They named her Aga - 'mother' in the old language - because the soft doll they first gave her, she had cradled like a child while still blind and at her mother's breast.

She had grown up a conscientious girl, helpful with her siblings, dutiful to her parents, sitting in the healing hut with the old women once she found she was a waterbender, and in between uses of her name, they would call her 'little mother'.

It had felt prophetic at the time, but as the years passed, there was no betrothal necklace carved for her. She came into her twenties without a courtship, and when her parents left the growing Capital for a quieter place, a hamlet out east, she followed, ever dutiful, and quietly relinquished hope that her name would come true.

She whiled her time away, making friends, helping with netting and found, to her pleasure, that her healing was much sought after. They had waterbenders, three of them, but all of them male; no one to mend a broken bone or a sprained joint. So, Aga passed into her thirties.

Then Suluk arrived.

He came from the west, from the Capitol, but no one knew really where before that, though his clothes were of a cut Aga had never seen before. His hair, grey with age, was kept in Triple Tracker Tails, and though his face was hard, his eyes were warm when he smiled at her.

The courtship was short, and she treasured her betrothal necklace as if it was carved from jade, not bone.

She told him she was with child only half a year after their wedding. Finally, Aga's name was coming true, a life growing in her womb, and Suluk's joy was bursting.

She named him Noatak; 'the river that provides'. She did not think she could love anything as deeply as the baby cradled in her arms then. She stayed awake the full night, just watching her son, her sweet fulfilled promise, in wonder. The dark, chubby cheeks. The fuzz of brown on his head. The mouth and nose, so tiny, so perfectly formed. The intricate artistry of his tiny nails. And she thought, yes. Yes, this is what I was meant to be.

When news of Avatar Aang's death reached their tiny town, Aga's life was full of her swiftly-growing son and his demands. What did the Avatar matter out here, anyway?

When Noatak was three, he bent water for the first time. Suluk was overjoyed. They had watched for it; after all, Aga herself was a bender, and though Suluk was not, he had the talent in his family.

And the day after, Tarrlok was born. Aga let Suluk name him, and after some floundering, her husband stammered his suggestion. She laughed and teased him about such a silly name, but Tarrlok it was, and Tarrlok was entirely hers. Noatak was a bright, energetic child, one who took to waterbending like a turtleseal to water and dashed off for the unknown with little thought, but Tarrlok clung to her from the moment his blue eyes first focused.

It was good. It was perfect. Aga was content.

And then, one day in Tarrlok's second year, when Noatak had returned from a waterbending lesson, Aga watched them play fondly. Her needle was a soothing rhythm in one of Suluk's parkas; though a pearl, through the fabric, back up. Noatak was shaping delicate iceflowers for Tarrlok's amusement.

As Aga was born for motherhood, she thought, so Noatak was born for brotherhood. There had been no jealous tantrums, no malicious teasing. He had seen his newborn brother and fallen in love.

"Look, Tarrlok," Noatak said, and a rose with petals so thin they ought to crumble bloomed in his hand.

"Flower," Tarrlok said, grabbing for it with a chubby hand. It melted in his fist. He didn't even have time to pout before another froze into being, and he giggled, bringing a bright smile to Noatak's face.

"Now," Noatak said, and the flower dissolved into mist, "now look at this."

Tarrlok, eyes wide, leaned forward to see his brother's latest trick. And squealed with shocked delight when a flame burst into being in his cupped hands.

Honestly, this whole idea came about after reading those endless theories on how Amon might be one-fourth Avatar or any of the other crack that came along before the finale. May or may not have been spurred on by one too many joke about how much of a square Noatak would be as the Avatar; that remains to be seen.