The Sea of Ice (Sun and Moon Book 2)

Chapter 1 - Dragon

One week before, Water Palace, Southern Water Tribe

I spin, sending an arc of glistening water through the air. Then I catch it and change it to ice crystals, sending them slicing into the ice dummies twenty feet away. They're dead. I smile, and scoop snow from the ground, forming it into ropes of water that I toss into the air. I drop, catching them with my feet, and spin on my hands. The water follows the path my body makes, spinning around beneath me then lifting me up on a pillar of water.

I send tendrils out to lift the dummies; I send the water trickling through them until they crack into pieces. Then I suck them up and drop, twirling through the air to form a small pool floating just above the ground. I crash into it and and whirl out the other side, sending the whole thing at the last dummy. It explodes into a million ice crystals, and I straighten, forming it all to snow and bringing it to rest on the ground again.

Then I lift three balls of snow, transforming only their centers to liquid, and whirl them around in the air. I spin them into crystal flowers and then join them into a shimmering waterfall. Then I gather them again and form an ice dragon in the air.

I saw it done at a festival once, with firebending, and it's only a few minutes before I've got it down and there is a shimmering blue dragon dancing circles around me.

I move, and it moves, and we dance together as the sun comes up, turning the whole practice circle to gold.

**__**

Sokka stood on a balcony overlooking the Water Palace, but he wasn't looking at it or the panoramic view of the rising sun.

He was looking down, into the small inner courtyard that abutted his sister's room. She was there, whirling and spinning and dancing with her water.

She spun and her ice dragon wrapped around her, lifting them both into the air, and for a moment the sun haloed them. The dragon was a real dragon, gold and red in the sunlight, and Katara was surrounded by gold fire. She rose her face to the sun, welcoming it with a smile as she unfurled her dragon's wings. And she stayed there, arms and wings open to the sun, a fiery princess in a land of ice and snow. She was beautiful, but to Sokka, it was just another example of how much she'd lied.

She looked like a wild thing, caught between the sun and the water.

As she was really caught, between her home and her husband. Her husband, whom she wouldn't talk about, wouldn't mention. Her husband, Zuko. The Fire Lord. Sokka's friend.

Sokka snorted.

Some friend.

Zuko had stolen his sister, and taken her happiness, too. And then he'd lied about it. For years. And he'd hurt Katara, that much was obvious. It made Sokka burn with anger. He knew that if he ever saw Zuko again, he would kill him.

Which is why Suki had made him return to the South Pole, instead of flying straight to the Fire Nation as he'd wanted to do, all those months ago.

Only he and Suki knew the truth about Zuko. And Sokka knew that, for the sake of peace, it had to stay that way.

But it killed him. Killed him.

Sokka lifted his eyes from Katara and her water dragon, glaring out over his city. Even the sight of the sun rising over the massive, sprawling Southern Water Tribe, a sight that he had often longed to see as a boy but had never imagined could happen, couldn't raise his spirits. He'd been like this for three months, ever since Suki knocked him out to keep him from shouting the truth to the world. Two days later they'd returned home, without Aang and Toph.

But every time Sokka looked at Lia, little Allia, his niece, his bad mood returned. Because she was a product of lies and deception, a product of hate that never seemed to go away, even so many years after the war had ended.

She was Zuko's daughter as much as Katara's.

What fate did that leave for the little waterbender? She was the Water Princess and the Fire Princess. She was the joining of two worlds, from a time when those worlds hated each other.

It made Sokka so angry that he thought he might kill something.

The Southern Prince was just beginning to contemplate the ways in which he could torture Zuko, when something caught his eye. He frowned and focused on it, yes, the City Gates were opening! But it was winter, no boats were coming or going, and the Gates were supposed to remain shut. Sokka dashed into his room and came back with his spyglass, and peered through it.

What he saw made him drop the glass, but he didn't even notice as the carefully made lens shattered.

He was too focused on the image in his mind's eye- the image of a hulking, furry, white thing lumbering through the gates of his city, its black hole eyes glaring at him.

______

Uh Oh! What is this strange monster?! AND WHAT DOES IT WAAANT?!

And what on earth will Sokka do if *gasp* Zuko comes to the South Pole.... 0.o

five coments and I'll update! And five votes too, think you can do that? :)

-Eon