"It just isn't a good time to be turning sixteen, is it?" Hanna said to the girl, who was outside. "Come inside for some breakfast, Suki will be here soon."
Yuri moved through the motions once again. "I don't have the fans and I wouldn't ever fight with them since I'm not a Kyoshi warrior, but I can apply the technique to hand-to-hand combat, and once I get a job in town I can afford a weapon, eventually."
The old woman stepped out to the yard. "It's too bad you don't have a partner to spar with."
"You're too old to learn to fight Hanna, I'd need someone with experience, and I can't risk having a partner when I might end up using blood bending on them." Every thing she said, she said with a straight face and never interrupted her motions. "Suki taught me a few moves, but I already told her why I won't spar with her, and soon she'll be leaving anyways." Yuri went through the first sequence again, a bit faster, but she tripped a bit on the last step, and fell hard on her side.
"Yuri!" Hanna called out and ran to her niece, helping her from the ground. "Are you sure you're not being too hard on yourself?" She asked.
"Just help me walk over to that log. I'll be fine after I rest for a minute." The girl said through her teeth, wincing as she put pressure on her leg.
"I think you twisted your ankle, let me have a look at it."
"I'm fine, I need to keep practising, at this rate I'll be ready to take on one of the village's ten year old boys in about a year."
The woman sighed. "Will you at least eat some breakfast and please let me relieve some of the pain? It's your birthday for heaven's sake!"
Yuri's face fell. "It is, isn't it? You were right, it's an awful time to be turning sixteen."
Hanna tried to cheer the girl up. "And since it's your birthday I'm sending you into town when Suki gets here. She says she wants to introduce you to someone she's been training, and I want you to buy something for yourself." When Yuri's face perked up a bit, the woman said, "not a weapon, you hear me? You're lucky enough to be allowed to see the Avatar, though I made Suki promise to take you around in a Kyoshi uniform, just in case."
Yuri didn't say anything, and her guardian sighed heavily. "I'll bring breakfast to you here, just please don't move until I've had a look at your leg? I can heal a sprain easily enough, and once you eat something I'll let you keep this up until Suki gets here."
The girl sighed, and did as Hanna asked. Since telling the princess about her parentage, she'd had trouble convincing the girl to act like the young lady she was, and Yuri had become obsessed with training. While she refused to practice her bending for fighting, she had been secretly experimenting with it when she knew her Aunt wouldn't notice. Now as Yuri tried to put pressure on her ankle and winced, the girl had an idea. She pulled up the hem of her loose dress, and sure enough, her ankle had swollen to another half its normal size.
"I hope this works," She whispered, and held two fingers to the swollen ankle. Her skin became somewhat translucent, and Yuri could see the water in her blood that had surrounded the sprain, making it swell, as it glowed blue. As she concentrated, the swelling went down almost completely, leaving only the bruise from broken blood vessels on the injury.
Just as she took her fingers off the ankle, grinning with pride at what she'd done, Hanna came out with a bowl and a bucket. One held the girl's breakfast, the other water. "Put your ankle in this ice water to bring the swelling down, and if there happens to be a fracture, I'll heal it myself."
"I don't think that's necessary, Aunt." Yuri held out her bruised ankle to the woman. "I used blood bending to bring the swelling down myself. The bruise will heal in a few hours as long as I don't fall on my ankle again, I should be able to walk without a problem."
As the day wore on, Hanna watched as Yuri practiced the motions, her progress becoming obvious. Despite what the girl had said earlier, and the fact that her ankle was sensitive even while healing at an incredible rate, the woman was sure that very soon she would know exactly what kind of warrior Yuri was capable of being.
It was late afternoon by the time Yuri took another break, and when she did Hanna noticed something important. "Suki hasn't come by yet, I wonder if something happened?"
Yuri looked disdainfully at her simple loose dress, which had developed a hole. "I'll need to buy myself armour like Suki, or at least traveler's clothes, this dress isn't made for this kind of exercise." She muttered to herself.
"Didn't you hear me?" The woman asked, annoyed. "It's not like her not to keep her promises, and today being your birthday, she should be here."
"I heard you, but I bet Suki's fine. Dealing with some Kyoshi Warrior matter or other, it probably slipped her mind." She looked down at her feet. "And some proper boots too, these sandals aren't practical at all."
"Yuri of the Water Tribe, look me in the eye right now!" Hanna demanded. The girl obeyed with a look of surprise on her face.
"Now," the woman continued more calmly once she was sure she had Yuri's attention. "You and I both know pretending that Suki doesn't care for you any more isn't making it easier to forget her, and that the chances of her actually forgetting your birthday for something trivial are slim and none. So I want you to prepare yourself in that Kyoshi Warrior garb you have still hiding in your closet, and head into town to find out what the hell is going on."
"Y-yes Aunt." Yuri stuttered, and rushed into the house to do as she was told. Hanna sure is angry, and I don't blame her. The girl thought as she tied the knots to hold her headdress in place. I've been acting so off from normal, even though I haven't been neglecting my chores, I should be respecting her a bit more. She's no more my servant than I am a princess here on Kyoshi Island, and considering I only found out everything yesterday I'm acting pretty ridiculous.
Checking her ankle to make sure it was healed properly Yuri slipped on the boots that were part of the uniform. It had been hard to find a pair that fit her, since most Kyoshi Warriors had large feet, and Yuri's were almost nonexistent in comparison.
She nodded to her aunt when she opened the front door. "I'll be back in a few hours, maybe you should give me the money you planned to?"
Hanna nodded, and pulled out a small pouch filled with coins. "If you want, it should be enough to buy a good pair of boots that'll fit you better than those, but promise me you won't buy any weapons."
"I promise. I'll buy those another time, but hopefully I'll never need them."
"Also, be careful, I have a bad feeling in these old bones of mine, and I don't think it's from any storm nature brings."
Yuri left without really thinking about the warning, but started to run after the house disappeared behind the trees. The normal beauty she saw in the forest separating her house from the village whipped past Yuri in a blur of dark green. Adrenaline had begun to pulse through her as the girl thought about trouble in the village. Worry for Suki honed the girl's senses and though she tried to push the thought aside, something told her that all was not right for Kyoshi Island. Her suspicions were proved when she approached the far line of houses from the back, and didn't hear a sound in the entire village.
A voice boomed from the direction of the statue of Avatar Kyoshi. "Come out, Avatar! You can't hide from me forever!"
Yuri climbed up to the roof of one of the houses, and quickly skimmed down the row until she saw what was going on. Four great beasts rode into the village, three of them held two soldiers each, and all were wearing Fire Nation armour. The one who had spoken had his own steed, and Yuri guessed he was in command, but though she couldn't get a good look at his face, he sounded rather young, perhaps near her own age.
Still no one moved to comply with the man's wishes, it was as if the village itself had been petrified. When the leader spoke again, the three beasts moved forward, and Yuri felt a shiver down her spine. She moved closer towards the leader, and stopped suddenly when she saw a flash that was the Kyoshi Warriors. She saw them all crawl up to the roofs of homes like she had done, and run along them, knocking the men out of their saddles.
Looking down, Yuri watched as her best friend herself raced straight down the middle of the row, aiming for a head-on attack on the leader. She dodged his first fire-bending attack, and jumped over the second, preparing to land her own blow on his head.
Yuri had to force back a cry when she saw her best friend get knocked out of the air, and when she crashed to the ground the girl prepared to defend Suki with all she had. But another warrior got there first, and deflected the next blast of fire with her fan. Thinking quickly, The girl leapt from her spot, knocking the Leader from his steed like she'd seen the others do.
Yuri had knocked off his helmet when she pinned him, and one look at his face told her he was in fact only a boy of perhaps sixteen. When she saw the scar over his eye, she didn't allow herself to react. As soon as she knew it was safe to, she ran off in the direction of the other fire benders, hoping to get out of there before she was caught somewhere she wasn't.
Another Kyoshi Warrior took her place and the boy was surrounded by Suki and the one who'd saved her. When Yuri turned her back on them, she saw that two of the fire benders had gone missing. She pushed the matter aside and guessed that they had gotten knocked out somewhere or had run off. Part of her wanted to help the others fight the rest of the fire benders, but when Yuri saw something gliding above her in the air, she looked up from her hiding place to catch her first glimpse of the Avatar.
"He's so young," She whispered to herself, and the look of despair on his face made Yuri want to weep. She followed his gaze to the wooden Kyoshi statue, and a tear escaped her eyes as she watched it burn.
"There's no time to say goodbye." Suki's voice came from just behind her, and Yuri turned around to watch her converse with the Kyoshi Warrior who'd saved her. But she wasn't a Kyoshi warrior, because in fact, she wasn't a she.
Then the boy spoke and Yuri knew that she was right in guessing he was male. "I treated you like a girl when I should've treated you like a warrior."
Could this be the boy from the water tribe Suki told me about yesterday? She never told me she was going to train him. It's never been done before, training a boy in the Kyoshi fighting style. But from what I saw, he's not bad. Yuri was awed by the scene before her, and then realised that Suki had offered to Train her, even though it was taboo to have a foreigner become a Kyoshi Warrior. Suki was someone who believed that everyone should have equal rights, no matter where they came from.
Yuri didn't stick around to see what was going to happen next. The village was burning, and she knew only one person who could help put the fires out before the whole place was nothing but ash.
She burst through the trees to the front yard of the house and didn't slow as she approached the front door. "Aunt! The village is burning, there was an attack by the Fire Nation, looking for the Avatar! We headed them off, but we need help to drench the fires!" She called out loudly, fighting back tears as she remembered the Statue burning. "We can use the ostrich horse to get you there fast. Aunt, where are you?"
Her calls became desperate as Yuri went inside the house, looking from room to room, not finding Hanna in any of them. When she reached the kitchen, and smelt smoke coming from the backyard. "No," the girl gasped and ran outside.
The log that Yuri had sat on whenever she took a break from training was now a smouldering lump of charcoal, water puddles around it. At that moment, she saw the blood. It mixed with the water in puddles all over the yard, and though she was terrified, Yuri followed the trail to the far end of the yard.
"Yuri," Hanna croaked from the ground. "They came, they were looking for the Avatar, I-I tried t-to fight them… off…" The smell of burnt flesh made Yuri feel sick, and looking at her guardian's wrists, and the stumps where her hands should have been, made it worse. There was blood all over the woman's dress, and the girl gasped in horror as she saw the knife plunged into her chest.
"I don't have much… time." She gasped, "I need you to promise me you'll take care of the village, okay Yuri? You're a princess, be noble and brave."
"No, Aunt, I can heal you, I can use blood-bending, I can—" Yuri was interrupted by a sound that might have been a chuckle.
"I am beyond healing, Yuri. Just promise me you'll take care of yourself, all right? I couldn't fight them off, but you will be strong and brave, my beautiful… Princess Yuri." The water bender's last words were so quiet that Yuri had to lean in to hear them. All she could do is stare as the light faded from Hanna's eyes, as she passed on.
As Yuri watched the only family she had ever known die, grief took hold in her heart, and then gave way to anger. As tears spilled from her with no intention of stopping, the girl stood and staring at the ground—at the small puddles of blood around her and the pool of it all around the body of Hanna—she lifted her hands. Every drop floated up from the ground, every drop that had soaked into her Aunt's clothes and her own when she'd leant in to listen to Hanna's last words, and as Yuri cried, she pulled the blood together into the form of a man, and froze it.
Using only her bending, she carved the iced blood into the form, moving bits around until it wore Fire Nation Armour, subtract the helmet. The head and face she carved to look like the Leader of the army, complete with the huge scar over his left eye. This was completed in a matter of seconds, and when she was finished, her energy hadn't been drained even a quarter, as her anger supplied her with more power she could handle. The tears had dried on Yuri's face as she glared at the statue of frozen blood.
Retrieving the knife from the body only a foot away, the girl stood before the form once more. She held it like an expert, as the dagger somehow felt like it was a part of her, and extension of her hand. In one deft movement, Yuri cut a line in her hand.
"I promise you this, Hanna. I will find this man, and for what he brought to this village, what he brought to our home, he will die. Him and every one of the soldiers he commands." She said calmly and smeared her warm blood on the frozen statue. Then she screwed up her face in rage and plunged the dagger into the man's heart, screaming.
It exploded on impact, sending shards of red ice everywhere. Yuri was thrown backward, and dropped the knife when she hit the ground. It took a moment for her sanity to return to the girl, and when it did realization of her actions threatened to break it again.
She crawled over to Hanna's body, which was clean now from taking the blood out of her clothes. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Yuri cried intensely as she spoke. "I'm so sorry, I should have stayed, I would have been able to protect you, I'm so sorry."
She cried like that for nearly an hour before she felt someone lift her. Yuri didn't even notice who helped her walk back into the house, just that they held her close and lay her on Hanna's bed since it was on the main floor. The person pressed something into Yuri's hand, the one with the cut in it that had already healed by itself. Suddenly the girl was overcome by exhaustion and drifted to sleep, listening to the someone hum the song that Suka used to sing for her daughter and Yuri back when they were small.