Rating: PG, probably; again, some violent imagery, but nothing especially explicit.
Characters/Pairing: This chapter is the Kya chapter, so obviously there are mentions of Kya/Hakoda, but it's not pairing fic.
Summary: Some of the missing and/or dead mothers of Avatar: who they might have been, and things they might have done or never did. Each chapter will be sort of its own five-things fic.
Disclaimer: Places and people you recognize from canon are not mine.
Acknowledgements: GIANT THANK-YOU to my sister, for the beautiful art (unfortunately, I can't embed it here!) and the constant nagging. And, of course, to the ladiesbigbang challenge on Dreamwidth, for leading me to actually get off my butt and post fic.
Other Notes: This one's probably the shortest chapter out of all of them - out of everybody this fic will eventually cover, except maybe Yue and Ursa, we know the most about Kya. Plus, she fits the most easily into somewhat less drastic AU scenarios, and is not an OC, so these required a lot less backstory to set up. Still, there is definitely some distinct AU in here; again, hopefully it's relatively easy to work out the background of the AUs, but if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask and/or demand that they be clarified for you! Also, since this chapter's ridiculously short, I'm going to try to get another one up Wednesday or Thursday, and then a third next Sunday.
(Five things Katara and Sokka's mother never did.)
One:
With Hakoda gone to war, it is now Kya alone who hunts to feed her children - though Sokka will soon be old enough to help her. So she must stay out longer, and travel further than she used to, paddling out among the icebergs.
That is why she finds the frozen boy.
Two:
"We know there's one left," the soldier growls. "Now tell us who it is."
Kya pretends to cringe toward the wall in fear, and feels around for the handle of her club. "Please, no-" she says, and the soldier leans in threateningly.
The club hits him in the temple, and he tumbles to the ice without even a cry.
Kya ducks the dart of fire that blazes toward her, and swings the club again, catching the second soldier's ankles. The third rushes her with his sword drawn; she kicks out sharply toward his knee, and is rewarded with a popping sound and a cry of pain.
Three:
They know that the Prince's ship is coming; they have very little time, and very few options. There are only six of them - Kanna is too old to fight, and Yimika's little boy isn't even eighteen months old; better that she be captured by the Fire Nation and still able to care for him than leave him to die.
They cannot take on an entire ship's worth of soldiers, so they must be clever, instead. The Prince's ship cracks the ice like a summer thaw; when the ramp comes down on the wall with a crunch, Kya is crouched low on one side, with her gutting knife in her hand.
The Prince himself comes down the ramp, and Sokka, painted face strangely stern, rushes him like the warrior he will one day be. The Prince fends him off with a sharp blow, but for one moment, he is distracted, and Kya leaps up and catches him around the shoulders with one arm, and presses the knife to the thin skin of his throat.
Four:
The Dragon of the West has been sieging Ba Sing Se for a year and a half, and the walls are surrounded. Kya doesn't know how the messenger managed to make it out of the city alive; but he did, and now he is kneeling in front of her. "For Lady Kya of the Southern Water Tribe," he says, and hands her the scroll with the Earth Kingdom seal.
Technically, she is not a lady, but chief, since Hakoda was killed; but she suspects that is not a title the Earth Kingdom is especially familiar with.
She has long been of the opinion that the remaining free nations will need to band together in order to stay that way - but now, at last, the Earth King agrees; she no longer needs to hold back the Southern Water Tribe's fleets because he refuses to ask for help.
Five:
Kya can handle the storm; it is bad, to be sure, and very fast-moving, but not the worst she has ever seen.
But the sea monster is a little bit beyond her experience.
She flees as best she can, but her control over the boat is limited, and there comes a point when the monster's jaws are just too much for the boat-frame. It cracks around her, but it holds the monster's teeth apart long enough for her to slide out and dive back into the water.
She drags herself up onto the shore with heartfelt thanks to the spirits, and then lets herself slip into unconsciousness.
When she wakes up, she is surrounded by green - green skirts. She blinks.
"Who are you?" a girlish voice demands, and then a white-painted face leans over her.
Kya would return the question, but she is too busy passing out again.
