Chapter Text
Kya is twenty eight when she is summoned to Whaletail Island.
It’s the first time she has been this close to Earth Kingdom waters, and on a clear day you can see Kyoshi Island from the top of the lighthouse. The Southern Air Temple is hidden by a layer of clouds, but the mountain range that houses it is barely visible at the horizon.
She is greeted by the Admiral of the Southern Fleet and the Commander of the Southern Raiders.
“Captain Kya, it is a pleasure to meet you,” Commander Yon Rha says, bowing deeper than necessary. The man is older than her by several years, about Jeong Jeong’s age maybe, and one of the few of her rank or higher who has ever seemed polite during their first encounter.
She returns his bow with the same respect. “The pleasure is mine, Commander,” she bows to the other man. “Admiral Haguchi.” As she sits down in the free seat at the low table and accepts the tea an ensign pours her, she regards the two men. “Congratulations on annexing the Southern Water Tribe.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Haguchi says with a smile. “It appears the blood witch escaped to the north pole after all, the coward. There were no benders, it was easy pickings.”
A shudder goes through Kya at the mention. The waterbender had killed someone she knew from basic during her escape, and left her fellow inmates to rot. They don’t know how she did it, but the blood vessels of her victims had all burst like overpumped pipes. She sips from her tea to chase the cold from her bones. “It’s a victory that has been a long time coming.”
“That it is,” the admiral agrees. “Now we need to secure that victory. His Majesty has decided to make the Southern Water Tribe one of our colonies instead of stamping it out entirely. The climate is terrible, but the savages have found ways to make food last longer at sea and during off seasons, and those techniques would be invaluable for future naval endeavors.”
Kya hums, going over her lessons. “There’s also blubber. It can be made into candles, used as machine oil and as fuel for lamps. It’s easy to use and refine. They harvest it from orcaseals.”
“And that type of thinking is why you are perfect for our endeavor,” Haguchi beams, pointing at her. Kya blinks in confusion. “We are currently planning a division of capable individuals to oversee the process of civilizing these savages into proper humans. I have seen your file. Top of your class, went toe to toe with several benders in your training, weapons expert, gifted with strategy and politics.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And that has nothing to do with my heritage?”
Haguchi waves her off. “You have, what, one Water Tribe grandparent? Ridiculous, though the simpletons at the southpole might be more willing to listen to you, given your coloring. They are so stuck in their tribalism, those savages. But no, we chose you entirely on your credentials, Captain. Your file speaks for itself.”
“You would receive a promotion,” Yon Rha finally says. “To Commander. You would have practically free reign over the colonization of the pole and only answer to the Admiralty and ministers in Caldera. All before you are thirty, it’s a chance many of your fellow captains would kill for at your age.”
You too? Kya wonders but instead opts to sip from her tea again. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, that was true. She still wondered if she was offered this chance wholly on her merits and not based on her bloodline. She was the sole heir of one of the highest ranking noble families in Caldera, and the skirmishes at the border were getting out of hand again. Had her family pulled some strings?
Did it matter?
Kya bows where she sits. “It would be my honor.”
-
The southpole is a wretched place. It’s cold and barren and void of beauty.
Kya steps off of the gangplank, flipping up the fur collar of her maroon coat as she surveys the harbor they had built in the time between the conquest and her arrival. The huts and tents of the savages were encased by a high ice wall with only a single entrance, the elaborate arc half-collapsed. Without a waterbender there was no way for them to repair that. Her subordinates had erected tall buildings made from treated wood and stone, courtesy of some earthbenders from the other colonies. The outer walls were layered with snow against the loss of heat, if she remembered her research correctly.
A sharp gust of wind blows by and loose ice crystals are slapped into her face. It burns unlike fire, but burns nonetheless.
“Commander Kya, ma’am?”
She looks up to the young man who had approached her, by the sheen in his eyes she can tell he’s a firebender. As another gust of wind passes her by and makes her shudder she begrudges him his built-in furnace. “Yes?”
“I’m Lieutenant Hitoshi. I’ll show you to your quarters.”
The southpole is a wretched place. It’s cold and barren and void of beauty.
And it was her new home.
-
The water savages don’t take kindly to her.
She looks like them. She’s a woman. She’s Fire Nation. She’s a race traitor. She’s an ashmaker. She’s a colonizer. She’s the enemy.
The Fire Nation hold on the pole is kept solely by their lack of benders and their abundance of the same. There are frequent acts of sabotage, of attempted assassinations, shots at outright murder.
If there is one thing the southpole has in abundance and common with the upper echelons of society, she writes in a letter to Piandao one night. It is a gaggle of misogynistic men with egos bigger than Wan Shi Tong’s feathered ass.
His reply comes with a long, slim and padded package.
If the southpole seeks to emulate the trappings of high court, he writes. Then perhaps you should do the same.
The package contains a broadsword made of volcanic glass, gleaming red in the light of the midnight sun. The pommel has a lotus engraving. It’s beautiful.
She misses her friend terribly.
-
Piandao’s suggestion is genius.
“Lieutenant Hitoshi, who was the leader of the tribe before the acquisition?”
The young man blinks at her, then looks through the files on his desk. “Someone named Hakoda, ma’am.”
She gives her thanks before she steps through the half-collapsed arc into the territory of the savages, walking up to one of the women sitting by a fire. The weather is nice, for the southpole, and she apparently wants to savor the sunlight and lack of biting winds to cook outside. She stiffens when Kya approaches.
“Hello,” she greets with a light nod of her head. “I would like to speak with a man named Hakoda. I understand he used to be the leader of your little…” she purses her lips. “Village.”
The woman’s eyes are the blue of the deep sea as opposed to Kya’s summer waves. “What do you want from my son?”
“Have a civilized discussion, so far possible,” Kya replies neutrally. “I expect him in my office in an hour, if you would let him know, please.”
-
Hakoda is a tall man with wide shoulders and eyes like the summer sky.
“You requested me?” He asks with a deep, wary voice, looking her up and down.
She gestures at the chair in front of her desk. “Yes, thank you for accepting my invitation.” They both know denial was out of the question, but Kya learned to be unerringly polite when she was still a child. “So, you used to be the leader of the Southern Water Tribe?”
“... yes.”
“Good,” she nods, taking out some parchment and an ink stone, preparing to take notes on the conversation. “Before we begin I would like to stress that nothing you say here will have negative consequences, so long as you remain polite.”
“With all due respect, I find that hard to believe.”
“Because I am Fire Nation or because I’m a woman?”
“Because I find it hard to trust someone who works against her own people.”
Kya pauses, folding her hands in front of her as she meets his eyes. “I might look water tribe, Hakoda, but the last drop of water blood in my family was my grandfather. I am as wholly fire as any other man and woman under my command. You would be wise to remember that.”
Hakoda scrutinizes her for a moment. “Before or after?”
“Before,” she answers after a moment. “There was no treason on either side, and I am a woman of my word. I asked you here for a civilized discussion on the future of this colony. Please understand that I ask for your opinions because I want to; it is certainly not the norm for colonials to be included in their governance to such a degree.”
He looks at her for several seconds, still as an ice sculpture. “I want to shake on it,” he says, extending his arm. She looks at it quizzically, and a small smirk tugs at his lips. “It’s a warrior’s handshake, we clasp each other’s forearm and shake on an agreement.”
Kya nods, rising slightly from her seat to clasp his arm and shake, once, before she lets go and sits back down, finishing making her ink. “I understand that your people see us as intruders, and there is little I can do to change that. However, I am tired of your attempts to undermine our rule, so I am willing to make certain concessions in exchange for your word to cease these acts of insurrection.” She throws him a look. “This is a permanent situation, Hakoda, and I can either make this easy or hard. Right now I am willing to make it easy.”
“How do you want to go about this, then?”
He’s open to it, that’s a start. “You can ask for something for your people. If it is something I can agree to, it’s settled, and I will see to it that it’s honored. I can only do this within the constraints given by my superiors, naturally.”
“Naturally,” he deadpans. He mulls it over for a moment. “In day to day life, I would like for us to be able to handle disputes amongst ourselves, and by our rules.”
Kya leans back in her seat to mull this over. “With disputes in everyday situations, you mean things like ‘he broke something of mine, I want it replaced’? Things like that?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that is possible, it will cut down on our administration, I do ask that no Fire Nation laws are broken during these rulings, and anything bigger than property damage will still be under our jurisdiction. Is that alright with you?”
Hakoda nods. “... thank you.”
She waves him off. “You are subjects of His Majesty and under my care. It’s my duty to ensure peace within this colony by any means necessary. What else?”
“You have started educating our children.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes?”
“I would like it if they were still taught to read and write our native script.”
Kya hesitates. His first request was easy enough and the goal of the colonies anyways. Make them able to self-govern as Fire Nation vassals and retain minimal military presence. Cultural questions were different. “You understand that as a colony of the Fire Nation you are to adopt our culture and civilize.”
“You have eradicated our benders,” his voice is hard, but there is no heat, only cold fury. “Is it too much to ask to let us keep the pitiful remnants of our identity? What will a way of writing do to prevent us from following your laws?”
She bites her lip. Her orders were to assimilate the southpole into the Fire Nation, make it a colony like Yu Dao. But Yu Dao hadn’t adopted a pure version of their culture. There were bits and pieces of earth in their fashion, food and artistry. Their artisans were famous across the burning isles. Their festivals are just slightly more earth than fire.
“How much of your culture do you deem essential to keep in order to maintain peace going forward?”
-
The water savages are wary of her concessions, and her subordinates wonder if she did the right thing to make so many.
They get to keep their script. They are allowed to continue their oral traditions as long as they also adopt songs and stories of the Fire Nation. Shaved hair is no longer allowed, but all other traditional hairstyles are.
Hakoda and Kya spend two sleepless weeks going through their ceremonies and adapt them to incorporate Fire Nation standards enough to appease her superiors and let them keep as much of the Water Tribe spirit as possible.
She lets them keep ice dodging, but demands it be opened to both sexes. The Fire Nation has gender equality and it is non-negotiable.
They get to keep their winter solstice celebration unchanged in exchange for wholly adapting the summer solstice festival of the Fire Nation.
Funeral rites are a hot topic of debate. They agree on funeral pyres and the ashes to be scattered at sea, with prayers to Agni, Tui and La, for they are all kin.
-
Slowly, things settle.
Sokka yelps as the snow around his feet freezes, and Zuko can only sigh as he stops in his tracks. His best friend angrily tugs at his legs, slowly melting the ice as he mumbles curses about annoying little sisters.
He thinks they ought to visit with Uncle and Azula one of these days to remind Sokka who was truly cursed with a horrible little sister.
“Where do you think you are going, Sokka? You and Zuko promised to help me train for my ice dodging ritual!”
Sokka whirls around, finally free of the ice, only to duck with a startled shout as Katara bends a snowball at his face. “Stop that, you brat!”
“Don’t be such a baby!” She sticks her tongue out at him in a remarkable display of maturity, and Zuko sighs again, quickly grabbing the back of Sokka’s coat before he can attempt to wrestle a waterbender surrounded by snow.
“She has a point,” he reminds his friend. “We promised to help her.”
Sokka huffs, crossing his arms with just as much maturity as his sister. “But she can just waterbend her way through the stream, it’s pointless!”
“I did that once!” She yells at him, and some of the snow behind her moves with her waving arms. “And that was because you steered the rudder wrong and almost crashed us into an iceberg!”
“I did not!”
“You did,” Zuko deadpans, ignoring the way Sokka spits sparks in indignation. “Let’s just help her, or she’s going to tell on you to Auntie and Uncle.”
“Yes, listen to your boyfriend,” Katara smirks, and Zuko is suddenly much less inclined to help her.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Sokka shouts, attracting the attention of some of their classmates, who snicker and quickly run off when he glares at them. “Stop saying that.”
“Make me,” she dares. This time Zuko doesn’t stop Sokka from pushing her into the snow, because he’s honestly not happy about her spreading that rumor either. He bends down to thaw Sokka out of his frozen grave, while Katara snickers. This was promising to be a long day.
-
“Sokka! Steer us to lee!”
“I’m trying!”
Zuko skids over the wooden boards slick with spray, the damp rope cutting into his calloused palms. With a deep breath he steadies his footing, drying the floor with firebending, before he adjusts his grip on the rope and turns the sail back into the wind. Behind him Sokka shouts in relief as the rudder finally does what he wants. In the front Katara lets out a deep breath, breaking an incoming wave before it can hit their ship.
She frowns while she does it, and Zuko wonders what her problem is. She’s a great waterbender, considering she didn’t have an actual waterbending master to teach her, and instead learned alongside him and Sokka, modifying the kata for her element.
(Zuko tries not to think about why she didn’t have a master of her own element to teach her)
If she used her bending during the ritual she’d pass with flying colors, unlike him. He needed two tries because he just doesn’t have the mind for sailing and tides like her and Sokka do. But she only used it when she didn’t have a choice, and it almost sank them several times already.
Zuko doesn’t get girls.
“Watch out!” Sokka’s warning comes just this side of too late, but Katara still tries to push water between the bow of their ship and the razorsharp edge of an ice float. It’s not enough, and the whole right side of the hull is cut apart like paper.
“Fuck!” Katara curses, attempting to try and seal off the damage with ice, but the water is entering faster than she can close the hole in her panic. Zuko sees the moment she decides to jump ship and barely manages to take a deep breath before she catches all three of them in a whirlpool of icy water and propels them onto a far off, larger ice shelf.
Their landing is hard and characterized by lots of curses their family can never hear and wafts of steam as Sokka and he begin to dry themselves off. “What the fuck was that, Katara?”
“Oh shove it, Sokka,” she grumbles, flinging the water off of her with a deep scowl. “I don’t need your stupid whining right now.”
“Whining?” Sokka huffs, kicking some sludge her way. “I don’t get you! You only ever use your bending when it’s already too late! What’s your stupid problem?”
She throws up her arms. “I don’t want to get through my ice dodging ritual with waterbending! I want to do it the right way!”
“Using bending isn’t forbidden, though,” Zuko frowns, brushing some leftover snow off his sleeve. “It’s supposed to make sure you are a good judge when steering a ship, that includes when to use bending to keep the crew safe.”
“That’s easy for you guys to say, you are normal! I’m just some stupd waterbending freak who can’t even bend right in the first place!” Behind her the iceberg towering above them cracks, and he and Sokka exchange wary glances. “I want to prove to people I’m not some crazy blood witch in the making! If I can get through the ritual on my own, without bending, then they’ll have to stop treating me like I’m lesser!”
“No one who matters thinks that, ‘Tara,” Sokka tries to calm her down, but it doesn’t work.
Katara laughs derisively. “Oh please, you know I’m right. The only ones who don’t think that are the old geezers and my family, big whoop,” she snorts. “Or am I supposed to think it’s a good thing that the people clinging to the old ways think I’m some kind of savior? In case you forgot, twenty years ago I would have been shipped off to a prison just for being born.”
“That’s not true,” Zuko cuts in. “You’re Fire Nation, we don’t lock our own people up for their bending.”
“Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have been-,”
“Yes, you would have been,” he throws up his hands too. “Agni above, ‘Tara, you’re nobility, no one would have dared to lock you up. And no one will give a shit when it’s time for you to marry because your family’s almost as rich as mine.”
Sokka snorts. “Exactly,” he turns to his sister. “Seriously, ‘Tara, what people think doesn’t matter. You’re a great bender, you even taught yourself how to heal from scrolls , that’s more than Zukes and I can say for ourselves.”
Katara blows a strand of hair out of her face with a scowl, but her stance is mellowing out a little. “Really?”
Sokka rolls his eyes. “Yes, really, you brat. So please, for the love of Agni, use your waterbending before we get stranded in the middle of nowhere next time, okay?”
She narrows her eyes. “Dick.”
“Fair,” he nods, reaching for her head and ruffling her hair. “Now if you say that word around mom and dad I’ll make your life miserable. For some reason they always blame me for your language.”
“For some reason,” Zuko mutters under his breath.
“Wherever could they get that idea from?” Katara raises an eyebrow, carelessly flicking her wrist.
Behind her, the iceberg breaks apart in a cloud of icy fog and a flash of light.
-
“That was me?” Katara blinks at what used to be a large iceberg, now neatly split down the middle. At its foot a kid, he couldn’t be older than her, lay motionless in clothes far too thin for the season.
“Yep,” her brother groans from somewhere behind her, sounding like he wanted to be anywhere but here. “I swear, little sisters are minions of Vaatu.”
“Haha,” she rolls her eyes even if he can’t see it, and slowly makes her way to the unconscious boy. His clothes have circus performer’s colors, but the style looks nothing like she’s seen at festivals or that one time they had all visited Ty Lee at her new job. “Are those… tattoos?”
Something curls in her stomach, like the time their Gran Gran had talked about where the waterbenders had gone, before their home was known as Nanko. She knows she’d only told the story as a jab at their mother, at Zuko, at Sokka, but it still wouldn’t leave her mind.
“Those are airbender tattoos,” Zuko mutters behind her, sounding as uncomfortable as she felt. “He shouldn’t exist.” Because all the airbenders are dead .
“Well, apparently he does,” Sokka snarks, though it lacks his usual bite. “What are we gonna do?”
“He might know where the Avatar is,” Zuko offers, but he doesn’t sound like he really believes it, or likes the idea for that matter. “Also… he’s, like, nine, we can’t just leave him here.”
Katara snorts, slowly cradling the boy in her arms to take a closer look. “He’s older than nine, Zuko.”
“He’s still a little baby,” he maintains.
The boy blinks open his eyes just as a large shadow emerges from the depths of the destroyed iceberg, and it groans. Gray eyes widen as he first takes in them, then the giant something that was making its descent down the broken ice. “Appa!” Spryer than he ought to be, the kid summons a blow of air and lands on top of the thing’s horned head. “Hey there, buddy!” The animal lows, and the kid looks back down at them. “Hey, who’re you?”
“We’re stranded,” Sokka snarks, crossing his arms. “Also, we aren’t the ones who just emerged from a fucking iceberg, so the question should be who you and the fuzzy monster are.”
The airbender jumps down from the monster’s head, and smiles. About to say something he’s interrupted by a loud sneeze that catapults him about fifteen feet into the air, before he lands back on his feet like nothing happened. “I’m Aang,” he beams. He points at the monster behind him. “That’s Appa, my flying bison.”
“And this is Katara, my flying sister,” Sokka deadpans, pointing at her.
“This is my older brother Sokka,” she says before he can say anything else stupid he thinks is the peak of comedy. “And this is our best friend Zuko.” She bites her lip. “You’re… an airbender.”
“Yep,” he grins, like he isn’t a relic from a past barely anyone even remembers. He bends forward a little, scrutinizing them. “You two are firebenders? Cool, but what’re you doing at the Southern Water Tribe?” He looks at her. “Are you a waterbender? Or a nonbender? I mean, you and your brother look like water tribe, I guess, but it’s still weird for firebenders to be so far south. Aren’t you guys cold?”
They all exchange a glance, an unspoken conversation between them. Zuko sighs, stepping forward a little. “We live here. And,” he bites his lip, looking conflicted. “There is no Southern Water Tribe anymore. It’s been the Fire Nation colony Nanko for twenty years now.”
The airbender kid frowns. “Fire Nation colony? Why? I visited here last month and it was still the Southern Water Tribe,” he chuckles nervously. “And I’m twelve, not twenty.”
“Where are the other Air Nomads?” Sokka asks, and the kid just frowns.
“Uh… the temples? And probably all over the world, being, you know, nomadic and stuff?” He tilts his head like an isopuppy. “Are you trying to pull my leg or something?”
Katara has a bad feeling about this. “Aang… say, how many years ago did Avatar Roku die?”
He hesitates, and there is something in his eyes she can’t quite name. “Uh… twelve, thirteen years ago? Something like that?”
“He died one hundred and twelve years ago, actually,” Sokka says, after a brief glance at Zuko. “And the Air Nomads are all dead. They’ve been for about a century now.”
Katara punches his arm. “Can you be a little more delicate, Sokka?”
Aang looks pale. “That’s not a very funny joke.”
“It isn’t a joke,” Zuko mutters, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. “A hundred years ago Fire Lord Sozin declared war on the other nations and killed the Air Nomads. Twenty years ago we conquered the southpole, and made it a colony, like we’ve done with large parts of the Earth Kingdom, too.”
“We?” The kid looks like he’s going to break down any moment.
“The southpole is part of the Fire Nation now,” Katara says. It’s weird they have to explain this at all. “And… I mean, we’re Fire Nation, so… yeah, we, I guess. Like, our people.”
Aang holds a hand to his head, waving the other around like he’s asking them to slow down. “What, you’re saying I was stuck in an iceberg for a hundred years? Come on!”
“I mean,” Sokka shifts his weight back and forth on his feet nervously. “How else are you here? Air Nomads don’t exist anymore.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Aang,” Katara touches his arm gently, hoping she can calm him down somehow. “We gotta ask you… you’re an airbender, but you’ve been stuck inside an iceberg for a… very long time. That requires waterbending, and no normal person would survive this… so… are you the Avatar?”
Under her gloved hand Aang stiffens, and it’s all the answer she needs. She exchanges another glance with Sokka and Zuko. Zuko steps forward, scowl on his face as he unbuttons his coat and puts it around Aang. He looks up in confusion. “We gotta hide your clothes and tattoos,” he starts, pulling up the hood of the maroon parka that’s too large on Aang’s slight frame. He chances a glance at Appa. “I… guess we can ride him back home?”
“We can hide him in the ice dodging shipyard,” Sokka offers, stepping up too, tugging his gloves out of his pocket to put on Aang’s tiny hands. “It’s outside the village and close to our house. Katara’s the only one preparing for a trial right now, so no one will go there,” he hesitates. “Mom and dad will know what to do.”
“Right,” Zuko nods. “Auntie and Uncle will know what to do.”
Katara looks between them. Sokka rubs his face with a groan, then glares at her without heat. “I can’t believe your temper tantrum freed the Avatar. We found the fucking Avatar,” he says the last part to himself like he worries he overdosed on cactus juice again.
For once, Katara doesn’t start a fight.
-
There is a knock at the door to the shipyard, and all of them freeze. Even Appa stops dead in his tracks where he was sniffing the blubber torches. They exchange wide-eyed stares and gesture widely until Katara stomps her foot and glares at Sokka, pointing to the door.
“Fine,” he whisper-yells, quickly moving to the door and pushing back the deadbolt, opening it just enough to peer at whoever’s there. “Oh, uh, hi Mira.”
Back in the shipyard Katara and Zuko exchange an annoyed glance and she mimes puking. A timid voice reaches them from the open door. “Oh, hi Sokka! Your dad said you might be here, since… uh, since you’re helping your sister with her ice dodging,” there’s a giggle. “That’s so sweet of you, by the way!”
“Right, uh, thanks,” Sokka mutters, rubbing the back of his head. “So… what did you want?”
“You know,” Zuko whispers to Katara and Aang. “I’d feel bad for her, but it’s always so obvious when Sokka’s got a crush on someone, she must be blind as a badgermole not to realize he’s not interested.”
Sokka throws a glare his way before focusing back on Mira, awkward grin in place. “Oh, uh,” he clears his throat. “That sounds great, but I actually don’t feel so hot? We all got pretty soaked earlier and you know how it is, firebenders, cold water, not that great a combo. So… sorry, Mira. But,” he quickly adds when he sees her heartbroken face. “Why don’t you ask Jun?”
Mira frowns. “You hate Jun, why would you want me to go penguin sledding with him?”
“What? Pff, no,” he waves her off. “I don’t hate Jun, what gave you that idea? He’s great.” Katara mimes slitting her throat and falling into Appa’s fur and it takes all Zuko and Aang have not to burst out laughing. Sokka throws them another glare. “Anyways,” he says, dragging out the vowels. “I gotta finish up here and get home before I catch something. Sorry again!” He slams the door in her face before she can think to reply and relocks the door, leaning against it with his back. “I hate you all.”
“We know,” Zuko waves him off, dragging over a haystack for Appa to eat. “Here, we usually use it for drying, but we can just order some from Whaletail if it runs out faster than normal, no one will care.”
“Are you sure,” Aang looks a little hesitant. “You made it sound like I could get you all in trouble.”
“Mom’s the governor,” Katara shrugs his protests off. “We’ll just say we had an accident or something, no one will care about the hay.”
“You, on the other hand,” Sokka says, pointing. “Need to stay secret until we have talked to mom and dad. So, hood up, gloves on and leave the stick here.”
“It’s not a stick.”
“I don’t care.”
-
Hakoda, in the twenty years since the annexation, has gotten used to a lot of things. Fire Nation rule, for better or for worse, has changed a lot about his home. They had to give up large chunks of their culture and freedom, things that were still dearly missed.
But it has also given them a sense of security they haven’t felt in generations. They have resources and infrastructure, proper schools and teachers for their children. Everyone born since the annexation is a Fire Nation citizen, and everyone married to a citizen likewise gains citizenship.
Hakoda hates it in many ways, the way their nation is swallowed by fire and ash.
But he’s also a pragmatic man. They had lost the battle, but were winning the war. Their people would persevere, and their culture was still alive in bits and pieces that no one would ever manage to fully snuff out. Such was the nature of water, finding the path of least resistance, and if there was none, it would make its own.
And, if anything, he would always be grateful that the next generation didn’t have to grow up in fear of raids like he had.
The back door opens, bringing with it a flurry of snow and the sound of teenagers heedless of the noise they make. He sighs fondly, walking out of his workshop to greet the three-
Well, there were four, and he is pretty sure he only had three teenagers that morning.
“Hello, kids,” he says haltingly, eyeing the slight child drowning in Zuko’s coat. “Who’s the new one?”
His children exchange guilty looks, and Hakoda can feel a migraine coming forth. Eventually Sokka sighs and grabs the kid’s hood. “Dad? Uh… say hello to the Avatar?” And as he drags down the hood to reveal a tiny child with airbending tattoos and a sheepish grin, waving shyly at him, he decides that, no, he actually hates his kids and will ground them forever.
-
“Alright, love,” Kya sighs as she closes the front door behind her and unbuttons her coat. “What did the kids do this time to have you in a tizzy?”
Wordlessly, her husband takes her coat and points to the dining room, looking like he’s already done with their gaggle of troublemakers.
Really, what did he expect mixing fire and water? Of course they’d be chaotic.
Regardless, she steps into the room only to pull up short when her eyes land on an unknown face covered in tattoos, and suddenly she understands her husband’s resignation.
“Love,” her husband sighs, gesturing at their guest. “May I introduce the polarbeardog our kids dragged in? Aang, the Avatar.”