attackfish

The iceberg reminded Zuko of a volcano, soon after an eruption, like the capitol caldera in frosted miniature. The steamer bobbed in the water next to it like a warship in harbor, making him feel like a giant as they scrambled out of it and up the iceberg face. At the top, Katara pointed down into the ice crater, and Zuko leaned down to look, but all he could see was a hairy mound. For a moment, he wondered if that was the real reason the Water Tribe siblings had brought him here, to be eaten by this thing. Then he saw the arrow on the beast's forehead. He had seen paintings of this thing, in the scrolls he had read so obsessively during his quest. A sky bison, frozen and dead. Zuko leaned further to get a better look. One smooth soled boot slid on the ice, and he slid down into the pit.

Right into the frozen body of a child.

Zuko didn't scream. The sound that came out of him was more of a strangled croak. Carefully, he turned the inflexible form over, and his hand brushed the boy's face. Zuko shuddered. He looked like he could have been frozen moments before, but Zuko could see the hundred years pass. He jerked his hand away. "Aang," he breathed.

Katara sat down on top of the ice wall. "Who?"

Putting the hand that had just touched the child Avatar to the side of his own head, Zuko started to shake. "The Air Avatar before me."

"I can kind of see the resemblance," Sokka said. Katara smacked the back of his head.

"How do you know?" she whispered.

"I just know." The words were almost too weak to emerge. Zuko wanted to curl up in the snow and hide.

Katara pushed off the ice wall and slid into the belly of the iceberg. "You really don't want to be the Avatar, do you?" She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

He shoved her away from him. "Don't touch me!"

"Hey!" Sokka yelled, grabbing for the boomerang Zuko's soldiers had taken away. "Don't push my sister."

Zuko bared his teeth at both of them. "Then she shouldn't touch me."

Determinedly, Katara stretched her hand out again and grabbed his shoulder. "You said... You said you were hunting the Avatar. What were you supposed to do with him when you found him?"

Zuko swept her hand away. "I was supposed to take him back to the Fire Nation," he muttered, hunching over, one hand on Aang's lifeless chest. "Where he would be locked away, so he could never interfere with the Fire Nation conquest."

There was so much more to it than that, the chains that would pin the Avatar in place so he couldn't bend, the drugs that would leave him barely conscious and helpless, the way he would be kept alive as long as possible so he couldn't be reincarnated. It wasn't something he had ever liked to think about. He shivered in his Fire Nation armor and his own Fire Nation skin.

"We aren't going to let that happen to you," she told him. "My brother and I will keep you safe.

"How do you think you're going to do that?" Zuko sneered. "Why don't you just run back home to your parents? If neither one of you is the Avatar, I have no reason to keep you around."

"Don't be stupid." Katara glared at him. "What are you going to do, go back to the ship and turn yourself in?"

"You don't be stupid, Katara!" Her brother hung one-handed to the top of the ice wall and tried to snatch hold of her wrist. "He told us to go, and we're going. I just want to get back to the village, and-"

"The world needs the Avatar." she said, cutting Sokka off. "I can't let you just-"

"Get on the steamer," Zuko snapped.

Katara's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Get on the steamer!" he yelled. "I'm taking you to your village."

Katara didn't move. "What are you going to do with Avatar Aang?"

Zuko thought about how he was finally going home, even if it was just to be locked away. "I'm taking him to the Southern Air Temple."