KATARA
Katara leans over the edge of the dock to see her reflection in the shallow water. The water ripples faintly, breaking her image; broken pieces wink back to her at random. Behind her, Sokka haggles with the girl selling him overpriced fish. His technique consists of him boasting about what a respected warrior he is in their hometown and how he'd regularly bring home leopard-whales from the hunt.
You're selling yourself short, Sokka, she thinks sarcastically. You left out the fact that those leopard-whales were juveniles and hadn't sprouted their fangs yet. Also, that you trained many fearsome warriors back home and taught them to form ranks while they were still in diapers, in fact.
To Sokka's credit, the girl sounds a little impressed. After all, she doesn't know anything about leopard-whales or their tiny village in the South Pole. They're a long way from home right now.
She thought it would be good to get away from the village, from the entire South Pole, maybe even find someone to teach her waterbending. At the least, she wants to get to know the world beyond glaciers and whale blubber. Exactly how much she doesn't know is daunting, though.
"Ahoy, madam!" A rough drawl breaks her reverie. "I can tell from your clothes that you are a very worldly traveler! Perhaps I could interest you in some of the curios we have to sell?"
She looks up to meet a scrawny, shirtless vagabond-looking man with three gold earrings and four missing teeth. A pirate? Ugh. She starts to decline. Sokka, however, is more than happy to accept on her behalf.
"What are curios?" he asks as he tucks the fish (not as many as he'd haggled for, she thinks smugly) into his satchel.
The vagabond shrugs. "Dunno, but we've got 'em, so you should come and see 'em!"
"Sokka, this is a waste of time," Katara sighs as her brother flips through the curios. The musty ship is stacked floor to ceiling with chests and drawers of junk: creepy incense burners, musical instruments, rusty blades, questionably fashionable jewelry, and more.
"Hush, sis, there's got to be something of value here. You've got to leave it to an experienced buyer like me." He picks up an intricately folded paper flower, unfolds it, realizes he has no idea how to put it back together, and hastily stuffs it back into its cubby.
"I hate to break it to you, but being an experienced buyer requires money, for which you have to be an experienced worker, and we're not," she says under her breath. A grim-looking pirate with a broad black-and-sable hat and a green parrot stares at them from the till, clearly surmising their (lack of) buying potential. Another with flashy gold armbands and a wilting goatee sizes them up from the door.
"We've been trying to find work for weeks, but there just aren't any takers. No one wants to hire Water Tribe people this far from the Poles. They think we're trouble, that we're running from something."
"Gotta admit, we kind of are." Sokka picks his teeth with an impossibly sharp, thin switchblade.
"Yes, but not in the sense that we're, I don't know, fugitives from the Fire Nation. Let's just make it a priority to find some jobs before we think about becoming experienced buyers, yes? Most of this stuff is useless, anyways."
"You sure about that?" From a dark recess, Sokka somehow has the eye to pick out a scroll with a blue emblem inscribed with waves, the same symbol that's on Katara's necklace. "This looks kind of handy." He unrolls it to reveal—
"A waterbending scroll!" Katara claps a hand over her mouth, but the pirates have already heard.
"Interested? That'll be two hundred gold coins. We're very lucky to offer such an authentic text," the grim-looking one says smoothly. The parrot squawks as if in agreement.
"Lucky? You probably stole it from waterbenders in the first place!" she snaps.
"No, no, no, stealing is completely the wrong idea!" Goatee reassures her. "We thought we'd help out the original owners by relieving them of a high-risk asset."
"How dare you! That scroll belongs to the Water Tribe. It's part of our culture, and you're just hawking it off as…as curios!"
"Oh please, we were doing them a favor. If the Fire Nation knew they were waterbenders, they'd be in very hot water, you get my drift?"
"Absolutely," Sokka cuts in. He puts the scroll back. "Come on, Katara, let's go. We don't need any of this stuff."
Still seething, she accompanies her brother out, the pirates' suspicious eyes following them all the while. It's so unfair. They've left their impoverished village to find better opportunities elsewhere, only to be left begging for scraps and odd jobs in the cheerless Earth Kingdom. As the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, Katara supposed she'd find equally little opportunity to learn the lost art, until they discovered this scroll. But even that is denied her.
Maybe it's as much as I deserve. They pass a woman with exhausted eyes hurrying in the opposite direction, nervously hustling her two children past the sketchy pirate ship. If not for my waterbending, we wouldn't have lost Mom. Without any training, I can't even control it. It's more of a liability than an asset.
Maybe Gran Gran's right. Waterbending has only brought bad luck to our family. It's not for me.
"Cheer up, Katara," Sokka says as they walk down the pier. On the sparsely populated dock, no one pays them any mind except possibly a boy around Sokka's age, sitting under an empty shop awning with a couple others. He's got a strange fashion sense: bald and sporting long blue arrow tattoos down his scalp and torso, but it's not a bad look. He turns to his companions as Sokka claims her attention again.
"Look what I got you. Surprise!" He pulls the waterbending scroll out from inside his shirt. "I switched it with another one while you were arguing with them."
No way. She grabs it without a second thought, all gloomy reminiscences banished, but then that second thought catches up to her. "Sokka, you shouldn't have. What if they find out?"
"Eh, let's cross that ice field when we get to it," he dismisses.
As it happens, they get to it immediately.
"Sokka, we've got to run!" Is he seriously thinking of facing an onslaught of armed pirates with nothing but his boomerang, club, and thick skull? They dash through the dockside and the village, heading inland. Hopefully if they get far enough, the pirates pursuing them will just give up and go back to their ship. On the outskirts of town, it seems like their luck will hold out.
"Phew," Sokka sighs as they reach the edges of the forest. He slumps against a tree by a clear pond. "No idea why they're so mad; we just relieved them of a high-risk asset."
"That was your idea, Sokka, one of your worse ideas in fact, and that's saying a lot!"
"Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of you moping for the next week or so because you couldn't have that scroll."
Oh, so it's my fault? She wants to rage, but the sound of the mob of pirates dashing towards them reroutes her priorities—not this now. "They've found us again!"
Frantically, Katara tries to recall some of the offensive moves she saw in her short glimpse of the waterbending scroll. Water whip, was it? She reaches for some water from the pond, yanks it up and snaps it up sharply into an oncoming pirate's face. It's clumsy and imprecise, but the unlucky man recoils and stumbles backwards blindly just as another gets knocked out by Sokka's boomerang.
"Neat!" Sokka yells, catching his boomerang. "But does your water come back to you every time you throw it at someone like my trusty boomerang does? Uh-huh, that's what I—ack!"
"Sokka!" He's gotten entangled in a net thrown by one of the pirates. Before she can act, another net comes flying towards her, trapping her in its confines and preventing her from bending.
"Now we'll have that scroll back." The pirate captain leers down at them unpleasantly. "And your hides to boot!"
"Uh, gentlemen, I don't mean to interrupt any delicate business here." A new voice intercedes, someone who definitely means to interrupt. Katara twists in the net to see what's going on.
It's that boy from the dock. He steps into the pirates' midst with confidence, armed with only a staff, apparently uncaring of the fact that they've all got scimitars and swords and unscrupulous bloodlust. At his side, he holds a grumpy-looking girl by the collar. Oddly, she seems to be putting up a fight for the sake of it, dragging her feet and kicking at the ground but not actually trying to escape his hold. The last of their mismatched party follows, a boy with dual blades and a scarred face, by far the tensest among the three of them.
Their interruption continues. "My name is Yorru, and you have something I've been looking for: these two escaped criminals!" He points at Sokka and Katara. "They're on the run from the Water Tribe for malfeasance in elected office. Very severe crime, if I may say so."
"What?! Firstly, we're not criminals!" Sokka exclaims, infuriated. "Second, what even is malfeasance? Third, the Water Tribe doesn't have elected office positions."
"My partner and I have been pursuing them fruitlessly for weeks," Yorru continues over him. "It was a stroke of fortune that you managed to capture them for us. As a token of our appreciation, we'd like to offer recompense in the form of a bounty. This ragamuffin here," he shakes the grumpy girl firmly, "is in fact a wanted criminal as well! Her name is Toph Beifong, but you may know her as The Runaway. She's the ruthless perpetrator of multiple fraudulent schemes using her uncanny earthbending abilities. There's a thousand gold pieces for her head, and I'm handing her right to you."
"A thousand gold pieces!" The pirates murmur in astonishment and greed, and not without good reason. It seems too good to be true. Why is Yorru giving up this opportunity to strike it rich for the sake of two broke Water Tribe kids? Is he just after the scroll? But if he is, he could just buy it with the bounty money. Something's not adding up here. As they deliberate, he catches her eye and gives her a bright wink before turning back to the pirates.
"Well? What's your answer?"
"Your offer is tempting, but we want to see the evidence before we make a deal," the captain says warily, stroking his chin and peering down at Yorru with a suspicious look. "How do we know she's the real thing?"
"Of course, very astute of you! Lee, the poster?" he asks of his silent, sword-wielding companion who may or may not even be on board with this scheme, judging from his dour affect. "Lee?"
His partner heaves a burdened sigh before responding, "Sorry. I burned it."
"Shit."
SOKKA
Okay, so this isn't how he'd pictured things would go when he lifted that nice waterbending scroll for his baby sister. This is why they can't have nice things. The rescue attempt is a thoughtful gesture, but it doesn't seem to be working. Pirates may be gullible, simple-minded folk, but not even they will believe that this barefoot slip of a girl with a bright green fluffy headband is a wanted criminal. The bald guy in tattoos and some kind of off-the-shoulder priest robes seems to be realizing this too as his partner confirms that they have no evidence to back them up.
"No proof, no deal," the pirate captain repeats with more force. The hulking bird of prey on his shoulder squawks viciously, and his entire posse is looking a lot more menacing now that it seems they're being ripped off.
Plan B, plan B, he thinks desperately. Katara's the magic and waterbending one, so that makes me the boomerang and plans guy. Toph is the innocent-looking one who always gets used as bait. Yorru is the well-meaning but bumbling visionary who tries to act cool but fails.
Hm, what about Lee, aka Quiet Sword Guy? He's hard to put a finger on. Sokka cranes his head to look through the net restraining him, hoping to clue in to something that will help them, and unexpectedly, he does.
"Hey, aren't you the Avatar?" he pipes up. "I swear I've seen a picture of you just last week. I'd recognize that frown anywhere."
There was a poster at the last village they were in, advertising the treason of the Avatar against the Fire Nation and showing a scarred face frowning with grim onus. His name wasn't Lee, though. Katara had been skeptical, insisting it must just be a ruse to catch unscrupulous bounty hunters and that the Avatar had no reason to betray his own nation.
The Avatar, if indeed it is him, looks startled to be called out thus, but it could be the opportunity they need. Great timing, Sokka.
"Oh, yeah! Didn't you know? Zuko here is the Avatar, which is definitely worth more than a thousand gold pieces to the Fire Lord." The Runaway plays along a little too easily for someone who was just on the verge of being handed over to pirates. "Zuko, won't you demonstrate your criminally amazing Avatar powers so we can rescue these Water Tribe kids?"
He scowls and steps forward, deeply exasperated about being exposed as the Avatar. Sokka gets the idea that it's probably not the first time his loudmouth companions have done this.
"Yes, I am the Avatar. You will all…reap my fire," he says tonelessly, before using his swords to direct a giant circle of flame that surrounds the pirates.
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. The pirates flap frantically amid the rising flames, and taking advantage of their distraction, Yorru summons two torrents of air out of nowhere, which he directs at Sokka and Katara. The air pushes the nets away from their bodies long enough for them to crawl free—convenient.
Wait, how is that even possible? He's airbending…?
Sokka decides to suspend all further disbelief for the day and just accept whatever magic and insanity the world has in store for him next as an actual flying bison swoops down on them from heaven. One of the pirates has other ideas, though, and the only warning they get is the twang of a crossbow and the whistle of an arrow as they make for the open skies.
"Katara!" He flings himself across to push her out of harm's way, nearly knocking her off the bison's back in the process, but she's safe, thank goodness. He doesn't know what he'd do if she were to come to harm.
She gasps in shock, and for a moment he thinks it's just the near-death experience talking, but then he follows her eyes over the edge and, "Holy shit, is that Yorru flying?!"
"His name is actually Aang, but yes, he is flying. Gliding, to be more precise," Zuko says, sounding disapproving.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we'd had time to get around to introductions yet."
"And it looks like he's gone to retrieve something you dropped," Zuko addresses Katara. Sokka stares, trying to figure out what he means, but then Aang vaults up back to them on a glider staff, free of the pirates' wrath, and he's carrying—
"My necklace!" Katara gasps, fingers flying to her throat as she just noticed it was missing.
"I can't believe you just did a nosedive to catch a necklace." Zuko raises a skeptical eyebrow at the airbender.
"Don't judge, Zuko. Remember how sad you were when I made you take off your Fire Prince-hairpin-crown-thing? I know you still have it, by the way."
"Yes, because you went through my things."
"I told him to do that," Toph breaks in. Neither she nor Aang look the slightest bit remorseful for what Sokka would consider a capital offense if it were done to him.
Aang seems to remember he's still holding Katara's necklace. "Oh, here." But instead of handing it to her, he offers it to Sokka.
"Huh?" Sokka says intelligently.
"For your fiancée. I'm from the south, I know a little about Water Tribe customs," Aang says earnestly. "It's bad manners for anyone but the betrothed to handle this necklace, right?"
"Um…" He looks to Katara for help. She actually giggles, a bright sound that Sokka hasn't heard in weeks.
"You're right about the custom, but we're not actually engaged. Sokka here is my brother," she explains. She holds her hand out for the necklace, which Aang relinquishes, looking mortified. "Still, thank you so much for getting it back for me. It was my mother's, and it's all I have left of her."
"See, this is why we should have done introductions first," Sokka feels the need to remind everyone.
"Yes, that definitely should have taken priority over rescuing you from angry pirates," Toph says.
"Okay, big brother, I'll do the honors," Katara offers, still smiling fondly at Aang. "I'm Katara, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and he's Sokka, Hunter of Baby Leopard-whales and detective extraordinaire when it comes to solving cases like the missing seal jerky."
"I'm Aang, this is Toph, and that standoffish guy who's just ignoring us," Aang gestures to the back of Zuko's head, "is Zuko, the Avatar."
"I'm not ignoring you, I'm just making sure we're going in the right direction and putting as much distance as possible between us and those pirates," Zuko says without turning around. He pulls on the reins attached to the horns of their giant steed ("Oh right, this is Appa, my flying bison," Aang adds), and they ascend farther still into the sky, going who knows where.
Sokka's not worried, though. He has a feeling that things are looking up for them now. It's just instinct.
A/N: My Notes on the Avatar Zuko series continues with this AO3 installment: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/23105493
Read for explanations of what I'm doing with Katara's character.