Every time the moon rises over the desolate South Pole, a short elderly woman ambles past the few mothers and children left under her care and heads of into the night.
She emerges from her tent, a small shred of what her home used to be, bundled in so many layers she can barely walk. This doesn't bother her, it is just the way of South. As she walks creakily by, she hears the loving whispers the woman sing, helping their thin children fall asleep with dreams of sunshine and sweets.
She hears the children get up from their beds when their mothers leave, and talk together, speaking of lost fathers and hungry bellies. She hears the quiet sobs and slow tears as wives send up prayers, in a desperate attempt to feel useful to husbands they haven't seen in years.
Too soon, Kanna of the water tribe walks past the large tear through her village, the scorn of an uneasy mother. She traces the jagged pattern with her old, wise eyes, and remembers the day it was born. The last time she saw her grandchildren.
After carefully climbing through the ice and snow piles the woman with soft blue eyes makes it to the seaside. She watches the darkened water, black from lack of light, roll slowly under and around her.
This freezing ocean is the last thing her people can claim, the only thing the Fire Nation cannot completely wipe out, and the only thing she finds comfort in other then her wonderful fiancé. The grandmother sits beside the swaying ocean, watching the moon glistened a milky shadow on her element, and she sighs softly.
By now many months have passed, and snippets of news of her grandchildren have reached even the remote Southern water tribe. Her lovely Pakku, the man she had spent her youth fearing, and quietly loving, had told her about Princess Yue. She had wished she had been able to meet the grandchild of the elder's own Princess, long dead, but she was honored to worship her new spirit.
Out of her thick cerulean sleeve, she pulled a paper boat. Paper was rare, and the old woman didn't use it often. The boat itself was simple, folded in a delicate form full of sharp angles and pointy meanings. She admired it's milky color, but abhorred it's value to her life.
Out of her other sleeve, she pulled a set of purple beads, small handcrafted ornaments that meant so much in her heart. She played around with small trinkets, each holding a different symbol, and smiled at her beloved things. The beads were just a few from a thin necklace, the one her beautiful lost daughter had worn on her wedding day.
With tears forming as long lost memories fought for control, Gran-gran tests the water to see how strong the current was. The current was too tired to sweep it away into the night, and for a moment, Kanna, brave and tough soul of both Water Tribes, sobbed into the waves.
She let all the misery and grief and loss flow out of her, and watched as it, melted away into an ocean full from tears of her ancestors.
The woman's ear twitched as she heard approaching footsteps. She turned her head, ready to scold anyone disturbing her meditation. Her eyes softened when the rough image of a tall old man emerged from the shadow.
He took her hand and lifted her up, helping her stand on the rough ice. He extended his hands over the rocking below them, and flicked his wrist, creating a sturdy block of ice. Together, they cautiously stepped onto the raft.
A few more slow hand motions and their feet were encased in ice, letting them sit down without fear. Together they pushed off, and stayed silent. The gentleman took his lady's knurled hands into his, and hugged her close. For a moment, they were young, and a moment the past never felt became so real, it scared the woman.
They stayed there, admiring the star and the moon without words. A kind of love spreading between them, and echoing into the farthest corners of space.
Later, the man picked up the paper boat and the string of beads, and lay them together beneath the ice raft. He put his old hand gently to her sunken face, and together they pushed it off. In low voices, they whispered an old Northern Water Tribe prayer, and a few salty tears joined it's mother ocean.
As Pakku of the Water Tribe began to propel the ice block closer to shore, and cuddling his beautiful fiancé closer to him, Kanna lifted her head up, and regarded the boat in a loving glare.
With a gleam in her eyes no one had seen before, she slowly and stealthily flicked her wrists. The boat tiptoed into the night against the current, and Kanna of the Water Tribe offered a small prayer to her long-lost daughter, her late husband, and the new moon spirit that her grandchildren would stay safe on their quest.
Far off into the sky, just beyond the Earth, The new Moon spirit heard a prayer. There was almost no such thing as time in the spirit world, so the young soul still felt raw and unknown. Prayers were still meaningful to her, and she heard this one with a soft heart. Across the globe, she let a blessed moonbeam fall upon the faces of sleeping children, each dreaming the same dream of peace, love, and food.