A/N, my first long story, hope you like it. Please R&R

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar, if I did, Kataang kiss would have happned long ago

Prologue: The North Pole

50 years after Avatar Roku died.

A girl of 16 sat at a crossing of two waterways. She was slim, though you couldn't tell for the thick fur coat covering her. She had tan skin and dark blue eyes, almost black, and long brown hair, bound in a braid with several blue ribbons wound into it. The waterways were deserted for it was in an older part of the city of ice known as the North Pole. The girl stared at the water, moving a hand back and forth over it, the water moving with her hand as if it was a snake mesmerized by the motion. She knew she was forbidden to move the water, but couldn't help herself. It was just so natural to her.

"You know you'll just get in trouble again," a voice sneered behind the girl. She turned and saw a boy of 15 surrounded by 3 others about the same age. "Maybe you'll even get banished."

He turned to the other boys. "Nobody wants the unlucky, disobedient Kalaya for a wife. She should just leave here and save herself the embarrassment."

Kalaya stood up and faced the boys. "Oh, at least I can bend better than you can Jayrd!"

"Yeah right, Kalaya, you can't even heal a small cut, and no one wants you. I'm surprised the women even let you come back into the healing huts. I bet your brother left for war just to get away from you."

Before he could say another word, the girl had moved her arms and hands in a fluid motion and a whip of water had smacked the boy in the cheek, leaving a small cut.

"Don't you ever talk that way about my family, ever!" she exclaimed angrily.

"You're forbidden to waterbend, you can't do that to Jayrd," one of the other boys said.

"I'll teach you to show respect, and never bend again," Jayrd said as he moved his arms, bringing a large globe of water up and readied it for an attack. But Kalaya was too fast for him and had already started moving. She turned the ice under the boys feet into water and watched as they dropped a foot before bringing more water up from the water way and dropping it on the boys in spikes, pinning them in every way possible.

"That should teach you boys not to talk about my family disrespectfully again," she said before walking away. She knew she'd be in trouble, but she didn't care. Her father and brother had both died protecting their home from the fire nation, and she wasn't going to let anyone speak ill of them.

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She got a summons the next morning to appear before the chief and elders. She made her way up to the palace, ready to be punished. She waited in patience as the boys told of what she had done, and only spoke out when Jayrd, the last to speak, exaggerated what she had done.

"You will be quiet, Kalaya," elder Kun said.

"I can't be, I only did it because he was insulting my brother's memory,"

"It doesn't matter. You have been warned, and punished before for waterbending. You know our laws, it if forbidden for women to waterbend. Women are our healers and bringers of life, not fighters and destroyers."

"But I want to fight. I can't heal well, but I can bend."

"It doesn't matter," another elder said, "You are forbidden, and since you repeatedly break our laws and traditions, even after being punished, we will have to do something about that."

"Yes," the chief said, "I put a motion out for exile. Kalaya can not keep our laws and traditions. Without a male family member to speak for her, or a fiancé, she is of no use and wishes to be of no use to our community. What do you think elders?"

The chief looked to the 4 elders seated around him, they all nodded.

Kalaya just stood there in shock as the chief pronounced her sentence.

"Kalaya is to be exiled fort with, she may take any of her family's possessions with her and a boat will be given her if she does not have one, but she can never return here."

She was still in shock later that day as she watched the waterbenders close the massive ice wall behind her canoe. She had a sack filled with her belongings, a change of clothes, an extra parka, some food, a little bit of money and her most treasured possession, a small silver band, the ring her father had given her mother on their wedding day. She also had her bedroll and a fishing line and a pair of daggers that had belonged to her father. She looked back one last time as the sun started setting, then headed south to the earth kingdom, determined to keep living.