(A/N)- Yooooooooo!
Trying something a little different this time. This idea was nudged/coaxed out of me by ObeliskX (for which I'm very thankful, would never have had the motivation on my own). It is basically an excuse to explore Genderbent Kataang.
A few notes, before we begin:
1. Only the kids have been genderbent, the adults are the same. Certain plot points were just not quite as workable in a fully genderbent universe.
2. Most chapters will cover canon material, but I'm not going to strictly limit myself to canon. So this isn't going to be a full word-for-word rewrite of the show just with genders swapped. I want the freedom to go down different rabbit trails.
3. Even with canon scenes, not everything is going to be 100% a transcript of the original show. Sometimes I'll stick pretty close (like with this chapter), but sometimes I won't.
4. If there's a particular scene or scenario you want to see, feel free to request it.
With all that out of the way, let's get to it!
Disclaimer: It would be dangerous indeed if I owned Avatar. Very dangerous. Mwah-ha-ha.
Beginning
The frigid air nipped at their skin as the boat drifted with the current. His sister sat up in the prow, bone spear poised over the water, staring intently at the little flashes of silver just underneath the surface.
"It is not getting away from me," she muttered under her breath.
Katar sighed at her seriousness, leaning out a bit over the side. The fish were skittering around by the back of the canoe as well. Katar peeked back briefly at Sokki, but she was focused on her task. Nervous flutters pinged through him as he slipped one hand out from its thick fur mitten and extended it over the water.
There was a pull, a gentle tug, and then a wet pop as a small bubble of water, with a gleaming silver fish encased inside and swimming happily, burst from the surface.
Katar's heart leapt excitedly and he gave a whoop, both hands flailing, swirling around to try and keep the bubble together as he raised it above the boat.
"Sokki! Sokki I caught one!" he called. He turned with a grin to show her. "Look! I caught—"
Distracted, he didn't keep careful track of the bubble's path. As Sokki raised her spear to throw it, the end punctured the bubble's surface tension, dropping the contents onto her head. Katar heard her shrill gasp from behind him and by the time he'd finished swiveling towards the prow the fish and water bubble were gone and there was just Sokki, glaring at him with her hair dripping and her collar soaked.
"Oops," he said sheepishly.
Sokki shook out her arms, flinging droplets. "Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?" she complained, setting her spear down and wringing out her hair.
"It's not magic it's waterbending," Katar corrected irritably. "And it's—"
"Yeah, yeah," Sokki cut off, "an ancient art unique to our culture blah blah blah." She rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm just saying that if I had weird powers I'd keep my weirdness," she emphasized, "to myself."
"You're calling me weird?" Katar said incredulously. He leaned back in the canoe, crossing his arms. "I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water."
Sokki had been leaning over the water, her sleeve pulled up, doing just that. She froze, flushing at having been caught doing something so unfeminine, and hastily yanked down her sleeve, rolling up and thwacking her brother's arm with her fist.
The canoe teetered with the motion, then all of a sudden seemed to bump against something in the water.
Thump!
The water tribe siblings grunted as they were jostled, then found themselves streaking along rapidly, caught in a fast current and no longer gently drifting.
The peaceful arctic ocean was now a deadly maze of ice.
Sokki grabbed up her oar, digging hard into the water to try to push them out of it. The canoe thumped and grinded against sharp ice floes they barely managed to dodge. Several appeared directly in their path and Sokki jabbed the water forcefully to avoid it and send the boat to the right, only to find more obstacles dead ahead.
Pulse beating nervously, Katar grabbed both sides of the boat and leaned over his sister's shoulder. "Go left!" he yelled. "Left!"
If she attempted to steer in that direction, he didn't see or feel it. The canoe hit the ice floe head on. Pushed by the strong current, the prow dipped under the water's surface and disappeared.
The rest of the canoe followed seconds later, taking on water as it capsized, spilling the siblings out onto another floe.
Katar hit the ice and slid, almost all the way to the far edge. He held in his breath and dug in his mittened hands as he stopped, just short, of an unpleasant dunk into the icy water. The tension in his body held for a moment, then relaxed as he slowly pushed back from the edge.
He sat up with a sour look at his sister. "You call that left?" he said.
She rolled herself upright, annoyed. "Oh, you don't like my steering? Well maybe you should have..." She made sloshing gestures with her hands. "...waterbended us out of the ice."
Katar fumed. She knew he hated it when she mocked his lack of skill at bending. "Water-impotence" she sometimes called it.
"So it's my fault?" he sputtered.
Sokki reached for her spear, the only thing that hadn't sunk with the boat. She was already dreading the long, treacherous journey home, empty-handed it looked like at this point, unless she could somehow manage to spear a fish or two along the way. The empty feeling gnawing at the pit of her stomach mingled with the quiet dread of explaining the lost canoe to their grandmother and the fatigue from the already too-long day. Maybe it wasn't fair to take it all out on her brother but she had already been in a bad mood before his little water bubble trick so she really, really didn't care.
"I knew I should've left you at home," she grumbled. "Leave it to a boy to screw things up!" She jabbed the tip of her spear into the floe in disgust. "Ugh! You guys are so useless!"
Katar felt himself reach the boiling point. Sokki had been snappish with him all day and he'd had enough of it. He stood up, fists clenched by his sides, quaking with indignation. "You," he snapped at Sokki hotly, "are the most man-hating, immature, nut-brained—" As he ranted his arms swung back angrily, sending the water spraying behind him in sharp bursts. "Ugh! I'm embarrassed to be related to you!"
A column of water hurled by Katar's ranting hit the base of a large iceberg behind them.
It gave a loud CRACK! as it fractured, a huge fissure splintering up the left side.
Sokki had been ignoring her brother's outburst, but upon hearing the crack, looked up, startled, and gaped at the huge gash in the mountain of ice.
Her eyes widened in alarm.
Katar didn't notice, continuing to air his grievances. His words spilled out like he was an over-full sand sack that had just been punctured. "Ever since mom died, I've been the one doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier," he vented, pointing at himself. "Pretending to be a warrior!" he spat.
The crack in the iceberg widened.
Sokki raised a timid hand. "Uh... Katar?" she squeaked, pointing fearfully.
"I do all the cooking, all the cleaning, I patch up all the nets—" Katar listed, smacking his right fingers into his left palm one by one for emphasis. "I even wash all the clothes!" His face soured at the reminder and his nose wrinkled, remembering something unpleasant. "Have you ever smelled your dirty socks?" he challenged her.
His fists clenched again.
"Not—" he snarled, "—pleasant!"
His agitated gestures were once again accompanied by an ominous crack splitting through the iceberg behind him.
Sokki sat up on her knees, frantically holding up her palms to placate him. "Katar, calm down!" she cried, watching the splintering ice in abject terror.
"No!" Katar shouted, still angry. "That's it! I'm done helping you! From now on, you're on your own!"
The words were punctuated by a final blast of water that shot back to collide with the iceberg.
There was a rending and glass-like shattering as hairline fractures spread through the entirety of the giant chunk of ice.
His sister's expression paled and Katar finally turned around and saw what she saw: a mountain of ice breaking apart and threatening to come down on top of them. He gasped and took a step back but it was already too late. The hairline fractures were coming apart, splitting open and dropping chunks of ice into the water.
With a final crackling the iceberg crumbled, toppling, displacing the water and sending a huge wave towards them.
Katar and Sokki both flattened, grabbing onto the edge of the floe, Sokki throwing an arm across his back to help him stay on as they were nearly upended by the wave. Katar felt his heart stop and worried for a moment they were going to flip over, and join their sunken canoe.
But the wave subsided, after pushing them quite a distance, and the floe slid back to a level position and bobbed up and down dizzyingly.
It took a few moments more for his breathing to steady.
Sokki was the first to find her voice again.
"Okay, you've gone from weird to freakish, Katar," she complained, uncurling from his side like he might be contagious.
Katar gaped at the conspicuous gap where the iceberg had been, at the choppy waves still subsiding. "You mean... I did that?" he said. All of that? he thought, astounded. That iceberg was like thirty feet high!
"Yep," Sokki confirmed. She sounded oddly... proud of him. "Congratulations," she teased, nudging him with her elbow and a giving him a smirk. "Guess you're not so impotent anymore, little bro."
He might have had a sour response to that but he didn't get the chance to dish it. A strange, bright blue glow had appeared in the water, just underneath them. Bubbles erupted from the surface, followed moments later by a large, florescent ball of ice.
The water it displaced shoved their floe back once again, and the siblings wobbled and tilted as they were rocked harshly by the waves.
They gasped up at the spherical ice chunk, bobbing up and down like some kind of giant fishing lure. It looked unnaturally formed, perfectly circular, and the eerie glow from within its center seemed to tingle in their hair, like the light itself was charged.
Slowly, Katar and Sokki got to their feet, mesmerized.
What is that? Katar wondered. How is it glowing?
He took a few steps towards the edge of the floe, trying to get a closer look without actually getting close.
There was something within the iceberg, silhouetted by the light. A large hulking mass, with horns and a wide tail. And a second, smaller figure just below.
It looked like... but it couldn't be.
Was there a person inside the ice?
Katar peered closer.
The figure certainly looked human... Small, with gentle feminine edges. Curled up in a lotus position. A child?
He squinted, starting to make out the figure's features. It was a girl, long hair falling softly behind her back. She was as still as death at first, which is why it sent a jolt through Katar's heart when she suddenly opened up her eyes.
They glowed shockingly white, which should have frightened him, but all Katar could think in that moment was, She'll suffocate in there!
"She's alive!" he exclaimed. He reached back towards his sister, grabbing her arm and pulling her forward so he could draw the club strapped on her back from its sheath. "We have to help her!"
He had the club out and was hopping over the floes towards the iceberg before Sokki could blink or even register his actions. "Katar!" she yelled in frustration, turning only to extricate her spear from the ice. "Get back here!" she shouted, running after him. "We don't know what that thing is!"
Katar wasn't listening, already swinging his sister's club into the side of the glowing ice orb.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
A hollow thud rang out with every strike. Katar put more force into it, using all his might. He had to get her out!
On the fifth blow, the head of the club broke through the ice's surface.
CRACK!
There was a terrible hiss as air burst forth from the gap, tossing both Katar and Sokki back. The iceberg began to split up its center. When the cracks reached the top, the whole dome fell apart, throwing up a huge beam of blue light.
The beam shot up, dazzling, blinding, stabbing the sky as if it was a physical thing too long contained in the ball of ice, and Katar and Sokki felt the tingle of its power even more strongly.
It was such an odd sensation. Like hairs were standing up all over his body. Katar shielded his eyes until he felt the light subside. For a few more seconds it burned against his retinas, until his eyes adjusted and he could see clearly again.
Sokki had attached herself to his arm sometime during the blast. Her fingers were tight around his bicep but relaxed slightly as they shared a glance. The light around the iceberg was fading fast. The mountain was now a mound, with an open-top crater. Katar pushed up with his palms and stood, dragging Sokki up with him.
Her grip tightened on his arm and she raised her spear, pointing it towards the top edge of the crater.
The figure that had floated so still in the ice was moving, staggering upright, coming over the crater's edge. The stilted, awkward movement, along with her strange arrow-shaped tattoos—creepily glowing white like her eyes—made her look... frightening. Like some kind of angry spirit awakened from slumber. It made Katar begin to regret his decision to break the iceberg open.
Sokki brandished her spear as the figure stood upright, her other arm shoving into Katar's chest, trying to move him behind her.
"Stop!" she threatened, ready to throw her spear at the first sign of violence.
But all that happened was that the light disappeared from the girl's eyes and arrow-markings and she swooned, groaning softly as she pitched forward.
Katar's apprehension and fear vanished and he gasped, pushing past Sokki to catch the girl's small, fragile form before she hit the ground.
For being frozen in the ice, her body was surprisingly warm.
He held his breath, gently uncurling from around her.
Her eyes were closed; soft, fluttery lashes speckled with bits of snow. She was still slightly pale and blue from the ice, her skin chilly to the touch. She was tiny—couldn't have been much older than twelve or thirteen—and so very light. He was almost afraid of breaking her.
The blunt end of Sokki's spear came into view as she cautiously poked the strange girl in the head.
Once. Twice. A couple more times in rapid succession.
"Cut it out!" Katar snapped, throwing up his arm to ward her off. She wasn't roadkill, for heaven's sake.
The girl in his arms gave a murmur, stirring. Katar turned back to her, anxious, very gently setting her down against the base of the crater.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. They were a pretty gray color, like stormclouds or the churning depths of the ocean. They widened and she gave a small gasp, looking up at him.
Katar felt some kind of warmth in his heart. No one had ever looked at him with such awe before. Like she was amazed to see him.
She spoke up, softly. "I need... to ask you something..." she whispered weakly.
"What?" Katar asked. She wasn't going to give him a last request and then die was she? That would just be awful.
Her next words did nothing to assuage his worries.
"Please... come closer..." she strained.
Cautiously he leaned down, offering a smile as he felt the strength of her breathing and how quickly she was already warming up. A little more reassured now, he asked her, "What is it?"
She was silent a moment. Then—
"Will you go penguin sledding with me?"
She lit up with a bright smile, eyes happy and hopeful, beaming at him.
Katar felt his heart give an unexpected dull thump and stutter, startled and caught off-guard. "Uh..." he stammered, feeling a slight burn in his cheeks and a weird queasy rolling in his stomach. "Sure? I—I guess?"
Was... she asking him on a date?
(A/N)- The universe has been established, the plot has been set in motion, and Katar has met girl!Aang and started to feel some very odd sensations in his chest area about her. I hope you enjoyed, dear readers!
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