#nukka.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Sokka,” Yue was the first to offer an olive branch, so to speak, Nukka has been busy sparring with every Northern warrior she could cajole or intimidate into fighting her. If the North needed a lesson in the value of women warriors so Katara had a chance at actual training Nukka wasn’t really concerned who she pissed off or how many bones she ended up breaking, “He speaks highly of you.”

That received a snort, her and Sokka hadn’t exactly been seeing eye to eye lately, mostly because of said aggressiveness. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand, because she knew he’d do the same for Katara in her place, it was that he couldn’t do the same for her. It was almost the same tension as back when Dad had left, when Nukka had taken initiative and he was left floundering unsure of how to help.

“He talks about you, princess. You’re an asset to your city,” Which was true--but there’s also something else. Something deep in Nukka’s chest, so deep it may well have been Shikako’s chest that made moonlight dance behind her eyelids and a melody waft just out of reach when she looked at Yue for too long. Now, as she finally looked the ethereal girl in the eyes, she wondered if Yue looked at her and saw stars.

“Forgive me for prying but he told me you were--”

“Spirit-touched...Yeah, that’s what GranGran always thought.”

“I’ve never met anyone else, I know that are circumstances are different but I only wished to ask--” Before the Princess could dig herself any deeper Nukka shrugged lightly, she understood even if it wasn’t for the reason Yue thought it was. She wasn’t such a straightforward case, she couldn’t name the spirit in this life that clung to her being and guided the strange sense of hers--But Before...

“You have this feeling you were put here to change things--because you weren’t supposed to be here.” Nukka’s voice was so soft she’d worried that Yue wouldn’t hear her--but recognition, kinship, glittered in her deep blue eyes.

“Yes, a little like that.”

The words flowed out of her like water from a drainpipe, a deluge that couldn’t be stopped now that she finally had someone who might have understood, “They said I didn’t cry when I was born--Not stillborn but I was quiet, that it wasn’t until they put me in the crib with Sokka that I made any sounds.” Whoever it was that sent her back, not once but twice, they must have known that giving her a twin made things easier. That having someone there, even when they quarreled or confused each other, that it was better than struggling through the world all alone.

Something softened in Yue’s face when Nukka mentioned Sokka, and it made something soften in her own chest--Because Sokka deserved a girl like this, someone sweet and understanding and so genuine. She and Katara loved him, they would always support him but Katara also had to consider her own needs as a bender and Nukka would always have her secrets. Yue, bright and honest was good for him.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Hakoda

Nukka had always possessed a level of self-awareness that would have been unsettling in anything but a military society. As a young girl in the southern water tribe, even the daughter of their chief, she was entirely unsettling to more than a few of her village-mates. It was simply the look of understanding that graced the girl's features, a type of old look, seen more often in the few warriors who returned home from the battles against the southern raiders war-torn and utterly disappointed in their own failures. Of course, coming from a girl who had witnessed the death of her own mother, the whispers of concern for her mental state were kept exactly that. Whispers behind tent partitions. 

Nukka ignored it all, Sokka glared at those who stared too long or talked too loudly, and Katara, well, Katara was the most volatile of their trio--When Katara was upset, the whole village knew it. When her vast potential temper managed to be roused in Nukka's defense it tended to bring a small smile to her normally sullen sister's face. It was fleeting, of course, as all of her emotions were but it was there and her two siblings cherished it. Hakoda did too, just from a distance. They didn't exactly tiptoe around her, not like he did, unsure of how to quite connect with his stoic daughter. In his quasi-absence Nukka seemed to bond more strongly with Bato, oddly enough. The more she distanced herself from Hakoda the more often she could be seen trailing after Bato, blunted practice spear in hand. 

It bothered Hakoda, but with the state of the world and the decaying state of his tribe, he'd pushed his concern to the corner of his mind. It wasn't as if she ignored him completely, or was even anything but civil to him, she just held her distance. It wasn't a stretch to think that she was so scared of the pain of losing another parent that she instead chose to retreat into herself. It didn't dampen her interactions with her siblings, not that two strong personalities as Sokka and Katara would have allowed such a thing. Still, it ached some days, when their eyes met and only the briefest glimmer of acknowledgment shined in her eyes. He could still remember how she had been before her mother's death. His little snow fox, quiet but also impossibly curious--He could recall sitting with his twins, perched carefully on one knee each as Nukka pestered him with questions for stories, history, folklore, even factual explanations for things such as weapon crafting or boat building. Yes, she'd been quiet but she'd been so full of life. Then the Fire Nation had come and snuffed out her little spark just as surely as they'd snuffed out the moon to his tides. In his stronger moments of grief, the ones that warped his thoughts with their anger and sorrow he told himself it wasn't good that it had been Nukka there with Kya when she died but it had been better. She had known basic first aid, her curiosity boundless in all things, not enough to save her mother by any means but enough to let her hold on long enough to say goodbye. He felt guilty for it, absolutely wretched and could barely look at Nukka when the feelings overwhelmed him. She seemed to sense it, even if she didn't seem to understand exactly, it had been the point when she'd begun clinging tighter to her siblings and drifting slowly towards Bato. It was for the best, he told (lied to) himself more than once, for Nukka to have a father figure who wasn't so overcome with grief that he could barely to look her in the eye some days. He did his best to make sure that Sokka and Katara did not want too badly for attention as a result, even if Katara seemed to take it the wrong way as she grew older and began to realize he never quite lavished Nukka with the same attention she and her brother received. 

Sokka understood better though Hakoda guessed that was only because Nukka was his twin. The young boy knew his sister didn't care for the same types of acknowledgment they did, didn't crave it in their mother's absence the way they did. He was almost entirely certain the two had discussed it at some point during one of his hunting trips. Thus, he had no fears of any slowly bubbling resentment within his eldest son even if he stood unsure on that front in regards to his daughters. It made leaving both harder and easier, in some ways. Sokka was angry he wasn't allowed to come with them but most of his bluster stemmed more from fear than anger. Katara, well her anger was genuine but Hakoda knew he could do little to assuage it so instead he let her simmer for a bit, he'd have a long talk with her once she wasn't liable to crack a hole in the middle of the marketplace in her anger. 

Nukka was...relatively close to what he'd expected. 

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

“Nukka! Talk some sense into her! Revenge isn’t going to accomplish anything! Why can’t you go with them and try to convince her that.”

Nukka glanced over at Aang, the unreadable expression on her face a familiar one that meant she was deep in thought. It was true that she’d argued against revenge but not for the reason that Aang had. She shook her head, not quite able to look Aang in the eye.

Sometimes it was hard to look Aang in the eye, his perceptions so different than her own--even if they were no less valid, how she had been raised made his pacifistic beliefs seem almost fanciful. That wasn’t fair to Aang though, there was nothing wrong with teaching forgiveness over revenge--In fact, it was the exact same kind of thought process that had once lead another bright young messianic boy to peace. But revenge was easier, hate was easier, and Shikako wasn’t as strong as Naruto.

Nukka wasn’t as strong as Aang.

So she looked him in the eye because not doing it would be a disservice to everything the boy stood for. Nukka might not be strong, but she wasn’t a coward, not in this.

“If I went I’d kill him myself.”

Aang’s look of shock made her wince, she’d let him down, and not just in refusing to ‘talk sense’ into Katara. Nukka sighed heavily, speaking about her mother--about Kya was hard. Katara and Sokka hadn’t been there, hadn’t been helpless to prevent such a stupid unneeded death. Hadn’t held a blood-soaked parka against Kya’s stomach to keep her alive long enough to tell Hakoda goodbye.

Nukka had lived the first ten years of her new life disoriented but slowly settling into the idea that life in the south pole while dull would be peaceful, at least until she grew older. It hadn’t occurred to her until after the fact that she’d forgotten Kya’s death. Denial had been her main tactic--Kya wasn’t her real mother so she shouldn’t be mourning her--but by that logic then Yoshino hadn’t been her real mother either and that thought was ridiculous.

So instead she focused on other things, on training, on avoiding Hakoda because she couldn’t look at him without being confronted by the fact that she hadn’t saved Kya--That if she had just remembered one thing Sokka and Katara’s mother would still be alive.

And that was what it came down to--The man, the raider, the bastard that had killed Kya, Nukka saw no reason that he should be allowed to breathe the same air, to stand under the same sun as wonderful, forgiving people like Aang. It wasn’t fair or right that monsters who killed women in front of their children got to live while an entire race of forgiving, peaceful people were murdered senselessly.

The world wasn’t fair but Aang was still trying to make it fair and Nukka couldn’t discourage him from trying, even if she didn’t agree. Because Nukka would take the easier route and let Aang take the road traveled by Uzumakis and avatars.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Iroh

"You're a very brave young lady, but this could be done with very easily." He genuinely smiles at the girl, who only stares blankly back at him. Every so often she'll glance away, up towards the sky--likely scanning for any sign of that flying bison or towards the woods as if planning her own escape. He had stepped forward after she had flat out ignored any attempts of Zuko's at bartering a trade using the necklace. It seemed that her brief words after he'd first revealed it were her only words for them, making things rather difficult. Still, his words caught her attention and slowly her eyes slide towards him and she leans back into the tree she's tied against. Iroh feels some sympathy towards her discomfort but also knows that it's necessary, especially after she had taken out two of the pirates. He hadn't been there for her capture but apparently, she had been standing guard for her sister, who had been waterbending techniques from the stolen scroll under the elder's watchful gaze. The plan had been to capture both but the pirate's share hold of strength had been almost entirely focused on the elder girl, who fought viciously and without hesitation as she screamed for her sister to escape through the water. A clever move, since it would make tracking the girl by scent or footprints practically impossible. Iroh has seen children like her before, most prominently Azula but occasionally they cropped up during his time as an acting general. He would sometimes visit the more prestigious fire nation military academies back when Lu-Ten had been alive. Every few years there would be a stir of some younger student with incredible aptitude being moved up and funneled directly into the military, mostly they ended up among the Yuyan archers but occasionally ones would actually make rank and end up apprenticed to a high ranking officer. Long ago, Zhao had been one such student and while Iroh wouldn't compare the girl to him in most ways they both showed a ruthlessness not unusual in prodigies but where Zhao flaunted it this girl kept it carefully hidden under a cool veneer of boredom. Ever so slowly her head tilts and she watches him like she's sizing him up--Which he knows is exactly what she's doing and he does his best to convey himself as a simple kindly old man. He truly doesn't want her getting hurt because of this but his nephew is stubborn. Both of them are, "We'll return your necklace and--" Given the expression that had shown on her face when his nephew had shown his hand and offered the necklace, he knows he'll get a response. He simply doesn't expect it to be the girl's leg lashing out and nearly taking him off his feet. She makes just enough contact that he'll certainly have a bruise on his leg tomorrow but nothing detrimental. Her words come out harsh and biting now, free of the emotional thickness from before. 

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

All things considered, this fight had been a long time in coming. During their first group confrontation Nukka, along with everyone else, had been so thoroughly exhausted that they hadn't exactly been fighting on equal terms. As a girl who took multiple naps a day whenever possible, Shikamaru's laziness was contagious through dimensions apparently, sleep deprivation turned out to be a rather apt way of wearing her down.

Now, however, Nukka had no such disadvantages, and they both knew it. It was for that reason, Nukka assumed, that Azula was keeping herself at a safe distance, she must have been told of the southern girl’s proficiency in hand to hand as well as thrown weapons. Instead, she kept to her high ground sniping potshots down and blasting any of her knives out of the air before they could make contact.

Nukka was running low on ammo, normally she would have been grabbing knives back off the ground as she fought but that was rather difficult to do when they were either molten red or melted by Azula’s fire. With a scowl, Nukka tossed her last throwing dagger towards Azula who ducked low, despite the dagger itself flying high above the princess's head.

“You think that a nonbending peasant is any match for the heir of the fire nation? I am the culmination of generations of strength and might--You can’t even hit me.” Azula sneered from her perch upon the crystal rocks. Nukka simply tilted her head, eyes taking in her surrounding as her knives lodged deep into the rock above the princess’ head.

“Maybe the question you should be asking,” Nukka drawled as the rock above them gave a heaving groan before a large chunk dislodged from the ceiling, forcing Azula to finally move closer and into Nukka’s range, “Is if you’re a match for me, princess.”

Azula was fast but Nukka was both faster and physically stronger. The water tribe girl’s right hand shot out, grabbing Azula’s and yanking it upward, redirecting the blue fire that had moments ago been poised to blow directly in her face. With her free hand, Nukka held senbon needles tightly between her knuckles which viciously she swiped across Azula’s face leaving three gouges deliberately deep enough to scar.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Zuko

"I could let you and your siblings go if you'd just cooperate." Her silence is, in its own way, a form of subdued rebellion. The look that the young water tribe girl is giving him meets somewhere in the middle between boredom and hostility, an odd combination he wouldn't expect from someone in her position. Given that she's tied quite firmly, and likely bordering on painfully, to a tree he's even a little impressed she can keep what must be a facade up. It reminds him of Mai, really. She hadn't been the ideal candidate, really he'd been trying to capture the younger sister but the elder had been guarding her like a mother saber-toothed moose-lion. If Zuko was being honest, if she hadn't been trying to ensure her younger sister's escape Zuko isn't sure they would have even been able to catch her. The gears shift in his mind as he watches her eyes drift away from him for what must be at least the tenth time and he knows he's running out of both time and options. It's only a matter of time before the avatar and his companions come for her and he needs a contingency plan for when things go wrong--and not if because he's learned at this point that catching the avatar is like trying to catch a fish with his bare hands--But if he has help, if he can convince her to give him a hook, then finally he'll be able to bring the boy home and restore his honor. "You need to understand," His tone shifts, and for a moment it feels too much like Azula and it almost makes him sick, but he can't stop now--this is his only way. He has no idea if this will work, he's only seen the younger one wearing the necklace but perhaps there's some kind of sentimental value behind it that could force her hand. Agni, he's praying for it, "I need to capture the avatar to restore my honor. Perhaps if you help me do that I can restore something you're family lost." 

The ribbon is soft and the stone cool as he slides the necklace from his pocket and finally he gets a reaction out of the girl. It's only a moment but for several seconds the girl looks like he'd just punched her in the gut. He can see her trying to force walls back up, but it's half-hearted as she stares at the necklace, breath hitching and eyes unfocusing like she's caught in a memory.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

Nukka is genuinely baffled by the performance being put on before them. Aang and Toph’s portrayals had been amusing, Katara and Sokka's grating in their blatant sexism, Zuko's even had her sputtering out a laugh before smothering it under her hand for his sake.

However, the Nukka on stage is nothing short of bemusing. The hair is wrong for one, the wolf-tail of the woman on stage is so severe her eyebrows are nearly receding into her hairline. The hair loops that Katara used to weave into her hair with such care are replaced by lank drooping wisps of what appears to be yarn strung with so many beads she's surprised the woman can hold her head so high as opposed to falling over from all the weight. Sure, maybe she has more hair beads than most but not that many. The most grievous offense, however, is perhaps the fact that the casting director hadn't even put in a token attempt of making the twins look alike, least of all because stage-Nukka appears to be at least a foot shorter than stage-Sokaa.

Nukka is taller than Sokka by exactly two and a half inches.

It only gets worse as stage-Nukka's reactions to everything appear to be either blank-faced indifference accented with thrown weapons or indignant scoffing. She's almost certain that at least half of her lines in response to Sokka is composed of variously pitched scoffing. The actress must have to gargle honey before the shows and during intermission to keep that up. All she can think is that, perhaps, she needs to work on her presentation if this is what people are perceiving her as.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

"You lie to everyone, Miss Whispers or just to your family?" 

The question instantly caught Nukka off guard as she spun on heel to look at the young girl who had asked it. Toph was staring nonchalantly ahead, up towards where the rest of the gang were currently fishing for their dinner. Nukka had held back, something about her always manages to scare the fish away and she knows Toph's vibration senses are warped by water. Nukka didn't appreciate the younger girl's half question half accusation. 

"I don't lie to them." Toph scoffed and rolled her milky eyes in reply, "Yeah, and I don't earthbend," She tapped the ground with one foot and waggled her eyebrows, "I can feel your heartbeat, Whispers. Whatever, not like I didn't spend my life lying to my family." With a shrug of her shoulders, Toph walked towards where Sokka was now whooping with joy over a newly caught fish. Nukka hadn't yet been quite sure of what to expect of the blind girl who had so recently joined their troupe of misfits but it certainly hadn't been that.