My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days, a time of peace. When the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Only the Avatar master of all four elements, could stop the ruthless firebenders; but when the world needed him most, he vanished.

A hundred years has passed, and the Fire Nation's victory over the whole world nears to a close. Two years ago my father and the men of my tribe journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Fire Nation. Leaving me and my brother to look after our tribe. Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn in the Air Nomads, and that the cycle was broken.

I haven't lost hope though. I still believe that somehow, the Avatar will return and save the world.

BOOK ONE: WATER

THE BOY IN THE ICEBERG

Our own little village, in a part of the once great Southern Water Tribes, has been all but eradicated. There was a time that even I am old enough to remember, when we were a few hundred people strong. Now, with the Fire Nations' army having wiped out all the benders of our tribe and the men off to fight in the war, it leaves much to be desired. These days, we have only twenty one people in our village.

With all the men gone, and the elderly and children being either too old, or too young, the biggest jobs fall on rest of us. That's just a few people. Today my brother and I are fishing further off shore than ever before. A huge migration of giant penguins made fishing near the shoreline a difficult task. I am the youngest of the able-bodied hunters and workers, but I'm not that young. I'm almost an adult. In just a year and nine months I'll be sixteen and I can do whatever I want, maybe even leave our village and try to help in the war like my father. He's so brave.

I share a boat with my brother on fishing trips. He is a year older than me, and he doesn't let me forget it. He tries to use that to his advantage, but it hardly ever works. He also thinks that since he's a boy, he makes the decisions for the family. What a laugh! Sometimes though, he can really get on my nerves.

"It's not getting away from me this time. Watch and learn, Katara," he told me, "this how you catch a fish!" The same fish which he'd been after for fifteen minutes swam by the boat, just taunting us now. Sokka raised his spear, one he fashioned himself from the sabre tooth of a whale. Sokka was waiting for just the right moment to plunge the spear down when another fish swam by on my side of the boat. Hurriedly, I lifted my hands and removed my gloves, I took a deep breath. Concentrating on the water around the fish, I moved my hands in a circular motion, palm over palm. The icy waters around the fish began to ripple. Then the water rose up in a perfect bubble encasing the fish. Sokka still hadn't thrown the spear on the other end of our boat.

"Sokka! Look!" I couldn't take my eyes off of the fish or the water in fear that if I did they might disappear.

"Shh, Katara you're gonna scare him away…" he whispered, not looking." I can already smell it cooking!" he said in a longing, hushed voice so not to scare the fish himself.

"But Sokka, I caught one!" the water was getting wobbly now. I moved the bubble and the fish slowly over head and above the boat. I was going to move it down towards the basket and just then Sokka lifted the spear to throw again, popping the bubble. The fish I caught jumped back into the sea, freezing cold water from the bubble dropped on Sokka's head, soaking him.

"Hey!" I shouted as he popped it, even though I knew it wasn't on purpose.

"Ahh!" he screeched, startled from the splash. His fish swam away, too. "Why is it that every time you play with your magic water, I get soaked?"

"Sokka, it's not magic it's bending! It's…" I got cut off from explaining to him, again, how bending was once a deep rooted part of our culture and society.

"Yeah, yeah… It's an ancient art, unique to our culture, blah, blah, blah… Look, I'm just saying if I had had weird powers, I'd keep my weirdness to myself." I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes as he rambled.

"You're calling me weird? I'm not the one who makes muscle poses at myself every time I see my reflection." I couldn't even finish my statement before I saw him looking down into the water. He turned to say something, but just as he did our boat shuddered. We had drifted right into a fast moving current heading directly for an iceberg.

Sokka grabbed the ore, trying to paddle enough to stay clear of the large destructive pieces of ice also ridding the current. I tried to guide him through with the occasional 'watch out' and 'go left'. It didn't help though, as two too large pieces of ice came on either side of the small vessel and crushed it beneath our feet. We were able to jump up and onto one of the slabs of ice nearby. At first it was hard to hold on, but then we were out of the current. It swept us out far. Now we were just one piece of ice in the middle of tens of others.

"That was a left?" I asked Sokka, accusingly.

"You don't like my steering? Well, maybe you should have waterbended us out of the ice!" he rolled his eyes and waved his hand to mock bending.

"So it's my fault?" I snapped.

"I knew I should just have left you home. Leave it to a girl to screw things up!"

The moment he said it he knew he was in for it. I got so mad I started to shake. Actually, so did the water.

"You are the most sexist, immature, nutbrained… ahh" I shouted in frustration, the water behind me started to rise without me even knowing. "I am embarrassed to be related to you!" I threw my fists down to my sides and sent quakes through the water so fast that when it hit the iceberg behind me it cracked right up the middle. I was still oblivious to anything but my anger at that point. I just kept ranting. "Ever since mom died I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!"

"Katara…"

"I cook the food, I wash the dishes, I clean the hut, I even wash the clothes, and have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you… not pleasant!" I threw my hands back again. Another, rather large, unstable crack to the iceberg.

"Katara, settle down!" Sokka said and I saw the fear in his eyes. That just fueled my fire. I was winning.

"No! That's it! I'm done helping you! From now on, you're on your own!" This time I threw my hands back and stomped my foot against the ice on which we stood. This time, I also heard the loud sound of cracking and crumbling. I turned to see chunks of ice hurdling towards us and splashing into the sea. The iceberg I cracked was pretty big, and so was the wave its falling pieces made. We clutched for dear life to the edge of the floating slab of ice as we were thrust back and again further out to sea.

"Okay, really, you've gone from weird to freakish, Katara." I should have been offended when he said that, but all I could think was how cool that was and how glad I was that we didn't just die.

"You mean I did that?" I said astonished.

"Yep. Congratulations." Sokka said, back to being a sarcastic jerk.

To make matters a little more interesting, the water below us started to glow and bubble. Another surge pushed us back as something from below started to rise. An iceberg bobbed up. It was glowing and round and appeared to be hollow.

"Oh my goodness." I said under my breath. I grabbed Sokka's hand. He was annoying sometimes, but he was also my big brother and it made me feel safe to know he was close by. When it came to a steady float, I dropped his hand and moved forward to look into the hollow spot. A large and fluffy… something… and a boy seemed to be frozen inside. Odd, but not unheard of. Gran Gran told me a story about when she was a child. An iceberg floated up to the towns shore and inside the people found cargo from and old Fire Nation Naval Ship. The supplies lasted them for a few weeks, she said. A large and fluffy… something… and a boy seemed to be frozen inside. A person. Just a kid, and some sort of animal I'd never seen before. Then the whole iceberg started to glow brighter and the boy started to glow too. His eyes shot open and his whole body was illuminating a bluish-white light.

Sokka and I stepped back, amazed and a little frightened by what we were seeing. Then it occurred to me. The boy was alive. The boy in the iceberg was alive and we needed to do something to help.

"Sokka! He's alive! He's alive, Sokka! We've got to help!" I reached into the sheath on Sokka's back and pulled out another weapon he had crafted himself. It was a club craved from a polar bear femur bone. I ran with it towards the iceberg.

"Wait! Katara get back here!" Sokka called after me. "We don't know what that thing is." He grabbed his spear and ran after me as I hopped from ice buoy to ice buoy. Finally, I made it to the iceberg and before thinking any further swung and whacked the wall with the club. It didn't really do much. It made just a little dent, but I kept whacking and hacking, hoping to bust through. Then a burst of air and snow and ice flew back at me from inside the berg. My brother jumped on top of me to keep my face from making contact with the icy gust. The whole thing started to crack starting at the spot where I had been hitting. As the crack stretched up to the top of the ice, the glow started to seep out, brighter still than it had been through the wall of ice. Then at the very top, the glow of blue light shot with a mighty force straight into the sky, past the clouds and into the chasm of space. It made a sound, too. A low, unremitting chime that got louder as the seconds wore on. It got so loud, we had to cover our ears and I could hear faintly animals barking and cawing at the sound too.

The vibration of the sound divided the ice of the berg.