Sorry about the speed of chapters going on at the moment, I've got lots of end of year tests on at the moment so I really need to lay off the writing for a bit and get some school work done. Apologies for future delays on chapters, things will pick back up hopefully around next week or the week after!

Enjoy reading the new chapter!

; )

Chapter 4

Kaiya opened one eye sleepily. All she could see was a blurred outline of the room she was sleeping in. She closed her eyes tightly and contemplated on the dream she had just had.

"That was horrible" she said to herself. "I can't believe that I dreamed that I got banished from the city!" she chuckled sleepily at her own foolishness.

She sighed and slowly sat up. She needed to go down to help with breakfast, or there would be blood. She stretched and opened her eyes properly.

"Argh!" she screamed

This wasn't her bedroom. There was only one bed, not two and the window looked over a courtyard, not her back garden. There was blue cloth draped everywhere and a fine mirror in one corner, a wash basin in the other. At the opposite end of the room a fire crackled merrily in a small fireplace. Next to the fireplace was a chair which all her clothes were sitting in a neat bundle. Her bag was sitting on the floor next to it. At the very far corner of the room sat four, plump looking bags. Three of which, on closer inspection, held her own possessions from her bedroom and the other contained clothes and stuff she had never seen before.

She looked down at herself. Someone had undressed her; she was in her white undergarments. Kaiya sighed and walked over to the chair and started to put on her normal clothes, a traditional water tribe tunic with a split skirt and a pair of dark blue trousers underneath. The bottom and other edges of the tunic were trimmed with white fabric and it stopped just under the knee. She bent over and pulled on her black boots. On her arms went the pale blue fabric wrist guards she always wore.

She stood up and walked to the mirror. Looking at the reflection she made a face. All she could see was a scruffy dark haired 10 year old girl. Her eyes were Blue, but that was nothing new, she saw them every day when she looked at Kouyo. Her hair was a dark brown and it curled softly half way down her back. She watched herself in the mirror as she fashioned it in her usual style. Two braids curled in a loop to her forehead. She got the idea from a picture of the great water bender Katara she found in a book. Instead of the plain hair loops she braided them; Kaiya thought the effect was neater. She let the rest of her hair flow down her back. Last she fastened on the necklace she always had to wear and always resented it. It was an engagement necklace, pale green stone on a green band. It was crudely caved, a few wavy lines and a dot in the centre. She sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror again. She wasn't beautiful, but she would do.

She went and sat on her bed, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She sighed and lay back on the crumpled sheets. What had happened to her? Why was she here instead of home? It was all really strange. She couldn't remember anything from yesterday. It was all a blur.

She shut her eyes and thought harder about yesterday, something must have happened. She squeezed her eyelids harder.

Everything flashed before her, the slave-dealers, the frightened children, the Water bender and his report, Master Perrou's angry, angry face. Then anger and the ground bucked and knocked her over.

She began to shake. A sob burs out of her and she cried out in pain, she was banished from her own people. She was to leave and not return for at least four years. The ground beneath her started to shake.

The door to her bedroom burst open and a woman came in. She braved the rocking earth floor and staggered to Kaiya. Pulling the distraught girl into a tight hug, she crooned softly to her.

"Calm down, calm down." She whispered "you'll be ok"

Kaiya shuddered and felt the earth stop moving. She pulled away from the woman and wiped her tears away.

"Sorry" she muttered

"That's alright, pet" Said the woman "I'm Greta, by the way, I'm a high priestess here"

"Oh, like my sister…" Kaiya said a small smile on her face.

"Your sister is a high priestess?" the woman looked slightly baffled

"No, her name is Greta too" Kaiya explained

"Oh, that makes much more sense." Greta laughed; she stood up and walked to the door. "Come with me, the council wanted to see you as soon as you were awake, we have a few things to sort out"

Kaiya gulped and followed Greta; she had a sense of foreboding about this.

They walked through the corridors of the clean, white temple. Greta knew exactly where she was going but Kaiya got hopelessly lost after the second turn. At last they ended up outside a massive door. Greta nodded her head.

"Go in there, they are waiting for you" she said

"You're not coming in too?" Kaiya asked

Greta shook her head "I have other duties to do yet"

"Oh."

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Greta reassured the slightly panicking Kaiya "They won't bite" Greta patted her head and walked away.

Kaiya walked to the huge door and placed her palm on the ornate designs. Her palm was sweating and her heart seemed to be beating so hard it could explode out of her chest at any moment. She gave the door a gentle shove; it smoothly swept open leaving Kaiya standing in the open doorway of one of the most interesting rooms she had ever been in.

It was mostly decked out in blue fabric, the stuff was everywhere. Like a plague it covered every motionless object in the room. Each cloth was edged in the finest embroideries money could buy. Ma had saved for months to buy a cloth like that to decorate the living room. There was a calm pond in the middle of the room and six men were sitting around this small pond. They had their heads bowed and were motionlessly staring down. Each of them wore the white trim on the bottom of their robes indicating that they were high priests.

There were no windows in this room; it was lit by strange white candles. Instead of an orange flame they emitted an eerie white flame. There were thousands of these candles up near the ceiling giving the illusion of a night's sky. To complete this image there was a huge silver orb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. This, Kaiya assumed, had to represent the moon.

"Come, Kaiya" one of the men had noticed her presence. He indicated to a blue cushion opposite all of the men on the other side of the pond. "Sit down"

Kaiya cautiously took a step further into the room. The Priest who had addressed her nodded encouragingly. Kaiya relaxed and kept walking across the room to the cushion. She knelt down and arranged her tunic so it was sitting right and then turned her attention to the six men in front of her.

"Kaiya, you are aware of the fact that you have been banished from the city for a total of four years?" One of the men began.

"Yes" her voice came out as a croak

"We would like you to tell us what happened yesterday with the pirates." One of the others continued.

"Um…" Kaiya began, she was nervous in front of all these important people. She didn't know where to start, at the beginning of her morning with Ma's lumpy porridge or at very end of the day when the pirates attacked. She decided on halfway in between.

"My friends and I have this place we hang out on Sundays, the day we all have free. It's a cavern just off the cove, about a 10 minute walk from the city's west wall. We go there and have fun…" Kaiya went on to tell them about how they had just been getting ready to go back to the city when the pirates struck. She described what happened and what she did to stop them. She then told of the men and the water bender who had come after and how they had lead them back to the city.

After she told them what happened in the training hall she gulped, and stopped. Looking down, she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. These people disapproved of women water benders too; they would not be very sympathetic to the unfairness of her banishment.

"We knew of your lessons with Shaiya Ruggasson" said one of the priests. "We have always kept an eye on you"

Kaiya looked startled, these people had known everything. Why hadn't they dobbed her and Gran Gran in?

"We think that the rule that woman are not allowed to be benders is unwise, history has told us that we need to be prepared for any threats to our nation, if that means training the women, so be it."

Kaiya knew her mouth was open and shut it quickly. "If you think that way why don't you help us?" she demanded.

The priest was already shaking his head. "We can't interfere; if we do it may result in chaos."

Kaiya opened her mouth to argue.

"We know, we want to do something too, but if we interfere it would be seen as a revolt to the chief of our tribe."

Kaiya looked down, put that way, it did make sense.

"We are not here to discuss why we do things, Pah." Another of the priests spoke to priest that had been talking.

Pah nodded, "yes, we are here to tell Kaiya about the water tribe Avatar."

"Really?" Kaiya asked "Why would you want to tell me something like that? It's not like it's anything to do with me, Right?" she gazed around the circle of men; they were all serous faced and watching her intently.

"To understand we must tell you everything, Kaiya, this may be a long story" Pah explained, he took a deep breath and began...