These Wars We Live

Full Summary: A deeper insight into the pasts of Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Azula, and Aang; all through the view of the most unlikely characters. Questions will be answered as new questions arise. Rated "T" for scenes and themes.

Author's Note: Thanks and kudos to my reviewers: T.eh Panda, Anime-catdragon, Effie's Head, Seno, fire spirit, Guardiangirl1, and Beagle-luv. Glad you guys like the fic so far.

Anyway, I have great plans for Book Two. And according to my outlining, Book One will be about six chapters long. I don't know how much that will add up to in total, but I'm guess somewhere around 20 or so total chapters. I can't wait for Toph's story! She isn't my favorite character, but her history has always made me think: "What would it be like to be born blind, to the richest family in your village?"

I'm sorry for the wait. I think those of you who are watching me may have received a "chapter 3" warning thingy before this. I was actually trying to update this chapter but it wasn't completely finished yet. Not to mention the started school year and other difficulties that my computer and I encountered. So please forgive the wait and think more about the update. I'll be reading your reviews!

-Scropiored112

Book One: Water

Chapter 3: Losses

The riverbank by the Northern docks, one of the only rivers that ran through the South Pole, was the most remote place to be in the middle of the day.

At night and morning the riverbank crowded with fisherman and shipments smuggling food from the Earth Kingdom in exchange for freshwater fish. Of course, many times the young men would over spend their stay. They would grow a bit too attached to a young Water Tribe maiden, as they sometimes did. But with the war neither of the two would care, which eventually led to a small group of Water Tribe children who looked all too much like certain Earth Kingdom sailors.

Tales and gossip of the Fire Nation, as well as advances and victories, could be heard of from the same point of departure and return. No matter what, it was always possible to hear something new, get a confirmation for something old, or just start something totally different.

The shipments, including gossip, were carried to the main, central village. There they were departed, and the people of the Southern Water Tribe would go about their daily businesses—which, as Katara had noticed, mostly involved more gossip and talk of the Fire Nation and different family secrets. Gossip, in all frankness, held the Tribe together.

This is why it was good to get away from it all once in a while. And in the middle of the day, right around high noon, the Northern docks were as desolate and vacant as they ever could be.

"I'm never going to get this in time," Katara said to herself now, eyeing the scroll her Gran Gran had given to her years ago. "If only this wasn't so hard to read…"

Katara stared at the scroll resentfully, then flopped down in the snow. The scroll was an old gift, Kana had told her, which was more precious than Waterbending itself.

Why it was this precious, Katara couldn't understand. All Gran Gran had told her was to keep it safe, out of harms way, and to make sure that no one ever saw it. "The gossip in this town is like blood in an animal," Gran Gran had spat sourly. "It never stops flowing."

But Kana had let her guard down eventually. She told Katara that her late husband, who was a Master before his tragic death, had completed a collection of Waterbending scrolls that were the most extravagant and well written in the South Pole. They explained everything one needs to know about bending, from amateur hour to professional battles. Different stances, attacks tactics, defense strategies, and combined movements were listed in a total collection of one hundred scrolls.

Kana's husband died of disease before the shipment of his scrolls could be made to the North Pole—and before the Fire Nation attacked the South Pole for the first time.

"They burned every single last one of your grandfather's precious scrolls, but I was able to hide this one," Kana had said proudly, revealing the half-burnt scroll to an amazed five-year-old Katara. "I told everyone in the Tribe the scrolls were burned…I was actually planning to save it for a memory, because I knew they'd want to take it...but now you can have some of your Grandfather with you, just make sure no one ever sees this. Understand?"

Katara had taken the scroll, hugged her Gran Gran, and then went to sleep. In the morning she had sprinted to the Northern banks, waited for the people and ships to clear, and began practicing.

And now, five years later, Katara still couldn't get it right. The readable portions of the scroll were written in a strange, older dialect. And then there were the burned parts, which, unfortunately, were not legible at all.

Katara assumed the first readable position. Her knees were slightly bent, her feet were firm on the ground, her arms were bent at the elbow and her wrists were facing the silent river water. Slowly Katara breathed, exhaled, breathed again, and finally began moving her arms upward.

A large blob of water floated from the river, then exploded in midair and soaked Katara's pants.

"I did it!" Katara screamed, throwing her fists in the air. "Yes! Finally! FINALLY!" Katara spun around and then flopped backwards on the snow, reaching for the scroll that lay behind her. She held it close and kissed it. "Thanks, Grandpa," she whispered into the side pendants. Her dreams of defeating the Fire Nation never seemed clearer.

"Now to do it again," Katara said to herself, standing up and assuming her stance. She paused. But first I have to show Gran Gran…only so she'll believe I'm actually learning something.

Katara rolled the scroll and placed in confidently inside the chest of her coat. She began walking home.

Unusually, the village was quiet. And before anyone told her anything, Katara could tell something was wrong. She hoped it wasn't about the victory they had heard of this morning.

At first it was a rumor, it ran vivid in the lines of conversation. "Did you hear the victory near Gaoling? I've heard they're expanding their grounds." But soon it was confirmed, then confirmed again, by a sad sea merchant that had lost his family only a week ago. He had appeared in the Northern docks this morning. "The Fire Nation is expanding its grounds because of the victory near Gaoling."

Victories in the Earth Kingdom meant inflation of Fire Nation pride, a little emotion that sometimes would leak into the South Pole, as it did in Kana's time. That meant one thing: brace yourselves.

And that is exactly what the South Pole had decided—not only as a tribe, but also as a family. There was only one way to hold the Fire Nation off. The Waterbenders had to be sent out in two of the South Pole's vessels. It was simple. It was clear. It was the only way.

And it was how Sokka explained it flatly to his sister after she had returned from the Northern docks.

"They're just going to leave? Just like that?" Katara asked, looking from face to dismal face. Her family stared at the ground. Out of all of them, Katara and her mother were the only two that ever spoke of the war openly. "Today? They're just going to leave?"

But Kira was asleep in her husbands arms, ill with fever and anger, and so no one answered Katara's demands.

"Why can't they just protect us from here?" Katara inquired, her voice rising from confusion and sadness to anger and frustration, her feet beginning to pace the inside of the igloo. "Why does the Fire Nation always have to come up with something to mess with us? Why can't they just leave us alone? Why can't they just stop and leave us alone!"

"Katara," Kana whispered. "Stop."

Sokka stood up and walked to his sister. "I know it makes you mad," he said softly. "It makes us all mad. But anger doesn't do anything."

The air in the igloo was thick. Even Katara's father, holding Kira and Kana close, had stayed home from fishing today. It was as if they were already ready to go, a sign of pure defeat.

Their family, the igloo, the whole village…they all seemed so desperate. So sick of war.

"When are the benders scheduled to leave?" Katara asked her brother. Her temper had died down to the regular state of despair. "Today?"

"In a couple of hours."

"And when are they due back?"

Sokka stared past his sister and towards the exit. His eyes seemed unattached. "They didn't make a return date this time."

Hours passed, but they seemed more like days. The village was restocking on supplies. Everything the Earth Kingdom had brought in for the past week had to be saved and stored. Clothes, drinkable water, and food were stocked high in old storage chambers. Even though the idea was to bring the village together, they had never felt so apart.

There was a grand total of seven benders, each belonging to one, if not two or three, families. Four of the benders were husbands and fathers, while the remaining three were amateur sixteen-year-olds, only four years older than Sokka.

The fishermen who had decided to go with them were good friends of Sokka and Katara's father. They were strong, able-bodied men—most likely they had fought before—and there were ten of them accompanying the benders.

That didn't leave the village with much. Seventeen of their strongest warriors, their benders, their good friends, their fathers, their husbands, their sons…they would be gone in a matter of moments to fight a war that was hopeless on both ends.

At around high noon the villagers followed their seventeen men with lit candles. Children began asking unanswerable questions.

"When will you be back, Daddy?" Sokka overheard a young boy ask his father. "Tomorrow?"

His father shuddered slightly, hugged his son and pregnant wife, then answered, "Maybe next week." His wife looked up at him and kissed him slightly, on the cheek, as if not wanting to make his departure a big deal. Even though Sokka knew it wasn't polite to stare he coudn't help himself. The man's wife was crying, and so was her husband.

The men boarded the vessels like fish swim into a net, reluctantly and with uncertainty. The engines began. The younger sum of the benders waved to Sokka and Katara, to the village. The villagers waved back.

"Good luck," Sokka heard himself say as he waved to each somber face. "Good luck…" The vessel began to depart. More waving, more blowing kisses. The engines of the ships roared, and soon they were off.

If anyone wasn't affected, it had to have been Gran Gran, who waved happily at the warriors and then told Kira she was heading back home. "I've seen this before dear," she told her family quickly. "Maybe not the exact same thing, but something close to it. And unless you want to swim in tears, there's nothing to see after they leave."

It was the first major loss of power in the South Pole since the first battle that had taken place in Kana's time. And the village knew, because for the first time since the first battle, they had gotten together around a roaring fire, lit candles, and prayed.

There's always too much to pray for, Sokka thought darkly, looking at the little boy who had asked his father about his return. The little boy was now crying uncontrollably. His mother's face looked lost and confused. Trails of dry tears could be seen under her eyes and red bite marks showed vividly on her lower lip. Every now and then she would kick at the snow below her feet. Sokka lit a candle and thought about what he should pray for.

At first it was a question of "will the Avatar return?" That prayer was good for about 50 years, but soon people noticed that chances of the Air nomad's return had vanished with the other Air nomads a long time ago.

Then there was "may the Fire Nation face total defeat." But chances of that became slim when victories near Ba Sing Sei and Gaoling were heard of.

Finally, like right now, there was always "may our warriors face victory and return home unharmed and as one." Sokka didn't want to think about whether the chances of that would deteriorate eventually. He hoped they wouldn't.

He stood up frigidly and lit another candle, mumbled his prayers and resumed his position near his father and sister. The sky outside was beginning to darken. Clouds covered the quarter moon in a thick, inky film.

The families began moving candles near the entrances and exits of the igloos as furs were spread outside and inside for the night. It was time to go to sleep, but whether sleep would come or not was still an unanswerable question. Sokka and Katara took Gran Gran inside. Soon she was asleep.

"It's amazing," Katara whispered to her brother. Sokka wondered how she knew he was awake. "It's amazing how they can leave."

"And how the Fire Nation can make them," Sokka whispered back.

"Did I tell you I can bend now?" Katara asked, as if she had just remembered it.

"Katara—"

"No, really," Katara said in defense. "I did it this morning. You should've been there Sokka, it was—"

Kana released a loud snore, a sign that she wanted silence.

"I guess you'll have to show me then," Sokka whispered in a barely audible voice. "Maybe tomorrow or something." He could believe his sister. Maybe she could take on the Fire Nation single handedly at age ten. He yawned.

There was nothing else to say. In times like this, hope was no longer a nice feeling that was optional at times, because it became an instinct to survive. If someone didn't have hope they would die; from lack of sleep, from refusal to eat, from depression. They needed hope; they needed to believe that a ten-year-old girl and a blob of water could defeat the strongest Nation in the world.

Sokka yawned again and closed his eyes. Sleep came to the families in the form of jumbled dreams.