This War of Ours
SUMMARY: In a world where the Fire Nation rules the world and only a few pockets of resistance remain, children are brought to the Academy in the Capital under the guise of harmonious learning. As Katara starts her journey in the hallowed halls, she quickly finds out that some things are not as they seem. [Zutara AU, inspired by Harry Potter]
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
CHAPTER 2
absence of air
The Academy's magnificent facade did not prepare Katara for the grandeur inside. The front hall was richly decorated with tapestries of the four nations— the Water Tribes' silver crescent moon and waves stitched into an expanse of deep cobalt; the Fire Nation's black three-pronged flame embroidered into deep red fabric; the Earth Kingdom's emerald Pai Sho tile sewn into shimmering golden cloth; and the Air Nomads' swirling sky blue orb embellished into a heavy white textile.
Why they bothered to add the Air Nomads' emblem was beyond Katara. Their people had long been eliminated by the Fire Nation, back when the war started about a hundred years ago. Katara didn't know anything about the Air Nomads— she didn't know what kind of people they were and what value they espoused, but she learned from chatter around the elderly tribeswomen back in her village that the Air Nomads— particularly the airbenders— inspired the ire of the Fire Nation so much that every one of them was burned to a crisp.
Katara was just about to ask this to Sokka when he cut her off with an impatient "Come on!", waving his arms at her from the other side of the hall and gesturing towards large double doors.
Katara shifted her knapsack slightly over her shoulder and skipped to Sokka, her steps echoing in the vastness of the front hall.
"Help me with this, huh?" Sokka shouldered one of the heavy wooden doors open, struggling to plant his slipping feet on the shiny, polished floor. Katara rushed to help him, pushing against the carved surface of the wood. The door opened inward, letting out a bellowing creak.
"Do you always have to push doors open like this?" Katara wondered. She did not like the idea of the creaking calling attention to her whenever she entered a room. And she did not like the thought of— Tui forbid— being locked behind one of these old doors that were thick enough to muffle her screams. The hairs on the back of her neck stood.
But Sokka just waved his hand dismissively, picking up his discarded knapsack from the floor. "Eh, these doors are always open after the welcome dinner. We're, like, half a day early thanks to the winds and Bato's steering. Now let's get going, I wanna rest my sea legs so they can turn into land legs in time for dinner."
He squeezed into the crack between the double doors. Katara followed suit, tugging her knapsack through the gap. Her eyes fell on the vast room ahead of her, and her jaw dropped in awe.
This must be the Great Hall that Sokka told her about. The place where children from all over the world gathered, benders and non-benders alike. Four long wooden tables dominated the area. Towards the end of the hall was another long table, set on a raised platform. A great stone podium faced the rest of the room, its features carved into a magnificent bird that Katara recognized from the correspondence that her father received—a phoenix. Its wings, depicted in stone, furled outwards from the edges of the podium. She wondered if the Fire Nation had commissioned it from earthbenders, or if they carved it themselves. Somehow she found the idea of firebenders carving stone much less plausible than the thought of them forcing earthbenders to create something so unnecessarily opulent.
Katara's eyes scanned the lavish, empty space. As in the front hall, tapestries of the four nations hung from the high ceiling. Open windows almost reaching to the ceiling allowed slats of light and gusts of wind to filter in. Through the windows, Katara spied large courtyards flanking the Great Hall on either side.
"Pretty cool, right?" Sokka appeared at her shoulder again, sporting a smug grin on his face, as though he was responsible for the creation of the Great Hall. Katara rolled her eyes at her brother.
"I wanna explore. Where can we dump our stuff?" She asked her brother, shifting the knapsack on her back.
"But I don't wanna explore…" Sokka protested. "I want to sleep, Katara! It's barely noon and classes start tomorrow so I can't sleep in!"
Katara crossed her arms over her chest. "I said I want to explore. You don't have to babysit me, Sokka."
Sokka stifled a yawn and slumped his shoulders in resignation. "Fine, fine. But you better remember the way back to our quarters or else."
"Sure, big bro," Katara conceded, trying not to laugh at her brother's poor attempt at a threatening voice. She followed him to the corridor on the left side of the Great Hall— what Sokka called the "West Wing"— and the two of them clambered up one, two, three flight of stairs. The corridor on the fourth floor was blocked off entirely by another carved, wooden door.
Sokka sighed and shook out his canteen from his knapsack, dislodging some of his belongings in the process. He held the canteen out to her.
"Here, use this," he said by way of explanation. Bewildered, she watched him stuff some socks that have fallen onto the floor back into his bag before speaking.
"Uh, what exactly am I supposed to use it on?"
Sokka slapped a hand to his forehead. "Ah, right! I haven't told you about this bit," he said, pointing at the carvings on the door. Up close, Katara noticed the raised silver circle, about the size of her two fists combined, lodged in the middle of the door. Carved into its surface was the Water Tribes' trademark sickle moon and waves.
She raised her eyebrows at Sokka, waiting for him to explain.
"Look here, at the sides," he said, pointing at the notches on either side of the mound. "See, this is how we keep out other nations from snooping around on our turf. It's a lock that can only be opened if you can bend water through those two holes."
Katara's brows furrowed. "How do you get in, though?"
Sokka grinned, eyes sparkling, puffing his chest proudly. "I figured out a way to trick it. You just gotta…" He mimics dumping the contents of his canteen through the opening, "...slosh the water forcefully enough so the lock thinks you're a waterbender." After a pause, he scratched the back of his head, deflating slightly. "Usually, though, non-benders have to wait for benders to show up."
"Wow…" Katara's eyes widened in surprise. "That's seems incredibly unfair. Good that you figured out a way around it, though."
"I know! I'm a genius!" Sokka crowed. Suddenly tired of her brother's antics, Katara uncorked the canteen and led a wisp of water swiftly through the lock. The door swung forward on its hinges.
"Welcome to the Water Tribes common room," Sokka announced with a flourish.
The Water Tribes' ante-chambers were decorated profusely in blues and whites. Rugs made of white polar bear dog fur were scattered on the floor around low little tables. Katara spotted a stack of embroidered cushions lining the walls; she suspected these would soon be scattered on the floor, too, as soon as her future classmates from the Northern Water Tribe disembark from their ship.
Katara felt a rush of excitement at the thought of the arrival of other waterbenders. She rushed to the windows facing the ocean— belatedly, she noticed there were windows overlooking the enormous courtyard, as well— and threw the shell panes open. She welcomed the salty breeze and set her sights on the horizon.
Nothing stood on the straight blue line between the sea and the sky, though. She should have expected it, since Sokka told her they arrived earlier than expected, but the emptiness of the seas left a taste of bitter disappointment in her mouth. Crestfallen, Katara padded across the lounge to the narrow hallway. She figured she might as well explore the Academy before the influx of students could hinder her.
"The girls' dormitory is the first door on the left," Sokka explained from his spot on a polar bear rug, watching his sister stand hesitantly in the middle of the hallway. "The washing area is in the far end of the corridor, if you ever decide to get that traveling stench off of you," he chided as he untied his boots and extracted his sock-covered feet with a satisfied sigh. Katara wrinkled her nose.
"Maybe you'd like to use the washroom yourself, Sokka. Your feet stink," she countered, sauntering into the girls' sleeping quarters before Sokka could reply.
She was glad that she didn't have to share a room with her brother anymore. His snoring kept her up most nights, and, as much as she missed her big brother, she'd gotten used to the peaceful nights of uninterrupted sleep during the months he spent at the Academy the year before.
Katara surveyed the dormitory she would be sharing with girls her age. Wooden beds lined the walls, with dressers at the foot of each one. Cautiously checking if these beds showed any sign of ownership, she chose one beside a window near the far end of the long room. The windows here faced the ocean, as well— that must mean the boys' quarters faced the courtyard. She was sure it would get loud there when classes start. Katara smirked, suddenly glad she was a girl.
When she finished putting away her clothes (which didn't take a lot of time, since she didn't have much that fit the climate of the Capital), Katara decided it was time to explore. Keeping in mind the peculiar lock of the Water Tribes common room, she snatched up her own water-filled animal skin jug and tiptoed out of the dormitory.
She could hear Sokka's snores from the hallway and thanked the Spirits she didn't have to deal with his big brother meddling as she explored the Academy grounds. Now that she was free from his constant reminders not to make trouble, she exited the common room gleefully and ran up the next flight of stairs.
As she reached the landing above the Water Tribes' quarters, it became apparent that this floor had not been used for years, and for good reason. The ornate silver lock on the carved door blocking the corridor before her bore the swirling orb of the Air Nomads.
Katara approached the door slowly, disturbing the thick layer of dust on the carpeted stone steps. She tentatively touched the tarnished, discolored lock, the carvings barely visible in the dirt. In the gloom, she could hardly make out the notches underneath the layers of filth that coated the lock. It seemed the holes were clogged with muck from disuse. She wondered how airbenders used to get into their common room. Could Sokka figure out how to open it with his wily tricks? Were non-airbenders able to open these locks? Katara wasn't even sure there were Air Nomads who weren't airbenders, since their people were nothing but stories now. If there were non-benders among the Nomads in the Academy, they had to be warriors like Sokka. Surely they also figured out how to trick the lock.
Before she could inspect the puzzle any further, she noticed the scorch marks on the door.
A shiver of horror ran down her spine and she withdrew her hand sharply, imagining the surface of the door alit with flames.
Now that she was aware of the damage, she noticed that almost the entire door was coated in black soot. Did the Fire Nation try to break down this door during the Air Nomads' rebellion? Looking at the blackened state of the wood, Katara supposed that the doors held the power to keep out anyone who couldn't bend air. Did the firebending soldiers force an airbender to open the common room door for them when it wouldn't budge? Did they drag the helpless, defenseless children from their beds? Where were they taken? Were they publicly executed in the courtyards? Were they aware of the problem, even though they weren't part of the insurrection? Did they get a chance to fight back?
She understood the price for rebellion, but she did not understand why the children were punished for an act they did not commit.
Katara staggered backwards, her breath coming in gasps. She ran down the stairs until her boots clattered across the granite floors of the empty Great Hall and into the damp, hard ground of the courtyard on the right-hand side. Her head swam with images of small limbs and charred bodies.
She was no stranger to death, but death will never become her friend.
Katara forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. She surveyed the Eastern Courtyard, trying to bury the gruesome images that her mind conjured. The edge of the clear space was lined with shrubbery and trees she didn't recognize; the foliage stretched out into the towering mountain range that walled one side of the Academy. Stone benches lined the dark outer walls of the Great Hall, and at the end of the open space was a great stone fountain fashioned into two dragons intertwined. Water flowed from their gaping maws.
The mere presence of water invigorated Katara, driving away the mental pictures of fire and blackened bones. With water, she was safe.
She ran shakily to the fountain, sitting on its edge and dipping her arms elbow-deep in the pool of cool water. A bubble of laughter escaped from her lips as she allowed the all the tension she'd felt upon setting her eyes on the Academy slip away.
She played with the gushing fountain water as she'd played with the icy ocean back home— lightly pushing and pulling, disrupting the natural flow to bring ribbons of liquid around her arms, only to guide them back to their source without a single spill.
Unlike her training in the shores of the South Pole, her sweat mingled with the water here. She was aware of the addition of the salt to the freshwater of the fountain. She wondered if she'll ever get used to the Capital's heat.
Boom!
Katara nearly jumped into the pool at the unmistakable sound of explosion. Heart thundering in her chest, she faced the building across the courtyard, trying to discern the source of the explosion, assessing if someone got hurt.
Boom!
Another flash of fire flared in one of the windows of the upper floors, followed by angry shouting and glass shattering.
Katara gasped. This wasn't an accidental explosion, like cooking gone wrong. This was a firebender. There was a firebender near her. An angry firebender.
Without a second thought, she ran to the Water Tribes' common room.
Of course there would be a firebender there, she thought as her feet flew across the Great Hall once more. This is the Academy. I'll have to encounter a firebender one way or another.
That didn't mean she was ready to face one.
Belatedly, she realized that she was probably bending water in the courtyard across the Fire Nation's quarters. It felt wrong now that she was there, somehow, as though she encroached a place that she wasn't supposed to know about.
Chest heaving, Katara pulled up a sliver of water from her jug to unlock the common room door. Her shaking fingers couldn't thread the wisp of water through the infernal lock— with a frustrated growl, Katara banged on the door, hoping she was louder than her brother's snores.
The door swung open and instead of Sokka, she was met by a willowy girl with white hair.
Yue. Katara learned that was the name of the white-haired girl.
She was sitting across her now, in the long table of the Water Tribes in the Great Hall. Katara learned that Yue was a waterbender, like her, and that she was the only daughter of the chieftain of the Northern Water Tribe, like her. But Yue's tribe considered her a princess, and no one in her village has ever considered Katara a princess.
She liked it that way, though. She already had enough attention from being the only waterbender in the South Pole; she did not enjoy being treated differently just because of something she was born with.
Which was something Sokka had been doing so blatantly since they seated themselves in the presence of the princess. Not that her brother was groveling at Yue's feet— he just kept falling over himself to impress her because he said she had "really pretty hair and really pretty eyes."
Katara rolled her eyes at her brother, who was now telling a very overblown, obnoxious story about that one time they took down a tiger seal. Except he kept changing it to a tiger shark, which were next to impossible to be taken down by a loudmouthed hunter and an inexperienced waterbender.
Katara didn't correct him, though. Yue seemed to enjoy Sokka's stories, judging by the way her eyes sparkled with interest and how she covered her mouth when she giggled.
Ladling more of the five flavor soup into her bowl, Katara let her eyes wander over the other tables, where children her age from all over the world chattered and ate.
She hadn't realized how different their complexions would be. Their table was scattered with the familiar brown skin and blue eyes of the Water Tribes. The table closest to theirs, however, was filled with children whose skin were lighter than hers, their eyes different shades of green. Based on their embroidered gold and green robes, these were the children of the Earth Kingdom. Those sitting on the far end of the hall had to be from the Fire Nation. They were pale, and Katara could see that their golden eyes burned like their element, even from a distance. She scowled at the lot.
The only vacant table in the Great Hall was the one on the other side of the Water Tribe. Katara wondered what the Air Nomads looked like, what color their eyes were. She stopped her train of thought before she could actively recall the soot-covered door of the Air Nomads' common room.
She pushed her bowl away, her appetite suddenly gone.
"Hey, sis," Sokka stopped his rambunctious rambling to eye her five flavor soup. "You gonna finish that?"
Katara pursed her lips. "There's a whole table of food here, Sokka."
"Yeah, but five flavor soup's the best! All of it's gone now! Trade you my komodo chicken for it," Sokka pleaded, offering her his own bowl, which was filled with rice and a dish Katara wasn't familiar with.
"Fine, but I am not eating that," she nodded at the chicken, "It looks spicy."
"Alright, more meat for me!"
Sokka's whoop was immediately silenced by an admonishing shush from one of the older Northern Water Tribe students. Katara straightened up, noticing how the chatter in the Great Hall has silenced. All of the attention was directed at the High Table, where an elderly man had stood up from the center.
The man made his way to the phoenix podium, a calm, albeit tight-lipped smile on his face. His white hair was tied into a topknot, and his white beard reached his chest. His hands, folded into the sleeves of his scarlet robes, rested above his robust belly.
He had the kindest golden eyes that Katara had ever seen in a man from the Fire Nation.
This had to be Headmaster Iroh.
The Headmaster cleared his throat before addressing the audience in a slow, deliberate manner. "Welcome! Welcome to a new year at the Academy. I am pleased to see bright new faces in our midst. I sincerely hope your stay in these hallowed halls would prove most illuminating."
His eyes twinkled as he continued. "If you would allow an old man a few more words before you retire to your chambers: Despite our innate differences, the Academy is a place of unity.
"Each of you hails from a country of distinct culture and value. Fire, Earth, Air, and Water— these have shaped our land in ways beyond our capacity to comprehend.
"Fire is the element of power. The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will and the energy and drive to achieve what they want." He bowed his head towards the Fire Nation table as the occupants broke out a smattering applause.
"Earth is the element of substance. The people of the Earth Kingdom are diverse and strong. They are persistent and enduring." He said, amidst low murmurs of appreciation and nods of pride from the Earth Kingdom children.
"Water," he acknowledged the Water Tribe students with a gracious wave of his hand, "is the element of change. The people of the Water Tribes are capable of adapting to many things. They have a sense of community and love that holds them together through anything."
Katara felt her heart brim with pride at the Headmaster's words. Sokka lifted his goblet with a huge grin, and several others did so alongside him.
Headmaster Iroh smiled faintly at them before addressing the crowd at large. "I point out these differences not to draw distinction between the three remaining countries of our world; rather, I hope these encourage you to learn that what divides us can someday unite us. Understanding will help us become whole.
"Off to bed!"
There was a great scraping of long benches as students all around her got up from their seats. Katara reluctantly followed her peers to the Water Tribes' common room, still mulling over the Headmaster's words.
"Is he…" Katara muttered to her brother as they made their way up the stairs, "Is the Headmaster crazy?"
"What? No!" Sokka squawked. "He's just a cryptic old man, and some say he's just a glorified babysitter because he abdicated the throne, but he's not crazy. I think."
"He's the Fire Lord's brother?" Katara gasped. How could a man with such kind eyes be related to the man waging this never-ending war?
Sokka shrugged, unaffected. "Yeah. Hey, you want some Earth Kingdom egg custard tarts? I snuck some in, they were so delicious. Man, I wish Gran-Gran could make these…"
Katara was no longer listening. She bid her brother good night and made her way to her bed. The sounds of crashing waves lulled her to sleep almost immediately.
Maybe it was because she ate more than she was used to eating back home, but Katara had a very strange dream. She stood in front of the Water Tribes' common room door, which was covered in soot. Angry shouts came from inside, and she could hear the soft whoosh of fire being bent. I need to save them, Katara pleaded with the door, forcing herself to touch the soot-blackened surface. It swung open at her touch, and suddenly she was seven again, bundled in blue robes against the biting winds of the South Pole, shivering in the threshold of their hut. A tall man in scarlet armor stood with his back to her, his hands gloved in flames.
Katara awoke with a start, shaking and sweating. She tugged her blanket over her head, relishing the contrast of the stifling Fire Nation heat against the snow-filled air of her dream, and slowly she drifted back to a dreamless sleep.
A/N: I really enjoyed describing all of the tiny details of the Academy. Hopefully it didn't get too meandering. I decided to insert some Harry Potter references here, but rest assured the world here is not the same as the Wizarding World. Please let me know what you think! :D