Title: The Elemental Gift

Episode: The Boy in the Iceberg

Chapter 1: Reawakening

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Author's Note: Okay, most of my readers will notice that I have re-written these first two chapters of "The Elemental Gift". The reason for this being that when I look back on them and re-read them, the vocabulary sounds childish, and that just won't work. I have a long hard, road planned out for poor little Amaya, and she needs to have a more serious side to her, not just be made up of sarcasm and dry humor.

If any of you object to my decision, I apologize, but this is how it's going to be.

Disclaimer: I am able to create and own an international organization based upon 'Chainzawz', misspelling and all, but I can't own one of the things that make me happy (Avatar: The Last Airbender)! What the heck is wrong with the universe? '-_-

Another Author's Note: For the first part of this chapter, 'normal type' is present time, and 'italic type' is the past. Got it? Imagine it's the T.V. show switching back-and-forth with epic background music xD

.:-:.

"Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me, for no good reason at all."
Martin Goldsmith

.:-:.

The ice was cold.

A Flying Bison soared through the maelstrom, the lightning grazed the tip of his horn and sent the animal into a frenzy. He thrashed around in the sky, tossing the passengers on his back to-and-fro.

So very cold.

"Aang! Appa!" The girl, one of the two in the saddle, screamed; trying to grab hold of the reins once more as her friend was almost thrown into the sea. "NO!"

The crystalline water droplets were frozen in the blood and lungs of it's prisoners, preventing even the shortest breath.

But it was all in vain, for just as she grasped the leather, the Great Bison known as Appa plunged into the icy depths of the ocean and took the Air Nomads with him.

A boy sat zen style, suspended in the center of the glacier, with his two fists held together at the knuckles.

The boy, who was younger than his companion, tried to pull Appa out of water. "Amaya!" He called out to the girl, "Amaya! I need help!" but try as he might, she would not respond.

The arrow tattoos that covered them glowed a faint blue, his eyes did the same.

Amaya had already fallen beneath the waves and was slowly loosing consciousness, she called out to Aang as he drifted down towards her, but the only sound that came was a faint, bubbling gurgle.

A girl stood behind him, her eyes fully opened and shining a vibrant gold; her hands lay on the sides of the boy's head, slender fingers were the only skin of hers to be touching his face.

As the two friends fell into the pits of death and their eyes drifted closed, they then shot back open in perfect unison. Amaya's shone gold, while Aang's radiated an ethereal blue.

Almost as if she was giving him her energy, her spirit.

Aang pounded his fists together at the knuckles, sending a shock wave out around Amaya, Appa, and himself; ice began to encase them, but stopped half-way.

The boy's face looked wise beyond his years, filled with rage and power.

So Amaya placed her finger tips across his temples, infusing her Bending with Aang's, completing the iceberg that froze them in time.

The girl's expression mirrored those emotions.

For a hundred years they would be there; sitting on the seabed; frozen and forgotten, never to be seen again.

Until now.

.:-:.

A girl and her older brother stood in the middle of an ice field, their raft was nothing more than a small chunk of the surrounding glaciers. The girl looked to be about fourteen and was clad all in blue; her brunette hair was pulled into a braid, leaving two loops hanging to the sides of her face; and the dark skin of her complexion helped in making her large blue eyes pop from her features.

She seemed to be in a heated argument with the boy, her screams echoed over the waters and could almost be hears all the way back at their village. "You are the most sexist, immature, nut brained idiot in all of the South Pole!"

Behind her, a humongous iceberg was affected by her outbursts; her Waterbending, fueled by emotion, caused a fracture in the glacier.

Cra-ack...

The girl, oblivious to the split in the ice, continued with her rant. "Ugh, I'm embarrassed to be related to you! Ever since Mom died I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!"

The fracture in the icecap was met with a bigger one as her rampage went on.

Craa-ACK!

"Uh... Katara?" The boy tried to get the attention of the younger girl, his voice held a nervous twinge. He was also draped completely in blue clothing; his head was shaved, save for a wolf's tail that covered only the top-middle section of his scalp; and he grasped a spear, as if to protect himself from the growing cracks in the berg

But Katara was adamant, she threw her arms up and just kept on yelling. "I even wash all the clothes! Sokka, have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, NOT PLEASANT!"

"Katara!" The boy, Sokka, cried frantically. "Settle down!"

"No, that's it!" She continued, ignoring her brother once again. "I'm done helping you. From now on, you're on your own!"

With that Katara gave a feral scream and slammed her arms down to her sides, this last outburst connected all of the fractures in the glacier and split it open entirely.

CRAA-ACK!

The iceberg then disintegrated and all the major pieces fell into the water, sending a giant wave towards the siblings and caused them to hold on to the raft-sized chunk of ice for dear life as it sent them back along the river.

Sokka lifted his head up cautiously once the tidal-wave had died down. "Okay, you've gone from weird to freakish, Katara." He said patronizingly, slowly recovering from the shock his sister's Bending.

"You mean I did that?" The girl looked up at the floating debris that had taken the glaciers place in wonder.

"Yup." Her brother continued in the same sarcastic tone. "Congratulations."

Suddenly the water directly in front of the duo started to glow an incandescent blue, they scuttled backwards on their ice-pan as another, circular and lighter colored iceberg broke the surface. It was unclear whether it was part of the one Katara destroyed or not.

As the new iceberg settled, the girl rose from her crouching position and walked over to edge of the icecap raft to get a better look at the strange berg. Deep inside the sphere, there was a figure of a boy in a meditation stance along with a girl who stood behind him, her fingers on his temples. While the boy had blue arrow tattoos on the backs of his hands and his bald head; the girl's skin appeared to be free of markings and she had a full head of hair.

Then, without warning, the boy's tattoos and eyes shone a brilliant blue; and the girl's eyes glowed gold, but the colours appeared translucent because of the ice.

"They're alive!" Katara told Sokka, amazed that people could be kept alive in a sphere of frozen water. "We have to help!" She then grabbed her brother's club, pulled down her hood, and ran towards the two frozen kids.

"Katara! Get back here!" Sokka yelled to his sister, a protective tang to his words. "We don't know what those things are!"

She ignored him and hopped across a series of smaller ice-pans until she reached the iceberg, Katara then began to whack the globe as hard as she could.

After a few good hits to the glacier it cracked half-way open and it looked as if the center of it was filled with air as it 'hissed', releasing the pressurized gasses.

It then exploded from top to bottom, breaking the rest of the way open and causing a enormous shaft of blue-gold light to be shot up to the heavens, a nearby heard of Tiger-Seals reared themselves up to roar at the phenomenon.

.:-:.

An iron hulled battleship with a spiked prow cut through the sea close-by, it's steam powered engines caused a steady plume of smoke to be exuded from a single chimney; and because of the chimney's position, the foredeck was much longer than the after-deck. The bridge was several levels above the main deck, where a teenaged boy and an old man were situated.

The boy's face, illuminated by the unearthly light show, was horribly scarred around his left eye; his scalp was clean shaven, except for a long ponytail coming from the crown of his head; and he was robed completely in red battle gear.

Then the beam of light dissipated, sending shadows dancing across the young man's features.

"Finally," He whispered hoarsely, excitement clearly resonating in his voice as he turned to face the other man on deck. "Uncle, do you realize what this means?"

The elderly man sat cross-legged in-front of a low table, nursing a cup of tea and thoroughly engrossed in a game of Pai Sho. He looks up from the tiles and asks inquisitively. "I won't get to finish my game?"

"It means my search-," The boy continued, appearing not to have heard his Uncle as he answered his own question, relief and malice lilting in the words. "It's about to come to an end."

The old man groaned, not wanting his nephew to head down the same path once more.

"That light came from an incredibly powerful source!" The aforementioned boy raised his voice enthusiastically, turning to face his Uncle and gestured at the spot where the glow disappeared. "It has to be him!"

"Or it's just the celestial lights." The old man said exasperatedly, once again trying to convince the boy to stop chasing empty leads. "We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don't want you to get too excited over nothing. Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?" He patted the space beside him and lifted his own tea-cup from the table.

"I don't need any calming tea!" The young Prince snapped angrily. "I need to capture the Avatar. Helmsman," He yelled towards the tower behind him. "Head a course for the light!"

.:-:.

Sokka was still shielding his sister from the blast that just emanated from the strange berg. The two of them then looked up to see residual blue light still swirling around the top of the remaining glacier chunks, the ray dimmed and suddenly, the boy and girl appeared, their eyes and his arrow markings still aglow.

"Stop!" Sokka commanded as he thrust his spear towards the strange, levitating children.

As if following the older boy's orders, the remaining light around the mysterious duo faded and the girl drifted out of sight while the boy floated down the side of the ruined icecap. Katara ran forward and caught him carefully, then held him gently in her arms.

Her brother, still suspicious of the child, walked up beside him and proceeded to poke him in the head with the blunt end of his weapon.

"Stop it!" Katara told Sokka scornfully, turning the strange boy over so when she set him on the snowy ground he would lie on his back.

As she did just that, he slowly began to wake up, he opened his bleary eyes half-way and looked up at Katara; to him, she looked beautiful in the lighting, but after blushing faintly he then whispered weakly. "I-I need to ask you something."

"What?" The Water-Tribe girl asked him softly.

"P-please," The boy stuttered. "Come closer."

Katara was concerned now, wondering if he could be injured or something of the sort. "What is it?"

Suddenly, the child's eyes brightened and he continued with a loud, exited voice. "Will you go penguin sledding with me?"

That confused her, as well as her brother, but she answered anyway. "Uh...,sure. I guess."

Then, just as suddenly, the boy manipulated the air around him and gracefully rose to his feet, without moving a muscle.

"Uuwah!" Sokka cried, stepping backwards in astonishment.

"What's going on here?" The boy asked, rubbing the back of his head in bewilderment.

"You tell us!" The eldest sibling exclaimed, going on the offense. "How did you get in the ice! And why aren't you frozen?" He finished by poking the boy with his spear, again.

Said boy waved the sharp, pointy end away absentmindedly. "I'm not sure."

"Well," Katara continued the barrage of questions, cocking her head to the side in curiosity. "Then what about that girl who was with you?"

It was the boy's turn to be confused then, he raised an eyebrow and answered with a quizzical glance to his surroundings. "What girl?"

But just before Sokka could question him further, an animalistic groan sounded over the ridge of the iceberg.

The boy gasped in response and quickly scrambled up the side of the berg, ignoring the fact that his fingers were going numb from the cold. Then, when he reached the lip of the ice, he bent the air and floated down the ledge.

Lying in the center of what was now a crater, was a ten ton Sky-Bison, with a saddle on his back stocked with supplies.

"Appa!" The boy cried, Airbending onto the large mammals head. "Are you alright?" Then, prying one of the beast's eyes open, said. "Wake up, buddy."

He then attempted to heave the animal's mouth open, to which the furry creature became fully awake and licked the child completely off of the ground.

"Hey hea, you're okay!" The boy laughed, hugging the brute's giant nose.

Sokka led Katara around the side of the broken glacier, then gave the bison a skeptical look and asked. "What is that thing?"

The orange-clad child turned to face the Water-Tribe boy, "This is Appa," He walked closer to the two siblings, a smile on his innocent face. "My flying bison."

"Right," Sokka continued, his tone incredulous, then gestured to his sister. "And this is Katara, my flying sister."

But just as the boy was about to reply, the Sky-Bison began to sneeze, the boy then ducked, leaving Sokka to get covered in the large globs of mucous.

"Eeeww! Aaahhggg!" The warrior exclaimed, rubbing his body on the ground in attempt to remove the foul substance.

"Don't worr-" The mysterious child started, but was suddenly cut off by the unexpected voice of a girl.

"Don't worry," A girl who appeared to be fourteen or fifteen; dark amber hair pulled into a plait down her back, a skin tone lost somewhere between olive and tan, with strangely coloured eyes stepped from the shadows, smirking at the startled looks on the other kids' faces. "It'll wash out."