I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of the associated characters. I am merely a freakish 16 year old that happens to like the show and wanted to write a story for this. My character however, I do own.

This is just a prologue and only barely mentions the Avatar characters at all. They'll show up in the next chapter.

3 years ago…

The part of dawn when the sky has barely begun to be tinted rose had always been a peaceful time that brought the hope of a new day. The birds were still asleep and few, if any, people were up and about. On this day, a man and his son had taken an early morning walk on the beach before the summer was over and the water began to freeze again and make this time of day unbearable. Upon the beach, a little boy ran up to a sea chest, torn open and splintered, its contents spilling out, pieces of clothing were still washing up onto the shore. The man grabbed his son and pulled him away from the chest.

"Don't touch that son," the man said gruffly "We have to get to the docks remember?" the young boy nodded and walked away, humming some song under his breath as his father led him along the beach. He stopped a few moments later and screamed. His father stared in shock, for on the beach was a girl, clutching a piece of wood for dear life, her brown dress tattered, her hair, falling around her, floating up when a wave crashed over her body, her eyes were closed and her skin was deathly pale. The man ran to her and checked her pulse, it as faint and weak, but still present. He shouted to the boy to run to the village for a healer. The boy nodded and ran off as the man dragged the girl onto the beach. She looked to be 16 or so, she was very tall, but surprisingly light, and he saw her ribs sticking out through her dress, the bruises were especially pronounced on her overly pale skin.

He set her on a dryer patch of sand, still cold, despite that it was still late summer, and the sand had yet to warm from the sun in the sky. Her skin was cold, her face contorted with pain.

Her eyes opened slightly and she gasped for air, as if drowning in a sea. She fought wildly and the man forced her to lie down.

"Calm down girl," He grunted as she fought his grasp "you're ok now, there's a healer on the way." The girl nodded, her icy blue eyes staring up at the man, she nodded, half into another fit of unconsciousness. The healer arrived as she fainted once again.

Present time…

That day was a blur to her then, and it still it is. The man who found the poor girl on the beach took her in once the healer had finished getting the bruised girl back to health. 3 years went by in the blink of an eye, and she accidentally revealed her darkest secret. That's what got her into her current problem.

"Draw the heat from within and sink it into your very skin." She murmured as she wrapped her arms around the thin shirt she wore, her pants were torn at the knees and her feet were bare. The wind had picked up extremely and had driven rain through her skin during a midsummer storm. The ground was still wet, the mud clinging to her dirty skin, her clothes were still waterlogged and held little warmth. She shivered with the effort to stay alive in the wind. Out in the open was the worst possible place she could be right now, but she couldn't go back to the village, they were sure to have told everybody by now.

But she needed food, her stomach was already paining her, she'd have to risk going back to the village, and stealing from them, she suddenly realized. She had left all of her money at the village when she had fled. She had two choices, starve, or steal. She shook her head, she needed to steal. Grimly, she stood from her crook in the oak tree. People would have to get used to this, they had forced it on her. Her stomach screamed again in agony and she placed her hand on it, begging it to be quiet so she could deal with the mental pain of going against her morals and stealing. Walking towards the village she wrapped her arms around her body as another cold breeze blew. Looking up she saw smoke rising from the village's ovens. They deserved getting stolen from; maybe she could get some dry clothing and a blanket while she was at it.

Hey, they'd brought this on themselves.