Pakku showed a frustrating lack of excitement, striding into the public practice court below the palace steps, where many stopped by the shallow pools that fed the canals, themselves crossed by white bridges arched between bending-carved ice rails.
Katara's eye twitched. It'd be easier if the bastard was yelling.
He turned on his heel at last, hands behind his back. "Go ahead. Make a fool of yourself, girl," he said with a bored gaze and the maddening ease of a man who'd done this before.
She stormed over to be roughly across from him, more than a few strands of her brown hair somehow already loose. She rolled one shoulder, then the other, and took a deep breath.
"Uhh…" Aang started, just a little too close to the duel.
Katara shot a glance his way. "You're not talking me down, Aang. Don't even try."
He raised his hands defensively. "No, no! Not you!" And he turned to Pakku to quickly say, "Um, Master Pakku, I'm not super excited about all this, but for real she's a lot scarier than she looks. I really wouldn't just stand there like that."
Katara rolled her eyes, but didn't quite demand whose side Aang was on.
Pakku gave Aang a brief glance, a sigh, and a smidgen of humoring as he at least moved his hands from his back to a vaguely ready stance.
A remarkably chill breeze flowed through the open space, fluttering Yue's pure white hair as she slowly and politely shuffled her way closer to Sokka at the top of the steps. She tilted her head to examine the utterly unmoving scrunched look on the boy's face. His eyes slid smoothly until they locked with hers, and she gave a friendly smile she hoped would be diplomatic enough. For a moment they watched as a few northern warriors and waterbenders in fur collars gathered at a distance they thought would be safe. Seeing her anxiety ease a bit as she lined her toes up to his—hands folded delicately in her sleeves—Sokka got the distinct impression that Princess Yue joined his side, more than anything, out of trust that he knew better how far one should stand back from his sister when she was off the deep end.
"Hoo boy, there she goes…" Sokka muttered as he saw the telltale mist rising unnaturally from every frozen surface
Still going better than if they'd brought Raven, he figured.
"She's… doing that?" Yue wondered, more than a little astonished as she watched the vapor subtly but visibly swirl around her.
Katara winced at the blinding sun off the white snow, expecting him to rush her at the first sign of weakness, but the infuriating old man just kicked snow from his shoe a bit as he gave her a look like he had places to be. Just as she raised her hands, Pakku spoke.
"If you've come to your senses, you could go learn something more suited to you from Yagoda," he offered with a nod in the elder healer's direction.
"She'll be too busy," Katara scowled, grinding her teeth. "Once I'm done with you."
Yue glanced around at various faces as more warriors wandered over to see what all the fuss was about—other than Pakku's parka. And she somehow accidentally, unintentionally, by no fault of her own wound up at a distance from Sokka that would straight up hands-off-the-reins gossip a whole palace from front to back. Also, Katara was forming giant razor-sharp icy blades in the unfortunately familiar maw-like position around her, so absolutely nobody was paying attention to Yue at all.
"Is she always like this? You seem so different," Yue quietly wondered.
Sokka swallowed. "Honestly? I'm surprised she has the guts."
"Oh?"
"Like I agree he's a jerk," Sokka whispered back with a vague gesture to Pakku. "But I've never seen her this fearless. It's kiiinda freaking me out. Like, it's insane to do this now, right?"
"Oh—yes. Very much so." Yue smiled and nodded.
"You have an… interesting technique," Pakku slowly said like he was a bit disgusted, eyes lingering on the sharp points of the frozen fangs.
"Icewolf-style!" she shouted. "And they're claws, damn it!"
They weren't.
Yue flinched first, unnoticed by Sokka until all the northerners cringed at that name, and all for no reason Sokka could put his finger on. Katara, on the other hand, wasn't really paying attention to anything but Pakku, who looked downright accusatory.
"Where did you learn this?" he demanded as he waved his hand and pushed the encroaching mist back a few paces.
"Oh, not too afraid of cooties to listen all of a sudden?" Katara flipped her failing hair back with a smug sneer. "Then say you're sorry before you start asking me for favors, oh great master. Don't you have any manners at all?"
The fangs reared back as she arced a hand over her head, like proof she could back up that bark with bite.
"Sokka?" Yue quietly, quickly whispered, and he glanced over. "Why… did she call it that?"
Sokka blinked at her. "Uh… some guy who wasn't that cool suggested it. She loved the name immediately." He squinted. "Why?"
Yue did not answer right away. Her eyes stayed on Katara.
"Koani's raiders were called the, um, Ice Wolves," she said at last, so softly at the end Sokka barely caught it. "That's a really… offensive name here."
His grin vanished.
"What?" Sokka drawled. "I'm gonna punch that Jet guy. He totally knew."
Yue shook her head quickly, like she wished she hadn't said anything yet. "Well, if she didn't know. I just—" Her fingers tightened together. "I had a bad feeling when you mentioned Koani in there. And now your sister is… doing whatever that is."
Katara licked her own canine teeth like she wanted to take a bite out of the wretched old man her very own little self, but she genuinely felt thrown off by the way he was just standing there, like he might actually make the mistake of not getting out of the way. It was maddening.
Pakku, unfortunately for everyone, indefatigably continued to not look worried in the least.
"Well?" he asked. "You challenged me, Katara. Do you need me to explain how this works?"
Katara barely moved, but the fangs trembled in place.
"No. I was worried I might kill you, but you're making me feel much better about it. Thanks!" she poisoned the air with cheer.
With scarcely more than a clench of her fingers, she sprouted a small forest of wickedly sharp trees out of the ice behind her, only for them to drift away as mist an instant later.
Pakku sighed like she had begun proving his point right on schedule.
"So dramatic," he said. "But just hesitation in a fight."
Katara's glare sharpened to murder.
Pakku gave a tiny, dismissive nod. "Very well. I'll begin."
He moved one foot.
Water roared from the ice floor.
A whole broad surge of it rose from seemingly nowhere. It was huge. Pakku did not waste motion on style, but simply sent the wave to crush her.
Katara sprang sideways, not far enough to dodge, but she found a thinner bulge, and the four fangs darted close, and clenched into a barrier, letting her bend away the rest to only get a mild soaking.
Failing to push her back an inch made Pakku's brow twitch. Just once, but she saw it, and it made it all worth it. It also had her eager and ready when he sent a wheeling vertical arc to snap her fangs next.
Katara hit the ice in a slide, one hand out as the claws returned to mist and trailed after her in long pale ribbons. The first wave was still freezing into slopes at the edges of the terrace when Pakku stepped into his third bend.
The master waterbender twisted his hand down, almost palm thrusting the floor, and the ice beneath Katara gave way to a bitter cold whirlpool.
She positively disagreed with that, and swirled her own hand to turn the misty air straight into ice, letting her slide right across the gap like her toes could tell roads where to lead.
Pakku sent a low, broad wave, which she instantly jumped, braid whipping behind her. And although Katara barely cleared the bend, and so far had no time to strike back, that was four times in a row she'd gone virtually unscathed. He gave a short laugh that almost sounded impressed.
"If southern girls are as good as you," Pakku remarked, perfectly calm, "the boys must really be something."
Katara landed, skidded, and snapped right back, "Well I am really sick of looking at your stupid smug face!"
Then she clawed her hands inward, dragging a ludicrous quantity of mist around them both, and the duel vanished from before everyone's eyes in but a breath. The rolling coils of fog almost seemed to writhe, such that Sokka watched Aang and northern benders hop back from it like it might bite.
Back where Sokka and Yue were, however, it wasn't just a strange cloud. Their eyes tracked a curling spine, horned ridges coming and going, and the fading notion of claws and wings glimmering in the sun.
"Uh," he said, very quietly. "Yue?"
She nodded rapidly without taking her eyes off it.
He swallowed.
"Does that look like a dragon to you?"
She gave another quick nod.
Yue took another long step back from whatever was happening, which Sokka followed as she meekly asked, "You mean, uh, this isn't… normal?"
Sokka gave her a look like he really wished he had a better answer.
"Not sure… was always too close to tell before," he said tensely.
Inside the mist, there was a sharp hiss of blades cutting air, making them both flinch and duck. But it was Pakku barely bending aside the first fang, and he jolted from the impact as it slashed such a brutal gouge in the ice floor that it genuinely surprised him.
In the blinding mist, a second fang shot past his cheek so fast it was a blur, vanishing into a rippling wall of mist, but he heard the icy crack and shatter of it striking the very far opposite wall in frighteningly little time. Pakku gritted his teeth, halting just before raising a wall. It wouldn't stop something that hit that hard, he quickly guessed, and he pivoted at once into an aggressive stance. Sleeves snapping as his arms whipped and turned the floor to water, then hovering blades of ice again, he saw the briefest pull of vapor rushing toward one side of the fog.
There.
She was making another fang, for certain.
He wanted to shout at the girl, tell her she was a reckless fool, but given how silent she was, it was clear she was waiting for him to give himself away like that. He knew he still had his head by luck alone after that last close call.
Pakku's expression truly hardened for the first time. Someone was going to die if this kept up—possibly a hapless bystander, or even the princess…
He snapped a shard of ice through the place he thought she was. Low enough it shouldn't be fatal, at least. There was a crack! but…
No cry of pain.
Outside the cloud, Sokka and Yue both had their necks craned up.
The head had lifted. Not with Katara, just the dragon-like head of mist had risen above the thick mist of its coiled body, and silent as a ghost it tilted down, looking suspiciously ready to strike.
As more fine detail of the beast worryingly formed, Yagoda, who had backed out of the fog, finally noticed the head looming above—with no sign Pakku sensed it.
"Master Pakku! Above you!" she did her old best to warn him.
The long snout formed swept back horns as the jaw opened in a silent roar, ancient and forgotten and full of hate. It lunged.
All four fangs came at Pakku in converging arcs like a true bite.
His hands moved before he could see, so blinded as he still was. One fang burst into bits, then two, then inches away, the third blasted his face in a stinging spray. And of the fourth… he gasped loud enough for all to hear, and fell to his knee from a bloody gash it took out of his thigh.
"Reckless child!" he snapped, seeing the slight pull of mist.
He reacted fast. A spear of ice, dead center. He hadn't wanted to be lethal, but he had to just survive. The end of it disappeared into the mist in a flash.
There was a wet, ugly sound in the cloud.
Then Pakku's voice, sharp with pain and fury both as he shuddered and failed to stand:
"What have you done? This technique is corrupt, it's madness!"
No answer.
Sokka's whole body jolted, although he had no idea what hit who.
"KATARA!" he shouted, voice cracking halfway up. "What's with the dragon?! You said it was claws, not fangs, you liar! Katara, whatever you're doing in there, STOP!"
And as if it waited on him hand and foot, the mist shifted, thinned, and broke.
Pakku appeared first, and despite his bloody leg, Sokka felt hopeful he was the one who got hurt. But the master's outstretched hand, frozen as if he knew something dire, was not comforting.
Then Yue screamed. Not politely. The raw terror ripped across the terrace, sticking everyone in place without a trace of bending.
Sokka's head snapped around, and Aang was already gape-jawed in horror.
Katara was standing, but… tilted back at a wrong angle.
The spear stood clean through her chest.
Through the front, out the back, and into the ground deep enough to hold her up like a pinned flag. Her arms hung limp. Her head lolled. For a hideous blank second there was no life to her at all.
Sokka's throat made a strained whistle, and he gripped his own spear so tight it hurt.
Then he exploded.
"YOU KILLED HER! YOU BASTARD, I'LL-"
Katara jerked upright.
Everyone had taken a step closer, but stopped again, save Sokka, who was scrambling down the steps to help. But she didn't gasp, or scream, or cry, or so much as notice how horrified everyone was.
Her face was just twisted with irritation.
"That HURT!" she barked.
And with a savage slash of her hand, she sent the one remaining fang at Pakku. It was ruthless. Way too fast for a man on his knee, even a master. In a way, it was almost clean.
Ice flashed in the bright sun, bright red sprayed in an arc. Half the horrified audience tracked the blade as it smashed straight through a pillar and toppled it with a deafening crash. The other half watched Pakku's left arm, from the elbow down, fly off and sail straight into the palace courtyard canal.
Pakku cried out for real, no mere gasp, and toppled sideways. And Yagoda was already rushing to his aid before he hit.
"Oh, no no no!" Aang frantically blurted, rushing up along with Sokka.
"Hold still!" Yagoda begged Pakku, who was trying to sit up again despite it all.
"K-Katara wh-what?!" Sokka stammered, unable to make sense of her just standing there like that.
And he skidded up to his insane sister, Aang there too and both holding up their hands like they ought to do something, but they just stared in horror at the spear in plain view lodged right through her chest. There was something odd and brightly glistening about the blood running down the jagged icicle haft.
Katara, however, had all the ceremony of clearing her throat as she took a wet, burning and downright unreal breath, like something else was there with her. And the spear simply vanished into mist, causing her to stumble slightly on her feet as she looked down in mild confusion at the two-inch diameter hole punched through her torso.
Her fingertips tapped the wound, and found blood.
It was bright.
Bright gold.
A goopy, glittering, molten fluid too thick to be blood oozed from her lips as the boys watched in utter mind-blowing horror. She gulped, looked ready to retch, and doubled over to cough and splatter it all over the courtyard. Still way too unbothered by her blatantly fatal wound, she looked almost embarrassed as she used her sleeve to wipe thick, sticking ropes of the shining stuff from her chin.
She tried to speak, only gurgled, then just looked annoyed.
Aang and Sokka could do nothing more than stare at each other, then back at Katara, all their minds racing and blowing through a hundred theories per second on what was happening.
Sokka pointed at the hole through her.
"That… bothering you? Katara?" he timidly asked, like he wasn't really sure that was his sister.
Then right in front of him and Aang, her wound had the audacity to close up like business hours were over. What they saw was unmistakable, and even at the angle of her craning her neck down, she herself was blown away.
Coated in enough dragon's blood to kill a city, her ruptured lung knitted together, her ribs uncracked, and her skin melted together again like candle wax. For a second time, a reddened mark was the only sign death had come calling at all.
More gold spilled from Katara's lips, flecking the ice, and peppering Sokka's boot. All three watched it fizzle and vanish away as if the world simply refused to host such an alien substance.
Aang recoiled. "That's… Arzaya's…?"
Pakku made a sound somewhere behind them that dragged everyone's attention back the wrong way.
He was almost standing, clutching the stump of his arm while Yagoda fought to hold him still enough to close his wound, with her hands slick and red up to the wrist. The old master's face had gone paler and slack, but he kept his wits about him enough to get out a ragged, shaken version of his voice.
"She's been… corrupted," he spat. "That is no waterbending. Water flows… agh… from mist, to liquid, to ice. It does not skip… rrgh… steps!" He glared at Katara like he was looking at a monster. "What dark thing did you bargain with, child? What did you accept?"
Katara stared at him, his severed arm, then her own whole body.
Her face crumpled.
"I…" she began, but she really had nothing.
She touched her chest with trembling fingers again. Felt the lack of hole, and watched more liquid gold slowly disappear as if by a lightless fire.
"I didn't—" she whispered. "I really— I don't know!"
The northern warriors had begun to move closer.
But not the benders. They looked sick. Dizzy. Off-balance. Something was very, very wrong and the three felt distinctly like they were several pages behind. Some of the men rushed to guard Pakku and Yagoda.
"Princess, be careful! She's cursed!" one yelled as several gathered around Yue.
Those who neared Katara all slowed, like she was a venomous snake.
"Don't make a move!" a grizzled older warrior barked at her, and she jolted in place.
Sokka put himself half in front of her before he had really decided to.
"Back off! She doesn't know what this is either!" he shouted, and really wanted to believe it.
One of the northern warriors was crouched by a bender who had fallen flat on his face, and he fretted, "h-hey, what's wrong with you?"
Sokka's breath hitched. It struck him at once.
"She tricked us," he gravely stated.
Katara and Aang flickered glances at him, not sure what was or wasn't a threat.
"Arzaya," he gulped.
Aang snapped toward him. "What'd she do?!"
"Back at Roku's chamber," Sokka said, eyes widening as it all landed at once and made his stomach turn over. "When she 'saved' Katara. She set this up…"
"B-but, I— I'm me!" Katara pleaded as she tapped herself frantically. "I'm not Arzaya! I swear!" She seemed like she wanted to go on, but she gulped and coughed a wet and gruesome noise again.
Aang's face drained, and he clenched his jaw at the sight of zero patience on anyone's faces around them.
"We didn't know!" he yelled at the oncoming warriors. "We really didn't know! This is some scheme of Arzaya's—it has to be!"
Katara doubled over, hand on her mouth.
Yue had not fled at the insistence of warriors. She stayed where she was, white-knuckled and rigid, but her voice cut through as she pointed high and moved back a step.
"Stop!" the princess cried. "It's not her!"
Nobody looked convinced.
"It's a dragon!" she insisted, wagging her finger up at the still faint outline of mist. "Sokka and I saw it—it's a dragon spirit, that's why her bending is wrong! It's possessing her!"
That got some attention.
But Katara dropped to her knees either way, gagging and still covering her mouth.
Yue's expression changed when she saw that outline getting sharper, not fading away.
"Get back!" she screamed. "Get away from her! Everyone!"
The stomach turning spirit imbalance hit the waterbenders hard. Some were standing straight again, the one who'd fallen had stirred, but now… now they all fell like sacks of jerky off the back of a sled.
Even Pakku, who had already suffered enough for one day, sagged and crumpled into a pile.
"So… tired…" Yagoda breathed, and joined him, and then there wasn't a trace of awareness left on any waterbender's face.
A massive splatter of dragon's blood hit the ice, causing the few warriors daring enough to ignore the princess's warning to halt and back away, especially when Katara faced down and belched out a steaming, seething cloud.
Sokka and Aang still had no idea what to do, half-crouched beside her and watching in helpless horror, until finally she looked up at them, dribbling golden spittle, mist falling from her lips like a witch's cauldron, and tears in her eyes.
"RUN!" she rasped, utterly desperate.
That tone got Aang and Sokka moving at last, racing back up the steps towards the palace. And just in time, as Katara woozily doubled over again, and with an unsettling, inhuman gasp, a flood of white vapor poured from her mouth like a waterfall.
Aang instantly blasted it with a sweep of his staff, but the clouds just swirled and spun back in place, forming that same long coiling serpent shape, then horns, and even whiskers this time. With another two sweeps, the clouds stirred again, but had thickened so much they couldn't see Katara at all.
Warriors dragged fallen benders away or simply rushed for cover as panicked shouts and chaos took over the terrace. Sokka could only watch as the ghostly coils formed visible scales in the mist, and the dragon looped through the air like a victory lap.
For lack of better options, he backed off to Yue, who seemed less happy than usual to see him, but at least the warriors around her were so fixated on the mist dragon's head towering above them they forgot about him entirely.
Aang was dashing around and blasting the ghostly beast like he could stuff it back in Katara's mouth, so Sokka turned to Yue for lack of better options, who also looked profoundly hopeless.
"Pretty sure… Arzaya just took out all the best waterbenders before the invasion even started…" he muttered, sounding more than a little guilty. "I think… we're in big trouble."
His chest tightened as it struck him that Katara might not survive whatever was happening to her, but… what was he supposed to do? He watched as glints of light formed from nothing in the mist and lined the dragon head to toe with blades of ice where any horn, fang, claw, or spine would be.
"Just… go AWAY!" Aang screamed at it, now sailing above the dragon in a massive leap, and at the peak he thrust his glider staff straight down in a truly grand tornado of wind. "Leave her ALONE! BAD spirit! BAD!"
No one was in the mood to say it, but Aang was not intimidating—to Sokka in particular it seemed the Avatar was holding back. Either way, the nearly finished shape actually dispersed! They could all see Katara. She was just standing there, hands clenched under her chin and eyes wide like she was spooked hard enough to jump out of her boots. Aang landed on his feet already lunging back to try and snag Katara out of the eye of the storm, so to speak, but Sokka gritted his teeth as he stopped himself halfway down the stairs again.
"Aang that won't work!" he cried out. "It's coming from her!"
And Katara had an almost accusatory glare for a moment before glancing down in panic to see heavy steam pouring out of her mouth in place of words. She looked all around, seeing the hovering shards of ice from inches to feet long, and a muffled shriek of panic burst from her as they all suddenly turned. They focused, all pointing her way!
Without thinking, Katara grabbed the icy floor under Aang's feet with her bending, and slammed her palm down, swirling it into a whirlpool near half the size of Pakku's, but it was enough. So startled was Aang that he slipped out of sight before he even yelped.
Katara braced for impact, and Sokka screamed in desperation as the dome of hundreds of icy points aimed her way shot in at blinding speed—but they halted. The mists raveled quicker than before, the detail returned with a shake of the wicked dragon's ephemeral head, and the ice returned to decorate him like a work of art absolutely no waterbender asked for.
It moved fast, sliding silently across the ice terrace and swirling about in a beautiful but terrible fashion, rearing up its giant misty whisker-trailing head of icy fangs and horns. Just that movement slammed a dozen warriors with the flats of the tail spikes—shattering and instantly reforming on the other side, but throwing each man off his feet. Sokka barely ducked as it whipped past, the crack! and clang! of the tail breaking around his spear's tip made him twitch, and he ducked under the cool dusting of frost that fell.
Aang scrambled out of the hole, backing up and seeing the misty dragon looking right back at him. "I've seen you before…" he whispered.
The dragon shifted, and slithered, making everyone jump. It raced down the southern facing steps, leapt a wide canal and left a startled trio of women in parkas coated in frost. Then it slipped without a sound down a dark, covered canal with no walkways to chase after on foot. Like a bad dream, it was gone.
"Sh-she's still in there…" Sokka stammered, trembling but not from the cold as he stared down at where the beast had vanished without a trace in the city below. "But she's alive," he said, like he needed the reassurance.
"What… was that dragon, Avatar Aang?" Yue faintly asked, shuffling up from behind.
Aang turned slowly. He really looked like he wanted to be wrong.
"Fire Lord Nagi," he said, with something like reverence, but it sank to dread as he explained, "The ancient dragon king spirit that serves Arzaya."
His face went as flat and hopeless as his tone as he hunched forward.
"I really, really don't like her," he shamelessly understated.
Then Chief Arnook stepped out onto the terrace from the palace. He had expected trouble, but this was just beyond the pale. Master Pakku laying on blood-stained ice, Yagoda crumpled beside him, half his tribe's benders left laying about like children's toys. At least his daughter Yue merely looked terrified out of her mind, with no apparent bodily maiming. The southern girl was just gone, though, so it all added up to the precise geometric center of nonsense.
The Avatar, Yue, and that boy who she wafted around too much didn't notice him until he cleared his throat, making them flinch, and whip around to a deeply lost:
"What… happened?"