Summary: Kya was only recently married to Hakoda when a Fire Nation raid caught her alone, gathering what few plants grew in the icy tundra for the winter ahead. Under usual circumstances she would've at least had the company of the other village women, but it was so close to the Sunless winter that no one thought the Fire Nation would dare strike.
Nine months later she sobbed as her daughter was welcomed into the world by breathing flames.
Disclaimer: Ownage of Avatar? Unlikely.
Chapter 1: Flash Fire.
For the record, being the only fire bender in the entire South Pole sucks on a number of levels. First, and most annoying, of them being unable to sleep through sun rise, it wakes me up every time. So, knowing that sleep would not return until after a few hours spent training or hunting, my sleep addled body dragged itself from the warm furs shared with my little sister and gran-gran. My parka goes on over the thick cotton clothes, followed closely by with furred boots.
Outside the world is dazzling, and I'm certain if I hadn't seen it so often and hadn't been a fire bender, I would've been blinded. As it is the light burns my eyes and I grumble while wiping away the last traces of sleep. The Sun hardly sets at all during the summer here, but summer is drawing to a close. Winter will be on us soon, and with it the three months spent in total darkness that I have always dreaded.
The first thing I do is light the central fire, all it takes is a couple deep breaths and a jab in the right direction. Even that much bending makes me mad though, which sets off the mood perfectly when I leave the village for a secluded hill to train.
First I use the spear I'd made from Polar Bear bones, swinging it to and fro, jabbing it at imaginary enemies who all have the face of the man who killed my mother. I switch to a club, throwing myself into moves mostly made up. Without a real warrior to teach me this is what I'm reduced to, half remembered katas and improvisation.
I go through all the weapons, coming to a halt at my boomerang. This is the only weapon I own that I haven't made. My father made it instead, and gave it to me when I came of age. Typically a girl gets a set of new coats or make up when she comes of age. As there aren't any men left in the village though, as eldest I have to protect my tribe. So I was given a young warrior's gift. This isn't the first time a southern tribe woman had to defend her people. First firebender though.
My boomerang flies in lazy arcs around me. I trade with both my arms to catch and throw on its return. It's the weapon I'm best with. Even my bending can't hold a candle to it. No pun intended of course!
With all my weapons exhausted though, I have to train my bending. It's not something I'm proud of, but I'm practical enough to see it as a useful weapon. I can help those who'd otherwise die of hypothermia, build fires when it isn't winter, and if the Fire Nation ever thinks of coming to our shores again? Well I'm ready to bet all the seal jerky in the world that they'll never expect a Water Tribe firebender.
I honestly hate my bending. Katara doesn't understand, and she'll never understand. All my life I've felt drawn to the same power that took away our mother. How can I possibly feel good about the heritage of a man who's only name I know is Huojin, Fire Metal! He himself told my mother his name after forcing himself on her and fleeing when my real father showed up.
The worst part is I have to remind myself why I don't like it. I could stare into the fire at home for hours and never realize time was passing me by. The sunrise brings me new life that bursts out, my emotions give me the strength to send a fire roaring or douse it until only the embers remain.
The small flame in my mind's eye sparks in my hands. No matter how I tell myself its evil, I can never get over how it somehow feels alive in the palm of my hand. It burns my chi, tickling the ungloved fingertips of my hand as it rises and falls with each breath I take. In for five, hold for two, out for five. A meditative state my father, chief Hakoda, had instilled in me at an early age. When fire responds to your emotions, it can be deadly to panic. Deadly, but not to me.
A swaying arc sends the small flame to blaze away from me. In the corner of my eye I can see my tribesmen leaving their tents to start the day. Katara looks at me, I can recognize her even from this distance, and I read her urge to approach me. She seems to change her mind and starts on her chores. I guess I've finally gotten through to her that I never want her or anyone else anywhere near me when I'm bending.
Too many memories of pained gasps and discolored patches of skin. They never blamed me for not being able to control it, there's no one to teach me how, no one we could ever trust. The best my father could do would be to send me away when they told stories to the other children, so I wouldn't get excited and raise the fires, and try to recreate the moves firebenders had thrown at him over a lifetime.
Quick, circular motions work best when I work with this element. Punches and kicks aimed enemies I can only imagine, flames that appear an inch from my bare skin to move through the air in a long stream. My record is twenty yards before the flames lose power.
Fire envelops my hands, warming them against the arctic chill I barely feel. I'm sweating beneath my parka, and I know I'll have to remove it later or risk overheating. How silly to do something like that, when you live in one of the coldest places on Earth. I stubbornly keep the blue coat on though, struggling to move my arm in the over hand catching motion I use to catch my boomerang, only now it's to send a fireball out over the water's surface, where it crashes and fizzles out.
And at the very end I summon another tiny flame and hold it in the palm of my hand. It pulses in time to my heart beat, fluttering in the arctic breeze. I pant and try to catch my breath, I'm almost breathing fire as I concentrate the flame to just my fingertips. At this it's strong enough to cut and cauterize, I like making it as small as I can. I really do breathe fire now, just tiny puffs that send my temperature soaring. Now I shrug off my jacket and start walking back to the village. I have chores of my own to do.
Dad left when I'm thirteen, too young to go with him, but the oldest of the kids, which means I'm expected to stay and protect everyone else. I wanted to go, prove to myself once and for all that my heritage had no holding over what I could do in the war. We were still getting over Mom dying, and without dad too, the village seemed a lot less happy.
I'm fifteen now, and I get up with the sunrise on a day like any other before it. Winter's coming on soon again, we have to bring in more food if we're going to have enough. We've been pretty lucky this year actually, we've got most of the food we need so we can afford to ease off a bit. Katara and I are going fishing later, but for now I stretch out and start training.
"Hey Sukka, are you ready to go?" And just like that, any concentration I had in making a shield of flame by spinning my arms is broken.
"Katara! You should know better than to get too close when I'm bending!" I scold her, whipping around and pushing down the flames until they smother. She doesn't look in the least repentant.
"You were the one who wanted to go fishing." She smirked.
"Yeah, after we've both had our training finished and chores finished. Are you ready?" I ask cynically. I know fully well she'd only gotten up fifteen minutes ago. Her look says it all.
"Come on Sukka, Gran-gran said we can go early, we're only young once after all!" And what could I say in the face of that irrefutable logic? So we go to the stream where our canoe sat waiting for us. My spear's already inside, when I know I left it in the tent this morning. Katara, once again, refuses to acknowledge that touching my stuff is wrong. I don't touch her stuff, she shouldn't touch mine.
Rowing out into the sea of ice I notice our reflections in the water, especially when we stop and wait for the fish to arrive. Katara's skin is a mocha color that provides a deep contrast to the snow everywhere we see. Her brown hair is held in a braid, with two loops on either side of her face. Its supposedly a style from the northern tribe, but we haven't had contact with our sister tribe in years.
When I sit beside Katara like now, I'm amazed we're related at all. Sometimes, on really bad days, I wonder if they didn't just find me one day. It seems impossible I could be related to anyone in our tribe. Not dad, not mom, not Gran-gran, not Katara, and none of our aunts, uncles or cousins, look anything like me.
My looks are Fire Nation, and are the reason I don't look at my reflection a whole lot. Right now though there isn't much else to do. So I look at my pale as snow skin, my gold as Sunlight eyes, and my black as coal hair. If not for my hair I might someday be lost in the ice.
On my better days, I take joy in the fact that I know several boys in our tribe who expressed interest in me even before I was eleven. They thought my looks were exotic. I wonder how many of those boys, young men now, would still think that if they returned home tomorrow. When they know more about the Fire Nation, will they want to risk that blood for their children? And even beyond my looks, will they risk my bending?
The top of my hair is pulled back into a warrior's wolf tail, the sides hang loose to my shoulders. Two blue beads hang from a lock of my hair on the right side of my face, and this reminds me that I am still Water Tribe. The blue parka, the spear, the boomerang, they all come together and make a picture that feels like family, like community. On my darkest days, I even practice wearing the warrior's war paint.
"Something on your mind?" Katara asks. It was always too much to hope for that she could leave me to my thoughts. I usually went fishing alone, it was my time to stop being the warrior and start being the insecure teenager. Hard to do that when you have a little sister who's always told you that looks don't matter, when you know it's so much more than that it's not even funny.
I don't even dignify that with a response.
"Sukka, I know how you feel, but you have to stop worrying about your looks." I know it's a lie, and by the way Gran-gran sometimes packs me lunches at night so I can go off during the day tells me she knows it too. I can see it in the way the other women stop to watch me "train" their young sons, like they're waiting for something. I can see it in how the kids instinctively shy from fires when they notice I'm not in a good mood.
The only one who hasn't realized it is Katara. On some days, I think she realizes it too. Like now, when I hold up my gloved hand with a tiny flame flickering inside and she trails off from whatever she was going to say. For a minute the air is tense, the silence pregnant with a promise. Will this end in a blow out? Me soaked and freezing and Katara fuming, but never burned. Or will this be one of those days we pass off as the lunar cycle where we continue in the quiet until I say something stupid, and keep talking, until Katara hears what she wants to hear?
"Mom loved you too, you know." And there was one of my biggest insecurities. Around my neck is a blue necklace, with a beautiful carving. It belonged first to Gran-gran, then our mother, and then to me. I've no idea where it came from, only that after we gave her back to the sea dad placed it around my neck. My mother wore it every day of her life, she even slept with it. A gift from family is the most precious thing of all, that's Water Tribe belief.
A gift passed down in the family is worth more than all the seal jerky in the world, but I feel so little attachment to it. I know, it's supposed to be something of mother's to remember her by. I'm supposed to treasure it, be grateful for it. If I'm a little bit bitter too, well that's no one's business but my own.
Like the shifting tides, Katara changes direction. We're back to fishing now, and we get a couple good ones when she decides she wants to get creative about it. So she plays with magic water.
And yes, I know it's not magic, it's bending. But it is magical all the same. Whenever she plays with it, somehow I'm the one who gets wet. Arctic waters? Cold. She's lucky I'm a firebender and thus dry easy. As it is, I'm steaming while she pouts over the edge at the fish that got away. I think I've had just about enough sisterly bonding until winter is over.
That's when we get stuck in the riptide, and swept out to glacier infested sea. I get my paddle and try to direct us away from the floating pieces of freezing death. Firebender or not, if we get wet our parkas and boots will drag us down. Katara may be a water bender, but she's a lot more susceptible to the cold than I am. Five minutes in we won't be able to move at all.
"Go left! Left!" She screams at me. Back seat driving isn't really appreciated. Why doesn't she just water bend us out of the ice?
Our canoe is crushed to splinters and we're stuck on a smelly old iceberg. I growl, I can see the steam coming off my clothes. My temper flares and I want to burn something. Immediately I'm ashamed, there's nothing here to burn except my baby sister. The anger turns on myself and I kick the ice, breathing a curse that would've had Gran-gran washing out my mouth with soap.
"You call that left?" And just like that the anger's back off me.
"Well maybe you should've water bended us away from the ice!" I snap, knowing full well that my clenched fists are smoking. I didn't want to go fishing with Katara at all. I knew it would only make me mad. Nothing more annoying than a little sister.
"Maybe you should've melted it!" She counters. Which is good, except that my fires aren't nearly hot enough to melt a whole ice berg, let alone a sea of them, this from personal experience.
"Yeah? And I suppose I also should've caught the canoe and ourselves on fire too? Huh?" I lash out, not at my sister but to the right. The ice berg next to us is a monster in size.
"If you're so sure your bending is nothing but evil, why do you practice with it?" She asks, completely changing the topic. She does that whenever she feels she's losing. She redirects the fight to something she can win, throwing my own words back into my face. There's a crack from the berg that I know she caused but am too angry to pay attention to. Let it never be said I don't know my priorities.
"So that stuff like that doesn't happen!" My voice cracks. I don't yell very often. Yelling is something to do when you're angry, and I try so hard not to get angry. Benders bend when they're angry.
"If I could be normal I'd give anything! I hate being a firebender! I hate being half Fire Nation!" She's already won, she might not think she has, but Katara has won. I hate my heritage, my bending, and myself.
"You say not to worry, that it doesn't matter, but what do you know?" I demand. That's my strategy, always. Attack the threat, burn it with fire, hit whatever isn't you and moving. There's no gentleness, no hint of innocent teasing, only blatant accusations.
"You're perfect, you're a water bender, you look just like mom! The day of your birth, everyone was there!" Not for me. Not for the child they already knew was half the Enemy.
"How could you ever know what it feels like when everything you know, everything anyone has ever told you about your way of life, doesn't click?" A fireball this time, straight at the ice berg. Katara looks mad enough to boil water without a fire.
"Maybe if you talked to us we could help! Have you ever thought of how me and Gran-gran feel when you go off by yourself?" She demands, and like me her arms swing out and the ice berg responds. Pieces chip off, water drips from the heat I threw at it.
"You're my sister, I can't stand that you hate a part of yourself! You act like just because you're a human heater you're destined to be evil! Like everyone should just toss you out of the tribe!" And she's right, for most of it. How can I ever be sure?
"You try to deny that you feel anything but serious, all the time! I've seen how you hold your fire like you expect it leap out and burn everything! When are you going to learn that I don't care if you're a firebender?" She demands. The ice berg nearly comes apart, my temper rises like the noon day sun.
"When I stop being one!" I shout childishly.
"Then maybe you should stop using your bending at all!" She angrily suggests.
"Fine." I bark, hands on my hips. She mirrors the movement almost perfectly.
"Fine!" She bites out.
"Fine!" We both shout, and our bending finally makes the ice berg shatter. Large chunks fall down and in a single instant I have my spear stabbed into the ground, one arm holding it and the other holding Katara while I shield her with my own body as our tiny glacier gets swept by the tidal wave.
"Whoa, did we do that?" She gasps in awe. I have to admit I'm surprised too.
We share a glance, mostly out of habit after that big fight, and I read her regret in her big blue eyes. I can tell she wants to apologize, to take the words from where they stain the air and freeze them in place, so they can never hurt either of us again.
I let go of her and stand up.
When a second glacier-held down by the first-bobs to the surface, both of us forget we ever said anything. It rotates for a moment, glowing unnaturally in the light. I shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the fact I am once again sopping wet.
"There's someone in there." Katara whispers. I see what she means. A boy sitting cross-legged, with strange markings on his body, glowing. His eyes snap open. "He's alive! We have to help him!" And yeah, there she goes my sister and her Hero Complex.
With my club. Can we please not forget that part? Thank you for your consideration.
"Wait Katara! We don't know what that thing is!" I yell after her, hopping on the stepping blocks to land on the flat part of the new, glow-y glacier.
She hits it three times, and on the third we're both blown back by a sudden gust of stale air. I nearly fall into the water. A light shoots into the sky and my mind automatically goes to flares, the ones used by the Fire Nation.
In the midst of the glow, a boy climbs to the top of the wall of ice. He has an arrow on his head that glows like the light, his eyes stare without seeing anything while it dims. His body goes limp as he falls forward for Katara to catch.
"…Alright I'll bite, he look dead to you?" I quip, poking him with the butt of my spear. Katara smacks me away and leans him against the ice. He can't be more than a couple of years younger than us. He's bald, with a weird tattoo. An arrow on his forehead. His clothes are weird, definitely not water tribe, I think the Fire Nation likes reds and blacks better, and there's not a single hint of green.
Orange, red, and brown is the color scheme. His skin is certainly pale enough for Fire Nation, only a shade darker than mine, but from what Dad said the Earth Kingdom people are usually pretty pale too. Still, there can't be anything normal about this boy. Giant glowing glaciers, beams of light? Maybe I'm asleep and only dreaming this?
He wakes up and I see grey eyes. Like clouds that threaten to bring a blizzard on your doorstep. He doesn't see me, he only has eyes for Katara. Not that she makes it easy for him to look around, she's close enough that I half wonder if she plans to kiss him. And should that course of action be taken I will be forced to intervene and kick this guy off the nearest ice shelf.
"I need to ask you something." His voice sounds gravelly, like he hasn't used it in a while. For a split second I'm worried, the kid looks like he's been put through the wringer.
"What is it?" Katara asks. She has that look she got when she brought home the polar bear dog, back when it was a polar cub puppy, begging us to keep it. She wants to adopt him! Don't we have enough kids back home to worry about?
"Please, come closer." We both move. He sounds serious. I'm half expecting for this to be like one of the stories I would listen to in secret, sitting outside the tent flap in the dead of winter. Like he was going to say his last words and give us some ultimate quest, or a precious treasure, or ancient wisdom.
"Yes?" Katara must have the same idea as me. She sounds breathless, as though she can hardly believe this is happening either.
"Will you go penguin sledding with me?" And just like that the serious mood is dispelled and I'm trying hard not to trip while standing still. His eyes have lit up with new energy and he bounds to his feet with a grace I've never seen before, like he touches the ground only because that is what he so desires.
"Um…Okay?" Katara blinks. She's probably just as surprised as I am. The kid looks around like he's only just figured out where he is.
"Where am I?" Or maybe he hasn't. Why do I get the feeling this kid isn't the sharpest spear in the village?
"Don't answer that Katara, did you see that crazy light beam?" I interrupt, pulling my sister to her feet. "We don't know if he's connected to the Fire Nation or not." I feel justified in my suspicion when he looks at me as though I've grown a second head.
"The paranoid one is my sister, Sukka. And I'm Katara." My ever optimistic and trusting sister, everybody. I resist the urge to slap my forehead. "We didn't get your name?" Because he never gave it, duh.
"I'm Aaaahhh-!" His entire face spasms and I flinch, bringing the spear up to chest level like I'm waiting for him to spit fire…This coming from the girl who literally can spit fire.
"ACHOOO!" He shoots off into the sky, higher than the ice wall. He hits it on the way down and slides, landing on his feet and wiping his nose. "I'm Aang." Nice to meet you Aang, now if you'll excuse me, I and my sister would like to return to where things make sense.
"You sneezed, and flew ten feet in the air." I point out. I know it sounds obvious, but it was something that needed to be pointed out. I don't know why I thought there had to be a logical explanation.
"You're an airbender!" Yes, this is the obvious conclusion my sister reaches. Everyone knows Airbenders are extinct! They were wiped out a hundred years ago!
"Sure am." His casual tone does nothing to help right my world view.
"Right, an airbender." I roll my eyes and cross my arms. It's not that I don't believe him, it's just that this day feels a lot longer than it logically should be and I would like a return to normalcy, even if it involved stinky laundry and sea prunes.
"Katara, I think I caught Midnight Sun Madness, if you need me I'm going back to where stuff makes sense." I turn around and slump, utterly defeated. The stepping stone glaciers are gone. Dry and frigid land is out of sight. We've drifted out to sea.
"Well if you guys are stuck Appa and I could give you a lift." Aang offers, and I turn around to see who this Appa guy is and how he expects us to get home without a boat.
"Oh no! Appa!" Apparently not even Aang knows where this Appa guy is. He runs up the ice hill while Katara and I are left with the more mundane method of going around to an opening. I stop mid-step and grab my sister, pulling her behind me in one fluid motion.
"What the heck is that?" I demand, shakily pointing at the giant furry beast with my spear. The largest animal I've seen until now has been a whale, and that is a fish. This thing is most definitely not a fish, and is quite a bit bigger than anything I've ever hunted before.
"This is Appa, my flying bison." He answered absently, trying to rouse the slumbering monster. Half of me wanted to push Katara behind the ice wall and then grab the kid before he woke the sleeping beast. Half of me wanted to hide with Katara.
"Right, and this is Katara, my flying sister." I snarl quietly, well and truly irritated now. Did I eat sea prunes before bed or something?
"So do you guys want a ride?" He asked again, climbing on top of the thing's head. Actually it has an arrow marking on its forehead too, just like Aang. Or Aang is just like it, whichever.
"We'd love to!" Katara bursts out before I can point out how dangerous this is. Uh, hello? Strange guy comes around and is offering a ride to two teenage girls. Does this not strike you as a bad thing?
"Come on Sukka!" She urged me from the saddle of the thing. I really don't want to get on it, but I have to at least be there to protect my naïve little sister, so I step forward.
And the thing sneezes on me.
For a minute, stunned silence. "That's it, I'm not getting on that fluffy snot-monster!" I scream, rubbing as much of the green goo off as I can. I will never be able to wear this parka again. I will have to burn it and the memory of this day as soon as I get home.
"Oh come on Sukka, are you hoping some other big monster will come and give you a ride home? Even you will freeze to death." Unfortunately she's right. I can't just keep doing my breath of fire all day, I'll exhaust myself. I have no food, no transportation, and am covered in green snot. No better plan presenting itself, I climb on board and resolve to sulk for the entire ride.
"Alright, first time fliers hold on tight!" Aang laughs, whipping the reins. "Yip yip!" Is that even a word?
The monster responds, groaning lowly in the back of its throat as I pushes off the ice and hovers in the air. For a single, insane second, I truly believe we're flying. And then dear old Gravity, someone I've never fully seen eye to eye since hitting puberty, decided to interrupt and we crashed down.
Miraculously, Aang and Katara were perfectly dry. I, however, was just another casualty of war.
Appa didn't make good time. We just sort of drifted. The Sun wouldn't start setting again for a month at least, which left me stretched out beyond belief. It sucks to be a firebender in the South Pole. It's only in early spring and late fall that we get anything resembling a normal schedule to the rest of the world. The rest of the time I struggle with going on too little sleep or being unable to fully wake up. The two extremes are going to make me age before my time.
But it's safer in the South Pole. There's so much water and ice around, it's impossible to badly burn anything. If I ever did leave, as I dream of doing, what if I got scared? The fire would leap to my defense, and hang those in the way. I could hurt people. Good people.
If I ever did leave, I'd probably go to the Fire Nation. If for no other reason than so that when I blew my top, it would be people who deserved it bearing the heat of my hate.