Prince Seokjin stood at ease, feet shoulder width apart and arms loosely clasped behind his back. He was in the bowels of the ship, watching as Adarshini copied some of the air bender moves on the scrolls he managed to recover.

She seemed to be a bit miffed at the forms, and there was an awkwardness to her movements. Then again, she had never been able to use her element on its own. She was used to precision and control, and not having to do that was an adjustment.

Nonetheless, she managed to figure out each form fairly quick, and after testing out different strengths and amounts of control she worked it out for herself. It was fascinating to watch. It was almost as if she had to learn backwards, and now the simplest of things were what gave her trouble.

“Do you know what temple your family came from?”

“My mother came from east one,” she mumbled.

A thin smile grew across his face before he managed to hide it, shaking his head. The children of monks never went to the same temple as their parents, so not being from the Southern Air Temple was a good sign. “There are no captured air benders in the Fire Nation fleet.”

She paused, shoving her hair out of her face. “So I am an… exception?”

Seokjin paced the span of the room, deep in thought. “We didn’t have this problem until recently. There was no way to control an air bender. Air Nomads had no attachments to manipulate, so regulation was to kill them on sight. Now though, if there are air benders left I no longer think they have that culture. Your own family broke it to create a family unit, something air benders do not historically do. I will have to talk to my father about this once I tell him about you.”

Darshi frowned, placing the scroll against the wall. “You haven’t told him about me yet?”

“Why do you think we’re hiding?” he nearly snorted. He had the master water bender executed just to make sure he kept his silence. He had to handle this with care.

“I’m not sure.”

Seokjin turned, pretending to watch the coals burn as they fed his ship. “Do you know about energy flow?”

It was one thing he could actually help her with. He might not know anything about air bending, but he understood chi and keeping inner balance. He wasn’t the best at it, but his skills as a fire bender more than made up for it.

“I don’t think I need any help in that aspect.” She hesitated before asking, “Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”

“I’m not helping you,” he said, voice detached. “I’m helping the Fire Nation. Once you’re properly trained I believe you will be formidable, and you have yet to take over the Northern Water Tribe for me.”

It seemed she had forgotten all about that.

“I hope you’ve come up with a titillating battle plan,” he commented mildly. “We’ll be there within a week.”

Seokjin left her knowing she would be down there for a while. He told his men only to go in that room during certain hours. He pulled the scroll out of his sleeve, going over it again.

He’d asked a scholar in the Earth Kingdom for some information on Monk Adar, going under the alias Jin. It was a common enough name that it would not give him away. He was sent two scrolls. One was filled with information he already knew, but the other….

He was pleased.

It told him the two males that came from Monk Adar went onto become great benders, although not as good as their birth father. In fact, they were the reason why it took much longer for the Eastern Air Temple to fall, beating off the first attacks that fell the other ones. For the daughter, not much was known about her. She was a child when the eastern air temple fell and had been assumed dead. She was actually a surprise. Monk Adar decided at a late age to try once more for a child to give the air temples and succeeded. A few years later he passed from a health complication while doing a strenuous air bending move.

It wasn’t definite, but Adarashini had confirmed her family was from the Eastern Air Temple. Her name itself was not traditional at all. Monks did not give such long, complicated names without reason. Her mother may have known about the tradition of keeping Adar, as she had it in her name and she’d placed it in her daughter’s too.

It was all the confirmation Seokjin needed.

From the cliff Namjoon could make out a smattering islands too small to make into villages. When the group had rowed passed them he had barely seen any animals on them, let alone people. He winced as the smell of pine wafted to his nose, an unfamiliar scent. They didn’t have too many trees at the North Pole, mostly birches that made more of a visual impact than anything. It was why so many buildings were made out of ice. In the South there had been something the native water tribe called larches. They looked similar to pine trees, but had smell of grass intertwined in them too.

Prince Namjoon of the Northern Water Tribe was at a loss.

More than half of the Southern Water Tribe decided to go with him, leaving only the elderly unable to safely make the trip and a few warriors that volunteered to stay until Namjoon could send a safer boat to retrieve them. There were no babies to worry about, both a good and bad thing. Good, because he wasn’t certain someone so young would survive the journey; and bad, because it told him exactly how badly off the Southern Water Tribe was. The last child that had been born was three years old. To compare, a day didn’t pass in the Northern Water Tribe without someone celebrating a birth.

None of his southern brother’s and sister’s seemed to trust him, not that he could blame them. He had ignored them as their issues worsened. The fire bender in particular could not stop making biting comments at him.

A fire bender.

He had figured out himself how that happened based on how many of the tribe treated him and the fact he had blue eyes. Seeing the Southern Water Tribe made him want to get back home faster than before. It was no longer a guess what would happen to his people. Namjoon was seeing North’s dystopic future before his very eyes.

There were only canoes to transport in. For the trip they decided to tie them loosely together so that no one would lag behind or get lost in case of a storm. All the water benders were helping to keep the boats moving faster, but the children tired out quickly so speed could never be maintained. Namjoon was too busy tracking water currents beneath the waves and blocking the rain off them to be much of help in that aspect. They ran out of food the third week in and since had been reduced to fishing. Water was not so much of a problem. Namjoon knew how to separate the salt from the ocean, but the children could not grasp this no matter how he tried to explain it. It was why they had docked for land, hiding the canoes underneath foliage and taking a much needed rest for the night.

Based on their trajectory, he’d say they had another two-three weeks of this left.

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