Disclaimer: The following chapter is entirely fictitious. Any similarity to the history of any person living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional, except when specifically noted otherwise in the cast and crew credits. All celebrity voices are impersonated and no celebrities have endorsed any aspect of this fic.

Chapter Seventeen: A Real One

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"Listen to me, I'm not here to threaten you, I'm here to warn you," Zuko sighed in stress. It was going onto an hour since he had arrived and neither he nor Mai had come close to convincing anyone in the group that they were there to warn them about something real. The only person who believed them so far was Katara and maybe Tsuchi, but she was nowhere to be seen just yet, having stepped out just ten minutes after hearing her sister was dead. "You've seen it yourself, you just don't remember. Think back to when you first got that sword, Sokka. Why were you the one who was holder?"

"Because I was?" Sokka replied caustically. "The sword chose me."

"Do you know why the sword chose you?"

"I don't know, it just did! This is stupid, what are you getting at—"

"Who else tried to grab the sword?"

"I did, and then Tsuchi, if I remember properly," Aang frowned.

"See?" Zuko exclaimed. "And what do you and Tsuchi have in common?"

"Nothing, why?"

"Yes you do." Sokka and Aang exchanged looks of bewilderment accentuated with skepticism. "Both you and Tsuchi can bend more than one element. That's something that the Resistance absolutely hates. The reason why you were able to touch the sword was because you're pureblooded. Aang might be pureblooded, but because he's the Avatar and because he can bend more than one element, he couldn't have touched the sword. Same thing with Tsuchi. Actually, either you or your sister would have been able to take control of the knife, but you tried before your sister so it took you instead."

"So… the sword knew who they were?" Katara whispered inwards.

"Yes, it did. You don't realize what the Resistance is capable of—"

"So wait, this group you're talking about is actually called the 'Resistance'?" Sokka asked whilst cleaning his ear grotesquely with his pinky finger. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"Wait a minute!" Aang cried out, jumping from his slouching to off the couch and startling everyone in the room. "I remember why that sounds familiar! Sokka, remember when we went to that island with the raindrop grass blades and how we went into that cave and we found the knife? You grabbed it and then the wall next to us revealed this text! It said the sword was passed down from the Resistance!" Aang slowly began to contract back into the couch, his face began to fall, and his eyes suddenly began to remember more of what he was talking about. "It said it was made to end the war, and that the four nations would live in peace. But they would be separate. I remember… 'All elements must live on, but only separated.'" Sokka did not change his expression from his sour demeanor, but his eyes implied that he slowly believed what the Fire lord was here to explain.

"Something is going on then," Katara breathed. "If anything, something might happen."

"How concerned should we be?" Suki asked.

"They killed my father, they killed Hiashi, and they almost killed Mai and me while we were on our way over. What else do you want me to say?"

"Wait, they were the ones who killed your father?" Katara shouted from her corner.

"Yes," he answered her sharply. "Who else would have? No one but the Avatar would have had the strength to kill him, so imagine someone with both the ability to freeze a person and with enough manipulative mind powers to keep them from defending themselves properly."

"So wait a minute, so why exactly do they hate us?" Suki asked for clarification. "I don't really understand. We aren't mixed blooded, so what would they gain by killing us?"

"Well," Zuko began to say, but then he suddenly drew a blank. He was sent to warn them, but then that garnered a question he did not know the answer to.

"Well, aren't you all married?" Mai intervened. The group exchanged looks again.

"Aang and I aren't yet," Katara frowned. "Since the end of the war Aang's been travelling to master the elements."

"But I thought he already mastered them?" Zuko asked.

"I kind of did," Aang answered. "Don't get me wrong, Katara and Tsuchi were good teachers, but—"

"But, we weren't masters," Katara finished for him. "I was still a beginner myself, and most of what we learned was from waterbending scrolls, not an actual teacher. Aang mastered earth, oddly enough, but that was because Tsuchi learned from her grandfather."

"And Tsuchi taught herself to firebend by watching Fire Nation soldiers, but never actually learned it," Aang continued. "So I knew the stuff, and I was good, but it was amateur at best. My forms were crap so I travelled around to correct my forms."

"He just got back a year ago from the Fire Nation after finishing firebending," Katara finished. "We got engaged, but the ceremony won't be for a few months."

"Sokka's married," Aang smirked as he motioned his head to the back corner. "He found Suki again a year after the war."

"But that was six years ago," Sokka brushed off. He walked forward and leaned on the bench Aang was sitting on. "Why would they wait so long to try and kill us, assuming they even exist?"

"Do you have any children?" Mai asked the couple. Suki glanced at her husband for assurance and he glanced back before nodding gingerly.

"Our daughter," he said quietly. "But she was only born a couple of months ago… That can't be why they're here, right?"

"I don't mean this the wrong way, but it might be," Zuko muttered to him. From the corner Suki's face began to shrivel in a cocktail of anger and distress.

"No!" she screeched suddenly. "No one's going to kill her! I'm not losing another one! It won't happen!" In what seemed to be a rare display of emotion for the group, Suki quickly covered her quivering mouth with her hand and attempted to hold her face in an angered expression as best as she could, but she could not prevent the tears that forced their way out of the corner of her eyes. Sokka quickly strode over to the crying woman and embraced her tightly.

"I don't understand," Zuko mumbled quietly to Katara. "What happened?"

"They had a child before Awinita," Katara muttered back to him. "But he passed away."

"He was only two. It was the winter and I guess one of us left the window open in his room," Sokka answered as calmly as he could, but there was a strong sound of despair in his voice. "When we woke up the next morning… he was as cold as ice." Sokka stumbled over the last few words and clenched his jaw to contain his own tears, but it still threatened to tip itself over.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Zuko said to them sincerely. "I can't imagine how it must feel to lose a child, especially at such a young age—"

"Wait, Zuko, something doesn't sound right about that story," Mai whispered to the Fire Lord.

"What do you mean?" he frowned.

"It's Sokka, right?" Mai asked the Water Tribe man with a tone that sounded anxious, another emotional tone Zuko had not heard from her.

"What is it?" he said sharply. "You already made Tsuchi feel worse than she should have, and now you want us to feel just as bad?

"No, I have a question," she replied coolly. "You said you left the window opened, right?"

"I don't know, I guess," he growled. "One of us did."

"Okay, here is my question: who opens a window in the middle of winter?" Zuko's eyes shot from his head for she knew what she was implying, as did everyone in the room.

"What are you trying to say?" Suki asked, pulling herself away from her husband and quickly wiped the stray tears from her eye.

"You don't find it suspicious that you would leave a window open in the middle of winter, especially if it's so cold outside?" Mai asked them. As if a sudden surge of energy pulsed through her, Mai began to pace in the empty space provided for her. "How long have you lived here?"

"All my life," Suki responded curtly. "What's your point?"

"You've lived here for your whole life, and I don't know who he is, but you and your sister come from south, right?" Sokka knitted his brows together, suddenly becoming intrigued with what she was saying. "You both would have had the common sense to keep the window closed, or even to bundle him up extra, especially since it's so cold. This wasn't your fault. The Resistance has already been here."

The air in the room was dead. Anyone who tried or wanted to say something was unable to, for everything and anything they could say sounded out of place and ill said. "Are you saying," Suki forced the words from her mouth, "that my son was murdered?"

"Listen," Mai explained to the stressed mother, "I may not know you, and I don't complement anyone, but you seem like a smart person, you and your husband, so I know you would know to never open a window during the middle of winter, let alone leave it open at night. And you both have experience in cold weather, so if you did decide to leave the window open you would have bundled him up extra."

"Oh my god," Suki and Sokka both gagged, rushing to the door of their child's room. For surely whoever had done this before was going to come back now.

'-'

The sun was almost set, several seconds away from complete darkness except for the nightlight in the sky. It was ice on the other side of the glass panes, the edges just slightly frosted from the onset of the cold front that was striding past the village. The birds perched on the trees outside began to retire for the evening and the night animals began to rise. The nearby owls began to hunt and the ground animals were scurrying into new hiding spots. The wind blew the aroma of trees and salt water through the minute cracks of the modest cabin at the base of the mountain. In the back of the cabin was a quaint room, dark and silent for the infant with auburn hair sleeping peacefully in her crib. Adorable was demeaning and perfect was insulting to depict the little one who slumbered, hurting no one.

From the darkest corner of the room emerged a shadowy, pale, amethyst figure, stalking her prey, lurking around the edges of the wooden gates that held the child in. She gently put her hand in the crib and settled it next to the newborn's cheek, stroking it tenderly with the spider leg she called a finger. Murmurs came from outside the door and the figure could identify every one of them. Only one was anxious and she knew who it was, but it was not her time yet. Not just yet. She had to wait. Wait for the right moment, for if not, then she could ruin all she had worked so hard to maintain. What she was doing had to be done, whether she did not want to or if she did. The voices began to become much more urgent, and it was not just from the same one.

It's getting close, she mentally sighed. I best get ready. As carefully as she could, she scooped the child in her arms so as not to disturb her. She had the infant in her arms, still sleeping so peacefully.

"Hello, Awinita," she whispered ever so quietly to the resting baby. "Don't you look like an angel? Let's see if we can make you a real one."

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I posted a wannabe screenshot of this chapter. It's not finished and it's not very good, but I don't plan on fixing it any time soon. As always, I take drawing requests, and as always please leave a review on your way out. Until next time, Signing Off.