Black Snow
The small girl caught the snowflakes as they gently tumbled to the ground, everything was white. It would steal your sight if you looked at it for too long the old women would warn, snow blindness they called it. Still she stared at the vast whiteness that melted sky and earth together, only protruding ice gave a hint of a horizon. But the snow started to fall faster and heavier filling the air. Her older brother took her arm and began to head back to their village. He knew enough to tell when a storm was coming.
"Sokka, its black!" she exclaimed.
"What is" but then he noticed it too.
Black snow falling against the white. The children stared in wonder and grimaced as it landed on their tongues.
"It tastes like burnt food" Katara crinkled her nose at the strange snow.
"It's ash" Sokka half whispered as he caught a piece in his gloved hand. He watched it melt leaving a black mark on his glove.
"Sokka, Katara!" their mother ran up, she looked frantic as she dragged them to their home. All around children where being put in small, hidden, safe places. The men were holding old, half rusted weapons and the old, those who could remember the black snow looked out across the sea, fear filling their milky eyes.
"What's wrong mommy why is the snow black" Katara clutched her mother's skirt, the adult's fear and uncertainty affecting the children now.
"Go inside and hide, don't come out no matter what, do you understand?" she squeezed both her children tightly and kissed their ash and tear streaked faces, then she was gone in the crowd. Sokka led his little sister in to the igloo and wrapped some furs around them. Still, only for their ragged breaths, they huddled in a corner, listening.
The noises where terrible and strange, metallic. Then came the screams and flashes of light, like flickering candles only bigger.
Her mother's name was screamed and she could not sit in the dark any longer. She threw aside the furs and ran. Through the ash and fire she ran, around the battling figures as red clashed with blue she ran. Then she fell and for the first time in her life felt hot. Not the warmth from the cooking fire but heat, wild and dangerous. Over the huddled girl a tall figure stood, fire blazing in his hand. All she saw was red; everything else was blurred by the tears. Just as he raised his hand a wall of blue was in front of her and then it was falling. Those moments were a mess of mixed colours as the world flowed into tears. Her mother lay perfectly still on the snow, she screamed, she shouted but all sound was muffled. Then she was sobbing against Sokka as he shook, desperately trying to be strong for his little sister. Red covered the snow as black fell from the sky.
With a scream Katara woke up, there was no snow just the stone walls. For a moment the old terror and loss clawed at her heart, threatening to break her down into a sobbing heap on the hard floors, to abandon hope. But she refused to give in and dressed herself in her blue garments and motherly confidence then left to make breakfast for her makeshift family. By degrees as they woke and came out talking and laughing the smile she has carefully applied slipped into a real one. Sokka walked up behind her and gave her a small hug that told her everything was okay, then he stole an extra bowl of food and ran off to the others.
Both stood that night at the edge of the river and as was their tribe's custom placed a small candle on a small raft of sticks in the flowing water under the moons watchful light. Perhaps it would reach the cold waters of their sea and light the ice over its inky depths.
This they did in remembrance of the day the snow fell black from the sky and turned red upon the earth.
The day their mother died, the day of black snow.