Chapter Text
The whistle of the biting wind paired with the blurriness of the ongoing snowfall could almost shadow the tiny huts of the South Pole, though hidden in the blizzard is a small village consisting of mostly women and children. At the heart of the village a woman and a girl sit side by side, the girl stoking a fire barely clinging to slightly damp firewood and the woman occasionally dropping in more while breathing out puffs of cold air.
“Gran, I swear I told him multiple times to get the firewood off the ground, but he insisted he didn’t need me to “remind him” and that he “was a soldier with more important responsibilities”. Its not my fault the wood got wet when he’s so stubborn and pigheaded and-“
“Y/N, don’t get yourself heated.” Kanna stops adding the wood and stands up. “You know Sokka is dealing with a lot. You might not understand his way of thinking, but being left behind by his father and the other men was a hit to his pride.” Kanna tries to reason with Y/N, but it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before. With the traditions and customs of her tribe, Y/N would be shocked if any man in the village hadn’t reacted the same way. Kanna puts a hand on her shoulder and looks into her eyes.
“Just go easy on him.” She pauses a moment, bringing her hand up from her shoulder to gently brush a fallen eyelash off the girl’s cheekbone with a small smile on her face before speaking again. “Also, theres a load of laundry that needs to be washed. Kio threw up again.” With that Kanna pats her cheek, narrowly missing her eye with her smooth fingertips and making Y/N’s face scrunch, turns around and leaves the hut. The girl still sitting by the fire huffs out a sigh into the white fur of her hood’s collar and mutters under her breath about responsible soldier man Sokka and stinky children’s clothes with puke on them. When she brings her eyes up to the fire again, the floating embers almost seem to dance in the air, the glow from the fire warming her face. She inhales and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she gets up from her crosslegged position and heads for the laundry basket.
.
On a small wooden canoe a girl and a boy with blue eyes and blue parkas float down the current.
“It’s not getting away from me this time. Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.”
Katara glances over at Sokka with doubt in her eyes, when she spots a fish circling in the water below and removes her glove. She takes a breath to steady herself and starts bending the water around the fish. When she gets it in the air, the fish starts swimming in frantic circles inside the blob.
“Sokka, look!”
“Shh, Katara, you’re gonna scare it away.” Sokka whispers to not scare away the fish. “Mmm, I can already smell it cooking.”
“But, Sokka, I caught one!” Katara says while bending the water around her. The water slowly makes its way over Sokka’s head, and as he raises his spear behind him it pierces the blob of water, drenching him.
“Hey!” Katara exclaims.
“Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?”
“It’s not magic, it’s water bending.” Katara corrects him. “And it’s-“
“Yeah, yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah. Look, I’m just saying that if I had your powers, I’d keep my weirdness to myself.”
“You’re calling me weird? I’m not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water.”
Sokka stops making muscles at his reflection in the water and looks back at her when the canoe slams into a stray piece of ice. Both siblings are jostled, but Sokka quickly grabs the oar to attempt to get the canoe under control. He tries to steer them to safety, narrowly escaping the pieces that come towards them.
“Watch out!” Katara yells. “Go left, go left!” She is frantically trying to help when the canoe gets caught in between two big pieces. They jump out of the canoe, onto the ice right as it splinters into pieces. They sit up and look around, realising they’re stuck.
“You call that left?” Katara questions her brother.
“You don’t like my steering? Well, maybe you should have waterbended us out of the ice. “
“So it’s my fault?”
“I knew I should have left you home. Leave it to a girl to screw things up.”
Katara feels her blood boil and her eye twitch.
“You are the most sexist,” Katara exclaims with her arms, moving the water behind her in between each word “immature, nut-brained- Ugh, I’m embarrassed to be related to you!” The iceberg behind her cracks a little at her movements. “Ever since mom died, I’ve been doing all the work around camp while you’ve been off playing soldier!” Another crack. Sokka hears the cracks and tries to get her attention.
“Er… Katara?”
“I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks?” She asks while pointing at him. “Let me tell you, not pleasant!” At her final word, she motions again and the iceberg makes another audible crack.
“Katara, settle down!”
“No, that’s it, I’m done helping you! From now on, you’re on your own!” With one last frustrated motion Katara makes the iceberg crack in half and both the siblings are hit by a wave that washes them away on a smaller piece of ice. After the piece the siblings are laying on stops moving, Sokka unwraps his arm that had found its way around Katara when the wave hit them.
“Ok, you’ve gone from weird to freakish, Katara.”
“You mean I did that?”
“Yep, congratulations.” After a second of silence the water underneath them starts to bubble and a glow starts to emerge as they both stand up in awe.
The glowing iceberg emerges, a figure inside with glowing arrows on his head and hands. He opens his eyes, Sokka and Katara gasping at the sight.
“He’s alive! We have to help.” Katara grabs Sokka’s club and runs over to the glowing iceberg. “Katara, get back here!” Sokka runs after her. “We don’t know what that thing is.”
Katara starts hitting the iceberg with the club until it bursts with air. It starts cracking up the middle and out comes a beam of light that shoots up into the sky. As Katara and Sokka cover their eyes, creatures all around react to the beam of light, and far away on a steel ship a Fire Nation prince finally finds the sign he’d been searching for.