"One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."
– Master Oogway, Kung Fu Panda
ARC 1: Fire
The Boy in the Iceberg
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
Our world was once a peaceful place. Nature was respected, and life flourished everywhere.
The four nations all lived together in harmony.
Then one hundred years ago, the Fire Nation attacked.
The Air Nomads lived in sacred temples around the world. Every one of them was said to be blessed with the ability to bend their native element. Because of this, they were known to be highly spiritual and respectful. And yet, they were also fun-loving. At least, that's what I've heard about them in folk tales from my elders, and from visitors to my tribe.
I will never know for sure what they were like. And I can't ask them personally, because the first assaults from the Fire Nation wiped the Air Nomads off the face of the Earth.
Before the war, the Fire Nation kept to themselves on their volcanic islands. It was said that once upon a time, they were known for spreading joy.
Imagine that. That the people of the Fire Nation were once charming, energetic, and full of charisma and passion for life.
Yeah, right. Maybe. Once upon a time.
Now, they've nearly conquered the entire world, subjugating countless people, and killing those who dare to stand in their way.
The people of the Earth Kingdom lived off the land. They were sturdy, dependable, and widespread, flourishing from their direct connection with the Earth. Though they're not nearly as intimate and amicable as my people, the citizens of the Earth Kingdom are known for their helpfulness and loyalty. One thing they all have in common is an unbreakable spirit.
The war with the Fire Nation has hit them hard. But at least they're strong enough to take it. For now.
That's more than can be said for us.
The Water Tribes inhabited the poles. Surrounded by ice and snow, we could only depend on each other. We're a close-knit group, and we're mindful of the needs of one another. We survived by looking out for every member in our community. With rugged determination, we thrived off the boons of the sea. Even though we were isolated at the icy edges of the world, we were happy and content with our lives.
When the Fire Nation set their sights on us, they went about trying to conquer us by taking away our waterbenders. My grandmother was around to see their first attacks. She witnessed the capture of many family members and friends.
Though they were left ravaged and devastated, my grandmother's generation valiantly withstood the first attacks. Another generation emerged, and grew up in relative peace, untouched and unharmed for several years.
Then the second wave of Fire Nation raids began. As non-benders, my mother and father were lucky enough to survive this perilous period unscathed.
But there was a higher price to pay this time. All of our tribe's waterbenders were taken. Only the non-benders were left. Everyone who had survived had lost a loved one.
For a long while, what was left of my parents' generation resigned themselves to their failure. It seemed that our tribe's fate was to lose our inherent culture.
Then my generation came along, and my little sister was born.
During her infancy, my sister was discovered to be a waterbender. There was great joy and jubilation throughout my tribe. In the years following my sister's birth, the tribe took great care in protecting our sacred and precious secret.
Our efforts were still all for naught.
The Fire Nation attacked again, one last time. They were looking for the very last waterbender. And they succeeded.
My mother died in vain, murdered in cold blood by the Fire Nation. To make it worse, her sacrifice was for nothing.
I let my sister be taken.
Now all of our waterbenders really are gone.
We've never heard a word from the North Pole in many years. They've either been wiped out, or they cannot help us. Or won't.
Two years ago, my father and the men of my tribe left to fight in the war, leaving me to look after the tribe. There had been rumours and reports of the Fire Nation gaining the upper hand against the Earth Kingdom.
That's discouraging.
The war is in a critical and desperate stage right now. We're losing, plain and simple.
The Avatar, the master of all the elements, and the only one who can stop the Fire Nation, is missing. It was said that he vanished before the war even began. Or that the Fire Nation had broken the cycle when they massacred the Air Nomads.
Regardless of how it happened, it doesn't matter.
Without the Avatar, we don't stand a chance.
The Air Nomads are extinct, the Water Tribes are facing extinction, and the Earth Kingdom is slowly crumbling.
That's it.
We're finished.
All of our hope is gone.
Today wasn't a good day for Sokka.
Actually, he had never had a good day in years.
A quiet day, normally. A tranquil day, at best. But never a good day.
He had caught a substantial catch of fish for everyone back at the village – well, he believed it to be enough, hoped it would be enough – but getting back home was proving to be arduous.
Especially since his canoe had suddenly just found itself being pulled along at the mercy of a rapid current.
The boy jabbed his oar frantically into the swelling tide, his instincts and emotions degenerating into near-hysteria as his small boat entered an ice field.
Now, he wasn't fond of magic, or waterbending, or just bending in general – but at times like these, Sokka really wished he could manipulate his surroundings. And he wished that she was still here.
With the rugged skill of a mariner, built up by years of harsh experience, he managed to steer his canoe so as to narrowly avoid several ice floes.
But the current was still taking him along unwillingly. His canoe had been sucked in between two large glaciers, and the narrowing waterway made it increasingly difficult to avoid further hazards.
A medium-sized chunk of floating ice seemingly came out of nowhere and knocked the oar from his hands. With nothing to steer his boat, he was at the mercy of the polar ocean.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap!" he cursed as several more chunks of ice rattled his vessel, spinning it around in wild rotations. The boat was listing so hard from side to side that Sokka found it miraculously amazing that he hadn't been thrown clear yet.
What he saw next made him grit his teeth in horrified consternation. Two huge ice floes loomed ahead, the distance between them rapidly closing. The outcome was inevitable. His canoe would be crushed.
Grabbing his net of fish, Sokka stood up, balancing as best he could, trying to time the exact moment, right down to the second. It was either do it right, or get crushed to death.
Hollering, he jumped to the left as the floes collided with a crunch. Behind him, his boat splintered to pieces, the wood shrieking as it snapped.
He landed face down on the ice floe that he had jumped towards. It was smaller in size than the opposite floe, and his momentum carried him into a belly-slide towards the edge.
Desperate to stop, Sokka threw out both arms, releasing the net and using both hands to try and grip the ice. It worked.
But the net slid over the edge and disappeared below the sea with a splash. It took several moments before the direness of the situation hit Sokka with its full force.
His shout of anguish echoed around the icy wilderness.
He raged and screamed, all of his anger, fear and desperation surging out of him as he rampaged around the ice floe.
Water Tribe blood flowed through his veins, but right now his heart burned as fiercely as a furnace.
It just wasn't fair. His tribe was hanging by a thread as it was. He had been left in charge of the village when his father and the other men had left to fight. But it was falling apart. He was failing.
People were counting on him, and he was failing.
What hurt the most was how sympathetic and understanding they were. They didn't blame him, even when they should have. He didn't deserve their compassion. He had failed them. He had failed them before he had started.
He had failed them before he was born.
If he was any good, he would've been born optimistic, and caring and sweet. He would've been born with steadier hands and a sturdier body. He would've been – should've been – tenacious, confident, and bold. He should've been able to hunt and fight easily.
He should have been born a waterbender – if he wasn't so useless. But he was.
Instead, it was his younger sister who had been gifted with the ability to control their element. It was she who had brought a promise of light as the rest of them wallowed in darkness. She was the one who had given the tribe hope – a hope which they hadn't felt in a long time.
And then she had been taken by the Fire Nation.
And he hadn't been able to help her.
That day his mother had died, and his sister had been taken – and he had been useless the entire time.
Crying out towards the heavens, he grabbed his club and slammed it down against the ice, over and over. He didn't care if he was disrespecting nature and laying waste to his homeland like an ungrateful wretch. What good was his life now?
He would die. And the rest of his tribe would soon follow.
You have failed, Sokka.
The sound of cracking ice halted his dark ruminations. Thin fracture lines started spreading over the surface.
An obscene expletive popped into his mind, but his voice was lost before he could say it out loud. Instead, he grabbed the sack containing the rest of his weapons and sprinted for dear life. Doing his best to ignore the loud cracking behind him, he spotted small chunks of ice that formed a crude path towards a larger iceberg. It was a large sphere nestled inside the centre of a thick, wide floe – aside from the fact that the sphere was perfectly circular and massively humongous, it reminded Sokka of the meeting igloo back home.
He barely registered hopping across the small ice chunks and throwing himself onto the shallow slope of the glacier, his heart beating wildly in his chest. Rolling onto his back, he slowly sat up and surveyed the spot where he had just come from. The former ice floe had now disintegrated into miniature ice lumps not unlike the ones he had just scampered across. After several moments, his mind slowly allowed the desolate reality of his predicament to truly sink in.
He would not be returning home tonight.
Idiot! You should've let yourself drown!
But some cowardly part of him, buried deep down, was afraid of death.
He resented that part of himself more than ever, and that bitterness swiftly turned into outright hatred.
He hated himself, and that self-loathing expressed itself in the form of whacking the damn, stupid iceberg with his bloody club.
His father was far away. His mother was dead. His little sister was dead – yes, she had been taken prisoner, but those Fire Nation scumbags didn't have an ounce of mercy in them. Not even for a child.
He would never say it to Gran-Gran, lest he send her over the edge, but there was an unfillable void in his heart where his sister used to be.
Katara was dead. He knew it, he felt it, and he had accepted that terrible truth years ago, even if it meant that every waking moment onwards would be a living nightmare.
It would've been – should've been – so easy to kill himself back there, but some part of him had balked at the notion of ending it all.
The bitter side of his subconscious mocked him, taunted him for his spinelessness, and told him he had no excuse.
The rest of his subconscious – his empathetic and loving self – scolded him for thinking that way, reminded him that he had people who needed him, that others had given their life so that he and the rest of his tribe could live.
Mom and Katara died for you. If you don't want to let them down, then survive.
Survive.
Survive.
His mind pulsing with a new conviction, Sokka came back to his senses and stopped hammering away. His right arm, which held his club, dropped idly to his side as he pondered his next move. To survive, he would first need a shelter for the night. The question of how he would travel home could wait until tomorrow, when it was necessary to deal with that issue.
He examined his involuntary handiwork. His club had already started caving in a shallow depression in the spherical ice wall. Either he was stronger than he thought he was, or the ice was weaker than it looked. In the end, he decided that both possibilities didn't matter – he would soon have shelter for the night, and that's what counted.
Just as he swung his club again, the impact resounding with a crack, a bright glow of blue light glimmered on the other side. Sokka stepped back, eyeing the iceberg warily. He couldn't see anything which could've caused the phosphorescence. He would have to walk around to find out more about the situation.
Well, what are you waiting for, Sokka? Go and check it out!
An encouraging voice in his head advised his heart to follow, but the boy hesitated, thinking the idea to be ludicrous and crazy.
You've got nothing to lose. Besides, it's what Katara would do.
It's what Katara would do.
That was enough for him to decide his next course of action.
Grabbing his weapons bag, Sokka cautiously made his way to where the blue light was being emitted, his club held at the ready.
However, when he finally laid his eyes on the source of the light, his entire body went slack. His hands loosened and dropped what they were holding, and it was all he could do to just keep standing.
Frozen inside the iceberg was a young boy. He sat with his fists joined together and his legs crossed, in peaceful repose. The boy was bald, and he seemed to have arrows tattooed on his forehead and hands. Those tattoos seemed to be the apparent source of the blue light. Despite his frozen state, the boy's face betrayed no signs of anguish or torment – and that was what unnerved Sokka the most.
Well, what are you waiting for? Free him!
The voice in his head scolded him again, reprimanded him for having second thoughts.
His body running on pure instinct right now, Sokka was only acutely aware that he had picked up his club again and was hammering away at the spherical walls of the iceberg once more. Using double-handed blows, Sokka soon found himself making a series of rapidly-spreading cracks across the iceberg's surface.
Suddenly, a decisive blow caused the multiple cracks to connect together like the patterns of rope on a fishing net. Underneath the surface of the ice, the blue light glowed brighter than ever. Sokka took this as a warning sign and threw himself onto the ground, off to the side.
And just in time too, for pure light overwhelmed his senses as the upper half of the ice sphere exploded upwards, sending gusts of cold wind shooting out around the immediate area.
The icy air seized up Sokka's lungs, and for several frantic moments he couldn't breathe. Taking deep breaths to regain control of his body, he finally managed to look up when the wind had subsided to see a beam of pure energy reaching towards the heavens.
On the deck of a Fire Navy patrol boat, another teenage boy was observing the light show with great anticipation and interest. His own head was bald, with only a short ponytail at the back to signal to others that he was an exile. A burn scar wrapped around the left side of his face, from the eye to the ear – a mark of disgrace from a failed duel.
A dishonoured prince though he was, the teenager still held hope that one day he could redeem himself in the eyes of his father.
And now, he had his chance.
"Uncle!" the boy called to a middle-aged man who was sipping some jasmine tea as he studied a pile of cards. The man hadn't seemed to notice the sudden change in scenery, but the boy had some patience as his uncle was getting old.
"Uncle, do you know what this means?"
A rhetorical question, but one the boy hoped his uncle would indulge in.
"I won't get to finish my game?" the man answered, sounding disappointed.
Though the answer wasn't what he wanted from his guardian, that didn't deter the fire of conviction that had ignited in the boy's heart.
"It means my search is about to come to an end. That light came from an incredibly powerful source. It has to be him!"
The man, Iroh, breathed wearily, resignation settling into his aging bones.
"Or it's just the celestial lights," he said to his nephew, "We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don't want you to get too excited over nothing."
"You may think that capturing the Avatar will be your ticket home, but you have only served as a pawn for your father. If you could only realize it," the old man thought, but he didn't have the heart to say it to his nephew. Zuko still had a great deal of his innocence intact, in spite of the large burn scar that streaked across his face – an eternal mark left by a cruel parent on an unwanted child.
"Please sit," Iroh continued, beckoning his nephew to spend some time with him, instead of mulling over his perceived shortcomings and failures, "Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming jasmine tea?"
His nephew's aura suddenly burned like a fusion torch.
"I DON'T NEED ANY CALMING TEA! I NEED TO CAPTURE THE AVATAR!"
The exiled prince turned towards the bridge to yell a command.
"Helmsman! Head a course for the light!"
In the frigid waters of the South Pole, a steel vessel began to turn, bringing its passengers closer towards the crossroads of destiny.
As the light faded away, the young boy, still glowing, slowly floated to the top of the newly-made ice crater.
Sokka grabbed his spear and raised it warningly. But he needn't have done so, for after a moment, the boy's energy stopped glowing, and the small figure turned from an eerie blue to a worldly yellow as he fell from the sky.
"Catch him!" the voice in Sokka's mind told him. Big brother instinct surged out of his heart, and as he caught the younger boy in his arms, he welcomed back the familiar fraternal feeling. Even if it brought back painful memories of his mother and his little sister, he had missed the need to feel protective over a loved one.
With the child safe and sound in his arms, Sokka could take a closer look.
The boy wore yellow robes, complete with a red shawl and burgundy boots. Sokka vaguely remembered tales that his grandmother would tell him when he was little, of a time when the people of the world lived in harmony, when there were four nations instead of three. Of a time when humanity had only known peace.
This boy was not from the Water Tribes – that much was obvious. He couldn't have been Fire Nation either, and no one from the Earth Kingdoms dressed like this.
That means you're looking at…!
Before Sokka could finish the thought, soft moans arose from the boy's mouth.
Free…
Free…
I'm finally awake, and I'm free…
Those were the thoughts that circled inside the head of the young airbender as his grey eyes slowly fluttered open.
His pupils dilated gradually as light entered his world for the first time in ages. Blinking to focus his vision, it became apparent to the airbender that someone, a teenager from the looks of things, was staring at him in close proximity. He could also feel the warm hands of his saviour at his back, cradling him.
Finally, he found his voice.
"Please… come closer…"
The older boy did so in response, curiosity and concern etched on his features.
"I need to ask you something…"
"What is it?" the teenager asked.
"Will you go penguin sledding with me?"
"What?! Are you kidding me?!" the older boy recoiled, his arms setting the airbender down on the snow, "Not to burst your bubble, kiddo, but right now we have more pressing issues to worry about rather than penguin sledding."
"Oh…" sighed the airbender, disappointed.
A low rumbling behind him soon changed his mood, however.
"Appa!" he cried ecstatically, racing up the slope of the crater and jumping onto the head of his loyal sky bison, "Are you alright? Wake up buddy!"
"What is that?!"
The young boy turned from his position on the bison's nose to look at his new friend, who had just come around the entrance to the other side of the crater.
"This is Appa, my flying bison."
"Flying bison? Yeah right," sniffed the teenager.
"It's true," the boy protested, a little hurt by the brusque nature of his newfound companion.
"Look kid, you never even told me your name."
"Oh, right. How rude of me," the airbender thought as he gently alighted on the snowy ground. He strode towards the teen, right hand outstretched.
"I'm Aang."
"Sokka," the older boy replied, warily taking a hold of his hand with his own gloved one and giving it a little shake.
"So, um, I'm guessing you're from the Southern Water Tribe?" Aang asked, eyeing the teenager's clothing more prudently.
"Yeah," Sokka answered cautiously, not in the mood to establish small talk, "But I'm kind of stranded far away from home, at the moment."
The Water Tribe boy gestured around with an arm, and soon Aang found his bearings in the icy wilderness.
"Do you know which way is your tribe?" he asked Sokka, who pointed towards a certain direction.
"You know," Aang continued merrily, "Appa and I would be glad to give you a lift!"
"I'd definitely appreciate that," Sokka replied, a hint of a smile forming on his lips.
"You might want to hang on then," Aang said, grabbing a hold of Sokka's hands. With a short burst of effort, he had airbent the both of them up and into Appa's saddle. Aang landed gracefully, crouched on his feet.
Sokka, on the other hand, landed face-down for the umpteenth time that day.
Aang made his way back to the head of his animal companion and took the reins that were attached to its horns.
"Okay, Appa, yip-yip!"
The bison responded to the command of its closest companion, and leapt into the air with a roar…
Only to come crashing down into the salty polar water with a splash.
"Um… I think Appa's just a little tired," Aang said bashfully, as the mighty beast began to paddle gently through the currents, "A little rest and he'll be soaring through the sky. You'll see."
Sokka bit back a sarcastic remark. There was something he needed to know.
"Hey kid! Hey, Aang!" he called out to the younger boy who was perched on the bison's head.
"Yes?" the young airbender turned his head, smiling back at him, glad to continue their small-talk conversation.
"You're an airbender, aren't you?"
"Sure am!" replied Aang cheerily. Sokka's next words made his blood freeze, however.
"Well, do you know what happened to the Avatar?"
"Oh, no. I didn't know him. I mean, I knew people that knew him, but I didn't. Sorry," Aang answered. A yawn suddenly came over him. For reasons he didn't know, he suddenly felt very tired, despite having just woken up from an icy slumber.
Sokka knew that the young child was hiding something, but he didn't want to press the matter now.
"We should get some rest," the teenager advised, "It's gonna be a while before we get back home. Goodnight, Aang."
"Goodnight, Sokka," replied Aang, just as he saw the older boy disappear back into the saddle to turn in for the night.
A feeling of guilt formed inside the airbender's stomach, but his fatigue quickly helped to push it down.
From somewhere behind him, he heard Sokka snoring, and the sounds of a fellow human being at rest soon lulled Aang into his own drowsy state.
Just before he closed his eyes, he let himself sprawl backwards onto Appa's head, and made sure that both of his hands were still clutching the reins.
And then he shut his eyes, and drifted off into the land of dreams.
Aang's ice dome is already at the surface for Sokka to stumble across. The universe has decided to give Sokka the historical moment of awakening the Avatar from his icy slumber. Yeah.
PUBLISHED ON = 25 / 01 / 2019
REWRITTEN ON = 25 / 07 / 2019