Katara and Princess Yue found Aang at the soccer field talking with the team. "Hey Katara, where's Sokka? He's never late for practice."
"Practice is canceled. We have to go, Aang."
"Why? What's going on?"
Yue answered. "We'll explain on the way. I'll drive us."
Suki ran up to them. "Hey, what happened to your lousy brother?"
"Sokka's in trouble. I have to go."
The three of them ran off leaving Suki on the field. It was strange, the way they'd all looked so worried. Could Sokka really be in that much trouble? Surely he'd be okay, right? She told the team to go home and stayed seated in the bleacher while she waited for the bus. She wondered how bad the situation was. Why couldn't she stop thinking about him?
Princess Yue's ice blue car stuck out like a sore thumb in the fire nation crime department parking lot. Almost as soon as she opened her door, a tall female guard was in her face asking for her license and registration. Yue pushed it into the guard's hands hurriedly. The three of them sat quietly and impatiently as the guard looked it over slowly. She turned her attention back to the irritated princess. "Mizu Colonist N0005, what business do you have here?"
"A young man I know has just been arrested, I've come to pay his bail."
"What's his crime?"
"I'm sure there are many. May I please be allowed out of my car now?"
The guard threw the license and registration at Princess Yue's face. "Do you think that your status in the North Pole gives you any right to make demands in fire nation territory? You're no princess here, you're just a filthy colonist and I don't like your attitude."
Aang opened his door on the other side and got out of the car. "Hey! What do you think you're …"
Aang came around to the other side and the guard stopped when she saw the boy in fire nation clothes. "Please, ma'am, we need to get inside as quickly as possible. I apologize on behalf of this colonist who I asked out of necessity to drive me here. The person who has been arrested is my friend."
The guard hesitated for a moment. "Very well." She walked away.
Katara and Yue got out of the car. Yue looked the fire nation boy up and down. It had of course seemed strange that Katara would want a fire nation boy to come along with them, but in her state of mind the princess hadn't really thought about it much. Now she wondered at this strange boy who seemed so unlike any fire citizen she'd known. Aang started walking straight for the building and Katara and Yue followed behind. When Aang asked the secretary at the main desk about a teenage boy, she told him there had been no fire nation citizens of that description in there today. Then he told her he was looking for a water tribe colonist. The secretary had seemed confused and embarrassed. She asked for his colonist code, which Katara provided, and she looked it up on her computer. She found the code immediately, but from behind her desk she took a long time in pretending she couldn't find it. "I'm sorry dear, but it doesn't look like your, um, friend has been here today."
"Are you sure …?"
"Yes. Have a nice day!"
The three high schoolers left the desk and the secretary got on the phone. She whispered something urgently as she eyed the three of them talking off to the side. Yue was the first to say it, "She's clearly lying. I don't think anyone will help us."
Aang kicked the floor in frustration. "I can't believe this! It's so unfair! Fire nation citizens get all the respect they could ask for until they start talking about colonists."
Katara looked at Yue pleadingly. "Princess …"
"It would best if you didn't call me that here."
"Miss Spirit, I know you don't hold much power here, but if there is anything, anything at all that you can do for my brother, please, please help him." Katara's eyes watered and she rubbed them against her sleeve.
Yue put her hand on Katara's shoulder. "I promise to do everything in my power to help your brother. I owe him that."
"Thank you, Miss Spirit."
"Please, call me Yue."
The fire nation had always been there in one way or another. The first five years of Katara's life they were a ghost story, the kinds of fears that kept the children of the southern water tribe up at night, each swearing they had seen a firebender in the shadows of the falling snow. As she got older, the stories became more real to her. She could read the newspapers for herself and see the fear in children and adults whenever the subject came up. Her father was the strongest, bravest person she knew and chief of their tribe. If the fire nation could scare him, Katara knew she had good reason to be terrified. Even as the fear of the firenation grew more real, it was still something that seemed far away. The village hadn't been touched since years before Katara was even born. Why would the fire nation attack such a remote village after already exterminating the only real threat? It never occurred to her, or anyone in their tribe, that the fire nation would go to all the trouble of an invasion for one waterbender. Now it was happening again, only this time, she had lost Sokka. Gran Gran did not taken the news well and the three of them left in that little house each carried a huge weight of emotion at all times. They spoke rarely and when they did, they always added a curse or two to the name of the fire nation.
At school, Suki took on the responsibilities of team captain and refused to cancel non-fire nation soccer events, despite requests from the board of athletics. Weeks passed and Katara started to hang out with Jet even more. She dragged Aang with her to the Hideout to attend meetings and learn waterbending in secret. She worked on her bending relentlessly for hours on end, sometimes skipping meals and spending all night in front of the water tub. Aang tried to convince her to take it easy and put more focus into her school work. She wasn't studying or doing homework and was constantly falling asleep in class. Aang was already having a hard enough time keeping passing grades in his classes with all this time spent on waterbending, but Katara was pushing herself to the breaking point. She had become extremely stubborn and irritable; she was past the point of reasoning with.
(A/N: Wow it's been a long time. I want to pick this story back up since I have some really exciting ideas for later on.)
