Katara's POV
"Build the watchtower by yourself then! I'd like to see you try!" I screamed at Sokka and stormed away from my brother. Ugh! The nerve of him! Couldn't he see I'm trying to help him with his stupid tower?! That insufferable- horrible- Ugh! I stomped my way all the way out of camp.
"Katara! Wait! Come back! Katara!" He yelped after me, but I didn't turn back. I needed some space. Sorry Gran. I'd do my chores later. I couldn't be around his almighty idiotness. I kicked patches of snow and bent water into spikes as I trekked further into the icy wilderness. Who did Sokka think he was? He always talked like he was better than all of us. Just cause he's a guy doesn't mean he's stronger than the rest of us. I bet I'm a hundred times stronger than him. I'm a waterbender. He's just nothing.
This train of thought spiraled for a while. I ended up deep in the icy desert with nothing but snow in sight. A freezing gust of wind brought me out of my thoughts. I shivered and curled in on myself trying to conserve warmth. I had gotten too far out. I should head back. If I didn't come back, Sokka would kill the village with his laziness. But as I went to turn back the way I came, I hesitated. What was that?
A cluster of bright colors stuck out against the white snow. I blinked my eyes a couple times. What the heck was out this far? I made my way over getting faster as I went. The cluster of colors became clearer. It was a person! A girl. She was freezing to the touch and was quickly turning blue. I grabbed her and tried to pick her up. Damn it! I'm not strong enough. I put my fur coat over her and started dragging her across the snow. I was panting like a polar bear dog and freezing cold by the time I could see the village.
"Help! Someone help me!" I yelled as loud as I could, which at this point was probably not very loud. A figure that was outside the village started heading my way. I sighed in relief and stopped pulling so hard on the girl I was dragging. As the figure drew closer, I saw that it was Sokka. He was running.
"Sokka!" I yelled again.
"Katara!" He yelled back and put his head down to run faster. He reached us and I collapsed into him. "Katara! Are you alright? Who's that?" He almost shouted in my ear. I weakly pointed inland.
"She was out there, nearly frozen. I couldn't just leave her." I murmured through my chapped lips. I licked them unconsciously. Sokka helped me to camp and hurried back to the mystery girl that I had found.
"What happened Katara? Why did you stay out that long? You're smarter than that." Gran Gran berated me and wrung her hands with worry, but I didn't have the energy to explain. I dragged myself over to my and Sokka's tent. "Katara!" Gran called after me, but I ignored it again and practically fell onto my pelts. Gran followed me and Sokka was right behind. He put her onto his pelts and layered the covers on top. "Katara, who is this?" Gran was still asking all sorts of questions, but I couldn't answer. I could only make a low groaning sound when I tried to speak. Gran understood immediately as she always did, knelt next to me and said softly in my ear, "Sleep Katara. You can tell me tomorrow when you're warmed up. Hopefully, this girl will also be awake and she can tell us why she was out there." I followed her instructions and let the world go black.
Reader's POV
I woke up warm and cozy under a blanket. I burrowed into them, but felt the hard cold ground beneath me and opened my eyes alarmed. I was in a completely different place. I was in some sort of burlap tent. I was wrapped up in lots of blankets. I checked my clothing situation. I was in a hot pink bra with a pink and blue flannel over top. My flannel shirt. I also had my grey shorts on. The cold air started to seep in and I lowered the covers again to keep the warmth in. I looked at my surroundings. Where the heck was I?
A young woman came in. She was wearing a light blue full-body coat with feather accents and dark blue gloves. Her hair had little loopies in it. That's when it hit me. Those were Katara's hair loopies. Was that Katara?
"Oh hey, you're finally awake. Are you ok? We found you lying out there in the snow." She spoke suddenly and knelt next to me.
"I think I'm ok. I'm not entirely sure where I am though… or how I got here… or anything else for that matter." I stammered out and slowly scrunched up my eyebrows as I said this. I needed her to believe my amnesia.
"You don't remember anything?! Can you tell me your name? Anyone in your family? Where do you come from?" She demanded, seeming to get a bit angry. I shook my head and tried to give my best confused expression. Oh, please believe me. Her eyes widened and angry gave way to pity. She cleared her throat and stated, "Well, if you're really that lost, maybe you can stay with us in the Southern Water Tribe until you get your memory back."
Pushing myself up into a sitting position, I argued, "I wouldn't want to intrude-"
"No. You're staying here. End of story." She insisted and pushed my shoulders back down to the ground. "We have no idea how long you were out there. You got a lot of frostbite and, thankfully, we managed to get you back here before you got any permanent damage. You are probably still numb in some places. You should stay here under the covers until Vata says you're ok to get up again."
"Who's Vata?" I asked. I didn't recognize the name.
"She's our healer." Katara explained.
I hummed in acknowledgement. We both sat there awkwardly for a second. I broke the silence by asking, " Well, what's your name?"
"Oh, I'm Katara, best waterbender in the South Pole." She claimed and put her hands on his hips trying to look all impressive. I raised a skeptical eyebrow and she crumbled muttering, "Ok, only waterbender in the South Pole." I chuckled, which got her giggling, then it turned into full blown laughter. We laughed for a minute before we both quieted down. The awkward silence returned and this time she broke the silence with, "Well, I should send Vata in. She'll tell you when you can start moving around again."
She left the tent and an older woman came in.
"You've given us quite a scare my dear. You came to us blue and lifeless." She remarked and seemed not to see the horrified expression on my face. She laughed and reassured me, "Oh, don't worry dear. I've nursed people back from much worse cases of frostbite and hypothermia. These are just the dangers of living in the South Pole. You'll be ready to get up and move around again by tomorrow morning."
I sighed in relief and gratefully stated, "Thank you. You've been so kind to me." She waved her hand.
"Nonsense. It'll be great to have another young hand around here." She laughed and stood up. Her face turned serious and she said firmly, "Now go back to sleep dear. You need it."
She left the tent and I obliged, swiftly falling into the land of dreams.
~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~
I woke up again in the tent. Katara was finishing up preparing herself and putting on her fur coat. She didn't notice I was awake, so I said, "Hey Katara."
She turned abruptly and quickly smiled. She reached down and grabbed a bundle near the entrance. "Here's some warm clothes. They're my extra, I hope you don't mind. Vata took your measurements last night and they won't be ready until tomorrow."
"Oh." I didn't exactly know how to respond to that, so I just said, "Thanks."
"Put them on. Once you're done, you can come out and I'll introduce you to the tribe."
She left making sure the flap closed behind her. I carefully removed myself from the warmth of the blankets and put on the clothes. My joints felt rigid and the whole process was more than a little uncomfortable, but by the time I was completely done, some parts had already started to warm up from my body heat.
During this process, I thought about what my name would be. I could just keep my own name. It would be the easiest thing to do. Changing my name would be more fun. Since I 'have' amnesia, I wouldn't immediately be used to my name, so no troubles there. I should change my name. Hmm. What to pick? I've always fancied being an Amelia. No, that's not really this world's vibe. Elaine? It works on Earth, but I'm not sure it would work here. Maybe Lily? No. I have to think of names that fit this world's aesthetic. Asian names… Oo. Maybe someone from Sailor Moon. Usagi… no. Ami… no. Rei… yes! I'll be Rei. Rei of no tribe, nation or kingdom. Sure. I walked out of the tent. There were more people than I thought there would be. I froze up. Katara jumped in and explained, "Everyone, this is the girl we found. She kinda lost her memory, so she'll be staying with us until she gets it back."
I awkwardly smiled and waved. I said, "Hi. My name is Rei. I'm going to do my best to help out as much as I can. I hope we can all be friends."
~~~~~~~~~~Time Skip~~~~~~~~~~
Sokka held up his spear and readied himself to catch a fish that was swimming next to our canoe.
"It's not getting away from me this time. Watch and learn, Rei. This is how you catch a fish." He said.
"I already know how to fish Sokka. You don't need to teach me again." I responded dryly and rolled my eyes at his arrogance.
"Shh."
I sighed and looked back to Katara. She had taken one of her gloves off and waterbend with a fish.
"Sokka, Rei, look!" She exclaimed.
My eyes grew in amazement at Katara's waterbending. Being in a world with magic was taking some time to get used to. Sokka didn't even look back at us.
"Shh Katara, You're gonna scare it away. Mmm, I can already smell it cooking." Sokka called from the front of the canoe.
"But, Sokka, I caught one!" Katara protested.
She bent it over my head and towards Sokka, but he popped her bubble and made her drop the fish. All of the water fell on him. I started giggling. Sokka yelped at the cold water soaking him to the bone. He turned around scowling.
"Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked? Hey, stop laughing Rei. It's freezing!" He proclaimed indignantly.
I tried to contain my laughter, but that just made it harder to stop. Katara sighed in exasperation. Ah, we were gonna get Katara's waterbending speech again. I can't even imagine how many times Katara must've said her spiel over the course of their lives. She had said it literally at least once everyday over the last three weeks. Katara started to say, "It's not magic. It's waterbending. And it's-"
With the most I'm-done-with-this voice I've ever heard, Sokka cut her off, "Yeah, yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah, blah, blah. Look, I'm just saying that if I had weird powers, I'd keep my weirdness to myself."
"You're calling me weird?" Katara retorted hotly.
I dropped my head into my hands. Here we go again. Literally all those two did was bicker. All day, every day. For three weeks.
"I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection." Katara teased.
Sokka, who had just been doing that, looked back at Katara and went to retort back before the whole canoe was bumped by a massive piece of ice. We got dragged into a current and Sokka attempted to gain back control with little success. We got hit again.
"Watch out!" Katara yelled. Sokka groaned with the effort to redirect the canoe away from any ice bits. Katara tried to help by yelling again, "Go left! Go left!" Just let the guy focus Katara. I just held onto the side for dear life as we got bumped and pushed every which way until we all got bumped out of the canoe when it was completely wrecked. Katara looked harshly at her brother and scoffed,"You call that left?"
Sokka stuck his spear in the ice and rebuked, "You don't like my steering. Well, maybe, you should have waterbended us out of the ice."
I groaned in esaperation and laid myself back down on the ice cube we were floating on. Katara continued to shout at her brother, "So, it's my fault!"
"I knew I should've left you home." Sokka griped under his breath before accusing, "Leave it to a girl to screw things up."
"Hey!" I piped up from my place on the other side of the ice cube. Sokka had the decency to look a bit sheepish.
"Sorry Rei." He muttered.
Katara stood indignantly. She took a huge breath before she fumed, "You are the most sexist, immature, nutbrained. Ugh! I'm embarrassed to be related to you!"
The iceberg behind her started to crack with every angry swing of her arms. Sokka and I both looked up at it and freaked out a little. Katara didn't notice. She was just way too angry. She continued, "Ever since Mom died, I've been doing all the work around camp, while you've been off playing soldier. Rei has helped more while she's been here than you've done your entire life!"
"Uh… Katara…" I interjected and pointed repeatedly at the teetering iceberg. Katara ignored me.
"We even wash all the clothes. Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you. Not pleasant!" Katara ranted.
Cracks were forming all over the iceberg. A strong gust of wind would have been able to make it fall apart. I subconsciously moved as far away from that edge of our little ice cube as possible.
"Katara! Settle down!" Sokka blurted. He tried to use his hands to demonstrate this.
"Katara… you might actually want to do that this time…" I reasoned.
"No! That's it. I'm done helping you. From now on, you're on your own!" Katara shouted, throwing her arms around in her anger and a final crack streaked up the center of the iceberg.
All of Katara's anger dissipated and she looked over her shoulder. She drew back in shock. The center crack split the iceberg in half and they both fell into the water, creating a massive wave. We all held on for dear life as the icy wave pushed our little icecube a bit away. Sokka snapped, "Ok, you've gone from weird to freakish, Katara."
"You mean, I did that?" Katara wondered at the empty space in front of us. She looked dumbstruck. Where the iceberg had been, now only large pieces of ice floated. Sokka wrung his ponytail to get rid of the water.
"Yep. Congratulations."
"Sokka, stop it."
"Sorry Rei."
A weird glow started to emanate from the water below us. A massive glowing iceberg came up from under the water and we all stood up. Inside, we could see a boy with a glowing head and hands and a massive creature around him. Aang opened his eyes. Katara gasped, "He's alive! We have to help."
Katara grabbed Sokka' club and started off toward the iceberg. Sokka yelled, "Katara get back here! We don't know what that thing is."
He ran after her, grabbing his spear on the way. I sighed before following. We ran across the floating bits of ice to the glowing chunk of ice. Katara started to whack the club against it. After a couple swings, a huge release of air pushed us all back. Luckily, we didn't fall into the water. The iceberg began to crack and it burst open like an explosion. A huge beam of blue light shot into the sky for a few seconds. The fog settled and we regained our footing. A small boy climbed up to the side of the collapsed iceberg. Sokka brandished his spear threateningly and demanded, "Stop!"
The boy in the iceberg suddenly just stopped glowing and fell over.