[Two days prior]

Katara set their garments bought at the North Pole beside local fabric. "See? Theirs are more indigo, while ours are cyan-blue. The cuts are different, too. Ours are designed for function, theirs for fashion."

"Should I change out?" Suki asked.

"If we're going diving today, we'll need to change, anyway. Gran-gran spent the winter making new outfits for it, like they had in the old days. They're quilted to provide insulation, but lightweight and cropped close to the body so extra fabric won't get in the way. It's difficult to sew, but she wanted to teach the others. No one else knows how."

They left the tent and had a light lunch with the others. Zuko and Sokka had departed for a hunting expedition, and she was just hoping her brother wouldn't come up with anything too hare-brained. "Are you sure you want to try diving? For a non-waterbender, it can be dangerous. There are a lot of predators in the water."

"I'll be with you, so I'll be fine."

At shore they changed and left their necklaces with their clothing by a crop of pearlwort, a bush of vivid yellow flowers. Katara had left the oasis-water with Gran-gran to be extra safe. They wore slender boots made of leather, as the sea floor contained sharp rocks and shell fragments which could slice a bare foot open. Each had a knife strapped to their thigh, in case they became tangled in a rope or kelp and needed to cut their way out, and a mesh bag on a lead tied to their waist with a clip that could easily be removed if caught on something.

Katara paused and lifted her arms, trying to sense the nearby water down to the depths, searching for large disturbances that would indicate a tiger-shark or dolphin-piranha, but found nothing and told her it was safe to begin. The two waded out to their upper thighs. For Katara, she knew what to expect, but that didn't make it any less overwhelming. Suki had a difficult time adjusting. "Deep breaths, calm from the inside out. Now that we're out this far, it's best to crouch down and submerge yourself to your head in one go." She breathed in and out, thinking it was like Zuko's candle meditation. When ready, she ducked under the surface. The initial shock was brisk and alarming, but she held herself down, and a few seconds later resurfaced, her hair completely saturated with the cold water and her legs curled under her body so she could free-float. She nodded to Suki, who did the same, and in a moment her short hair was clinging to her cheeks and neck.

Both adjusted, she demonstrated how to breathe deeply with one's diaphragm, which drew more air than breathing by sucking with the nose only, and her entire belly rose and fell. Suki tried it and grew comfortable filling her chest to maximum capacity in the freezing water.

They plunged under and pushed their heads down. They were still in the shallows, only four feet deep, for a trial. Heavy pebbles were interspersed with shells of every color and shape. Small crabs and sea-snails crawled across the floor. After a minute they resurfaced. "Want to go out deeper?"

"Yeah."

They swam broadstroke a few yards and she checked the depth. The sea could get deep spontaneously, and there was a shelf drop-off into the black, though it was still further out. Her eyes adjusted to the frigid saltwater, but she had to blink often to keep them warm enough to not be painful. There they were about twelve or fifteen feet deep and past the area broken by surf and tidal change. Life blossomed. A vivid scene lit the floor of white coral forests dotted with yellow and magenta-red. An anemone with frills like ferns snow-white clung at the holds of the coral. Like the root system of a plant radial from a flower-shaped center, a basket star glistened in peach velvet vines extending from the coral. Starfish and urchin took the floor, which moved too slowly for the motion to be easily seen. A marine worm six feet long wound its way between them as a featureless white tube.

She found Suki and followed her gaze. A ghost-transparent fish with an anemic body swam past—ice fish. They had almost no meat and weren't any good to catch, and the widest part of its body was its head and bulging eyes.

They surfaced and caught their breath, then headed back down. Katara pulled her to a towering foam growth off the coral—a sea sponge. She pulled her knife to harvest it and shoved it into her mesh pouch, where it waved beside her in the current. Beside an eight-legged sea spider which was carefully picking its way across the floor, she spotted something shiny, and pulled up an iridescent stone of dark teal and gold, labradorite, and pocketed it. After another breath she searched for more but found only small fragments. Suki, keeping nearby her, had collected a few items as well and was holding her own.

They surfaced and moved down a few yards. She took Suki's hand and pulled her close, then pointed. Something was approaching, seeming to be on fire. Lightning ran down its sides, flashing in a rapid pattern and cycling, white cyan and lime-green. It was a comb jelly, oblong and star-shaped, translucent, electric pulsing at its ridges, floating in the water and slowly spinning. The two spent that entire breath capacity watching it.

They could stay in the water only two hours before they would need to head in to warm up. With several mesh bags collected of tokens and creatures, the last thing they witnessed was a sunflower seastar sprawled across the seafloor, coral-pink with thirty petal-like tentacles radiated out like a more complex starfish. When a krill or minnow pecked the bumpy surface of an extension, it would curl up on impulse, capturing it, and strangling it. The process to eat what it had caught was agonizingly slow. She and Suki surfaced for the final time and began swimming to shore. Dry and dressed, they sheltered in a tent to warm up with a pot of floral tea.

Since the last time they'd had waterbenders three generations ago, diving was limited to only necessity and shallow water. It was so dangerous that only the women past menopause went, as to spare young people the risk. Women, having higher body fat composition than men, were better divers and could handle the cold water better, where as men would freeze far more quickly. The ocean was rich in food and treasure, but it was exacting. With the war ended, if they could have waterbenders again, no more dive accidents would need to occur. Only one minute separated life from death.

"Fun?"

"Beautiful, but difficult," replied Suki. Her lips had finally shifted from blue to pink again. "Very, very cold."

The others were sorting through their mesh bags now to process the catch. They'd collected fifteen, although the sponges were bulky. "We can go again tomorrow and try another area, one where the currents will drag in lost items."

"Sounds fun. What about the rest of today?"

Katara flexed her fingers and toes, which had warmed back up. "We're going to stay dry and take a walk around. In summer everything happens at once—everything gathers here at once—so we can never run out of things to see."

The two scampered across the rock-field up a slope. The air was thick in birds swarming the cliff-side, where their nests would be sheltered away from the predominant wind. "Sokka said that summer is the universal mating season here. Even all the animals pair off to do the deed."

"Well, my brother is right about some things once in a while." The puffin-jays were fetching fish from the ocean and returning to their nests, where the female kept atop the egg to keep it warm. The eggs would all hatch shortly, if they hadn't already. The nests were built in rock crevasses and lined with tussock grass and moss. "In winter they migrate to the outlying islands."

"They reach Kyoshi Island. But they don't look like this there. Sokka said they valued the beaks for their color and I had no idea what he was talking about, but they're bright orange now. He said they mate for life and are a symbol of devotion, like turtleducks are in the Fire Nation, where they use them as a wedding motif."

"We take their beaks and drill them out or carve them into beads, buttons, inlays, and jewelry. Gran-gran said in the old days a proposal was made with a puffin-jay beak."

She was alarmed. "So, you would...?"

Katara realized why she was so shocked. "No, no! They shed the beaks. The bright orange version is only for summer, then they shed the outer layer, like horned animals do, and they grow a duller-colored, smaller beak for winter, which must be what you saw on Kyoshi Island. We just pick the discarded beaks off the ground."

"Oh, thank the spirits. He made it sound like they were hunted and killed for them."

"My brother wouldn't even be able to catch a puffin-jay. Don't listen to him. He tried once and got pecked and swooped all the way back to the village."

Suki laughed. "I think he has a grudge against them."

Pana had a basket at her hip and waved to them from the distance. They descended from the cliffs to the field. "Everyone is at the grayling run. Why don't you two go help out?" Ever since she'd slit a finger open on a fish fin at a young age, Pana refused to deal with fishing, and always opted for gathering herbs in the meadow or washing laundry.

Katara thanked her and led Suki to the river, where the water was wide and shallow and the current gentle. A dozen people were gathered to snatch the fish, which leapt from the water in violent silver bursts. They were spotted grey with black dots and had a massive dorsal fin compared to their body size like a sail. They were pairing off, which was unusual for fish. She explained, "The grayling come here to lay their eggs. We catch a ton of them during run and smoke them. Sokka teased me about it once. He caught a few in an area he blocked off and was watching them, and they sidled up next to each other, a male and female, and started shaking against each other."

Suki asked, "Sex? Fish have sex?"

"No, but they sort of blort out their substances at the same time. These ones, anyway. Other species are different. They blort in the same general area in a less dramatic show. For the salmon, they die afterward, and the streams get clogged in rotting salmon. We collect it for the dogs, but it also makes good fertilizer, if only we could export it. We like to catch them while still alive, but they die after spawning."

"Ew. What a terrible life."

"There was a point in time Sokka would have traded with them just to have the chance to get with a girl. Honestly, I don't know what you see in him."

She tucked her hair back and smiled. "He has his strong-suits."

They were tolerated to stand idle long enough, and then a basket was thrust into Suki's hands and a net to Katara's. "Fish now, talk later," came the stern demand. Just having gotten warm and dry, they were forced back to the wet and cold. The fish struggled with every muscle of their body, and by the time they had filled their quota, each had a face splashed over with slimy fish juice and was pining for the laundress and a change of clothing. As the fishing troop returned to the village, Pana snickered at them, a basket of flowers at her side.

#

Zuko and her brother returned two days later. She hugged Zuko, but knew from their expressions something had gone wrong, although neither offered an explanation. Atka and Qiqirn looked to have had the time of their lives and raced a lap around the village to announce their victory. However, the two men looked to have seen something difficult, and even her father had noticed and put on a show to raise Zuko's spirits. Finding a better way to frame the spear was one thing, but she resolved to get the truth out of them. After dinner while Zuko was preparing for bed, she slipped out and cornered her brother. "Sokka, did something happen?"

"You worry too much. We got our game and we're both fine."

She tapped her foot. "You dirty liar. You had no intention of getting a whale-walrus. Something made you change your plans. You wouldn't shut up about the arctic hippo."

"Couldn't find them." However, he avoided meeting her eyes, so she strode over and grabbed a fist of his wolf-tail and gave it a yank. "Hey!"

"Tell me or you'll be as bald as Aang." She gave a hard yank as his eyes watered to show she meant business. However, she felt something crawling through her fingers, and shuddered and let go in a hurry. "And why is there a caterpillar in your hair?"

He panicked and combed his fingers through until he found it. Held between his fingers like chopsticks, a tiny green caterpillar was still connected to his wolf-tail by a thread of its silk. He sighed and flicked it to the ground. "Okay, okay. We met a spirit, a wechuge."

"Sokka, you should have told us. That's dangerous. It could take someone from the village."

"We were way far out. It won't find its way back here."

"What happened? How did you get away?"

"Well, it kind of tried to eat Zuko. But the dogs stopped it, and I said the funeral prayer. I didn't want to tell Dad."

"He already suspects something was up with you two. Zuko isn't all that great at hiding his emotions. Go tell Dad or I will."

He agreed, and she went back to meet Zuko at the tent they were sharing. It felt good to have him returned. They hadn't slept apart for months, and she had gone two nights without him. She didn't mention that she knew about the incident, only soothed him in other ways, and it impressed upon her that she had been in want, too. He breathed into her neck, clutching her atop his lap, with the soft furs below them, his hands at her hips helping to lift and guiding their rhythm. She laid against his chest a long time as he stroked her hair, and she traced a finger over the scars, hoping not to find new ones.

Satisfied with their hunting and diving proceeds, the village gave them a day of easy tasks they could do as a couple. Katara led him to the meadows and grassland. Atka and Qiqirn followed, chasing butterflies and koala-marmots. The sun was out and day warm as summer could be. Again, it seemed like he wasn't getting enough sleep, as he was awake both when she fell asleep and when she woke. She knelt and reached a hand to a small plant with tender oval leaves from trailing woody branches vining across the ground. "This is a willow tree."

He came to look, doubt on his face, until he knelt and touched the leaves. "It really is."

"Once, in the last generation, someone took one of these to the outlying islands and planted it there in a forest. It grew into a full sized tree. Once it had warmth and good soil, it thrived. But here, this is all it can manage." It was no larger across than her arm and only a few inches tall. "Everything barely surviving here just needs to be given a chance."

He caught her intended meaning and took her hands. "We will restore the South Pole. It will take time, but eventually it will be just as successful as the North."

The embraced on their knees in front of the dwarf willow. "It just seems like we have so far to go. I'm scared. Will Gran-gran still be alive to see it? Will my father? Things have gotten so bad. Seeing Agna Qel'a was so blissful, and so painful. I hate knowing what we're missing while everyone else doesn't see it."

"Give it time."

After adjusting to Caldera City with him, after seeing the possibilities in the rest of the world, her home felt far too cold, and that scared her. She was already so different from the children there who had never gone abroad, and one day, when she had traveled too far, experienced too much, she might find herself without a place there any longer.

He encouraged her to stand when she had cried herself out, and they kept exploring. He took interest in everything she said. They found tundra rose, with its yellow flowers of five petals, but its fragrance didn't compare to the varieties of rose in the Fire Nation. Cotton-grass was theirs alone—white fluff waving cloud-soft at the end of stalks. It lined a small creek and they followed it to a seasonal pond. They used it for lamp wicks, boot lining, and medical gauze. She pinched off some and fed it to him, then took a bite herself—it was mildly sweet, though without substance. "Oxen eat it. Too much would upset your stomach, but just a bit, it's like dessert. I'll take some back for Suki to try."

Muskeg tea plant—clusters of white flowers on a woody shrub with copper-colored bark covered in delicate fuzz, the top of the leaves glossy, the bottom peach-fuzz—was an oddity elsewhere but common in the polar region. "The root, powdered, is for burns and ulcers. The leaves for sore throat and rheumatism. The tea is good, though. You'll like it." She filled a linen pouch. All around them for an acre was a field of it, and the fragrance filled the air with divine sweetness. They'd planted it after the first raid, when they needed large quantities of burn medication. It had taken four years to grow into maturity. Now they kept it always at hand, far enough from shore that the field wouldn't be discovered and burnt to char.

Nearby, lingonberry, a grove long cultivated, and startled fox dashing away. "They can reach it, so they eat these berries. We make jam by mixing it with rose hips and sugar, and eat it with mustamakkara, black sausage. Blood, barley flour, and ground-up trimmings are encased in intestine." She fed him a berry, currant-colored and tart. "Help me harvest them." They filled two bags. The bush naturally grew in a large patch, as it spread out like aspen, many plants all grown from a single mother plant spreading itself out in perfect genetic copies. "They're an astringent, and treat respiratory infections. Sometimes we stew them with fish, or mix them with fish eggs." He grabbed her shoulder and held her still. With his thumb he wiped berry juice from her lips. She smiled and said, "It's easier to do it this way," and kissed him. She almost dropped the bag she was holding. A dozen berries fell, scattering around their shoes. "The fox will come back and find them." She tied them and placed them into the pack, then he shouldered it so they could continue.

"This is nicer than hunting. It's like gardens in the middle of the wilderness. I suppose we're only a few miles out of the village."

"We've been in the habit of keeping precious things out of sight. When the village is attacked, we come here. If it's summer, the berries will keep us alive. Everyone knows where the different planting areas are, and it's all so spread apart that an enemy won't be able to find it easily. From a distance it looks natural."

Closer in were the salmonberries, irrigated by a stream one mile from the settlement. The children were there led by Jomi and Yuka, who looked so much like she and her brother used to. Accustomed to it, they were harvesting into baskets as fast as a mink-snake. Before she could warn Zuko, he had approached a bush to help them, yelped, and pulled his hand back. The kids laughed at him as he sucked his finger. He tried again, slowly and more carefully, but to the same result. Resentful, he gave up the attempt and sat on the grass with her to watch them.

"How are they doing that? Those barbs are impossible." The prickles were so thin and fine that they were almost invisible.

"Years of practice, even the little ones."

"And these? What do you do with them?" He seemed to like medicine and herbalism. "They're taking more than just the berries."

"The leaves are an astringent and can treat burns. We flavor fish with it. The bark is boiled in seawater and used to clean wounds and reduce labor pain." The