Author's Note: Hi all. Sorry for the delay it has been a busy two months at my job. Im going to publish two chapters after this one so we can quickly get out of the South Pole. Thanks all for taking the time to read this story and being patient. Please feel free to leave a comment. I will read them all. Thanks.
The storm had come out of nowhere. One minute Aang was flying on Appa, soaring through the perfect blue skies, and the next, a storm front was charging toward him. He tried outrunning the storm, but it moved too quickly as its clouds shrouded the sky in darkness. As soon as the storm overtook him, the rain and buffeting winds blinded him to the point that he couldn't see more than three feet in front of him. And then there was the lightning.
Thunderclaps rang all around him, each more powerful than the last. Realizing there was no way out through the storm he flew Appa toward the sea hoping he could avoid the lightning. But it was too late. As soon as Aang felt the hairs on his arm start to rise, he knew that a lightning bolt had already decided he was the shortest path to the ocean.
Surprisingly the pain lasted for only an instant. All he felt was a great searing heat and then nothing. Both Aang and Appa sank into the sea and as he started to lose consciousness, he saw a light.
"Aang?" Katara asked peeking into the makeshift tent they had set up for him last night. "Are you awake?"
"Yes," Aang replied groggily as he got out of his bed of fur. "I think I just had the strangest dream."
"Really? What was it?"
"I was flying on Appa and we were in the middle of a storm," Aang frowned trying to remember, "and then I think I got struck by lightning."
"Lightning huh? That's weird," Katara said in agreement.
"Anyway," Aang said putting on his shoes, "Did you need something from me?"
Oh right!" Katara said grabbing Aang's hand. "Everybody's waiting to meet you outside! Especially Gran Gran."
"Gran Gran?" Aang said as Katara pulled him along. It was late last night when the three had finally made it to the tribe. Apparently Appa was even more exhausted than Aang had suspected and as a result they took an extra hour to arrive. That would have been fine of course if Aang hadn't taken the entire time to ask even more questions. Katara, as the "big sister" of all the little kids in the village, had experience answering all the questions their inquisitive little minds could think of. But she swore Aang somehow had asked more than all those kids combined. It was only after Katara had pretended to fall asleep that Aang ceased his interrogation.
When the three had arrived there were only a few villagers awake and even fewer who noticed Aang. But that was enough to energize the rumor mill. Overnight the rumors spread and by the time Katara woke up her neighbors were already waiting outside. After all it wasn't everyday a stranger came to town.
"Hello?" Aang nervously said to the small group of women and children that had assembled. Most of the children seemed to be less than ten years old while the women were all middle aged. Where are all the men? he thought. "My name's Aang."
"Are you an airbender?" a little girl beside her mother asked.
"Yes," Aang smiled as he bent down to face the little girl. She was no more than six years old and like all the other villagers she had bright blue eyes. Perhaps her most prominent feature were her pig tails. "I'm an airbender. What's your name little one?" However the girl didn't respond and instead start to shift her legs back and forth.
"Kiki," Katara said, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," the girl said immediately. "But umm… can you show us?"
"Show what?" Aang asked, bemused by her shyness. She's almost like Emily, he thought.
"Show us your bending!" a boy, slightly older than Kiki, yelled. "Big sister Katara said airbenders can run fast and jump really high."
"Korin," Katara sighed, "Don't be rude."
"No wait," Aang laughed. "I don't think there's any harm in the boy's curiosity. In fact, I want to see as well."
"Aang?" Katara asked hesitantly. "Are you sure about this?"
Aang simply gave a nod to Katara as he could tell she also wanted to see him jump again. He bent his knees, took a deep breath, and jumped as hard as he could but only made it a foot off the ground.
"Is that all?" a woman whispered to her friend. "My husband could easily clear that." It was just then that she saw Aang jump again, this time making it four feet off the ground. Some of the children were already amazed as they had never seen someone jump four feet before while others were hardly impressed. Aang, however, was too focused on himself to notice their reactions. There was this energy inside of him that he could feel and the more he interacted with it, the more right it felt. It was circulating, moving throughout his body evenly.
What would happen if I push it down? He thought and as soon as he did a tiny portion of the energy sank into his legs. Aang bent his knees again, took another deep breath, and jumped again. There was a rush of air and then brief lightlessness as he had reached peak height at around ten feet before returning to ground.
"Wow!" another boy yelled as the children rushed forward in amazement.
"Can you do it again?" a girl with brown hair asked. "Big sister said you can jump really high!"
"Don't badger the young man," a small soft voice in the back of the crowd admonished. However, the crowd immediately knew who it was, and split itself apart to reveal an old woman. "He's a guest and should be treated as such."
"Sorry Gran Gran," the girl replied sheepishly.
"No worries," she said as she made her way toward Aang and Katara. Even though the woman seemed to be in her eighties, she moved surprisingly quickly. Instead of taking footsteps, she seemed to glide across the snow. Maybe it was because he couldn't actually see what her feet were doing under that long blue coat of hers. Other than her strange gait there was nothing else remarkable about the woman except for her eyes. At first, her eyes appeared warm and welcoming, but an instant later, they gave off a steely gaze as they inspected Aang from head to toe. It was only when she finally stood before him that she became welcoming again.
"Ah yes," Gran Gran said, noticing the arrow tattoos on his arms and legs. "You're definitely an airbender alright. Aang it is a pleasure to meet you," she said giving a smile.
"A pleasure as well," Aang replied, bowing his head in respect.
"Have you had a chance to eat yet?"
"No," Aang admitted as he laughed embarrassedly, "I haven't. Sorry to trouble you."
"No, no. Aang it's a privilege having an airbender such as yourself as a guest," Gran Gran sighed before turning toward the crowd. "And what are you doing?" she asked. "Pestering him before he's even had a chance to eat. Have you no decency?" Most of the crowd apologized and dispersed as soon as she started. They knew from experience how long her admonishments could go on for.
"Oh Sokka," Gran Gran said looking at her grandson. "Where were you? I didn't see you at your tent."
"I just went to gather wood Gran Gran," Sokka said. "Were you looking for me?"
"Not particularly," she smiled. "But now that you're here, can you you get Aang some breakfast? He must be starving."
"Do I have to?" Sokka whined. "I was about to train the kids."
"Sokka," Gran Gran said raising a practiced eyebrow.
"Ugh… Fine," Sokka said "Come with me Aang. I'll show you the best food you've ever had."
"Thanks," Aang said before turning toward Gran Gran. "Aren't you coming?"
"I'm afraid I already ate but I will join you shortly," Gran Gran said. "I just need to discuss something with my granddaughter first."
"Of course," Aang said before bowing again. He wondered if he was bowing too much, but he supposed it would be better to overestimate. "We'll await your arrival."
"Thank you, but you should go ahead and eat," Gran Gran said as she kept smiling until Aang and Sokka were further than earshot. "Walk with me. Don't say a word until I tell you." Katara, confused at first, simply nodded and followed her grandmother. The two inconspicuously made their way to the entrance of the village. She had assumed they would stop there, but Gran Gran continued to walk and show no signs of stopping.
The only thing more deafening than the silence were the howling winds that started to pick up once they left the village. Katara stared toward the horizon and saw nothing but the frozen desert that was the South Pole. If there ever was a perfect example of loneliness it would be the cold, barren, and endless desert before her. In some of her nightmares, she would often find herself stranded in the middle of the icy nowhere failing to find her way back. Ten minutes passed before the two were quite far from the village when Katara couldn't take it any longer.
"Gran Gran," Katara yelled over the buffeting wind, "what are we doing here?"
"Katara," Gran Gran said plainly, somehow managing to project her voice with little effort. "We can't afford anyone overhearing us. Not with something this important. Who did you tell about what happened yesterday?"
"No one. We never got a chance to. We went straight to our beds."
"Did Aang talk to anyone?" Gran Gran nodded, studying her granddaughter's reactions.
"No," Katara said trying to remember. "I don't think so. He went to sleep right after I made his bed."
"That's good," Gran Gran sighed. "Now, tell me everything about yesterday." And so Katara regaled her grandmother of the ordeal. The entire time Gran Gran showed no sense of emotion, instead focusing on her granddaughter's words. Katara actually found it quite unnerving how intense her concentration could become. Once she had finished her tale Gran Gran said nothing, to her disappointment. Instead she seemed lost in contemplation.
"So it's him, right?" Katara asked trying to break the silence. "He's the Avatar?"
"Why do you think he's the Avatar?"
"Aang's an airbender and isn't the Avatar supposed to be one?"
"But that doesn't mean that Aang has to be an Avatar," Gran Gran countered. "It could just be coincidence."
"Weren't you the one that said there are no such things as coincidence? Besides there was that giant white light beam when we found him."
"So what?" Gran Gran smiled.
"Really?" Katara asked exasperated at her grandmother's skepticism. "You always told me that an Avatar shined with white light whenever they used their powers. And I'm pretty sure a white light shooting into the sky is a huge sign that someone is an Avatar."
"So it seems," Gran Gran sighed. "That there is hope once again."
"Gran Gran?"
"Aang is indeed the Avatar," she said solemnly. "The war might finally come to an end." Gran Gran then looked at her before whispering. "You mustn't tell anyone in the village. Someone might alert the Fire Nation."
"Someone would actually rat out the Avatar?" Katara gasped.
"People can be desperate Katara and sometimes they have to make difficult choices," Gran Gran said as if she were speaking from experience. "It's better if they couldn't make that choice in the first place."
Katara said nothing as she absorbed her grandmother's advice or at the least tried to. The gusts of wind had died down leaving an eerie calm throughout the land. And it was this eerie calm that interfered with her thinking. When Katara was around ten, she had discovered, or probably rediscovered, a wonderfully bizarre property of snow. For some reason, she didn't know why, but whenever it snowed all the ambient sounds of nature would disappear. Even after snowfall had stopped the sounds that she would usually hear were gone. There was quiet and then there was, what she dubbed, snow quiet. And right now the snow quiet filled the desert.
"Gran Gran?" Katara asked in an attempt to break the silence. "What should we do now?"
"He didn't know he was an airbender right?"
"Yeah. He doesn't know much about the world. I think he might be suffering from some sort of amnesia."
"There are some people I can contact," Gran Gran assured Katara as they made their way back to the village. "They can help nurture him to become the Avatar. But right now I think you should spend some time with him."
"Why?"
"Why not?" Gran Gran shrugged. "He needs to understand the world, and someone needs to teach him. Ignorance can be fatal, especially so for the Avatar."
"Does Sokka know?"
"No, not yet. I tried to catch him in the morning, but he had already left."
"Should I tell him he's the Avatar?" Katara offered.
"No," Gran Gran said immediately. "It might frighten the boy. Instead tell him about the Avatar. At least that way he'll be ready when he learns who he really is."
Katara nodded. "But one thing I don't get is how he's still so young."
"He was frozen in ice. Perhaps the Avatar state could have kept him in stasis."
"For a hundred years?"
"He is the Avatar," Gran Gran laughed, which startled Katara. She had never noticed before, but it had been quite a while since she heard her laugh. "If anyone could do the impossible, it's him."
"Sokka, this seaweed bread is amazing!" Aang said as he took another bite. After the two had left Katara and her grandmother, they made their way to a large brown tent. In there they found a whole assortment of food readymade for different meals throughout the day. "It's a community effort," Sokka had explained. Apparently, everyone in the village offered to make food for one meal or another, which Aang realized was quite efficient.
"Yeah Katara made it," Sokka said gleefully as he took a bite out of the blubbered seal jerky. While Aang had a healthy appetite, Sokka was voracious, eating as much as he could. Probably needs the protein for all the physical labor he does Aangnoted.
It was only after Aang was done eating that he had decided it was time to interrogate Sokka. "So I was hoping you could do me a favor," Aang asked.
"If it's more questions, I'm not answering," Sokka said plainly.
"It will be just a few and you might even find it interesting," Aang pleaded.
"No."
"How about if you answer my questions and don't find them interesting, I won't bother you anymore?"
Sokka looked at him skeptically and sighed, "You're not going to leave me alone on this are you?"
"I think we both know the answer," Aang smiled, sensing victory.
"You have until I finish eating." Sokka took another a bite out of seaweed bread.
"Thanks," Aang said, realizing he wasn't going to finish anytime soon. "Do you know any other languages?"
"Aang, we've been over this. There's only one language. I've never even heard of any other language."
"But that makes no sense," Aang said. "You're telling me across different cities, countries, and continents that everyone speaks the same language? Don't you find that weird?"
"What's so weird about it?" Sokka shrugged. "Everyone knows the same language because we learned it from our parents and they learned it from their parents and so on."
"Wait," Aang said realizing he had once again been making assumptions. "Have you even left the South Pole? How do you know everyone speaks the same language?"
"I met some people from the Earth Kingdom before," Sokka tried to remember. "They came here to trade, and I had no problem understanding them."
"Yes, but couldn't they have just learned your language?"
"Hmmm," he said, in between bites of the bread, "They could have. But those traders spoke the same language in secret too. One time I managed to overhear them, and they were talking normally. If they had their own language, then wouldn't they just speak that?"
Maybe he is remembering incorrectly Aang thought rubbing his nose in frustration. Or maybe I'm trying to find reasons not to believe him. "Have you ever played a game of telephone?"
"Telephone?" Sokka asked. "What's telephone?"
"Never mind," Aang sighed. Whatever reason Sokka offered Aang knew he was incorrect. There was no natural way that people across multiple continents could speak the same language, especially before the digital age. There must be an artificial cause. If languages didn't evolve, then the works of Shakespeare or even Canterbury Tales would be easy to understand. But that was not the case. And yet at least three thousand years of linguistic evolution had passed on this Earth, but people still spoke one language. No, I'm assuming too much again. This One Language Hypothesis didn't support why Aang could think and speak in English, but everyone could understand him.
There must be some way to convince Sokka that something strange was going on. Perhaps... an experiment will settle things. Aang sat in quiet contemplation as the only sounds were those of children playing outside and Sokka's chewing. "So are we done for the day?" Sokka asked.
Aang didn't reply as he had been studying Sokka's lips when he spoke. His lips aren't mouthing English, yet I hear it as such. I wonder…
"Sokka, I've got an idea. Can I borrow your cup of water?"
"Water?" Sokka asked, confused by Aang's silence and now non-sequitur. "Why do you want my cup? There's a bucket of it over there," Sokka said pointing to a bucket in corner of the room.
"Perfect," Aang said gleefully as he slid the bucket outside the tent. "Come here," he yelled. "I have something I want to show you."
"Can't you show me inside?" Sokka complained. "It's too cold outside."
"There's not enough light. Do this with me and if you're unsatisfied, I'll stop asking questions."
"Fine." Sokka pried himself from his seat and walked out to see the airbender staring at his reflection in the water bucket. "What are you doing?"
"Come here. Look into the water," Aang motioned until both he and Sokka could see their reflections. "Now start saying 'hello' and make sure to keep track of how your lips move."
"Okay?" Sokka shrugged before following Aang's instructions. After a minute had passed Aang interrupted him. "Do you remember what shape your lips took?"
"Yes. This better not be a stupid trick."
"No, but pay attention to my lips," Aang said giving a mischievous smile. Something was about to give, he realized, and either way the result would clarify up some confusion. He looked into the water and said, "Ho—la" repeatedly.
"You're just saying 'hello'. What's he big deal?"
"No you think I'm saying 'hello'," Aang said gleefully. It's working! "Look at the reflection, follow my lips, and then you try to say 'hello'."
Sokka did as Aang suggested, curious to see what would happen. It was only on the third repetition that he noticed, and his eyes widened. His lips are moving differently, but the same sound is coming out!
"Finally!" Aang yelled in joy. His favorite moment in teaching was the wonder a student would experience and right now it was written all over Sokka's face.
"How are you doing that?" Sokka asked backing from the water, and more importantly, Aang.
"Simple. I just spoke a word in another language."
"But I understood it!"
"And that's the problem," Aang started to laugh at Sokka's bewilderment, his jaw hitting the floor. "Why are you able to understand a language you've never heard before?"
"This has got to be some trick. Maybe your vocal chords are different," Sokka bargained. "And that's why you have to move your lips differently."
"It could be," Aang thought as he tapped his cheek. "Or…"
"Or what?" Sokka asked hanging on his every word. He had seen magic before. Katara's water bending, while strange, was something he had gotten used to and just accepted to be a natural part of the world. There were other waterbenders in the Northern Water Tribe after all. But what Aang was doing was completely different. This was something that could affect nonbenders too, and if Aang was right, it was affecting even language itself.
"Bonjour," Aang smiled and waved. "Guten Tag, Ciao."
"I don't get it. You just said 'hello' three different times."
"No, you have to pay attention to my lips." Aang repeated the three greetings.
"No way!" Sokka jumped, noting that each time he said 'hello' his lips moved differently. Other kids noticed Sokka's shock and came to see what the commotion was all about.
"Big brother," one boy said as he ran to Sokka. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
"Not-nothing," Sokka stuttered. "Aang, it has to be some kind of voice trick."
"It's not a trick. That I can assure you."
"Really? Then how many languages are there?" Sokka asked, remembering his grandmother's teachings. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. The quickest way to find out is to see if they are willing to answer very specific questions.
"I think," Aang said trying to recall the fact, "where I'm from there were more than five thousand. I'm not really sure on the specific number, but it was definitely more than five thousand on my world."
"Five thousand languages?" Sokka gasped as he tried to comprehend that number. He could barely comprehend that there was more than one language, let alone five thousand. This was far beyond 'something too good to be true' and was quickly approaching 'too absurd to be false'. Of course Sokka had already learned about the Big Lie fallacy and wouldn't fall for that trap.
"What's a lang-u-age?" Kiki asked, clumsily walking toward him.
"Ask Aang, he seems to know all about it," Sokka laughed picking up the blue-eyed girl before directing his question toward Aang. "Could you do the trick again?"
"It's not a trick. They are greetings in different languages," he sighed as a saying came to his mind. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "I can teach you the words."
"Really?" Sokka asked. "So I'll be able to do the same tri—I mean speak the same words?"
"Yes. They're just sounds after all."
"Can we learn too Aang?" a little boy asked.
"Of course!" He said ruffling his hair.
Aang spent the next half hour teaching the eleven children and Sokka how to say the
words properly. What was particularly interesting was that whenever others spoke the words correctly, he actually heard the English pronunciation of 'hello'. Then I suppose the others also hear 'hello' when they get it correct. All the current evidence seemed to point to some kind of universal translation service. He didn't know how or why, but it seemed to translate any language into one's native language. In a quick test he told the children that 'wobblyduff' in another language meant 'hello'. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to hear the translated 'hello' mentally. Whatever this service was, it seemed to be intelligent enough to distinguish between fake and real words.
So is this enough evidence for hypothesis one or four? Simplicio said.
I forget. What were they again? Salviati replied.
Hypothesis one was a dream or hallucination. Four was a simulation.
Honestly, I don't think we'll ever have enough evidence for those two.
So wait, Simplicio said. It's a weird thought, something we'll have to ponder more upon,
but can we hear accents or only perfect English?
"Hello?" Katara said, staring at the crowd of children surrounding Aang and her brother.
Usually the kids would be too hyperactive in the morning to sit down and pay attention. "What's going on?"
And it was then that Katara and Gran Gran found themselves crowded by children saying "hello".
"So you're saying there's some machine somewhere that can make you understand other people even if they speak different languages?" Katara asked in amazement. It had been an hour after the mob of children had attacked them, but she still wasn't over the initial shock. Sokka had led most of the boys away for his afternoon training session leaving the two to their own devices.
"Yes," Aang said as they walked toward an icy hill. "What I don't understand is why or how there is such a machine. Have you ever heard anything about it?"
"No," Katara laughed. "I didn't even know there were other languages. If there's a machine like that, shouldn't all children be able to speak from birth? It would save me a little trouble at least."
"Good point," Aang said, mulling over Katara's suggestion. It was only after a few minutes passed that he posited his new hypothesis, "Maybe you have to actually know a language before it can be translated."
"Translated? What's that?"
"Convert words from one language to another," Aang said offhandedly. So it seems the service doesn't provide definitions for unknown words or I could be getting that part wrong too, he thought.
"I wonder," Katara said, "if the same thing would happen if we try to read words in other languages."
"Katara, That's a brilliant idea! Why didn't I think of it first?"
"Well, Gran Gran always says to think outside the box."
"You grandmother's right," Aang gave a smile. "But you can't think outside a box if you don't know what's in it."
"What?" she asked, puzzled by the new saying.
"Never mind," Aang said. "It's just a saying my teacher used to say."
"Your airbending master?" Katara asked as she bent down and started to pile up a bunch of snow together.
"He wasn't an airbender," Aang said, thinking of Dr. Bedford. "But he was a… wiseman."
"Seems like it," Katara said, continuing to gather snow until she had formed a small mound of it.
"What exactly are we doing here?" Aang asked. He had followed her, as she had requested, to a small hill, ten minutes outside the village.
"I was hoping we could practice our bending together," she said. "I just didn't want any of the kids to get in the way."
"So you can bend air as well?" Aang asked excitedly. It wasn't everyday that he got to see people ignore the laws of physics.
"No. I'm not an airbender, just a waterbender."
"You can bend water," Aang said, not as a question or challenge, but as a statement that he was trying to understand himself. Controlling the air was one thing, even miraculous, but water was on a whole other level. Imagine all the possibilities, he thought. "Can you show me?"
"Sure," Katara nodded and took in a deep breath. She put her hands above the mound and started to move slowly as if she were dragging something. Nothing happened at first as Katara simply swayed her body back and forth, her hands moving in a pulling motion. It was only after a few seconds passed that he noticed water droplets starting to levitate from the snow and into her hands. She's able to melt the ice? Where is the heat to melt it coming from? Aang thought. Soon the process became faster and faster, as a tiny stream of water had started to form encircling Katara. A few more minutes and Aang stood gobsmacked as she cheerfully played with what used to be the mound of snow. The tiny stream had now become a large water whip as it swam through the air. Sometimes the stream of water would separate and form back together, almost as if it were dancing. Noticing Aang's awe, Katara giggled. It was nice to be a little appreciated after all.
"So," Katara asked, wiping her brow of the sweat that had accumulated, "what did you think?" Aang, however, didn't reply. He instead stood there, his jaw threatening to hit the ground in protest to what he saw. "Aang?"
"Jesus Christ," Aang swore. "That was, singlehandedly, the most amazing thing I have ever seen." Katara turned a little red. Thankfully her dark skin covered the true extent of blushing. "It's just as you said. You literally bended the water to your will." He started to inspect the water trying to see what possible trick was involved, but he couldn't find any. Aang thought perhaps the ice itself was magical, but as Katara had demonstrated it was just a random patch of snow.
"Do you have to move whenever you control the water?"
"Of course. It wouldn't be waterbending if you didn't move."
"Of course," Aang nodded as if it were obvious all along. Perhaps she converted the kinetic energy of her motion into controlling the water? No It would be too little. At the very least it appears to be some sort of telekinetic ability. But then why does she have to move? "Does your control over water have a certain range?
"Yeah," Katara smiled starting to bend the water again. This time the process from ice to water was much faster as she turned the long tail of water into a small, but dense, sphere with water whirling about its surface. "I can't just pull water from anywhere. There's a limit."
"I see," Aang nodded. "Does that mean there are also earthbenders and firebenders then?" He asked, noting the correlation between country and element.
"Yep," Katara said absentmindedly as she put all her focus on the sphere of water before her. Aang was about to ask another question but stopped himself when he saw her concentration. Come on. Freeze please, she thought. Gran Gran had said that skilled waterbenders could easily change water into all three states of matter. She had the melting part down but freezing and evaporation seemed to be just out of her reach. And that wasn't even mentioning sublimation or condensation.
I'm almost there, just need a little push. She could feel the solidification of the water as the ice crept up the ball. At this point eighty percent of the sphere had become solid but it then became unstable. Water that had once been flowing smoothly started to wobble and drip rapidly onto the ground. No don't fall now! She tried to freeze it faster, but it was too late, and ball deformed back into its original state.
"So close," she sighed sitting on the frozen tundra in exhaustion.
"So I'm guessing freezing water is much harder than it looks?" Aang offered.
"So much harder," she laughed. "It's easy to melt water but freezing it for some reason is really difficult."
"Hmm," Aang said, inspecting the chunk of circular ice that she had managed to freeze. The diameter of it had to be at least one foot. "Katara, do you know what you wanted to do that ice ball?"
"What? I wanted to freeze it."
"You wanted to freeze the whole ball? Or only the surface of it?"
"The whole thing. Gran Gran said strong waterbenders could freeze a lot of water quickly." It was barely noticeable, but Aang could hear the disappointment in her voice.
"Did you ever try making anything else besides a ball?"
"Anything else besides a ball?" She took a pause to comb through her memories. "I remember one time I froze a trail of water, but I don't think that's really impressive."
"Can you try melting and freezing the water again?" Aang asked, handing her the chunk of water she had managed to freeze. "But this time instead of a ball make a sheet of ice."
"Why?" she asked, giving him a puzzled look. "I tried making a sheet before, but I never really got that far."
"Trust me," Aang smiled. If she can freeze this much compact ice, she should be able to stretch it. "Also make sure that sheet you make is as thin as possible."
"Fine," Katara shrugged. She got up and started the steps once again to melt the ice ball Aang had handed to her. Make a sheet she thought as she focused on the stream of water that started to accumulate from the ball. She closed her eyes and pictured the sheet: its size, its shape, its texture. The stream lifted off the ground forming a tail of water. Alright time for the hard part. She called upon the water to solidify and immediately the ice started to creep from the end of the tail. Katara tried to slow down the pace of the ice, but it proved fruitless. If I can't stop the ice from spreading, then I'll stretch the water.
She split her attention in two; one part focusing on directing the spread of the ice and the other on rapidly expanding the water. The race between the two processes created an unstable equilibrium, one that Katara desperately tried to maintain. After what felt like an eternity, exhaustion set in and she released her control over the water.
"Did I do it?" Katara asked, punctuating each word with an intake of breath.
"I think so," Aang gawked in wonderment at the five foot wall in front of him. It had happened so quickly. One second, he was looking at a floating stream of water and the next it had quickly solidified into a wall. "This is unbelievable," he said to himself. He was about to congratulate Katara when a troubling thought rushed its way to the forefront. Something is really wrong here.
The wall by his estimation was about two feet long and five feet in height. The thickness seemed to be about half an inch thick. In total then the ice block had a volume of seven hundred twenty cubic inches or (and he should have just done the calculations in metric in the first place) about twelve thousand cubic centimeters. Thankfully a cubic centimeter of water weighed one gram so this wall of ice worth twelve kilograms of water. Twelve whole kilograms… Aang thought as the horror of what should have occurred dawned on him.
The first inkling of danger Aang felt was when Katara had melted the ice into liquid water. Where exactly did the energy to melt the water come from? Not finding an answer he had shelved that question. It was only now seeing the reverse process that he had realized that he should have been more cautious. If one had to put energy into ice to melt it, that was one thing. But to freeze water from liquid to solid required energy to be released. The latent energy of water was three hundred thirty four kilojoules per kilogram. Twelve kilograms of water were frozen in a minute. A kilogram of TNT was worth three and a half megajoules of energy and Katara in theory should have released four megajoules.
Oh my God! We almost bombed ourselves. He wasn't sure what was more troubling: the fact that if the first law of thermodynamics held, they would have both died instantly or this was a universe that gave a middle finger to a fundamental law. I suppose not dying is a good consolation prize as any for a violation of the universe Aang sniggered.
"Aang!" Katara said hugging him in excitement. "You were right! Look at this wall," she squealed with glee as ran her hand across the ice. "I knew you could help me!" Katara said, giving a blinding smile. She spent the next minute or so trying to waterbend her name into the ice. It would serve as a reminder of her first step to becoming a waterbending master.
"Right," Aang smiled, finding her joy contagious. I wonder what she would say if she realized that's the same volume as the ball she tried to freeze. Perhaps a lesson for another time. "Actually I was wondering if someone taught you waterbending." If he was ever going to help Katara again in the future, he wanted to know all of the potential dangers that could occur. Asking her teacher would be a good first step.
"I don't have a teacher," Karata replied. "I mostly taught myself from the scrolls that Gran Gran had. The rest either Gran Gran taught me from what she had seen others do, or I improvised."
"Oh your grandmother's a waterbender?"
"No," Katara sighed. She moved to sit at a large rock that was in the shadow of a boulder. "You're looking at the only waterbender in the whole Southern tribe."
Aang glanced at her expression and recognized the familiar emotions: grief, despair, and anger. He wore the same mask that Katara wore whenever he thought about who he had last. A series of small gusts made their way toward them, but they both chose to ignore them. "Was it the Fire Nation?" Aang finally asked, in a soft voice.
"They took all the waterbenders," Katara bitterly said, "including my mother."
"I'm sorry," Aang said as Katara nodded in response. He at least now understood Sokka's anger toward the Fire Nation. "How long have you been at war with the Fire Nation?"
Katara swiftly turned her head toward Aang in the same shock as if somebody had asked what the color of the sky or what the shape of the world was. Right he doesn't know anything at all. "The world has been at war for a hundred years."
"There's a hundred year old world wide war going on?" Aang asked. And the hits just keep on coming. Most wars, if not all, lasted at most a decade. There was of course the Hundred Year War between the England and France, but those were more on and off battles than anything else really. That war lasted as long as it did because the two countries were right next to each other. But this was a whole other beast. How could three nations fight a fourth one for a hundred years and not have something give? Perhaps the war was really just made up of skirmishes. Or maybe the four nations are really close to each other. Note to self: get a map of the world as soon as possible.
"Yeah, but it's mostly between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. The water tribes help out the Earth Kingdom anyway they can."
"I still don't understand. Wh—"
"Let me start at the beginning," Katara interrupted. Aang simply nodded and took a seat beside the girl. "A hundred years ago the four nations lived in relative peace. But then one day the Fire Nation attacked the other three. The Avatar, who could have stopped the war, vanished and never returned. Ever since then we've been at war."
"I see," Aang said, trying to think what she had said through. "And who's the Avatar?"
"The Avatar," Katara smiled, "is a master of all the elements. He or she is the only one who could bend fire, water, earth, and air."
"I thought you said benders could only bend one element?" Aang asked.
"Yes, well, the Avatar is the exception."
"But I don't understand. How could he have stopped the—" Aang said before something caught his eye. Off in the distance, where the village was located, was a huge trail of black smoke making its way into the sky. "Hey Katara, do you guys usually have bonfires?"
"Bonfires?" she asked looking in the same direction as Aang. Her eyes grew wide with fear. "That's not a bonfire, that's a Fire Nation ship!"