Set pre - events of the main show.
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I am finished, but you live on.
And the wind, crying and moaning,
rocks the house and the clearing,
not each pine alone,
but all the trees together,
with the vast distance, whole,
like the hulls of vessels,
moored in a bay, storm-blown.
And it shakes them not from mischief,
and not with an aimless tone,
but to find, for you, from its grief,
the words of a cradle-song.
- Boris Pasternak
There were terrible blizzards that howled outside the walls of the igloo like polar ghost-wolves. Sokka teased Katara when she cried and covered her ears to block out the sounds, but she knew he was scared, too. They both huddled next to their mother, who hushed them with soft shushing noises, and they sat together in front of the fire, watching the smoke twist lazily upwards towards the ceiling vent. She quietly sang - stories of the softly glowing moon, and endless rushing of foam upon the oceans, sweeping away to far-off lands, unfamiliar names and strange people, vast cities of stone and wood, and things called deserts where the air burned, and places where clouds swirled around mountains and trees reached into the sky. They drifted off into dreams, watching the crackling embers twinkling like sharp stars piercing the cold heavens.
Night lasted all throughout the day, and Mom wouldn't let them out without being bundled in plenty of furs and skins, their muffled breaths misting in the still air, and snow crunching beneath their thick boots.
They stood outside, watching the village bustle about with hunters bidding farewell to their families.
"Be careful…" Gran Gran was saying with a slight frown, a tallow lantern held high in one hand. The world outside had always been uneasy, other villages had been attacked, and their warriors had often been called upon to help. Rumors were being whispered about great metal ships frequenting the area, just like the old wreck outside the village.
Katara often wondered how it had gotten there - completely shrouded in sharp spikes of ice - but Gran Gran never liked to talk about the past.
Katara giggled as Dad tossed her into the air and complained jokingly that she was getting too heavy for that sort of thing.
Sokka begged his father to let him travel with the older boys and men in the umiaq boats - off across the sea-spray to hunt whale with their spears and clubs.
"Maybe next year, little wolf pup." Dad said with a sympathetic smile, ruffling his hair - pulled back into a warrior's wolf-tail.
Sokka frowned, dark brows drawn together, "But you say that every year."
"I'm sorry - I suppose I do." Dad said somewhat sheepishly. He rummaged around in his rucksack and brought forth a short length of curved metal, sharp on one side like a jagged edge of broken ice. He presented it to Sokka.
"Practice with that, and I'd say you'd be ready to come with us next year."
Sokka nodded somberly, taking the weapon almost reverently with gloved hands.
"Hakoda!" Mom growled, smacking Dad's shoulder. "He's too young!"
He silenced her protests - picking her up with a twirl and giving her a long kiss.
"Blech!"
"Ew!"
Katara and Sokka both said at the same time, but they all smiled as he left for the boats waiting along the shoreline.
Later, Katara sat inside one of the huts with Gran Gran, Mom and some of the other women, helping stitch up an old sail - trying not to poke her cold fingers with the bone needle. Sokka had run off somewhere to practice with his new toy - he'd probably lose it first thing out in the dark.
Katara boredly went about her work - she'd much rather be down at the water, practicing pushing and pulling at the waves - she wanted to be a great waterbender someday. Maybe even a master waterbender!
She sighed, sucking at a finger she'd absent-mindedly pricked and watched somewhat enviously as two of the older girls braided each others hair into intricate knots.
She leaned closer to her mother, whispering, "Mom? When can I start wearing my hair all up and fancy like that?"
Mom laughed, "Next year, perhaps." She tugged at Katara's loops of dark hair, "I think you look just as pretty the way you are, though, Sweetheart."
When the hunters returned, they all gathered together with friends and family. They'd been very successful, and everyone busied themselves with preparing for the potlatch, smoking and drying the leftover meat, storing the blubber, and using the whalebones to build new fishing boats and tents. Dad even carved a flower for Mom out of part of the whale tusk. Katara and Sokka couldn't recall ever seeing anything of the sort, before - besides the sparse tundra wildflowers in the summer.
They sang old songs - listening to the thin, seal-skin drums, danced, and Bato told funny stories that had everyone giggling. They feasted on stewed sea prunes and rosebay, turtle-seal and whale - the whole village sharing.
Katara smiled as she fell asleep beneath a warm cover of beaver-bear fur as the elders quietly talked and exchanged stories, murmuring deep into the night.
She didn't think she could ever be any happier.
Another year passed.
Their third cousin, Misulik, gave birth to a girl and named her Kya.
Gran Gran worried more, but never said anything about it.
Hakoda no longer laughed or joked the same way he once had. He was away from home more and more often.
Sokka, taller and leaner now, no longer practiced just for hunting. He spent much of his days practicing with clubs, spears, knives, and boomerangs. Blue eyes sharp and not holding the same gleam they'd held a year earlier. Helping build thicker walls, and watchtowers. Returning home exhausted by the evening.
The warriors, more often than not, nowadays, painted their faces - streaks of black and white and gray.
Katara braided her hair herself, now, keeping it in its usual, sensible style. She kept her mind on work - her hands rough from scrubbing laundry and chafed from the chill air. Spending hours sewing and cooking, taking care of sick villagers with Gran Gran, watching younger children, and helping to hunt and fish. She'd become as hard and stubborn as a mussel-minnow. Dreams of waterbending forgotten, rarely taking a moment for herself to simply relax.
They all distracted themselves, trying not to look at the empty spaces of their home, or the familiar wall-hangings, or the gaps between them as they sat down for the evening meal.
Katara thought back on the year before, so, so very long ago, now, her hands straying to the necklace around her throat.
And she fell asleep to the sounds of the wind howling outside, and took comfort in it.
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- Just an author's note…
It was traditional in most Inuit villages to name a newborn child after the last person deceased in the village.