The Crossbreed
Number of words: 2450
Summary: Katara is attacked by a mysterious waterbender with gold eyes, set on killing the Avatar. AU, set somewhere during Season 1. Hints at future Kataang and Sukka.
Author's comments: This is a fic that has been sitting in my computer begging to be finished for a while. Please read and review, and tell me what you think.
Katara only had a split second to react after hearing the crack of a twig. She'd spent far too much being ambushed to not learn caution. Quick as lightning, she gathered the water in her pouch and sent out an attack of glittering ice spikes flying in the direction of the sound. When she heard more shifting and rustling, she knew she'd missed. She melted the ice back into liquid and hurled it back towards herself, but in her heart, she knew she was too late.
Something sharp and cold pressed against her neck. She immediately froze, and the stream of water she was bending hung limply for a second, and then fell abruptly into the soil.
"Good," her attacker hissed. "Make one move and I'll slice your neck."
The speaker was female, Katara realised. And one much, much younger than she'd expected.
"You travel with the Avatar, don't you?" the girl hissed in her ear.
Katara sucked in a deep breath, ready to scream. Sokka and Aang weren't far away. They'd hear her, and they'd come help.
The knife dug deeper in her skin, as though her attacker had read her mind, and she felt the skin split and the warm blood that welled up.
"Make one noise," her attacker hissed. "And you're dead. Now, nod or shake your head. Do you travel with the Avatar?"
Katara swallowed, feeling the blade sink in deeper into her flesh.
Cooperate! her commonsense yelled. It sounded uncannily like Sokka.
Slowly, Katara nodded.
The pressure at her neck didn't decrease, nor did her attacker relax.
"Now call him out," the girl ordered. "Sound normal."
Katara inhaled shakily. The iron smell of blood was suffocating. "Aang!" she called.
There was no response.
"Louder!"
Katara sucked in a desperate breath. "AANG!"
Almost immediately, the young Avatar came bounding through a tangle of trees. Before he even had the chance to register the scene, Katara heard the soft chink of metal, and her blood went cold.
"Aang, watch out!"
In almost slow motion. Katara saw a handful of knives speeding their way towards the Avatar. Aang's eyes widened, then he waved his hand and the knives were swept away by the air current he'd conjured.
To Katara's shock, despite the blast of air, the knives continued to follow Aang; impossibly, they turned, following him as he moved, and sped closer to him. She squinted, and saw that each knife was coated with a thin layer of ice.
"Please, stop!" Aang yelled. "I'm the Avatar!"
"I know!" the girl screamed in reply.
Then Katara heard a thud, the dull sound of metal hitting flesh, hard. The pressure at her neck eased, and she turned to see a triumphant Sokka, club in hand.
"Alright," he announced. "We tie her up and leave."
Katara bent down to examine the girl. She was young, no older than Aang, and horribly, painfully thin. Bones jutted through her gaunt face, and her wrists and fingers were stick-thin. Under the thick layer of grime, her brown skin was ashen, tinted grey from exhaustion and malnutrition.
"Sokka," Katara pleaded. "She's hurt."
"And so are you!" Sokka exclaimed, flailing his arms. "She could have killed you! Katara, this isn't a baby penguin!"
Katara was about to say something scathing, when the girl's eyes flickered open. To Katara's shock, they were gold. Bright, flaming gold.
"Why did you attack me?" Aang demanded from behind Katara.
The gold eyes – enemy eyes, Katara thought dazedly – narrowed as the girl focused on Aang.
"Look," Katara said, trying her best to sound compassionate and understanding. "He's the Avatar. He's trying to restore peace to the world and end the war. You're a waterbender," she added pleadingly, trying to ignore the piercing gold eyes. "So am I. I know how painful this war must have been for you."
"Please," Aang pleaded. "I'm only trying to make things right."
"Too late," the girl said. Her voice grew higher-pitched as she screamed frantically. "This war is your fault! My life is your fault! I shouldn't even be here, but you- "
She broke off and gasped, tears streaming furiously down her face. As she cried, she no longer looked angry, but just vulnerable and very, very afraid. Instinctively, Katara moved to comfort her but Sokka pulled her back.
"I say we tie her up and leave," he said.
"You're joking," Katara replied.
"C'mon," Sokka said. "She's too dangerous."
Katara knew Sokka was only making sense, as always. Spirits, her voice of reasoning even sounded like him. But even though common sense was always right, it wasn't always right.
"Sokka, she's going to die if we leave her out here."
He looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, and then shrugged. "Better her than us," he said, though he didn't sound entirely convinced.
Aang turned to the girl. "What's your name?" he asked gently.
She turned baleful eyes to him. "Xue," she eventually forced out through gritted teeth.
"Hi, Xue," Aang said softly. He slowly reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of dried fruit and showed it to her, like a peace offering. "You hungry?"
The girl continued to glare at him. "A little food isn't going to make me change my mind from killing you," she said hoarsely.
"O... Kay," Aang replied, raising his arms in surrender, then backing away from Xue slowly. Behind him, Sokka gestured frantically in her direction, emphasising his point to Katara.
"Xue, just why would you want to kill Aang?" Katara asked. It was a niggling question, one that she had to know.
Xue was silent. "Were you surprised by my eyes?" she finally asked. She continued without waiting for a response, knowing that they were.
"Do you know what happens during a war, O wise Avatar?" she asked bitterly.
"We know," Aang said softly. "People are hurt. People die."
"No, Avatar," Xue spat. "That's not all that happens. You see, sometimes, they take women as prisoners. Sometimes, they kill them. Those are the lucky ones." She laughed, a short sound so sharp Katara could almost feel it cut jagged wounds across her flesh.
"That's how I was born," Xue said. "My mother was a prisoner. I don't know my father because there were just too many bastards who couldn't keep it in their pants raped her. I grew up as a prisoner too, hated because I was the daughter of an enemy."
Katara reached out a hand to comfort the girl. "Xue, I'm so, so sorry."
"The Fire Nation," Sokka said as he shook his head. "Are made of monsters. This proves it."
Xue slapped away Katara's outstretched hand. "The Fire Nation?" she shrieked. "It wasn't the Fire Nation who raped my mother. Sorry to burst your happy illusion on the world, but it was the Northern Water Tribe was the one that tortured my mother. My mother was a solider, defending what she believed in. They captured her and made her their prisoner and whore for years. My mother and I were outcasts in the tribe. Given just enough food and water and clothing to stay alive, and shunned by everyone, unless someone wanted to... " She broke off, and squeezed her eyes shut at a memory. Inhaling deeply, she continued.
"My mother escaped with me, and managed to return to her family in the Fire Nation."
"You're lying," Sokka snapped. "The Water Tribes would never do something like that."
"I'm not," Xue said, turning to glare at him.
Sokka looked away first, uncomfortable. Xue seemed to take that as a victory and wrapped her knees to her chest, curling into a fetal position. She seemed to curl inwards to herself too. Her eyes took on a shadowed, unfocused cast, seeing a horrific past Katara couldn't even begin to comprehend.
She continued. "At the Fire Nation, my grandparents were overjoyed that their daughter had returned, safe. At first." Xue inhaled deeply, and when she spoke, each word sounded painfully forced. "Then they found out they had a bastard granddaughter. And not only that, a waterbender as well." She paused. Katara noticed she was gripping her legs so tightly her knuckles were bone white.
"My mom died trying to protect me from my own grandparents." Xue's voice was toneless, emotionless as she spoke now. It made Katara's skin crawl listening to it. "And I ran away."
"I shouldn't exist, Avatar," Xue said. Her lips curled into a humourless smile. "I can't stay in the Earth Kingdom. People figure out that I'm Fire Nation from my eyes and then they're ready to kill me, like I'm a threat. A monster." She looked at Aang and her eyes were blank, emotionless. Katara thought, in that moment, she did look like a monster, a ghoul with a brittle false smile, and expressionless eyes.
"The same thing happens in the Fire Nation when they realise I'm a waterbender," Xue continued. "Do you know what that's like? Being hated by everyone just for being born?"
"No," Aang said softly. "I don't."
"Why didn't you just… not splash around with magic water?" Sokka demanded.
"Have you ever heard of a bender successfully hiding his bending?" Xue was still smiling mirthlessly. "It's like forcing yourself from using your right hand. You can't."
"That still doesn't mean you can kill Aang," Sokka snapped. "He's doing his best to fix this. He's trying to end this war."
"Ending this war isn't going to bring peace to me, or any of the others like me," Xue retorted.
"We will," Aang promised. He reached out a hand to touch her, an instinctive gesture meant to comfort. She flinched immediately, and Katara wondered just what had the girl gone through so that she shied away from any kind of human contact.
"No," Xue whispered. "You won't." Something about her tone made Katara stiffen, ready to defend herself.
Xue's hand whipped up and slashed downwards. Katara moved the second she saw the glint of metal in Xue's hand. She pushed Aang aside and knocked Xue's arm away with her other hand. Her arms immediately snapped back to her center, shifting into a defensive position. She concentrated, sensing the water vapour in the surrounding air, and condensed the gas into a stream of water.
Xue screamed and lunged towards Katara, a dagger clutched in each hand. She slashed repeatedly towards Katara, each movement wild and desperate. Katara used the water as a shield, turning it into a chunk of ice that blocked Xue's attacks.
Then she stumbled. Her foot twisted itself on a root, and she fell backwards. It took only one moment for her concentration to slip, and Xue leapt, about to fall on her, the girl's expression crazed and angry and desperate and somehow, hopeful –
No one knew who attacked first. In the split second it took for Xue to leap and fall, Katara slashed blindly upwards with her water whip, Sokka jumped towards Xue with his club in hand, and Aang unleashed a blast of air that sent both her and Sokka flying back. The both of them landed against a large old tree with a loud thump.
"Katara!" Aang ran to the waterbender's side and helped her up. "Are you alright? Did she hurt you?"
"It's okay, I'm fine," Katara replied. She was shaking a little, and black dots danced in her vision as she got up gingerly, but she was alright.
Sokka groaned as stood, cradling his head tightly. "Warn me the next time you do that, will you?"
"Sokka!" Katara screamed. "Are you hurt?"
"Wha?" Sokka looked at his sister, confused. "No. And could you please not – " he paused, then realising that something was off, glanced down at his hand. Blood, dark and sticky, coated his fingers. He shrieked.
"Here, let me – " Katara took his hand gently, and examined it. To her surprise, she couldn't find a wound.
"If you're not bleeding, then how – " Aang said, and then broke off. Slowly, the three of them turned towards Xue. Sure enough, she lay face down on the ground, unmoving, a puddle of blood slowly forming from underneath her.
"Spirits," Katara gasped, horrified at the sight. She bent down immediately, hands moving to heal whatever she could.
A closer look showed there was a nasty bruise, already purple and swelling up at her temple. Her body was also twisted at an unnatural angle that made Katara suspect that her spine was broken.
It was too much, much too much. Beyond her, or even the most capable waterbender from healing.
Somehow, despite all the pain she must have been in, Xue managed to raise her head. Gold eyes found grey, and somehow, Xue gave Aang a weak, shaky smile that somehow looked genuine, despite all the pain she was in.
"Thank you," she whispered. The light faded from her eyes, her beautiful and enemy eyes, and her head landed on the ground.
"But how– " Aang cried, his voice hitching.
"The three of us attacked her at the same time, Aang," Sokka said. "She just couldn't handle the – And her body wasn't in the best state, I mean, look at how thin she is." He inhaled deeply, trying to think.
"Suicide," he declared after a moment. "It has to be suicide. She didn't really want to kill Aang. She just wanted to di – "
"But why?" Katara screamed. Tears fell, hot and fast, from her eyes. "Why would she want to come to Aang just for us to kill her? She said it herself, everyone did. Why us?"
"Because," Aang said slowly, deliberately avoiding looking at Xue's mangled, still-bleeding corpse. "She wanted to show me something."
"What?" Katara realised she was going hysterical, and tried to inhale deeply, forcing herself to remain calm. She felt calmer, but tears and snot still dripped from her face, no matter how many times she wiped them away.
"I don't know yet," Aang answered, slowly.
It took years. Even as the last stone was set in Republic City, a city meant for all four nations, Aang was blind to how each nation sequestered themselves within each quarter, wary of travelling to another. He didn't think much of how Sokka and Suki kept travelling from town to town, trying to avoid the flurry of harassment and attacks that followed them like a disease. Aang didn't even realise the extent of how deeply prejudiced flowed in people, until Katara's own tribe shunned her for choosing to marry an outsider – dating was one thing, but marriage? To someone who didn't understand her own customs, her traditions? It wasn't until, one night, Katara was almost assaulted that he began to see what Xue was trying to show him.
Author's comments: Was partially inspired by the character Crossbreed Priscilla in the epic game, Dark Souls. One of the item's descriptions – the Peculiar Doll, which belonged to Priscilla – has the description 'There once was an abomination who had no place in this world. She clutched this doll tightly, and eventually was drawn into a cold and lonely painted world.' The strength of the word 'abomination' just struck me. Also, I was thinking about how, in wartime, rape is just one of those things that happens each and every time, like some kind of sign of domination. So there must have been a pregnancy, and more than once. And since there are also women in the Fire Nation army, all the more likely it'd happen. I could have made Xue an earthbender, but I chose waterbender since I figured it'd impact Katara and Sokka more.
Xue can either mean 'blood' or 'snow' in Chinese. I thought the name was apt.
I figure after Aang and Katara get married, the Avatar's relationship would be an inspiration for all other couples in the world. I also figure they'd flock to Republic City. It's like the new America - a place for new beginnings. But old customs continue to linger there, and sometimes, new beliefs would be born - hence the anti-bending sentiments.