Yue's rising panic glanced off her poise without making a mark.
It was a princess skill, really. One of the most useful for keeping the people calm in better times. But at that moment Yue was racing neck-and-neck against Katara for 'most perturbed Chieftain's daughter', and she was losing on account of Nagi, but not by that much. The palace halls—usually solemn—were suddenly loud with running boots and urgent voices, and Hahn was doing his best to make her feel like she was heading for the gallows.
"This way," he insisted. "What'd you get so scared you forgot what way your wing is?"
Yue didn't pull against him, per se, but she slowed to gaze at the well-decorated spiral stairs up to the guest rooms at the front of the palace. His tone wasn't making her feel any better, but she really was struggling to swallow down the dread she felt at the thought of that poor girl whisked away in the belly of the beast.
"Sorry," she said. "I am frightened, but it's not that."
Hahn's face slanted, making it obvious she should just get on with it if she was going to waste his time. She knew that look far too well.
Shouting rocked the halls and warriors came charging from the armory. Although they carefully navigated the princess, servants flattened themselves against walls as they rushed by. Coming out into the hall beside the two far too cluelessly was the elderly brother of another chief. He simply let his already shakily held tray of tea become an early casualty of the war.
Hahn breathed out at the steaming patch on his pant leg. "Great. Thanks, Yue."
She did not remain fully composed.
With a frown and ever-so-slight harshness, Yue politely insisted, "Please take me to the guest rooms on the second floor, Hahn." But she cooled completely to a perfectly timid, "um, you were right about the dragon, though. If I can't keep an eye on where he vanished, I… I don't think I can stay calm without you there to protect me."
The insufferable boy leaned on his spear for a moment as he nodded, still looking put-upon, but she saw the tiny little grin she was looking for.
"Hey, yeah, you'll have a fine view when I drive them off—you can tell the story at the victory celebration," Hahn someone managed to say without a trace of sarcasm.
Yue just smiled, happy to be led where she asked. As her feet slid silently with practice posture she let Hahn continue to drag her around like a toddler, because her mind was occupied by other rather profound thoughts.
First—Katara is innocent.
Second—Nagi was panicking.
Third—Koani is the true threat.
A familiar warning seemed to reverberate through the very core of her being. That thread of spirit laced through her body, as necessary as blood itself, was screaming at her to get as far from Koani as possible. But the vile woman was dead. Wasn't she?
"Yue?"
Her mind focused on that sound, and she saw a silvery moonlight wash over her scowling betrothed. Everything kept a hint of monochrome, and she blinked to try to clear it away, but it seemed to be sticking. There was a clack! like a metal boot on the precious lacquered wood plank floor, and both she and Hahn instantly flicked their gazes to an orange glow of fire from the strangely dark hall ahead.
Although, to Yue, Hahn seemed oddly slow, almost as if underwater.
Clack! was the only sound that could be heard again. It definitely did not seem real to Yue at all—one who was accustomed to strange spiritual events—but it still made her heart sink when she saw a pale, tall woman in a perfectly crisp officer's uniform of a Fire Nation style she did not recognize. Her golden jian was wreathed in ethereal light, and raised in challenge.
"…Hahn?" Yue could only whisper as she turned to look his way again
Her eyes had never been so wide, nor her mouth, which could only emit a muffled shriek.
A patch of smoldering hair fell from his charred scalp. His face, blackened and twisted in frozen agony, wasn't recognizable at all.
"Yue! Hello? Pick a room!" he said, rattling Yue out of it.
She stared at his perfectly polychromatic face as it snapped the vision apart, and glanced at the empty and once again well lit hall. Slowly, she let her jaw back home.
"Man, you're a little scaredy cat even for a girl," he said, like he was genuinely disappointed with her.
"Um…" she tested, confirming her voice actually worked again. "The one at the north end, please…" she weakly whispered, having to just let him believe what he wanted.
He ushered her along, and looked back at the sound of commotion behind them, which made Yue's heart skip a beat and she could tell he felt her jolt. Two armed veteran warriors of the palace guard heavily strode their way.
"You're both on babysitting duty, sorry guys," Hahn chuckled, choosing that moment to run his fingers through his moist hair again, then grabbing her wrist one last time for maximum exposure to his slick moistness.
One of them gave him a look, and the other flatly said, "it is my honor to protect you with my life, Princess Yue."
"Nah, nah," even Hahn corrected, not wanting them to think he was that smug, and somehow thought it was an improvement to say, "She's like, totally panicking about everything and she's being really clingy and weird."
And he dared let go of her wrist like he was shaking her off, and he gave an awkwardly rough pat to the back of her shoulder to urge her inside the guest room.
Yue looked back down the hall, seeing Nukka, an older maidservant who looked after the guest rooms hurrying to catch up with whatever unusual princess business was occurring in her wing of the palace. But she tilted her chin up to look as stern as she could to Hahn.
"Hahn?" she beckoned. "Thank you, but one thing?"
"Hmm?"
"I had a vision, and…" she gulped, but forced herself not to hesitate or she knew he'd stop paying attention. "If you fight a woman with a golden, burning sword, I believe you… will die."
He gave a slight nod, rolled his eyes, and turned away as he patted her atop her snow-white haired head. "Sure, princess," he flatly said, then grinned as the two palace guards reached her door.
Hahn was already rushing off. He didn't even look back or say goodbye. She didn't really expect he would, of course, but it was making her feel a lot more hopeless than usual.
"We'll be right here, Princess Yue," the man who spoke before assured her, thankfully respectfully for a short reprieve from being aggravated.
Yue politely thanked them, and by her reserved standards she nearly leapt for the windowsill to watch over the abandoned royal tombs across the frantic city of ice. There was instant fussing before she could really get herself worked up to a good paranoia, however.
"Wish it were better circumstances, Your Highness, but I'm happy to tidy up a bit for you," Nukka chuckled with a rasp, obviously delighted at the wild unorthodoxy of the princess being in her wing of the palace by anything other than accident. "That Hahn's a lively boy, hmm?"
"Mmm."
Yue's gaze lingered on the thickly bundled and usually very quiet woman as she straightened the furs incongruently lining the imported Earth Kingdom style bed, then swapped a slightly stained pillow for a fresh one. The quaint simplicity of Nukka's priorities made the princess feel oddly distant and hopeless for a moment.
"Nukka," Yue quietly said.
The woman's lined face brightened. "Yes?" She turned to bow mid-shuffle, then stood leaning over the soot-caked brazier.. "Oh, this will never do."
Yue blinked. "It won't?"
"For you?" Nukka asked, already moving toward the bed to tug one fur straighter. "Look at this filth—my fault entirely, I should have checked the girls' work sooner…" she sighed, then kept her withered hand on the foot of the bed for balance as she scooted around to the window and ran a finger down the heavy curtain with utter dismay, although Yue wasn't certain what it had done wrong.
"This frayed tie," Nukka grumbled. "Could come loose at a bad time."
On any other day, Yue would have laughed.
Instead she cracked a slight smile, as given the towering location of the palace she'd have to be leaning half-way out the window for anyone to see her tucked up in that secluded corner.
"I take it you haven't heard what happened?" Yue politely asked.
"None of my business, if I haven't been told," the old woman muttered as she shuffled back to the closet to resign herself to lighting up some dried seaweed kindling in a brazier that was to her eyes fit for nothing.
The words hung in Yue's ear for a good, long moment. She looked back out the window, at first at the busy rush of warriors going this way and that across the canals and along the walls, but her gaze drifted back to the tombs.
They were low down, barely enclosed by walls and surrounded by a flat courtyard as if no one dared live or work within a hundred feet of them. The slanted roofs and domes were left snow-covered and unmanaged, with shadows that felt too dark to her in the bright sunlight. The only one that stood out was Koani's, with thicker, sturdier walls and a heavy door lined with warnings of what was now feeling like a very real curse.
"Nukka," she asked after a moment, "have you ever been to the royal tombs?"
There was a tiny pause in the commotion behind her.
"To the tombs, princess?"
"Yes." Yue kept her eyes on the view. "Especially Koani's?"
That brought a longer silence.
When Yue finally glanced back, Nukka was looking at her with mild surprise, but none of the judgment another woman might have worn. Yue was a princess. If she wanted to ask about reviled pirate queens and accursed burial grounds, then Nukka's job was certainly not to question why.
"Haven't been there myself," she said at last. "I know some who have."
Yue turned more fully. "Oh?"
Nukka nodded, and a little pride straightened her spine. "My older brother was a waterbender."
She shuffled over to Yue at the window again, and narrowed her eyes to probably not get that good of a look at the distant tombs given her age.
"Went there as a boy," Nukka said, voice lowering a little as if she was confessing a crime. "Him and all his rowdy friends—about your age—were always taking warnings like a dare." She gave a nervous chuckle. "They were told to stay clear of Koani's tomb in particular, so of course that was the one they went straight to."
Yue's fingers tightened on the window ledge.
"What happened?"
Nukka shook her head. "Just a big block in a dark room, they said. Stone and ice. Old carvings on the walls. Nothing to take to prove themselves. But they never went back to the tombs again."
She turned away from the bed now, clearly caught by the memory despite herself.
"All the waterbenders had horrible nights and exhausted days after," she said. "No sleep to speak of, and they got so paranoid they'd jump at anything. They swore nothing happened there, that they didn't 'mess' with anything." Her mouth pinched. "It was weeks before my brother could rest again, and even then, he… well, he needed to lose a bit of that wildness before he got himself in real trouble."
The room felt colder.
"He changed?" Yue asked.
Nukka nodded. "Well, he certainly got more polite with people. I don't know if I'd say it made him less brave. Maybe more cautious?"
"And the others? The boys who weren't waterbenders?"
"They all boasted about it like you'd expect," Nukka said with a dismissive sniff. "Said the benders were weakhearted and imagining things. But they didn't go back either."
Yue looked out the window again.
The tombs hadn't made a move. They sat in their allotted place, low and ancient and still. Yet the thought of them affecting waterbenders after over a thousand years made her skin prickle up both her arms, even under her fur-lined sleeves.
Perhaps that was why Koani's name had never been forgotten.
"Princess?"
Yue realized Nukka had asked her something and turned back too slowly.
"I'm sorry?"
"I asked whether you'd like tea."
Yue almost said yes automatically. The thought of sitting politely with a cup while something ancient uncoiled somewhere beneath the city and she found the idea unbearable.
"No, thank you."
Nukka bowed her head and took the nearby chair instead, perhaps deciding that if the room could not be improved further then she might at least make herself available in a properly reassuring shape. She folded her hands in her lap. For a few minutes there was only the faint crackle of the inexcusably filthy brazier and the distant muffled ruckus of the palace.
Yue thought through what happened again, forcing herself not to grind her teeth at the feeling of time running out.
Nagi had not wanted to emerge.
He didn't flee like he had a plan. Even the bite at Pakku, she realized, was less an assassination and more him lashing out in desperation. She tried to think of any clue she might have missed; there was clearly some vulnerability in the dragon spirit that had been exposed, as something kept him from simply taking everyone present down, even though the Avatar himself seemed powerless to thwart him.
Aang and Sokka had seen things no one in the Northern Water Tribe could imagine, by the unbelievable story they old, which now all felt blood-curdlingly true.
Yue sighed. She knew her father was making the sensible choice; honestly she felt a bit silly for trusting that little voice that was tugging on the cords of her being.
It was starting to feel distinctly like it was telling her not to look at the tombs…
But she was hardly in the mood to relax and let others handle it like old Nukka laid back so comfortably in the also imported Earth Kingdom style chair.
Yue found herself narrowing her eyes at the tombs' low decorative wall just beyond the pristine, nearly untread bridges over the surrounding canal, like if she could stop from blinking for long enough she might catch sight of a misty whisker or fang of ice.
It all felt very childish of her, and almost embarrassing, until something did happen.
She pressed one hand harder to the window frame, leaning out and silently cursing the overbright sun.
It was longer than a flicker, too real to be her imagination—something gliding where no one should have been, too dark and too smooth to be a passing guard, but like it knew she was watching and only let its shadow enter her field of view. The blinding light off the white snow forced her to finally blink her bright blue eyes, and it was gone.
It wasn't nothing.
She didn't even try to fool herself.
And despite the distant shouts and clatter of busy men all over the city below, an unmistakable sound seemed to echo from the tombs, drowning the rest as that silvery grey moonlight haze hit her again.
A long, distant screech.
Metal on metal, maybe stone or ice? It was thin and steady enough to belong in a jeweler's or metalsmith's shop—neither of which were even vaguely near Yue or the the tombs. She went perfectly still to listen. The 'voice' wasn't quite frantic—it didn't even feel directed at her specifically, but it was very insistent. It had no words, but there was no denying the meaning.
Get away from Koani. Far. Fast. Now.
The sound came again, but in a chorus now, like blades sliding down blades in the dozens. It wasn't coming from her people, whatever it was.
"Nukka," she said quietly.
The sleepy servant stirred in her chair. "Princess?"
"Do you hear that screech? Like metal?"
Nukka blinked. "Can only hear the fire crackle over here," she said with a rasp, and sank a bit further into her robes with a yawn. "If the noise is bothering you over there."
Yue was not surprised. She was used to being the only one that saw and heard strange things. But she still really, really didn't like it when it started…
Ringing.
Faint. Measured. Something was still prowling the decorated streets of the sacred tomb district, never showing more than a shifting shadow.
One-two, it rang, not simple metal on metal but almost ceremonial.
Pause.
One-two. A reverberating chime, something sinister but mystical.
Pause.
One-two. Maybe closer… by a bit.
One-two-three-four. Definitely closer by a lot.
Yue's mouth went dry, and she tensed up. It knew she was watching, it knew she could hear. It wanted her to hear. Her heart slammed in her chest. Tears collected in her eyes as she clutched onto the window sill. There was no one who would listen to her, but they should have started evacuating the city already!
Like heavy metal bangles, she thought at once. Thick circles of metal striking together, reverberating, like drums of war.
The screeching went on too, long and piercing and awful.
All she could do was listen. The room was grey, the sky lifeless, the stark white sun scouring the world like it hated joy.
One-two. Yue was desperate for someone to listen, to take her seriously…
Pause.
One-two—
"What a pretty little thing…"
The voice spoke from right behind her.
Not Nukka.
This one was lower, richer, and dangerous as a knife in the dark. Maybe the woman with the golden sword?! She wanted to turn, but the tone. Predatory. Amused. Ladylike but deeply possessive. And it felt like it bit the cold wind just to breathe it back out on her neck.
With hair raised and her very soul bristling, Yue wrenched herself around, despite wanting to just jump. She sucked in a breath like it would be her last.
Nukka sat in the chair by the little table, looking drowsy and perfectly ordinary in the expected pale blue the room ought to be. One wrinkled hand rested beside a small ornament made of ice, and with mild absentmindedness she tapped it once more with a fingernail.
The presence had vanished.
Nukka gazed her way, curious at her strange look of shock.
"What did you just say?!" Yue demanded, harsher than she meant to.
Nukka blinked twice, then looked down at the table as though only just noticing what sat there.
"Did…" She smiled gently, bewildered and apologetic. "I interrupt your thoughts?"
Her fingers tapped the little ornament again.
"It's a very pretty little thing."
Yue's pulse pounded in her throat.
She stepped closer before she could stop herself and looked down at the object on the table. At first glance it seemed nothing more than another piece of palace icework, one of the hundred small carved ornaments household servants set down and forgot. Then the details resolved.
It was not floral, or waves, or an animal or warrior, but something either unknown to her, or simply abstract.
It was a little cluster of thin, sharp blades thrusting up from a central knot, each little branch curved just enough to look deliberate, like it hinted at being a claw, but was wicked sharp enough that no sane person should have chosen it for decoration. Yue had seen its like only once before, less than an hour ago.
Behind Katara.
Her stomach dropped, and she yelped.
The guards outside the door heard, and instantly it cracked open.
"Princess Yue?" one called through the gap. "Are you all right?"
The voice was painfully not comforting.
"No—" she said, then caught herself. "I mean… I don't think it's safe here."
The chair creaked softly as Nukka sat up, sleepily wondering what the princess was on about. The two palace guards took no chances and barged right into the room, immediately looking around, then at her like they didn't dare call her crazy right off that bat.
"Dark spirits," Yue said, seeing the slight wisps curling off the dangerous little ornament. "Something horrible. I heard it. It's getting worse, we… we don't have much time. In the tombs, there's something in the tombs."
A brief silence met that.
Her face sank to pleading. "Please believe me! I don't think the dragon is the only spirit stalking the city! I—!"
Then the second guard, perhaps younger, raised a hand defensively and answered, "I trust your sense for spirits, Your Highness. We will inform your father."
"It won't be enough," Yue said, hating how thin she sounded. She drew herself up with a deep breath, but sagged and spoke quietly like she already knew it wouldn't be taken seriously enough. "I don't think anywhere in the city is safe. It might already be too late."
She snapped her hand over, too frantic to be polite, and grabbed the now steaming little ornament.
"Ow!"
Of course she cut her finger on it.
Yue scowled for just a moment, but held it up before the two men.
"It was in this room, I think it made this. A threat, maybe?" Yue explained as she rubbed her cut finger with her thumb. "I think she knows I'm trapped here."
The two men looked at each other in a way she really didn't like.
"Ah, careful," the older guard said. He didn't really sound dismissive, at least, but she didn't love it when he very reasonably went on, "The Fire Nation fleet is less than a day away, Princess. There is nowhere to flee to."
Yue closed her eyes. It was like she was being mocked by a monster that already knew she had no hope of escaping, but she had to do what she could.
"Please," she said. "Tell my father exactly. I am more sure than I want to be, but a dark spirit, maybe Koani herself, was just in this room with me." She held up the ornament and offered it until the younger man cautiously took it, and did seem at least curious about the strange mist. "Those who saw Katara and Master Pakku's fight, they'll know this, they'll know it shouldn't be here and shouldn't be… doing that."
The younger palace guard looked to the older like he needed permission, but neither looked sure what to do.
"You can't protect me from spirits with weapons," Yue insisted with a slow shake of her head. "I know you want to, and I'm grateful, but something horrible was here and you couldn't sense it. Please."
The older warrior gave a nod to the other.
"I'll find the Chief," the younger quickly said, and backed out of the room, a bit sheepishly like he didn't really mean it the first time.
"Send the first warrior you come across to replace your post, tell him it's Chief's orders if they argue," the older guard commanded.
With a nod, the messenger was away, and the remaining guard manned the door outside again, but…
Yue stood by the window with her hands clasped so hard they ached.
The tombs remained where they had always been.
But that ornament had not been there before.
Whatever had spoken to her wasn't even trying to be subtle. Yue hoped as hard as she could that it wasn't the ancient and terrible Koani, but it seemed naïve and stupid to believe otherwise. The warriors were still out there bolstering the walls, but the enemy was already inside.
Despite feeling trapped her whole life, nothing could have prepared Yue for the cage of dread she was in now. She wished she had insisted she be taken to the Moon and Ocean spirits. The thought had crossed her mind, but she had been so rattled!
"Yue."
She jolted with a tiny peep, not quite loud enough to stir Nukka or the guard.
The whisper was so soft it barely existed, but she knew it instantly. She glanced down, heart skipping at the thought that things would be bathed in grey again, but there was just a comically adorably proud smile aimed up at her.
Yue had been cold from crown to heel, but suddenly felt a rush of warmth. It was like the opposite and antidote for metal screeches and weird ringing and sinister voices, suddenly letting her breathe again.
He was awkwardly pressed up against the outer wall, squishing himself behind a decorative bit of architecture, and angling his face up in mild distress with his cheek getting progressively more stuck to the frozen outer wall.
"Yue?" Sokka said a little firmer. But then almost slipped and fell two stories as he slapped a hand over his mouth. "wait, can someone hear?" he hissed.
She leaned down fast, way out the window.
"Sokka, ah—!"
She was perhaps a bit woozy; it was such a relief to see him there. That she was tilting right over him, straight off her feet, went largely unnoticed by the princess.
"W-w-what are you doing—I didn't even ask yet?!" Sokka hissed in panic as he awkwardly pawed his hands up at her while she seemed to be falling.
Yue wasn't quite sure what was going on, or where she was going, but that didn't stop it from being down. She didn't even cry out, so lost and dizzy was she in that moment that she had to accept she'd just figure it all out later.
"So, I guess the answer is yes?" she heard in an almost accusatory tone from Sokka just beside her, where she suddenly felt very cold.
Yue blinked twice, and saw the bright blue sky above.
"...what?" she chirped.
"Goooood thing I piled this emergency snow, since you're so eager to sneak off and find Katara," he flatly went on. "I hope nobody saw us," he added in a whisper.
"Oh," she politely said. "I'm sorry."
Yue slowly sat up, finding herself on the thankfully pretty well out-of-sight terrace around the back of the palace. She looked up to the window.
"Did… I just slip?" she wondered, a bit shy as Sokka started batting snow off her hair and shoulders.
"If I knew you were gonna fall for me this hard I wouldn't have been so nervous about talking to you," he said with comical disappointment as she shook snow from his own head. "Not that I'm complaining. Are you dehydrated or something?"
"I should have had that tea Nukka offered," Yue smiled and politely nodded.
"So…" Sokka tried.
"Sokka! You're wonderful!" she suddenly blurted out, hopefully not too loud, and she lunged at him to wrap her arms around him without a shred of restraint.
He just kind of wobbled for a moment, about to faint too and take them down the next couple stories to his backup emergency snow pile, but he powered through out of sheer refusal to waste the moment.
Sokka hugged her back, practically lifting her to her feet by himself as she let herself go poiseless for just a moment longer.
"Ahh… hmm, yeah… you too…" he blissfully mumbled.
Yue pulled back with a beaming smile that utterly doomed him to die happy. "So you have a plan?" she happily asked.
"Wow. You get on the same page really fast, like I'm not sure that even made any sense, but yeah, I kinda have one?" he whispered, like this was all business as usual for his adventurous self. "Plan was to sneak off with you so we can go find my sister, slap the whiskers off that horrible dragon, and stop the bad guys from freeing Koani or whatever, and save the day and stuff?"
Yue stared at him for one long, blank moment.
He had said it all with impressive confidence, only to tack on a charmingly meek, "If that's fine with you?" at the end.
"Oh, yes! Very much so," she politely said and nodded.
As he led her gently down a narrow, nearly invisible staircase tucked in the shadows, like he trusted she knew what she was doing, something loosened in Yue's chest. By the time they made it down to the secondary emergency snow pile, and they ducked low behind it as boots sped by out of sight just below them, it was like a chain fell away that had been there her whole life.
He happily stopped and basked in her smile for a moment again as, just for a moment, the thought of running off with Sokka and never looking back drove out every inkling of terror from the coming catastrophe.
Sokka nodded her way and conspiratorially whispered, "so you can sense spirits and stuff, obviously. Can you find Nagi, or know how to stop him?"
The feeling that nothing could possibly go wrong faded, but Yue still kept her delighted tone as she hummed, "mmm-hmm! I know where to start. We should go see the Moon and Ocean spirits right away."
And she stopped him just before they rose again to grab his hands and repeat, really making sure he knew she meant it, "thank you so much for coming, Sokka!"
"I just hope I don't get you in trouble," he nervously said as he scratched the back of his head.
Her face instantly sank. "I wasn't safe in the palace," she stated with dread.
He paused for a moment, then waited for her to catch up after they dashed across a rarely used walkway at the back of the palace. "O-oh, that… sounds bad."
"I'll try to explain," she breathed out like the notion of merely thinking about it was daunting.