Okay. I have another fic.

Because plot bunnies will never leave me alone.

So I wrote an essay about Avatar: The Last Airbender for a Gender Studies class, and among the standard bullshit that you put in to stretch out a college paper, I added in that Katara acts like a mother because she lost hers; she sees the role as empowering in some way.

Then I read some list of random AU plotbunnies, one of them being that Katara had died instead of Kya.

And after my mind got to work, I came up with this.

I know the exact line at which you will all call me an evil, sadistic bastard.

"Now, tell me. Who is it? Who's the waterbender?"

This woman was stubborn. "There are no waterbenders here. The Fire Nation took them all away a long time ago."

"You're lying. My source says there's one waterbender left in The Southern Water Tribe. We're not leaving until we find the waterbender."

Her head lowered. "If I tell you, do you promise to leave the rest of the village alone?"

Yon Rha nodded, and she took a deep breath, her decision made. "It's me. Take me-"

"You're lying," he interrupted.

He marched over to the kneeling woman and roughly dragged her up by the collar. "Who. Is. The waterbender?"

Her only response was a glare.

"We can do this the easy way," Yon Rha growled, igniting a flame in his free hand, "or the hard way."

No response.

"Fine by me, but you will talk."

"Kya!"

Yon Rha turned toward the new disturbance- a man racing toward the hut- but the woman grabbed his head before he could get a good look. Her forehead slammed into his nose, and with a yell of pain and rage, he slugged her across the face with an armored fist, just as the "disturbance" sent a spear racing toward his ribs. He sidestepped and countered with a flaming punch that blew the savage across the room.

"Dad!" A boy had chosen to challenge him this time, with some sort of toy ready to throw, but the woman yelled to him.

"Sokka, no! Take Katara and run!"

The boy- Sokka- did as he was told. Good boy.

So it's the girl, Yon Rha mused. Good to know.

He made after them, but as he exited the igloo, the man tackled him.

Yon Rha rolled, and threw him off, pouncing on the warrior and bludgeoning him into submission. He got up, brushed the snow off of his armor, and nonchalantly went after the children, guided by their footsteps in the snow.

Katara could barely keep up with her brother as he dragged her through snowbanks and around huts, searching for a place to hide. Finally, they found a pile of logs and huddled behind it, barely breathing. The trump of heavy boots came closer and closer, until that man's voice sounded from right outside their hiding place.

"You may as well have stayed in one place. In addition to the fact that you left footprints, you picked the absolute worst place to hide from a firebender. So are you coming out on your own, or will i have to force you out?"

Katara whimpered, but Sokka shushed her.

"It's okay; I'll handle this."

He stepped out of the hiding place and faced the soldier, boomerang at the ready. Katara could see his face, stern and unafraid.

The soldier laughed.

"Please tell me you're joking. Your father didn't put up much of a fight against me." He grinned. At Sokka's expression, Katara assumed. "Oh, he's alive. He'll have a bit of a headache when he awakens, but he'll be fine."

Sokka growled and took a step forward.

"Must it all end in violence? Once I have the waterbender, my men and I will-"

CLANG!

Sokka's boomerang bounced off of the soldier's helmet and returned to his waiting hand. Katara giggled to herself.

"Fine. Have it your way."

Sokka saw the man prepare an attack. He told himself he would face it with the honor and courage of a Water Tribe warrior. But in the end, he couldn't. As the fire raced toward, him he threw his hands up, as though it would protect him.

The fire never reached him. He opened his eyes, and saw the soldier through the hole in the wall of ice.

"You're the waterbender?" the soldier asked, incredulous.

Don'tlookatKataraDon'tlookatKataraDon'tlookatKatara...

Sokka knew what was next, what the soldier wanted. He knelt on the ground, holding both hands up toward his now captor. The boots crunched in the snow as they came toward him. A large hand landed on the top of his head, sending his gaze to the ground.

"Sadly," the soldier said, "My orders ware not to take prisoners."

Sokka started to move when he heard the sliding of metal, but by then, it was too late.

Yon Rha shook the blood from his dagger. Pity it had to be one so young, but orders were orders. Find waterbender, kill waterbender. He had at least tried to give him a merciful death. With both veins in the neck cut, he wouldn't last the minute. He blew on his horn, sounding a tactical retreat.

Katara ran to Sokka's limp form as his blood pooled on the snow. She shook him, called his name. His mouth moved, but it was like the air couldn't get to his lips past all the blood. She ignored the tears running down his face, the gut instinct that told her he was as good as gone. She could find a way. She could-

"I am sorry," the soldier muttered, "truly I am. It is always sad to see a child lose his life, but my orders-"

"He lied."

"What?"

In response, a geyser erupted beneath his feet, causing him to jump backward.

"He lied to you."

He straightened into a firebending stance, but before he could throw a punch, a stream of slush collided with him from the side, throwing him off balance. Katara swung her arms wildly, calling up more snow geysers, but her attacks, while ferocious, weren't thrown with any sort of accuracy, and once the firebender found out the pattern, he rushed toward her, grabbing her by the arms and slamming her back-first against the ground.

"I really don't want to do this. You would have been so beautiful."

Pressing his hand against her chest, he raised a fist wreathed in fire.

Katara looked into the man's eyes and saw nothing but her own death staring back. It was then that she realized that there would be no true remorse, no salvation. Something inside of her snapped.

Terrified and grief-stricken as she was, she greeted death with rage.

A mighty yell, and the ground beneath them erupted, throwing mist into Yon Rha's face. It flash-froze, and as he reeled back, Katara took the opportunity to blast him point-blank with as much water as she could handle.

It was... surprisingly a lot.

He was thrown several feet, bouncing along the snowy ground until an igloo halted his progress. Before he could get up, Katara pulled at the wall, sending snow and ice toppling over onto his torso.

She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. He was trapped. One of the warriors would come, and capture him, and they would know what to do. She just had to make sure he stayed trapped.

Except... the snow on top of him was melting. He was melting it, because he was a firebender. At this rate, he would escape and come after her again, try to kill her. If she ran, he'd just hurt more people to get at her. She couldn't let that happen.

It became clear in her mind.

It was him or her. One of them was going to have to die.

He'd already made the choice to kill her.

Could she make it, too?

She looked over to her brother, faceup in the snow, staring glassily at the sky. The blood around him, slowly freezing. She would cry later. Now, she had to act.

If he gets up, I'm dead. If he gets up, I'm dead.

She snatched up as much of Sokka's blood as she could- not for irony's sake, but because she could only think of one way to... kill someone with water, and she needed as much as she could get her hands on. As she approached the pile of snow, she snagged some of the meltwater as well, and held the pale red mixture to his face. The snowbank began to shrink faster as he realized what she was doing, and she called more of it to her, encasing his head in a bubble of bloody water. He began to thrash as the snow became loose enough, but Katara collapsed the wall further, trapping him again.

He managed to free one hand and grab her wrist, and, in a moment borne more of desperation than skill, she froze the surface of the sphere around his head; it held up long enough for her to brace his hand down.

She pushed, forcing the water down his nose and throat to speed up the process. She couldn't let him escape. But his lips looked like they were turning blue; she only had a bit longer to go.

Half a minute later, the water around his head began to boil, searing his own skin in his last-ditch effort to survive. Then, he slowed down. His kicking and flailing lessened. He stopped trying to grab her. His eyes rolled back in his head, and she felt as he sucked in a breath of water of his own accord.

She held him until he was still, then stayed there, fearing some sort of trick.

She let the tears fall. Tears for her brother who was lost. Tears for her family that would suffer without him. Tears for the monster she had become.

She held the water over his head long after he was dead, for what seemed like hours.

When Sokka was sent out on his final voyage to be with his ancestors, Katara stood vigil as his craft went out to sea, the marks of a warrior painted on her face.

Yeah. I just slit nine-year-old Sokka's throat. And had seven-year-old Katara kill a man.

This is not going to go well, is it?

Nope.