Chapter One

"Come on! Seriously, you are such a slow person," I complained. My older brother Aden groaned and continued trudging through the snow. Being one of the Fire Nation, it must have been hard for him in these conditions. On the other hand, he had been living with everyone for almost three years now.

Aden plopped on the snow and sighed heavily. "Su, do you have any idea about where we are?" he asked me.

I thought for a few seconds before smiling and shaking my head. I never knew where I was going, yet I somehow always returned home like I had a map of the entire South Pole.

We continued our small journey until we reached an area that was completely habited by penguins. My eyes widened with glee as I ran to give each of them individually a hug. Aden slapped his hand on his forehead. "Why do you have to act so childish? Instead of playing with them, we could take them back to the town and grill for food," he suggested.

My arms started flailing around in a frenzy. "Shut up, Aden! I cannot eat penguins, and you know that!" I cried.

"Can't you think of anyone besides yourself?"

"I'm thinking about these poor penguins who could lose their lives under Dad's orders."

"Su, you really need to learn to act your age!"

I glared at him. I was fifteen, and that seemed pretty young enough to have a little playtime within the work. If anything, he needed to learn to act his age. He was nineteen. That certainly did not and never would give him the right to boss me around and be the parent.

Aden grabbed my arm and pulled me away. I had gotten on his last nerves, and all he wanted now was to leave. We arrived at what appeared to be the ocean when Aden grabbed onto me and blasted us into the air with his fire bending. We were at least twenty feet above the water, and I really hated heights, so of course I started screaming. He kept blasting the ground to push us back up every time we were close to the water.

Suddenly, we kept getting lower and lower. Aden tried his absolute hardest to get us aloft again, but it wasn't working. "A-Aden...why are we not in the air anymore?" I shouted.

"I don't know! Just be prepared to swim!" he answered.

We landed in the freezing, icy water. Our new fur jackets were soaked, and even they could not protect us from the cold. Luckily, we both could swim, but unfortuantely that didn't help much since our bodies were much more focused on getting warm. I could feel the water completely surrounding my figure. I could taste the water in my mouth. I could hear Aden calling after me. How much longer could I handle the pressure of the water, the limited amount of time not being able to breathe?

I coughed as I heard a different voice calling my name.

"Su...Su...Su!"

I sat up and looked around. I'm in my room, I thought. Was it all just a dream? Mom was sitting on the edge of the polar leopard-skinned bed. She explained that I must have been having a bad dream or that I was getting sick, for she heard me coughing violently and mumbling in my sleep. I shook my head to signal that I was fine, even though I really wasn't. It was never fun to have a dream where you drowned in the freezing cold ocean.

Mom left the room to leave me be. The sun was not even halfway across the sky, so it wasn't midday yet. In fact, it probably was still morning. I could hear Aden snoring in the next room over, which made me laugh. I always tried to tell him that he snored whenever he slept, but he never believed me.

Putting on my coat, I walked outside and stared up at the tall buildings. Both Mom and Dad explained what it was like before the South Pole became a bustling city. It was just a village, with a couple of tents surrounding a nice fire in the center to keep everyone warm. It sounded impossible since I had grown up in the city-like South Pole my whole life. No one even remembered the old days except for a couple of grandparents and mothers and fathers. Grandma didn't come here until she married our grandpa, whom had lived in the South Pole for the first few years of his life.

I walked around the coastline, not getting to close to the water because I was still recovering from my nightmare the night before. Then, in the distance, there was a large fog that kept getting closer and closer. Stepping back, I gazed at the shadowy figure behind the low clouds. I started making a run for it towards Dad's place. He was basically the ruler of the South Pole (it goes back to my great-grandpa who started that tradition) so he would know what to do. I charged through the gates and dashed past the grand hallway. Dad was in the meeting room, discussing something with the assistants.

"Dad! There's something coming this way! I don't know what it is. It's covered by a fog of some sort, but it definitely is coming this way," I said quickly.

He nodded. "Send out some riverboats to find out what my daughter saw," he ordered his most loyal attendent. I followed the master waterbenders outside and decided to be a stowaway on one of the boats. Both Dad and Aden disliked the fact that I wanted to always hang out with the masters and go on missions with them. However, I was a waterbender like a lot of other citizens, so it was only fair that I should learn to use my bending. It was a blessing to have received the power to bend the elements, so why should someone not be able to use that?

As the small boats were closer to the large shadow, they disovered that it was a large ship...from the Fire Nation. They froze the sides of the gigantic boat to a halt, but the soldiers burned the ice and headed further towards my home. The waterbenders didn't give up, for they sped over and practically froze the whole ship this time. Even the fire soldiers were to try and melt it, it would take more than one blast to start moving again.

I watched all of this from the bottom of the tiny water tribe gondolas that faught against the fire benders. I tried to get a better look, but I suddenly felt a jab in the back of my neck, which made me fall backwards into the water. My eyes were shut as I watched my life flash before me. Surprisingly, it was only a few more seconds until I could breathe again. I tried to open my eyes at least a little bit, but my vision was completely blurry.

I heard footsteps coming closer to me. I prayed that it was a waterbender or a master coming to my rescue, but it didn't sound like one. In fact, the voice seemed to be echoing off of metal, or something close to that material. "Excuse me, Your Highness, but what should we do with this one?" the voice said with a questioning tone. I don't know if I actually was, but I think I started to cry after he said that.

Another voice chuckled with amusement. It sounded like it was coming from a boy around my age, maybe Aden's age. Aden...I could hear him calling me and fighting the soldiers as I heard the ship take port on our shore. The young boy's voice interrupted my thoughts saying, "Just bring her to one of the empty bedrooms for now." Everything after that was just darkness.