TW: Attempted rape

Another warning: this entire chapter is the battle of the Southern Water Tribe - no Yue scenes here. Her reaction to finding out she's the Avatar, along with the fallout of it, continues in the next chapter. It's long(ish), but this chapter kicks off the journey for our SWT characters and has greater consequences down the line.

Dawn came, and with it, the fate of the Southern Water Tribe in the balance.

Kya stirred, the sun's rays and the barking of the nearby puffin-seals helping to shake the sleepiness off. She dug her face and fingers into her husband's bare chest, unwilling to let go of him just yet.

"Mmdon't leave mmyet," she murmured against his skin.

Hakoda let out a soft chuckle. Even in that tiniest vocalization she could sense his anxiety, his tension. How could she not? She could feel it in nearly everyone in the village too, the terror that threatened to split them to the bone ever since their scouts saw the fleet of ships crawling along the western coast.

But where there was terror there was courage too. Over ten years they had revolutionized their way of life and fought back against the firebenders in ways Kya could never have imagined. Clans and peoples from all over their tiny continent had done the impossible, had joined together to rally against a common enemy. Even Mother had not seen anything like it since she was a teenager.

Indeed, Kya thought, what was courage without fear?

"As much as I'd love to stay, we know what's coming..." he spoke gently.

"Mm...just a couple more minutes."

He rubbed circles over the skin of her back, a calming gesture. "A couple more."

A few moments of comfortable silence passed, then Kya looked up at him. "You're sure we can win this?" she whispered.

He smiled tentatively at her. In front of the other Tribal leaders, his subordinates, and damn near everyone else in the South Pole, he was the mighty and pragmatic High Chief Hakoda. But to her, and Sokka and Katara, he was just...Hakoda. A loving father who readily laid bare his self-doubt.

"Victory is never guaranteed," he said thoughtfully. "But we have many things going for us. For one, they're coming to us and they don't know that we know."

The fact that the Water Tribe knew the land better than the Fire Nation ever would was made abundantly clear in the last decade. Black iron ships surrounded by ice were also the opposite of camouflage, and their enemy was all too oblivious to either notice or care about the scouts that saw them.

"And those shields you've been working on?" she asked.

Hakoda nodded. "The arctic hippos the Nunavut clan brought...by the spirits of the ocean and moon, they've been a miracle. The leather made from them is amazingly fire-resistant. They won't make us invincible, but it should block the worst of it."

Kya grinned. "Sokka and Katara are going to be geniuses just like their father."

He rolled his eyes. "Please. You've taught them everything they've learned and more. I just keep them alive."

"And who will keep you alive?" She replied. Then she kissed him, longing and passion dancing between them. When they separated, she rested her forehead against his and breathed him in.

"Come back to me," Kya whispered.

"Always."

Yon Rha looked at the crude map his lieutenant had fashioned.

It was a poorly drawn one, and he knew there were marks and terrain Ezo had missed in his carelessness.

It didn't matter.

The Southern Water Tribe, unlike their slightly more civilized brethren to the North, was a poor, destitute nation, not worth the minutiae of conventional tactics. Sure, their raids had been thwarted time and time again, but the mass of Tribesmen gathering under this new "High Chief" was undoubtedly made up of their sick, young, and elderly. They would fold like parchment once they faced the entire might of the Southern Raiders, and the plan Yon Rha had drawn up would ensure the rest of the continent was easy pickings.

Then, finally, he could retire with the glory and praise he deserved.

Lieutenant Ezo cleared his throat. "Half an hour until landfall, Commander."

Yon Rha kept staring at the map, at the village that would be burnt to the ground by the day's end. "Excellent. Hold the course. Captain Yozan's been briefed?"

"Yes, Commander." Their strategy was a relatively straightforward one. Rather than land directly at the village where they would be met with the most resistance, his second-in-command, Yozan, and Ezo would land a couple miles north instead and lead two divisions down the western coastline, batting away any resistance and staying a distance away from the ocean. More importantly, they would be diversions to Yon Rha's own force.

His lieutenant had clearly been thinking along those lines. "Sir, if I may, what is the purpose of this...splinter force?

Yon Rha rolled up the crude map and handed it to him. "We know the population of the Southern Water Tribe has increased exponentially over the past ten years. We know their waterbenders, for all their barbarity, are skilled warriors." The old man breathed in deep, letting his chi imbibe the strength of Agni's rays. "Waterbending cannot be allowed to persist, not under the Fire Nation. The future of their benders and their tribe is in their women and children, who will undoubtedly be hiding in the village like the rats they are."

He held up a flame to emphasize his point. "With you engaging their pathetic excuse for an army, the village will be defenseless! That is where I will take my men. That is where I finally put an end to the South."

"I don't wanna hide, I wanna fight!"

Katara's hands angrily balled into fists at her sides and she stomped her foot on the snow. Soldiers and messengers were still running to and fro about the village; the Fire Nation was almost upon them, everyone said. She wanted to be on the frontlines with her father. The older waterbenders said she was the best of her generation, so why weren't her parents letting her defend their home?

Sokka burst out laughing. "You're ten, what do you know about fighting?"

Katara made sure he regretted that. A sharp gesture later and a snowball came flying into his face with a soft splat. "Want to say that again?" she said with a vindictive grin.

With a yelp Sokka turned to run behind their mother.

"Katara! No more bending snowballs at your brother!" Their mother, currently directing the sick and elderly on where to go, whirled around at Sokka's indignant cry.

"But I want-"

"I know you want to fight, sweetie. Believe me, half the people staying behind would love to if they were able." Her mother knelt down in front of her and cupped her cheek. "Remember what your father said: being a member of the tribe is knowing where you're needed most. You, your brother, and the other children are our last hope if all goes wrong."

At her words, Katara's blood went cold. What if her father did fail? What if their waterbenders weren't enough? What if the Fire Nation was too powerful?

As if sensing her fear, her mother summoned a smile and reassured her. "But I have faith in our countrymen and women. We'll triumph today. I'm certain of it."

Her smile flickered, but it persisted. It made Katara feel a little better. "Is Aang watching over us?" Although she never met the boy, the long-gone airbender, the Avatar, was her hero. It was a small comfort that they'd be hiding near his grave.

Sokka rolled his eyes.

"Of course he is." Her mother grabbed her and her brother's hands. "Now come, it's time to take shelter."

The deathly silence that hung around them was suffocating, accented by the soot raining down from the sky. Hakoda shifted his stance, his eyes zeroed in on the horizon.

Bato slid into the trench beside him, his chest heaving from exertion. "Just like we predicted - they're all on this side of the water. The benders are in position. So is Lirin."

He nodded, his eyes still looking forward. "So now we wait."

Silence reigned.

Soot continued to tumble from the sky. It was almost awe-inspiring how much there was of it. Then Hakoda thought of his wife and children and tightened his grip on his spear. He could feel the men and women behind him waiting with baited breath, the miasma of fear and resolve as smothering as the silence.

At long last came the sound of marching. Faint, at first, then it grew into a sharp clamor, so loud Hakoda thought his ears might come off.

The ranks of black-clad soldiers followed not long after, and with them, the sea raven banners he'd grown to loathe so much. Column after column marched towards them, each one with the intent to kill and burn.

"Finally," whispered Bato.

"We need to make the first move," he reminded his friend. "Draw them over the trench."

The soldiers were five hundred feet away.

Then four hundred.

Three hundred.

"Waterbenders! Now!" Hakoda cried. At once the dozen waterbenders standing behind him drew themselves up to their full height. In sync, they formed man-sized icicles from the ground and launched them into the air. Their speed augmented by bending, the massive icicles slammed into the ranks of the Fire Nationals.

Shouts of anger and shock ringed across the field. "Again!" He yelled. More icicles were flung into the air. This time, the invaders were able to guess their trajectory and dodge the landing - but they had no answer for the razor-sharp shrapnel that burst from the impact.

Once an organized mass, they devolved into a mob and furiously charged forward into Tribe's waiting arms. They were close enough that Hakoda could see the fires blazing from their hands.

Bato tugged on his arm. "Who knew it took so little to make them angry. Let's go!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Vaulting over the trench and onto the ground above, he donned his wolf's head helmet, not daring to look back at his comrades. "Water Tribe! To me!"

The voices of a thousand echoed back. "AH-HOO!"

"AH-HOO!"

One hundred feet away.

"SHIELDS!" He bellowed. "STEP BACK!"

Then hell descended on them.

Yon Rha cracked his neck to the side. The flat ground they were on proved to be a blessing - from his vantage point on the komodo rhino he could see the opening salvo of the battle and the clash of red, black, and blue.

Sure, the ice missiles the peasants had pathetically employed seemed to do some damage but they did little to stop their advance. It seems there wouldn't be any need to scale the hills next to them after all. The savages were also stepping back, in the direction of the village.

Cowards. The spine they seemed to grow through the last several years had turned to jelly in moments.

"Tell Ezo and Yozan to maintain the push! I want to see blood spilled before I break off," he told his messenger.

"Yes, Commander!" The man ran off towards the head of the column.

Squinting his eyes, he saw the Tribesmen had employed new tricks. They carried broad shields - they seemed to be leather, from what he could tell - that looked to be repelling the brunt of the firebending and leaving the carriers relatively unharmed.

No matter. They could only play their trick once.

And arrows could do what fire couldn't.

He turned to the company of soldiers beside him. "Archers! Nock!"

The men obediently nocked their arrows. "Draw! Aim for the front line!" Time to cut them down, the old commander thought. He paid no need to the Raiders already engaging in close quarters.

"Loose!"

At Bato's insistence, Hakoda had gone back a few rows, away from the chaotic front lines.

There was no giving orders if he was dead, his friend argued. As he watched his countrymen stab and thrust their spears into the charging mass of Fire Nationals, he thought there was little chance of dying.

Then the wave of arrows arced through the sky above him, and his heart sank.

"Shields! Upward!" He yelled, praying to the moon and ocean that the leather would take the worst of it.

His prayers went unanswered. The shields did little to stop the momentum of the arrows. He heard gurgles and cries of pain around him as the arrows punched through the leather and found their targets.

"Waterbenders! Block those arrows!" The Fire Nation launched another volley - this time his waterbenders, however many there were, formed ice walls above them. But they didn't do much better than the leather.

The soldier beside him - Koano, he vaguely thought - shouted through the uproar. "High Chief! We need to signal Lirin, now!"

"Not yet! We need their signal! We need them to come forward!"

He called for the army to keep stepping back - a miracle that they obeyed, given the storm of arrows and shouts - and prayed the Fire Nation would take the bait. Up ahead he could see the firebenders had finally burned through the leather shields on the front line. Most of them lay discarded on the ground, their purpose served.

Arrows kept raining down. They stepped back. Shields were passed to the front, to their ever-thinning front line. One man broke through their ranks, his jaws breathing fire. Hakoda put a spear through his open mouth without a second thought.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally saw it: a bright red boomerang shining through the air, passing through the soot and mist like a spirit out for blood.

He unsheathed a boomerang in return and launched it towards the hills with all his strength.

"Forward! To the village! Roll over these savages!" Yon Rha yelled out.

At his command, the archers ceased their firing. They had the water peasants on the run, and nowhere to go but their petty village.

"Kill them all," he shouted, his mission all but forgotten. "Forw-"

Yells and war-cries rang out from the hills next to them. From out of seemingly nowhere came a horde of Water Tribe warriors, all clad in white furs, skins, and leathers. They charged down the hill, bellowing in demonic tongues that left Yon Rha and his men frozen in place.

At their head was a young woman, her raven-black hair streaming in the wind. She launched a spear at their startled ranks, and hundreds more followed.

The old veteran stared in shock. They should've seen them in the snow, surely, there was no possible way they missed them.

He saw a boomerang cut through the din, and briefly wondered what it was aiming for. Then the peasants that had been on the run not a minute earlier gave a ghastly cry of their own.

"AH-HOO!"

The Southern Raiders, once triumphant, now fought a bewildering fight on two fronts.

A heathen noise came from the ocean - it sounded like the sea itself was groaning. Though they had been marching a good distance from the ocean - about a couple hundred feet, he guessed - he was close enough to see the waves rise up to reveal the masses of Tribesmen under them and the waterbenders that made it possible.

In terror, he realized that was where the rest of their benders had been.

Three fronts.

The tide of the battle had changed on the turn of a coin. He could see their front lines getting cut down in their confusion, unable to process the waves of enemies that had appeared out of thin air. A few Raiders tried to concentrate their blasts to force a way out - but it was to no avail. The peasants' leather shields were effective, even if only for a moment, and soon the men were overpowered in brutal close combat.

"Commander!" A soldier screamed, breaking him out of his stupor. "We need to go, now!"

The plan. He had to stick to the plan. He couldn't turn back now - this was the only chance he'd ever get.

"Third company! With me! Over this hill!"

The sky came alight with ice, flame, and death.

Kya patted the bone knife in her pocket. She really hoped she wouldn't need it - but Hakoda gave it to her and she needed reassurance.

Sokka kept opening the flap of their tent to look outside, as if the Fire Nation would roll through their encampment at any second.

Which was, she reminded herself, a very real possibility.

Katara, to her credit, was sitting on the floor, practicing her bending. They were thankfully alone in their tent. The others were scattered about the campsite in tents and igloos of their own, while the soldiers stood watch outside. Being situated near the graveyard - the most inland place in their village - was also a little unnerving.

"Sokka, sweetie, come here," she urged her son. She could tell, no matter the brave front he tried to put on, that he was scared to the bone.

He rushed over to her. "I'm scared, Mom. Dad's out there, and all the soldiers, and everyone's saying that if we lose this is the end of our tr-"

"That's nonsense. Trust in your father's plan, Sokka." She smiled at him, despite her own fear. "We will win."

Tears formed in her son's eyes. "War…war is terrible, isn't it, Mom?"

The maturity of Sokka's statement shocked her. Her eldest child only ever wanted to be a warrior, to follow in his father's footsteps. To hear something so unlike that left Kya speechless for a moment.

"I…You're right, Sokka. War is…well, it's terrible, just like you said." She took his hand and weighed her words carefully. Whatever she said would resonate with him for the rest of his life. "But, I think…our reasons are better than most. The Southern Water Tribe did not start this war. We didn't do anything to the Fire Nation. We fight out of survival, and for our country. Sokka, I never want you to fight for money, or power, or pride, but I expect you to fight for your home and your family. Those are the only true motives worth fighting for."

She remembered Aang, the young, sad boy they found frozen in the ice, whose body lay not too far from where they were sitting. She thought of his tragedy, the justice he never got and the hundred years of war that weighed on him until his last breath. She wondered if he would approve of her words.

Sokka opened his mouth in reply - but the sounds of shouting outside cut him off. Kya heard the raised voices of the guards, and with rising dread, the crackling sounds of firebending.

They were here.

Yon Rha stumbled onto the grounds of what he thought was a graveyard, his joints aching and his body covered head to toe in blood.

He saw the collection of tents on the other side of the grounds, and the men guarding them. Out of breath, he gestured at them, urging the few men he had - no more than two hundred, half of the number he tried to bring - to move onward.

"F-find the women and children! MOVE!"

His men, despite being exhausted and bloody, rushed forward, stepping over stones and graves. The peasant soldiers in the distance steeled themselves.

"Kill them! For Fire Lord Azulon!" He sprinted, his hands wreathed in flame-

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something in the ground that didn't quite belong. Something that wasn't Water Tribe.

A long, wooden staff. And below it, partially covered by rocks, were clothes of yellow and orange. He stopped and bent down to examine them.

The colors were faded, their brightness discolored by time, but they were still distinct. Yon Rha knew at once that whoever used these items was not of this foul country.

It had been a long, long time, but in Fire Nation military training they were shown drawings of soldiers from the other nations. Of course, only Earth Kingdomers and Water Tribesmen were relevant, but he remembered the look of the Air Nomads just as well, their unique, nonsensical robes and the staffs they once used to empower their bending.

He remembered what nation the last Avatar had come from - the Avatar that disappeared almost a hundred years ago.

The pieces clicked into place.

"Soldier!" He yelled at the man closest to him. When he stopped running, the old commander picked up the staff and clothes and dumped them in his arms. "Take this, and go back to the ship. Keep it safe, don't stop for anything - go, NOW!"

The soldier's expression was completely dumbfounded, but he didn't question Yon Rha's orders. He took the staff and bloodstained clothes and raced out of the graveyard and back to the ships.

The revelation still burning in his mind, he turned his head back towards the tents.

He drew a shuddering breath. There was a mission to finish.

Kya poked her head out of the tent flap - and was greeted with the sight of battle and bloodshed. Their guards fought bravely but only a few carried the leather shields that proved so effective. She yelled at a fellow Tribeswoman to alert the army so they might send men back, but she had no idea when they'd make it.

She had to do something. Yet she was powerless, with no bending or combat training to wield.

Just a lone woman with a knife.

She felt a tug on her parka and looked down to see Sokka and Katara looking at her with wide, frightened eyes.

"M-mom, what-what do we do?" Sokka asked, tears already streaming down his face.

She looked at Katara - her daughter was a bender, the most skilled student in a generation the others said, she could fight them off-

Shame filled her, and Kya regretted the thought the moment it appeared.

"Get under the cot and don't make a noise," she said as she pointed to the beddings in the corner. Her tone made it clear there was no room for argument.

Her children scrambled under the cot without another word. Kya pulled the fur blanket over them, hoping to the spirits they wouldn't make a sound. She turned around to the tent entrance-

-and an aging man clad in mangled armor stepped through.

A captain, or commander, she knew at once. The man was in his sixties at least, judging from the way he moved and the multiple wrinkles and scars that marred his face. More importantly, he was caked in blood and had the same look that was all too familiar for someone who had spent their entire life surrounded by war: bloodlust.

She instinctively backed away from him.

"There - there are no benders or soldiers here. Only unarmed civilians. Leave us alone!" She tried to keep her voice straight - and failed miserably.

The man took another step forward. "Don't you know? We're not here for just your waterbenders. You've resisted long enough. I'm wiping out your entire, pitiful tribe."

Kya kept her eyes from darting to the cot. "Your army's lost. You've lost. L-leave now-"

He let out a maniacal laugh. "Or you'll kill me? Look at you, you're shaking like a fucking leaf. You have nothing, no bending, no guards, no Avatar."

She let out an involuntary gasp. How did he know-

The grave.

The commander kept talking, madness quickly overwhelming him. "Oh yes, I saw your little burial. How long did he live here, cowering from the rest of the world? And where is the next Avatar? Are you hiding him too?"

"I - no, there's no Avatar here!"

"Liar!" Before Kya could draw her knife, the man snarled and lunged forward, grabbing her arms and pinning them to the table behind her.

Despite his age, the man's strength was still greater than hers. She struggled with her all might but her assailant's hands held like iron clamps, leaving her incapable of escaping his grasp. In desperation she twisted and kicked out, but it had little effect on the Fire National.

"Get off me!" Kya screamed, panic and adrenaline overloading her senses. She had to get out, get out now -

He brought his face close to hers. In the dim light and dried blood, he looked more demon than man.

"You're very pretty for a water peasant," he seethed. "I'll take you back to the ship. Or better yet, no one's around to see - gah!"

The man shouted in alarm and his grip vanished. His right hand flashed and it rose to press down on the back of his neck, blood streaming between his fingers. "Who did that!?" He roared, turning around to seek out the attacker.

There stood Katara, trembling and defiant.

"Stay away from my mother!"

The commander took his hand off his bloody neck. Whatever Katara bent at him only grazed skin - but it was enough.

He thundered towards her. "You're the Avatar! Come here, y-"

Kya forgot who she was. She wasn't the wife of the High Chief, or a mother, or a human. In that moment, she just was.

"BASTARD!" Kya screamed, drew her knife in a single, fluid motion and grabbed his shoulder with one hand - with the other, she planted the knife in his right eye.

She put all her fury and grief in the blow, all the suppressed rage of her thirty-six years coming to a head.

Then the wrath in her passed as soon as it arrived. Letting go of the knife, she stepped back in astonishment, the impact of her actions echoing with the wind.

"AUGHH!" The old man wailed in agony, both hands clutching the bone handle protruding from his face. A soldier came rushing through the tent flap at the sound of his captain's cries. Seeing Kya, and the now visible Katara and Sokka, he clenched his fists, ready to bend. He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to attack the children or her.

He chose her - but Kya was already on the move. Instinct overtook her. As she charged forward, she moved her head to the side to dodge his fireblast. It singed the edge of her parka hood and evaporated into the air behind her.

The soldier - he must've been half her age, she thought absentmindedly - extended another fist so he could bend again.

He didn't get the chance. With a vengeful cry, Kya grabbed the dagger on the man's belt and buried it under his chin.

Unlike his commanding officer, there was no wailing from him, no great struggle. He collapsed on the ground, hands trying to stem the bleeding, and choked on his own blood. As he gurgled his last, the old man regained control of his senses. With the knife still in his eye, he took one last look at Kya and her children before running out of the tent and into the cold air of the South.

She stood there for a long moment.

She had just killed. Taken a life, she realized. It was no different from what the soldiers outside had done today, or for the past thousand years, but a life was a life. As she stared at the soldier's pale, once-young face, it was hard, for a moment, to reconcile that with the necessity of his death.

Kya forced herself to turn around, to look at her children. Sokka and Katara were looking at her as if she wore a new face. She stumbled over, and with a choked cry, wrapped her arms around them.

She never wanted to let go.

The bodies were immeasurable. Hakoda walked among them, looking at their faces - he wondered which soldiers were dragged out of their homes to fight an unending war, who they thought of as he and his men cut them down, which ones truly did want to fight and die rather than be with their loved ones.

He felt so tired.

Yet they had won. The bulk of the Fire Nation force was destroyed once all three sides closed in, and soon after victory was declared to the Tribe's immense relief.

However, they had not come out unscathed. The village attack left more than a dozen children and elderly dead or wounded. Hundreds - Hakoda among them - suffered agonizing burns. And the firebenders, when it came down to their last, let loose a massive firestorm that charred dozens more to ash. Still, the bodies in black and red outnumbered those in blue by four to one.

But Hakoda knew it wasn't the end. A few hundred had escaped, no doubt on their way back to the Fire Nation to report their loss. They'd bring back more ships, and more carnage.

It wasn't all bad - four ships had been left behind. They could venture out to the open sea now, maybe even travel to the North Pole like they had always wanted.

He shook his head. Those plans would have to wait. He hobbled back to the village, his half-healed right arm hanging at his side.

There were many bodies to burn tonight.

NOTES

This battle took influence from two real life battles: The Battle of Little Bighorn (also famously called Custer's Last Stand, where an overeager, technologically-superior force charged into an enemy with far larger numbers and got systematically wiped out) and the Battle of Cannae (where Hannibal of Carthage lured the larger Roman army in before surrounding and annihilating them - also one of the best examples of how an outnumbered force can defeat a larger one). I'd encourage anyone to read on both, they're fascinating pieces of military history (of which I'm not an expert on in any way lol).

It's quite a bit of research for a fanfic. But for those who are following: thank you thank you thank you!

Also - leather, from what my research says, is a fire retardant, meaning it's resistant to burning. Arctic hippos (leather can be made from hippos yes) are also a thing, according to the Avatar wiki. So fantasy fire resistant leather :)

- Lirin - the woman who led the charge down the hill - is a character from the comics.

Reviews are much appreciated!