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To Be a Warrior

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Disclaimer

I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender, though I do own my original character and my original ideas.

Summary

Alina is a normal girl in a world, 300 years after the Great Fire War, where benders are treated like royalty. She believes she can amount to nothing with bending, but will a trip to the past change her perspective?

Author's Note

Updates are very spaced out, I know. Sorry.

Thanks to my reviewers for last chapter – Evangeline Angel and SnowBlueRat.

A quick note: as before, I stated this takes place before the episode The Fortune Teller and yes, that is quite a while back. This was created a while ago after all.. So Katara's necklace isn't just a betrothal necklace as in canon – my plot makes it out to be something else.

This is updated just because I had some stuff lying around on it so I wrote some more just because I'm updating many of my fics today.

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Chapter 3

Foolishness

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The banished prince of the Fire Nation, known by the name Zuko, stared at the two necklaces he currently held in his hands. In his right: a glimmering, flawless gem on a navy ribbon; in his left: the exact same, aside from aging marks. His interest in a certain Earth Kingdom peasant down in the prison hold skyrocketed.

How was it possible?

Setting the one he owned (though technically he had stolen it) atop his dresser, he ran his fingers on the one he had acquired from the girl apparently called Alina. The only really strange thing about the girl was her obliviousness to the war, though it had been apparent that was a farce.

Right?

Prince Zuko wasn't feeling sure of nearly anything as of now.

Suddenly, the young prince was broken from his thoughts by a loud clanging and thunderous footsteps. His uncle, General Iroh, skidded to a halt before his open doorway.

"Zuko, it's the Avatar! He's been spotted!" he huffed, urgency in his voice.

Pushing all thoughts of silly girls and necklaces aside, Zuko hastily threw the necklace in the dresser and followed his Uncle out the door.

He had better things to set his mind on than that peasant, anyway.

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Alina sighed as she leaned back on the dank wall of her prison cell, her hands and ankles still tightly bound. She didn't see why they took the extra precaution; it wasn't like she was a bender or anything.

But was that impulsive boy – Zuko was his name – was he a bender? He certainly couldn't have achieved the title of 'prince' without bending powers to his aid. Yes, she was sure the teen was a fire bender.

It irked her though: why were the Prince and his uncle treating her Earth Kingdom heritage like it was something utterly foul? After she had revealed her roots, the boy became even more hostile towards her; though she hardly could perceive why that would matter.

In fact, Alina wasn't quite sure what sense to make of anything as of now.

Setting the duo's apparent spite of all things 'earth' aside, why were they even keeping her a prison just for stealing? Sure, it was the sacred necklace of Lady Katara but…well, that was a pretty good explanation. That still didn't cover why the prince had claimed it was his necklace in the first place, however.

Only a fool would claim such an empty truth. And no fool could be a prince – or a bender for that matter. Benders were too gifted to be foolish.

She, however, could obviously be as foolish as need be. Which was probably why she wasn't gifted with the ability to bend.

Frantic shouting from overhead broke her reverie, and the girl stiffened at all the excitement. The guard near the entrance to the prison-hold nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other as if debating whether to leave the hold to aid his comrades.

'Please, please leave. Your buddies need you, I'm sure.' Alina mentally pleaded.

With one last hesitant glance back at the Earth Kingdom girl, the guard presumably hurried off to the main deck. He obviously didn't think she was going to be getting anywhere; hence her normality and bound limbs.

Alina thought differently, though. Sure, she didn't calculate herself much of a threat to anyone much less a ship full of Fire nation soldiers, but she was determined to escape her confinement.

Once she imagined the guard to have left hearing distance from her cell she began her feeble attempts at escape.

Banging repeatedly on the cells doors didn't work, but she was fairly sure that tactic wouldn't be successful in the first place. More of a warm-up than anything, really.

Trying to wear down the ropes that bound her hands on the cell bars didn't exactly work, either.

After a frustrated kick at the cell door, her right leg ached a bit so she decided that idea was a lost cause.

She hadn't exactly planned on gnawing at the rope, but her persistence outweighed her sanity at that point.

'If I were a firebender, I could singe these ropes off. If I were an Earthbender I could surely summon something sharp enough to cut these binds on. If I were an airbender I could use the combined force of my body and the air to break though the cell. If I were a waterbender, I could most likely stir up enough trouble with the waves outside. But I'm just human – so I'm stuck here like the weakling I am.'

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"Where is he?" Prince Zuko gruffly demanded, his crew shrinking back slightly at his look of sheer determination.

One stepped forward, his eyes holding slight fear of his leader. "There was a report that he was sighted in the market place last night, sir. Surely they must be staying in the nearby woods."

Zuko lashed out at the soldier, fury on his features. "Last night? LAST NIGHT? What makes you think they could actually still be here, or even in the vicinity for that matter?"

"I'm s-sorry, sir, I-," he began, but was abruptly cut off by shouts of men. The Avatar's bison soared in the sky ahead of them, somehow oblivious to the commotion it caused.

Zuko's eyes narrowed. The Avatar would be his.

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"THE AVATAR HAS BEEN SPOTTED! ALL HANDS REPORT TO THE DECK!" The frantic shouting echoed through Alina's ears, and she desperately wished she could cover her ears.

The Avatar? Been spotted?

This only served to confuse the peasant girl even more. Wasn't the Avatar dwelling at the center of all lands? Certainly not here, not on this ship!

'There's something odd going on here,' she thought to herself, 'And I get the feeling that I'm definitely not just somewhere else on the globe. It seems many things function differently here; I just can't place where I might be. …Could it just be an elaborate dream?'

Her final hypothesis seemed the most probable – what were the chances of her actually finding Lady Katara's necklace, mush less getting away with it? Yes, this had to be some sort of dream. The only explanation, really.

But then why did her leg she hurt from kicking the cell? And why could she smell the dank scent of blood and sweat in the prison hold? Why did everything seem so real?

Her head hurt.

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Aang goaded Appa onward with a "Yip-yip!", and soon the trio had once again taken flight.

"Aang, are you sure we should be flying in broad daylight?" Sokka questioned the young boy, feeling a sense of foreboding.

"I was in the marketplace last night," the Avatar began, "So we should leave as soon as we can, regardless of what time of day it is."

The Water tribe warrior sent his sister a skeptical look, and she replied with a reassuring smile. Katara then rested her chin on her knees, one hand by her side and another on her newfound necklace.

'I feel like I should've told Aang about that girl, but I suppose it hardly matters now,' the waterbender thought to herself, closing her eyes as the wind rushed by her body.

Her serenity, however, was quickly broken as a sizzling boulder of fire rushed just by her head. She screamed on an impulse, the quickly looked to Aang who was already making evasive maneuvers. Sokka was muttering something incoherent under his breath, but Katara could assume what it was along the lines of.

'Throws a fit every time he's right,' the girl mentally scoffed at his actions.

Appa's sudden evasive jerk knocked her from her thoughts as she grabbed hold of the saddle as a knee-jerk reaction. She peered from over the animal's side, a glare settling on her face once she recognized Zuko's ship.

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Author's Note II

Well, these's my short little creation.I can't promise how much I'll update this – it's not the top of my priority list.

Thanks to all readers and an extra special thank-you to all reviewers!