Chapter Text
Yue could feel the way her father shuddered as he held her, and she squeezed him back just as tightly. There was no way he wasn't furious with her. He'd told her to stay put, had ordered Suki to stay with her and keep her safe. And she had led Katara and the Avatar to the Spirit Oasis instead. She had chased the Avatar himself across the battlefield, leading the very princess that her father—
"I'm glad you're safe," he whispered. She couldn't quite keep back the low, choked sound in her throat, and she nodded.
He was furious with her. But it could wait.
She pulled back from him and she smiled, rubbing a hand at her face to keep her composure intact. "Father," she said. "I'd like to introduce—"
"So this is the Princess herself, is it?" Master Pakku's voice cut in, and Yue realized that her father hadn't come alone.
But then again. Of course he hadn't.
She looked back at the Southern Water Tribe princess behind her. Princess Sokka had pushed Prince Zuko behind her, and her hand was on the hilt of that straight sword in her sash. Even with her dark blue dress ripped and torn and water-stained, the complicated cascade of hair pins threatening to slip free, her face smudged with soot, she looked fierce. She was the water under the ice, endlessly in motion, threatening to drown anyone foolish enough to get close. Prince Zuko's fingers covered hers on the hilt of that sword, and he whispered something to her. Yue wasn't sure what, but it made Princess Sokka's jaw tighten.
The smile she gave Master Pakku was little more than bared teeth.
"I am Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe," she said, and her voice was clear. Strong. She didn't look over to Katara or to the Avatar for support. She simply stood where she was, her back straight and her shoulders square.
"Princess," Master Pakku said, inclining his head slightly toward her. Then he motioned and two waterbenders started toward them. "Step aside. We must secure the firebender—"
"This firebender is Prince Zuko, prince of the Fire Nation," she countered. A few inches of the metal of her sword gleamed in the light. "He is my betrothed and should—"
"That firebender is the prince," Master Pakku repeated. "If he is to remain in Agna Qul'a, he will be restrained."
Princess Sokka took a step forward, and the two waterbenders raised their arms in warning. Yue's breath caught in her throat as she spotted Katara's frown and the way Katara moved to get into a position to help, despite the Avatar trying to calm her down. It was Prince Zuko who pulled the princess back. His hand came up to brush the side of her face, and he kissed her right there in front of everyone.
Yue's throat tightened, and she looked away instinctively, her eyes closing. The necklace around her throat felt as though it weighed more than the entire city around her.
Hahn was— Hahn had—
He was still there. In the grass beside the bridge. His blood stained her skirts.
"I understand," Prince Zuko said, but he wasn't looking at the waterbenders or at Master Pakku or even at her father. His hand was still on the Princess's cheek, and he gave her a small smile. "It's the way these things go."
Her father cleared his throat. For a moment, neither Prince nor Princess looked at him. They were too busy saying something to each other without speaking. From the furrow in the Princess's brow, Yue didn't think it was anything particularly kind or romantic, despite the way Prince Zuko's fingers slid down Princess Sokka's arm to touch her hand.
"Prince Zuko," her father said, and they finally looked over toward him again. "I appreciate your understanding. Go with them for now, and we will speak at a later time."
Prince Zuko nodded, and kissed Princess Sokka briefly one more time before he stepped away from her. She didn't reach for him, didn't try to stop him despite the stubborn set to her jaw. Her hand didn't let go of the sword hilt.
Master Pakku watched the Prince leave with the two waterbenders, and then he looked back toward Katara and the Avatar. "We need to discuss the Avatar's waterbending training—"
Aang shook his head. "No," he said, and he finally climbed out of the pond in the middle of the Spirit Oasis. "How can we talk about that when you've just imprisoned Zuko? He's one of my friends."
Her father sighed. It was his chief's sigh, the one he always did in court when the councilors got going, when they found their own momentum and had to shout themselves out. "Avatar, this is for the security of my people. Surely you can understand."
"No, I don't understand!" The Avatar's voice pitched high, and a breeze blew through the Oasis. It brought the smell of acrid tang of smoke. "What I understand is that he helped us! We couldn't have held off without him and—"
"And do you truly think him safe in this city right now?"
Her father, on the other hand, had lowered his voice. Yue felt something in her chest twist as the Avatar stilled. Princess Sokka's hand tightened on the sword she still clutched.
"We have the dead to tend to, and I need to know that no one will mistake him among them."
"No harm can come to him," Princess Sokka said. There wasn't a question at the end of that statement; there wasn't a plea for Prince Zuko's safety. She simply decreed it, as though her will was all that would be necessary.
Yue stepped forward before her father could reply. "Come," she announced with a smile. "Let us go inside. Princess Sokka will be cold before too much longer, and Avatar, Katara, Suki... You must all be tired."
There was a moment of silence as the others looked to the Princess, but she didn't look away from what she could see of Prince Zuko. He was almost to the door, and he turned around to look back just before he stepped through. He mouthed a word, and Yue's brow furrowed faintly. She must have misunderstood.
Why would his final word to Princess Sokka be 'behave'?
In the end, they let Princess Yue lead them away. Katara was the one who took Sokka's elbow and not-so-gently dragged him along. Sokka had a hard time turning his glare away from the chief, and the moment they were out of earshot, he hissed, "What are you doing? He took Zuko, and he's going to imprison him somewhere—"
"And it won't matter if he throws you in there with him, will it?" Katara met his scowl easily. It was achingly familiar, the two of them like this, pulling each other back as needed. They were each other's cooler head, and he'd known how much he missed her, but it was as though his heart had not. It was as though he hadn't let herself feel it this entire time.
Behave, Zuko had said, and it grated, knowing that he was right, that he knew Sokka well enough to say it.
To whisper it.
To mouth it at him.
Sokka's fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword, and Katara was the one who reached out to peel them away. She pressed her fingers between his, holding his hand in a way that they hadn't in years.
Not since the last night of snow and ash. Not since that ash had finally been hidden under new snowfall and they had stopped crying themselves to sleep.
Had they ever stopped, or had they both just gotten better at hiding it? Sokka knew Katara's heart ached when she looked at him, the same way Gran Gran paused sometimes when Sokka entered the room or grinned too suddenly. He looked like their mother, after all. How much worse was it for Katara now, with the hair and the make up and—
"You can wear some of my things," Yue said. Her voice was warm in a way that little else was in the North Pole. "I can't imagine you have much of your own now—"
"No," Sokka said, and he worked to keep himself steady. To not think about the room on the ship and the incense he'd burned there and the trunk full of dresses that Iroh had purchased for some potential girl who might catch Zuko's eye and Zhao had ordered made to dress the Southern Water Tribe Princess.
(Were they the same? Sokka could still feel the press of Zuko's mouth against his, the heat of his palm against Sokka's cheek and—)
"No, everything I had was left behind," he said, focusing on the room that Yue took them to. The palace was truly a work of art, years of intricate water bending having carved much into every inch of the ice. Her room was no exception, detailed from the floor to the ceiling in moon and star imagery.
Tiger fish etchings glistened in the light thrown from the torches, and Sokka wondered how often they had to be touched up.
How much waterbending was used to keep this place intact and decorated when it could have been used to defend his people?
To save his mother?
To prevent—
Behave, Zuko had told him, and the word echoed in Sokka's head. It was a prism to refocus his scattered thoughts into a single, concentrated point.
He needed to be a Princess. He needed to be the Princess so that he would have the authority to help Zuko. And once he'd helped Zuko, he would leverage that to help his people.
And he'd pray that no one made him choose one over the other.
(He would. It would be the first test he'd put a stranger through.)
"Well then," Yue said brightly, and she smiled as she opened a wardrobe— wood, real wood, just like the door to the oasis, and he could understand sparing such a precious resource for such a holy site, but for a box to hold clothes?— to reveal an array of her armor.
Of dresses and parkas and silk.
She dragged her fingers over the piles of folded material and the draped fabrics, and Sokka wondered if she understood the value of the room she stood in. Of the clothing she was offering him.
He cast a glance over to Katara. Her eyes were still too blue. Too much water, too much ocean, but he could still see his sister in there. She met his gaze, and she raised an eyebrow.
"We will have to find something that suits," she said softly.
He swallowed.
The value of those clothes. Yue's clothes would carry more weight (and less) than the tattered, soot-stained silks he wore now. He squeezed Katara's hand, and he made himself let go.
"I'll have to trust the Northern Water Tribe Princess in what could be considered appropriate." The words were soft, but carefully chosen. Yue's smile widened, and she looked back at him briefly before she began to pull a few dresses from the shelves.
"We are very traditional here," she said, and Sokka thought her words were as diplomatic, as carefully chosen, as his own had been. She was warning him.
Still, while the dresses she offered were almost as foreign to him as the Earth Kingdom clothing had been, the parkas he could see...
The parkas could have been his mother's.
The parkas could have been Katara's.
The parkas should have been Katara's. She was the daughter of the chief, the waterbender, the one who, no matter what circumstances of her birth, could never have done what he had so far.
His hand shook, and he drew a breath. He picked the warmest color dress she had— a pale pink that was clearly the color of the dawn on ice— and she provided him an entire set of things to match.
Soft silk for the underskirt with a reinforced, double-stitched hem to keep it from tearing on the ice, and a heavier dress on top. The material wasn't white, but it was a little more purple than the underskirt. Then she pulled down a pale parka— he didn't recognize the fur— and it was embroidered almost as richly as any of the silk dresses Zhao had preferred.
He held the fabrics close, and for a moment, he was uncertain of what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to make an excuse to change without them there.
Then Katara tipped her head toward the door. "Why don't we give you a moment," she offered. "To think before... Well. Before this goes further."
Yue nodded quickly, and she wrapped her arm in Katara's. "Right. This has been a lot." Her eyes darted down and away, and her smile faltered. "For all of us."
"Get Aang and Suki?" Sokka meant it as a question, as a suggestion, but he was almost sure, based on Katara's little eye roll, that it came out as an order. He'd been around Zuko too long. Been playing a role that—
That was going to save their people. No one else had been willing to play it after all.
The girls both left, and Sokka stood there, staring at the silk and the furs. He began the process of unfastening his own clothes, letting the ruined silk drop into a pile around him. He was bare without it, in ways that had nothing to do with his skin facing the winter chill. He reached up, touching his hair for a moment, and then he began to get dressed.
He'd never planned to fool his own people. This had always been about the Fire Nation, about the Earth Kingdom, about making people realize that there was suffering and dying and—
He couldn't help thinking about Zuko, alone in some ice cell. There would be no carvings there. No torches or warmth or anything else.
So Sokka got dressed. He pulled on clothes that didn't fit him quite right. The clothes were made to drape, but Yue was smaller than he was, and the fabric was a little tight over his shoulders. Still, judging his reflection in the polished ice near the wardrobe, he didn't look...
Well.
Honestly, he'd never looked more like a Water Tribe Princess. Dressed in the pale pink of the dawn on the fresh ice, he was the advancing Fire Nation. He was the way of the water, boiling as it heated to break the ice that the North had barricaded itself behind.
He reached up and began to straighten his hair.
The iron ship was surprisingly silent as it cut through the water. Too many of them had suffered damage, smoke billowed into the sky, hiding the slowly rising sun. It was almost reassuring to see it, even if Meili knew that it was all over. They had lost.
And her heart sang for it.
She wasn't sure what it said about her as a Fire Nation citizen, but the Prince had reassured her, had reached out and brushed her hair back with a tenderness she'd seen him reserve for the Princess herself, and he'd given her that little smile. The softness that had colored his words as he'd given her a new strength to lean on.
I'm out of practice of distrust, he'd said, and she didn't think that was true. But she thought he wanted it to be.
She wanted it to be.
For him at least.
And she'd give up everything to make that come true.
She looked over at the man laying in the pallet on the floor. He was bound with iron cuffs, but it was for show more than anything. She wasn't sure he'd wake. She'd seen people nearly drown before, and while General Iroh had said that he would survive, she was uncertain if he meant survive or live.
In the Fire Nation, there was a sharp distinction.
One only had to look at the Prince's face to see that.
Still, she took a rag and dipped it in cool water to clean his face, to remove the soot and the salt and the lingering flecks of bent ice that always took too long to melt. He didn't wake.
It was just as well.
General Iroh would turn Admiral Zhao over to the Fire Lord for his hubris, for his arrogance in attacking a nation at the height of their power and for, most importantly, failing. She didn't envy what the Fire Lord would do to him.
She watched his face for a long moment, remembering every skin-crawling touch of his hands on her, every whispered threat to place her brothers in the most dangerous positions, every lingering murmur, reminding her that she was nothing, that her brothers were nothing, that their lives were his to spend on whatever he liked.
Just a coin in his pocket.
And she knew how he spent coin.
It was nothing like the way the Princess had that first day in Fire Fountain City, purchasing a basket of apples to share with children who had no homes, no family, no value. How could Meili have ever sided with anyone against the Princess, who had smiled so brightly and so openly at those starving children? Only her guards had stopped her from giving more, and Meili had no doubt that she would have given them everything she could.
That was the sort of person she was. It was the sort of person Prince Zuko was.
And Meili knew which purse she'd rather live in if she was nothing but a coin.
"Long live the Fire Lord," she said quietly. Long live Prince Zuko, she didn't dare breathe. Not yet. She'd get home soon enough, and without Zhao to pressure for her service, she'd be turned loose into the streets.
And General Iroh already had work for her.
Her family was not the only one who preferred Prince Zuko to Princess Azula as the heir apparent, and it was time that those families began talks.
Sokka hadn't realized how much he'd grown used to the makeup that Meili had taught him to apply, but standing there, wrapping a thick strip of the heavily embroidered blue fabric around the jian that he refused to leave in Yue's room, he realized he felt bare. Bare as the blade he was wrapping, but his own situation couldn't quite be remedied so easily.
His makeup, after all, was still in the room on the ship. With the incense and the candles and the clothes—
He kept the tension of the fabric steady as he wound it, and when he reached the hilt, he knotted it carefully. It looked intricate, but Zuko had shown him how to release it quickly. It wasn't a true peace knot. It was the implication of one. Something for show.
Zuko hadn't smiled, but there had been something almost warm in his voice as he'd admitted that it wasn't exactly uncommon in the Fire Nation court, and it was certainly the sort of thing that envoys to the Earth Kingdom would have used. Sokka had wondered at it then, but standing outside of the Northern Water Tribe's Council room, he knew what it was for.
Ostensibly, he was walking into this room as an ally. He was, after all, the Princess of their sister tribe.
But they'd never sent support to the South.
They'd never helped.
Had they even supported the warband when it had begun raiding the Fire Nation?
No, the people of this council weren't his enemy, but as General Iroh would have pointed out, they weren't exactly allies either. And he would have limited moves once he committed to this.
A game of pai sho, but he was laying a pattern and hoping that they knew the matching moves. His fingers were so tight on the hilt of his sword that they ached, and he made himself focus on tying it loosely to the belt of the dress that Yue had loaned him. It would hit against his leg when he walked, but he wasn't sure it was a bad thing.
He was a warrior after all. The Southern Water Tribe Princess was no decorative ornament to adorn the court.
(That was unfair. Yue was no decorative ornament either; not given any opportunity to be otherwise. It was simply that she was bound, wrapped in silks and knotted with a proper peace knot. It was a waste of a blade, in his opinion.)
His head came up at the announcement of his name— of the name that he'd used, that Katara and Aang and Suki had seconded— and he walked into the room of old men who preferred to cower behind a wall that had been breached rather than risk their own lives.
He smiled, and he bowed carefully, somewhere between what would have been expected in the South and what Meili had shown him for the Fire Nation. He was, after all, the coming dawn. The reminder of the sun's assault on the moon.
"Thank you for seeing me," he started with, and he straightened up to meet the Chief's eyes. For a moment, he thought something like understanding was there, and then those eyes drifted down to the sword on his hip.
"I am only sorry that you feel you must remain armed. Our hospitality is clearly lacking—"
"Your hospitality has very little to do with my personal safety," Sokka countered, and he tried to soften his smile, to drop his eyes just a little. Nothing as overtly bashful as he might have used on Zhao, but he didn't want to seem too strong. Too unyielding.
Water flowed, after all, and the ocean had carried him this far.
"My father was very strict on my role in the tribe, you understand. I was in charge of training the new warriors, and I find that I feel... bare without something to defend myself."
"Was that truly the duty of his daughter?" Chief Arnook leaned forward, and Sokka didn't let himself look at Yue though she sat so close beside him. He kept his gaze trained. He couldn't afford a misplaced tile now.
"It was the duty of his eldest. Certainly someone had to do it after the warband was called."
He saw it then, the slightest of flinches in the Chief's face. Sokka drew a slight breath.
"They were to come north first," he added, his voice even. He didn't have to make himself actually begin reciting the energies of the blade that Zuko had taught him, but he knew he needed to remain calm. He might need them soon. "I can only hope that you were able to offer them the support you showed the Avatar."
"The Southern warband did come here before they moved on to their assault." Master Pakku answered instead of the Chief, and Sokka's gaze darted over to Yue. Her lips, pressed tightly together, the way she wouldn't quite look at him, told him everything he needed to know.
They'd come. His father had possibly stood exactly where Sokka stood now, and these men had turned him down. Doubtless with plenty of well-wishing, but no hard support. They'd sent them to die on Fire Nation defenses.
Sokka's hand clenched.
The doors to the room opened, and he looked back to see Aang and Katara and Suki walking in, Aang clearly having simply waved away the poor soldiers at the door.
"Chief!" Aang's voice was as out of place as everything else about him, and it made Sokka smile, even through his anger. "I hope you're able to help us. We need to move on to get me an Earthbending teacher and I'd like to take the Prince and Princess with us."
"Avatar, as much as I would like to support you in this, we've spoken already about it. The Prince is to remain as a guest of our tribe until we can straighten out this situation—"
"My betrothal, you mean?" Sokka interjected, and he could tell from the tension in Chief Arnook's jaw that he was not a man used to the interruptions. But Yue's hand was light on his arm, and he kept glancing over at her.
Like he was surprised to see her.
Judging from the pain in his eyes when he looked at her, Sokka wondered if he'd thought she'd died during the assault.
"We've sent word to the Southern warband," he finally said, and Sokka's stomach dropped at the thought. "We've asked them to send a representative to assist in the negotiations."
"I am capable of handling my own negotiations," Sokka said, but even he could hear that his voice was oddly flat. Katara looked at him sharply, but he couldn't bring himself to exchange a look with her. It was one thing to do this in front of these strangers, in front of Fire Nation officials and all of these people that he didn't even know, but his father?
The other chiefs from the South?
How many of them did he know personally? How many of them had shown him things from how to skin an animal to how to scale a fish? How many of them had told him he'd earn something great when he finally went ice dodging?
(How many of them hadn't been able to look at him when they'd left?)
"I have no doubt of your capability," the Chief said quietly. "But there are certain traditions that must be observed, and it would not be fitting for our sister tribe to be denied them. We are already planning to send waterbenders and supplies to assist in shoring up what we can. Master Pakku has volunteered, in fact."
Aang hesitated, and then he frowned as he shook his head. "Master Pakku is supposed to come with me. To teach me—"
"You have a master at your side already," Master Pakku countered, and Sokka did look over at Katara then, just in time to see her eyes widen and a helplessly pleased smile touch her face. "She will teach you just fine, and I can be put to other uses."
"Precisely. General Fong has volunteered to escort you on to Omashu. The Prince and Princess will remain here until we can speak to the representative that the warband sends, and then we can send them on after you."
Sokka tipped his head, studying the Earth Nation official who had stood when his name was spoken, and for a long moment, there was silence in the room.
No one wanted to be the one to break it.
It was Aang who sighed loudly, and it was Aang who waved a hand. "Fine," he said after a minute. "But I don't want to have to come back to get them."
Sokka smiled a little, despite his roiling gut, and he reached out to take one of Aang's hands. "Never fear," he said, "Prince Zuko and I will be working to further your goals, even if we are apart."
Aang hesitated, and Sokka could see the nervousness in his face before he nodded. He'd lost too many— had lost Sokka himself once already. This charade was supposed to end when they reached the North Pole, but somehow, it all felt even more real. Even more critical.
"Well then," Katara murmured, and she looked up at Pakku and the Chief both before she reached out to hug Sokka. "Be safe, Princess, and know that our people are counting on you."
"And on you," Sokka replied quietly.
It had been a joke once. Something he'd boasted about when training five-year-olds on how to hold a spear.
The words weren't so funny now.
(He wasn't sure they'd ever felt funny to him, but Katara had always laughed. She wasn't laughing now.)
Suki was the last one, and she drew a soft breath before she reached into her belt and withdrew a small gold box. He recognized it immediately, and even as his lips parted to protest, she shook her head. "You are as much a warrior as I am," she said firmly, loudly, and she pressed the box into his hands.
Then she pulled him in to hug him, and she whispered, "I can always get more. You're the one trapped in the snake pit."
"Gold for honor," Sokka whispered, and his fingers wrapped around the makeup kit she'd passed him. It was warpaint more than the translucent makeup Meili had used, but it was armor all the same.
"Gold for honor," she agreed, and she pulled away with a smile. Then she gently tugged on Katara's arm. Katara watched him for a moment, and when he tilted his head toward the door, she sighed and relented.
"Be safe, Avatar," Sokka said, this time for the entire room to hear. "I hope to send good news as soon as I can."
Aang nodded. "To Omashu!" he shouted, and General Fong— the Earth Nation official who had clearly been in the North Pole on some sort of business— nodded and headed out of the room with him.
Sokka stood in the center of the council. Suki's small gold box felt heavy in his hands.
Gold for honor.
"And silk for the brave blood that flows within the warrior's veins," he whispered.