Katara was wandering the swamp when she suddenly lost all hope. She fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands. She began crying, she thought she was all alone in the swamp all of her friends were gone and probably forgot about her and she never would make it out of this doom.
A form appeared behind her, separating itself slowly from the trees. Katara did not see it, but suddenly felt a hand touching her shoulder and a soft voice whispering in her ear. "Do not be afraid child of man. I will show you the path to your friends."
She looked up in fear and saw a tall, beautiful woman reaching down to her. She had black hair that hung from her head in wavy curls. Her skin was a deep brown, darker than even the watertribes were and it seemed ageless. Her eyes were of a dark green, which seemed to be almost black. The woman wore strange clothing of green and brown color, and a short knife on her belt.
As she saw that Katara was too afraid to even speak she ran her hand threw Katara's hair and the girl fell fast asleep in the middle of the mud. Then she lifted her up and in the darkness of the night laid her besides her brother.
Afterward Toreth walked among the trees of this swamp which were strange to her. Thinking about what she just did, about the consequences of her deed, and considered it good. She did not come across humans or swamps that often but she found she managed pretty good this time.
But how should she go on?
Her forest was burned to the ground by the fire nation. What was a home to her did not exist anymore. Nobody cared for her. The thought just shot through her mind, she could not avoid it. Dryads were hunted by humans, it had always been that way. At least as long as everybody remembered.
Toreth did not understand why. She did not do anything to them, so why would they hurt her, kill her, burn her? She shivered at the thought of the flames that consumed her mother, her pain, her screams.
She shooed her thoughts away, thought about the girl she found. She had never seen a human like her before she saw her a few weeks ago. She followed her and her friends. They would need help, she felt it. But now she helped enough for this time. Maybe they would meet again, sometime in the future.
A sudden smell reached her refined nose. Salty, with a hint of adventure. She decided that she would follow it. Out of the swamp, out of the woods, it would truly be an adventure.
When she woke up in the morning Katara jumped at finding Sokka next to her. She told both of her friends her story but they would not believe her.
Author's Note: Lately, for some unknown reason, the thought occurred my mind that there are billions of stories about a lot of Avatar-characters having a relationship, but almost none(compared to e.g. Zutara) about Hakoda having a relationship with not Kya nor Ursa. Therefore I wrote this story, which is about Hakoda having a relationship with a woman who is not as usual as he might think he is. It has a slight LOTR-blend in it, but only because it mentions Ents.