The hidden passage was supposedly very new, carved through the glacial ice by Master Pakku himself, but by design it looked like a naturally formed, millennia-old death trap for only the dumbest boys from the South Pole to get wedged inside.
The entrance was a deceptive seam that reflected light in just a way to look too small for an adult, while in reality it was absolutely still too small for an adult on the inside. Sokka flat out refused to give up his spear before entering, which turned out to be the right choice when he and Yue came across a wider gap with a collapsed pit that definitely wasn't meant to be there.
Yue had both hands flat to the dimly lit ice wall and a nervous smile hiding considerable terror as Sokka took his best running step in the slightly more open space to spear-vault over the fairly shallow but pitch black craggy hole.
"Hup!" he emitted as he tucked up his knees and wobbled in a worrying arc. "Whoa-whoa!" he mildly panicked when his toes missed the far ledge on his first try.
"Eep!" Yue insisted, then sighed when he stabilized.
"You ready?" he immediately asked as he circled the butt of the spear around from where it was still jabbed straight down into the ice.
Yue looked less than delighted, but quietly said, "I'll do my best."
"I can catch you from this side, it'll be way easier for you," he encouraged her as he gently pushed the spear to tilt back her way.
She did at least catch it without fumbling, and looked down at that black crevasse, knowing it was only about six feet down at the deepest part, but she really didn't want to fall in there and get stuck.
He saw her hesitating, so stayed completely upbeat and said, "Just throw your whole weight into it, I'll catch you for sure! I'll probably fall over backwards, but you'll be fine!"
"Ahhh…" she began, not sure how reassuring that was, but she steeled her resolve all at once with one very serious exhalation.
And she went for it.
Knees tucked up just like Sokka had done, she gripped the sturdy blackwood shaft and hoped she wouldn't suffer the embarrassment of it snapping on her arc. Practically before she could register she was mid-air, she felt his hands on her shoulders.
"Nailed it!" he announced, even as he slid back and kicked up bits of ice.
But he didn't fall, which preserved a little dignity for her too.
"Oh, wow." She blinked, and looked back as Sokka scrambled to get his hands on the spear before she accidentally let it tilt back out of reach. "I really did it," she quietly said to herself.
"Fantastic, let's—" Sokka started as he hoisted up the spear. "Aww, dang it."
They both stared at the spearhead, which was now rather bent into a very handy shape if you wanted to use it to pull something off the roof, but not so great for stabbing fire hurling madmen or ghost dragons.
Sokka gave a distant and slow gaze back down the narrow passage they had already traversed.
"There'll be lots of replacements delivered soon… I guess," he breathed out. "Maybe Raven'll let me borrow spear of doom, that probably won't bend."
"Oh?"
"Assuming she's not trying to kill us this time," he muttered.
"O-Oh."
They were both quieter than the passage required as they sidled through a deep blue gap powdered with tiny white fractures; the palace noises were well out of earshot, and only the faintest watery echo could be heard trickling somewhere behind the walls.
Yue carefully edged along, one soft boot feeling for purchase before the other. "It widens again soon," she whispered. "And once we reach the far side, the Spirit Oasis is just across a small courtyard."
Sokka, currently flattened sideways in the passage and trying not to scrape his face off on the wall, grunted. "Great. I hope the Moon and Ocean spirits appreciate effort."
Despite everything, they both smiled, actually just happy to be jammed in a freezing crack together for a moment of grueling peace and quiet. But silence couldn't last with so much on their minds.
"This is," Sokka said with shame, voice muffled by the angle of his own body under the lowest of ceilings, "a really bad substitute for a date."
Yue gave him an unreadable look, especially with her head also angled hilariously.
"What?"
"Just saying," he said very quietly, and somehow completely failed at sounding nervous about it. "I was planning on asking you on one—ya know, before a spirit dragon ate my sister."
Sokka was delighted to get through the low part and straighten his neck again, then 'helped' Yue through mostly by getting the heck out of the way.
"Squeezing through ice holes towards possible death is less ideal than, I dunno… a walk? Lunch? Lunch would've been nice," he went on with exasperation.
He was double delighted, however, to hear her giggle, and he would have paid to see the smile she gave if he had to.
It was still a little astonishing that he had come for her. He had really climbed up to her window, smiling like a fool in the dark with his cheek freezing to the palace wall, and simply decided that of course the princess should escape with him. The thought kept trying to warm her from the inside, even with the city in crisis and something ancient and wicked stirring all around.
"I think they can help," she said, serious again. "Tui and La, I mean. I do not know how. But if any spirits in the world would listen… it would be them."
Sokka made a low, thoughtful sound. "Yeah. New plan falls apart too without them."
"New plan?"
"Well, it was basically, uh…" he started, and turned in the dim blue light to raise up his hands and flail his fingers in mock panic. "Aaaaah! Yue help! Aaaaah!" he breathily whispered.
They both saw what looked very much like direct sunlight after another step, and crouched while motioning for her to as well.
Before she lost the chance, Yue quickly insisted, "climbing to my window to rescue me is better than a date, by the way!"
Edging along the jagged ice wall, Sokka slowly peeked with one eye open around the corner, but instantly sank.
"Dang it, not there yet. It's just a hole in the stupid ceiling."
"Oh, it's alright, it's not much further," Yue relentlessly encouraged, but her lips tightened after, and her voice caught.
"Hmm?" Sokka glanced back.
Yue paused. Sokka was still looking back at her, and she gave him the oddest, most quizzical look, like she had to piece together that he was acknowledging more than her words.
"Something wrong?" he tried.
"Oh, maybe…" she instantly trailed off, like she was very ready for a lot of disappointment. She had to think for a solid moment as they crept along before she said, "I'm not sure it's a good idea to speak of… dating."
Sokka stilled.
"What?"
Yue lowered her eyes as her boots scuffed to a halt on the shattered ice. "I… I am betrothed."
There was a small, horrified pause.
"Betrothed?" Sokka repeated. "To who?" He twisted just enough to see past her shoulder, like her mystery suitor would be back there. But he jerked upright, and his face dropped all at once regardless. "Wait. It's not Hahn, is it?"
Yue only nodded.
They moved on, ducking under another low jagged hunk, and despite the foul news he gentlemanly reached up to help her hop down a rather slippery slope he had to correct himself on in a very close call to smashing his nose. He couldn't seem to maintain eye contact as he awkwardly turned around to keep going.
"Sorry," she breathed, barely audible.
That got him to look at her for a moment, enough for both to become self-conscious, but she faltered first.
"What?" Yue asked.
He grimaced. "Not sure I should say it. It's kinda mean—er, not to you."
Yue, pretending she was still dusting bits of frost from her fur collar, gave him a level look. "Please speak your mind."
Sokka let out a long sigh through his nose, and it was at that moment that he got good and wedged in a corner he was sidling around, and had to yank his foot hard enough to pull his boot halfway off.
"Ow."
She was still looking at him all insistently—positively ruthless, she was.
"Alright, well… Hahn seems even dumber than I am," he said. "He seems really likely to just… charge headlong at firebenders and… ya know… not necessarily have as long of a day as the rest of us—not that we aren't doing something stupid and risky too."
Yue stared.
He lifted both hands at once. "I did say it was kinda mean."
"Yeah…" Yue began automatically, and she was glad to be squishy enough compared to him to pop through the tight corner with less issue. The floor finally leveled, and the passage inclined naturally through clear old ice streaked with trapped white air—beyond the recently waterbent tunnel—and they felt the frigid breeze before they saw the brighter sunlight. He paused there, probably the last chance they'd have to speak casually for a while, or maybe ever.
But the words still died in her tightened throat.
The tall pale ruthless woman in a crisp uniform. Her golden jian wreathed in spiritual light. And… Hahn's face blackened and ruined before she could scream.
He looked at her profile. "Yue? Sorry if—"
She waved at him dismissively. "Mmm-mmm," she shook her head, and swallowed.
He gave her the moment she needed, and again it felt so bad how much she liked it, but it still worked.
"I did try to warn him," she said. "About his overconfidence. I'm not upset at what you said, I'm upset you're right and I couldn't—he wouldn't listen."
That was vague enough that it might have passed anyone else, but Sokka was scanning her so closely it made her cheeks blush from her typical warm almond to a scandalously medium chestnut.
He squinted at her. "Wait. Something weird happened," he truthfully stated. His voice dropped lower. "Did yooouuu… have a spirit vision of Hahn tripping and falling on his spear or something?"
Yue looked up in outright surprise.
"How did you—?"
He gave a tiny shrug, like it was obvious.
For one ridiculous second, Yue laughed, despite the horror.
"You keep doing that!"
"Doing what?"
"Guessing things!" she replied, a mix of delighted and annoyed. Then her face fell again. "I… did have a vision, though," she admitted. "It was horrible. I don't think Hahn deserves that, but… he did not listen to me… at all."
She hesitated, then gave him a look she hadn't meant to let show. At first it was intensely guilty, then desperate and distant like she was certain he thought she was out of her mind.
Sokka continued being a princess whisperer, however.
"Yue," he started, and took her hand in both of his. "I've seen some really, really crazy things in the last couple weeks."
She looked hopeful, at least.
So Sokka went on, "Aang came out of an iceberg. We were accosted by Raven's closet goblin. Raven stopped trying to kill Zuko—that's the most insane thing I've seen in my life. And, of course, my sister barfed up a dragon and then it ate her, but you know that." He shrugged again, softer this time. "I am so totally onboard to accept that the magically beautiful princess has special spirit visions."
Yue stared at him.
"Magically—?" she tried.
"I said what I said," he quickly retorted, and puffed up a little. "And I'm sticking to it."
She looked the least bit pained, and her smile weakened a hair.
Sokka clenched his teeth and muttered, "Unless it offends—"
"No," she stopped him. "I'm… not used to smiling this wide, my cheeks hurt," she weakly added like she thought she was pathetic.
He didn't need to say anything. Sokka was so obviously pleased that he was fully prepared to die happy twice, and he'd just met the requirements for the first happy death an hour ago.
They had to go silent after that, with the blinding white of sun on snow hitting them out in the secluded but far more open and visible courtyard. And, of course, there were footsteps out there.
Yue instantly cringed and huddled up against Sokka, who largely fumbled with his bent spear to keep it out of sight.
The courtyard outside the hidden passage wasn't small, but more tucked out of sight than Sokka expected, which would be a relief if it were unoccupied.
Sokka and Yue crowded closer and lower than needed, as bright sun flashed off the snow, making everything around them so blinding and bright that they were invisible in the slit of shadow. The palace side of the door, which two warriors were unfortunately climbing all over, struck Sokka as oddly quaint, simple and confusingly tiny for such an important place, and it felt old and ancient compared to the city beyond that was practically a work of art.
"What fool left it unlocked?" one of the men hissed, sounding to be in no mood whatsoever. "Chief said lock down every approach."
"Good we checked," the other muttered. "Just chain it, I'll get some young warriors to keep watch back here."
They crouched at the round door and worked quickly, one hauling a thick iron chain from where it had been left looped very neatly on a hook.
"Worst timing, guys," Sokka whispered with irritation, but sounded a bit hopeful as he added, "Doubt it was broken into, though."
"Hmm?"
He glanced at Yue. "A spy or whatever wouldn't know to put the chain away like that, right?"
"Hmm," Yue agreed, and just basked in how delightfully perceptive Sokka was.
The warriors fed it through two metal rings bolted to the door. The chain scraped and clinked in short ugly sounds that made Sokka loathe the notion of needing to mess with it soon. His whole body sank as he saw the sheer substance of the only mildly rusty padlock one warrior hefted from out of sight. It snapped shut with a metallic clunk that carried so well that Sokka felt he probably could have heard it from home.
"Why," he muttered. "Why this moment…"
But when he looked to Yue, she had a maddeningly calm little smile as she elegantly reached one hand into her luxurious sleeve, and procured a bulkier key than he ever would have guessed she had stowed up there.
Sokka's stare became a wide smile.
Yue's became the tiniest bit smug—perhaps an order of magnitude less than what Katara would have displayed.
And the warriors were already moving again, both glancing around with their gazes not so much as flickering on the way past the skulking teens, and with a mighty jerk of their chins, they were speeding off for the palace again.
Sokka and Yue waited, but just two breaths, as they knew they had precious little time for many reasons.
They burst from the passage together.
Sokka got to the round door first like he was ready for an ambush, and instantly regretted the clank of just poking the chain, and the absolute warning gong of a racket it would make if they dropped it. Yue slipped in beside him, swift and composed even while under stress, and got the key into the rusted padlock like she'd drilled for it.
It clicked.
Sokka caught the padlock before it could swing, jaw clenching and eyes wide as she stared at him, her mouth open and mouthing, 'oops!'
There was thankfully a conveniently spared pile of snow he could lower the lock to, and as he carefully put it to whisper-quiet bed, Yue cracked the door open just enough to let them both slip through.
The speed and coordination felt like a tremendous shared victory.
They both vaguely bobbed with joy at each other in silence, for just an instant.
Warmth met Sokka's face when he followed right after Yue like she'd shown him its secret hiding place. Right after, he couldn't quite register the sight before him: a lovely grassy island ripped right out of the tropics and placed at the bottom of a narrow but majestically towering waterfall.
On the north pole.
Around the island where blinding, murderous cold should have been: natural dark rock curved up all around the cove instead of carved ice, wet with silver light and veined with perfectly happy moss. The steady ribbon of pouring water made oddly little noise as he reverently approached, chasing after Yue's silent steps like an extra set of prints would be blasphemy, and they followed one of two narrow, natural rock walkways around a small, warmth emanating lake. Over a tiny wooden bridge, he saw more than just grass—flowers and shrubs, a few cozy trees, an ancient archway, a circular pool that looked important, and Katara lay beyond.
Sokka stopped so hard his bent spear nearly pitched him into Yue, as it took her an instant longer to see his sister there. Both managed not to make a sound.
Any urge to rush to her side was quelled by the low, thick, unnaturally swirling mist that bent and pulled the taller grasses like it was breathing. For one terrible, heart-stopping second he focused on her still form, and released his breath when he saw her back rise slightly, then lower as small pale puffs came from where her mouth ought to be.
He held strong to the thought that his sister was very probably still alive.
Yue looked from Katara to Sokka with a tense, helpless expression that said as clearly as words: I have absolutely no idea what to do.
He looked back at her like he refused defeat, and he nodded along the hopefully not slippery edge of the grassy island, hoping Yue also felt foolish enough to simply inch around the dragon and sister that couldn't seem to make up their mind of which is eating the other.
Then they both started wildly gesturing.
Yue pointed at the second bridge, looping her finger around to suggest coming from the other side. Sokka tensely flailed a hand towards the door in warning they had no time, then at Katara for unclear reasons. She successfully flailed at the pond, which let him know it was the goal. Both pointed and shrugged at things incoherently a moment longer, enough to have made it halfway around the safer approach, before Yue looked ready to downright pout, so Sokka took her hand in both of his to get her full attention—which definitely worked.
Sokka resolutely pointed at Katara, his gaze deadly serious as he made a cautious, cartoonishly creeping two-finger walk with one hand in her direction. With the other hand he made a looming mouth, then snapped it over the little walking fingers in a deathly silent act of self-predation.
He pointed at himself just to make it very clear.
Then at Yue, to whom he mimed finger-walking very fast back toward the exit.
Yue failed not to pout, at least visibly, but nodded. Unfortunately, she completely understood.
Sokka swallowed, hitched his bent spear a little higher under his arm like it might somehow be useful to him out of pity, and he started creeping along the edge of the island to make a quick check if it would result in death. He stood perfectly still for a moment, nearly to the opposite bridge, and made one long lurching step closer to the pond as if each footfall had a chance to provoke Nagi.
It didn't. They hoped.
Yue hurried after, one hand lifted as if she needed to be ready to politely dismiss the entire scene from happening in an instant.
Katara did not move… very much?
The mist around her drifted and settled and puffed with each inhumanly deep breath, but neither she nor Nagi responded as they crept up to the pond's edge, which had the slightest wisps of the dragon's form gliding down into it.
They reached it, and Sokka gripped his spear tight, expecting Nagi knew full well they were there and was waiting for them to be too close to escape. When Yue didn't move at all, he finally looked to her. Her eyes were darting around, like she'd lost something, and all he saw was the smooth surface of the perfectly still water.
Yue was suddenly gesturing like she was trying not to explode. She pointed at the pond, then with both hands open like she couldn't believe it, her face so tense it didn't look like she was breathing. Her eyes were glassy with a panic so immediate it went right through him from head to toe, and when it was obvious the empty pond would be of no service to anyone, he took her wrist, and gently tugged to bring her back to relative safety.
He kept his eyes aside on her as he made sure she didn't trip in her trembling state, and she just stared wide-eyed ahead as they hurried back across the safer bridge. Yue took one last almost hateful look back at whatever had distressed her so, which was shocking to see on her kindly and patient face.
That was when Katara shifted.
It was slight. Barely more than a drag of shoulder through grass. But it was more than the little puffs before, and the sound… hideously wrong and gruff, but hollow and straining too.
Katara's whole arm twitched… and she clawed the grass with suddenly tense fingers.
Sokka and Yue looked at each other once, then bolted.
No strategy, no resolute silent exchange, nor a hint of determination. Boots pounded down the side path, they both flailed on stumbling missteps a number of times, at least having the decency to grab and tug each other back up. Through the little round door and back into the thankfully empty courtyard they sped with all the dignity of bunnies stuffing themselves in a burrow side-by-side, and it made more than a little racket, unfortunately.
Having already made way too much noise, Sokka flung the chain back in place, Yue swiveled around in place—momentarily of use to no one—and when she finally produced the key, they heard a commanding voice from the far palace end of the narrow courtyard.
Both panicked and slapped their hands this way and that all over the padlock, only for Yue in her mindblowing terror and stress to fumble the key so badly neither even saw which way it went as it slipped from her fingers, but they heard a ker-plunk! that simply did not bode well for much.
Both stared gape-jawed at the deep, narrow canal along the wall by the door, until there was a clunk from the far end door, so Sokka simply snagged Yue with both hands anywhere he could find purchase, and nearly flung her like luggage towards the hidden, snowblinded secret tunnel.
Yue landed more or less on her feet, windmilling in a way unfit for a princess, but as far as they knew they both made it out of sight before they heard younger chatty voices of teenage boys approaching.
They did not stop burying themselves deeper in the natural part of the icy tunnel until the courtyard light was merely a pale crack at their backs.
Only then did Yue whirl on him, hands clutched at her chest, and she absolutely freaked the fuck out as quietly as she could.
"The spirits are gone!"
Sokka's eyes widened. "Did the dragon eat them?!"
"No!" Yue said at once, then caught herself and lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. "No, they're not dead. We would know. Everyone would know—the whole world would feel it."
Sokka's face drained.
Yue swallowed hard and went on. "The pond is supposed to be a gateway. A place where our world touches the Spirit World." She shook her head, still not wanting the words. "I think Nagi's presence frightened them so badly they fled our world entirely! I-I—"
Sokka's teeth clicked. He had no strategies whatsoever pertaining to rescuing spirit koi from otherworldly realms, so could only look to her, hoping for more. She tilted her head back and forth in some painful train of thought.
"We have to get him out of there," she said. "We have to. If the spirits do not come back soon, imbalance will still spread. Maybe not all at once like if they were dead, but…" Her eyes lowered. "It will happen."
Sokka rubbed both hands over his face, groaning.
"So," he whispered into his palms, register rising.. "That sounds bad. But… how bad? Exactly?"
"Our waterbenders would be powerless!"
Sokka slowly nodded.
"That's pretty bad."
Yue went still, and he looked to her with a hopeful, beckoning smile.
"Oh," she said.
Sokka dropped his hands. "What?"
Yue did not answer him at first. She was looking past him, not seeing the passage at all anymore. She even gazed back down the secret tunnel towards the front of the palace.
"The spiritual feeling," she said slowly, mostly to herself. "The one telling me to run. It wasn't meant for me."
Sokka blinked.
Yue's expression shifted into awful understanding. "I thought something was warning me away from Koani. But I was just… feeling what they were feeling." Her hand tightened against the wall. "Tui and La were the ones desperate to escape. I think maybe…"
For one second all Sokka could do was stare at her, but he ducked low to catch her falling gaze to utter, "Yeah?"
"They didn't run from Nagi. They ran from her. She's… but the dragon… I…" and she trailed off into a silly, hopeless smile. "I don't understand what's happening at all, don't listen to me. I-I'm so very sorry, I never should have brought you here." she timidly admitted.
Then his own mind lurched into motion.
"No, we needed to know that," he said. "This is a piece to the puzzle. We're missing something, but this definitely helped, Yue."
Yue looked very touched, but shook her head almost immediately.
"I don't know…" She frowned hard, but perked up again slightly, "Maybe you're right."
Sokka gripped his chin as his mind chugged at full steambender. "This wasn't part of the Arzayan plan, remember? Nagi's maybe improvising something after Katara and Master Pakku stubborn fooled him out of hiding, we just don't know for what."
Yue looked up at him, more resolute as her poise returned.
"Nagi is there to feed," she stated.
"Feed? On what?"
"The spiritual energy of the place. He was reaching into the pool, where our world and theirs overlaps." She swallowed. "I believe… that he cannot remain in the mortal world forever. Not anymore. If he could, he would not have hidden inside Katara in the first place."
Sokka's grip tightened on his bent spear.
"So he's trying to stay longer," Sokka pondered, tapping his fingers along the spearshaft. "And if we cut him off, by like, moving Katara further away… we'll starve him out of her?"
"Yes!" Yue's eyes flicked back toward the crack of daylight. "He's trying to last long enough for something."
That sat between them in the narrow blue cold for a moment, heavy and shapeless and terrible. Then the too cheery voices of boys out in that courtyard became too loud for comfort and they ducked under another unpleasantly low dip in the ceiling.
Sokka was the first to breathe again.
"We have to tell Aang," he breathed, but very resolutely. "He dispersed Nagi before, at least for a bit. He can stun him long enough for us to get my sister out of there, and him out of her."
Yue gave the tiniest, bleakest nod.
"It's something, at least," she said with resignation. "I want to say we should just go out and get back faster, but… my father is very agitated after… what happened. He might lock us both away without listening."
Sokka shrugged, assuming she knew better than him, and they both resigned themselves to the unpleasant journey back through the tunnel.