"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My uncle used to tell me stories about the old days, how the four...
Book One: North (ATLA+SOIAF+More?)
- Thread starter lordnyx
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 9
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 1
-
Statistics (1 threadmarks, 3.1k words)
User Total lordnyx 1 Threadmarks Reader mode
lordnyx
Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
- Location
- Milky Way Galaxy, Sol System, Earth
"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My uncle used to tell me stories about the old days, how the four nations once lived in harmony. How everything changed once the Fire Nation began its journey. How the exploration flotillas brought back news of a land far to the west populated by all manners of strange tribes of humans and beasts. He told me the stories of a land cloaked in years long frozen winters and blistering summers. Of the mighty Northmen and their old gods, their trees of silvery bark and blood stained leaves, of the vicious Andals and their new seven headed god, of the ever planning Rhoynar or Dornish and their lands of sand and fire. He told me of its great conquerors that once ruled seven kingdoms on dragon back and wielding magics long since disappeared. Nobody has seen the Targaryen for a dozen years, they say the last of that line in the west was wiped out by the rebellion. That the Night has grown long indeed and there comes a time when the world must stand united (again) or fall into endless chaos and darkness. I am Prince Zuko and I still believe that this world can be saved so my sister, my companions and I search for the last of the Targaryen."
Book One: The North: "The Northern Tribes"
The darkening dusk of day 1101 of the search for the last Targaryen by Azula and Zuko
"We should start back." Urged their guide as the woods darkened around them. "The Wildings and Targaryen are dead."
"Truly? Do the dead frighten you?" Princess Azula asked with a slim trace of a smile as she urged her mount forward.
Hakoda said nothing as their beasts jockeyed for position on the icy trail. He had plied these woods for decades, seeing countless fire nation groups come and go. "Dead is dead. You have no business with the dead."
"Are they dead? What proof do you have?" asked prince Zuko.
"Bato saw them, if he says the wildings are dead that is proof enough for me."
Bato sighed he knew he would be dragged into their quarrel sooner or later. He wished it had been later, much later over a steaming cup of seal-turtle soup back at camp. "My grandnam told me that dead men sing no songs."
"Our wet nurses said the same thing. Don't believe everything you hear. There are things to be learned even from among the dead." Azula voice echoed, much too loud in the dusky forest.
Hakoda frowned and switched to a different tactic, "We have a long ride before us, seven days maybe eight. The night is falling."
Azula snorted and glanced at the sky with a look of feigned interest. "It does that every day around this time. Are you unmanned by the dark Hakoda?"
Bato palmed his face, through his gloved fingers he could see the tightness around Hakoda mouth, the anger as it flashed through his eyes underneath his hood. Hakoda had spent two long decades as an associate of the Night's Watch, and he was ill accustomed to being made fun of by those not of his kin. Yet there was more than wounded pride, Bato could almost taste it, a thick air of anticipation and nervous tension ran through the air between the group.
Bato had shared much of the lonely vigil with his friend helping defend the lands to their south from all manners of raids by both those men that made the lands beyond the great Wall their home and worst things. Things from stories only ever told in well lit rooms on the brightest days of the year. Bato could tell his friend was nearing the cliff of outright terror the further they ranged from the fire nation camps, Hakoda and he were veterans of hundreds of scoutings and patrols, the haunted woods were suppose to hold no true terrors anymore yet tonight something felt different. Worse than even that first bowel loosening scouting all those years back. There was an edge to the silent darkness that made his knees shake and him clench the reigns of his mount ever tighter.
They had been riding for ten days now, north and northwest and then north again, farther and farther from the fire nation camps at the base of the Wall, hard on the track of a sighting of a silver haired fellow hidden among the wildings that made their homes here. Each day had been worse than the previous, today the worse of all, a hard bitter cold wind blew in from the north making the skeleton trees all around them rustle like living things, angry and bitter at their passersby. All day, Bato had felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as if some unseen force had been watching them, something cold and implacable that did not abide those that trespassed through its woods. Bato felt nothing more than to turn tail and ride back to the safety of the camps but he would not leave his best friend nor their charges and kept his worries to himself.
Specially charges such as these, Princess Azula and Prince Zuko were the eldest daughter and son of the ancient line of firelords though last he heard their uncle and his son were hale and healthy the world was ever changing and they would be needed if the rumors were true. Bato stole a glance, Azula was a whip sharp youth of sixteen, brown eyed and of low cunning. A firebending prodigy she was one of the few that could still summon fire without a proper source having existed beforehand in these strange lands and though Bato had yet to see it, it was alleged that she could even summon lightning to strike down her foes. Zuko meanwhile was a determined and passionate youth of eighteen, similarly brown eyed though much crasser than his sister. While not nearly as gifted as his sister, he still required previous lit fires to work with but his mastery of his dual blades were a sight to behold though the ragged scars across his forearms suggested the mastery had not always been so complete. They both wore well traveled black leather boots, black woolen pants, tuffs of badgermole skin gloves and fine supple silk black and red robe over a gleaming ringmail coat.
They had been dispatched to search for the last of the Targaryen some three years ago and had torn after false lead after false. Bato felt that their search was futile, why would the Targaryen not have revealed themselves by now? By the spirits why would they hide away in the frozen north beyond the Wall? Surely they were all dead and buried, their light extinguished. Bato shivered, it was not his place to judge and if they wished to waste their time and effort then he was honor bound to help keep his friend safe.
Hakoda sneezed before riding forward to try and speak to Zuko, "That last village was deserted, and the one before that. Something has got the wildings spoked or dead. They know these woods even better than Bato or I if they don't want to be found then they shalln't. There is more useless days of hard riding before us if we continue like this. I don't like this weather. If it snows, we could be stuck in some frost bitten caves for days and it could take weeks to get back, and snows the best we could hope for. Ever see an ice storm, my prince?"
Zuko appeared not to hear him, so intent he was in studying the gathering gloom of nightfall. Hakoda sighed, shaked his head and turned back to Bato. "Alright tell me again what you saw and leave nothing out."
Bato hucked a loogie before recalling his scout reports again, "Saw a wilding camp about two miles out that way over the ridge and pass a frozen stream. Got right up close I did, saw eight I did both men and women. Saw no little ones at least, they had put a lean to up against a rock. The snow has well and truly covered it by then. There was no fire lit, but the pit was plain as day. Not a soul moved the entire twenty minutes I waited and watched. Not a living man or women has lain so still for such a time."
"See any blood?"
"Well no."
"Weapons?"
"A few swords, a bow or three. One man had a double bladed axe. Heavy and cruel looking, lying right besides him."
"How were the bodies positioned?"
"A few sat against the rock, most scattered around the ground. Fallen like a bunch of possumchickens after a slaughter."
"Or sleeping." Azula suggested.
"Fallen and dead." Bato insisted. "Ah yes I saw one woman up an ironwood, halfway hidden in the branches. A far scout. I made sure she never saw me. When I moved closer, I saw she wasn't moving neither." Bato shivered.
"Have you caught a chill, Bako was it?"
"Bato, and some my princess, tis the wind."
Azula nodded, and turned to Hakoda. "What do you think might have killed them?" asked Azula almost causally.
"The cold." Hakoda said with certainty." These men and women ain't benders they couldn't start or keep a fire going and simply froze to death. I've seen it occur all too often around these parts. The chill creeps up on you, at first you shiver and teeth chatter, you stamp your feet and dream of warmer pastures and a hot meal." He shakes head and softly mutters. "It burns, but only for a time. Then it gets inside and fills you up and after a while you don't have the strength needed to fight it. It quickly becomes easier to just sit down and go to sleep. Tis said there ain't no pain towards the end. First you go weak and drowsy and everything fades and then tis like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Almost peaceful like." He shudders. "Spirits damned way to go."
Azula frowned, "Have you seen the Wall, this past week?"
"Aye princess?"
"How did you see the Wall?"
"Weeping." Hakoda palmed his face, of course. "They couldn't have frozen could they? No, not if the Wall was weeping. Tis not cold enough."
"Indeed. We've had a few light frosts this past week, and a quick flurry but surely nothing fierce nor cold enough to kill full grown men and women. Clad in furs and with shelter nearby to boot."
Azula smile was wicked indeed. "Bato lead on, let us see these dead men for ourselves."
Bato groaned silently to himself but there was the order and he was duty bound to carry it out.
Bato went in front, his smaller polar bear dog picking her way carefully through the undergrowth. A light snow had fallen the evening before, hiding plenty of small stones and roots just waiting to trip them up. Next came the princess and prince on their giant shaggy mounts, while impressive she was surely the wrong type of mount for this kind of forest and in the rear Hakoda silently muttering to himself a small prayer of safe travel.
The gloom deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep dark purple, the color of an old bruise, then faded to black. The stars begun to arise, a full moon arose. Bato was grateful for the light.
"We can make better pace than this surely." complained Azula when the moon had fully risen.
"Not with this mount." chided Bato his growing dread had sapped his courtesy. "Perhaps you would like to take the lead?"
She declined to reply.
Somewhere an owl hooted as a wolf howled in the moonlight.
Bato pulled off to the side of the trail and dismounted, Azula quirked her eyebrow in a question.
"Best to go rest of the way on foot, tis just over that ridge."
Azula paused, stared off into the distance before nodding once as a cold wind flowed through the trees.
"Something is very wrong here." Muttered Hakoda.
Azula simply smiled. "Oh? Do go on."
"You can't feel it? Listen to the darkness."
Azula cocked her head, listening before smiling again wider than before. "The Night is dark and full of terrors. I think is how it went?" She gracefully slid from the saddle, handed the reins to her brother and descended from her mount, a small puff of snow spread outward as it caught her. Standing upright she stretched and her hand burst into a warm blue flame. "There now we have some light. Now show me your dead men Bato, Zuko would you mind helping Hakoda guard the mounts? I would so hate to be left alone out here without ZoZo and he is such a dumb dumb. And Zuko no fires, if there are enemies in this woods we surely don't wish to alert them to our presence."
Zuko glared at his sister before nodding his understanding as he too slipped from the saddle and made ready to feed and water their mount. "Yip yip" he muttered.
Azula nudged him and Bato began to thread their way through the thicket, then start up the slope to the low ridge where he had found a vantage point that showed the entire wilding camp beneath a large sentinel tree. Underneath the thin crust of snow, the ground was damp and mud filled, slick footing. The hidden stones and roots adding an extra hazard. Neither of the weary travelers made a sound as they moved ever upward. As they crested the ridge and looked into the small valley Bato heart threatened to stop, the frozen stream, the half snow filled fire pit and the snow covered lean to were all there as he had remembered but where were the bodies?
Azula padded besides him, took the valley in at a glance and then she whispered, "Your dead men seem to have moved camp, Bako." She smiled, "We seem to be on the right trail after all. You best be getting up in that tree and see if you can spot anything be it ice or fire."
Bato tour his eyes away from the erie valley and nodded. He went to the tree and began to climb, soon enough his hands were sticky with sap and countless crushed needles and icy pickle of fear pierced his gut like an ill stewed sea prune soup and he silently prayed to the guardian spirits of the forest for protection and enlightenment. Down below he heard a hiss glancing down he saw the blue fires of his companion. Azula and Bato peared into the woods each taking a sudden intake of breath as they saw them. The Others made no sounds. Pale shapes began to glide through the woods. Turning their heads they glimpsed white shadows in the darkness. Then they were gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching like frozen wooden fingers. And the cold, it was so cold all of a sudden and then they saw it as it stepped into the camp. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as freshly fallen snow. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as fresh milk, there it was as black as shadow, everywhere it drappled with the deep grey-green of the trees and here and there were patchmarks of reds as of the weirwoods leaves or perhaps the tattered remains of fire nation uniforms. The patterns ran like moonlight on frozen waters with every step it took.
The Other bent down suddenly. The axe! It grabbed the crude bits of iron and twisted it from its snowy grave. Bato let out a breath it hadn't come for them, it had simply come for the remains of the camp. In that moment Bato shifted his weight and the tree suddenly crackled beneath him as the freezing sap readjusted to his position, a blind panic came over Bato as the Other turned towards his hiding place, its pale blue eyes shined in the night air as it searched and began to move towards them. One step, two.. "Hoot!" Bato nearly jumped out of his skin as the snow owl he had briefly heard before made its call only a few feet above him. The Other stopped in its tracks and waited after another hoot from the owl it seemed to be satisfied and quickly withdrew into the woods.
Bato waited, five then ten minutes after the disappearance of the Other before finally making his way downward. He was nigh immediately dragged downward into the snow.
"Did you see it?" Asked Azula.
"The Other? Yeah I thought we done for when it started towards us."
Azula smiled and pressed her lips together, a very convincing owl hoot suddenly radiated a few feet above his head. "That was you?" stammered Bato.
"I have picked up many talents during my journey across the lands. Though even I am surprised that ventriloquism would be one that would save us from monsters from beyond legends. Certainly a story to tell uncle." Azula gave one last glance at the valley camp and even she seemed to shiver as she turned away, "We should head back. I am sure my brother has grown quite worried and we have much to discuss."
The journey back was dark and longer than their ascension as Azula waited until they had reached the woods to relight her hands not wishing to alert the wood inhabitants of their presence. They made their way carefully back towards the camp when Azula stopped him at the thicket as she cocked her head, she whispered. "Do you hear that?"
Bato shook his head, he was tired, weary from the frightening things he had seen and all together not in the mood for games. "What?" he nearly shrieked his nerves having been frayed so, "I hear nothing." He frowned that couldn't be right.
"Exactly, polar bear dogs are not exactly quite beasts even when asleep. Something isn't right."
A renewed sense of dread awoke in Bato's chest as Azula nodded and extinguished the light again as they slowly crept up to their own camp. As the moved forward, the winds shifted and Bato could immediately tell Azula had been right to be vigilant, he smelled the telltale signs of burnt meat...
Book One: The North: "The Northern Tribes"
The darkening dusk of day 1101 of the search for the last Targaryen by Azula and Zuko
"We should start back." Urged their guide as the woods darkened around them. "The Wildings and Targaryen are dead."
"Truly? Do the dead frighten you?" Princess Azula asked with a slim trace of a smile as she urged her mount forward.
Hakoda said nothing as their beasts jockeyed for position on the icy trail. He had plied these woods for decades, seeing countless fire nation groups come and go. "Dead is dead. You have no business with the dead."
"Are they dead? What proof do you have?" asked prince Zuko.
"Bato saw them, if he says the wildings are dead that is proof enough for me."
Bato sighed he knew he would be dragged into their quarrel sooner or later. He wished it had been later, much later over a steaming cup of seal-turtle soup back at camp. "My grandnam told me that dead men sing no songs."
"Our wet nurses said the same thing. Don't believe everything you hear. There are things to be learned even from among the dead." Azula voice echoed, much too loud in the dusky forest.
Hakoda frowned and switched to a different tactic, "We have a long ride before us, seven days maybe eight. The night is falling."
Azula snorted and glanced at the sky with a look of feigned interest. "It does that every day around this time. Are you unmanned by the dark Hakoda?"
Bato palmed his face, through his gloved fingers he could see the tightness around Hakoda mouth, the anger as it flashed through his eyes underneath his hood. Hakoda had spent two long decades as an associate of the Night's Watch, and he was ill accustomed to being made fun of by those not of his kin. Yet there was more than wounded pride, Bato could almost taste it, a thick air of anticipation and nervous tension ran through the air between the group.
Bato had shared much of the lonely vigil with his friend helping defend the lands to their south from all manners of raids by both those men that made the lands beyond the great Wall their home and worst things. Things from stories only ever told in well lit rooms on the brightest days of the year. Bato could tell his friend was nearing the cliff of outright terror the further they ranged from the fire nation camps, Hakoda and he were veterans of hundreds of scoutings and patrols, the haunted woods were suppose to hold no true terrors anymore yet tonight something felt different. Worse than even that first bowel loosening scouting all those years back. There was an edge to the silent darkness that made his knees shake and him clench the reigns of his mount ever tighter.
They had been riding for ten days now, north and northwest and then north again, farther and farther from the fire nation camps at the base of the Wall, hard on the track of a sighting of a silver haired fellow hidden among the wildings that made their homes here. Each day had been worse than the previous, today the worse of all, a hard bitter cold wind blew in from the north making the skeleton trees all around them rustle like living things, angry and bitter at their passersby. All day, Bato had felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as if some unseen force had been watching them, something cold and implacable that did not abide those that trespassed through its woods. Bato felt nothing more than to turn tail and ride back to the safety of the camps but he would not leave his best friend nor their charges and kept his worries to himself.
Specially charges such as these, Princess Azula and Prince Zuko were the eldest daughter and son of the ancient line of firelords though last he heard their uncle and his son were hale and healthy the world was ever changing and they would be needed if the rumors were true. Bato stole a glance, Azula was a whip sharp youth of sixteen, brown eyed and of low cunning. A firebending prodigy she was one of the few that could still summon fire without a proper source having existed beforehand in these strange lands and though Bato had yet to see it, it was alleged that she could even summon lightning to strike down her foes. Zuko meanwhile was a determined and passionate youth of eighteen, similarly brown eyed though much crasser than his sister. While not nearly as gifted as his sister, he still required previous lit fires to work with but his mastery of his dual blades were a sight to behold though the ragged scars across his forearms suggested the mastery had not always been so complete. They both wore well traveled black leather boots, black woolen pants, tuffs of badgermole skin gloves and fine supple silk black and red robe over a gleaming ringmail coat.
They had been dispatched to search for the last of the Targaryen some three years ago and had torn after false lead after false. Bato felt that their search was futile, why would the Targaryen not have revealed themselves by now? By the spirits why would they hide away in the frozen north beyond the Wall? Surely they were all dead and buried, their light extinguished. Bato shivered, it was not his place to judge and if they wished to waste their time and effort then he was honor bound to help keep his friend safe.
Hakoda sneezed before riding forward to try and speak to Zuko, "That last village was deserted, and the one before that. Something has got the wildings spoked or dead. They know these woods even better than Bato or I if they don't want to be found then they shalln't. There is more useless days of hard riding before us if we continue like this. I don't like this weather. If it snows, we could be stuck in some frost bitten caves for days and it could take weeks to get back, and snows the best we could hope for. Ever see an ice storm, my prince?"
Zuko appeared not to hear him, so intent he was in studying the gathering gloom of nightfall. Hakoda sighed, shaked his head and turned back to Bato. "Alright tell me again what you saw and leave nothing out."
Bato hucked a loogie before recalling his scout reports again, "Saw a wilding camp about two miles out that way over the ridge and pass a frozen stream. Got right up close I did, saw eight I did both men and women. Saw no little ones at least, they had put a lean to up against a rock. The snow has well and truly covered it by then. There was no fire lit, but the pit was plain as day. Not a soul moved the entire twenty minutes I waited and watched. Not a living man or women has lain so still for such a time."
"See any blood?"
"Well no."
"Weapons?"
"A few swords, a bow or three. One man had a double bladed axe. Heavy and cruel looking, lying right besides him."
"How were the bodies positioned?"
"A few sat against the rock, most scattered around the ground. Fallen like a bunch of possumchickens after a slaughter."
"Or sleeping." Azula suggested.
"Fallen and dead." Bato insisted. "Ah yes I saw one woman up an ironwood, halfway hidden in the branches. A far scout. I made sure she never saw me. When I moved closer, I saw she wasn't moving neither." Bato shivered.
"Have you caught a chill, Bako was it?"
"Bato, and some my princess, tis the wind."
Azula nodded, and turned to Hakoda. "What do you think might have killed them?" asked Azula almost causally.
"The cold." Hakoda said with certainty." These men and women ain't benders they couldn't start or keep a fire going and simply froze to death. I've seen it occur all too often around these parts. The chill creeps up on you, at first you shiver and teeth chatter, you stamp your feet and dream of warmer pastures and a hot meal." He shakes head and softly mutters. "It burns, but only for a time. Then it gets inside and fills you up and after a while you don't have the strength needed to fight it. It quickly becomes easier to just sit down and go to sleep. Tis said there ain't no pain towards the end. First you go weak and drowsy and everything fades and then tis like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Almost peaceful like." He shudders. "Spirits damned way to go."
Azula frowned, "Have you seen the Wall, this past week?"
"Aye princess?"
"How did you see the Wall?"
"Weeping." Hakoda palmed his face, of course. "They couldn't have frozen could they? No, not if the Wall was weeping. Tis not cold enough."
"Indeed. We've had a few light frosts this past week, and a quick flurry but surely nothing fierce nor cold enough to kill full grown men and women. Clad in furs and with shelter nearby to boot."
Azula smile was wicked indeed. "Bato lead on, let us see these dead men for ourselves."
Bato groaned silently to himself but there was the order and he was duty bound to carry it out.
Bato went in front, his smaller polar bear dog picking her way carefully through the undergrowth. A light snow had fallen the evening before, hiding plenty of small stones and roots just waiting to trip them up. Next came the princess and prince on their giant shaggy mounts, while impressive she was surely the wrong type of mount for this kind of forest and in the rear Hakoda silently muttering to himself a small prayer of safe travel.
The gloom deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep dark purple, the color of an old bruise, then faded to black. The stars begun to arise, a full moon arose. Bato was grateful for the light.
"We can make better pace than this surely." complained Azula when the moon had fully risen.
"Not with this mount." chided Bato his growing dread had sapped his courtesy. "Perhaps you would like to take the lead?"
She declined to reply.
Somewhere an owl hooted as a wolf howled in the moonlight.
Bato pulled off to the side of the trail and dismounted, Azula quirked her eyebrow in a question.
"Best to go rest of the way on foot, tis just over that ridge."
Azula paused, stared off into the distance before nodding once as a cold wind flowed through the trees.
"Something is very wrong here." Muttered Hakoda.
Azula simply smiled. "Oh? Do go on."
"You can't feel it? Listen to the darkness."
Azula cocked her head, listening before smiling again wider than before. "The Night is dark and full of terrors. I think is how it went?" She gracefully slid from the saddle, handed the reins to her brother and descended from her mount, a small puff of snow spread outward as it caught her. Standing upright she stretched and her hand burst into a warm blue flame. "There now we have some light. Now show me your dead men Bato, Zuko would you mind helping Hakoda guard the mounts? I would so hate to be left alone out here without ZoZo and he is such a dumb dumb. And Zuko no fires, if there are enemies in this woods we surely don't wish to alert them to our presence."
Zuko glared at his sister before nodding his understanding as he too slipped from the saddle and made ready to feed and water their mount. "Yip yip" he muttered.
Azula nudged him and Bato began to thread their way through the thicket, then start up the slope to the low ridge where he had found a vantage point that showed the entire wilding camp beneath a large sentinel tree. Underneath the thin crust of snow, the ground was damp and mud filled, slick footing. The hidden stones and roots adding an extra hazard. Neither of the weary travelers made a sound as they moved ever upward. As they crested the ridge and looked into the small valley Bato heart threatened to stop, the frozen stream, the half snow filled fire pit and the snow covered lean to were all there as he had remembered but where were the bodies?
Azula padded besides him, took the valley in at a glance and then she whispered, "Your dead men seem to have moved camp, Bako." She smiled, "We seem to be on the right trail after all. You best be getting up in that tree and see if you can spot anything be it ice or fire."
Bato tour his eyes away from the erie valley and nodded. He went to the tree and began to climb, soon enough his hands were sticky with sap and countless crushed needles and icy pickle of fear pierced his gut like an ill stewed sea prune soup and he silently prayed to the guardian spirits of the forest for protection and enlightenment. Down below he heard a hiss glancing down he saw the blue fires of his companion. Azula and Bato peared into the woods each taking a sudden intake of breath as they saw them. The Others made no sounds. Pale shapes began to glide through the woods. Turning their heads they glimpsed white shadows in the darkness. Then they were gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching like frozen wooden fingers. And the cold, it was so cold all of a sudden and then they saw it as it stepped into the camp. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as freshly fallen snow. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as fresh milk, there it was as black as shadow, everywhere it drappled with the deep grey-green of the trees and here and there were patchmarks of reds as of the weirwoods leaves or perhaps the tattered remains of fire nation uniforms. The patterns ran like moonlight on frozen waters with every step it took.
The Other bent down suddenly. The axe! It grabbed the crude bits of iron and twisted it from its snowy grave. Bato let out a breath it hadn't come for them, it had simply come for the remains of the camp. In that moment Bato shifted his weight and the tree suddenly crackled beneath him as the freezing sap readjusted to his position, a blind panic came over Bato as the Other turned towards his hiding place, its pale blue eyes shined in the night air as it searched and began to move towards them. One step, two.. "Hoot!" Bato nearly jumped out of his skin as the snow owl he had briefly heard before made its call only a few feet above him. The Other stopped in its tracks and waited after another hoot from the owl it seemed to be satisfied and quickly withdrew into the woods.
Bato waited, five then ten minutes after the disappearance of the Other before finally making his way downward. He was nigh immediately dragged downward into the snow.
"Did you see it?" Asked Azula.
"The Other? Yeah I thought we done for when it started towards us."
Azula smiled and pressed her lips together, a very convincing owl hoot suddenly radiated a few feet above his head. "That was you?" stammered Bato.
"I have picked up many talents during my journey across the lands. Though even I am surprised that ventriloquism would be one that would save us from monsters from beyond legends. Certainly a story to tell uncle." Azula gave one last glance at the valley camp and even she seemed to shiver as she turned away, "We should head back. I am sure my brother has grown quite worried and we have much to discuss."
The journey back was dark and longer than their ascension as Azula waited until they had reached the woods to relight her hands not wishing to alert the wood inhabitants of their presence. They made their way carefully back towards the camp when Azula stopped him at the thicket as she cocked her head, she whispered. "Do you hear that?"
Bato shook his head, he was tired, weary from the frightening things he had seen and all together not in the mood for games. "What?" he nearly shrieked his nerves having been frayed so, "I hear nothing." He frowned that couldn't be right.
"Exactly, polar bear dogs are not exactly quite beasts even when asleep. Something isn't right."
A renewed sense of dread awoke in Bato's chest as Azula nodded and extinguished the light again as they slowly crept up to their own camp. As the moved forward, the winds shifted and Bato could immediately tell Azula had been right to be vigilant, he smelled the telltale signs of burnt meat...
This will be a tale of what happened if Sozin found out about *spoilers* and instead of conquering the east/various nations decided to turn west instead. And in doing so the fire nation happened upon the land of the seven kingdoms of the song of fire and ice and stuff started to happen.