~Chapter One~ A Last Act of a Mother's Love
Katara had barely moments between the confusing discovery of the black snow and the shocking onslaught that followed. The Fire Nation soldiers carved their way through the thick outer walls of the settlement with their bending, shifting great chunks of ice and snow that had sat there and marked her home's boundaries her entire life with the same ease of the womenfolk's knives scraping seal blubber from the skin. Her wide frightened eyes took in scenes that no eight year old ought to witness; faceless men in flanged red and black armour with helmets like hawks indiscriminately bringing down people who had known her since her infancy with blasts of their unforgiving fire, the screams of the terrified children and the anxious women, the shouts of the fighting menfolk who were still rushing from where they had been to defend their home and families and friends, the women who were desperately taking up arms to protect their children, the agonised cries of the burned and dying.
She might have stayed standing, frozen by fear and shock if Sokka hadn't leaped at her, dragging her out of the way of a stray jet of fire just in time. They rolled over in the powdery snow, still speckled with black, and, in some places, now with blood.
"I'm going to find, Mum." Sokka did not argue with his little sister, watching her as she stumbled away through the snow, before following her with the fear of a boy first confronted with war in his face, uncertainly drawing his boomerang.
Kya ran into them before they had reached the large igloo in the centre of the village that was their home. Her face, in which they had only ever seen kindness and laughter and concentration, and, sometimes gentle scolding, was lined with their first experience of seeing a mother's terror. She clasped her children to her with enough force to crush them; it frightened them. They had only ever known safety in their mother's arms, but now there was something in their mother, and although they didn't know it, it was going to change their lives forever.
Kya had seen the man with the open helm, the helm that was more elaborate than any of the other soldiers, and had known, instantly, that he was their leader. She had noticed what her children hadn't as they had run past him towards her; his movement from house to house, between the cowering groups of women she knew who were sheltering their children. She had guessed what he had come for, and she was not about to let him take it.
All of her motherly instincts, the instincts that drove a mother to protect her young, even with her own life, had risen to the surface, and were guiding her actions. Quickly and quietly she took her children by the hand, and snuck through the village, moving back through deserted areas that the Fire Nation soldiers were yet to reach, and out through the rear gates. The children followed their mother, silenced by fear and confusion, and it was not until they had nearly arrived at their destination that they began to wonder aloud why it was that their mother was taking them to the little flotilla of canoes that rested in a rare and enlarged channel where the sea came in through the icy land.
"What's happening? Where's Dad?" Sokka asked, a little quicker on the uptake than his sister, as his mother began ushering them into one of the canoes and tugging at the rope that secured it to pull out the stake from the snow.
"Don't worry, Sokka; your father is fighting with the men – he'll be fine." She replied, her breath coming out on clouds of steam. The canoe was now free, and the only thing keeping the children from drifting away from their mother and land was the rope that remained trapped beneath her foot. "Listen to me, my little penguins." Kya knelt down, before her frightened children, and lifted her gloved and mittened hands to their small faces. "You'll be safe in the canoe; understand. Whatever you do, do not get out and stay quiet. Wait until someone comes to find you, all right?" Katara was staring at her mother in confusion, but Sokka nodded slightly.
"What about you and Dad?" He asked.
"Don't worry about us; we'll be fine." Kya's voice was strained, but she put as much reassurance into the words as she could. "Someone will be back soon."
"Mummy, I don't want to leave; I don't want you to go." Katara was shaking her head, the words mangled by her sobbing as she clung to her mother about the neck. Kya stroked her daughter's hair soothingly, hugging her to her.
"Oh, my little fish," she murmured sadly. "It's only a good bye for now; we'll see each other again." Katara pulled her tear stained face out of the fur of her mother's hood.
"Really?" She asked, her lips still trembling.
"Definitely." Kya nodded and smiled, and her daughter reluctantly released her. Kya reached up to the back of her neck and undid the fastening of the betrothal necklace that her husband had gifted her with. She folded it into her daughter's tiny hands. "Keep it safe for me; see – I wouldn't give it to you if we weren't going to see each other again, would I?" Katara nodded, comforted. Kya turned to her son, who was rather bright around the eyes himself, but sticking out his lower lip in a determined effort not to cry. "Be a proper little wolf warrior for your father, Sokka; and look after your sister for me." Sokka pursed his mouth and nodded.
"Ok," the word came out somewhat hoarse and rather wobbly.
"I love you both very much," Kya clasped her children to her one last time, before tearing herself out of their clinging grip and releasing the rope. The current , which had already been pulling at the canoe, began to lead it away from the edge of the hard packed ice and snow, drifting it out into the empty bulb of the little harbour that the men of the tribe had long ago dug out.
Katara was crying once more, clinging to the edge of the canoe, and held back by her brother, whose attempt at a manly lack of tears had at long last crumpled. Kya waved at her children once, attempting a smile, before turning around and heading back to the village before they could glimpse her tears.
Kya's return to the village did not go unnoticed. The small blue figure re-entering via the back gates caught Yon Rha's eye as he exited the last of the small igloos, and he followed her progress into the central igloo; the home of the chieftain. He had seen the chieftain fighting alongside the menfolk of his village earlier, and knew as he began walking towards the igloo that his audience would not be interrupted.
The captain of the Southern Raiders ripped through the curtain that barred the entrance. In the central chamber the woman was waiting for him. She stood as he entered, her chin held high, though there was determined fear in her eyes. "Tell me who the last water bender is." He demanded.
Kya swallowed, her suspicions confirmed. "If I tell you, will you order your men to leave the rest of the village alone?" She asked, keeping the tremor of fear out of her voice.
Yon Rha narrowed his eyes, the nodded.
"It's me; I'm the last water bender." They were the bravest words she had said in her entire life. "Here." She lifted up her hands, her wrists ready to be manacled.
Yon Rha paused just long enough to raise his eyebrows, remembering his previous observation of her. "Prove it." He said.
It was a struggle for Kya to keep her surprise from her face, and her mind raced. "No. I'm not some performing animal; just take me and leave the village alone."
Yon Rha laughed a rasping, unpleasant chuckle. "I know you aren't the last water bender; so you might as well drop the act. Tell me where they are! There are plenty of other people in your village who might tell me; and we have methods of loosening the tongue…your husband, for example – how long do you think he might be able to remain silent as we torture you before his eyes? I assure you we are not barbaric like your people; we have a thousand ways of making people hurt more than they can bear without killing them." Kya shuddered with revulsion, but anger had sparked in her eyes.
"You're disgusting," she spat. "You're lower than the worst parasite at the bottom of the ocean. You can't torture the villagers; they don't know who the last water bender is! And even if they did, they would never tell someone as evil as you!" Kya spat in his face, staring at him, watching the anger rise.
A split second later, she was on the ground, stunned by the force of the back handed blow he had delivered across her face, her ear still ringing. Slowly, Yon Rha wiped the spit off his face, and flicked it off the back of his hand, the drops splattering across Kya where she lay, struggling to move to a sitting position.
"Thank you," he said, his voice flesh-creepingly smug as he moved to step around her, heading for the rear exit – the exit that she had come in by, "that was most…illuminating."
Kya lay for a moment, frowning, before the realisation of what she had done hit her like an avalanche. "No!" She shrieked, spinning about and lunging for him a second too late.
Yon Rha let his hands fall to his side, and exited, not even glancing at the burned body of the woman he had just killed where she lay across the floor. As he exited, he jerked his head, and four soldiers came to his side.
"Sir?" Asked one.
"Follow me," he replied, his eyes fixed on the trail of footprints in the snow that led to the rear exit of the village; "we've got a water bender to find."