The first time Yue bent water was when she was six.
She'd been on a leisurely boat ride in the canals with her handmaid, Minu, staring at the faint shapes of the fish moving beneath the surface.
"Minu, look at the fish!" she exclaimed, as if Minu herself hadn't seen fish a thousand times over already. Yue leaned over the edge of the boat - there was one close to the surface, its scales as white as her hair, and if she could get close enough she could catch it so easily. Her face scrunched up in concentration and she reached out with her tiny hand.
"Not too close, Princess, you'll fall in!" Minu scooted - slowly so as to not rock the boat so much - towards her. Then she gasped.
Directly under Yue, not even two feet from her, was the fish encased in a block of solid ice.
Yue glanced around. There weren't many pedestrians around them, and the ones who were were minding their own business and not paying them any attention. Minu was a nonbender and the boatman was behind them, busy pushing the boat forward and facing the other way besides.
It could only have been her bending.
Yue's eyes were wide with astonishment. She stared at the fish and the ice as if memorizing every molecule, every minute detail that formed the act in front of her. Then the fish twitched and she startled out of her trance. The ice came undone in a moment. The alabaster fish shook itself, then swam away into the depths.
The princess turned to Minu with wonder still in her eyes. "Father and mother will be so proud when I tell them!" She exclaimed. Her father especially would be delighted, they would finally have a bender in their family and she would learn the ancient, proud art of waterbending.
Minu smiled down at her. "The entire country will be proud. Princess Yue, master waterbender. That's who you will be."
It wasn't long before Yue learned just what exactly a master waterbender meant for her.
She wasn't one to ever make much of a fuss, but she was more than a little baffled when her father announced, to the whole court no less, that she would begin healing training under Yagoda quite soon.
He made no mention of combat.
Later, when she came to him after the proceedings, she asked for an explanation.
"Am I too young? Is there a teacher you're bringing in from the South?"
Father knelt down to look her in the eye, blue meeting blue. He shook his head and Yue's heart sank. "My daughter...have you ever wondered why there's only men in our army? Why Master Pakku only ever has boys in his classes? Why all the healers are women?"
Of course, she had noticed these things before. She might be royalty but she'd been around the streets of Agna Qel'a enough to observe these things offhandedly. With low dread, it dawned on her what her father was saying.
"I never...I never gave it much thought," she said quietly.
Her father sighed - there was a hint of melancholy in there, as well as a tone Yue couldn't pin down. "In our culture, women are forbidden from learning waterbending as a martial art. They become healers. That's just...it's just the way it is."
She felt like crying. Father must've noticed this, because he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "There's no reason for despair, Yue. Our healers are the best in the world! You will be the finest among them, I know it."
She closed her eyes to shut out the tears. "But...if we're attacked by the Fire Nation, I want to fight. I want to defend my home. It's my duty!"
Her father winced at the raised tone in her declaration. She felt guilty - she hadn't meant to shout.
"You have me, and our entire army to defend you. No enemy will ever touch you," he said emphatically. It sounded like something he only half believed in. "We'll talk about fighting later. I just...I just want what's best for you right now. Speaking of which, I need to speak to Yagoda about your lessons. I'll see you at dinner, Yue."
He kissed her forehead, then, after a moment's hesitation, smiled as if reminding himself he needed to reassure his daughter. Then he walked out before Yue could say anything else.
When her mother came to put her to bed that night, she sang a similar tune.
"Mother, I...I still want to learn how to fight. Not just heal." It didn't make sense to her. The world was at war - she knew scant details of it, but it was a war all the same. Why bar her, the Princess - or half of the population, she realized - from doing their duty to the Tribe?
Her mother smiled sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm not a bender...but I understand, I really do. But here's this: when the time is right, your father and I will talk about it. I promise." Her mother's vow had a strange edge to it, as if she was hiding a mystery Yue couldn't begin to understand.
Her brow furrowed in confusion and she was unable to resist probing further. "So...I will learn to fight later?"
Her mother's face turned away. "I...I don't know. There's many things in the world you still need to learn, sweetheart." She turned to her daughter again and Yue thought she could see the beginnings of tears, and beyond that, a secret she so badly wanted to tell. "But for now, you will learn to be the greatest healer in the history of the Tribes. It is your power and your duty, my love."
"Duty." The word meant the world to Yue. Being the princess and the chief's only child, she had responsibilities and values to uphold both at court and at home. But the word tasted peculiar in her mouth now, like a meal on the edge of going bad.
Whatever the reservations were, she pushed them down. It was no good dwelling on them. Combat or not, she had bending for a reason, and she would use it for the benefit of her homeland.
The next five years passed by in a blur.
Her days were dominated by lessons with her tutors and overseeing and advising the court with her father. Her nights were filled with dance lessons with her mother and after, private lessons with Yagoda.
She proved to be an excellent healer-in-training. All Yagoda ever spoke of to her parents was how talented Yue was, how quickly she was progressing in her Yagoda brought her along for her first practical lesson - a man who had broken his arm while hunting - Yue, despite her anxiety, focused on applying everything she'd learned and thought of nothing else. The man was completely healed by the morning and she thought she'd never seen her parents look prouder.
Whenever she did have free time, it was spent in the library. Yue figured, if nothing else, she could read about combat. Try as she might to watch the soldiers or Pakku's students train, but she was always caught (no thanks to the bulky coat and distinctive hairstyle she always wore) and shooed away as politely as one could to a member of the Royal family. But in the library there was no one to prohibit her learning or stymie her curiosity, so she read whatever she could on combat, on the bending arts of all Four Nations, of warriors and scholars of generations past.
For all her joys, there were troubles as well. Whenever she brought up actual combat training to her parents (and she didn't do it too often out of respect) she was always met with shifty eyes and vague promises. The plain discrimination in her country irritated her more by the day, but alas, she could do nothing but endure, grow, and learn.
Her mother developed a sickness, a shortness of breath. It was apparently nothing to be worried about - a few sessions of healing contracted the sickness to insignificance, and soon it was all but gone. But she still had bouts that resurfaced every now and then, as well as aches in her bones.
This worried Yue more than anything, but the healers and her parents reassured her it was fine, so she pushed her concerns down.
As she grew older, she learned more about the War, how the Fire Nation suffered its first defeat to the North eighty years ago, how there was an ongoing siege on Ba Sing Se by the so-called Dragon of the West.
When she learned of what Sozin did to the Air Nomads, she wept at the thought of such a vile, monstrous act and prayed to the spirits that it would never happen again.
Her sister tribe didn't come up too much in her studies, but she inquired about them from time to time. Apparently, their last direct contact with the South was several decades ago, at the apex of Azulon's reign. Because the Fire Navy controlled the oceans between them, contact between the two tribes was, unfortunately, limited to whatever whispers they heard when dealing with the Earth Kingdom. The Water Tribes didn't have messenger hawks, or iron ships - sending men out on such a lengthy voyage was out of the question.
Yue promised herself that she'd see the Southern Water Tribe in person when she was older. She was, nominally, their princess, and even though most people in the North seemed to look down on them, they were still their kin, Yue thought. But for now she was a powerless girl, a healer-in-training and with no ability to travel so she kept to her studies, and her duties.
"And one, two, three - flourish the feathers - very good, Yue!"
She slowly let her arms down to her sides, still intent on completing the performance. After a pause she looked up, and even though the exertion of the dance weighed heavy, she still found the energy to beam at her mother. "Think I'm ready for the Winter Solstice performance?"
She handed a water skin to her, and Yue downed it as elegantly and quickly as possible. "More than. You're better at the Yup'ik dance than I ever was."
Yue waterbent the sweat out her face and shook her head. "Father always tells me how he fell in love with you in your first Yup'ik. You must've been amazing if you charmed the great Chief of the North!"
Her mother laughed. "Truthfully, I was horrendous that night! But somehow I caught his eye and he caught mine."
She looked like she was about to continue when she put a hand to her quivering chest. Her mother's eyes narrowed in uncertainty.
Yue was at her side in a second, water out for healing. "Your breathing. How - how is it bad again? I thought -" She realized there was no use thinking on whatabouts, no matter how panicked she felt under the veneer of confidence. She focused on her mother and brought disks of water to her neck. "Just focus on my voice, Mother. Purse your lips, breathe deep."
She put a hand to her mother's chest - there was a noticeable lump that had not quite been there before.
Her breathing was still short and struggling, so Yue decided her mother needed to be taken to Yagoda.
It only got worse.
The sickness, Yagoda explained, had returned in full strength, insidiously so until it could only be detected by intense waterbending. At first it was manageable. The shortness of breath came in bursts and was easily walked through as long as her mother had Yue or a healer at her side.
It was not to last. The lump stayed and her breath worsened, and soon after came the headaches and limb pain. In his desperation, her father called in every healer in the city, and even traditional remedies from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation were tried on her. None of it worked. Yue forwent all her lessons to stay at her mother's side.
Two months into her sickness, she collapsed.
Yagoda and a small army of healers were rushed to the palace. While they operated and conferred with her father, Yue prayed at the Spirit Oasis. She asked the Moon Spirit if it could give life to her mother, just as it did for her. It didn't respond.
When she returned to the palace, Yagoda was waiting for her.
"She's alive and awake. But I told your father this and I'll tell it again to you. Lady Kusuna must be confined to her bedside at all hours now," she said resignedly.
The temper Yue never knew she had flared up. "Why can't this be healed? We have the best healers in the world - you're supposed to be the best!" She knew shouting at the aging woman was wrong, but she didn't care. Her anger and helplessness was bubbling to the surface and she needed a release.
She could not, would not, accept her mother dying.
To her surprise, Yagoda endured her outburst with tears shimmering in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Princess. We've done everything in our power. This is the worst aspect of being a healer - even with all our abilities, there are still some things we cannot set right."
Three months later, just a week after her twelfth birthday, Yue's world crumbled.
"Yue...your hair. You must put it back in the Royal hairstyle," her mother said weakly as Yue entered the room.
Hair was the last thing on her mind. She had neglected to style her hair for weeks now, so the snow-white locks tumbled down her head in an unkempt mess. She knelt down beside the bed to face her mother, fighting tears all the way.
At first she didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. She stared at the other woman's emaciated face, the contours of her skin, the lines etched in by sickness and age. It was impossible to believe her mother, the warm, implacable Lady Kusuna, had turned into this. And yet, it was still her. Her eyes, although a shadow of their former brightness, held a defiant glint.
She pulled her gloves off and put a hand on her mother's cheek. The floodgates opened. "You can't die, mother." The tears couldn't be held back anymore. They rushed down the sides of her cheeks, shining off the light as they went. "Please, please stay with me. I can't lose you, I can't."
She felt a gaunt hand cover her own. "The last thing I want is to leave my family. But I won't. I will be with you wherever you go, Yue. I am so, so proud of you..."
It was a response she couldn't even begin to comprehend. There were so many things she wanted to ask, so many answers she felt were unreachable. In a city of more than fifty thousand, Yue felt hopelessly alone.
"Stay strong for me, Princess." Her mother swallowed, and it seemed to take every ounce of energy to do so. "You must. And...you will learn water combat. I asked your father to arrange you lessons after I've gone and he agreed."
"I don't care about fighting!" Yue shouted, the tears cascading harder than ever. "I just w-want you!"
"And I want you to be the best Av - bender you can be. It's what we should've given you years ago. I know it's a poor substitute for your mother but..." A single tear rolled down her mother's cheek. She brought Yue's hand off her face and looked her in the eye. "There's something else. Something we hoped we wouldn't have had to tell you for a couple more years."
Bewildered, Yue almost crushed her mother's hand before quickly loosening her grip. Even until now, to the point of death, there were still surprises. "Wh-what?"
"You shouldn't be told this while I'm on my deathbed. You deserve much better, sweetheart. But it's time you knew." She took a deep, rattling breath, then smiled wanly. "You aren't just Princess Yue. You've held two - two titles since birth."
Yue searched her mother's eyes, willing them to tell her all their untold stories. The tears still streamed, but she ignored them, refusing to shift her attention away. "What do you mean? What other title? Who am I?" She couldn't believe it - her mother was dying, had been dying for months, and was just now telling her-
"The night you were born, your eyes, for a moment, glowed as white just as your hair." Her mother, the beloved Lady Kusuna, squeezed her hand and Yue felt the icy grip of fear. "You are Avatar Yue, my daughter. Master of all four elements, and destined to save the world."
All the way across the ocean...
Yon Rha clenched his teeth as he stared at the passing icebergs.
He was never much of a man for meditation - then again, the past decade hadn't allowed much time or reason for such activity. The string of recent defeats had made him a humiliation in the Fire Navy, a disgrace who couldn't defeat the weakest nation after the Air Nomads.
The old commander couldn't fathom it. The Southern Water Tribe was supposed to be frail, their strength all but evaporated.
Something happened in the South, something momentous. Ten years ago, the Water Tribe drastically altered their approach, their wartime lifestyle. Instead of acting and living as a collection of poor, desolate villages, they started to band together and actively maintain supply lines between encampments. Some villages combined to form larger settlements, which in turn generated larger and better held defenses. Their waterbenders, albeit not growing much in number, swelled in strength and skill. More nonbenders fought too, and women were present on the frontlines almost as much as their men.
This inexplicable transformation left Yon Rha and the Southern Raiders at a loss. At first, they chalked it up to their savagery, to the ferocity a beast might have when cornered with no chance to escape. Then the defeats became more numerous than their successes. Morale in the fleet dropped. When he petitioned the upper brass for aid and ships, he was met with laughter and one general's snide remark that "the task force has been hunting down waterbenders for generations. Clearly, the problem is you."
The commander had no choice but to accept that the Tribe could not be defeated in piecemeal raids.
No matter. His scouts reported that a large portion of the Tribe had settled at the head of the westernmost inlet, under a man named Hakoda. There was the majority of their fighting strength and their leadership.
No longer were the Raiders aimed at killing only waterbenders. For their insolence, Yon Rha resolved to cut down their bulk in a single, devastating blow.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Lieutenant Ezo approaching. "Commander," the man said with a salute. "We're an hour away from landfall."
A sadistic grin spread across Yon Rha's face. It was time to end this once and for all, with the complete might of the Southern Raiders behind him. "Excellent. Tell the captains to ready their men and move into position. Today, we wipe out the Southern Water Tribe."
Notes:
- the Yup'ik dance is a real, traditional Inuit dance, slow(ish) and methodical. In the Water Tribes, I imagine it's more lively due to bending and how athletic almost everyone in the Avatarverse seems to be.
- the sickness Yue's mom dies from is metastatic breast cancer. I tried to make it as accurate to real life as possible (including the detail of it being incurable) but I'm sure there's things I missed or was inaccurate on. If there are, please, please let me know.
- As hinted at in the last section, things for the South go much differently here than in canon. The discovery and death of Aang had a profound effect on the SWT - instead of continuing to act as a loose collection of villages, most of them banded together to form a more unified tribe. Part of this is to honor the justice Aang never got for the AN genocide, and a bigger part is that they know the Avatar might be born among them, so they have a better chance to protect whoever it is by banding together. How this effects our favorite southern family remains to be seen...
- Right now, the timeline is:
84 AG - Aang dies, Yue is born
96 AG - Kusuna (Yue's mom) dies, Yon Rha attacks the south