AN: So I deleted the first chapter. Lemme explain. Zuko is one of my favourite characters of all time and I relate to him in a lot of ways. Because of that, changing his canon backstory feels wrong for me. His backstory is what made him who he is. So, because of this, everything that happened to him in the canon backstory is canon in my AU. The only difference is that he wasn't banished from the Fire Nation and he had the Agni Kai at fifteen instead.
Aye, thanks to my beta SeraNeko-chan, this chapter doesn't suck anymore.
Disclaimer: This story is under revision as I write it, expect major changes done to the chapters over time but I promise I'll work on them better before posting them. I do not own ATLA or any canon characters.
Chapter three
The next morning, Katara awoke to a blur of white and yellow. A throbbing headache formed around her forehead, neck and around her ears.
Nausea swam in to her stomach when she tried sitting up from the hard, blue mat under her. Hama rushed over with something square and white. When she placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and made her lay down, she realized Hama had brought a pillow for her and placed it to so her head sunk into the fluffy mass. Even with the comfort underneath her head, the pain didn't alleviate.
When her vision cleared, she saw Hama's familiar face; deep set wrinkles and light grey irises underneath sunken eyes and crow's feet. A white lock of hair fell around her face as she hovered over her student.
"Are you ok, dear?" the woman said, her voice muffled.
"Mmm."
Bile crawled into the back of her throat. Something glowing and circular formed above Katara, when it surrounded her head, she realized it was water. The pain dissipated, soon she could hear the boiling in the fireplace and Hama breathing above her.
"Better?" she asked in a concerning tone.
"Much better," Katara whispered as she sat up from the mat. A mug of tea was pushed suddenly in her face, she sniffed the steam that billowed out. Hibiscus and ginger tea. "Thank you." She laced her fingers around the warm, ceramic cup.
Taking a sip from the tea in the white mug, she looked over at the woman, now crawling slowly back over to the fire place. There was a giant pot that hung from a rusted metal rack. When she sniffed the air, she smelled fish broth and sea prunes. A smile spread across her face as she took in the familiarity of the scent, she remembered her mother used to make that soup for breakfast often.
The old woman rubbed her hands together as if to brush off some dirt. She put a lid on top of the pot and laid a wooden spoon on the white snow next to it. "Your headache," she began, "is normal when you bloodbend without a full moon, though it will get better with time. I used to get them all the time when I first started practicing it."
Her fingers had gone numb from the cold but the warmth from the mug brought feeling back to them. She flicked her blue eyes up to woman and asked, "When did you start bloodbending?"
Hama sighed. Katara knew the old woman had a troubled past that she didn't like to talk about. She knew it had to do with the war. Even though the United Tribe had an advantage now, it hadn't always been like that. Decades go, when the southern division had been driven to near extinction when the Fire Nation performed raids to drive out all the waterbenders. It didn't work, when the northern division sent troops down to assist the southern warriors during the next raid, they eventually stopped.
Her gray eyes glimmered with the fire. Was she…crying?
"I was captured in a raid, when I was your age." Katara's fingers tightened around the ceramic, almost shattering the mug. "They took me to a prison and it was…" she trailed off, spacing out before continuing. "I saw horrible things, Katara." A tear fell from her eye, it trailed down the wrinkled cheek before disappearing in the snow. "The male guards tormented the female prisoners especially. There was one guard I specifically remember that would take a group of soldiers, grab a female prisoner and take her into a secluded room away from everyone else."
Katara flinched. "Do you remember his name?"
Hama tilted her head to the side slightly. "Yes." Looking over at the teapot, decorated with red eagle-hawks, she poured herself another cup of tea. "Yon Rha," she said disgustedly. "Their favourite woman died from thirst, so they turned their attention to me."
It was no secret that Katara had hated the Fire Nation with every fiber of her being. She remembered learning about them in school and their wickedness. The instructors had taught the young students of the subtypes of firebending, and the horrific aftermath, before going over history about them. Starting off with Fire Lord Sozin, who had started the war by killing a Northern tribe's chief's wife. [add some shit]
Even with the schooling, Katara didn't start actively hating them until her mother and Gran-gran died during a raid on the southern division. Then when she became Hama's student, the woman had told Katara stories of Fire Nation prisons, never delving too deep into her past until now, and the hate for them grew.
Her hand started to burn, she jerked and the cup spilled over her calf, burning the skin under her pants. Yelping from the pain, she staggered back on to the mat before she brought a tendril of water from a pitcher and gloved her hand with it. Pulling the black clothing up from her leg, wincing as it made the pain worse, she healed the burn in a matter of minutes.
Hama looked at her student with disappointment but not surprised that the young bender had let her emotions take over. "You need to learn how to separate your emotions from your bending." The old woman sipped her tea watching the girl wincing while she healed.
"Sorry."
With the wound healed, she placed the black cloth over her calf again, it was still warm and wet, and turned her attention back to her teacher. "Anyway," she started, "they dragged me out of that cage kicking and screaming. I couldn't defend myself because they had kept the prison dry and the water was kept far away from us. They threw me into a gray cement room and before they could even could do anything to me, I took a shot at bloodbending."
"Did it work?" Katara asked eagerly.
"Yes. When one doubled over in the pain, the others were too scared to come near me."
"Was that how you broke out?"
"No, that's how I got them to leave me alone."
The woman turned around back to the pot of soup as she was plagued with memories from the prison, some she would never bother the young woman with. Katara looked around the igloo once the conversation ended to distract herself from the growing anger in the pit of her stomach. But she couldn't stop it from gnawing at her insides. The Fire Nation was a despicable bunch and she had no sympathy for them as the United Tribe soldiers invaded their lands.
But then, something struck her, a memory from last night. Yao, she thought grimly.
Hakoda didn't see her bloodbend Yao but he would have told him by now. She briefly thought of what would happen when she returned home. If Taza and Yao hadn't already left for the mission in Omashu, she could imagine Taza at their father's side begging him to punish his daughter. Yao would have been silent, watching them while he bit nails. Yao might have been amazing in battle, but he was a lily-livered bastard at heart.
Something moved in the corner of her eye, she flickered her eyes to the bald boy in a parka. For a minute, she forgot who he was until the memory of the iceberg flooded her mind. Wrinkling her forehead, she remembered the tip breaking but how it never broke off. Maybe it didn't cut all the way through? But that wasn't the only weird moment, the iceberg started sinking, like something from the depths of the ocean starting pulling it down. That was when fear struck her heart. Then the blue light.
She had never seen something so terrifyingly beautiful in her life.
He fidgeted underneath the parka, pulling it closer to his chin. Hama said she sensed a spirit in him, that he might be the avatar. But, looking at him now, she couldn't imagine him being like his past lives. He was so small and defenseless. He couldn't possibly be the world's last hope for peace.
"Katara?"
The bender broke her gaze with the bald boy and turned her eyes to the woman with two bowls in her hands. "Yes?" she said, her voice cracking.
"Do you want breakfast?"
With a sigh, she nodded. Taking the bowl, and beginning to separate the large, whole sea prunes with her spoon and scooping them up into her mouth, she imagined her father pacing his throne room, ordering the guards around to find his daughter. Maybe it was a bad idea to spend the night in Hama's igloo but after they had got the boy to finally settle down and sleep (he bugged the two waterbenders with questions and cheery laughter), she nodded off.
She forgot about the steaming bowl of soup she placed beside her until she knocked it over with her hand. Silently cursing, she bended the broth back in to the bowl and began to swirl the liquid around with her spoon.
"You're especially clumsy today."
"Sorry."
Hama sat quietly for a moment, sipping her hibiscus tea and spooning the fish broth and sea prunes into her mouth. After an uncomfortable five minutes, she spoke. "Something on your mind?" The end of her sentence had stroke of concern.
The young girl's face sunk. "Yao, I bended his blood after he dragged me out of the hut."
Hama stopped mid spoonful and glared at Katara over the bowl of soup. "You what?"
"I-I bended his blood to get him to let me go."
Sitting the bowl down on to the snow, she pinched the bridge of her nose, the color of the tip of her fingers were white under the pressure. "Why would you even do something that reckless?"
"He-he just got me so mad when he grabbed me-"
"You can't afford to get mad," she whispered starkly. "Your idiotic husband could have just ratted us out to your father."
Tears breached her eyes and fell on to her skin. She couldn't control the hiccups that escaped her mouth as she realized how much she screwed up last night. It was bad enough that she saved the last airbender, who might be the avatar, but now her father would know that his daughter disrespected their traditions and had learned about bloodbending.
She closed her eyes and brought her knees to her chest to shield her face. She didn't see the teacher crawl toward her but her cold, frail fingers laced around her shoulders and forced her to look at dim gray eyes. "Get a hold of yourself." The woman towered over her student, her nails dug into Katara's skin before she loosened her grip on her shoulder. "We can get through this." Her gray eyes were filled with confidence and reassurance as she held the young woman in her grip.
Slowly, Katara nodded at the teacher, making the woman's hands fold into her lap as she looked down, thinking about what would happen when they returned to the palace.
A small, childlike voice broke the silence. The two looked over to the boy in the parka and before they both knew it; they were over at his side.
Hama was hovering over the boy and Katara rubbed her eyes with the inside of her wrist to get rid of the tears. "How are you feeling?" Katara asked softly as Hama dug into the parka to retrieve his hand, turned it over to reveal his wrist and placed two long, skinny fingers over the skin. Green veins poked through his slightly yellow, pale skin.
"I'm fine," he said. The young waterbender looked in to his eyes, she saw the childlike essence about him, but something ancient lied under that. She started questioning how he could have been in that iceberg for so long but then again, if he was the avatar, it wasn't too impossible. "Where's Appa?" He broke from Hama's grip and warmed the skin with the body heat of his other old woman's touch was unbelievably cold.
They looked at each before returning their gaze back to the boy. Annoyed, he shot up from the parka and crawled out of the igloo. The women followed suit, a little slower than he did. The giant bison had fallen asleep out in the snow and a pang of guilt flowed through Katara's stomach upon seeing the animal. She honestly hadn't thought of its wellbeing between trying to make sure that the boy was ok and breathing.
At the sound of Aang's laughter, the bison lifted his head and rolled himself on to his stomach as the airbender shot up with burst of air from his hand, landing flat on his stomach on top of Appa's head. The bison groaned and tried to lick him but only managed to get his ankle. "Sorry, buddy," he smiled, sliding down from his head. "I guess I fell asleep."
Turning his attention to the two water benders, he pointed a finger at the young girl that stood behind Hama. "You," he said sternly, "promised you would bring me to your chief this morning."
"And I will." Almost like a reflex, her hands waved in front of her in a defensive motion. Just because she couldn't see this boy hurting a fly, didn't mean he was completely innocent. "I just want to take you to the healing hut for another check-up."
"Your teacher said there was nothing wrong with me."
Katara walked past Hama and toward the boy in front of her. The avatar. "I know, but I want to take a second look." She placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder covered by orange fabric. It felt thin under her palm and she wondered why he wasn't cold in the dead of winter. "Just to make sure you're ok," she said, a smile breaking her lips into a thin line across her face. In truth, it wasn't to make sure he was ok.
Honestly, she needed to wrap her head around the fact that the iceberg she had been trying to drown herself with held the avatar and his bison for a hundred years. And maybe she wanted to look for the avatar spirit, to prove Hama wrong.
Hama followed behind them a couple steps back. Katara kept her hand between Aang's shoulder blades as she led them to the healing hut. The hut was made of ice blocks and the entrance had an animal skin that covered the doorway. When they entered, a pool of water sat in the dead center of the room. Two healers gazed briefly at the entering guests. Their eyes darted to the floor and they quickly left the room, avoiding Katara's welcoming smile.
The smile turned to a frown, she broke her touch with Aang and started a fire quickly before Hama entered the room. Katara tried avoiding the disapproving gaze of Hama as she stared directly into the flames.
"Um?" Aang said, slicing the tension in the air like a knife. "What should I be doing?"
Without looking back, Katara said, "Take off your clothes and get in to the pool. I didn't get a very good read on you last night and that might have been because you were clothed."
She looked back and saw the obvious pink in his cheeks. "Why didn't you undress me last night then?"
"I'll remember that the next time you're on the brink of death." The notes of sarcasm in her voice brought the room back into the uncomfortable silence. When she returned her gaze to yellow flames, she heard the tiny splashes of Aang's sliding into the glistening water.
Turning around, she looked up at her teacher, now leaning against the ice wall with strands of white hair over her eyes. Katara looked down to Aang, a wide smile over his face as he floated in the shallow water. She knelt and put the pressure of her body weight down on to her knees and the tip of her toes. The boy closed his eyes and let the waterbender sway her hands over his body. A thick casing of blue water formed around him.
When healing with water, it felt almost like a third eye. It seeps through someone's body and gives the healer an extra advantage. As Katara swayed the water around with the power of her fingertips, she couldn't 'see' anything. It was like she was blind. A frustrated groan escaped between her lips. She could feel the old woman's icy gray gaze.
"Hey-whoa!" he exclaimed as she took a hold of the blood that surged through his veins.
"Don't break her concentration, be quiet!" Hama whispered.
Bloodbending and healing were alike and yet different in a lot of ways. Bloodbending is control, the person can physically feel their blood moving in any direction. Katara had heard through the grapevine that it was a painful but effective healing process.
Though, this was something she never experienced before. Bloodbending the wolf the other night had given her a comforting feeling, warmth that filled her stomach. Taking control of the airbender's blood was energizing and disturbing at the same time. She could feel cold sweat beading on her back and neck. The power that surged through her fingertips encased them like a coating of wax. It moved up through her arms, leaving her skin tingling. Her whole body was electrified, it felt like ants crawling all over her body.
Hama mumbled something that sounded like "focus" underneath her breath. Katara opened her eyes, the tingling sensation was starting to recede. When she looked down at the young boy, she saw the horror that glossed over his pale gray eyes. But the power that came from his blood was addicting. She didn't care that the boy was terrified underneath her grasp.
She dove back in to the boy's blood and the power surged through her body again. She almost forgot her mission under the intoxicating feeling. She searched quickly for any damage once again and found nothing to be concerned about.
She went deeper, going down to the cells of his body. There was something there, something with fury, it was white and hot. She traced it down to his heart or brain, she couldn't pin point it exactly.
Then, her connection broke, a force threw her body from him. A table broke underneath her as her body came colliding down from the impact with the wall, glass shards pierced her skin. Liquid pooled underneath her back and at first she thought it was blood, but seeing the purple liquid bleed on to the icy floor, she realized it was medicine. With a grimace, she looked up at the boy and cold sweat formed on her forehead.
The boy was floating above the water, his tattoos and eyes glowed a stark white. Something was happening inside her body, her chest felt like it was compressing. Air forcefully flowed out of her mouth and it formed a ball of oxygen around her head. It felt like her throat closed, she couldn't breathe. Her eyes flicked over to the boy, his hands were forming an invisible circle in front of him.
But he stopped, his tattoos faded to the baby blue and his eyes returned to their dark gray. He fell into the water. Droplets of water splashed on to the snow that surrounded the pool. The sphere of oxygen around her head fell into nothing and she gasped for air with short, heaving breaths. She clutched her chest and lifted a hand in front of her. Despite being barely able to breath, she was ready to bend the boy in a prison of ice.
She looked up and expected him to swing a surge of air at her, to knock her back against the wall, but he stared with worry as she dug her fingers into the snow, still gasping for air. Hama was already at her side with a hand against her back. Katara's ribs started to hurt with the sharp breaths that entered her body.
"I'm-I'm so sorry!" he shouted, his voice cracked in between sobs.
But the student wasn't mad at the airbender. Fear and shock prickled her skin with the slow inhales of breath and the wet tears that stained her eyes. She wasn't sad, but in between breaths her eyes had begun to water.
"You're-" she didn't want to say it, in fact she had trouble believing it. "You're the avatar." His shoulders had slumped from her words. "I felt the avatar spirit inside you. You're the avatar."
"You said that already," he whispered.
Something trickled through her, anger? Horror? Happiness? It was a mix. She couldn't explain it. She felt Hama's hand move in circles on her back, it comforted her briefly before she returned her gaze to the avatar.
"You need to leave," she finally said.
A blend of shock and grief shined through his eyes. "Look I'm sorry! I don't have control-"
"No!" she interrupted. Hot tears breached through her eyes. "My father is going to kill you if he meets you. You need to leave."
"What are you talking about? I thought the Southern Water Tribe was supposed to be a loving and welcoming place."
She remembered the stories of old, before the war. The Southern Water Tribe had been peaceful and welcomed everyone of all bending types. It had been warm and inviting despite it being snowy a hundred percent of the time. It wasn't a patriarchy like it was now. They got this from the North. Gazing up at the kid, a feeling formed in her, it was inspiring and good. It was admiration.
She bit her lip. "We aren't like that anymore. We are cold and cruel and we are tyrants." A tear escaped from Aang's eyes. "Get your stupid bison and get out of here!" She bended a surge of snow at the boy, he raised his hands in protection.
When he saw Katara's eyes, they were nothing but icy and mad. She watched him grab his clothes and run out of the hut, leaving the two benders alone with splinters of the wooden table that encircled them.
She looked up to Hama through the thin locks of chocolate hair that had come loose from her braid. With a huff and a single hot tear that trailed against her brown skin, she said, "I'm ready to face my family."
They walked back in silence, which was now becoming a common thing between the two. Even with the awkward silence, Katara was thankful for the brief bit of peace. She thought about Taza and him yelling at their father to punish her for breaking their traditions. Katara never knew what she had done to make Taza hate her so much but he always had it out for her, always making their parents punish Katara severely for any small thing. If they didn't do anything, he would with a punch in the leg that left her bruised for weeks. More importantly, she thought about Hama, and what the poor woman had been through.
The snow crunched under their boots, a fresh blanket had come early this morning Hama had told her. A strong wind blew through her hair, almost making the parka that rested on top of her head fall back. The humidity in the air was stronger than normal.
The palace came into her vision. A row of white columns gave support to the broad and wide roof covered in the fresh blanket of snow. Men in blue wolf armor stood in parade rest with their right hands outstretched, spears held in a grip. Two men by the grand doors moved in to attention, the spears now resting uncomfortably in their hands, as the women came into view. The wolf headed helmet covered the majority of their face, leaving only a small peak of deep brown skin and blue eyes. Knuckles were white against the pressure they had placed on the wooden spear, an uneasiness in their body language as the two waterbenders got closer and closer.
Something was off.
Katara got in a waterbending stance, as she was about to summon the water she had melted at her feet into a long water whip Hama gripped her arm. That same confidence and reassurance was gone from the woman's eyes and the only thing that laid beyond her eyes was defeat. Her arms fell to her sides and her body relaxed. The men pushed Katara roughly into the snow and grabbed the old woman up under her arms.
"What are you doing?" Katara shouted.
"We have orders from the chief to throw Hama into the dungeons."
She scrambled to her feet, melting more snow around her to form a stream of water. Ready, to shoot it at each of the guards but upon seeing the woman's defeat in her gray eyes again, the water fell back down to the ground, turning into ice in a matter of seconds. "Don't," Hama whispered. The guards picked up the teacher and carried her inside the palace. Katara ran after them, her hand outreached in front of her trying to grasp the shirts of the men.
Someone ran up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. "Katara," a masculine voice whispered. She turned around to see Sokka, his hair down and messy. He must have just woken up.
"What are they doing?" she cried out.
"Dad ordered Hama to be placed in jail as soon as any guard laid eyes on her." His arms were crossed around his chest. He only wore a blue robe and was barefoot, keeping his face expressionless.
"Where's dad?" she demanded. Her brother rested his eyes on her, a flicker of emotion -pity, probably- was in his eyes.
Suddenly, his face softened, mouth forming a frown and his shoulders slumped. "He is in the throne room with Taza."
She burst through the doors, water encasing her arms as she stared down her brother and her father. Taza glared her down but her father had a look of sympathy mixed with sternness. He averted his eyes from hers. For a moment, the water started to drip on to the floor, but as she imagined her teacher sitting on the cold cement floor, it formed into ice.
"What have you done?" Her voice was faint, but the disappointment that laced her words was apparent.
"I had to protect y-"
He didn't finish his sentence, Katara melted the ice around her arms and shot a jet of water at her father. He crashed against the wall and fell in a heap to the floor. Taza unsheathed his sword.
"Back off!" Taza shouted. He ran toward her, the sword ready to cut her down. But she formed a hand made of ice and punched him square in the chest. He fell to his knees, clutching his chest the same way Katara had when Aang sucked the air out of her lungs.
She walked over to her father, still sitting on the ground. Shame was obvious in his body language. His daughter stood over him, the ice still encasing her arms. Hakoda met her gaze, his eyes were distant and she couldn't recognize the loving man that was her father.
She wanted to scream at him, show him that she wasn't weak like he had portrayed her to be. Their whole society was built on the women being belittled but as she stared at the man in front of her, she realized he was weak. Putting people down to make yourself stronger wasn't how strong people acted. They were like Hama, resilient and a fighter. They stood their ground and fought for what they believed in.
Tears fell down her cheeks. "You imprisoned the most important person to me."
Doors behind her opened and a shuffling of boots hit the floor. At first, she didn't feel the rough hands underneath her arms that pulled her off her feet. She could only glare her father down, the broken mess he was.
A shell of who he used to be before her mother died. "You changed," she said, before the rooms to the throne room closed in front of her.
They threw her into her room. At first, she sat on the ground, crying herself into a mess. Locks of hair came out of her braid and were now damp with tears and her face was hot. Her throat throbbed from the heaving sobs.
The hours seemed to go by slowly at first before she got a visitor. When Yao entered her room, he stood at the door and gazed down at his wife, absorbed in her own crying.
The man had black hair in the style as her brothers, shaved sides, with long tufts of hair gathered into a ponytail. But the sides of his head were covered in short hair. He was dressed in the formal, navy blue wolf armor. Instantly, she remembered that Yao and Taza were set to go off on a mission the morning after the wedding. As she gazed upon the man at her door, she took in his features. He was a handsome fellow; his face was angular and skinny. Yao had high cheekbones and plump red lips. The skin on his face was perfect, not a single imperfection. A black crescent moon was tattooed on his forehead. It symbolized the mark of the brave.
Each soldier in the United Tribe had either the mark of the brave, the mark of the trusted or the mark of the wise somewhere on their body. Only the most elite and powerful soldiers had all three. Taza had the mark of the trusted on his shoulder, Katara laughed mentally at the irony of Taza being trustworthy. Hakoda had all three of the symbols; saying he got the mark of the brave when he won the siege of an Earth Kingdom island, giving the United Tribe an advantage over the Fire Nation in the war. The mark of the trusted was later, when he went under a secret mission Katara had no idea about. The mark of the wise was given to him when he became chief of the southern division of the United Tribe.
Cerulean eyes locked on to her petite body. For once in a long time, she had felt vulnerable and scared. She had felt like a defenseless child waiting to be punished. Though, she tried to fight that feeling, sitting up from the hard ground to meet his gaze. She could imagine how puffy and red her grayish blue eyes were. She imagined Yao would tremble under her gaze, but he didn't. He held his ground. Maybe he was braver than she had remembered.
"My love," he said.
"I'm not your love."
His eyes shifted and his body language changed. Yao was a muscular man, lean and tall. He towered over most men in the tribe. Now, he acted completely different than usual. He seemed…concerned for her? Which was odd, they weren't in love. Their marriage was strictly political. Maybe in his own way, he was in love with her.
I could use this to my advantage.
Making her eyes weary and turning her mouth in to a deep frown, she decided to milk his feelings for her and turn it in to something she could use. Acting vulnerable and manipulating him like this made her stomach churn in an unusual way but then she imagined Hama in that dark, cold cell.
Turning her face in to a pout, she said, "Yao, let's runaway from here." She had crawled over to him, her hands gripping his legs to make her seem subservient to him. If he consented to this plan, she would ditch him as soon as it was safe to do so. "We could take your canoe and some supplies. We could sail to a colony and live our life in secret."
She looked up, and with forceful tears in her eyes, she searched for his pity. But there was nothing. Instead, there was an underlying anger. His hands were clenched at his sides and the cerulean eyes were closed tightly, wrinkles forming around them.
"You want me to abandon my nation?" His eyes were open, and they stared down at her. She could feel him shooting mental ice daggers at her. "For you?" A small smirk formed at his lips and she was hopeful for a moment.
His boot made impact with her stomach, kicking her down on to her back away from him. Clutching her stomach, she could feel vomit edge her tongue. "I don't love you that much," he whispered.
As he exited the room, she couldn't stop herself from vomiting on to floor. As she stared down at the mess, her chest heaving, cries erupted from her mouth. She would never be free.
It must've been -what? Days, weeks? She lost track of how long she was kept in her room. The only people that came were the same three female servants.
She had gotten to know them pretty well in the past couple days. Fin was around Katara's age and she was from the Earth Kingdom, specifically from Omashu. She had deep emerald eyes and a tattoo of a fan on her arm. When Katara asked about it, Fin dismissed her question with a wave of her hand. The next two were twins working off a debt made by their parents, Wo and To. They had light brown eyes with chestnut hair. Their skin was lighter than most the citizens of the tribe. When Katara asked them where they were, they dismissed her as well.
Her servants were a strange and eccentric group. They made inappropriate jokes about the men in the tribe that they bedded often. Through them, Katara had learned some new things about some of the men that worked as palace guards, that she wasn't sure if she wanted to know. Fin was the one who Katara saw most. The girl gave Katara updates on Hama. Over time, Hama had lost a substantial amount of weight. The guards had offered the former teacher only bowls of rice and dried fish but she refused consistently.
She could only think of her impending fate. There hasn't been an execution in the United Tribe for a long time but Hama had broken traditions in a nation that had not branched from their one-way thinking in thousands of years. She couldn't think that her father would be the kind of man to order an execution, but Taza had returned early from his military mission. Anything was bound to happen.
As she laid in her bed that night, the comforting warm blanket surrounding her body and making her into a cocoon, she shifted restlessly which had become a common thing now.
The guards outside her room were noisy, sometimes she couldn't blame them. Standing outside someone's door to make sure they didn't get out seemed like the most boring job in the world. Their laughs bellowed in to her room, muffled from the door, but still loud enough for her to lay awake in her bed.
But it wasn't just them that kept her awake late at night. Mostly, she thought of Hama. She had refused to eat on most days though drank the water and tea every time. She couldn't stop herself from thinking about what the guards could have done to her in the Fire Nation prisons, and she wondered if the guards that served her nation were doing the same to her teacher right now.
Getting up, drifting her mind away from those wretched thoughts, she gracefully sauntered to the window facing the city. Again, having the same thoughts she had at the iceberg. She could melt the ice below the window enough to make the water into a giant wave. She could break the ice with something, maybe the melted snow or the chair at her desk. Then she could jump out on to the water and ride the wave to the ports on the shores of the South Pole.
But, then what?
When she got to one of the ports, there was nothing but large, wooden ships. No canoes. She had never learned how to sail, nor did she have any supplies to last her before she got to the nearest village. And her father and Yao would be traveling the world to track her down. If she got caught, she would be right back where she was. Or, she would be where Hama was. Rotting away in a prison cell that was devoid of moisture and elephant rat-infested. But maybe-
Why was it so quiet suddenly? Turning her head around, she locked her eyes on to the door. There were supposed to be the noisy guards, standing outside fighting off sleep with bad jokes.
Now it was silent.
With caution, she got in a bloodbending stance, doubting that this would be successful since she hadn't gotten much practice since she was locked in her room. The door handle creaked as someone jimmied it from the other side. There were two small shadows that blocked out the light from the hallway. Her heart somersaulted.
Someone was trying to get in, but for what? Her eyebrows furrowed at the shadow, they shifted and disappeared. She tip-toed over to the door to hear someone yell "-you doing?" Then there were two thuds and then something crashed down on to the floor. The shadows returned and the handle to her door continued to creak and groan.
She backed away slowly, her heart pounding through her chest. Sweat had beaded on to her forehead as the door opened.
She couldn't see who it was at first but knew it was a man. With his back to the torches that lined the walls of the hallway, his figure was black, but she saw the outline of a satchel and the outline of a boomerang in his hand. The figure stepped forward, and all she saw was the grayish-blue eyes that were identical to hers.
"Sokka."
AN: Hey, this chapter is a bit longer because I am ready for the story to kick off. Please let me know if any of the characters are OOC, except for Hama. She is supposed to be somewhat opposite of her canon character in the original story. The previous chapters have been finally updated and edited, so if you haven't checked them out, go do it.
Leave some reviews perhaps?
Promise that the next update will actually be a chapter. I already have it finished and in the editing process.
Anyway, next chapter is a Sokka POV. And I'm sorry in advance for the heavy display of Yukka.
Thanks for reading!