasn’t like guiding Appa through Fire Nation patrols or dodging arrows in the Earth Kingdom. This was real war—the kind with screaming orders and blood smeared on parkas and people shoving past him like he wasn’t even there.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder.

"Who the fuck are you ?"

Aang turned. A broad-shouldered man with a beard streaked with gray loomed over him, his eyes sharp beneath his fur-lined hood.

Hakoda .

Aang opened his mouth—

"Dad!" Sokka skidded to a stop beside them, panting. "He’s with us."

Hakoda’s gaze flicked between them. "Explain later. Move now."

Then his eyes locked onto something behind Aang.

"And what the fuck is that?"

Aang turned.

Appa stood like a silent mountain in the snowstorm, his white fur blending into the blizzard so perfectly he seemed to phase in and out of view. Momo perched on his head, chittering nervously.

Aang blinked.

Oh.

Right.

No one here had seen a sky bison before.

"Uh," Aang said. "That’s Appa?"

Hakoda stared.

The nearest APC gunner stared.

Even the snow seemed to pause midair.

Then—

"LOAD UP!" Hakoda bellowed, shaking himself back into action. "WE’RE LEAVING!"

Aang exhaled.

This was going to be a long ride.

The convoy rumbled forward, tracks and wheels grinding through the deepening snow. Overhead, Appa soared through the blizzard, his shaggy form a ghost in the whiteout. Aang crouched low in the saddle, wind whipping at his robes, eyes locked on the convoy below.

"Stay with us, buddy," he muttered, and Appa bellowed in reply, angling down to shadow the armored vehicles from above.

Below, the APCs' spotlights swept blindly through the storm, cutting jagged beams through the snow. Their gunners hunched at their turrets, peering into the storm, rifles ready for shadows that might be more than snow.

Inside the lead APC, Hakoda clutched the radio handset, his knuckles bloodless. He kept glancing at the narrow viewing slit, catching glimpses of the flying bison—there, gone, there again—like a goddamn ghost refusing to let go.

"Chief," the gunner muttered, not taking his eyes off the scope. "That thing’s real."

Hakoda didn’t answer. His grandmother’s stories whispered in his skull— great beasts with arrowed hides, riders who laughed with the wind. Children’s tales. Ghosts.

And yet.

This thing is alive. 

When they finally stopped to regroup in the lee of a glacial ridge, Hakoda marched straight to where Aang was brushing snow from Appa’s fur.

"Kid."

Aang turned, smiling faintly. "Hi! So, you’re Sokka and Katara’s dad—"

"Airbender." Hakoda’s voice was flat. "How?"

Aang blinked. "Uh. I was born one?"

Hakoda’s exhale misted between them. "The Fire Nation wiped out your people. Decades ago."

Aang’s smile faltered. "What?"

A beat.

Hakoda studied him—the genuine confusion, the way his fingers tightened in Appa’s fur. Not lying. Just… clueless.

"You really don’t know."

"Know what?"

Hakoda rubbed his forehead. "Spirits save me from children who don’t pay attention in history lessons."

Nearby, Sokka winced. "Yeah, we’re… working on that."

The APC's interior smelled of gun oil, sweat, and stale rations. Every bump in the ice sent Hakoda's knee jamming against the bulkhead as he leaned forward, his face inches from Aang's in the dim red lighting. The other soldiers had suddenly found reasons to look elsewhere.

"You really don't know." Hakoda's voice was low, dangerous. Not quite accusation. Not quite disbelief.

Aang swallowed. The metal walls seemed to press closer. "Know what?"

Sokka made a strangled noise. Katara's boot found his shin.

Hakoda's calloused fingers tapped a rhythm on his thigh - one-two-three, one-two-three - the same pattern he'd used when the kids were small and needed to hear hard truths.

"The Fire Nation didn't just attack the Air Temples." The words came slow, measured. "They declared the entire race a military target. Called it 'annexation' in the news. Made it sound... administrative."

A drip from a leaking pipe hit Aang's shoulder. He didn't flinch.

"Some escaped south. There were rumors of refugees reaching our coasts in '23 AG." Hakoda's eyes flicked to where Appa's bulk shadowed the viewport. "My grandfather sheltered a group at Tiger Seal Cove. Or tried to."

The engine's growl filled the silence.

"What... happened to them?" Aang's voice was very small.

Hakoda exhaled through his nose. "Fire Navy found their camp. Made examples of them. After that..." He spread his hands. The gesture said everything.

Katara was gripping her water skin so tight her knuckles matched the snow outside. Sokka had that look he got when calculating odds - and not liking the numbers.

Aang opened his mouth. Closed it. The APC's heater clicked off abruptly.

"But… I was just asleep," he said quietly.

Hakoda’s cup paused halfway to his lips. "What."

"In the iceberg. For, uh." Aang counted on his fingers. "A while?"

The silence that followed could’ve frozen the fire solid.

Hakoda stared at him. Then at his kids. Then back at Aang.

"You’re telling me," he said slowly, "that the Fire Nation missed one because you took a nap?"

Aang fidgeted. "I mean. Yeah?"

Hakoda set the empty tin cup down like a judge slamming a gavel. The clang echoed hard off the APC’s metal floor, slicing through the cramped silence. Outside, the wind screamed past the treads, tearing across the tundra like it wanted in.

Nobody moved.

Then Hakoda dragged a hand down his face. The scrape of callused fingers against unshaven jaw sounded like sandpaper on rust. His eyes locked on Aang, narrowing. Not disbelief—something colder. Disgust laced with exhaustion.

Aang shifted under the weight of it, but said nothing.

The silence snapped .

"Let me get this straight." Hakoda’s voice was low, clipped, loaded. He stabbed a finger in Aang’s direction. "The Fire Nation’s been turning the South into scorched ice for years —hauling our benders into camps, burning whole villages off the map—"

He pivoted toward the viewport. Appa’s hulking shadow drifted in and out of the whiteout, a silent beast in the storm.

"—and all this time, there’s been an airbender just floating around doing... what? Fucking iceberg yoga ?"

Aang opened his mouth.

"It was more of a meditative state, not—"

"I don’t care if you were inventing spiritual goddamn fucking excerise ." The words hit sharp, fast, like thrown knives. Then Hakoda blinked, jaw tight. The regret wasn’t in his tone—it was in the way he turned, like he’d already moved on.

The radio crackled.

“Commander, why is there a flying ghost?”

Hakoda snatched the handset.

"Shut the fuck up—don’t say ghost. He’s one of ours."

The radio went dead.

Sokka leaned forward, trying to play peacemaker. "Dad—"

"No. You listen ." Hakoda’s hand slammed against the map table, rattling compasses and rations. "The Fire Nation stopped hunting airbenders because they thought they were extinct. They think we are the last line. That we’re weak. That we’re done ."

His eyes locked on Aang again, cold enough to freeze spit in the air.

"And now I’ve got a glowing, sky-flying monk who doesn't know which end of his staff to hold, right when I need soldiers."

The APC jolted over a pressure ridge. Everything inside lurched—gear, crates, people. Aang’s staff slipped from the rack and hit the floor with a hollow clatter.

Katara broke first. "He’s the Av—"

"Don’t." Hakoda’s voice cut like a knife between her ribs. The single word pinned her where she sat. He bent down, picked up the staff, turned it once in his hands like he was weighing it... then handed it to Aang.

Not gently. Not cruelly. Just... decisively.

"Right now, you’re just another mouth to feed," he said. "And I’ve got enough of those."

The words had barely landed when the radio snapped back to life in a burst of static and wind-chopped noise.

"...—náli anüg, five minutes from Capital—nálü shán, nálü shán!"

Hakoda’s head lifted. His tone shifted—snapped back into something sharp, controlled, like a man locking emotion in a steel box. He grabbed the handset, flicked the side switch, and answered in the same clipped native tongue, his voice steady as carved ice.

"Tuktuq. Inuqtiruk qangatasit. Qanurli piquk, qanurli uqaqtut. Siku qaqqiqtuq, aniuqtuq. Aningaat aulajut."

He clicked off.

The moment hung, brittle.

The mountain rose like a knife through the blizzard—massive, jagged, more felt than seen. Aang squinted through the frost-caked viewport, but even with sharp eyes, there was nothing obvious. Just endless ice and stone, shaped by centuries of cold.

And yet, the closer they got, the more wrong it felt.

Walls weren’t walls—they were sheer cliffs. Slits in the rock weren’t erosion; they were firing ports, reinforced with gunmetal and ice-thick glass. Camouflaged shutters shifted once—then vanished. The wind hid the movement like it didn’t want to betray its secret.

The Fortress wasn’t built on the mountain. It was the mountain. Half-buried, hidden in plain sight, a fossil of old war repurposed for new ones.

Inside the APC, Aang felt pressure behind his eyes. That weight. That sense of history has gone to rot and teeth.

Hakoda leaned over the map table again, tapping a ridge on the chart. Two fingers. Quiet, firm.

“They’re up there. Crawlers. Our friends.”

Aang blinked. “Friends?”

Hakoda didn’t answer directly.

“Move on skins, breathe with the storm. fighters trained by the Republic, back before it was 'swallowed' up that bloated corpse of a Kingdom,” he said, voice like gravel dragged through oil. “They don’t salute. They don’t speak. They kill.”

Aang looked out again. The slope above was empty. Snow drifted lazy, serene. There could’ve been fifty people watching them right now—and they wouldn’t know until bullets or ice spikes tore through the engine block.

The radio hissed again. New voice. Sharp, panicked, drowned in wind.

“—Grey Wolf, this is Bastion One—what the fuck is that in the air? AND Who the fuck invited that thing in?!”

A pause.

Then an older voice, cracked like old bark, cut in on the same channel.

“Easy, son. Haven’t seen one of those since I was a wee lad. Let it in. Sky spirits come when they will.”

Hakoda picked up the receiver again, calm as ever. “HQ, this is Hadadrag. Package is confirmed. One air asset, fully foreign. I said foreign, don’t make me repeat it.”

He glanced toward Aang.

“Diplomatic headache included.”

He clicked the comm off with a flick of his thumb. “We’ll be in blackout in sixty. No more transmissions after this.”

The APC lurched forward, treads chewing into frozen gravel. Overhead, Appa drifted lower, his bison form a myth cut against white sky.

Aang’s hand tightened around his staff. The map on the table—greased, dirt-smeared, crusted with marks of death—blurred in his vision.

This wasn’t the South Pole he remembered.

Chapter Text

Aang’s breath fogged the air in short, sharp bursts.

The fortress didn’t just sit inside the mountain—it had been carved into it, the walls slick with meltwater that never quite dripped, the iron supports groaning like something alive. His boots slid slightly on the unnaturally smooth floor, polished by generations of footsteps. Somewhere above, the ice creaked. Somewhere below, machinery thrummed.

The doors ahead parted without sound.

Cold air rushed out, carrying the scent of oil and something older—charcoal, maybe. Or blood.

The chamber beyond was a half-buried colossus, its domed ceiling a sheet of glacial blue, fractured by veins of black iron. No torches. No braziers. Just the sickly glow of electric lamps bolted into the walls, their light swallowed by the ice before it could reach the floor.

Six figures waited at the center.

They didn’t turn as he entered. Didn’t speak. Just sat, swathed in furs so thick they seemed part of the stone itself. Their hoods were pulled low, shadows clinging to their faces like a second skin.

Aang’s fingers twitched at his sides. He could still feel the blizzard’s teeth in his clothes, the damp fabric stiffening in the unnatural chill.

One of the figures shifted. A hand emerged from the folds of fur—pale, scarred, the fingers curled like talons around a steaming cup.

No steam rose from it.

The silence stretched.

Then—

"Sit."

The voice came from everywhere at once, echoing off the ice.

Aang realized, distantly, that his heart was beating too fast.

The mountain hummed around him.

The elder’s voice cut through the chamber like a blade through fog.

"You know why you’re here."

Aang’s fingers twitched against his staff. The glacial walls seemed to lean in closer.

"Not the first airbender to come before us," the elder continued. Frost crackled along the rim of their untouched cup. "But the first to arrive... late."

The word late hung in the air like an accusation.

Aang’s throat tightened. His eyes darted across the shadowed faces—each one carved from the same unyielding stone as the mountain itself. No pity. No surprise. Just the cold patience of those who had waited too long.

Another elder shifted, their furs whispering like falling snow. "After the temples fell," they said, "the world mourned. Some mourned the loss. Others... the failure to burn thoroughly enough."

A flinch. Small, involuntary. Aang’s nails bit into his palms.

The elder’s gaze sharpened. "Did you think you were the only one who escaped?"

A memory flashed—ice caves. Whispers. The ragged survivors who had pulled him from the snow, their tattoos half-scorched away.

"They came to us in the dead of winter," a third voice rasped. "Barely alive. Begging for sanctuary." A skeletal hand emerged from fur, gesturing to the glacial walls around them. "We gave them tombs instead."

The air left Aang’s lungs.

"Not all," the first elder corrected softly. "Some we sent south. Some we hid among the Earth Kingdom’s bones. And some..." Their hood tilted slightly. "...we buried where even the Fire Lord’s hounds would never dig."

Aang’s vision swam. The chamber’s cold became a living thing, slithering down his spine.

"You slept," the elder said. "They died. And now you stand here, asking for what they were denied."

The hum of the mountain deepened. Somewhere, ice groaned under the weight of centuries.

Aang realized, distantly, that he was shaking.

“You came when it suited you,” the elder said, their voice flat, like a well-worn blade. “But we’re not here to relive your past. We’re here to understand why now. Why you.”

Aang felt it—those eyes, those damn eyes, pinning him down. He could hear the hum of his heartbeat in his ears. The room was suffocating, and it felt like the walls themselves were leaning in. He wanted to speak, to give them something, but the words stayed lodged in his throat.

“I... I wasn’t hiding,” Aang finally managed, frustration bubbling over. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop them. Not when they came, not when they took everything. Everyone.”

The elder’s eyes narrowed, lips curling into a sneer. “So you ran. Left them behind.”

Aang’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t run. I was just a kid.” His voice cracked, but he steadied himself. “You think I chose that?”

The silence fell like a weight. The wind howled outside, but it was nothing compared to the stillness inside. The elders exchanged glances, sharp as knives, and Aang could feel the weight of their judgment pressing into him, suffocating him.

One elder, their voice quiet, spoke. “Some made it to the Southern Water Tribe. But others… Some were already lost before the Fire Nation set foot on the temples. Some... fled before they could be hunted.”

Aang’s heart stuttered in his chest. Fled? They didn’t just run. They knew. They knew what was coming. Had they already seen the end before the first blow fell?

He couldn’t speak. Maybe they didn’t want him to.

The last elder’s voice, quieter than the rest, cut through the heavy air. “And now you stand here. The Avatar. The last hope.” They let the words linger like poison. “But what are you really worth?”

The room went cold, colder than it already was. The air felt heavy, pressing in on him. Aang’s chest tightened. He didn’t want to look at them anymore. He wanted to get up, to leave. But he couldn’t.

The elder’s eyes bored into him. “We’ve seen what happens to those who wait… and we’ve seen what happens to those who stand up.”

Aang opened his mouth, but no words came out. What could he say? That he’d done his best? That he’d done everything he could? That he had stood?

Finally, the words slipped out, before he could stop them. “Alright. You want to know? I’ll tell you. I escaped.”

The words hung in the air, raw and burning.

“I left the Southern Air Temple. I boarded a ship with diplomats—people who were hoping to escape to Qianchan... to the Republic. We thought we were safe.”

The room was still. Not a sound. Aang could feel the eyes on him, like heat from a fire.

“We didn’t even see it coming. A battleship—bigger than anything I’d ever seen. They hit us hard. We didn’t know who they were until the ship went down. I—” His voice wavered. “I drowned. But I didn’t die. I didn’t. I... I activated something. My powers. I froze everything around me and floated, and when I came to, I was in the South Pole. A hundred miles from the wreck.”

The words felt like stones, heavy in his gut. His heart pounded, and he couldn’t breathe. The elders didn’t flinch. They didn’t move.

Aang swallowed, barely able to get the next words out. “None of us had any warning. We were just... betrayed. And I ended up here. Because it was the only place I could go.”

The silence stretched. It was so thick, he could almost taste it.

One of the elders finally spoke, their voice barely audible, like the whisper of a dying wind. “You think the world doesn’t understand you? You think you’re the only one who’s been betrayed?”

The words hit him like a slap.

The elder didn’t elaborate. They leaned back, disappearing into the shadows. The others followed suit, their eyes still on him, unreadable, cold.

Finally, one of them spoke again, their tone flat. “You have a choice, Aang. We all do. But make it soon. Standing up doesn’t always guarantee survival. But waiting… waiting guarantees nothing.”

Aang didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

The room felt colder. The silence was suffocating. All he could hear was the steady, rhythmic pulse of his heart, echoing louder and louder.

The only thing he knew now was that there was no choice left.

Aang tried to hold it together. He tried to keep the walls up. But the weight of their eyes, their words, it crushed him. The cold air, the empty space, the endless silence—it was too much.

His chest tightened, his breath quickened. His throat burned, and before he could stop it, the dam broke.

Tears welled in his eyes, hot and fast, spilling over and streaking down his cheeks. He didn’t make a sound at first—just a quiet gasp, like the air had been knocked out of him. But then, the sobs came, raw and uncontrollable.

It wasn’t the first time he'd cried since all of this started. But it was the first time he let himself do it in front of anyone. In front of them.

He didn’t care. Not anymore. The cold, the endless waiting, the loneliness—it was all crashing down at once. And it hurt. It hurt in a way he hadn’t let himself feel in years.

His hands trembled at his sides. His breath hitched with every sob.

“I... I didn’t mean to...” he gasped, choking on his words. “I didn’t want to leave them. I didn’t... I didn’t know it would happen. I thought I could fix it. I thought I could... I just wanted to protect them. I wanted to protect everyone . ”

The elders were silent. They didn’t speak, didn’t move. The room felt frozen in time, save for the sound of his crying. His heart broke with each tremor in his body.

“I wasn’t strong enough,” Aang whispered through his tears. “I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t stop them from coming. I couldn’t protect the temples. I... I couldn’t even protect myself.”

The words felt like daggers. He knew they were truths, truths he hadn’t wanted to admit, truths that had been festering for so long. But they felt like fire, scalding him from the inside out.

His body shook, the sobs coming harder now. “I failed. I failed them all.”

The room stayed still. The wind outside howled louder, but inside, everything was quiet except for his crying.

Then, the elder who had spoken the least shifted slightly. Their voice, soft but firm, broke the silence.

“We all failed, Aang,” they said, their tone heavy with something Aang couldn’t place. “But you are not the only one who has lost everything.”

Aang didn’t look up. He couldn’t. He was too ashamed, too lost in the crushing weight of his own emotions.

The elder continued, voice steady. “We’ve all made choices, decisions we wish we could take back. The difference is... you are still here. You are still breathing, still standing. And that means something.”

Aang’s chest heaved. “I don’t know how... I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You don’t have to fix it all at once.” The elder’s voice softened, just a little. “There are no quick answers. No easy roads. But you’re not alone. Not anymore.”

Aang’s hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms. “But I am. I’m always alone. I’ve been alone since that day. And I’ve carried this guilt... this weight with me, every step. I can’t— ”

“You think you’re the only one?” another elder spoke sharply, cutting him off. “You think you’re the only one who’s lost?”

Aang’s head snapped up at the question, his fingers twitching at his sides. The air around him grew sharp, charged—like the split second before a storm breaks. His muscles coiled, his breath hitching as something dark and furious clawed at his ribs.

One word. That’s all it would’ve taken.

His arm jerked—just slightly—but the gust was already forming, a ripple in the space between him and the others. The elder’s robes fluttered, their stance shifting ever so slightly, bracing.

Aang froze.

The air was still.

“I didn’t... I didn’t mean to—” His voice was raw, frayed at the edges.

“Don’t apologize,” the elder said quietly, almost kindly. “You’re not the only one who has felt the weight of loss. But you are the only one who can decide what comes next.” They paused, eyes steady. “Choose wisely.”

The tears were still there. He didn’t know how to stop them. And he didn’t know if he wanted to.

But somehow, through the tears, through the pain, through the suffocating cold of the room, a small flicker of something remained—something that had never truly gone out, despite everything.

Aang wasn’t sure what it was yet. But maybe, just maybe, it was enough to keep going.

Even if just for a little longer.

Chapter Text

Engines guttered to a stop outside the southern garrison, drowning in their own heat. Exhaust hissed from the Firewind’s rear vents, already half-buried in powder. The column behind it vanished—just red tail lights fading into oblivion.

Above the depot, the shapes of towers loomed like broken fingers. Spotlights flickered behind slit windows. One turned, caught on snow, then blinked out. Breakers guttered low along the perimeter fencing, their flames clawing upward, choked by wind.

Inside the Firewind’s cabin, the air was dense with metal and old sweat. Zuko blinked into consciousness as the vehicle lurched into stillness. His neck ached. Xin’s seat was empty, his warmth gone. Only a crumpled ration wrapper remained, wedged in the dash. Still smelled faintly of spice and smoke.

Outside: noise. Muffled commands, boots thudding against ice, crates thudding harder. Shadows moved like they didn’t want to be seen.

Zuko descended the hatch.

Cold slammed into him like a thrown door. Snow sheared sideways across the yard. The garrison stretched out in a dull sprawl—low prefab structures straining under ice load, armor sheds lined with black scorch marks, as if something had tested the fireproofing.

A convoy of haulers squatted like hibernating beasts, their treads steaming. One of them— the Inferno —was being fed fuel through a fire-resistant hose. The hose clattered against steel with each gust, pulsing with viscous heat. Where the liquid flame met rubber, frost hissed.

A squad shuffled past, helmets rimmed in ice, their goggles scratched blind. One soldier paused, doubled over, coughed wet into a gloved hand. Something dark hit the snow. No one looked.

Zuko moved toward the offload point.

Crates came down fast, then slower—like the loaders realized halfway through that weight didn’t add up. Zuko’s eye tracked one sledge. Four crates, two marked MEDICA , one sealed in black, one not labeled at all.

A man stepped into his path, thick with frost. No salute, no pleasantries. Just a clipboard held out, steady as iron. Zuko didn’t need to read the name tag to know he was a quartermaster. Everything about the man screamed supply corps—precise handwriting, chapped lips, contempt buried under protocol.

"Sign here." Voice flat. He didn't wait for confirmation.

Zuko skimmed the manifest. Half the requisitions had been struck through. Rations: cut. Thermite: pending. Ammunition: delay at checkpoint 9D. Even medical supplies were rerouted.

“Where’s the rest?”

The man didn’t blink. Just jerked his chin toward the storm. “Ask Logistics Command,” he said, as if that were a location on a map.

Then, quieter: “Convoys aren’t making it through Gray Ridge. Too many…delays.”

No elaboration. Just that word, delays , like it explained everything. It usually did.

Zuko scratched his name into the form. The wind ate the sound.

A howl echoed from beyond the wire.

Not freight trucks. Not turbines.

Something else.

Zuko didn’t look.

The quartermaster was already gone, clipboard tucked under arm, moving on to the next. His job was moving shortages around until the paperwork resembled success.

From the far warehouse, a figure emerged. Keiro, hunched forward like he didn’t trust the air. His coat had iced over at the seams. He held a weather-streaked transmission paper in both hands, tight—like it was trying to escape him.

He didn’t wave. Just walked, eyes locked on Zuko.

Boots crunching on frozen gravel. No greeting. No need.

“Sixty klicks out,” Keiro said, pressing the transmission into Zuko’s gloved hand without slowing his stride. “Scouts tagged it before they froze their teeth off. Tetsuzame wing was already there—fast as hell. Rebels fired off a few rounds. Didn’t even blister the paint.”

Zuko unfolded the paper. It was stiffer than usual—fresh from a Command printer, still smelling faintly of ozone and solvent. Beneath the typed coordinates and a cold note of reassignment, a second message was scrawled in pen. A rushed hand. Not military-issue script.

  >>YAKUTOKAI RELAY STATION 4
  >>ENCRYPTION LEVEL 2 (PERSONAL)
  >>FOR CAPTAIN’S EYES ONLY

   Day 20. Ty Lee holding the town. Propaganda Corps is filming again—something called A Promise in the Wind. Local crowd eats it up. Mainland broadcasts are saturated.
  Still playing Flame in Her Heart in districts 3 and 5.
  She's more useful on camera than in uniform.

Zuko’s thumb hovered at the edge. For a moment, the wind dropped.

He stared at the words— still playing —like they’d punched through the coat.

“So it’s real, then,” he muttered.

Keiro was already watching him. “Yeah. Turns out the circus girl’s got more reach than we thought.” His breath fogged between them, curling around a crooked smile.

Zuko folded the note sharply before the wind could tear it from his grip. The fuel lines hissed again behind them—one of the pumps let out a mechanical cough before settling back into rhythm. A snow-buried floodlight crackled overhead, spat sparks, then went dark.

Sixty klicks. One relay station. And whatever the hell had kept us quiet for four years.

Keiro shook his head, something between a laugh and disbelief. “She’s gone full spectral. No reports. No clearances. Just pop-up screenings and glowing dispatches from the Ministry of Public Morale.”

Zuko didn’t speak.

Keiro continued, voice lower now. “We’re months out of the Academy, freezing our asses off on the frontier, and she’s headlining a national campaign.” He tapped the edge of his helmet like it was a joke only he heard. “Either Mai’s pushing it through Internal Affairs, or Azula signed off personally. You know how the Fire Lord likes her... instruments.”

Zuko’s jaw set. “Ty Lee doesn’t need handlers.”

Keiro tilted his head, just enough. “Maybe not.” Then he leaned in, voice quiet enough to get buried in the storm. “Or maybe someone reminded her what happens when you forget who holds the leash.”

The wind moaned between metal frames. Beyond the perimeter wire, a radio crackled, indecipherable.

Zuko slipped the paper into the inner lining of his coat. Folded twice. Out of sight.

“We move at first break,” he said.

Keiro didn’t argue. Just nodded once, deliberate, eyes fixed on Zuko like he was trying to measure something invisible.

They turned.

From the access path, a runner approached—bare-faced under his hood, cheeks red from exposure, nose bleeding just a little. His boots skidded on frozen gravel. He stopped, not at attention, but out of breath.

“Command office wants both of you,” he said. “Now. No details given.”

Keiro didn’t blink. “Of course not.”

He turned toward Zuko again, flashing that faint smirk—the one that said he already hated whatever they were about to be told.

“Let’s see what pearls of wisdom our rear-echelon tacticians have for us now.”

Zuko said nothing.

He followed.

The snow swallowed the sound of their boots. The lights at the depot guttered again, flickering uselessly against the white. Somewhere overhead, the speakers cracked to life—an old recording of a stringed march drifting through static before dying mid-note.