After the less than warm welcome from the northerners, the chieftain has decided to throw a party for the arrival of the avatar and the birthday of his daughter Princess Yue. While some of the residents of the northern watertribe weren't exactly welcoming to the fact that there's a firebender in their midst now, the knowledge that he's the avatar at least gives them some clarity on the matter. Seated beside Aang and Sokka, Zuko pokes at some of the strange dishes that the northerners eat. Knowing from his experience with Batou a few weeks ago not to go anywhere near the sea prunes. Though the meat is a bit too fatty for his liking, the food was at least good and Zuko could always cook it more to his liking with his bending. "Thank you for coming, we are gathered tonight to welcome the arrival of Avatar Zuko as well as two members of our sister tribe. Additionally tonight we celebrate the 16th birthday of my daughter Princess Yue. She is now of marrying age." Chief Arnook declares raising a cup of a beer-like drink called Tulpi which was offered to both Zuko and Sokka. "Enjoy the feast our finest hunters have provided for us, and meet our guests as tomorrow Avatar Zuko begins the next step on his journey to learn the elements."

"Is this seat taken?" The kind voice of Yue asks as she approaches an empty spot beside Sokka. The southern watertribe warrior looks up from his plate of stew, with part of it sticking out of his mouth, to meet Yue's gaze. Quickly, and slightly painful for that matter, he swallows everything whole so that he can speak.

"Yeah, I was saving it for you actually." This statement causes Yue's face to glow with a slight blush as she sits down beside Sokka to begin eating her food. "So, you're a princess huh? Y'know I'm kind of a prince myself." This statement causes his sister to snort at him.

"Pfft, on what planet would you be a prince of anything?" His sister jives but she is quickly shot down by Zuko.

"This one." Zuko says, "Chief Arnook is her father making her the princess, and your father is Chief Hakota of the southern watertribe meaning both you and Sokka are royalty like I am." Katara stares at Zuko dumbfounded for a moment as Aang does some mental math with counting on his fingers to help.

"He's right." Aang says after reaching the same conclusion. "What am I though?"

"By default? The airbending grandmaster." Zuko responds prompting Aang to look wide eyed for a moment then start connecting the dots again in his head.

"So... would you like to do an... activity together tomorrow?" Sokka asks nervously, stammering his way through the request to the princess. Though she giggles to herself hearing how nervous he is.

"Sure since you're the first to ask. I'm going to be with Master Pakku tomorrow morning. Father said that since Katara is going to be trained in waterbending, I can also be a part of those classes." Yue says, perking Katara's attention from this.

"You're also a waterbender?" She asks the white haired young woman.

"I know how to use it to heal but I haven't done any proper bending. I guess we'll be learning together alongside the avatar. Do you know how to heal with water?" Yue responds shortly before Zuko gets up from his seat.

"Well, I'm going to head to bed. I'll see you two in the morning." Zuko picks up his cup of Tulpi and downs it before leaving the dishes in his spot then heading off to where the group is staying.

The following morning, Zuko is one of the first people awake and going about the day. Thankfully even as far north as they are the northern watertribe still has access to tea which is one of the few pleasures Zuko gets to enjoy. On top of a large staircase leading up to the bending grounds, Zuko sits on the ice looking out at the rising sun. The blue parka he's wearing soaking in the heat as the sun cascades down the frozen city. As the crunching of snow beneath him gets closer and closer, Zuko calmly sips from his tea as he meditates. Coming up the stairs beneath him is Master Pakku who's slightly surprised to see the firebender already awake and having beaten him to his own training grounds. It's still a few minutes before any of the other students arrive, allowing the water bender to watch as the small particles of snow float gracefully around Zuko as he meditates. While Pakku had heard stories of airbenders in his youth, never in his entire life did he expect to see one right in front of him, with that bender being the avatar no less. Pakku turns slightly hearing the scrunching of snow as Katara and Yue are approaching his training ground, but instead of interrupting Zuko he merely stands silently.

"Woah... Is that... airbending?" Princess Yue asks as she and Katara get to the top of the stairs, her voice causing Zuko to open an eye to gaze at the two women. "I know I saw you use it to jump yesterday but... I didn't see it up close."

"It happens when I meditate." Zuko answers, pausing to drink the rest of the tea in the wooden cup that he was gifted. "But yes, it was."

"I knew different forms of bending could be beautiful, even firebending, but I thought I'd go my whole life without ever seeing a real airbender." Master Pakku says as Zuko ties the piece of twine across his parka through the hole in the handle of his wooden mug. "Seeing as you beat me here this morning, I can guess you're eager to begin training."

"I am but, I probably should warn you that I've only ever successfully used waterbending to save myself from an arrow to the face. The other times I tried all I did was boil the water and it scalded Katara. It might be a good idea to have me a bit further away than the other students in your class." Pakku furrows his eyebrows at this statement then turns to Katara with a questioning look on his face.

"It's true, the last time I tried teaching him waterbending he accidentally burned me pretty bad with the water. Though it wasn't all bad since I discovered I can heal with waterbending." Katara explains.

"Well, maybe after we're done you can go speak with Pagoda to learn some new healing techniques from her to further those abilities. Now, I think we've wasted enough daylight talking, the rest of the students are on their way up now so it's best that we get started." Pakku says as he walks a good distance away before creating a raised platform for himself to stand on so he can observe his entire class at once. "Alright everyone, I'd like you to welcome our three newest students. Princess Yue who you know well, Katara from our sister tribe and the Avatar Prince Zuko of the firenation." There was a series of boos when it was mentioned that Zuko was from the firenation. "Alright, whoever did that owes me an ice plunge for two hours. Now, today we will be focusing on the basics, the better the foundation the more you can build upon those techniques."

"Is this because we have two girls and an ash eater with us?" One of the boys asks, causing Katara and Yue to scowl at him. Pakku doesn't dignify this and instead decides to melt the ice the boy is standing on causing him to fall into neck deep frigid water.

"Anyone else want to open their mouths to complain?" Pakku asks rhetorically looking at the other students for another smartass response. "Good, now, for those who are beginning to bend water, we will start with a brief history lesson before going into the first movements ever recorded in waterbending. Thousands of years ago, when men and spirits lived together, our ancestors watched as the moon pushed and pulled the waves of the oceans controlling the tides. Our ancestors watched then began to emulate the moon, copying the movement of the waves. Through months if not years of practice they discovered waterbending. So, I want you to go through the first movements, let your body flow slowly with the movement of the water. Push and pull." Pakku raises his hands and pushes his arms forwards causing a small hole to open in front of each of his students exposing liquid water.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Zuko looks up at the other students watching how they move, how effortlessly Katara moves the water causing small waves to move across the surface. Beside him, Yue is also going through the same movements as Master Pakku. Even the water she is bending moves with ease as she maneuvers her arms and body. Rocking her body weight forwards and backwards as she moves her arms and wrists through the simple technique. Looking at his own pool of water, a slight sense of anxiety rushes over him before he attempts the same movement. Contrary to his normal demeanor, he begins the motion almost as if he's afraid of the water. He takes in a breath trying to calm his nerves before shifting his left foot behind him as he begins. Shifting his weight forwards then back, forward and back repeatedly before adding his hand movements to it. Pakku notices almost immediately the difference in Zuko's movements compared to the others, once again his motions are not fluid they're rough and jagged like. Shove and yank rather than the gentle push and pull the others are doing. This results in the same issue he had the last time he tried to bend water, the pool in front of him bubbles, sloshes and begins to boil.

"Avatar Zuko, you need to be calmer about the movements. Water is give and take, you cannot be so rough with your movements when trying to bend it. You're treating it like it's firebending, everything even down to the basic principles of this element is different than firebending so you must stop thinking like a firebender and think act like a waterbender." Pakku says, causing the others to turn and look at Zuko who's frustration is growing as the water continues to boil.

"I'm trying!" Zuko shouts as he yanks a bit too hard causing boiling water to slosh out of the pool and onto his legs causing him pain. "Rrraaauughhh! This is impossible!" He shouts, throwing a hard punch into the pool causing a stream of orange flames to erupt from his hand. His outburst of rage causes everyone else, minus Katara, to flinch seeing the flames erupt from his hand.

"Alright calm down, if you melt the ice you're going to end up in the water. At this rate you won't be able to fight a sea slug much less the Firelord." This statement from Pakku only further fuels Zuko's burning frustration and anger. "Let's move on to something else that is still rather simple. We're still going to be moving the water through a push and pull, but we are changing the axis we are moving the water on. You were moving it towards you forward and back, now we are going to switch to moving up and down. This movement requires you to move your arms and your knees to get the water to flow properly. Observe."

Pakku steps his left leg forwards into a front leaning stance and raises his arms up to shoulder height. He shifts his weight down and slowly pulls his arms down with the motion as if they were the water itself. Once slightly crouched on bent knees, he shifts his weight back up, extending his legs and dragging his arms upwards allowing his wrists to relax so that his fingers are all directed downwards through the motion. The action results in the water in his pool bending downwards as if something fell into it before rising upwards into a long snaking stream of water. Once he's done with the demonstration, he releases his hold over the water allowing it to flow back into the small pool. "Begin." He instructs the students to attempt it for themselves. Zuko takes a deep breath knowing that today he shouldnt have bothered getting out of his sleeping bag.
Over the course of the next several hours, Pakku would demonstrate a move, the students would copy and Zuko would fail. Fail over and over again, the most he amounted to doing is creating a large bubble of boiling water, having it explode dropping him into the cold water from the surrounding melting ice. After this happened, Pakku brought Zuko to the side, after drying him off, for him to go through the basics until he managed to actually waterbend. "Of all the avatars I've known and trained you are by far the worst." He begins, "Avatar Kotak was my waterbending master and taught me everything he knew. He left to go to the southern watertribe and thirty years later a blind earthbender named Jun Beifong appeared at my doorstep saying that he was the new avatar. I tested him and he was able to bend both water and fire, and he was my best student. Then there's you, the reincarnation of Kotak and Jun, prince of the very nation that took their lives and you can't even replicate their bending." Zuko balls his fists up, seething with anger and fury hearing Pakku talk down to him. "I will return this afternoon for the children's bending classes, maybe then you'll have figured out how to waterbend since you're not leaving from this spot until you do." In Zuko's mind, Pakku made the wises decision he's made all day deciding to walk away since the prince is one word away from incinerating the geezer.

During the lessons with Pakku, Yue and Katara got warm enough to remove their parkas and doing so caused Katara to notice something about the princess of the northern watertribe. Around her neck is the blue silk and icy blue medallion of a betrothal necklace. "Are you engaged?" Katara asks, noticing the necklace around Yue's neck. "You said you were going to go out with my brother today."

"I am but... it's an arranged marriage." Yue answers sadly, "Hahn's father approached mine last night after the party, he's a pretty notable figure around here and asked for us to be married. But I can't stand the guy, I know I have the obligation to marry him but... I at least wanted to spend time with Sokka since he didn't see me as some prize, just a pretty girl. Hahn doesn't even see me like that, just talking about what he's gonna do when he becomes chief. Like I'm not even there, he's as slimy as a hagfish."

"It would be best if you told him the truth, he does deserve to know that you're engaged." Katara says, prompting Yue to nod.

"You're right... but if I had this my way I would have refused." Yue responds as she and Katara put their parkas back on and begin to make their way down the stairs to the city proper.

"Is it too late now?" Katara asks, "If this Hahn character is that much of a slime ball then why don't you just tell your dad you don't want to marry him?"

"I doubt he'll listen, but I at least should speak to him about it. As for Sokka, I'm gonna go out with him. Once Zuko finishes learning water bending, maybe I can come with you guys, run away and be part of the team." Yue says optimistically. "I'll see you later, I'm gonna go hang out with Sokka." With a wave, Yue rushes down the steps to go meet with Sokka.

Though they didn't agree on a place to meet, Yue guesses that Sokka will be in one of two places. Either at the guest house near the palace, milling about with Aang or with the other warriors since he had mentioned he was the son of the chief in his tribe. Electing to go to the guest house first, she starts making her way there. The guest houses themselves aren't too far of a walk from the training grounds with Pakku and his water bending instructors. The laughter of children also helps bring her that direction, and as she heads up another set of icy stairs towards the palace she spots Aang having a snowball fight with the kids. The young Airbender uses his bending to catch snowballs thrown by the kids to throw the snowballs back at them. "Hey Aang," Yue greets as she makes her way to the group, just barely dodging a snowball thrown by a little boy at the new lady who just showed up. "Have you seen Sokka anywhere? He said he wanted to do an activity with me today." Aang stops what he's doing, to try to respond, only to get pelted in the face by three snowballs at once causing the kids to laugh even harder at the funny bald arrow tattooed man. "Yeah, he said he was going to the stables to check up on Appa." Yue gives Aang a questioning look at this statement. "The big fluffy flying bison you saw us on when we got here yesterday." Yue gives her goodbye and thanks Aang for the directions before running off in search of Sokka.

After leaving Aang to continue playing with the other kids, Yue hurries through the streets heading to the stables to find Sokka. The streets are active in the northern watertribe, even this far north. Yue is greeted by dozens of townsfolk and children as she walks through the streets heading to the stables. As she gets down towards the docs where the pack animals are being held she sees the giant fluffy form of Appa, the brown arrow down his head and the small horns beside it peak over the ice. In front of him, Sokka is going through one of their packs making looking for the coin purse that Zuko normally holds on to. "Hey, Sokka!" Yue shouts prompting the southern warrior to perk his head up just as he finds the coin purse. "Oh! You came, I thought that lesson was gonna take all day."

"According to master Pakku, they usually do but after Avatar Zuko decided to firebend the water after getting frustrated he called it to an end so he could have Zuko work by himself." Yue responds, "Hey uh... your sister thought I should tell you this but, last night after the party my father told me I was going to be arranged to be married to a man named Hahn. Katara convinced me to let you know I'm technically engaged and to tell my father that I hate the idea and am not going to marry him."

"Well if you're not gonna marry him then fine by me, Zuko asked me before he left to go get the coin purse we had from our stuff on Appa and bring everything to our guest house since we didn't get the chance yesterday. Plus, I figured I'd spend some time with my buddy Appa, ain't that right big guy!" Sokka exclaims with his arms outstretched leaning in to hug Appa's head but he ends up getting licked.

"Well he sure likes you." Yue says as Sokka shakes the slobber of Appa off of himself. "Is it true?"

"What?" Sokka responds, still shaking some of the slobber from his body.

"That he is a flying bison?" Yue asks, walking up to the fluffy beast. "Is he safe?"

"Oh he flies alright but as for safety, there's nothing to tie us down in his saddle but usually he flies pretty smoothly. You can pet him if you want, he's actually really warm." Sokka says motioning for her to pet the sky bison.

"Are you sure?" She asks, timidly raising her hand to pet the giant bison. As she gets close Appa flares his nose playfully causing Yue to retract her hand. Noticing this, Sokka takes off his glove before taking her hand in his as he pulls her hand to rest on Appa's head. His hand over hers as she scrunches her fist through Appa's fur scratching the big guy. "Oh he's soft." she says before raising another hand to continue to pet Appa.

"Yeah, we sleep on his tail or against his belly when we can't set up camp. Speaking of which, watch this." Sokka says as he moves his hand underneath Appa's chin and starts scratching. Two of Appa's six legs on his left side start lifting up, imitating the motion of scratching himself much like a puppy dog. After a few moments of this action, Appa flops over on his side exposing his belly. The ten ton flying bison shakes the ice as he flops over allowing Sokka and Yue to pet his belly. "There it is." Sokka says as Yue starts giggling before rushing up to pet Appa again.

"You did ask if he was a flying bison, wanna see for yourself?" Sokka asks after Yue has been petting Appa for a few moments. "Aang wouldn't mind me flying him for a bit since I've flown him before. Wanna go for a ride?"

Yue's face lights up when Sokka asks this question and she excitedly exclaims, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" giddy with excitement at the prospect of flying for the first time. "How do we do it?"

"Well first we need Appa to roll over, c'mon buddy roll over." Sokka says prompting Appa to roll the rest of the way over onto his back, crushing a small trough of water and feed beneath his large form. "Not like that, I meant to your feet."

"Maaawwwww..." Appa groans, disapproving of Sokka's request.

"Hey, we're flying for like half an hour and I'll give you a nice watermelon. How's that sound?" Sokka asks, now bargaining with the ten ton beast.

"Mmmphhh." Appa chuffs.

"Fine, three watermelons. Take it or leave it." Sokka responds, raising his side of the bargain. Appa doesn't respond as he thinks about this for a second before deciding to roll back over to his belly. "See, that wasn't too hard? Alright, I'll get up in his saddle then I'll help you up." Sokka immediately climbs up the side of one of Appa's legs before pulling himself into his saddle. "Alright, take my hand." He offers, leaning out of the saddle far enough so she can grab it. Yue climbs up Appa's paw and grabs Sokka's hand before he pulls her the rest of the way up into the saddle.

"What am I supposed to hold on to? You said there wasn't anything up here for that." Yue says as she looks around the saddle for something to hold.

"Oh I can think of something." Sokka says coyly with a smirk on his face. Getting the hint from Sokka, Yue wraps her arms around his waist from behind him as Sokka grabs the reins pulling them into his lap. "Hold on tight Yue," He says, causing her to clutch to him tighter. "Yip. Yip."

Hearing the command from Sokka, Appa shifts his weight back and jumps into the air using his tail to flap behind him as he climbs in altitude. Yue wasn't expecting just how nimbly Appa could move, shouting as Appa takes flight. "OH MY GOODNESS!!!" She shouts as Appa takes them high up into the clouds. Getting to his normal height when it comes to flying, Appa levels himself out to a more comfortable flying level. "It's even colder up here than on the ground." Yue says as she snuggles up against Sokka to help keep warm. "Yeah, but having Zuko around as a walking campfire is really nice when it gets too cold." Yue hums to herself hearing Sokka's reply as the two enjoy their little date amongst the clouds.