I've decided to delete the preveiw and replace it with the first chapter... Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar, nor do I wish to own it because I would probably mess it up...
Avatar: The Next Airbender
Book Four:
Chapter One: More than Shattered Glass
Sakkira opened her history book and copied a few notes onto a sheet of paper. She stood up and stretched the soreness out of her muscles. She had been researching her heritage for hours and was tired. But she was pleased with the results.
Three days ago she had asked Zane if he would help her find her birth parents. He had asked why she wanted to know who they were and she replied, 'You have always told me that heritage is the key to unlocking your destiny. I'm ready to find out who I really am.'
They had gone to the orphanage and asked for papers on Sakkira's parents. The woman at the desk smiled and handed Sakkira copies of the documents her parents had signed to leave her there. And now Sakkira had traced her heritage back to the last Airbender, Aang.
She looked at her self in the mirror. Sakkira held up a photo of Avatar Aang next to her face. She frowned when she couldn't find any resemblance to her ancestor but quickly recovered and pushed Avatar Aang's wife's picture up next to her face.
Katara, Aang's wife and the last Southern Waterbender was beautiful. Her face had special glow to it that matched the same look Sakkira had. But otherwise, there was no resemblance.
Sakkira sighed in despair. She was the direct decent of Avatar Aang, Master Waterbender Katara, and Fire Lord Zuko so who would have wanted to give her up and why?
She paced around her room with her arms crossed like she often did when she was thinking hard.
Aang and Katara's eldest daughter had married Fire Lord Zuko and Mai's eldest son. From there the blood line of the Avatar was passed down through the Fire Nation's people until it stopped, two hundred years later, with Sakkira.
As far as she could tell, Avatar Aang would be her fourth great grandfather.
Sakkira dropped to her knees and pressed her fingernails into her almost black hair. She let out a screech of outrage and slashed her hand through the air.
She hadn't touched the mirror; in fact she was at least five feet away from it. But she could hear glass tinkling as it fell to the floor of her bedroom. Something wooden dropped to the floor and she could hear her curtains swinging violently against the wall.
Sakkira looked up to see her desk on its side and her mirror completely shattered. Her red curtain looked windblown and rumpled. She turned to look over her shoulder at her window. It wasn't open so no strong gust of wind could have done this.
She stood up and walked toward her desk, careful not to step on any glass. Sakkira pulled the desk back into its upright position. She dusted her hands on her knee high pants and turned to find the broom.
"What happened? What was that loud crash, Sakkira, are you alright?" Uncle Zane swung her bedroom door open so far it hit the wall and bounced back.
"I'm fine Uncle." Sakkira smiled weakly up at her uncle.
"What happened? How did you break the mirror?" Zane walked up to the mirror's frame and looked at it closely.
"I'm not sure… I was just—" Sakkira was about to demonstrate the movement she had made with her mirror had broken when her uncle grabbed her wrist and looked her dead in the eyes.
"We have to talk. Now." His face was hard, cold and unmoving.
"Okay," Sakkira said slightly dazed and confused.
Uncle Zane led the way out of her bedroom and down the hall until they reached the back door. He kept walking until he came to the clearing they used to practice their firebending.
"Now tell me exactly what you did and how you felt." Uncle Zane sat down on a stump to watch.
"I was sitting like this," Sakkira said as she dropped to her knees, "I-I felt angry because I don't understand why my parents gave me up. So… I yelled and—" She slashed her hand through the air exactly the same way she had done it the first time.
A blast of air, thin and the same length as her arm flew out. Time seemed to slow down as it went strait towards her uncle.
For an instant Sakkira thought that the stream of air would smack her uncle in the chest. Horror filled her heart and it became hard to breath as her eyes widened. What a mistake she had made! If the air blast didn't kill him, it would surely injure him and she was not strong enough to carry him to anyone who could help.
Right before her very eyes she watcher her uncle do a sideways flip through the air. He had dodged the air blast by inches, by seconds.
Relief flooded through her veins and she suddenly could breathe again. She pressed her face toward the ground as tears seeped from her closed eyes. Sakkira's mind raced, if her uncle had died what would she have done?
"Sakkira, look at me." Came his gentle yet deep voice.
She looked up and whipped her face with her sleeve. She tired hard not to let another tear run down her cheek but failed.
"My niece, I have good news for you." Zane smiled. "You are the next Avatar."
Sakkira looked down at her hands that digging into the ground's dry dirt. Her breathing was irregular as she thought about the words her uncle had just said. She shook her head slowly as if she couldn't understand his words. "I—I—"
"Sakkira, calm down." Zane's hand rested on her shoulder, "You have been studying your heritage for the last three days. You know who you are. And it is you time to shine. You are an airbender, always have been. When you were two, you blew a paper boat across the lake. During your exercises when you were ten you were able to dodge your teacher's blows by using airbending to get away. Most of the things you have done with airbending were small and short lived and that is only because I could not find you a teacher. Avatar Aang was the last airbender of his time, but you are the last airbender of our time."
Sakkira pulled her hands out of the dirt and placed them on her thighs. "But Uncle, I'm not sure I want to be the Avatar." She said almost silently.
"You said that you wanted to discover your destiny and now it is laid out in front of you and you won't take it?" Zane asked slightly bewildered.
She clenched her fist and blew fire out her nose, "I don't know! Leave me alone!" She stood up and ran towards the woods. Tears streamed down her face. How could she be an Airbender? She didn't know anything about the culture except for a few facts she'd learned from her studies. And there was no one to teach her how to be an Airbender.
Everything was wrong. She was of the Fire Nation, not a monk!
She used her finger tips to whip away the tears on her cheeks. From the corner of her eye she could see the tear drops forming a line as she lashed her hand out to the side. The water lashed out in the same movement she had just made, cutting off a small branch in the process.
Sakkira's eyes opened wide. She really was the Avatar. Fire, air, and now water.
This is too weird, she thought.
She pulled her dark red glove off her hand and looked at the red arrow head. It made since, if she really was an Airbender she would have blue arrows, but they wouldn't appear until she had mastered the element, so why did she have them now?
The coloring was all wrong too. Unless the faint red color was because she was born of the Fire Nation. She was really two in one; fire and air.
Without air there is no fire. Without fire there is no life. Without life there is no water. Without water there is no earth. Without earth there is no air. She could see the cycle of life, the cycle of the Avatar. In order to bring peace the Avatar must master all four elements. He must be equal to all four elements.
"I can't do this! I'm not strong enough!" Sakkira punched a tree trunk, at impact fire sparked between her fist and the bark. "I don't know how to be the Avatar!"
"Sakkira, you are right, you are not strong. You will be the worst Avatar known to this world. You can not save the Fire Nation from destruction."
"Who's there?" Sakkira jumped to her feet. She stood in a firebending stance and turned all the way around, searching for who ever was talking.
"Calm yourself. I am a friend." A woman with ragging red eyes appeared before Sakkira's eyes. "My name is Nyla."
"I do not know you. How do I know you're my friend?" Sakkira asked.
"Trust me child."
"No!" Sakkira couldn't explain the feeling rising up inside of her but something about this woman told her to run. She threw a blast of fire at the woman and turned to run.
Sakkira ducked underneath a low branch and surged deeper into the woods. She looked over her shoulder to see the woman chasing after her. She had an evil, devil-ish look on her face.
"Wait! I have something very important to tell you!" the woman called.
She turned on her heel and stopped to face the woman. She jumped and kicked, sending a ball of fire towards the lady from her foot. Once she landed on her feet she punched two more fire balls from her fists and turned to run again.
A blazing hot and very large blast of fire passed Sakkira to the left. She watched the fire ball hit a tree and burn it into ash.
She tripped over a root that was sticking out of the ground. Sakkira rolled and smacked into a tree. She moaned as she pressed her hand to her forehead.
She could feel a huge amount of heat beside her. She opened one eye too see the lady standing in front of her, her whole body consumed in fire.
"If you will not listen than you shall die!" the woman had a murderous look in her eyes. She lifted her hands high above her head and started to scream as she threw an oversized fire ball towards Sakkira's chest.
Sakkira's fist spread to and open hand and she made a wide line of air to shield herself from the intense heat of the fire.
The fire ball struck the air shield and Sakkira screamed rage as she punched the air shield toward the woman.
The woman looked so afraid Sakkira wondered if what she was doing was wrong. But she couldn't stop the air from knocking the woman into a tree.
Sakkira opened her eyes to see the woman dead, with a large branch piercing her stomach. Tears fell rapidly from her eyes as she stood up and ran away from the ugly sight. She had just killed someone and she felt awful.
More than shattered glass was broken.