Pakku frowns down at the letter he has just finished reading. Specifically, he frowns at the date in the corner. If Blooming Lotus Iroh has accurately described events, and if Pakku himself has correctly calculated the time difference between Agna Qel'a and the Fire Nation capital, then the Fire Lord's initial encounter with Agni matches the same time frame as the princess's plunge into the city's canal system.
The waterbending master had not been there to witness the accident himself, but apparently the girl had taken a particularly unfortunate misstep when crossing from the ice sidewalks of the city to the awaiting canoe and instead slipped through the space between them. Nearby benders had rushed to rescue the princess, of course, but the canal's water had fought them, refusing to respond to the push and pull of the men's chi. When that failed, one brave soul had attempted to jump in after the drowning girl. That attempt ended with a shattered ankle as the warrior in question landed on an unexpected and very thick shelf of ice that had quickly grown to cover a third of the entire canal system. The iced-over canals Pakku had seen first-hand, but he had not known of their full significance at the time.
All told, the princess spent almost two minutes under the ice. No one was expecting to see the girl alive again when the ice melted as quickly as it had formed and the princess resurfaced, perched upon a tiny iceberg carved out of the canal's floor. And while a child of the moon's pale radiance had fallen beneath the waters, a girl dark as the ocean's depths had been returned to them.
From what he has been told, Princess Yue's first words upon her return from the freezing waters were, "I met La. She said she would give me words." And then the girl had fainted and slept through most of the evening following her unplanned dip in the canal. Even now, Yagoda is closely monitoring the princess's condition, though it appears to be stable, despite the striking difference in the girl's hair and eyes.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
And that incident was only the beginning. Ever since, La has made use of Yue as a mouthpiece to pass along commands. In that same time, the princess has also started to refer to herself a 'herald,' perhaps at the ocean spirit's prompting. Either way, there can be little doubt that it is in fact La that the princess is in contact with, and, on occasion, Tui.
(Many points support the conclusion. First, the koi fish in the oasis, the two spirits' mortal forms, have vanished. Second, dismissal of the princess's claims shortly after her near drowning had resulted in two giant waves cracking through the sea wall and sending a large chunk of it crashing into the ocean below, one wave of rebuke from La for each denial before they realized the two things were connected in a very real manner. And third, perhaps the most damning of all, Princess Yue's new ability to waterbend is the strongest he has ever witnessed, in anyone. If anything, the princess has difficulty moving a sensibly small amount of water. With the smallest wave of her hand come violent waves and miniature avalanches. It is a frightening and awe-inspiring power to be housed in one so young.)
The master's frown deepens. The situation in the North is tumultuous as it is, and now Iroh sends him news like this from the heart of the Fire Nation.
La and Agni.
The two are the greatest and most powerful among the spirits of water and fire, respectively, and they each have made seemingly simultaneous and mirroring moves. Pakku doesn't like it. The last thing they need is for the spirits to awaken while they are in the midst of a protracted global war. War is messy enough by itself, but spirits are often catastrophic. Pakku can think of few things that could cause more damage than if the ocean and sun have decided to wage war across the mortal plane.
No, Pakku doesn't like at all what this new development might imply.