masterghandalf

Chapter Seventy-Eight

We open with Zuko awakening dazedly; he finds himself underwater and just barely manages to blast away a leopard-shark with a jet of boiling water. He tries to swim up, bending ice around himself to further protect him from the leopard-shark. Zuko rises through the water, and eventually the leopard-shark vanishes, only for something else to appear in its place – something long, sinuous, furry, with massive teeth. He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s bigger than a sky bison, and seemingly intelligent enough to know there could be something edible inside the ice. Zuko realizes that if it wants to eat him, he’s dead. Suddenly, he realizes what the creature must be – a kadzhait. For a moment, he’s thrilled that water’s spirit animal isn’t extinct, and silently taunts Koh for failing to kill them all. Then he realizes that if this one really does want to eat him, it’s not just a kadzhait – it’s a sea serpent. And that’s very bad news. He realizes this is what got into Katara; she trained primarily as a combat waterbender, she trained fast, and she trained under Pakku. Apparently, Amaya has some choice things to say about Pakku – Amaya trains her students with the assumption that they know nothing about waterbending, but Pakku starts with his students as teenagers and expects them to already know the basics. Zuko thinks Katara never stood a chance. He also doesn’t expect anyone to come looking for him – he saw the look on Aang’s face and doesn’t think he’ll want anything to do with anyone who hurt Katara. Toph might, but she’ll never find him in the water.

Zuko admits to himself that the situation would have looked bad, especially to someone who couldn’t sense the kadzhait’s influence. He thinks his mistake was thinking like he was in the Fire Nation – Katara tried to kill him, he defended himself, and in the Fire Nation that would look like a fair fight that nobody with sense would try to interfere with. But Aang’s not Fire Nation – he’s the Avatar, and Zuko thinks that Teruko is right, and the Fire Nation can’t trust the Avatar, ever. Zuko tried to trust Aang, he’d hoped that Shiyu could teach him properly, and it nearly got him killed. It might still, but Zuko’s determined not to die – his people need him, and if he died, Toph would be sad, and angry. She might even find a helpful Fire Sage to drag Zuko’s ghost back, just so she could kick his ass for dying on her. Zuko won’t let that happen – he declares to the Ocean Spirit that the Fire Nation isn’t Zhao or Sozin, and if it wants him, it’ll have to take him. He is a son of fire, and he won’t surrender. First off, he needs to fix his ribs, and then he needs fresh water.

We cut to Zuko some point later, having managed to partially heal his ribs. He’s out of the water now and fully on an ice floe he’s created, and he separated out some fresh water to rinse his clothes. He thinks about how the sea doesn’t care if you live or die, but if you’re paying attention, you might survive it. He focuses on the rules of survival – fire, shelter, water, food. As a firebender and waterbender, he doesn’t think getting three of those will be hard, and he can navigate by the stars, but food could be a problem – of course, with the sea serpent out there, starving probably isn’t the immediate threat… We cut to Zuko later, still trying to figure out exactly where he is and how to get moving, while the sea serpent has begun rhythmically slamming into his ice floe and he has to keep reinforcing it. Zuko thinks about how he got blasted off the temple by an enraged airbender, but reminds himself that Aang isn’t here and thinks he can’t be that far out – the only question is, what current is he caught in now? He tosses some ice out into the current to test it and waits; the sea serpent, meanwhile, has tested all around Zuko’s ice floe and seems likely to try something new now. Suddenly its head appears directly below him as it starts waterbending to melt the ice. He manages to temporarily drive it off with a bolt of fire and thickens the ice, and after more observation realizes just what current he’s in. It’s pushing him north, towards colder, less dangerous waters. Eventually it will get him to treacherous northern oceans, but first it will take him past land. All he has to do is get to it.

We cut to Zuko later as the sea serpent surfaces occasionally to taunt him; he taunts it back, saying Azula was scarier when she was six. The serpent, enraged, claws at the ice; since Zuko can now tell where it is, he fires back with a blast of ice shards, drawing blood. He tells it to get lost, but the kadzhait doesn’t leave – Zuko thinks this isn’t normal predatory behavior and takes this as more confirmation it really is a sea serpent. Just as smart as a dark dragon, and just as dangerous – it doesn’t want to eat Zuko, it just hates him for being alive. Zuko thinks to himself that he’s alone – Toph would look for him if she could, but even though she can’t, the idea that she’s out there and that she cares spurs him on; he’s survived the ocean before, though not alone, and he can do it again. He taunts the sea serpent again and turns his back; when it attacks, he’s barely able to dodge the ice shards it bends at him, and hits back with a fire whip. The serpent tries to retaliate by spearing him on ice, but Zuko realizes it can’t perform the bending forms properly because it’s injured. He wonders what could have hurt a monster like this, and then it hits him – Aang’s blast managed to catch the serpent too, entirely by accident without even knowing it was there! The serpent blasts him with hate through the water, and Zuko can see some of its memories and realizes it was cast out of its pod for being a cannibal. He thinks it’s sick and stupid – even Azula knows better than to do something that blatantly evil. Did the serpent really think its pod would let that go?

Suddenly, something else starts dragging at the ice from below. Zuko doesn’t think the drowned have made it this far south, and he gradually realizes that they’re over a kelp forest. In the Fire Nation, kelp grows deep – if it can reach the surface from here, they must be in the shallows. He thinks that means he has a chance to find land, but the serpent realizes what he’s doing and starts shrieking at him for daring to hope and promises to kill him. Zuko centers himself as the serpent starts attacking, tearing and waterbending his iceberg away. He thinks it reminds him of Azula, but worse – Azula is cruel out of a desire for Ozai’s attention and approval. This sea serpent is cruel for cruelty’s own sake. Cast out from the usual social bonds of the kadzhait, sadism is all it has – Zuko realizes that it’s insane. Hating humans is all it has, and once it’s done with Zuko it’s going to keep hunting waterbenders and will keep attacking Katara and Aang. If it gets its claws in Aang, it’ll be Avatar Kesuk all over again. Zuko is left with the choice of either killing an endangered, spiritually significant creature or letting it corrupt the Avatar – he can almost hear Koh laughing. He realizes that his ice spears aren’t enough to penetrate its hide, and he’s too exhausted and his chi is too low to create very powerful firebending. But it’s also about to start raining, and his chi’s not blocked. He taunts the sea serpent, demanding its name, but it only tells him to die. It strikes his ice floe again as Zuko centers himself, finding calm, drawing on the energy in the building storm, gathering it together as dragons and the ocean clans once did – and then he lets it loose and thunder blasts the sea. We cut to Zuko in a daze, floating near the dead sea serpent. He can see shadows on the ocean as ships approach, and tries to make out the color of the sails…

We cut to Katara at the Air Temple, wondering how she can fix things. She thinks that she’s supposed to be the responsible one and worries that’s what got Zuko killed. She’s supposed to be the one who keeps Aang grounded and tells him what’s right – because determining right from wrong is hard, and Aang doesn’t do hard. She’d always taken care of the tribe’s younger kids, and when Aang showed up she fell into the same role with him. Now Aang’s with Appa, and Toph’s with a ghost, and Sokka… suddenly shows up behind her and asks what’s wrong. Katara breaks down apologizing, and Sokka assures her he’s not going anywhere. He says Toph’s dug into a wall, and Aang’s realized the tides must have washed Zuko out to sea. He wanted to keep looking, but then Shih showed up and said something about Kuzon and “faces turned away,” and now Aang looks like someone hit him with a boulder. Sokka says that it won’t be easy, but he’s still got Zuko’s maps – he thinks they can get Shiyu out of the Boiling Rock. Katara says she can’t go on like this; Sokka reminds her they don’t have a choice, with Ozai and Koh both still out there, and they have responsibilities. Katara thinks that’s how the sea serpent, which she still thinks is a spirit, got her – it twisted her sense of responsibility to make her think she had to protect the others by killing Zuko. She says he didn’t do anything, but he was looking at the prayer hall and acting like he cared Sozin had killed everyone – Sokka says Sozin didn’t kill everyone, since Kuzon and Temul got some people out, and Katara says she knows. And then she says he lied about being descended from Roku, but Sokka tells her that’s not a lie. Sozin and Roku were once best friends, and Sozin’s son married Roku’s daughter – the whole Fire Nation royal family are Roku’s descendants. Even Azula. Sokka wishes he’d said something earlier; he thinks he wasn’t able to protect the rest of them from Temul, just offer himself up as her target. Katara asks what he did, so he explains how Temul’s been haunting him and teaching him whenever they’re in or near the Fire Nation. Katara wishes that they could have stayed in Shu Jing longer and let Piandao himself train Sokka more, though she knows why staying in one place in the Fire Nation wouldn’t be possible. So now they have a cranky ghost following them around.

Katara asks if it was her or Aang Sokka didn’t want to know; he says it’s both, but he knows Aang doesn’t like problems he can’t bend out of the way. That’s also part of why he didn’t say anything about Zuko being a waterbender. The two of them wonder how that’s possible, and why Toph didn’t tell them, though it makes them think of how they tried to keep Aang from realizing what happened at the Southern Air Temple for as long as they could. Katara remembers Aang and Sokka playing airball – and how Aang felt better by walking all over Sokka, who couldn’t airbend and didn’t know the rules. He also humiliated Toph at the Earth Rumble by beating her with an attack she couldn’t see coming… and just now attacked Zuko when he was busy trying to save her from the monster in the water. Finally, Katara says Toph was right. She says Aang is used to being special, like she was. Sokka assures her she is special, just not perfect. He thinks Zuko would say that he’s not special, though – a Fire Nation prince stuck as a waterbender isn’t a good position to be in. How would Katara feel if she suddenly started firebending? Katara thinks she’d feel tainted, but Aang’s the Avatar – he’s supposed to bend all the elements. That makes him special. Sokka has told Aang he’s special because he’s Aang, not because he’s the Avatar, but Katara doesn’t think he believes him. Sokka thinks that Aang doesn’t want to believe that – if being Aang, not just being the Avatar, is special, that makes him different, and the Air monks didn’t handle “different” well. He thinks he never asked if Zuko could waterbend, and Zuko never brought it up, and they just sort of agreed not to talk about it. He thinks he should have known better. He thinks of all the spirits they’ve run into so far, and how worried he was that this time they were going to lose Katara. Katara thinks about how she stole the Painted Lady’s name, and how it was a mistake, and she didn’t mean to – but it still had consequences. She wonders if the spirits care at all, and Sokka thinks they do, sometimes, even if they’re not always good at showing it. And he does think Kyoshi showing up at Chin Village and telling the truth about what happened didn’t really help.

Sokka thinks that some spirits just don’t get humans and need the Avatar to help them; he wonders what Hei Bai would have done if Aang was still frozen or living on a remote island like Roku. Aang is used to being lucky and always showing up at the right place at the right time – but how many people are like Zuko and just aren’t lucky? Katara reminds him that he says a real warrior doesn’t depend on luck, and Aang’s not a warrior and doesn’t want to be. Sokka thinks maybe Aang has to be better – if he doesn’t want to kill anyone, he can’t rely on luck. Or does he think Ozai will stand on the edge of a handy cliff that will solve the problem for them, like Chin did? Katara thinks that might be best for everyone, but finally admits that for Aang, that would be the easy way out. She thinks Aang’s just a kid and shouldn’t have to do something this hard, but Sokka thinks maybe that’s why he has to. The Avatar can’t take the easy way out. If Aang did and started lying to himself about it, where would it stop? Katara asks if Sokka can stop lying, and he finally admits what he’s been dancing around – Temul adopted him. Katara thinks that Hakoda can march right up to Temul and tell her to back down, and if she’s a good teacher, she’ll be wise enough to listen. Katara does think it’s a good thing Temul’s been training Sokka more in swordfighting, but she’ll still yell at her later. Katara admits that she wanted this to be like a story, the Avatar coming back and saving everyone. But it’s not a story, and they’re all just people trying to do the right thing and screwing up. Sokka says that Piandao told him that in a fight, you don’t have time for perfect – you just have to survive, even when things are unpredictable. That’s what they’re trying to do. Right now, they have to break into the Boiling Rock to save Shiyu. Katara’s not sure they can do it without Zuko, but Sokka promises they can make it work, and he doubts there are any angry water spirits in a volcano…

We end with an author note. A/N: I feel compelled to add an obligatory "don't try this at home". I've tried to do the research, but I am not a survival expert.
Of course, if you do end up in the middle of the ocean with a giant killer-whale-type-critter telepathically messing with your head and trying to eat you... I'd say, use whatever you think will work.
The discovery of tropical kelp forests is fairly recent; people thought they had to grow in cold water. Only a few years ago did someone theorize they could grow in deeper warm water, and start looking. And found them, off the Galapagos and other places.
...And FF ate the darn page address formatting. Sigh. Search on ScienceDaily for kelp, you'll find it.

MG’s Thoughts

This chapter… I actually mostly liked! Zuko having to survive at sea is overall a well-done sequence, with the addition of the sea serpent as an appropriately creepy monster to further raise the stakes and Zuko getting a genuinely cool moment when he figures out how to kill it. It’s still not adequately explained what the thing is doing here in the first place, though – even Zuko admits it’s supposed to be extinct – and it can’t help but feel like a swipe at Katara that she’s not properly trained to deal with such a creature, while Zuko is. And, uh, am I the only one a little weirded out that the human connection that keeps Zuko going during his ordeal is with Toph and not Iroh? And it’s kind of a big leap of logic to go from “Aang intervened when he thought he saw someone attacking his best friend/love interest” to “the Fire Nation just can’t trust the Avatar.” But taken by itself, I still say the sequence works. The Katara and Sokka conversation I mostly like, as we actually get characters baring their souls for each other in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s there to drag one of them down (even if I don’t agree with all the takes on the characters, it makes some sense for them to be thinking this in this context with Zuko’s accidental “death” on their consicences). And with Katara we at last have someone with an appropriate reaction to Temul “adopting” Sokka (though Sokka still leaves out how she literally changed his soul as part of the bargain). On the other hand, it can’t help but feel like we’re getting some Aang bashing as his actions playing airball with Sokka and beating Toph at the Earth Rumble are portrayed in the worst possible light (and I mean, Toph seemed to have felt she adequately got back at him for that by the end of her introductory episode). And I can’t help but notice that for all the fic has railed against “fairness” over much of it, it’s suddenly very concerned that Aang wasn’t fighting fair, or that he intervened in a “fair” fight between Zuko and Katara… one can’t help but feel there’s a double standard at play here. And it’s a bit rich to say that Zuko probably doesn’t feel he’s special when he’s a dragon child/yaoren/fire healer/prince/great name/reincarnation of a famous person/etc. Still, overall this chapter is probably the most I’ve enjoyed the fic in a long time.