TRIAL BY FIRE [SOKKA]

i.

i. a glimmer of hope from the depths of ice

SO long ago it was almost hard to remember, Kazuya's tawny skin had glowed liquid copper. She once had a prevalent and somehow permanent sparkle - a bounce in her step, as she wandered down the streets and thanked the baker for her free pastry on the way to school. In the Fire Nation, she remembered, there had always been a certain highlight to her features - the warmth of the immortal flames had blushed her cheeks and made her night-fall colored hair shimmer more of a coffee-brown. And, she remembered, she had loved the warmth - there was nothing Kazuya loved more than to sit beside the first; to feel the heat radiate within her body; to feel her skin hum. She thrived in it; she came alive in the comfort it provided to her. Fire soothed her, and Kazuya wasn't blind to the irony: that unforgiving, harsh flame - scorching heat capable of so much damage - tranquilized her.

And now, she thought with a huff of icy air, warmth is but a distant speck. It was a laughable past; too painful to think of. In the South Pole, it was fleeting and dim. She thought there was no warmth - no true warmth. Just the frigid air and the chill wind, blowing through her garments and nipping at her skin. She could see every breath she took, creating a thin cloud as her hot breath mingled with the freezing air. The waters of the South Pole was everything she despised - lifeless, chilling and stark. The only thing to see were the blindingly white glaciers and the bountiful cold sea. It was nothing like the warm, bustling capital of the Fire Nation.

She wondered if it would have been easier had she been a better bender. She had been yet to master her chi; and if she had, she could have been kept comfortably warm by the immortal fire within herself. She had tried; Kazuya had spent years trying to master it. But no matter how much General Iroh explained it to her, it was too difficult to understand; too complicated to learn. She hated it.

But Kazuya had nothing else to try, and so she took a deep breath in and tried to picture all the air gathering in her lungs; she pictured its energy flowing through her - flowing through her blood, pumping her heart and circulating her energy. But when she exhaled, she felt nothing.

She tried to remember what Iroh said, but it was strange; different than what she was taught. He said that Firebending came from inner power; from overwhelming force and willpower. He said it came from her chi; her energy - what fueled her desires and came from her breath. He always emphasized the breath, and its importance.

Kazuya frowned, and she tried again; she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and trying her best to picture warmth; to picture the energy flowing within her, but when she exhaled she shivered and resorted to rubbing her biceps with her palms.

She hated the fact that she didn't understand it. Firebending came so... easily to her; it was second nature. She hardly had to think. Besides, at the Royal Firebending Academy for Girls, she had been taught that firebending came from rage; she was taught to fuel everything that had ever angered her to create magnificently powerful blasts. And so she didn't understand how fire; such a dangerous, raging element, could come without anger. Fire was angry in itself; it was deadly and antagonistic.

And her breaths felt too soft to possibly fan the flames; as she sucked in a deep breath and exhaled through her mouth, she tried to the energy circulating through her body with her blood - pumping her heart and reaching her brain. She tried to imagine it warming her fingertips, but they still were left numb and chill in the stark cold, even beneath her thick hide gloves.

Kazuya tried not to think about how miserable she was, as she leaned against the rail and stared out at the waters. She had never dealt well with boredom before, and she thought that traveling away from home would mean adventure. An epic journey that she had been recruited for - to search for the Avatar. She waved at a penguin-seal they passed, but it stared blankly back at her. Their endless sailing was nothing like what she expected.