Chapter Text
Chapter 1:
In the North the waters are frozen, Tui's light touching down on glistening waves of frozen white, walls of snow. Frozen, for eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now. Still, stagnant. Those of the water are those of change, just as the tides do and as the moon does. They are the people of change. Eighty years and the flame had not returned. Not to the North. They had walls higher and higher, they had built walls. The ice did not break. Higher and higher walls of white. To keep them out. To keep them in. They had packed tradition into the ice and snow and had then built houses and bridges and a nation upon it. The water in the North was frozen, unchanging. Winter to Spring, the seasons change and—
The Avatar had returned, the North was no longer neutral;
(They had waited for him, they had waited one hundred years for him).
—ice breaks.
Standing in a place like none she's ever known, grass green below, air damp with heat, and walls that glisten in the fading sunlight, Katara stands, arms curled around herself, and hates the world.
Blackened snow was falling...and she was angry.
Blackened snow was falling upon shores of untouched white, the waves rush in. Katara is angry and she hates how angry she is. White, she is surrounded by the ice and snow. Buildings built with the determination of bending the waves. Blue, she is surrounded by more than she's ever known, benders in greater numbers than the sum of her entire village even with the warriors home. Katara is surrounded by her people...surrounded by water, and she hates them for it. She wishes she didn't— but she does. And she knows that this is just another thing she is to never tell Aang. Not this, no never this. They had traveled across the world, pole to pole, they had finally made it to her sister tribe after everything—and all she can feel is the barely concealed anger that hardens the edges of her smile until it is as razor focused as the discs she had thrown at a man who had doubted her. Until it matches the smiles presented to her and her brother. They are her sister tribe, and Katara is angry. She is angry, as whitened hair and a purpled dress stand beside her, Yue, a demonstration of all that they think of her of them (she had not wanted to be an exception, but the North—it didn't change. It hadn't changed for eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now. And if Yue couldn't what was she—). She hates it. And She hates these men, these untested warriors, how they look upon her brother who has known blood and fire and steel he had ran straight up that ramp, face painted, alone. She hates and she hates, for they had ignored their calls for aid, they had hid, they had refused to help, and they had only cared for themselves, only saved themselves. They had ignored the Southern Seas as they were slaughtered and stolen and—. They had ignored them and she hates most of all...that she can't. Katara would never turn her back on people who need her. And they did.
And she doesn't know how.
Please, please, our people you need to save them you have to help. There are children crying and mothers huddled over them, and the gates are closing. They are the North, they don't have room for any others.
We are going to war, it's been long enough...after all they've done to us and our people...join us and fight...they could come for you next...we need your help. They are the North, and they had walls to protect them, their warriors were needed there and only there. Fire doesn't come North.
Blackened snow was falling and the battlefield was singing as the waves called to her—pull them under, crush them, drown them. People forget that water kills. Seconds they would have seconds, cold it was too cold, frozen waves that pull the strength from their veins and use it to crush them under, they would drown, they were drowning. Lungs rasped raw. They would drown, water kills and ice burns. And people forget. Katara doesn't, she can't. There is salt in her veins and the blood of her people in her teeth, she wants to scream, This is not a smile. Wolves do not smile. It is a warning, the North had not heeded, until she had proven herself. A warning they had not heeded and if she were not kinder she would have shown them the tides that pull at her, she would have pulled them under for even daring to consider her lesser. There is salt on her bones, her lips, for she is of the waves and the North cannot change her (she cannot change them), and they will never control her. The ocean is not something they control, they bend his waters, but he does not heed their calls, the Ocean does not answer to them and only them. It is not to be controlled. There is salt on her lips and she is baring her teeth. This is not a smile. And the tides can only be held back for so long...but Katara is not the tides, she is not the ocean, and she can be kind. Even to those who are not.
Even when she hates...
She will not answer its call, the ice shifts below, but she will not turn her back on them (as they had hers). Blackened snow was falling, and the battlefield was singing, out in the snow there is a wolf alone as always, and Katara stands watching over Aang.
She'll watch, as the skies turn black and she seethes at what should have been hope, the fact that water persists somewhere. As the black snow falls and she hates the world. For showing her sanctuary and the untouched snow only to watch it ruin under reds and blacks and armored feet, as the Nation had followed in their wake. For a necklace which should have still been her mother's, which had been her GranGran's, which was apparently his. Katara stands a purpled dress and whitened hair beside her and she is angry, and guilty, and angry that she feels guilty. She hates this, that this is what they were given. That ashes on her tongue was all she's ever known. That father's leave and mother's die. That people can choose not to help in the face of destruction, that they could ignore—when she can't. She still can't. Katara was born into a world that she hates.
Black snow is falling,
and she hates it even more.
The water in the North was frozen—this among other things are known.
Known as in the way, names are, as in the way, war is...in most places.
The water is frozen in the North, its cities streams and people were frozen. For eighty years now, eighty out of a hundred years now, they had been frozen—and water is not meant to be still.
This should have been known, as many things should be. But they tend to be forgotten, that's what war and death and fire does.
The North had woven their stories onto paper, with ink and tiger-seal skin—and they had forgotten them. The North had still forgotten them. Seas away, blood and a war away—a world away really— there is a hut filled with the mothers whose children sit beside them, the mothers whose children ride the bloodied waves bringing blue into a world of reds and browns and green, the dirt and earth below reddened as all things are now. And the mothers who sit in a hut and have lost all those who had made them a mother. They sit with those too old and too young to die with their faces painted, only cowering and afraid against the dirtied snow. Show no fear. They sit in a hut filled with those who know the ash in the wind and the way soot stains, they sit and they weave their stories into the air, to remember with words and movement.
They still forget though.
They forget. As stories can only be remembered when there are those to tell them. And there is steel now, on their wrists and in their hearts as they are kept away from the moon above and the water in their veins, their moods like the tides. There is no one left to tell them.
They still forget.
And they do not know what they have forgotten.
Water had froze, when the air grew hot and the yellows and oranges and the wind that had answered their call was burnt out, lost. There is no room for peace in a world at war. No room for nomads either. Pacifists. One hundred years ago they had froze. Froze, the North had froze, as ships had sailed the southern seas—as they were raided, their people stolen, and their lands diminished. They had forgotten. North, North, they were the North and there is no room for anything else within their walls (except the Avatar). The North did not know how they were adrift (as all are without others). There was no room for compassion in a world at war.
They were the North, they were the people of the water and the moon, the tides and the freshly fallen snow. They were of the cold, the frozen, the unforgiving land. And they had fashioned themselves as such. This was known. As is that the North is thriving as the world turns to ashes below.
Their traditions were what was to save them, their inability to adapt was to damn them.
The waves are always changing, and the North is still, stagnant.
They had forgotten.
Ships of steel with red hot coals head North.
Ships of wood and blue worn sails—turn back South.
The war is here,
And it does not forgive.
And it does not forget.
It is here.
Ice breaks.
Between one breath and the next; the air heavy with the damp of the oasis, grows ever so warmer, heavier, filling the green in this hidden oasis surrounded by walls of ice and snow—with other. He's my friend, I can protect him. Katara stands, watching over the last remnant of a lost nation, orange and yellow, a lost people, with no one to truly know him—to understand him and his lost concept of peace.
It had been a hundred years and they had been shaped by that loss. The world her friend grew up in, did not exist. Aang did not know this world, this war, he was not shaped by it as they were. Katara stands, watching, and knows that she would kill—if needed. The air nomads were pacifists, they did not believe in violence, in killing, in war...they wouldn't have survived, they didn't. Katara would kill if she had to. She hates this world and how it does not know mercy. But she would, she would do it to protect Aang, because they were his new family, he was her tribe and—she would do it to protect this, this concept. Aang knew a world without war. And Katara, Katara would like to see that some day. Had never stopped believing in that—the Avatar would return and the world would be saved and her Dad would come home, her Mom wouldn't come back though. She hadn't expected him to be twelve. She hadn't expected it to be this hard. She hadn't wanted— Aang was the Avatar and he was hope, and she would not let that die. She would not let that burn. They would have to tear it away from her— they would have to try for she stands surrounded by her people, her element. Aang was the last, and that at least she knew. She couldn't understand what it was to lose everyone and everything. But she could understand this, to have no one truly know her. Katara was the last of a lost tradition, a lost culture, they had come and burned and stolen, they had taken it from them—and left her the last. MOM—go find your father, Katara. Her blues had dwindled smaller, and no one had known the pull of the tides and the phases of the moon as she does. How the moon calls and how she aches. She is empty, there is a vast emptiness, an ache within her that cannot be filled, they had scooped out the other, all the others like her, and left her alone. No one to dance with, to learn with, her forms had been choppy and stuttering, unintelligible from the waving of her brother's arms as he speaks. She hadn't known how to bend, they had stolen that from her—from them. They had stolen the water right out of them. How could they be water when they were disconnected from it, when they could not remember the waves, the tides, and the moon? Fire had come and they had stolen the traditions, the culture, the knowledge.
The North—they had hoarded it, hid it behind walls of ice and snow and then they had tried to deny her—the last, the very right to know it and she had shown them. It's not the same, it will never be the same, they had lost the way of the waves, how the South had called to the moon, the tides, the dance of her people, the Northern way was all that was left to her—all that was left. How was she to call to the moon when the prayers were forgotten, stolen. They had tried to deny her. Waves roar, crash, and drag the unsuspecting under. Katara had wanted to melt to break and tear it all down. This stupid icy fortress that was made to keep them safe, only them safe. She hadn't though. Water can be patient...usually. She had had to fight to prove herself for them to take her and teach her— that's my mother's necklace,—and it wasn't good enough, it was never good enough. Icy looks, whispers, again and again, not like that, do it again, raised eyebrows, she is still the only one. And worst of all, Katara hadn't changed them. They took her but they hadn't changed. The North was water but they do not change. They were frozen. They had never been broken, they have never known the broken ice and melted snow, how it is to reform harder, stronger, better. To move, to change, to adapt. Black snow up above, maybe she should have shown them, but it is too late. Black snow up above, and the North with its glistening ice and snow, still beautiful and unchanging...black snow was falling and ice would melt and it would break. That is what Fire does. They had taught her that. But the North had not learned and they do not listen.
Katara watches over this last remnant of a lost nation, as the battlefield sings to her, water is not kind, but she will not fight, not yet. Water is not kind, but she can be. She will protect this here, she will fight for this future and this land that had turned its back on hers. Katara watches over Aang—her friend—and knows she would protect him, would kill for him, even if he would never ask her to.
Even if he would never want her to.
She wouldn't like it, there is salt in her bones and the waves roar, but she would do it. She may hate this world, but she will never stop fighting to change it—to save it.
Blue.
The Oasis warms, white and white and blue. Other. The air moves around them, dancing and wavering, Katara stands, ready. GranGran wrinkled eyes tired but still bright— in a hut filled with women and children, the cold outside and the warmth inside—rocks, dancing moving shifting, she rocks as the waves do, flows as her words do, she speaks and they listen. This is important, this is who they are, this is the water, and they are of the South. And if they forget the stories are lost so they must strive to remember, so they listen and Katara learns of the spirits.
Spirit.
The wind is tearing pulling at her hair, they do not belong here. They are not of the skies and storms, those that had been were lost. Words blown away the instant they are spoken through quivering lips. She shares a look with Sokka, and they listen.
Blue Spirit, donned in the white of the ice and snow.
He hadn't meant to— but he had.
She is moving before Yue can pull her away. Push and Pull,
He hadn't meant to—but he had.
...spirits never forgive...
Katara is a fighter, her veins are filled with the salt of the Ocean— that wrecks ships and drowns people alike, that is ruthless. She had ignored its calls, the battlefield sings, and she would not now.
Her water whip goes flying into what is now but darkness and shadows, she turns, searching looking shifting, she turns and turns and never stops moving. Water never stills. Blue before her, head tilted. She does not scream. She had run fast fast faster before, to her—her father, to the hut where a strange man in colors she had never seen before had stood with her mother, and she had not screamed not when they had made it back to her mom and she knew red (it is the color that stains the snow). She does not scream now. Not as it turns its head from side to side and moves with no regard for how it should, if it were human, spirits are not bound by mortal laws...or physical constraints. She does not scream, as it is in front of her, now, it is in front of her. And she knows. It could take her, they could take her if they wish to, right now, and she would not be able to stop them. She would try. But she would not be able to stop them. Katara had struck at a spirit, knowingly struck at a spirit (not that it being an accident would matter either, they are not human), they could take her. Head tilted, they do not.
And she does not know what that means,
Or if that is worse.
She wants to scream—but she does not.
Katara is of the waves and the ice and the snow, a blizzard rages above, but here—it is warm.
Tui dances above and it is warm.
She does not scream—but she waits. She knows what Aang had done, what he hadn't meant to, what had kept him up when Tui stood above, what had led to him hiding salt stained cheeks, he was scared, and he felt guilty, and spirits do not forgive. Aang—the last remnant of a lost world, the Avatar, hope. She waits and watches wary and ready.
He is running, wolves at his heels, he runs. Fire is raining. Blackened snow and whitened hair. He had warned her, warned them— their chief stood in halls of white bigger and grander than anything Sokka had ever seen. Warriors beside him, their ranks (their prosperity) visible in their ornaments. The chief is speaking and Sokka watches the blue stone he cannot name bob up and down with the words that flow through his lips, pierced, not with the ivory of the walrus-elephant, but blue. He does not know why he bothers, they had not listened when they had asked for help, they had not listened when they had tried to call them to war beside them, and they will not listen now. He had warned them (who had not bothered in warning them, who had not saved them). Dark hair and skin, blue eyes, kind, laugh lines and stern frowns. He is not sure, Sokka, is not sure. Blackened snow and he is running and there is fighting, and he is both fifteen and he is nine, a boomerang in hand, Sokka is still running—but this time it is away. Sokka had learned he knows how important it is to protect now. Like no one had done, in a hut with the furs his father had hunted and— blue eyes smiling as her hands run over soft gray, they sit and dark hands keep busy. As they pull his hair up into a wolf-tail, keep busy to keep him from turning, turning to see the reddened flush that crosses his skin as – she smiles and tells him, tells Sokka, even as her eyes are up above his shoulder meeting embarrassed blue. She smiles as her words flow forth and she tells of how GranGran had walked in on them, Bato and his father, knife in hand standing over their kill. He had wanted it to be a surprise, he couldn't let her prepare it, it was a gift and...GranGran had stepped in before he could ruin it. She laughs, as the chorus of it wasn't that bad comes from over his shoulder, hands that are busy tying up his hair and hands busy working over their weapon, they flush but they do not argue, as she shakes her head, she is laughing, and they are laughing, and hands run over soft gray and - Sokka frowns.
Like no one had done in a hut filled with the furs his father had hunted and - Sokka is angry and he is running and he has people to protect, and the North is not worth it. Blackened snow, it had landed on his tongue, they had been playing, a snowball fight, he had never tasted the snow again, it was just ashes and death, a warning—Fire is coming. People are screaming and he runs.
Fast fast faster Sokka runs. And their uniforms look the same, not as the North had thought they would, but the same as in the dreams when he wakes, turns over to quiet and muffle his fears—the fire— into his furs, his father was not here to quiet them, to comfort him, the men had left on ships of wood to fight fire, as if wood would not burn. There is a war and he had left for it, his father is the chief and there is more to the tribe than just him and Katara, and their mom. He had left for it, and they had taken her from them.
And Sokka cannot remember.
He does not know which is worse.
The waves are not red but the snow already is. And Sokka knows that this is not the first time white had turned to red; although he wishes that it were and he wishes that it wouldn't do so again. But he knows, there is a wolf and it is howling and he knows just as how the moon glows a tad dimmer and the hair on the girl he thinks he might love is just that tad brighter, that it will not be the last time. War is howling, it is a howl that never ends. His father had answered and had taken all the men, but had told him to stay, to watch, to protect, and Sokka does not know how well he did, but he likes to think he did alright. Alright, as he ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers and was promptly kicked straight off. Alright, for there were no more men to teach him, they had all left him. Alright, for he was fifteen and he was scared and his hands had shook but he had painted himself, he had put on his armor, and he had taught toddlers to stand tall. Show no fear. Even when the fire was to rain above, painted faces, baring teeth, a snarl, a promise. This will hurt you as much as it will hurt me. Die fighting. Sokka had taught children how to hold a knife the best he could, and on nights when the moon was gone and he was alone on the ice, Sokka wondered, what his father had thought would happen to them if Fire had returned to their shores while they were away.
He had ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers whose masks broadcast death, and he had lost in seconds. But he got back up. And no matter how Sokka hated the angry bald prince he had to give him some credit, no one else had interfered, and he hadn't burnt him to a crisp, as he probably could have. Could have, before a twelve year old on an otter-penguin had arrived. A twelve year old, air nomad, goofy little kid, who didn't know war, and was supposed to stop it. Sokka knows that he could have died, even if Katara doesn't want to admit it, and Aang is too young and too old to understand that all at once. And Sokka wonders if he was meant to die facing those benders, if that was what his father had wanted as he had left them behind. If this was what he was to be given, a painted face and a warriors spirit, only to be burnt and sent to his watery grave. To die. And the children behind him would follow. But he had taught them to hold a knife and he wonders if that was wrong. He would die, and he wonders if his father would be proud as Sokka had ran up a ramp towards helmeted soldiers, alone, would his father be proud? Sokka would have died, if he had to. To protect them. But he had still left them to the icy waves of the south, alone. Sokka had answered the howl, he had joined the war. And if he was to be at fault, then what was his father?
Sokka is running; and he cannot remember.
Which is worse?
Blue eyes—kind eyes, laughing as he falls in the snow, as there are two fish hooks and it was a brilliant idea but now both of them are stuck...and they are blue and they are young and they are old, side by side, both kind, both—
And he doesn't remember, he hates that he doesn't when he wakes with dark skin and dark hair fading. That he cannot remember.
And there is no time. The North is burning and melting and all Sokka can do is run and he can't remember. He hates it and he hates the black snow that falls, that sticks, that stains. Sokka is a warrior, like his father, and his father's father, like one hundred years of fathers and sons, and he hates it—and he runs from the fight. There are more important things than fighting, than leaving, than chasing memories and revenge. He has to protect, he just wants to keep them safe, this time, this time Sokka will protect them.
This time.
But it gets harder, it is harder now. It was easier when little sisters were with the tribe. When there was an ocean and ice between them and the Nation. When he could usher her into a hut or out onto the snow. When he could convince her to watch out for the toddlers and let him go off chasing imaginary enemies. She had hated it—Katara had hated it, she didn't want to wash his socks, and stay safe in a hut. She didn't want to cook dinner and sew his pants and stay far far away from the Fire Nation Wreck. She wanted to bend (but it was dangerous), and she wanted to fight and she wanted to see the world. And then there was an iceberg and then there was a twelve year old who was also a one hundred and twelve year old, and they had rode into battle with the Nation trailing in their wake. Sokka had left his tribe, he had abandoned his people, for his sister (His father had done so for a ghost; had done so for their future.). And she didn't want to stay safe.
There are ships of steel and fires are lighting up this darkening day, the reddening snow. They came and they had painted their colors across the land of the South. Leaving them with black and red and pushing their own to sea, having to give them back to La for they weren't theirs anymore. It is the only way to ensure that they get where they are going, we give them back for as Tui and La gave us life we give ours back to them. It's the only way to keep them from being lost. They were already lost and gone. Sokka had not understood, and he is running he is still running, and he still doesn't.
Fire was not the only one at fault. Not the only one who had took from them.
Hair as white as snow, with the traditions of her people wrapped around her throat—tying her down. The eyes and a necklace that are his mom's. Blue and Blue and Green. Katara startles as he shoves the wooden door open, marked with the moon, Tui, but she does not kill him and he is glad (he wouldn't want that on her conscience, he wouldn't want any death—but it is war and she had marched off to it just as their father had done). Sokka had ran and he had made it, two sets of blue eyes stare at him, he had made it. He would protect them this time, and if he cannot remember, blue eyes—kind, a necklace;, what he cannot remember, well he doesn't have to tell. And he won't lose them again.
Blue.
Frost it, he raises his boomerang as they try to wave him off. GranGran smacking him upside the head as he declares it to be but magic nonsense, saying that he'll learn, he'll see. Sokka believes in science, he is rational, he doesn't need magic water to follow his movements to make him special, and he doesn't need magic beings to believe in. Especially ones that didn't answer prayers no matter how hard he had begged. Blue Spirit, that is what Aang had called it. They were sitting in a saddle, higher than people should ever be, higher than Sokka could have imagined, flying over blue and blue and blue, with two beings who were supposed to be just stories, and he meets Katara's eyes as Aang gives in and tells them what he was rushing to forget, rushing to play and talk talk talk for. Talking and talking and never letting on as to what is wrong, he had told them, and Sokka was suspicious. Blue across from him in a world of green, Sokka is still suspicious, but there are icy walls and the only people in the North worth protecting. So if this spirit, Sokka's arm hair was standing up and he could feel a watchful heavy gaze weighing him before turning to crouch beside another glowing impossibility, well if they could help—Sokka would watch them but he wouldn't say no. Katara was here, Yue was here, Aang was here. He would watch, Tui above Hei Bai did not count, and if this magic nonsense could help...black snow is falling...well he would worry about the Blue second.
Red was coming.
Tui watched as her brother's people sailed across La to reach hers. How they waged war on hers and stained her villages red. She watched as the people of the North, her own people forgot who she was and what she is capable of. As they used their traditions to justify their oppression. As they turned their family away as they came with swaddled blue crying out to the moon, to her. Tui knew many things as a spirit. She knew that the darkened shadow, the little flame that falls under her eye, was meant to be her brother's spark—his change. Her brother so desperately wants to save his people. To stop them.
She and La who circle one another as they have since they came to live in the mortal world, knowing only what touches her husband's waters or falls under her light. Tui watches her moonbeam, her hair of white, and watches. Ice needs to break to reform, to allow the water to move once more.
She watches them still stagnant, and waits for change.
She watches as they burn and cry out to her for safety. She thinks if she were human she would cry. But she is not. And she does not.
Tui, is not human, and she had watched as the nomads had turned to ash in the very wind they claim and call to. She will watch as her people are lost, as the tides overcome. She is sad, she thinks. But she is not human. So she watches, and waits for the ice to break, and the water to flow once more.