"Father—"
"Chief, we're-so-sorry-we-didn't-know-about-the-dragon!" Aang rapidly interrupted Yue.
Sokka came in last with a slow, "We're so doomed, it ate my sister—kinda."
A warning horn bellowed somewhere lower in the city.
Then another.
Boots hammered over white bridges and up the palace steps as northern warriors began flooding the terrace in fur and blue. Spears, bows, clubs, even a few ice-carving tools—whatever had been closest to hand when half the population saw a spirit dragon tear through Agna Qel'a in broad daylight. More waterbenders came with them too, although a few were staggering around like they caught a whiff of dragon mist. All but the trained healers stared in shock at Master Pakku shifting weakly on bloodstained ice.
"It went down the south canal before I lost sight!" a newly arrived warrior called out.
Another added, "Saw it leap the covered run by the lower market!"
"It came out of the southern girl like a breath, Chief, I swear it!" a recovering warrior who had been swatted aside by Nagi's tail insisted as he hurried up.
"Don't… breathe the mist!" the least affected waterbender warned. "It's poison, or something!"
"Not poison—i-it's like, he feeds on waterbender chi?" a bender, breathing raggedly and shaking, added from his hands and knees.
Arnook's eyes sharpened, not wider, but somehow much worse. "Who?" he demanded.
"A spirit dragon, Father! It was hiding within Katara—she didn't know!" Yue insisted, far past composure. "The Avatar said he's a dragon king?"
Aang nodded quickly, "Fire Lord Nagi, an ancient dragon from Koani's time—I think he serves Arzaya, for some reason…" He trailed off like it had just occurred to him he was woefully ignorant about Arzaya and Nagi and probably should have asked Raven at the very least four hundred more questions. "I had no idea he was hiding in her like that! I'm so—"
"Bring all civilians and wounded to the palace for safety," Chief Arnook ordered at once, voice hard enough to bite. "And don't abandon your posts! Assume this is a distraction and the invaders are watching!"
The terrace snapped into motion. Warriors spread out, hauling the dazed and unconscious aside; those with any sense gave Pakku and Yagoda's little patch of bloodstained ice a respectful amount of room as healers swarmed around them.
Arnook's gaze cut next to Aang and Sokka.
"And you two will remain where I can see you."
Sokka blinked. "What?"
The chief took one step closer. "Do not attempt to flee. If you do, I will consider you enemies of this tribe."
That did not improve Sokka's mood.
"Flee?" he barked. "That thing just ran off with my sister, and I'm not leaving without her!"
"I'm not taking chances," Arnook said, in no way moved by the excellent point, "I don't need you provoking an angry spirit any further!"
"What?! I didn't make it mad!"
"That was totally—! Uh… well, Katara and Master Pakku were both being dumb and stubborn, really?" Aang half-heartedly rambled. "Sokka just stood there doing nothing."
Sokka slouched low and glared at him. "Thanks, Aang."
"Do not speak ill of Master Pakku, who it appears your companion maimed," Arnook said, folding his arms and clearly very, very on edge with the whole disaster.
Aang almost writhed on his feet at the Chief's words, before he let out a nauseated sound. "I'm trying not to think about it… or look over there," he muttered. "I can't believe she really did that."
Rapid footsteps approached from the city below.
"Chief, scouts just informed me! The Fire Nation fleet is less than a day away," a sweaty, winded guy about Sokka's age reported, then he looked around and saw the general catastrophic surroundings. "Uhh…"
"Hahn!" Yue blurted with surprise, like she'd been caught, not like it made much sense. "I'll… catch you up on what happened?"
"Good idea," Chief Arnook instantly said. "Hahn. Bring Yue to safety in the palace. Make sure she's protected. We… have casualties among the palace guards."
"What?" Hahn said on a breath, and shook his head with irritation. "I'm not a babysitter!"
The prickling sensation of disrespect rolling up Yue's body from her toes to the abrupt tilt of her expression was visible to everyone, but only Sokka really took notice, and he was perfectly happy to catch her gaze for an instant of shared wow, what a pair of jerks, even if she buried it under trained composure right after.
"Father, I believe I can sense Nagi, so—" she politely began, gesturing to the dark tunnel where Katara had been spirited away.
"Absolutely not, you're not going anywhere near that girl," Chief Arnook firmly stated.
He turned to Hahn, who looked ready to start a civil war over the insult he might have to spend time with Yue, despite Sokka's confidence she was the most beautiful, charming and polite girl on the entire planet.
"And I meant 'find guards for her,' Hahn, that's all."
"Oh, fine, whatever," Hahn all but yawned as he brushed fingers through his slightly sweaty hair, then reached to take her hand. "Come on, princess."
Yue's smile did not waver as she let him. She was truly a legend of putting up with crap, Sokka could only conclude. Aang was busy batting fragments of Nagi's steaming and never-melting ice into the canals with his glider staff like that would help the general situation somehow, but he rushed back over after getting a few more scowls than he'd planned for.
A miserable sound came from the ice, causing Hahn to be annoyed by Yue stopping, which was the most important consequence, of course.
Pakku, who had until then looked like a corpse left in charge of cluttering up the courtyard, twitched under the hands of three lesser healers doing a truly valiant job of keeping him alive. One had both of her hands locked on the stump of his arm. Another was bracing his leg where the fang had carved him open. A third looked moments from crying, which wasn't ideal in a healer, but she was doing something to his heart that was surely very beneficial.
The old master's eyes slit open, and he went straight from corpsish to downright offended by his missing hand.
"Master Pakku!" one healer blurted in relief.
"Don't shout in my ear, girl," he rasped, voice sand-dry with pain. He tried to sit, failed, and glared at the sky for being no help at all. Then his eyes found Arnook all the same. "Chief…"
Arnook was at his side in an instant, just as loud as the healer girl. "Can you speak?!"
Pakku gave him an acid look that strongly implied obviously, if fools would stop interrupting.
"The girl," he rattled, then swallowed and hissed as the healer at his leg pressed harder. "The southern girl is not behind this."
Sokka really wanted to insist that his sister had a name, but she did cut the guy's fucking arm off with arguably substandard justification. Also Pakku was defending her, apparently, but Sokka still gave the old jerk a scowl that went totally ignored.
Several warriors nearby shifted at that, and one of them, not especially bright, said, "But your arm—!"
Pakku's gaze hit him like a thrown knife.
"No untrained bender is capable of any of that," he flatly stated. "Much less a girl from a remote tribe."
Annoying as his tone was, he had a point.
Even the healers briefly paused to give a look of disbelief at how little it seemed like Pakku was angry at Katara for dismembering him.
"Whoa… wha… Master Pakku, that girl did this?" Hahn asked distantly, having finally caught up to the bloody mayhem after hurrying in.
"A dragon did. She's a reckless child, not the mastermind of an ancient spirit plot," he went on like he was carefully leaving out more insults. "If the Avatar—rgh!—and I couldn't sense it? She never stood a chance."
Yue, who sensed something was very wrong before they even came outside—while the Avatar and Pakku were still oblivious—kept her mouth shut and ignored Hahn's damp hand still on her wrist, and it was making her want to slip into her finery like a turtle duck and refuse to come out until he was gone.
"Princess Yue definitely sensed it; she was asking me about it," Sokka defended her, unwittingly making her moist betrothed even more of a chore by comparison, but she still appreciated it.
Chief Arnook did stop and give his daughter a long look, quietly admitting, "She does have a strong spiritual sense."
Pakku's breath hitched as he saw the gruesome sight of a warrior stiffly walking up with his own severed arm wrapped loosely in at least clean cloth. But he outright refused to be useless at such a dire time.
"Just don't attack the girl." His lip curled. "No need to lose brave young warriors too. And if anyone gets the idea to try stabbing her, let them know how testing that theory worked for—nnngh!—me…"
Many eyes were fixed on Pakku as his face went a dire shade of pale grey, and he sagged as the words trailed off, like duty alone forced him to stay conscious long enough to give warnings.
"His heartbeat is steady, he just needs rest," the younger healer with her hands over the old master's chest insisted, like she wanted to drive away at least a little horror on each face.
"I wish I could just speak to Nagi," Yue said.
"Yeah…" Aang instantly agreed, even if he sounded exhausted. "We don't know if he serves Arzaya willingly. Heck, I'm not even sure she's a firebender!"
"You're not?" Sokka wondered aloud, clearly intrigued.
But Hahn laughed out loud. "Speak to a dragon, Yue? It'd gobble you up. Yeah…" he went on with an annoying chuckle as he tugged at her again, and she stepped along with him toward the palace. "This is why you stay in the palace, like your father says."
Arnook didn't look exactly excited about Hahn's tone, but he did give a nod that released Yue's atypically stubborn shoes from the floor.
The crude boy didn't even care enough to notice when she glanced back wistfully at Sokka for longer than she ought to.
Turning back to Aang and Sokka, Chief Arnook asked with only half his former menace, "is there anything else you can tell me about this dragon king, Nagi?"
"Uhh… oh!" Sokka recalled. "Raven said Nagi's the 'beast' that Koani died slaying, didn't she?"
Aang's eyes went wide. "She did?! When?!" he absolutely freaked out, like Sokka had betrayed him by hiding it.
"You were on the root."
"Ohh… right," Aang nodded slowly and calmly, then exploded. "Isn't this really bad?! Nagi and Koani!? Isn't Koani here?! What does it mean?! It has to mean something, right?!"
Sokka practically took cover like he was under attack from the boy, but Chief Arnook snapped them both back out with some firm disappointment.
"That would have been good to mention at our meeting."
"I didn't know!" Aang shrieked.
Sokka rolled his eyes. "Katara would have mentioned it, I'm sure, but somebody was like really hung up on her having an innie and not an outie—so here we are, I guess?" And he halted at seeing the flat gazes from more than just the chief. "Uh… with all due respect to the injured."
It didn't really help.
"Um… I could add," Aang started, hoping to pull Sokka back out form the gallows. "Nagi seemed desperate. I dunno, like he really didn't want to get found out like this. I could feel how frustrated he was. He might not be able to stay in our world for long now that he's… er… out?"
"So he attacked Master Pakku to stop Katara from getting injured?" Sokka theorized.
"Yeah?"
One of the more offended warriors stared. "You're saying the dragon spirit was protecting her?"
"No!" Aang said, perhaps a bit too fast. Then he winced. "I mean—he just needs her? I don't think he's nice, I didn't get that feeling at all."
Sokka exhaled hard through his nose.
"Welp," he said like he meant to be casually charming. "It's good news if we jammed up Arzaya's plans by accident, right?"
No one looked casually charmed.
Then an important-looking warrior in quite the headdress—Sokka was definitely jealous—strode up and declared like he could give orders to anyone, "Chief, we have gaps in the defense to fill with so many benders down. We need to discuss what can be sacrificed."
"Wait—!" Sokka spoke up, clenching his jaw at the sudden thought. "Don't leave Koani's tomb undefended! That's probably where the Arzayans are going, right? Nagi too?"
Aang shrugged. "I don't have any better ideas, but we don't really know."
Arnook's brows drew together as he considered.
"The royal tombs are poorly fortified, and far from strategic locations," he sighed as he shook his head. "We'd risk losing the whole city on that hunch—I… can't authorize sending men there."
"Chief, we don't have much time," the fancy headdress guy insisted. "We need to reorganize now."
"I really think Koani may be the real danger," Sokka tried his best to argue, but even he heard his own voice and thought prioritizing a woman who'd been dead for fifteen hundred years sounded a little silly. "Yue definitely seemed to think so."
"The Bitch Queen of the Ice Wolves?" the fancy warrior scoffed. "This isn't fireside story time, kid."
Sokka looked ready to shout back about a certain relevant dragon, but Arnook took a stand.
"Enough!" He shut them both up. "Sokka, I understand what you're saying, but we don't have the manpower anymore. If the Arzayans want her accursed old bones, it is not in my tribe's power to stop them."
After giving one last dismayed gaze at the sorry state of his best benders, Chief Arnook went to meet with the ones he had left, leaving Sokka and Aang at least not locked in prison, thanks largely to Master Pakku, oddly enough.