A/N: In honor of all the families who lost someone today in the Elementary School shooting. My prayers go out to you. This piece was inspired by the idea of receiving that news, that horrible news, and not knowing whether the person you love has made it out alive. I hope you enjoy it. God bless!
Disclaimer: I don't own "Avatar: The Last Airbender" or "The Legend of Korra".
It's scary how fast things can change.
The sun was peaking through the windows of the small classroom, casting shadows across the students whom sat in there desks, reading the piece of parchment in front of them. The room was an array of green, blue, and red robes, the perfect example of the mixed society that Republic City had.
A girl sat near the back, her hair held back with a cerulean colored ribbon, perfectly matching her eyes. A few braids were mixed in with her naturally wavy dark brown hair, giving her the look of her ancestors from the Water Tribes. Her cocoa skin sparkled slightly as the warm, morning sun grazed over her arm.
"Alright, class," The teacher stood from her desk at the front of the room. The plaque on the wood read Sifu Mae. The middle aged woman's dark hair was thrown on top of her head in a messy bun, her spectacles resting on the bridge of her pale nose and her amber eyes scanning the words of the page of the book in her hand, "We are going to be starting the topic of The Hundred Year War today, does anyone know anything of the subject?"
Every student in the Academy would be able to answer this question, though one student slouched slightly in her chair, trying to stay out of her teacher's sight. Her hand flew to her mouth as she tried her best to conceal the smile that grew every time the subject was brought up. Oh she knew about The Hundred Year War.
"Yes, Mr. Sho."
The boy stood from his seat, straightening the front of his green tunic as he cleared his throat slightly. The girls around him stared up at the boy of only about sixteen years of age as he gave the teacher a charming smile.
"The Hundred Year War was the war between the Fire Nation and the other Nations before they were known as the United Republic of Nations. It lasted from the time Fire Lord Sozin was in power until the time where Avatar Aang defeated Fire Lord Ozai."
"Yes, very good," The teacher nodded for him to sit and he obliged. Taking her spectacles off and laying them on her desk, the woman continued, "The world would be very different today if Avatar Aang and his friends hadn't acted in the way they did. Our glorious Avatar truly was the world's last hope, and perhaps he is still the only thing that is keeping us in balance as we speak."
Kya rolled her eyes at her teacher's dramatics, trying hard to be discreet about it. By now, she was used to the woman's strange obsession with her father, but still it got old after awhile.
Don't get her wrong, she loves her father with all her heart. She adores him, but it's just weird to hear people refer to him the way they do when he was the same man kissing her boo boo's and rocking her to sleep at night when she was young.
Only a select few actually knew that she was the Avatar's daughter. It was something that Kya didn't really care to talk about much. Once people found out, they treated her differently. Even her teachers didn't truly know of her identity.
"Kya?"
Shaking herself from her thoughts, Kya brought herself back into reality. All eyes in the room were trained on her.
"Yes?"
The eccentric teacher gave a huff of frustration, something she usually did when dealing with the flighty waterbender, "I asked you a question."
The girl's eyebrows furrowed slightly, "I'm sorry, could you ask it again?"
Sighing heavily, the teacher looked back down at her guide book, scanning for the question before finding it, "Who was the person in which Avatar Aang was under as a student at the Southern Air Temple?"
The other students in the room visibly cringed at the difficulty of the question, all of them knowing that the question the teacher had previously asked was magnitudes easier than the one she just did. Without missing a beat though, the girl in question answered the inquiry.
"Monk Gyatso."
Sifu Mae was taken aback a second before composing herself, all the children looking at Kya with impressed expressions, "That's correct."
The waterbender couldn't stop herself from smiling a bit smugly, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.
"Lucky guess."
The morning passed quickly for the children in attendance at the Academy. While they were doing a worksheet over the siege of the North Pole, Sifu Mae decided to turn on the radio.
"There's a huge trial taking place at City Hall today," She chatted idly as she adjusted the various robes on the rectangular box, "I wonder what the verdict is going to be?"
As their teacher continued to mess with the dials, the students worked diligently on their work.
"This can't be good," An announcer's tone broke through the silent determination in the room, breaking all of the students from their thoughts, "Yakone is on the loose!"
Sifu Mae's eyebrows furrowed as she turned the dial up a bit more, the students just as curious. Some stood from their seats to crowd closer around the radio.
"What's going on?"
As if the announcer had heard the question himself, the man exclaimed, "Yakone has bloodbent the entire crowd within City Hall!"
This definitely caught Kya's interest.
Jumping from her seat, the young girl went to stand beside her buzzing classmates. A worried frown formed on her face as she continued to listen.
"The Council is down! Chief Bei Fong is down! Avatar Aang is down!"
The last part was enough to make Kya freeze. It was as if ice was running through her veins the moment she heard those words.
Her father couldn't be down.
The whole room was bathed in silence. Even Sho and his giggly posse wasn't making a sound.
A knock sounded on the classroom door, and Mrs Mae, still in a daze, quickly went over to answer it. Behind the wood, was a very frazzled headmaster.
"Draw the blinds on all the windows and make sure the children are a good distance from them," His order was said in a strangely calm voice, yet they all could see the fear he held in his eyes, "The city is issuing that until Yakone is held in custody, we need to be on lock down."
If Kya wasn't still so shaken up over the announcement of her father being defeated, she may have laughed. If the Avatar couldn't stop Yakone, who could? Who did they think was going to take him into custody?
But this wasn't a laughing matter.
An hour later, the students sat in complete darkness. No one had said a word since their initial rearrangements. The blinds were closed and all the teenagers sat curled in the corner of the room, their teacher sitting beside them, trying desperately to get a radio connection.
But the radio announcer hadn't spoken since he reported what had happened at City Hall.
Kya sat a small distance away from her fellow classmates, arms wrapped tightly around her legs as she denied herself the joy of crying. She couldn't cry. She was numb. She was worried.
What had happened to her Uncle Sokka? Her Aunt Toph? Her father?
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly as she remembered how unappreciative she had been of her father that morning, rolling her eyes as her teacher talked about how great he was.
He was great, why did she find that amusing?
Burying her face in her arms, the girl tried to calm herself as her heart rate began to increase. What would happen now? How far would Yakone go? Surely with the Avatar down he wouldn't go to his home and wreak havoc there as well? Surely he wouldn't go after her mother and Tenzin?
But Kya did not know the answer to this, so naturally her thoughts turned to the worst case scenario.
The door opened then, the headmaster poking his head inside, using firebending to light a small flame within his palm.
"We've been given the all clear."
There was a collective sigh of relief as the students absorbed the good news, but Kya remained still. Sifu Mae walked over to the windows and released the blinds, allowing the sun to shine into the room. Usually the young waterbender would have found this comforting, but right now, it was as if the sun was piercing away at her skin every moment that she didn't know the outcome of the trial gone wrong this morning.
The students began returning to their deak, but the headmaster stayed standing in the doorway, gesturing with his hand for someone to walk over. The person who joined him had Kya standing swiftly.
"Mom?" Her sigh was mixed with both relief and fear as the familiar woman's tanned features rounded the corner, her signature hair loopies swishing slightly as she walked at a clipped pace towards the doorway of her daughter's classroom.
"Come on, Kya."
Her mother didn't need to say anything else. Before the statement had even left her lips, Kya was gathering her things and walking towards the door. She paused for a moment as she looked over at Sifu Mae's face.
The woman was staring at the waterbending legend in shock, standing perfectly erect as her body failed her. The Avatar's wife had certainly made a name for herself during the war and was easily recognizable to the population of the world.
Even though Kya would have loved to stop and laugh for a moment at her teacher's expression, she decided that was not at the top of her priorities.
She joined her mother outside the room where she was quickly swept into an embrace by the woman and her two younger brothers. She usually would have questioned their actions, but at the moment, she clutched on to her family tightly.
"Is Daddy okay?" The young waterbender questioned quietly as they began to make their way down the school hall, the headmaster calling a quick goodbye to them as they reached the Academy's large double doors.
Her mother heaved a heavy sigh, the worry evident in the lines of her face, "They are telling me he is, but I don't believe them. I wanted to pick you two up first so we could all go see him."
"What about Aunt Toph?" Bumi asked in an uncharacteristically concerned voice, a tanned hand pushing back the frizzy mane of hair on top of his head, a nervous habit he had picked up from their father despite the fact that the man was bald, "What about Uncle Sokka?"
"I don't know, Bumi."
The youngest of the three, Tenzin, was quiet and stoic as ever. Kya could see though that the usually serious child's face, had a look of distress on it. He was suffering on the inside.
A quick ten minutes later, the family was pushing through several dozen metalbending cops and curious bystanders, trying their best to be polite, but failing miserably at it.
Finally making it up the steps of City Hall, their mother rushed ahead of them,
pushing the double doors open herself, ignoring the scolding she received from the metalbending cops on duty, guarding the doors. Once they acknowledged who she was though, they shut their mouths swiftly.
Katara was able to navigate her way through the chaos that met them in the lobby, pushing past a few cops questioning some victims, and a few healers alleviating the pain of bloodbending.
The family was quickly guided down a long hall, leading back to the offices where the council members usually were stationed in. On their way there they passed the rooms where Sokka, who was cracking jokes with the medical assistance, was being healed, and also Toph, who was complaining about people not touching her, was being tentatively healed. Seeing that they were okay, the family pressed on to the room at the end of the hall.
There was a huge crowd of reporters standing outside the door, but one look at the determination on Katara's face had them all reeling backwards.
Opening the door quickly, pulling her children in, and shutting it again, Katara looked around frantically for her injured husband.
Sitting on the couch on the far side of the office, a slight pained look on his face as a healer worked on the muscles of his tattooed arms, was Avatar Aang.
His usual carefree features were drawn tightly and his usual bright stormy eyes were visibly darker. He looked absolutely exhausted.
"Aang!"
"Dad!"
The man looked up and despite the pain that had been visible on his face moments before, he smiled in relief as his family walked in.
Briskly walking over, Katara shooed away the healer trying to relax her husband's muscles. The young girl gave a slight bow and moved so that the Avatar's wife could take over. Not skipping a beat, Katara drew the water from the jug and wrapped it delicately around her hands, frantically asking questions.
"Are you alright?! The radio stopped reporting and I had no idea what happened to you! Tenzin and I picked Bumi and Kya up from school and the Academy was on lock down, Aang! I thought something terrible had happened to you! I just knew Yakone was a bloodbender. I should have been here today, this is all my fault..."
The Avatar shook his head and murmured gently, "Katara, don't ever blame yourself for this. Yakone has been taken care of and no one was seriously injured."
"You were."
"I feel better already," Aang smiled softly down at his wife, to which she raised a skeptical eyebrow, "No really, I do. Just having you and the kids here makes me feel that much better. I'm just exhausted."
Katara was quiet for a moment, taking in the type of exhaustion that was evident on his face. She recognized it.
"You took his bending away, didn't you?"
The Avatar gave her a silent nod, watching as her nimble fingers graced over his pale skin, visibly making the muscles relax. She really was the best healer in the world or perhaps the man was biased.
He looked up and noticed that his children still stood beside the closed door, looking at him with fear filled eyes despite the gentle smile he put on for them. In fact, that one smile was enough to set Kya off, and he could have sworn that Tenzin allowed a small tear to slide down his cheek as well.
"You are looking at me as if you are scared I'm going to break," He joked slightly, though he could see his futile effort of encouragement wasn't working. Katara had finished with both of his arms, the Avatar holding them in front of him and testing them before heaving a great sigh of relief.
"That's some good water."
Finally, Katara broke as well. The tears escaped her eyes slowly at first, but before he knew what was happening, she was clinging to him sobbing. The healers who had been watching curiously from across the room, swiftly made themselves scarce as the private moment of weakness occured between two of the most powerful benders in the world.
"Katara," Aang soothed softly, allowing his fingers to run through her hair in comfort as she cried into the skin of his neck, wetting his autumn colored robes, "I'm fine, sweetie."
Before he knew it though, Kya had joined the hug, then Tenzin, and then finally Bumi. His children clung to him like they thought they would never see him again.
"Really, I'm okay! Please, don't cry."
His family pulled away slightly, his wife wiping her eyes as their daughter continued to cry.
"Daddy," Even though she was now a blooming teenager, the girl held desperately on to the childish name, "They said you were down."
"I was down."
Bumi intervened now, his clear eyes filled with tears as well as he clarified, "No, we thought they meant you really were down."
"What?"
Tenzin's quiet voice answered his father's question, "We thought Yakone had killed you, father."
The Avatar understood now, wrapping his arms even tighter around his family and bringing them closer to him, "Well, I'm still here. Everything is going to be okay. I promise."
Even though it had ended up being okay, there was never a guarantee it would always be that way. From that moment forward, the family always made sure to treat every day preciously, all their time wisely, and never take advantage of what they had.
Because it was scary how in a moment, everything could change.