Avatar: The Imposter

by Avery_in_Sonderland

Summary:

In an alternate universe where Aang does not survive his time in the iceberg, the Avatar cycle has ended. When Zuko arrives at the Southern Water Tribe, he mistakenly assumes that Katara is the next Avatar. To protect her people, she plays along and allows herself to be taken prisoner. But what begins as a single selfless act quickly spirals into something more as she realizes that the world needs hope, even if it's based on a lie.

Chapter 1: The (Dead) Boy In the Iceberg

Ice. Nothing but ice and ocean as far as the eye could see. Katara didn’t mind the cold, but sometimes she thought it might be nice to see something else for once. As her brother Sokka paddled their canoe through the slush, she scanned the water below for anything edible and wondered where their father was right now. He and all the men of the village had left a few years ago to fight in the war, and they hadn’t seen him since, but every now and then, he sent letters telling of places beyond the snow. Places with green grass and tall trees and animals she’d never seen before. She longed not just to see her father again, but to see the places he described. This second wish, however, she kept to herself. Sokka and Gran-Gran needed her here.

“It’s not getting away from me this time,” said her brother, aiming a spear at his swimming prey. “Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.”

But Katara was neither watching nor listening. Her attention was locked on another fish trailing a few feet behind their canoe. She took a deep breath and slipped off one of her gloves. With a tentative swishing motion of her hands, an orb of water drifted up from the sea, bringing the fish with it. “Sokka, look!” she said, using every ounce of concentration to keep her quarry afloat. It was heavy, large enough to make a substantial meal for her family tonight.

“Shh, Katara, you’re gonna scare it away,” he said, leaning precariously over the edge of the small boat as he prepared to strike. “Mmm, I can already smell it cooking.”

“But Sokka! I caught one!” Katara continued to draw swirling patterns in the air with her hands, wrestling the water to guide the fish into their canoe. She almost had it…

Splash!

The back end of Sokka’s spear had struck the fish, sending their prospective dinner soaring back into the ocean as the bubble of water around it burst and rained down on his head.

He let out a long groan. “Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?”

“It’s not magic,” she said. “It’s water bending, and it’s – ”

“Yeah, yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah,” he said, wringing the water from his ponytail. “I’m just saying that if I had your powers, I’d keep my weirdness to myself.”

“You’re calling me weird?” said Katara. “I’m not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water.”

Sokka looked like he was trying to think of a clever retort, but before he could speak, a sudden, powerful current rocked their canoe. The waters that had been calm only moments before were suddenly hurtling them towards a cluster of icebergs up ahead. Sokka frantically began paddling again in an attempt to regain control of the tiny vessel as smaller ice floats closed in around them.

“Go left, go left!” Katara shouted, but it was no use. The next thing they knew, their canoe was cracking to bits between two chunks of ice, and they were being tossed from the wreckage onto a snowy shore.

Katara winced as she dragged herself to a sitting position. “You call that left?” She looked around but saw nothing that would give her any indication of how far they had drifted from the village.

“You don’t like my steering?” said Sokka, his tone mocking. “Well, maybe you should have ‘water-bended’ us out of the ice.”

“So it’s my fault?” she said, incredulous.

“I knew I should’ve left you at home. Leave it to a girl to screw things up.”

Katara fumed. “You are the most sexist, immature, nut brained – ” she struggled to find words, flailing her arms in frustration. “I’m embarrassed to be related to you!” Behind her, something cracked, but she took no notice. “Ever since mom died, I’ve been doing all the work around camp while you’ve been off playing soldier!”

“Uh, Katara,” Sokka pointed to something behind her, but she ignored him.

“I even wash all the clothes!” she went on, weeks-worth of pent-up frustration spilling over all at once. “Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, not pleasant!” She was practically screaming now, so loudly that she failed to hear the iceberg rumbling at her back.

“Katara, settle down!” There was panic in Sokka’s eyes now as he pled with her.

“No, that’s it!” she said. “I’m done helping you! From now on, you’re on your own!” With a final, furious motion of her arms, a deafening crash filled the air as the massive iceberg behind her split violently in two. At last, she turned to see the damage her anger had caused the landscape, but it was too late. The formation crumbled all at once, sending waves rippling all around them that nearly threw them into the sea. They clung tightly to the ice beneath them as they waited for the water to settle around them once more.

“Okay, you’ve gone from weird to freakish, Katara,” Sokka said after a lengthy silence.

“You mean I did that?” she gasped in disbelief.

“Yep,” he said. “Congratulations.”

She didn’t have time to think too hard about it. Suddenly, the water beneath them began to bubble and glow a bright, unnatural blue. The siblings stood in panic just as something enormous erupted from the deep.

Speechlessly, they stared at the thing before them. It was an iceberg, but not like any they had ever seen before. Almost perfectly spherical in shape, an otherworldly light emanated from within it. Blinking in amazement, Katara realized that there were two shadowy shapes inside it. One, curled protectively around the other, appeared to be some kind of large animal. The second, small and childlike, was undeniably human. Again, however, this was a human unlike any she had met.

Frozen in a cross-legged position, glowing arrows adorned both fists and a bald head. Suddenly, two glowing eyes flew open.

Both siblings gasped, and Sokka drew his club defensively.

“He’s alive!” said Katara, grabbing the club from his hands. “We have to help!”

“Katara, get back here!” he yelled, for she was already running towards it. “We don’t know what that thing is!”

She leapt from one ice float to another as Sokka chased after her. As soon as she reached the iceberg, she began striking it with the club with all her might.

A gust of air sprang forth from the ice, so powerful it knocked both siblings off their feet. With it, a crack ran up the side of the iceberg that exploded in a flurry of wind and ice shards. Katara shielded her eyes instinctively, and when she looked back up a moment later, she was met with perhaps the strangest sight yet: a column of blinding light stretching straight up to the heavens.

***

Not so far away, a hulking iron warship sliced through the icy waters of the South Pole. From its deck, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation watched the same light pierce the sky, and he felt hope stir in his chest for the first time in a long time. The boy wore the deep red armor of his people, though the members of his small crew were the only countrymen he’d seen in years. Ever since his banishment, he’d worn the scar that marred his left eye like armor, too.

“Finally,” he muttered to himself before turning to face the old man who sat behind him. “Uncle, do you realize what this means?”

Iroh looked up from his Pai Sho board. “That I won’t get to finish my game?”

“It means my search… It’s about to come to an end,” said Zuko. Ignoring his uncle’s sigh, he turned back to the beacon blazing in the distance just in time to see it vanish. “That light came from an incredibly powerful source. It has to be him.”

“Or it’s just the celestial lights,” said Iroh, surveying the game tiles in front of him carefully. “We’ve been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don’t want you to get too excited over nothing. Please, sit. Why don’t you enjoy a calming cup of jasmine tea?”

“I don’t need any calming tea!” Zuko shouted. “I need to capture the Avatar!” If he was right, this could be his chance to finally go home. It had been so long… He needed to believe his time had come at last. “Helmsman, head a course for the light!”

He fixed his gaze ahead on the spot where the light had been, refusing to look back at his uncle – the sight of the old man sipping tea at a time like this would only make him angry again. A freezing wind beat against his face, but the fire that burned inside him kept him warm.

“Prince Zuko,” said Iroh. “We must keep in mind the possibility that the Avatar cycle ended many years ago. A strong possibility, I’m afraid.”

Zuko clenched his jaw. He’d heard this spiel many times before, but he didn’t see the use in entertaining such a notion.

“Of course, if the airbender did manage to survive your great-grandfather’s attack one hundred years ago and live out his days in hiding,” Iroh continued, “it is equally possible that he has since died of old age.”

“I know that,” Zuko snapped. “But if that were the case, he would have been reborn here, in the South, as a female waterbender, and the last one was killed several years ago.” The Fire Nation sent troops to the Southern Water Tribe every ten years to avoid just such a scenario; as far as Zuko knew, there shouldn’t be any waterbenders left here.

“Yes, a very rash and foolish choice on the commanding officer's part,” said Iroh between sips of tea. “He killed her without so much as confirming whether she was a waterbender, much less whether she could have been the Avatar.”

“Well, why would she say she was a waterbender if she wasn’t?” Zuko groaned, finally turning to face his uncle.

Iroh shrugged. “She was a grown woman. If she was indeed a waterbender, then the previous inspection had failed to notice. And if she was the Avatar, killing her only complicated the search further.”

Zuko couldn’t bear to think that the Avatar may have been reincarnated twice since the airbender. That would mean he’d be a small Earth Kingdom child now, which would make his task nearly impossible. The Earth Kingdom was the largest of the four nations by far, and a child’s bending abilities could take years to show up.

"We have some time before we arrive, Prince Zuko,” said Iroh. “Please, join me for some tea.”

Grumbling to himself, Zuko stormed away to his quarters below deck, leaving his uncle alone.

***

As Katara squinted against the otherworldly light, she saw the same boyish silhouette from before standing on the edge of the ice crater the great blast had left behind. The small figure wavered there for a moment, eyes glowing with ancient energy, as if propped up by some invisible force. Then, all at once, the light faded away, and the figure came tumbling down, limp as the dolls her mother had once sewn for her from tiger-seal skins. Katara lunged forward and caught the child just before he landed on the ice.

At last, she got a good look at him. Cradled in her arms, he was light as a feather, no more than twelve years of age. He was dressed in clothes unlike any she had seen before; while the people of her tribe wore thick fur parkas dyed with deep shades of blue, the boy from the iceberg wore breezy robes of rich red and yellow. Pale blue arrows tattooed the backs of his hands and his forehead, which was icy cold to the touch. The glow had subsided from his eyes, leaving behind a round, gray stare fixed on the sky beyond Katara’s shoulder.

She took her fingers, still bare after her fishing attempt, gently to the side of his neck to feel for a pulse.

Nothing.

She pressed harder, probing for any sign of life, but still – nothing. It was as if she could sense that all the blood in his veins was cold and stagnant.

“He’s… gone,” she said. For some reason, the words from her own mouth felt surprising, unbelievable even. Wrong.

Standing over her, Sokka prodded the boy’s head with the blunt end of his spear. “I don’t like this, Katara,” he said. “We should get out of here.”

“How?” she said, without taking her eyes off the lifeless young boy in her arms. She half expected to see him take a breath any second, but it was clear the air was gone from his lungs forever. “Our canoe is ruined,” she reminded her brother.

“Well, he must’ve gotten here somehow,” said Sokka. He began climbing up the side of the ice crater the boy had fallen from only moments ago. “Maybe he’s got a boat around here somewhere.”

Katara was about to tell him to be careful when she heard some combination of a gasp and a grunt as he disappeared in a crash over the top of the crater.

“Sokka!” She set the boy down in the snow and clambered after her brother. She found him on the ground, rubbing his rear-end and wincing in pain, but her attention was quickly drawn to something just behind him, something enormous.

The larger shape encased in the ice earlier proved to be easily the largest creature she had ever seen, at least twice the size of a polar-bear-dog, maybe bigger.

A behemoth of shaggy white fur, it had six legs and horns that spanned as long as their canoe.

She took a tentative step towards the beast. Like the boy, it didn’t seem to be breathing.

“Katara, seriously,” said Sokka, “do not go near that thing.”

She ignored him. It was as if her feet moved on their own. She reached the creature and ran a hand through its thick fur, even softer than the lining of her parka. It, too, was dead. She closed her eyes and, without knowing exactly why, shed a tear for these two strangers she would never know.

“You know, why do I even bother talking if you’re not going to listen?” said Sokka. He had staggered back to his feet now and was looking around for any sign of something they could use to get home.

Something inside told Katara to continue inspecting the creature. She walked around its massive head to find a large basket of sorts saddled to its back.

“Sokka,” she said. “Do you think this will float?”

***

It took some work to detach the saddle from the animal, and even more work still to persuade Sokka to allow her to bring the young boy’s body with them, but as night fell, they made their way back to the village in the little makeshift vessel. Katara couldn’t bear to leave the child there all alone on the ice, and she hoped Gran-Gran would help her give him a proper funeral.

“This,” said Gran-Gran gravely as they lay the boy across the floor in the lantern light of their igloo, “is no ordinary child.”

“We sort of guessed that from the giant beam of light that exploded out of the iceberg he was trapped inside,” said Sokka. When he saw their grandmother’s eyes widen in shock, he added, “What, you didn’t see it from here?”

Katara explained the story in more detail as Gran-Gran listened in somber silence.

“I can’t be certain,” said Gran-Gran at last, “but this could mean dark things for our world if I’m correct.”

The old woman crossed to a corner of the igloo and began to rummage through an old wooden chest. She drew out a scroll whose rods were emblazoned with, Katara realized with a start, the insignia of the Northern Water Tribe, distinguishable from their own tribe’s mark by its silvery, pearlescent sheen. What was Gran-Gran doing with a scroll from the North Pole?

Before Katara could inquire further, her grandmother unfurled the scroll to reveal a story told in watercolor paint accompanied by elegant ink script.

“Water,” Gran-Gran read aloud, “Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.”
One of the figures illustrated on the scroll immediately stood out to Katara – it looked just like the boy from the iceberg. Clinging to some sort of winged staff, it appeared to soar around a floating city in the sky.

“Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them,” Gran-Gran continued, “But when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

There was a long silence as the wind howled outside the walls of the igloo. Katara felt she somehow knew what her grandmother was about to say before she said it.

“Children... I’m afraid you’ve found the Avatar.”

“The Avatar?” Sokka sounded incredulous. “Isn’t that just an old story for kids?”

Gran-Gran shook her head. “Even I had come to doubt the legend was true. There’s been no sign of the Avatar since well before I was born.”

“Then what makes you think this is him?” said Sokka.

“Look at the clothes, the arrows.” Gran-Gran gestured to the boy, then to the nearly identical painted figure on the scroll. “When I was young, there were still many alive who had seen airbenders in the flesh before the Fire Nation wiped them all out. It was said those who became masters of airbending were tattooed with arrows just like these.”

“But he’s just a kid,” Katara muttered.

“Exactly,” said Gran-Gran. “To be a master so young, he must have been an incredibly talented bender. And legend has it that the Avatar would have been a young child around this age at the time of Sozin’s Comet.”

“What? So… you’re saying he’s just been frozen in a block of ice for nearly a hundred years?” said Sokka.

“Perhaps,” said Gran-Gran. “Though the strange light you saw… It disturbs me.”

“I’ll say,” he snorted.

“This is serious, Sokka. If the stories are true, what you saw sounds like an extremely powerful phenomenon called the Avatar State, in which the Avatar can access all his past lives at once.” Gran-Gran paused. “But if the Avatar were to perish while in the Avatar State, the connection to all the past lives would be broken, and the Avatar Cycle would end… forever.”

Katara’s heart sank. “Forever?”

Her grandmother nodded. “Many have long feared this was the true reason for the Avatar’s disappearance. Now it seems it may indeed be so.”

“Why?” Katara felt hot tears welling in her eyes. “Why didn’t you ever tell us about any of this before? Mother always said the Avatar would return one day to end the war.”

Gran-Gran gave a sad smile. “You and Kya were both always so hopeful… I never wanted either of you to lose that.”

As she’d done so many times before, she pushed down her tears and her thoughts of her mother, buried them under a little mound of snow in her heart. It was no matter, then, in the end. Her life was no different than it had been before. She would carry on with her laundry and her cooking and her sewing, all the daily chores that helped keep the village afloat. She would carry on as if nothing had happened, because truly, nothing had changed. There was no Avatar in the world yesterday, and there was no Avatar in the world today, nor would there be tomorrow or the next day or all the days after.

She glanced at Sokka. He always tried to seem tough, but she knew better. For all his talk of not believing in legends and myths, she could see in his eyes that some part of him was disappointed, perhaps even afraid. She knew he worried constantly about their father and the other men, out fighting a never-ending war. And if there was truly no Avatar, what hope could they possibly have of victory?

She took a deep breath. “No one can know about this,” said Katara.

“What do you mean?” said Sokka. “We have to send word to dad right away that – ”

“No,” said Katara. “If word gets out, people will lose hope, and the Fire Nation will think they’re unstoppable. People need to believe in the Avatar. It keeps them going.”

“But if it’s a lie – ”

“Your sister is right,” said Gran-Gran. “It’s for the best if we keep this quiet. No one can know.”

In the dark of night, no one had seen them bring the young airbender into the igloo, and though the moon still shone, they wrapped him in a thick blanket for extra coverage before carrying him back beyond the icy walls of the village. Katara felt a fierce pang of sorrow at the thought of how cold the boy must have been when he died, and she imagined that perhaps the blanket might keep him warmer in the afterlife.

When they found a suitable spot, Katara used her waterbending to clear away some snow to reveal the frozen tundra beneath. Though her skills were rudimentary at best, she always felt somewhat stronger at night, so this first task was fairly simple. Thawing the ground enough to dig was much more difficult, but eventually with great concentration, she managed to melt the ice and extract it from the porous earth like wringing water from a sponge. She and Sokka then shoveled away while Gran-Gran performed the customary prayers and rites over the body.

At last, it was done. The Avatar was put to rest. Katara felt hollow inside as they trudged back to the village. There was little time left to sleep before the sunrise, but she didn’t think she would’ve been able to, anyway. She was used to the freezing climate – it was all she had ever known – but for once, she felt unbearably, bone-chillingly cold. Even bundled in her heaviest furs, she couldn’t get warm.

***

Katara gave up on sleep well before the sunrise and quietly crept out of bed; she doubted Sokka and Gran-Gran were able to get much rest, either, but she was careful not to wake them just in case as she gathered their used garments into a large wooden bucket and carried it outside. Behind the igloo, she heaped some snow into the bucket and, with outstretched fingers, melted it. She mixed in a clump of tiger seal lye and waved her hands back and forth, back and forth, until everything was swirling together like a small whirlpool. She imagined there must be hundreds of waterbenders in the north, training to use this sacred art form for combat against the Fire Nation, yet here she was using it for menial household labor. If she could meet even one other bender, just one, maybe she could learn to do something more. But she was alone.

As the sun finally began to peek over the horizon, she saw a colony of otter penguins waddling by in the distance. She smiled to herself as she remembered penguin sledding with Sokka as a little kid, how they would catch the otter penguins unawares from behind and slip and slide on their backs through sloping hills and ice caverns at dizzying speeds, unaffected by the chilling winds in the way that only little kids can be. She would come home with wild, messy hair, and her mother would sit her down by the fire to brush and re-braid it with the gentlest of hands, the smell of their father’s squid and sea prune stew filling the air as Sokka watched it boil with eager eyes… The memory was enough to take her breath away, and as she shook it from her mind, she found herself reaching for her necklace, tracing the familiar grooves of the round, pale-blue pendant that had once belonged to her mother.

The otter penguins noticed before she did. One of them let out a startled cry as if to warn the others of something amiss, and they echoed the alarm sound like a chorus as they slid away on their bellies. As Katara wondered what had spooked them, she saw flecks of dark gray ash begin to fall from the sky like snow.

She’d seen this once before, years ago, on the day her world was shattered. The day the Fire Nation came.

Her heart sank as she heard the bellow of the same ship’s horn that still haunted her nightmares. She abandoned the laundry and ran into the igloo.

Sokka was already bolt upright in bed, rubbing his eyes, “What was that?”

“They’re here,” said Katara. She didn’t need to say who. Her brother began donning his armor with no further explanation.

“They must have seen something,” said Gran-Gran as she helped Sokka secure his leather wrist guards. “You mustn’t let them know what happened, and you mustn’t let them know you’re a waterbender, Katara.” Her jaw tightened around the last phrase, and Katara knew she was thinking about what happened last time, too.

***

Below deck, Prince Zuko felt the iron walls of his ship rumble around him, and he knew that meant the hull of the vessel was slicing through the snowy walls of the Southern Water Tribe like they were as soft as the ice cream he used to eat on family vacations to Ember Island. His heart raced with anticipation. The moment he had trained for all these years was here at last, and though the Avatar would be over one hundred years old by now, he was likely still a formidable foe. He knew from his research that previous Avatars like Kyoshi had lived more than twice as long and were not to be trifled with even in their old age.

The ship screeched to a halt. Zuko took a deep breath, and as he exhaled, hot sparks flew from his nostrils. “Lower the gate,” he growled.

As the ship’s belly opened before him, sunlight streamed in, blinding as it bounced off the white snow. He had to blink a few times until his eyes adjusted to the pitiful view before him.

The Southern Water Tribe was nothing more than a cluster of tents and igloos, scarcely enough to be considered a village. This was good; hiding a fugitive in a place like this would be hopeless. There was a huddle of fur-clad women and children staring up at the ship in terror, and in front of them stood a single armored young man no more than Zuko’s own age, clutching a club overhead in perhaps the worst attempt at a defensive stance Zuko had ever seen. Had the men of the tribe really left them with no more protection than this? He would’ve thought surely it was a trap had there been anywhere to conceal additional forces.

Flanked by his soldiers, Zuko marched ahead into the snow.

With what must’ve been intended as a battle cry, the Water Tribe boy charged at him. Zuko swatted him away with a single kick and continued onward towards the women and children.

“Where are you hiding him?” Zuko addressed the group. He looked around, measuring their expressions. His eyes landed on the wrinkled face of the oldest among them. He grabbed the hood of her parka and forcibly turned her around to face the others. “He’d be about this age. Master of all elements?”

The crowd was silent. He released the old woman back into the arms of a girl who must be her granddaughter. She, too, was about Zuko’s age, and she fixed him with an unsettling blue stare. Where the other eyes in the crowd were filled only with fear, hers held something else, something familiar to him: rage.

With a fist to the air, he sent a warning burst of flames flying over the startled crowd. “I know you’re hiding him!”

The only reply was the piercing sound of the same battle cry from before. The lone warrior of the tribe, if he could be called a warrior at all, had picked himself up and was once again charging at Zuko. Again, he dodged him easily with a defensive maneuver that sent the boy sprawling. He aimed a fireball near his head to deter him from further foolish attacks, but the boy rolled out of the way and tossed some sort of projectile in a wide arc that missed Zuko by several yards.

“Show no fear!” one of the smaller children called to the boy before throwing him a spear. With the new weapon in hand, he charged again.

Now Zuko was really starting to tire of this distraction. He blocked the attack, his gauntlets snapping the bone spear like a twig. The force knocked his opponent down again, but as he eyed him with a mixture of derision and confusion, something large struck his head from behind, rattling his helmet with a clang.

Ears ringing, he straightened his helmet with a growling groan. It was time to end this nonsense. His palms ignited with daggers of flame as he took another step towards the boy.

“No!”

Zuko found himself suddenly drenched with water. It was as if he’d been struck by a small, icy ocean wave.

He wiped the water from his eyes to see the same girl he’d noticed before standing protectively in front of the boy, and suddenly it all made sense.

“A waterbender?” he breathed. “You’re the Avatar?”

***

The words hit Katara like a punch to the stomach. The Avatar? He thought she was the Avatar? Gasps rippled through the crowd around her, and she realized the women and children were whispering her name in disbelief.

The young Fire Nation soldier before her assumed a fighting stance. Beneath his helmet, a scar distorted his left eye and marred the surrounding skin. He regarded her with disdain. “I’ve spent years preparing for this encounter,” he seethed. “Training. Meditating. You’re just a child.”

There was no choice left but to fight. In her moment of desperation to protect Sokka, she had revealed herself, and now she was probably going to get herself killed. She had no idea what she was doing, but she tried to mimic his stance. “Well,” she said, a mocking tone creeping into her voice, “so are you.”

He hurled fire at her.

She deflected hastily with a small shield of snow, but she could still feel the heat of the blast as it melted away almost instantly. There were screams from the other villagers. She had to think quickly, or they could all end up just like her mother.

“It’s true,” the words leapt impulsively from her mouth. “I’m the Avatar.” She held her hands up in surrender. “So if I go with you, will you leave the village alone?”

The Fire Nation soldier seemed surprised for a moment, but he quickly nodded in assent. He motioned to his guards, and the next thing she knew, two of them had taken her by the arm on each side and were ushering her in the direction of the ship.

“Katara!” Sokka screamed. “Are you crazy? You can’t go with them!”

She looked over her shoulder to see him scrambling after her, readying his club for another attack.

“It’s okay, Sokka,” Katara mustered her bravest, firmest voice. “No one has to get hurt this way.”

Another line of guards interposed themselves between Katara and her brother. While their leader had been young and slight of stature, these men were adults nearly twice Sokka’s size. His eyes frantically darted amongst them, and Katara knew he was wracking his brain for any possible plan. But it was clearly futile. Gran-Gran put a defeated hand on his shoulder.

And with that, Katara let her world vanish behind her into the black iron hull of the ship.

Chapter 2: The Southern Air Temple

“Prince Zuko,” said Iroh cautiously, “what makes you so sure this girl is the Avatar?”

They had withdrawn to Zuko’s quarters to discuss their next steps while the guards dealt with the Water Tribe girl. He was already feeling anxious to have let her out of his sight.

“She has to be!” snapped Zuko. “I saw her waterbend! And she said so herself!”

“That proves only that she is a waterbender. Did you consider that she might have said what she thought she needed to say to protect her people?”

Zuko fumed in silence.

“I know you are eager to return home,” his uncle continued, “but I cannot imagine that your father would be pleased if you brought him an imposter.”

“Well, then what do you suggest I do?”

“Have some patience, Prince Zuko,” said Iroh. “Allow me to speak with the girl, and perhaps more information will reveal itself.”

***

The guards shuffled Katara down dark, twisting hallways and into a small cell furnished with a simple cot. Until now, she had simply felt numb disbelief that all of this was happening, but as she sat down on the edge of the cot, alone for the first time, she finally allowed herself to cry. Once the tears started, they flooded into a fierce monsoon of sobs – she had no idea how long she had been holding them back, how long it had been since she’d let herself really cry like this. This was exactly what her mother had given her life to prevent, and now her sacrifice was for nothing.

“Excuse me,” a soft voice made her look up. A rotund, gray-haired man, much older than her father but much younger than Gran-Gran, was standing outside the cell, holding a tray of tea. “My name is Iroh. My nephew, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, is the commander of this ship and the one who took you prisoner.”

Katara blinked up at him and wiped her tears on her sleeve. She didn’t know what to say.

“Would you like some tea?” said the strange man.

She just stared at him, incredulous.

He gave an amiable chuckle and began to pour from a teapot into two small cups. “It is safe, I assure you. Look,” he said, taking a sip from one of the steaming cups, “I’ll go first.”

He passed the other cup through the cell bars, and she hesitated before finally taking it for lack of knowing what else to do.

“It’s oolong,” said Iroh. “I know tea like this is not very common in the water tribes, but I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.”

She sniffed it, still suspicious and confused. It was an herbal smell - exotic to her, but not unpleasant. The cup was warm in her hands. “Why?” she forced herself to say at last.

“Why did I bring you tea?” he said. “Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life’s true delights.”

She snorted. Surely this was some mind game. “Oh, yeah?” she said. “And what’s so fascinating about me?”

“That is precisely what I hope to learn,” said Iroh with a small smile. “But I do not even know your name yet.”

It crossed her mind that perhaps she could use the hot tea as a weapon for waterbending, but she didn’t think it would do her much good to attack the old man. Instead, she took a tentative sip – she figured if they’d wanted to kill her, they could’ve done it other ways by now. The flavor was sweet, like the Earth Kingdom fruits that merchant ships used to bring in the summer. Perhaps if she indulged the old man’s conversation, she could learn more about her current situation. He seemed harmless enough, but she still had to keep her guard up; he was Fire Nation, after all.

“Katara,” she said. “My name is Katara. Daughter of Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe. And once word reaches his fleet of my capture, they will come for me.”

“I would expect as much,” said Iroh, nodding. “Of course your people would spare no effort to recover the Avatar.”

She bit the inside of her lip – she had almost forgotten she was supposed to be the Avatar. “Exactly,” she said, trying to sound confident.

“It is truly an honor,” he said. “I had not expected to meet the Avatar in my lifetime.”

“If it’s such an honor,” she said, “why am I a prisoner?”

The old man sighed. “My brother, the Firelord, believes that capturing the Avatar will end this war and ensure the Fire Nation’s success,” he said. “And he has tasked my nephew with bringing you to him.”

“And what happens then?” she said.

“That, I do not know,” he said. “But for my part, I can promise that I mean you no harm.”

She wanted to protest that this wasn’t exactly what ‘no harm’ looked like, but instead, she took another sip of tea and let the silence hang.

“You are quite young,” Iroh observed at last.

“Fourteen,” said Katara.

“Ah, the same age as my niece,” he said. “Prince Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula.” He paused to savor his tea for a moment. “The princess has always been quite the firebending prodigy. I would guess that you also must have been a very talented waterbender from a young age?”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. With no one to compare herself to, she had no way of knowing for sure if she was talented or not, but surely a prodigy would be able to at least catch a fish. “I’ve never really had any training,” she said.

“I see,” he nodded. “Then may I ask… Have you been able to bend any of the other elements yet?”

Maybe it was the tea, but she suddenly realized just how hot it was inside the ship. Sweat had started to bead on her forehead. She set her teacup down on the floor and stood to remove her parka. Should she lie? What if they asked her to demonstrate? On a giant metal ship in the middle of an icy ocean, there was one answer that seemed safe enough for now.

“Well…” she said, turning her back to him and folding her parka across the cot. “Just earth. A few times. But I’m not very good at it.” She was afraid she didn’t sound very convincing. What would they do if they found out she wasn’t really the Avatar? There was another long silence.

“And have you,” said the old man, “had any contact with any of your past lives?”

Katara froze. Past lives? She knew the Avatar spirit was supposed to be reincarnated over and over, but could Avatars really communicate with their previous incarnations? Maybe it was a trick question. She didn’t want to say anything that might reveal how little she truly knew.

“I ask,” Iroh continued pensively, “out of curiosity about the airbender who came between you and Avatar Roku. His life remains a complete mystery to the world. Now that we have found you, it would seem that the theories were correct which said he somehow outlived the other Air Nomads and spent the rest of his days in hiding, passing away of old age some fourteen years ago. I was hopeful that you might be able to shed light on this lost piece of history.”

The boy in the iceberg flashed before her mind’s eye. She couldn’t imagine what had truly happened to him, but it was far from the old man’s theory. The last Avatar had been so, so young.

“No,” she said. “I haven’t seen him. I’m sorry.”

***

“Well?” Prince Zuko demanded as his uncle emerged from the holding cells. “What did she have to say?”

“Her name is Katara,” said Iroh, “and her father is the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.” Chuckling, he added, “So, if she turns out not to be the Avatar, perhaps she could be an excellent candidate for your future wife someday!”

Zuko felt his face grow hot. “Uncle! Be serious! Is she the Avatar or not?”

“I am still uncertain. But I have a few ideas that might bring us more clarity.”

“We need more than ideas,” said Zuko. “I’ll go see her myself.”

He stormed off in the direction of the holding cells.

“Prince Zuko!” his uncle called to him. “I would strongly recommend treating the girl with respect and compassion.”

Zuko froze. “That’s not going to tell us what we need to know.”

“One way or another, she is going to view us as her enemies,” said Iroh. “And if she is indeed the Avatar, she may be a more powerful enemy than we can imagine. It would be unwise to give her more reasons to hate you than necessary, and you may find that a little bit of kindness today can go a long way tomorrow.”

The prince grumbled but said nothing. He continued below deck.

He found his prisoner sitting on her cot, staring down into a teacup. She looked smaller without her parka on. When she looked up and saw it was him, the rage came back into her eyes.

“What do you want?” said the girl.

Zuko was taken aback for a moment; he had expected to be the one asking the questions. There was an insolence to the waterbender that unsettled him. Perhaps his uncle was right that he shouldn’t underestimate her.

“There was a Fire Nation raid on your village about six years ago,” Zuko said at last. “How did you manage to escape their notice?”

Almost reflexively, the girl’s hand went to the circular charm she wore around her neck. “Why would I tell you that?” Her voice dripped with hatred.

“Because you’re my prisoner, and you’re going to tell me whatever I ask you to.” His patience was already wearing thin. Did she think she was in any position to be uncooperative?

“Alright, then,” she said. Setting her teacup down on the floor, she stood and came close to the cell bars, standing face-to-face with him. Her voice rose with each word as she continued, “I escaped their notice because your soldiers are idiots who killed the wrong person!”

She flicked her hand in his direction, and the next thing he knew, a splash of lukewarm oolong was colliding with his face.

Growling, Zuko gripped the bars that framed her face, but she didn’t flinch. “I’d suggest you take a look around you and show some respect, unless you want your situation to get much worse.”

“Maybe I should say the same to you.” She stood up taller and added, “I am the Avatar, after all.”

“Is that so?” He leaned in even closer. “You’d better be. And you better be able to prove it by the time we reach the Fire Nation, too. Because my Father will need to keep the Avatar alive, but he’ll have no use for a mere Water Tribe peasant.”

She held his gaze, but he could’ve sworn that barely, just barely, she shuddered.

***

Back inside his igloo, Sokka frantically packed provisions, weapons, supplies – anything he could think of that might come in handy for the long journey ahead. He had no idea if he would ever see home again, but he had to try. As much as he chastised her, Katara was everything to him. And on top of that, he’d never be able to look his father in the eye again if he just let her go.

“Why did she have to say she was the Avatar?” he said. “What was she thinking?”

“She was protecting us all,” said Gran-Gran.

She hadn’t tried to stop him and was instead busying herself wrapping up seal jerky and folding extra clothes for him. Though she often kept a stoic exterior, Sokka knew how she must feel inside. One by one, she’d watched as the war took away everyone she loved most, and now he was going to leave her all alone. He fought back a fresh wave of guilt.

His father’s men had left a few sailboats behind; he would have to be more careful not to be spotted, but he would catch up to the Fire Nation warships much faster than he could in a canoe and would stand a much better chance of a quick escape if he somehow did manage to rescue his sister. Gran-Gran and some of the village kids helped him load the supplies onto the smallest of the sailboats.

“Is it true?” said one of the children. “Is Katara really the Avatar?”

Sokka looked to Gran-Gran. She nodded. He rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

“Apparently,” sighed Sokka. “Yep. I guess she’s the Avatar.”

He’d deal with whatever repercussions this lie might have later, if there was a later. For now, he would just have to go along with it.

Finally, it was time to set sail.

Gran-Gran hugged him so tightly he could feel the bruises from his fight with the Fire Nation soldier aching. “Bring her home,” she said.

“I will, Gran-Gran.”

It had been a long time since he’d sailed with his father, but it was a skill that had been ingrained in him from a young age, and the wind was on his side today. The small boat sped into the open ocean, hot on the trail of ash and sludge the warship left in its wake.

“Stupid firebenders,” he smirked to himself. He knew from his father’s letters that this was the greatest weakness of the Fire Navy; they were incredibly easy to track. With stealth and strategy, Hakoda’s men had reportedly sunken many key enemy vessels over the years, so Sokka knew it was possible to get the better of them. But, unlike his father’s men, he was alone. This would either be a suicide mission, or he’d finally prove himself as a warrior.

***

The last time Zuko had visited the Air Temples had brought only disappointment. He recalled scouring through the old ruins for any possible clue that might lead him to the Avatar, his freshly-injured eye still bandaged and searing with constant, dizzying pain. He had pushed through it tirelessly for days on end, finding nothing but brittle bones, dusty statues, and a century’s worth of slowly creeping plant life threatening to bury it all.

A mere three years, however, had done little to change the Southern Air Temple; it was exactly as Zuko remembered it. Except now, he returned with the Avatar he had spent every second since then searching for.

“This place would have been home to your most recent incarnation,” Iroh explained to the waterbender as he led her gently into the ruins. Her arms were chained behind her back, but she seemed less hostile to the old man than she had been to Zuko. “Try to keep an eye out for anything that might trigger a past life memory or a communication from the spirit world.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. He had argued that there might be faster ways of forcing the girl to prove she was the Avatar, but his uncle had insisted this way was best. Zuko wasn’t sure he believed in all that mystical spirit world nonsense, but if he had to go along with it to get home, so be it.

“Just, you know, out of curiosity,” said the girl, “what sort of things might trigger a past life memory?”

“Hmm, that depends,” said Iroh. “It could be anything that the previous Avatar interacted with, really.”

The waterbender looked around with wide eyes at the vast expanse of the temple, and Zuko imagined she must be thinking something similar to what he was thinking: that this could take a while.

“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly. “I’ve… never been this far from home before.”

Beautiful? It wasn’t really the word Zuko would’ve used, but he had to admit, the place must have been quite the architectural feat in its heyday. Maybe even in its crumbling state, it would seem impressive if you’d never seen anything but tents and igloos and snow.

Suddenly, Zuko heard a faint rustling sound nearby and had the distinctive feeling that he was being watched.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, turning towards the source of the noise.

At first, he saw only a peach tree, but as he scanned the branches more carefully, he noticed a pair of round, green eyes staring back at him.

“What is that thing?” said Zuko.

“I don’t believe it!” said Iroh. “A winged lemur! They were believed to be extinct.”

The strange animal’s enormous, pointy ears shifted side to side as it regarded them from above. It held a ripe peach in its small hands. Sniffing the air cautiously, its gaze landed on the waterbender.

“Is it dangerous?” said the girl.

Iroh chuckled. “Mischievous, perhaps. Dangerous, no. Stories say they were the playful companions of the monks who once lived here.”

As if in answer, the lemur wrapped its long tail around the peach, spread its arms to reveal a set of webbed wings, and glided down from the tree to land on the old man’s head. It leaned down from its perch to sniff the waterbender more closely. Everyone was still and silent. At last, the creature seemed to come to some conclusion about the girl, and it extended its tail to offer her the piece of fruit.

Iroh burst into laughter. “It seems he likes you!”

The girl eyed the fruit hungrily, but with her hands bound, she couldn’t reach up to take it. “Thank you,” she said at last to the lemur. “But I think you should have it.”

The lemur tilted its head questioningly, then hopped onto the girl’s head and extended its tail so that the fruit hovered directly in front of her mouth.
For the first time, a small smile crept onto her face. “Well, if you insist,” she said, and took a bite of the peach.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Zuko. “We need to keep moving.”

“You don’t find this the slightest bit interesting?” said his uncle. “This lemur has probably never seen a human before, and immediately it takes such a liking to Katara?”

“What are you suggesting?” said Zuko.

“As I mentioned before, the Air Nomads had strong connections with animals such as these. Perhaps it senses some remnant of that connection, something invisible to us.”

“I don’t think my father will accept a lemur’s senses as proof that she’s the Avatar, Uncle. We’ll have to do better than that.”

Iroh shrugged. “Perhaps. But I would not dismiss the power of an animal’s senses. You never know what you might learn from them.”

***

As they continued through the ruins, the lemur never left Katara’s side, a fact which only seemed to annoy Zuko more and more. Katara wondered if the creature could smell the boy and the bison from the iceberg on her, if that was the true reason for its interest in her. Maybe their scent was indeed reminiscent of this place, giving the little lemur hope that somehow, across all these years, he wasn’t alone after all. Or maybe she was reading too much into it. In any case, she thought the lemur was cute, and its presence gave her some comfort, so she didn’t mind it sticking around. In her head, she named it MoMo.

The sun was setting when Iroh put a hand on the prince’s shoulder and said, “Perhaps it is time to call it a day.”

Katara’s feet were aching, and she knew that no matter how long they looked, they wouldn’t find any signs. But she couldn’t let them know that.

Zuko looked like he wanted to protest, but he must have been tired, too.

Before he could respond, the lemur abruptly leapt from Katara’s shoulder and darted away through a curtain of moss so dense that no one had considered that there might be something behind it. Instinctively, Katara followed after him.

“MoMo!” she called out.

“MoMo?” Zuko mumbled incredulously.

She ducked through the moss and came instantly upon a grizzly sight.

A pile of Fire Nation armor littered a small room, and inside each suit of armor remained the bones of the soldiers who had invaded this place one hundred years ago. In the center of the pile was one unique skeleton; though his robes were far more tattered and decayed than those of the boy in the iceberg, they were unmistakably the same.

GranGran had always described what happened to the Air Nomads as a one-sided slaughter, an extermination. But this room told a different story. This one airbender, in his last stand, must have taken down at least a dozen firebenders with him. How powerful must the airbenders have been if just one could hold off almost as many men as Zuko had used to invade her village?

Behind her, she could hear that Zuko and Iroh had followed her. The former was shouting something, but his words seemed faraway. She found herself drawn to the century-old bones of the airbender, moving towards it unconsciously until she was close enough to reach out and trace the patterns carved in a large medallion he wore around his neck. She was wondering what they meant when the whole world suddenly melted away to white, and all the air seemed to be pulled violently from her lungs.

The next thing she knew, she was standing in what could only be the same room, yet somehow returned to its former glory. No more snow, no more moss, no more skeletons. Just beautiful white stone walls, floors, and ceilings.

She looked down at her hands to find them strangely see-through, a faint blue glow emanating around them.

She turned around and found herself face-to-face with a thin old man with a long beard, kind eyes, and a blue arrow tattooed on his bald head. From his orange and yellow robes and the medallion he wore, she understood immediately that this was the dead man whose corpse she had beheld only moments ago.

“It’s you,” she said. “How?”

He smiled. “My name is Monk Gyatso. You must be Katara.”

“How do you know my name?”

“We can know so many things when we are no longer bound by the physical plane,” he said.

“So you’re a spirit?” she said. “How can I see you?”

“That I cannot say with certainty. You shouldn’t be able to,” he paused. “But I can only guess that something happened when you opened that iceberg. Something that gave you a stronger connection to the spirit world than most.”

A million questions raced in her head, and there were many that she perhaps should have asked first, but the one that sprang to her lips was, “So can I see my mother?”

Monk Gyatso shook his head with a sad smile. “No, child. I’m afraid not all spirits linger here.”

“Oh,” she said, hot tears springing to her eyes. “Then why…?”

“I’ve been here waiting for someone. For my student, Avatar Aang.”

“The boy in the iceberg,” her voice came out in a whisper. So it was true. He really was the Avatar. And that meant…

The old man nodded. “All this time he was trapped between life and death. But now, the Avatar cycle is no more. The return this world has hoped for will never come.”

“So that’s it?” she said. “The Fire Nation will win?”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “Hope can be given up willingly, but it can't be lost by accident or taken by force.”

“What do you mean?”

“While it is true that the Avatar represented the harmony of the elements, and while such power may have proven useful in defeating the Fire Lord, there are other ways that balance may yet be restored. There are many among the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes who still hold onto hope, and that hope mustn’t be extinguished.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They must believe the Avatar has returned,” he said. “You must be their hope.”

“You want me to keep pretending?” said Katara, feeling suddenly dizzy. “I can barely waterbend. Zuko only believes I’m the Avatar because he wants to, and I’m pretty sure his uncle is onto me already. How am I supposed to convince the whole world that I can bend all four elements?”

“You are more powerful than you can imagine, child,” the monk chuckled.

She could feel the vision beginning to slip away, the physical world pulling her back.

“Wait!” she cried out. “Does this mean… I’ll have to face the Fire Lord myself?”

She never received an answer; only darkness.

Chapter 3: The Storm

Summary:

Sokka continues his journey to rescue Katara. Zuko tries a new strategy.

When Sokka finally saw the Fire Nation ship come into view again, he realized in confusion that it was anchored at the base of what could only be the Southern Air Temple. The massive, elaborate structure towered overhead in the mountaintops. Why would they have stopped here?

He knew he couldn’t risk getting any closer without being spotted - at least, not until nightfall. He would have to wait and watch. He positioned his boat so that an outcropping of rocks would, he hoped, obscure him from view before dropping anchor.

Settling in for the stake-out ahead, he unwrapped some of the seal jerky Gran-Gran had packed. It took all his willpower to ignore the growls of his stomach urging him to blow through all his rations at once; it wasn’t much of a meal, but he needed it to last at least a few days. Once he ran out, he’d have to try to catch fish, and he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t the best at it. The majority of the food in the village came from trapping, which he wouldn’t have the luxury of doing out here. He remembered the fish Katara had almost caught with her waterbending and felt a pang of remorse for how he had chastised her then. As weird and annoying as she could be, having only silence for company was worse.

From the position of the sun, he figured he had another three or four hours before dark. He decided to get what sleep he could now, for the moon might be his only ally later.

***

“Well, Prince Zuko,” said Iroh. “That certainly seemed like a sign if I’ve ever seen one.”

Zuko looked down at the unconscious Water Tribe girl in his arms. Moments before, they had followed her into a room full of skeletons to find her eyes glowing blue, an unnatural wind circling around her. Before he could process what he was seeing, it had ended abruptly. The girl had collapsed, and Zuko had caught her instinctively.

“What’s wrong with her?” Zuko demanded, shaking her slightly.

Her eyes flew open - they had reverted to their normal icy stare. She looked disoriented at first, but as she seemed to process his face, the familiar look of disgust returned to hers, and she quickly wriggled away from him.

“Katara,” said Iroh. “Did you have a vision?”

She looked back and forth from Zuko to his uncle several times, her posture defensive.

“Yes,” she said at last. “The previous Avatar… His name was Aang.”

“Did you speak to him?” said Iroh. “What did he say?”

The girl bit her lip. “It was a short vision,” she said. “We didn’t exactly have time for a lengthy conversation.”

Zuko felt a flicker of dread creep into his chest. He ought to feel exhilarated; surely this was as good a proof as he could get that the girl was the Avatar. The glowing eyes, the swirling air… like his uncle said, what more of a sign could there be? He should be rushing back to the ship without a second thought, his ticket home finally in hand. But something was off. Something in the girl’s tone gave him pause.

“Guards,” Zuko called to the handful of men who had accompanied them. “Attend to the Avatar. I need to speak with my uncle alone.”

He ushered Iroh outside, out of earshot, but still close enough that they could intervene if the girl tried anything funny.

“She’s hiding something, Uncle,” he whispered urgently.

Iroh chuckled. “Of course she is, Prince Zuko. The previous Avatar will have certainly given her advice on how to oppose or escape us. Do you really think she would divulge the details of such a conversation to her captors?”

Zuko felt the blood drain from his face. “So what you’re saying is, we brought her here to trigger a vision… that would put her in touch with thousands of years’ worth of powerful cosmic entities who might help her get away?”

Iroh chuckled even harder than before. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Zuko groaned.

“Relax, Prince Zuko,” said his uncle. “You now have the proof that you needed! Several of your men saw it, too. And the girl is still very young and untrained. As long as we can get her back to the Fire Nation without incident, your exile and this war may well be over.”

A sudden thunder rumbled overhead, followed closely by a flash of forked lightning - the kind that always reminded him of his sister. He shivered. He’d been so preoccupied that he hadn’t noticed the dark clouds gathering.

“Perhaps we should camp here for the night after all,” said Iroh. “Let’s get word to the rest of the crew to join us. Best not to be on a metal ship in weather like this.”

***

“Perfect,” Sokka muttered to himself. “Just what I need.”

A storm was brewing fast, and he wasn’t sure his small vessel would be able to withstand it. He figured he only had two options: he could either try to come ashore and risk leaving himself stranded if the boat didn’t survive, or he could attempt to ride it out. He had some experience sailing in turbulent conditions… but one wrong move, and he could easily get himself killed.

He looked at the Fire Nation ship in the distance and wondered what they would do. It was certainly a sturdier construction, but being made of metal, it was essentially a giant lightning rod. He had heard that the very best firebenders could control lightning, but surely the entire crew wouldn’t have a skill so rare. And given that the ship still didn’t seem to be going anywhere, perhaps that meant that they were planning to wait out the storm on land.

A new and dangerous plan started to form in Sokka’s mind. If the ship had truly been abandoned for the night, then perhaps he could use the cover of the storm to sneak aboard. Maybe he could find spare armor lying around and pose as a Fire Nation soldier… Blend in for a while, wait for an opportunity to escape with Katara. The exit strategy could be tricky - he’d have to improvise - but the more he thought about it, the more he felt this could be his best chance.

Of course, if lightning struck the ship with him on it, he’d probably get fried to a crisp.

He shrugged and laughed nervously. “What are the odds, right?”

The wind was already whipping fiercely around him, the waves rocking more and more violently by the second.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, and set sail straight for the warship.

***

Katara shivered. She wished she hadn’t left her parka on the ship. MoMo was curled around her shoulders like a scarf, but he seemed to be trying to use her for warmth rather than providing much himself.

Iroh had found the crew shelter from the storm deep inside the temple, but the old halls were still filled with a century’s worth of cold and loneliness. The soldiers had made several campfires to warm the place up, but she was anxious to get too close. Unlike the fires at home, these flames could attack at any moment on the whims of the men around her. So instead, she and the lemur sat alone in a corner of the room, eyeing the flames from a safe distance.

“You should eat.”

She was surprised to hear Zuko’s voice beside her, and she turned to see him holding some sort of roasted meat on a stick.

“It’s komodo chicken,” he said, extending it to her. “My uncle made it himself.”

She wasn’t sure it sounded very appetizing, but she couldn’t deny she was hungry. And if they wanted to poison her, they’d had plenty of opportunities to do it already. She tentatively took the meat stick.

“Thanks,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

She tore a piece from the komodo chicken and handed it to MoMo, who gobbled it up eagerly. She scratched behind his ears and took a bite herself. It was chewy and dry and a bit too hot, but the flavor was decent. She realized Zuko was still hovering over her awkwardly.

“Ummm…” he said. “Do you like it?”

The question caught her so off-guard that she swallowed wrong, the meat scalding her throat and launching her into a fit of coughing.

“I can, ummm,” he sputtered, “see if we have something else.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, forcibly regaining control of her lungs. “It’s good.”

Why was he suddenly acting so differently? Did it have something to do with what had happened earlier? She wasn’t sure what the episode looked like from the outside, but it seemed to have convinced everyone that she was indeed the Avatar. Perhaps that had somehow changed his strategy.

For her part, she knew it meant two things. First, as soon as this storm was over, they would be heading straight for the Fire Nation. And second, even if she managed to somehow escape along the way, they would spare no effort to get her back. Wherever she went, they would never stop looking for her. For better or worse, she was really stuck with this role of Avatar for the foreseeable future.

Zuko sat down next to her. He seemed to be straining very hard to appear non-threatening.

“Do you…” he said. “Do you have komodo chicken where you’re from?”

Was he trying to make small talk? Whatever this was, she decided she might as well play along with it for now.

“No,” she said. There was an awkward silence, so she added, “Does your uncle cook often?”

She could’ve sworn she heard him chuckle softly. “No. He’s much better at making tea,” he paused. “He’s always dreamed of opening his own tea shop when the war is over.”

Now she couldn’t help but laugh. “The Fire Lord’s brother wants a tea shop?”

“Yes,” he said stiffly. “They’ve never been much alike.”

“Hm,” she said. This conversation just got stranger and stranger. “Well, I guess my brother and I aren’t much alike, either.”

“Your brother?”

“He, umm… He’s the one who hit you with a boomerang.”

“Oh.”

There was another long silence. She wished he’d leave already.

“So, then, he’s a non-bender?” he said at last.

“What?”

“Your brother. He’s not a waterbender.”

“Nope, just me. I’m the last one.”

“The last waterbender,” he seemed to think aloud. “There was another in your tribe several years ago… You mentioned you knew her. Was she your teacher?”

Rage welled in her chest. “She was my mother.” She was surprised at the amount of venom in her voice. “And she wasn’t even a bender. She was just protecting me, and your people murdered her.”

The prince’s expression was inscrutable.

The next thing Katara knew, she was on her feet looking down at him. So much for playing nice; the floodgates were open now.

“I was eight years old, and I had to watch my mother burn.” She realized she had gotten loud enough that all the other soldiers were now listening. “You’re all monsters,” she announced to the whole room, “and I may not be a master now, but believe me, one day I will be. And when I am, I’ll kill every one of you for what you did to her.”

She clutched MoMo to her chest tightly and, with no idea where she was going, ran.

***

At first, Zuko was too dumbfounded to chase after the girl. He stood there for a moment watching her disappear down a dark hallway before finally breaking into a run himself.

He groaned. That’s what he got for trying to take his uncle’s advice.

“The best thing you can do now is keep her cooperative,” the old man had said after they had gotten everyone settled into their makeshift camp. “She hasn’t tried anything yet. Show her that she need not be afraid of you, and you may make things easier for yourself.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Zuko had scoffed.

“Well, you could try simply talking to her. Who knows? You might learn something.”

And look where that had gotten him.

He lit a small flame in his palm, and shadows danced along the ancient walls. He could still hear her footsteps echoing in the darkness, but she was nowhere to be seen. The labyrinthine passageways were filled with turns, and he couldn’t begin to guess where they all led. He picked one that seemed to be the general direction the sound was coming from and continued, a disturbing thought suddenly crossing his mind.

What if, through her past life connections, she could somehow recall or sense her way around? If so, then she might well be able to hide, while he would only get more and more lost.

But, he reminded himself, at least he had light. She wouldn’t be able to see where she was going…

Unless she could firebend after all.

With each turn he took, he felt his panic grow. He couldn’t lose her. But now he was lost, himself. Surely at least some of his men would have followed after him, but if they didn’t find him first, he’d have a hard time finding his way back alone.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, letting his fire extinguish for a moment. He strained to listen, hoping he could pinpoint her location better without the sound of his own footsteps competing. He could still hear the echoes, but for all he knew, his soldiers’ steps could be adding to the confusion by now. Whoever it was, it sounded fairly close.

The next thing he knew, someone was colliding with him at full speed, and he stumbled backward a few steps.

He heard a startled noise that was unmistakably the girl, and he quickly lit another flame to see that she had fallen, the lemur still clutched tightly in her arms.

“Get away from me!” she scrambled to her feet quickly and fled again in the opposite direction.

But now he had her in sight, and though she was surprisingly quick, he knew he could catch her.

“Katara!” he called after her, the name sounding strange on his tongue. He realized it was the first time he had said it.

She kept running.

He stayed close behind her.

They rounded a corner, and he realized with horror that there was a faint light at the end of the tunnel; he couldn’t let her get that far. He sprinted as hard as he could to close the gap between them.

Almost there… he reached to grab her, his fingertips coming just short as they emerged into the downpour outside.

She wheeled around, the lemur clambering quickly onto her shoulder, and with a swift flick of her wrists, she froze the rain in midair, sending a small flurry of sleet pelting at him. He just managed to shield his face in time, the ice slicing his hands and sleeves like tiny shards of glass.

Instinctively, he launched a burst of flames at her, but she easily deflected it by using the rain again to form a wall of water around herself.

Lightning flashed, illuminating her blue eyes. They both stood there for a moment, tensed to fight.

“There’s nowhere to go,” he said. “Just come back to camp.”

She said nothing.

Maybe Iroh was right after all. Chasing and fighting her were proving too risky.

“You hate us - fine,” he said. “I get it. But we can agree on one thing: keeping you alive. As long as you’re with us, you’re safe.”

“Safe?” she said. “What kind of sick joke is that?”

“You think we’re the only Fire Nation soldiers looking for the Avatar?”

She blinked as if she had not, in fact, considered it.

“Even if you managed to survive this storm and get off the island without us, what do you think is going to happen if someone else finds you?” he said. “Trust me, not everyone treats their prisoners as well as my uncle does.”

She remained silent, but it was clear she saw the logic in his words. Before either of them could speak again, he heard another voice calling from the hallway.

“Prince Zuko!”

It was as if mentioning his uncle had summoned him. Iroh appeared in the archway behind them, stopping short of the rain.

“Both of you come inside!” he said. “You are soaking wet!”

Zuko looked from the girl to his uncle and back to the girl.

Avoiding eye contact with either of them, she brushed past Zuko and followed Iroh into the hallway without a word.

***

As Sokka approached the Fire Nation ship, the waves grew more tumultuous by the second. He wasn’t sure how much more his boat could handle, but if he could just make it there in one piece, he’d be abandoning it, anyway.

The wind seemed otherworldly, as if the spirits of all the airbenders who once lived here had returned to seek vengeance on the Fire Nation trespassers. Whatever the case, it was nearly impossible to steer. He would have made it there already under normal conditions, but it was all he could do to keep from blowing off course.

Between the rain and the crashing waves lapping into the boat, if he didn’t reach the ship soon, he’d be in danger of sinking.

“Wouldn’t that just be poetic?” he muttered. “Trying to save my waterbending sister, only to get killed by water.”

On top of it all, the storm had darkened the sky so much that the light coming from inside the Fire Nation ship was all he had to guide him. So much for the moon being on his side.

Despite it all, he was sure he was making progress. He’d remembered all the sailing tricks his father had taught him. He figured he’d be there soon if he could just keep -

BOOM!

He would’ve thought it was thunder if it weren’t for the jolt of impact that knocked him off his feet.

Instantly, he knew he had struck something. A rock, most likely, nearly invisible amidst the black waves. The next thing he knew, the boat had cracked in two, and there was nothing he could do now but cling desperately to the half of it that he had left and hope that he wouldn’t die. He was at the mercy of the ocean.

“Two wrecked boats in three days,” he thought. “That’s gotta be a record.”