Coals fizzled and hissed in the center of Mari's igloo. She'd forgotten to stoke it in the night, and the smoky heat had long since disappeared. Struggling to keep her fur pelt blanket wrapped around her bare shoulders, Mari groped for her clothing. It lay where it always did, right beside her bedroll. In record time, she managed to slip into her sealskin leggings, boots, silk jerkin and light blue jacket.

Pushing her short, jaggedly cut hair out of her face, Mari slid reluctantly out of bed and onto the icy ground to kneel beside the dying coals. Her breath formed frosty clouds in the frigid morning air. Hurriedly, she pulled a few sticks from the leather sleeve that kept fuel dry. Mari placed the sticks on the embers hurriedly, jerking away as though the fire would "leap out and gobble her all up," like the old folks of the village said when they told the children bedtime stories of the times before the war.

Before the war.

At this thought, Mari's chilly fingers rose from the ground to caress the ugly, reddened scar tissue that marred her throat. It seemed all the more vivid and distracting when compared to the milky whiteness of her skin that was rare among those of the Water Tribe.

She sat there, touching her throat with her black eyes misted over with thought, for a long while. The sticks upon the embers began to smoke, and then caught fire. A soft breeze made a hollow moaning sound through the pipelike entrance to Mari's home. The girl didn't make a sound.

Suddenly, the inhuman silence was shattered by the sound of feet, crunching loudly across the fresh-crusted snow that coated Watertribe country. Mari started and fell backwards, twisting over as she stretched out a hand to grasp a thick, dark ribbon with silver clasps at the end that was neatly folded in a small depression in the ice. As the crunching grew louder, and the sounds of someone's heavy breathing became apparent, Mari unfurled the ribbon and wrapped it around her neck. Her fingers fumbled with the individual clasps at the back that ensured it wouldn't fall or loosen. Silently, Mari cursed the difficult buttons.

"Mari, Mari, Mari!" Katara sang, ducking into the igloo with ease just as Mari finished with the clasps. "You will never guess what happened this morning…"

Mari turned and raised her eyebrows at the girl, conveying her interest with a single gesture.

Katara scuttled across the diameter of the igloo floor and pulled roughly on Mari's sleeve. "But I can't just tell you, you have to come!" she reached down, picked up a pair of sealskin gloves off of Mari's bedroll and tossed them emphatically at the girl. "Put those on and come see!"

Mari frowned as she pulled on the gloves and pulled on her heavier, waterproof coat. It had been months since she'd seen Katara this energetic, let alone smiley. Usually it was all chores, fishing and Waterbending—all duty. This sudden burst of life made Mari wonder what was going on. Perhaps Sokka had done something out of character, like do his own laundry (unlikely.), or the men were returning, or traders had come (that was crossing over the line into impossible, but Mari could dream). Whatever it was…it was something good.

Mari cocked her head.

Blinked.

Pursed her lips.

Blinked some more.

It was a little bald boy with an arrow on his head. The whole, entire reason that Katara was practically flying in the sky was a little bald boy with and arrow on his head. She glanced at Katara, who nodded her head happily and raised her eyebrows as if to say, come on. Make him feel welcome.

He had a huge grin on his face, just like Sokka did whenever he got the kids together for what he referred to as "warrior's training," giddy with childish joy that seemed to emanate from him like rays from the sun. Behind baldy stood a huge, weird, furry beast-thing. The thing had an arrow on its head too. It was staring at her, and Mari did not think she liked that.

She turned again to look at Katara, who was bouncing around like a sliver of ice in the ocean. Katara looked back, stilled herself somewhat, and then cleared her throat. "His name's Aang," she said. "Sokka and I found him in an iceberg when we went fishing." She pointed across the little circle of villagers surrounding the arrow boy and his arrow beast to Sokka. He grunted at his sister.

"You mean you found him. All I wanted to do was catch dinner…but no, little miss waterbender had to go and…" his voice trailed off into illiterate grumbling.

Aang was still smiling.

The villagers were still staring at him.

Katara was still bouncing.

Mari took a deep breath and stepped forward. Immediately the Aang child launched himself at her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "Do you penguin sled too?" he asked.

Mari held her hands out to the sides and stared down at him. Holy enthusiasm, she thought incredulously. And she'd thought it couldn't get any worse than Sokka when he put on his war paint.

Katara dashed forward to tap Aang on his skinny, yellow-silk-clad shoulder. "Hey, Aang, this is Mari."

Aang released his stunned target and took a step back. He was tiny, but friendly looking, Mari thought as she looked him over. If he didn't have that idiot smile, he might turn out to be all right.

He grinned and his face crinkled up in an adorable way that reminded Mari of a Saber-Moose cub that her momma had brought home once, years ago when they still lived in the Northern Tribe. It had been so cute, fluffy, even though it'd been injured by a poachers trap. Sad, too. When Mari tried to touch it, pet it and let it know that it would be all right now, her mother had grabbed her hand.

"No," her mom had whispered gently. "You can't touch him or the poor thing's momma won't know it when we take him back. You can't touch him or he'll die."

Mari blinked. Aang stuck out his hand and nodded brightly. "I'm Aang. Nice ta meetcha!"

Mari reached out hesitantly, her mother's words still echoing in her ears—can't touch him or he'll die—and he grabbed onto her hand, shaking it up and down and left and right and any which way it could go. Enthusiasm was not something that Aang from the Air Temple lacked.

Finally, the shaking stopped. Aang was looking at her expectantly—for what, Mari couldn't tell.

Katara leaned forward and bumped shoulders with Mari, flashing Aang a huge smile. "Mari doesn't talk," she explained. "Never has. But she's not…dumb…or anything, you know. Mari just has her own way of making herself known. She's very special."

Mari flashed Aang a brilliant smile then, and nodded. What Katara was saying was almost word for word what her favorite old folk, Gran Gran, said to everyone who met Mari for the first time. If Katara hadn't spoken up, Mari knew that Gran Gran would have shouted it from the back of the crowd.

"Well," Aang frowned for the first time since Mari had first seen him. "That's okay. Appa can't talk either, and we understand each other just fine, don't we boy?" he glanced at the arrow-beast. It gave a muffled roar and thumped its flat tail against the snow. One of the onlookers, a little girl with fishtail braids, gave an excited gasp.

Mari cocked her head way over to the side and held up six fingers. She looked between Katara and Aang questioningly, as if to say Excuse me. Why does your beast-thing have six legs? Is that normal?

Aang's eyes lit up and he started talking about his Flying Bison, and how the beast-thing's name was Appa and how much Appa liked to eat food and how very tired Appa was from their very long journey. He was, to Mari's relief (Aang talked fast, and she really could hardly understand what he was blabbering on about anyway. She didn't even know what a Flying Bison was. Well, except for the fact that it apparently had six legs), interrupted by one of the old folks grumping into the middle of the semicircle and asking a well-placed question.

"Excuse me, young man. Who exactly are you, again?"

"Well, I…um…" Aang hemmed and hawed. He pulled at his collar and cleared his throat.

Finally he said "I'm an airbender!"

At the same moment that Katara exclaimed "He's the boy we found in the ice!"

That started a whole other kind of hubbub and confusion. While the old folks tried to sort out what exactly Katara meant by "found in the ice," and what exactly Aang meant by "Airbender," Mari wandered around the Flying Bison.

Yep. It definitely had six legs.

Mari reached out and touched its flank. Its fur was soft, and warm. Looking around carefully to make sure that nobody was watching, Mari leaned forward until she was lying on the fur. Mmm, she wanted to breathe. So soft…

And then the beast gave a hearty grumble, and startled Mari. She jumped back just as Appa rolled over onto his side and lay there, grumbling deep in his belly, and gazing at her piteously with big black eyes.

What, Mari wondered, do flying Bison eat?