Look! Its chapter one! Wow… Please review!

The Boy in the Iceberg

Tara smiled as she flew through the air. Her long black hair whipped behind her. Her amber eyes scanned the snow-covered ground below in search of two figures dressed in blue.

For seven long years she had been living outside the Southern Water Tribe. Her only companions were the snow, the water, and of course Sokka. Sokka was someone to talk to, someone to cry to, and someone to laugh at or with.

But he wasn't the little boy he used to be. He was the oldest male in the tribe. Tara had been there when his father left. That was the day that she held him in her arms again, as he cried himself to sleep.

She knew the feeling, sort of. Yet Tara wondered if her father still loved her like Sokka's father did. But anyway, the young warrior had more responsibilities. It seemed the older he became, the less time he spent with her.

But he never neglected her. Each day he brought her three meals, blankets if needed, and any other essentials. Over the years, they became the best of friends; almost like brother and sister.

Tara had a new outfit, of course. It was basically the same as her old one, except blue to disguise her. She also had a thick winter coat to protect her from harsh polar winds.

She was no stranger to loneliness. But Tara made do much better there than on the ship. She learned to fly her flier perfectly and would do it quite often. She even painted over the wings, knowing the color and insignia would give her away. Instead now they were a light blue that matched the sky.

She was flying it then, while on search for Sokka and his sister, Katara. Sokka said that he was most worried about his sister finding out about Tara. He told her that she held a strong grudge that could last a lifetime. Still, one day Tara vowed to have Katara find out. She didn't plan to be hidden forever.

So on that fateful day, as I said, Tara was trying to find the siblings on their fishing trip. Through her years as an outcast, she had learned to be sneaky. She learned the art of spying. And she was quite good at it too. Not one person in the whole tribe had found out, though there were a few close calls. Tara wasn't sure why she did it. She supposed that it was entertaining and it kept her occupied.

Finally, she found Sokka and Katara floating on their canoe. Sokka had a spear in hand and was studying the water looking for a fish. Katara, though, already had one in an orb of water that floated through the air. Tara was always amazed at her waterbending.

"Sokka, look!" Katara said happily.

"Shh. You'll scare it away." He whispered back, obviously not paying attention to his sister, "Mmm. I can already smell it cookin'."

"But Sokka, I caught one!"

The girl bent the water over the boat where Sokka stabbed it with the back of his spear. The fish fell back into the ocean and the water fell onto the young warrior's head.

"Ugh!" the waterbender cried in frustration.

"Why is it that every time you play with magic water I get soaked?"

Tara giggled even though, as he said, it happened all the time. The girl sighed.

"It's not magic, it's waterbending. And it's-"

"Yeah, yeah; an ancient art unique to our culture, bla bla bla," Sokka interrupted, "Look, I'm just saying that if I had weird powers I'd keep my weirdness to myself."

"You're calling me weird? I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water."

Tara laughed again because at that moment, he had been doing that exact thing. She could tell that he was about to fire back when suddenly the canoe lurched foreword. They were caught in the stronger current. Sokka grabbed hold of the oar and began to steer away from the incoming ice. Katara frantically yelled directions at him, hoping to help.

It did not. In the end, two ice chunks smashed their canoe and the siblings slid onto one piece of floating ice. There they started arguing again. Tara considered helping them but knew that Sokka would be upset if she revealed herself. Besides, she knew they would get out somehow.

The firebender wasn't really paying much attention to their argument this time. But soon she became interested when Katara began accidentally slicing the large glacier that was behind them in anger. Sokka was trying to warn her feebly but not to any accomplishment. Finally the glacier cracked apart and sent their piece of ice backwards a couple yards.

Once they stopped though, it got weird. A big glowing perfectly circular glacier arose from the water. Tara could see what she thought was a person inside. Unfortunately, Sokka and Katara were too far away for her to hear what they were saying. But the waterbender yelled something and then grabbed Sokka's club. She began to jump from ice chunk to ice chunk until she reached the glacier and then began whacking it.

Finally, it cracked open and a bright blue light shot into the air. Then, a young boy appeared. He was bald with a blue arrow tattoo on his forehead. He fell down the ice but Katara quickly caught him. At first, Tara thought he was dead but then he woke up and began walking and, she thought, talking. He started doing amazing things. Jumping fifteen feet into the air, almost floating his body up from the ground, bringing out his huge bison looking thing also adorned with arrows, just to name a few.

After that, Tara left. She had nothing else to see.

There were two things she was sure of and one she suspected. One: things were definitely going to change. Two: that boy was an airbender. Three: Sokka didn't like him.

To the young warrior, Tara was the exception. Every stranger he met was not to be trusted; especially one so strange. Sokka wasn't a big believer in bending, either. He knew it was there, after all there was enough proof, but he just didn't trust it.

In other words, he kind of had a trusting issue.

Tara would tease him about it sometimes. "Don't go near that rock, Sokka!" she would say, "It can't be trusted." He would laugh then.

Quickly, Tara flew back to her campsite. In reality, there was no need to rush. She just felt a kind of urgency that had to be attended to. Once she arrived, she tied her flier into the picket stuck in the ground. Then, strangely, she smiled.

Her campsite gave her a sense of homeliness. She had a blue tent that was really meant for sleeping, but she used it for storage instead. Tara preferred sleeping under the stars and feeling the night breeze blow over her face. In fact her dark blue and white sleeping bag was the same one that Sokka had given her on her first night at the South Pole.

Having missed breakfast in anticipation for Sokka and Katara's fishing trip, Tara's stomach begged for food. And she obeyed. As she dug through her food supply inside her tent, she mentally counted out how much was left. Five small loaves of bread, three good-sized hunks of meat, and one huge fish became the official count. Tara pulled out her knife she kept with her always and sliced one piece of meat in half. She ate one half of that plus a loaf of bread.

It should keep her for a while. And it was a while before Sokka visited; a lot later than it usually was. In fact, Tara was beginning to think that they were still stranded on that glacier. But just when she was ready to fly over and look, he appeared…in a pretty bad mood.

"Airbender givin' you trouble, Sokka?" She asked with a sly smile.

"How did you… Oh, you were spying."

"Yep," it wasn't a question, but she answered anyway.

"Do you know what it feels like when you were somewhere acting normal and then later you figure out somebody was secretly looking at you the whole time?"

"No."

"Creepy; it feels creepy, Tara."

"Okay. So did the big bison swim you home?"

"Actually it was supposed to fly us, but shouldn't you know that?"

"Nah. You were out of range so I left."

"Oh… good."

"I still saw you get hit by bison snot."

"Darn. So… what did you do when you weren't spying on us?"

"The usual: nothing."

"Right."

"Sokka, I know you don't trust the kid, but maybe this once you should."

"Why do you care?"

Tara shrugged. "I'm not kidding around, though, you've gotta work on your issues."

"What issues?"

"See? You're in denial."

Sokka sighed, defeated.

"Listen, I'll see you tomorrow, Tara; okay?"

"Alright; but don't keep me waiting forever. I was worried."

The warrior smiled and nodded, then headed back towards his tribe. Once he was gone from sight, Tara climbed into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. She dreamed. She dreamed of darkness, her old friend, and of water rushing underneath the metal beneath her feet; of him. She woke up sweating, in the depth of winter too. Quickly, she brought forth fire in her palms and held it there, eyes closed again. A second later, Tara put it out and fell into a calm sleep.

When she awoke again, the sun had just come up and the firebender quickly got ready. She knew there would be much commotion in the village with the airbender, and she wanted to see it all.

Her hair brushed and flower in place, she began walking towards the village. It was way too short of a distance to fly there. When she arrived, she hid behind a tan tent and watched the scene unfold. Katara was introducing the airbender, apparently named Aang, to the villagers. Aang gave a bow of greeting to them but instead they cowered away.

Tara wasn't too surprised at this. They all weren't too fond of strangers. She recognized Sokka's grandmother tell him how they thought that airbenders were extinct. Aang didn't look happy… or convinced.

Sokka then took the chance to make the airbender look stupid. He grabbed Aang's staff from his hands.

"What is this; a weapon?" the warrior asked accusingly, "You can't stab anything with this."

Aang only smiled and used more airbending to take the staff back.

"It's not for stabbing." He laughed, "It's for airbending."

The boy suddenly opened the staff into a glider similar to Tara's flier; except it only had wings. She realized then why you would need airbending to fly it.

"Magic trick; do it again!" a little water tribe girl called out.

"Not magic; airbending," Aang explained, "It lets me control the air currents around my glider and fly."

"You know, last time I checked," Sokka said, "humans can't fly.

"Check again!" the airbender replied.

Amazingly, the boy grabbed hold of his glider and took to the skies. Aang flew around doing swirls and other things for a few moments before crashing headfirst into Sokka's snow-built watchtower.

Katara helped him up of course. When Sokka attempted to repair the watchtower more snow just fell on him.

"Great." He said not so happily, "You're an airbender, Katara's a waterbender; together you can just waste time all day long."

His comment didn't seem to shake his sister or Aang. In fact, they then began to talk about it. How typical. But it wasn't long before her grandmother brought her away for her chores.

"I told you he's the real thing, Gran Gran." Katara told her hopefully as they walked away from the rest of the villagers, "I finally found a bender to teach me."

"Katara," Gran Gran said carefully, "try not to put all your hopes in this boy."

"But he's special. I can tell. I sense he's filled with much wisdom."

Tara wasn't too sure about that. In fact, at that moment, Aang was showing the young children how he could get his tongue stuck to his closed glider. The firebender grew bored once Katara began her chores, so she snuck over to Sokka. He was trying, again, to train the young boys of the tribe to be warriors… with not much luck.

Soon, though, Katara came and asked Sokka if he had seen Aang anywhere. She didn't need an answer because, as if on cue, he appeared from the bathroom igloo.

"Wow." He joked to the little ones, "Everything freezes in there."

"Ugh! Katara get him out of here!" Sokka commanded, frustrated, "This class is for warriors only."

He was about to leave when he heard the little boys' happy noises. They were sliding down the bison's tail while Aang was watching and laughing.

"What's wrong with you!" Sokka yelled at Aang.

Tara's smile faded away. She hated when Sokka started talking about the urgency of things; about the war that her people had started. So she left again.

Once Tara returned to her campsite she decided to take her flier out for a ride. Maybe flying will take her mind off things. So she flew and just stared at the snow. Well, she was until she spotted Katara and Aang sledding down the hills on penguins. The firebender decided to follow them. What else would she do?

When they finished, Tara landed her flier and hid behind a nearby glacier. But then, she stopped dead once she spotted what the two were looking at.

It was an old Fire Nation ship, stuck frozen in the ice. Calmly, the airbender began walking towards it.

"Aang, stop!" Katara warned, "We're not allowed to go near it. The ship could be booby-trapped."

"If you want to be a bender, you have to let go of fear."

Tara trembled in anger at Aang's stupidity. Who knows what was inside? She had seen it once or twice before but preferred to steer clear of it herself. Tara had had enough of Fire nation ships.

Katara was usually one to always follow the rules which was why she was surprised to find that the waterbender foolishly went in too. Not wanting them to get hurt, and being the slightest bit curious herself, she carefully followed them both.

As quiet as she could, Tara crawled into the hole in the hull after the two benders. Taking extra precautions to ensure she wouldn't be seen, she stayed a few yards behind. She hopped onto large pipes near the ceiling and into open doorways for a couple seconds.

"This ship has haunted my tribe since Gran Gran was a little girl." Katara broke the silence. "It was part of the Fire Nation's first attacks."

"Okay. Back up." Aang told her with concern, "I have friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation. I've never seen any war."

"Aang, how long were you in that iceberg?"

"I don't know; a few days maybe."

"I think it was more like a hundred years."

"What? That's impossible. Do I look like a hundred and twelve year old man to you?"

"Think about it. The war is a century old. You don't know about it because, somehow, you were in there the whole time. It's the only explanation."

Whoa. Tara held back a pretty large gasp. Wouldn't he be dead? Because… because you would think he'd be dead. Aang seemed to be taking the news well though, considering. He sat down onto the metal floor, hands on his bald head.

"A hundred years," he repeated, "I can't believe it."

"I'm sorry, Aang." Katara said as she knelt down next to him, "Maybe somehow there's a bright side to all this?"

"I did get to meet you."

Tara almost gagged. The cheesiness of his sentence was overwhelming. She hoped they wouldn't continue off of that.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

The firebender's eyes grew wide. She didn't think it would be safe to be in front of them. Quietly, she dashed into a nearby room. The two traveled down the hall; the wrong hall. Either they weren't leaving or they were going to get lost.

Luckily, sort of, it was the first option. The benders explored a little more with Tara on their tail before Katara finally said the phrase she had been waiting for.

"Aang? Let's head back. This place is creepy."

The airbender didn't respond but instead let out a gasp as he tripped slightly over a thin wire. Instantly a metal grate fell over the only door. Luckily, Tara wasn't hiding inside.

"What's that you said about booby-traps?" Aang joked.

Katara wasn't laughing. No, she was busy staring at the steam coming out of the pipes that ran along the wall. It wasn't long before a fiery flare erupted into the sky.

"Uh oh." The airbender said simply.

Quickly, he grabbed Katara and jumped through the hole in the ceiling that led outside. Tara knew they would be safe. The firebender ran down the halls and passageways until she finally got out in time to see Aang and Katara run off. She sprinted towards her flier and, as fast as she could, took to the skies.

She was on her way back to the campsite when she saw it. A black ship was going full steam ahead straight towards the village. She had to warn Sokka.

Oooh! It's super exciting! At least I think so… Tell me what you think! Please review! Also, not every chapter will be just her watching what's going on because I understand that gets boring sometimes. It's just this first one. She will have much bigger roles in the others, believe me. I'll make sure. And if I don't please review about it! And if I haven't said this already, each chapter will be a specific episode. The story won't be all 61 episodes though, just the important ones and some favorites that I can work with.