Hello all! Thank you so much for reading this first installment of my story, I hope you'll review they make me feel happy inside! Warnings for cursing and violence that may occur throughout the story. Please enjoy :D
Chapter One - Beyond the Edge
Anai's mittens clutched the edge of the wall, the heat of her hands melting the ice and dampening the surface of the tigerseal skin. Her cheeks were colored pink from the freezing air that turned her breath to mist. Pulling at her heavy coat trying to hold in some of the warmth she watched the horizon. Waves, cold blue gray waves; the same color as her eyes,only broken icebergs floating by.
The fifteen year old did this often, climbing the stairs to the top of the wall just to watch. At the moment the sun was only just rising on the far edge of the horizon; glinting off the ice giving different bergs a blue or pink sheen. She wanted to enjoy it while she could, it was the first couple days of June, early winter, there would be six minutes of sunshine today. Anai scanned the water intently looking for something, anything of interest before her world was plunged into darkness for the next three months.
Maybe she'd see a pod of dolphin cats, or if she was really lucky a giant whale squid would break the surface before plunging back into the depths far beneath the ice. Or on the horizon there would be a far off plume of smoke and soot that signaled a patrol from the imperial fleet. Anything to break the monotonous boredom that was snow and ice, just for a fleeting second to hold her till the sun rose again.
Anai loved her home, she loved her mother, and her little hut just below the southern wall of the village. As much as she wouldn't admit it, she even loved the little brats that ran rampant in the tribe; though as they grew older they were becoming more tolerable. Still she held them on a similar level as the arctic chickens they raised for meat and eggs; somewhat useful even if incredibly annoying.
Still in Anai's eyes the ice and snow and frigid waters, the rambunctious children, and squawking chickens; it just wasn't enough. Or maybe it just was too much. She didn't know how to put it, but slowly as the years went on it was becoming unbearable. The only thing that ever seemed to change day to day was how long the sun was up, and how tall ten year old Juk was. She swore that boy was going to be a giant one day he was already up to her neck, and she wasn't terribly short. However tomorrow both of those would cease, well Juk would probably keep growing, but she wouldn't see him very well until spring.
She sighed glancing at the sun that was beginning to sink past its zenith. Things hadn't been this unbearable two years ago, back when Katara and Sokka were still here. Her lips pressed together into a thin frown as she thought about her best friends. They had left to follow the Avatar, to save the world. She had been passed out in bed with a flu that week, by the time she came to they were long gone. There was a part of her, a big part of her that resented Katara. She got to leave, to travel, to see the world. Katara became a master water bender, Anai still had no one to teach her locked away in her icy home. All this wouldn't have been so bad, if she hadn't told her best friend about all the places she wanted to travel, seeing Ba Sing Se and the Northern Tribe.
Anai knew she had been sick, that taking her away on a flying bison probably would have killed her. That the Avatar had to be rescued immeadiatly, and that there was no time to wait for her to recover. Not that it mattered how long they waited, the Avatar died in the end anyway. She briefly wondered if her friends had survived the comet, or if they had come to the same fate as the last air bender.
The sun was touching the horizon, visibly sinking below its waters. Anai grunted in frustration, and spun, her fur lined hood falling and her inky black hair whipping out in the strong polar winds. Her touch on the wall left a mitten shaped impression filled with water that steamed in the frozen air.
Just as she started climbing down the stairs, using the last of the light to clamber back to the village with out breaking her neck. Something of interest did appear on the horizon, something she should have seen. Maybe if she had noticed that plume of smoke in the distance, she would have known, and her life would have turned out a lot differently. As the sun finally sunk below the horizon and the village was plunged into darkness, the snow began to fall black.
"Anai!" she turned at the sound of a weathered voice calling her name, "Anai is that you?"
"Yes Gran Gran!" she called back over the sound of the wind that was beginning to pick up. "I'm here!"
"I can barely see when the sun is down, won't you help me get my chickens?"
"Of course Gran Gran." she replied respectfully, grateful the dark concealed her exasperated expression. Frustrating did not even begin to explain the experience of rounding up chickens when you can only see a few feet in front of you, and the wind drowns out their obnoxious clucking. It took twenty minutes and two face plants into piles of gathering snow before all of the chickens were in their cages and handed off to the old woman to bring back to her hut.
"Do you need any more help Gran Gran? I can walk you home if you'd like." Anai said politely praying to the moon that the old woman would decline her offer.
"Oh don't worry dear. It's not too far, and unlike these blasted chickens my house doesn't move." she laughed and turned her dark form becoming indiscernible. Anai grinned as she turned around pulling her hood lower over her head to keep out the snow as she trudged back to her hut. It took longer than usual in the dark and the wind, by the time she was inside, the thick seal skins thudding shut behind her, she was freezing. Quickly she shed her soaked coat, and stumbled around in the dark searching for spark rocks.
All she managed to do was knock over every possession they had, everything was aggravating her. The cold, the dark, how she was stuck on this spirts forsaken piece of ice, how her hair tickled the back of her neck, and most of all at the moment her mother's no bending rule. With a growl she gave up throwing her self onto the pile of skins and furs that made her bed. Even the soft polar bear dog fur, a gift from her father, didn't sooth her. All she wanted to do was scream, the anger boiled in her stomach and made her arms and legs itch, her skin crawl.
She was annoyed at her inability to light a fire, angry at the reason she couldn't. She was furious that she was stuck here in the dark and the cold far away from anything that could be called exciting. Her mother said she should count herself among the lucky, here we could be content. Here we were safe, that all the reason that caused her to be so excruciatingly bored were all the ones that kept them from being a concern. The reason they were left alone for the most part.
Grunting she rolled out of her pile of furs, pounding the floor with her fists. She could feel the tears start to sting her eyes, the lump in her throat begin to choke her. She sobbed in frustration punching the floor again, missing the soft furs she hit a patch of hard frozen dirt sending a shockwave of numbing pain up her arm. She cried out again sitting up and punching the air, a steady plume of flame shot out and she screamed; the wind would hide her noise from the neighbors. Her mother was out still, normally she would be worried as to why she would be out in the dark with a storm coming in, but at the moment she didn't care.
She shot ball of fire after ball of fire screaming each time the hut was illuminated the skins and stuffed heads and weapons mounted on the wall cast eerie shadows each time her temper took the form of flame. She leapt to her feet, crying out as she kicked and punched. The tears had begun to fall glistening every time she bent fire. Her final shout was strangled by emotion cracking and dying out as a whimper, the last ball of flame shot into the fire pit, lighting it with a sharp crack the fire rearing towards the ceiling before dying back to a steady flicker.
She let out a strangled sob, collapsing to the floor. She could feel a mixture of sweat and water trickling down the back of her neck and she wiped at more aggravation boiling in the pit of her stomach. Glancing down at her hand her heart froze, the water was black. Why was it black?
The sound of someone clapping slowly behind her came over the roaring wind, she turned trying to wipe away tears, but only succeeding in smearing her face in sooty black water.
"Anai..." her mother said with an emotion in her voice the girl had only heard once before, when the letter came that her father, or the man she called her father, had died fighting the fire nation. Heart break. Her mother wasn't the one clapping.
"Bravo Anai! Bravo!" the man's voice was slick drawling out in a slightly nasle tone. He looked like an eel hound without the nice personality. Tall, thin, and greasy; his black hair was streaked with gray and slicked back with some sort of oil, a thin mustache was similarly groomed. That wasn't the worst part about him, what really made Anai shudder were his eyes. They were dark gold, their deep set in his head accentuated by his slanting brow line and hawk like nose. His eyes looked as if in a perpetual scowl though his lips thin and dry were slightly upturned in a smirk.
She had never seen this man before but it was impossible not to know who he was. His black armor accented with gold, and complete with a phoenix head thrown back in an undying scream, as if it had caused it physical pain when it had been emblazoned on the man's breast plate. The man was a soldier of the Phoenix King's Empire.
Her mother had always told her, to count her blessings here in the southern tribe they were out of sight and caring of the Phoenix King's tyranny. Here they were safe, they were content. Anai was no longer sure she would be able to count on that anymore.