GC: This is literally pointless fun. I really just used it as a writing exercise. To anyone who has ever seen The Lord of the Rings EXTENDED EDITION, you may remember the extended beginning to the first movie with the whole "concerning hobbits" bit. Well, this is sort of like that, but for avatar. I'd like to point out that this is not meant to reveal any new information or some sort of fanfictional plot line, it's just an idea: what were Katara and Sokka doing before the show started? Nothing too exciting, believe me. I'm really only doing this because I had it written down, but I didn't have a place to put it. Also, the beginning is NOT narrated by Katara as it is in the show. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Mmm... Avatar- own it I do not.
Episode One: The Boy in the Iceberg (extended beginning only)
Water, the element of peace and serenity. It deals with love, kindness and charity.
Earth, the element of brute force and stubbornness. It deals with courage and strength.
Fire, the element of power and destruction. It deals with ambition and rage. When set, it can spread and destroy everything.
Air, the element of wisdom. It deals with detachments, movement, and isolation.
The nations of each element lived together in perfect harmony for hundreds of years. They were kept in line by a special group of people born to each nation known as "benders." These benders had the power to manipulate their own country's element. The leader of the benders was a spiritual warrior capable of awesome power. This warrior was called the Avatar. The Avatar could manipulate all four elements; water, earth, fire, and air.
That was all before the war, before the Fire Nation attacked, wiping out the Air nomads. The Avatar disappeared and no one could stop the ruthless Fire Benders. For one hundred years, the war has raged on, the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom struggling greatly to hold back the overwhelming Fire Nation.
Our story begins at the Southern Water Tribe, near the South Pole. Three years before, the men of this tribe left their small village behind to fight in the Earth Kingdom. Now, most of the responsibility to take care of this village fell to the able hands of two siblings.
At the age of fifteen, Sokka of the Water Tribe was a very awkward boy. He was short for his age, and his muscles hadn't fully developed. He was a mediocre hunter as well as a fighter, yet he took pride at being the best at both in the village. He had dark brown hair, dark skin, and blue eyes. His father, Hakoda, was the chief of the tribe before he left to fight. Sokka remembered begging to go with him to the front, but he was too young to understand; too young to understand why his mother had passed away at the hands of a man none of them had ever met. His mother… Kya was the most beautiful woman in the Southern Water Tribe before a Fire Nation Raider killed her four years ago. He tried to be strong, but sometimes cried himself to sleep over her loss. The war always takes something when it's least welcome.
Sokka's sister took the death of their mother harder than he did. Katara was her name. She was fourteen and already she was growing into a beautiful woman like her mother. Not only that, but Katara was the most educated person in the tribe (other than her Grandmother whom she called "Gran-Gran") She had long brunette hair, and sapphire blue eyes. The girl was tall for her age and was very mature. Her most prized possession was a blue Water Tribe necklace passed down to her by her mother. She always wore it. It made her feel that her mother was near her. Katara was motherly towards Sokka the most, but she was also very motherly towards the other children of the village.
She was talented with reading and mathematics, as her Gran-Gran had passed on much of her wisdom. Meanwhile, Sokka was off playing with a club or pretending to fight the Fire Nation. And so, Katara would often tutor the younger children while Sokka tried to teach them to be warriors. The tutoring was far more successful than the training.
It was when Katara was five that she first realized how special she was. She was kneeling over the side of a pool of icy blue water. She laughed at a tiny fish squirming by. She reached out towards the fish, but in doing so, the water rose from its level position and over the bank. The five-year-old girl was awe struck at what she was doing. Katara was a Waterbender.
Her parents were amazed at Katara's talents, from academics to bending, itself. Kya knew that Katara was important. Katara was the last Waterbender in the South Pole and in her hands rested the fate of their culture. She was young though, and she didn't understand her dramatic responsibility.
The Northern Water Tribe sent messengers from their great frozen cities, still untouched by the war, to talk with Hakoda about his waterbending daughter.
"She must marry from our tribe so that you can regain your power in this war with more benders!" They would say. Kya was strong and hard willed. She would answer with a sarcastic laugh.
"And you would have me toss my daughter into an arranged marriage? Like—like some kind of statue without her own will! No. I won't have it. When Katara turns sixteen, she will find a man that she loves and not some arrogant man that is only there because he's a bender!"
Hakoda would shift uneasily. "Now, Kya… I agree with you, but insulting our guests won't help us any." She shot him a menacing look. "Eh…" Hakoda laughed nervously. "At least it won't help me any. Um—gentlemen, we've heard enough."
It was nine years later now, and Katara didn't have a master to learn from anyways. What was the point of being the last bender in the South Pole if the Northern Water Tribe wouldn't send anyone like they used to, to teach her? She wanted a master more than anything in the world, but she was stuck here on a block of ice.
One day, on her sixteenth birthday, she would leave and travel to the North Pole herself. She was going to travel the world, meet new people, and learn her art. Maybe she'd meet a tall Earth Kingdom boy and settle down with a family. That would be a long way off, though. She had duties here first and foremost.
Katara had just woken up. She had been looking around her tent, thinking about the dream she had. In her dream, she was a powerful water bender. Here, she was just Katara, the fourteen-year-old intellectual who was unrefined when it came to anything except chores.
Katara was wearing her blue parka. It was dirty, now, after all the chores she did the day before. She walked over to a basin of water and wetted her hair. A newly cleaned parka replaced the dirty one and Katara rinsed and cleaned her hair in the basin of water. Newly refreshed, she threw on her heavy blue winter coat. The winter was coming swiftly and things were going to get cold.
Before she exited her small personal tent (Which she gained the privilege of having when she turned eleven), Katara turned toward the basin again and moved her hands in any way she could to make the water move. The water began to swell before her- her heart was pounding.
"KATARA!" Sokka's obnoxious, cracking voice sounded. "HURRY UP! WE HAVE CHORES TO DO!"
The water immediately dropped with a trickle and Katara sighed in frustration. I swear, one of these days, Sokka… Katara turned and exited the flap of her tent.
The frozen tundra of the South Pole opened before her; a white and blue sky over a white nothingness. The village consisted of about thirty tents and igloos, a small snow-ice wall surrounding them, and a small hearth in the center. The ice wall on the north side of the village faced the South Ocean and all that could be seen in the water was a number of pointed icebergs. The fourteen families (women and children right now) were scattered around the sleepy village. Everyone had just woken up and started their jobs.
Katara pulled her gloves on and found Sokka feeding wood on the fire. "I need you to teach the kids this morning." Sokka didn't make eye contact. "I'm going to work on my watchtower."
Katara made skeptical face. Like the watchtower will accomplish anything while I'm educating the future of our tribe, she thought
Sokka put his hair up into a small tail that he called a "warrior's wolf tail" and set off to the north wall.
The girl had been tired of being cooped up inside the walls for two weeks. This must have put her in a bad mood, for she wasn't usually this hostile towards her brother. The women of the tribe dumped their three, four, five, six, nine, ten, and twelve year olds with Katara and went on about their chores. Katara smiled at them and wished them a good morning. A twelve-year-old boy walked to Katara and smiled. "Hey, Katara."
"Morning, Kinto. Do you remember where we left off on history last week?"
"Yeah, it was right around the siege of Ba Sing Se."
"Right," Katara smiled back and patted his shoulder like a loving mother. "The siege of the Earth Kingdom Capitol, Ba Sing Se, took place four years ago before our fathers left to join the fight. The Fire Nation's best General was in command of the attack. His name was Iroh, the Dragon of the West. After six hundred days of siege, Iroh broke through the wall and captured the outer ring of the city. However, for unknown reasons, on the third day of combat within the city, Iroh withdrew and the siege ended." Katara smiled. "From then on, with the help of our fleet, many Earth Kingdom territories have been liberated." Katara liked telling about that part of the story. Although she knew that once the summer came around, the Fire Nation would gain more power and take back its lost occupations.
After about an hour, Katara stopped the tutoring and went to find Sokka again. He was sharpening his whale tooth spear and tying a rope to the end of a canoe.
"You're leaving the village?" Katara inquired
"Yes. I'm going fishing out by the glacier sea."
Katara's heart skipped a beat. "I'm coming! I can't take it here anymore."
Sokka looked up at her and laughed. "You have chores to do here still and plus, girls don't go hunting or fishing."
"What! Are you kidding me? Why don't you get over yourself? I'm perfectly capable of sitting in a canoe while you fish if that makes you feel better."
Sokka exhaled, a bit embarrassed. He'd admit it to himself; Katara was persistent. "Oh, all right. Let's get going then."
Katara's patience with Sokka was wearing thin for the day.