Author's Note: It has been a really long time since I've written any Avatar fanfiction. In fact, I kind of fell out of the fandom until for some reason my brain decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to flood with Zutara feels. So. Here I am. Back in this hole and loving every second of it while my life disintegrates around me.

This is very, very much an AU. If you haven't noticed already. Katara is the last (Southern) Waterbender and the re-incarnation of Avatar. This idea came to me after seeing delusionalqueer's drawing of Avatar Katara on Tumblr yesterday. It ignited my brain down a long, long train of feels and here I am. This is the prologue (obviously), during which I will attempt to explain and flesh out the events leading up to this AU… I hope you enjoy and I look forward to writing more in this universe.

I'm not exactly sure where this is going or what will happen, but I hope that you will enjoy it as much as my brain apparently does. I also won't promise regular updates but I will say that I will update this as I am able and will not abandon it.

Prologue :: The War

The war has been raging for over one hundred years, building slowly at the start only to come raging through the world with a vengeance. It began with the death of Avatar Roku, though not many people will admit that point. Not after what followed…

Fire Lord Sozin began with the people of the Fire Nation, utilizing clever propaganda to lay in the heads of the people of Fire that they were Agni's children - the most powerful spirit that ever walked the planet. Who gave to the worthy the gift of Fire, the only gift worth having.

The Avatar was then, of course, reincarnated as an airbender of the Southern Air Temple, a boy named Aang. At twelve, his destiny was revealed to him, four years early because of the whispers of war. It was supposed to be his destiny to put an end to the war and restore balance to the world before it took off and upset everything.

While the Avatar trained to master all four of the elements, Fire Lord Sozin slowly sent emissaries of the Fire Nation to the outlying lands of the great Earth Kingdom. Thus, Sozin created the first Fire Colonies and stepped over the boundaries of territory for the first time since the Four Nations were established many millennia ago.

Avatar Aang could not fault Fire Lord Sozin for expanding his territory. The Fire Nation was, after all, the most densely populated of all the Four Nations. But Avatar Aang was naive and allowed his teachings, upbringing, and philosophies as a monk to cloud his judgement. He had not wanted the responsibility he had been given. Nor did he want to believe that any one person in this world could be inherently evil or grow mad from the desire for more power.

This was Avatar Aang's first mistake.

The Order of the White Lotus, along with all of his mentors and bending teachers, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Avatar Aang to put an end to the war as Fire Lord Sozin's power grew. But still, Aang reasoned blindly that this was no war, nor would it become one. Sozin had assured him their colonization of the Earth Kingdom was nothing more than the need for more agricultural land, something that the Fire Nation lacked in comparison with their population. Aang brokered peace between irritated Earth Kings and the Fire Nation, ignoring the warning signs until it was too late.

The day that Sozin's Comet burned through the sky was the day that the Air Nomads fell, one temple after another. Avatar Aang, along with the Order of the White Lotus and a select few Airbenders from the Southern Air Temple managed to escape with their lives, just barely. And even still, Avatar Aang gave in to his weakness, despite losing nearly all of his kinsmen to the flaming, grasping fingers of the Fire Nation.

Fire Lord Azulon rose to power following his father's death. And for a short few years, there was peace through the world while Aang lay in wait, watching from a distance as Azulon laid the foundation for his plans for the world. For the Fire Nation has no need for balance. Since Sozin's mad desire to conquest the world in the name of Agni and Fire, the need for balance has never been considered. And Aang is no threat, not to the Fire Lords. Ten years after his ascension to the throne, Fire Lord Azulon publicly declared war on the Earth Kingdom.

That is not to say that he had not been sending forays into the Earth Kingdom in disguise, furthering his reach into the depths of the largest continent. He had sent small groups into the frozen wastes of the Northern and Southern poles but had never shown much interest in them. They did not offer the land or the power that the Earth Kingdom held. They were small and insignificant, no match for the children of Agni the Sun himself.

In the ten years of supposed peace, Avatar Aang provided his assistance to the Earth Kingdom as much as possible, trying to end the war before it began with organizing Peace Conferences between all nations. He was met with failure after failure. He had allowed the Fire Nation to drink the evil nectar of endless power for too long and not even the Avatar would stop them.

Propaganda in the Fire Nation turned to boasting how weak the current Avatar was. Despite somehow surviving Sozin's Comet and the obliteration of the Air Nomads, the Avatar was in no state to be brokering peace and maintaining the fragile balance of the world. It was clear that the Spirits did not favor him, nor had they ever. Instead, Agni himself had blessed the Fire Nation with victory after victory.

Fire Lord Azulon challenged the Avatar to an Agni Kai, the most sacred and honorable of duels. One Fire Lord, master of only one element, could not possibly defeat the Avatar, master of all four of the elements. But at the last second, Aang faltered, his naivety leading to his defeat. Not even the past thousands of lifetimes of experiences and struggles from all other Avatars could save Aang from his own dogmatic nature.

With the death of Avatar Aang and the last of the Airbenders scattered to the corners of the planet, hiding from their failure and their inevitable extinction, the Fire Nation turned its attentions to the Water Tribes. Abandoning the war with the Earth Kingdom for the moment in favor of finding and destroying the newly reincarnated Avatar while they were still weak, Fire Lord Azulon declared war upon both Northern and Southern Water Tribes.

The Northern Water Tribe proved more difficult to crack into and bring down than Azulon had given them credit for. Mostly because they were nearly impossible to find, hidden as they were among great icebergs, utilizing their water benders to the best of their abilities to hide. He hid his failures with more propaganda, calling those of water cowards and peasants. They did not care for the struggles around them, keeping to themselves in their poor huts in the frozen wastelands. By refusing to join the war or surrender to the Fire Nation, they were implicit in the continuing struggles of the Fire Nation.

The Southern Water Tribe, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. Small and scattered tribes with no real organization beyond what was needed to survive. Hunters and fishermen, the lot of them. Certainly no match at all for the power and might of Agni's Children. Sure, there were a few Waterbenders, but they held no real power, no real training. Fire Lord Azulon ordered the capture of all Waterbenders - dead or alive. He would learn from his father's mistake with the Airbenders - he would not destroy the Water Tribes completely. Just ensure they could not rise against him in any way. After all, what power did non-benders have in this world?

Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe's wife bore a daughter following the Avatar's death. One of the few children born to the Southern Tribes that year, she was the second child of Chief Hakoda and Kya. Named Katara, she would unwittingly be born the reincarnated Avatar - greatest enemy of the Fire Nation and Last Hope of the World. So long as she did not follow her predecessor's footsteps.

The Order of the White Lotus focused on the children of the Water Tribes, while the Fire Nation raided the villages and extracted Waterbender after Waterbender. They discovered the existence of Katara and her destiny long before the Fire Nation. With their help, Chief Hakoda and his tribe were able to evade the scrutiny of the Fire Nation. While they needed to be terribly secretive about the existence of their daughter, it was worth it to protect her from the evils of the Fire Nation and Fire Lord Azulon's soldiers.

They were without fault for six years. Until someone let it leak to the Fire Nation that there was one last Waterbender in the Southern Tribes. Another raid followed, during which Katara's mother protected the little girl with her life. When her father led the men of the Southern Tribes to war following his wife's death, Katara and her older brother, Sokka, were left in the care of their Grandmother and the two members of the White Lotus that were her teachers and mentors.

For the last eight years, Katara has been training. She's pretty much mastered Waterbending and has been working on Airbending with one of the last Airbenders.

But she cannot expect to keep her existence a secret much longer. Not when Sozin's comet is expected to return come summer.

Author's Note :: I hope that made sense... feel free to ask questions because I'm sure I missed something. I know I kind of relied pretty heavily on Aang's naivety and dogmatism, but honestly I'm not sure that Aang would have been up to stopping the war even if he hadn't run away... I don't think he would have ever been okay with bringing a stop to Sozin, Azulon, or Ozai until he was absolutely forced to at the very end of the series... I also apologize for kind of losing steam at the end of this chapter in regards to Katara... I'll get to developing more of her childhood and whatnot as I go along, I promise~

If you hadn't noticed as well, I'm exploring the politics of actually mounting a war on the world as arguably one of the smaller nations. Propaganda against the other nations is one of the many ways that the Fire Nation in this universe persuaded their people to fight this war... Be warned that there is probably going to be quite a bit of inherent racism laced throughout this story. Because that's just how propaganda works.

I look forward to writing more for this series. If you haven't yet seen delusionalqueer's drawing of Avatar Katara, definitely go check it out~ It's wonderful and I'm so excited to develop this series. c: