The sea was calm again.
Days had passed since the raid, but the air still smelled faintly of smoke. Charred wood and frozen ash littered the harbor, half-buried beneath new snow. What had once been a quiet fishing village now looked like the skeleton of a burned dream. The wounds of the village were open for all to see, broken walls, burned homes, and too many graves.
The ice reflected the gray sky like a mirror for their grief.
Hakoda gathered the surviving warriors at the water's edge, the wind carrying the echo of his voice over the frozen plain. His tone was low but steady, each word measured like a promise carved in stone.
"We can't stay scattered. The Fire Nation will strike again. We need every hand, every fighter left in the south. I'll go north to the outlying villages, bring back who I can."
He turned to Isaruq. The younger man stood beside him, the cold biting at his cheeks, his spear slung across his back, eyes unreadable.
"Keep them safe," Hakoda said. "Build what you can. When I return, we'll strike."
Isaruq nodded once. "We'll be ready."
Hakoda turned next to his oldest friend. "Bato, you're in charge of the village while I'm gone. And please…" He looked toward the small igloo where Sokka and Katara huddled with Kanna. His voice softened. "Take care of my children."
"I will, Hakoda," Bato said firmly. "Don't you worry about them. You just bring us back some hope."
Hakoda smiled faintly, though the sadness never left his eyes. He climbed the narrow gangplank of the small sailing ship, the best they had, though it was little more than a shadow beside the iron warships of the Fire Nation. The wind caught the sail and pushed the vessel northward.
The people watched in silence as the ships faded into the mist, the ocean swallowing them whole. When the last hint of white disappeared, the sound that remained was not peace, it was emptiness. A heavy, waiting kind of silence that stretched across the tundra like a wound.
But Isaruq did not let it linger.
He turned back toward the ruins, eyes hard. There is no waiting anymore, he thought. Only rebuilding.
At dawn, the sound of water echoed across the bay, not the gentle rhythm of the tide, but the deliberate pulse of bending.
Isaruq stood at the edge of the ruins, his breath misting in the cold. His hands moved slowly, deliberately. Snow stirred, rising from the ground like smoke, and then solidified, compressed, reshaped, hardened under his will. He bent the element to his will and started to build, something that would stay for ages.
Children gathered on the ridges, their small faces pale against the blue light of the morning. They watched as the mounds of snow around the village, the ones once piled to hide from raids, grew taller, smoother, and stronger, transforming into glimmering ten metre thick and 20 metre tall walls that caught the sunlight and scattered it like diamonds. They were not built in a day, but each day a new section of the walls sprang up.
He built tall towers along the wall, the stairs were a problems as ice is slippery but it was solved with a liberal use of driftwood at the top of each step. He built channels through which water flowed freely even in the cold, and carved open tunnels, using water and turning it like a drill, that would one day become aqueducts. Meltwater ran in smooth lines beneath his feet, branching into channels that emptied into frozen pits for waste and other lines that fed back to wells of clean water. He have left space for gates but due to lack of enough waterbenders, it could not be built of ice like planned, otherwise the hinges will freeze among itself, so there is a big arch where a gate should be that Isaruq will close in case of an attack. As for when he will leave, he has built many tunnels for evacuation and they will be used in that time. Warriors will be posted at the entrance of the tunnels inside the city at all hours in case of any attack.
He built paths, foundations for homes. Where once there had been only survival, now there was design. A plan. A vision.
The women joined in, packing snow and stone, layering whale and mammoth bone and driftwood for frames. The men, guided by Isaruq's instructions, learned to anchor the new walls with ice-rods and carved supports that could withstand storms and attacks alike.
And when something collapsed or cracked, he simply rebuilt it. Ice could be melted, reforged, perfected. He learned from each mistake, and with each correction, the walls grew stronger.
By nightfall, the once-broken cove began to breathe again. Smoke rose from the new chimneys. Warmth returned to the air, carried on the scent of seal oil and fish stew. The village no longer looked like a ruin, it looked like a fortress being born from the snow.
The people whispered a new name for it. Amaruq Qel'a, "The Fortress of the Wolf".
For the first time since the raid, they smiled when they spoke it.
That evening, as the aurora shimmered green and violet across the sky, Isaruq trained alone at the frozen lake. The water around him moved in precise patterns, rings, arcs, and blades, each flowing seamlessly into the next. His chi pulsed with every motion, the surface steaming from the heat of his energy meeting the cold.
"Teach me," a small voice said.
He stopped. The water fell still.
Katara stood at the edge of the lake, her fur parka far too large, cheeks pink from the cold. Her blue eyes, still swollen from tears, carried something deeper now, a spark that grief could not extinguish.
"Please," she said. "I don't ever want to be that helpless again. I want to protect them, my father, Sokka… everyone."
Isaruq studied her silently for several heartbeats. Her hands trembled, but her voice didn't. He saw in her the same fire that lives in her father, same determination but something else as well, hope.
"If you want to learn under me than you'll start with learning control, not power," he said at last. "If you can't calm the storm of emotions inside you, the ocean won't listen either." If it was someone else than he would have just taught them some basics and left it at that but she would have to train the avatar in future, he would not leave this moment to train her personally and have the trust of the avatar in future.
That night, her training began.
At first, it was nothing but movement and breath. He taught her how to feel the rhythm of the sea, how to match her heartbeat to its pulse. Her first few tries ended in failure, the water sloshed to the ground, froze unevenly, or shattered before taking shape.
She grew frustrated.
"Why won't it move?" she cried once, stamping her foot.
"Because you're shouting at it," he said. "The water doesn't answer anger, it doesn't like to be restrained, don't restrain it, let it flow through you, follow the flow and it will follow you."
He handed her a wooden staff. "You need to learn balance before control."
She practiced with it until her arms ached, until frost collected on her lashes. He trained her not like a child, but like a warrior. The lessons were hard, the days long, but she did not quit.
"You need to be like the ocean and it doesn't pity anyone," Isaruq said one evening as she collapsed on the ice. "It drowns those who hesitate."
And yet, beneath the sternness, there was care. He took her fishing again, teaching her how to sense the movement of life beneath the ice. He reminded her to breathe, to listen. Once, when Sokka mocked their lessons, Isaruq froze the boy's boots to the ground until Katara's laughter filled the air, a sound the village hadn't heard since the raid. The hope in her eyes, reminded him of what he was doing all this for.
Under his guidance, her bending changed. It became sharper, more precise. Within months, she could freeze and unfreeze her water mid-motion, weaving it like silk. Something not seen in South for a long time, not since the raids started and their benders were made prisoners or killed. Isaruq watched quietly, pride flickering behind his calm expression.
At night, when everyone slept, he stood alone at the cliffs, gazing towards the harbor. Waiting for sails.
As the moons turned, Amaruq Qel'a grew.
New hunters returned from the sea with seal meat and whale blubber. Fresh racks were built beside the harbor to dry fish and stretch pelts. Workshops appeared, one for bone carving, another for shaping blades from bone and ivory. Smokehouses rose on the ridges, their fires constant through the night.
Isaruq oversaw it all. He mapped the streets, planned the defenses, and established a marketplace at the heart of the settlement. He arranged the igloos in circles around shared hearths, so warmth and safety spread from one home to the next. Paths were widened for sleds and transport. The fortress was no longer a dream, it was alive.
And the people changed with it. They no longer moved like ghosts through the snow. They laughed, argued, sang. They looked at their rebuilt home with pride, not fear. Even the oldest among them began to call it by its new name.
Amaruq Qel'a. The Wolf's Fortress.
The first storm of early spring brought the sound they'd all been waiting for, horns.
Not alarm, but arrival.
From the horizon came a few ships, sails painted with blue crests of distant tribes. The villagers rushed to the docks, hearts pounding. Snow whipped through the air as the ships broke through the ice and slid into the harbor.
At their head stood Hakoda, his cloak snapping in the wind. Behind him, nearly forty warriors disembarked, men and women from the outlying tribes, scarred, strong, eyes burning with purpose.
They stopped when they saw the city.
Before them rose high walls of ice, towers of smooth crystal, smoke rising from the homes, and light gleaming through windows like stars.
"By Tui and La…" Hakoda breathed. "It's a city."
Bato stepped beside him, smiling wide. "No," he said. "It's a fortress."
Hakoda grinned, turning to Isaruq as he approached through the snow. "You've done more than hold the line. You've built a stronghold."
Isaruq's lips curved in the faintest smile. "Amaruq Qel'a," he said. "That's what the people are calling it now. This will be the place where the wolves gather before going out for the hunt. The Fire Nation dismissed us as weak." His gaze turned toward the northern horizon, hard and cold. "Now they'll learn their greatest mistake. Now the Hunt begins"
Hakoda clasped his shoulder, the gesture heavy with pride. Around them, the people cheered as the new warriors joined their ranks. The horns sounded again, this time not for warning, but for unity.
Snow fell softly over the harbor, blanketing the city in white. The fires of Amaruq Qel'a burned bright against the endless dark, and in that light, the South was reborn.