We are who we are Chapter 1: The time has come, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

Author's note: Another story from my quizilla time. Naturally, all characters and settings taken from Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise belong to Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko (and Gene Yang in the future) and other rightful owners. No, no, I'm not part of them, I swear! However, I do own the original characters and ideas you'll find. Those are mine. Story written for entertainment only.

Book 01

Water

The Wheel of Fate starts spinning. It cannot be stopped. Is Destiny something you run away from? Something you grab? Something you fight? Something you create? Life isn't smooth sailing. There are storms and reefs. Time and rivers cannot flow backwards. But that is how it should be. If we cannot go against the current, we must learn to accept it and tame it. Things must keep changing... and people must change too. People change when they meet others and bonds form, be that bond hate or love. Are those meetings also part of Destiny?

Fight 01: The time has come

Between two icy cliffs, blocks of frozen water floating about around them, two teenagers were sitting in a canoe. Two years ago, the men from the Southern Water Tribe had left for the Earth Kingdom to help fight off the Fire Nation, leaving the young Katara - twelve-year-old at the time - and her older brother Sokka - thirteen-year-old at the time – the two oldest children, to look after the tribe. A hundred years ago, the Avatar, the only master of the four elements, water, earth, fire, and air, and whose role was to keep balance and peace in the world, had disappeared. Without him, it was impossible to stop the ruthless firebenders from attacking the Air Nomads where the new Avatar was to be reborn. And although the Fire Nation paid a high price for it, the airbenders were utterly wiped out. Then they attacked the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, and the Earth Kingdom. Of course, people resisted. But now, after a hundred years, the Fire Nation was close to victory, and many people had lost hope. They believed the cycle had been broken and the Avatar had never been reborn. But not Katara. She still believed that somehow, the Avatar would return to save the world... However, for now she and (especially) her brother were far from such lofty concerns...

Spear in hand, Sokka was facing the front while his younger sister Katara was facing the back of the small canoe. And between them was a basket to store the catch of the day. With their dark brown hair, tanned skin and blue eyes, they looked like normal water tribe people. They were dressed in white and blue clothes, warm enough to withstand the freezing temperatures of the South Pole.

"It's not getting away from me this time!" The boy said, focused on the fish he had just seen swimming past the canoe. "Watch and learn, Katara, this is how you catch a fish." He then glimpsed at his sibling superiorly. The girl stared dubiously for a time – there was nothing new in her brother's antifeminism – before both reported their attention back to the water. And she too noticed the shadow of a fish just below the surface. She hesitated, took a deep breath, removed the mitten from her left hand and moved her arm like a gently rolling wave. A bubble broke through the surface and rose in midair, with the fish swimming inside it.

"Sokka, look!" Katara exclaimed gleefully.

"Shh, Katara, you're gonna scare it away." Sokka scolded her in a whisper, without paying any attention. "Mmmmm I can already smell it cookin'!" He licked his lips, his mouth watering already.

"But Sokka! I caught one!" The girl strove to bring the water sphere above the canoe and the basket. However, due to her lack of control the globe floated closer to Sokka, who, too intent on his prey to see it coming, raised his spear and jabbed the bubble that burst, drenching him. And the fish fell back into the water.

"Hey!"

"Ugh! Why is it that every time you play with magic water I get soaked?" The boy asked, obviously exasperated, as he was wringing the cold water out of his short ponytail.

"It's not magic, it's waterbending." Retorted Katara, a little riled. "It's-"

"Yeah, yeah, an ancient art unique to our culture, blah blah blah... Look, I'm just saying that if I had weird powers, I'd keep my weirdness to myself." Sokka dismissed.

"You're calling me weird? I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water." His beloved younger sister shot back, smirking, her arms crossed, as Sokka was indeed making a muscle and looking at his reflection in the water. He turned to Katara, and gave her a dark look. When, all of a sudden, the boat was bumped. They looked up. A strong current had caught their small craft which was now heading at high speed to the end of the ice packed canal where huge clumps of ice were colliding and breaking apart. Sokka struggled frantically to manoeuvre the tiny boat between the icebergs and avoid being smashed. The boy was screaming, the girl was yelling directions. The canoe threaded its increasingly dangerous way between the blocks of frozen water... until at last three icebergs crashed against them at once, crushing the tiny boat. Both were safe though. They had hopped in time onto one of the floating chunk of ice. Alone in the middle of a field of drifting icebergs, they were now at the mercy of the currents. Katara blamed her brother for his poor navigation skills. To what he retorted that if she had any complaint, she should have just 'waterbended' them out of the ice before his male chauvinism kicked in again, saying that he should have left her home and that girls always screwed things up. Katara was now boiling with rage.

"You..." She stood up and pointed at him. "...are the most sexist, immature, nut-brained..." and as she was violently moving her arms, the water moved along, making their iceberg dip back and forth. "Ugh, I'm embarrassed to be related to you! Ever since mom died I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!" Cracks appeared in the iceberg towering behind her. But she paid no heed to the ominous sounds or her brother's fearful expression. "I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, NOT PLEASANT!" She shouted with rage.

"Katara! Settle down!" Sokka pleaded.

"No! That's it, I'm done helping you. From now on, you're on your own!" She exploded, detaching each syllable for a more powerful impact. And as she did the huge iceberg behind her split all the way and large chunks fell into the sea, waving their icy raft away. They held onto its edge until it settled down.

"Okay, you've gone from weird to freakish, Katara." Sokka declared.

"You mean I did that?" Katara asked, incredulous.

"Yup, congratulations." Her brother replied sarcastically but not meanly.

They were both leaning over the edge of the iceberg when suddenly, the water just in front of them began to glow an incandescent blue. They moved backward on their raft as another, lighter colored iceberg broke the surface. Its shape was strange, like a sort of frozen twirl had been encased in a block. As the new iceberg settled, Katara walked to the edge of their raft to get a better look. Deep in the ice, the figure of a boy in a meditation pose could be seen. He had white arrows on his fists and on his bald head. Suddenly, the boy in the iceberg opened white glowing eyes and his arrow markings glowed the same white.

"He's alive! We have to help!" The girl snatched her brother's club, pulled down her hood and ran over to the boy.

"Katara, get back here! We don't know what that thing is!" Sokka yelled warningly. She ignored him and skipped across a few little icebergs to arrive at the one in which the boy was trapped. Her sibling followed after her. With the club, she started to strike the ice. After a few big hits, the ice cracked open. Wind gusted from the crack, as if the iceberg had a hollow chamber within it. And from that crack, the iceberg then split from bottom to top and burst open. A huge beam of white blue light and energy shot straight to the far sky. An aurora australis started swirling around the shaft of energy. Further away, tiger seals reared and roared at the phenomenon.

At a two-day distance, an iron hulled, coal-fired battleship with a spiked prow was cutting through the sea. And on the foredeck stood a young man dressed in red, also shaven-headed except for a black pony-tail, staring intently, with wide and seething amber eyes at the beam of light ahead of the ship. He was quite handsome, despite the left side of his face being badly burnt and scarred around his left eye. His eyes narrowed.

"Finally. Uncle, do you realize what this means?" He turned to a portly old man seated cross legged at a low table, drinking tea and playing a game.

"I won't get to finish my game?" The old man inquired wisely.

"It means my search... it's about to come to an end." The young man looked back toward the light. His uncle groaned. "That light came from an incredibly powerful source. It has to be him!"

"Or it's just the celestial lights. 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 cup of calming jasmine tea?" The elderly suggested, trying to gently reason his hot-tempered nephew.

"I don't need any calming tea! I need to capture the Avatar! Helmsman, head a course for the light!" Zuko burst out.

While far away, at the same time, at the heart of the Fire Nation, two amber eyes opened in the chamber of a deep underground prison. In the darkness, they glowed with a golden fire.

"The time has come."

"The time has come."

Red markings began to appear on the young girl's body. Her long mahogany red hair was framing a beautiful face with a fair complexion, and her well proportioned body was tightly bound by chains and shackled by her neck, wrists, and ankles to five poles.

"He has awakened. We have awakened. The time has come for us to be rid of those shackles and leave those foolish men who sought to control us. Now let us go. Let us help him restore balance; else both our worlds are destroyed. Let us leave with stealth. We have no time to lose with the inane and the ignorant that would impede us or that person."

With extraordinarily precise control of her firebending, she focused all of her power into scalpel-like blades of intense heat, cutting her shackles as if they were being cut by a sword.

"Yes, to that place where He will be sure to come in order to receive help and counsel from his previous self. At that moment, we shall be there too."

"Yes, to that place where He will be sure to come in order to receive help and counsel from his previous self. At that moment, we shall be there too."

"Now let us go, Guang."

"Now let us go, Chenlian."

She finished cutting her shackles. The chains fell with a heavy clang on the stone pentagon at the centre of which she stood. She walked down two steps to the second and larger pentagonal platform and two more steps down to the stone floor. She walked to the double iron doors. She melted the thick metal. No one was there. It had been over two years already since they had been forced her into that half comatose state with that potion whose smell was enough to make her unable to move and think. But with time they had decreased the frequency more and more, since they saw no sign of the effects wearing off... But the effects DID wear off... and then she had grown accustomed to it and it ceased having any effect.

Certainly no one thought they would wake up now. That Lord and his men were certainly foolish. Now they were awake. And everything was going as planned. First take all the supplies she would need, including getting back her prized dragon straight sword, her twin daggers, and her precious lotus hairpin as well as her white lotus pai sho tile. Those were gifts from her masters; there was no way she would let them rot here... And then, straight to Crescent Island! At leisure...!

At the base of the exploded iceberg, Sokka was shielding his sister from the dissipating blast and whatever was to come after that. The teenagers looked up to see residual blue light still swirling around the top of what was left of the iceberg. Suddenly, the boy appeared; his eyes and arrow markings still glowing. Sokka yelled at him to stop, menacingly raising his spear. The child stood up, the glow and residual energy faded away. He seemed to pass out and slid down the side of the ruined iceberg to Sokka and Katara who lunged forward and caught him as he fell. The blue-eyed 'warrior' poked the boy's head with the blunt side of his weapon. The waterbender gave her brother a look and told him to stop it, pushing the spear away. She gently shifted the stranger so he lay on his mysterious boy groggily opened his eyes to see Katara's beautiful face staring worriedly at him with her deep blue eyes. The wind softly blew her braids. In a weak voice, he asked her to come closer. And then he quickly became fully awake, cheerfully asking the girl if she wanted to go penguin sledding with him, to what she agreed after a few seconds pause. She could not help but be caught up in his pace. The child, in yellow and orange monk clothes, used the air to stand upright, making Sokka scream and be on the defensive again. Obviously confused, the boy wondered what was going on here.

"You tell us! How'd you get in the ice?!" Sokka poked the strange kid again with his spear. "And why aren't you frozen?"

"I'm not sure." The young one absentmindedly pushed the weapon away. Then they heard the low grunt of an animal. He frantically climbed back up the ruined iceberg and jumped over the lip of what was now a crater and landed on a huge furry creature.

"Appa! Are you all right? Wake up, buddy." He leant down and opened one of the beast's eyes. It closed again. The boy hopped down and vainly tried to lift the animal's huge head. The siblings came around the corner and their mouths dropped in shock as they saw the monster with six legs and horns like a steer, whose mouth opened to lick the child trying to wake him up. He rejoiced, glad that his furry friend was alright. Sokka asked what 'that thing' was. The young monk introduced it as Appa, his flying bison, to what the armed tribesman replied with his usual sarcasm by introducing Katara as his 'flying sister'. Appa began to sneeze, the boy ducked in time resulting in Sokka being covered in bison snot. Disgusted, he rolled in the ice and snow, trying to get it off. The bald youngster then asked where they lived. And once again, Sokka was on the defensive, sure he was a spy from the Fire Nation. Katara rolled her eyes at her brother's paranoia and shooed him and questioned the childish monk about his own name. The boy sneezed too, sending himself high into the air, and slowly drifted back down again, unharmed. He introduced himself as Aang. The girl gasped, realizing that Aang was an airbender. Thinking something was wrong with himself, Sokka tried to leave, but he was in the middle of the sea. The little monk offered them a ride, to which Katara happily agreed. And after a time, so did her brother, reluctantly. He did not have much of a choice anyway.

And on the bison's saddle, the siblings' expressions were still at odds. The brother was grumpy and clearly doubted the animal's ability to fly while his sister looked rather excited. Aang was sitting on the beast's head, holding on to the reins attached to its horns.

"Okay. First time flyers, hold on tight! Appa, yip yip!" Aang shook the reigns and Appa made a low rumble. The cute monster flapped its huge beaver tail and launched into the air. It spread its six legs wide, but then came right back down into the water with a huge splash and began to swim forward. Sokka cracked another comment. The bald boy replied that Appa was just tired and needed his rest before he could soar through the sky again. And as he made the flying motion with his hand, his eyes finally rested on Katara where he left them. A silly smile appeared on his youthful face as he looked at her.

"Why are you smiling at me like that?" The blue-eyed girl asked cluelessly.

"Oh... I was smiling?"

Sokka made a disgusted sound.

On the Fire Navy Ship, on the spotting deck off the bridge looking forward, Prince Zuko was standing, gazing straight ahead into the falling night where he was approached by Iroh.

"I'm going to bed now." The old man yawned exaggeratingly. "Yep. A man needs his rest. Prince Zuko, you need some sleep. Even if you're right and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him. Your father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all tried and failed." He tried to reason again.

"Because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture. Mine does. This coward's hundred years in hiding are over."

Chenlian landed in a grassland somewhere on the north coast of the Fire Nation's inner sea and fell on her knees, panting, shaking and sweating. She felt like her muscles were made of cotton. She had pushed herself but she was at her limit. Such a long period of inactivity had really taken its toll. Her muscles had atrophied, she had lost weight and she was low on energy and barely had any strength. To be honest, she did not have the body for the travel she was going to undertake. But she wanted to get away as far and fast as possible... which was why she afforded only a few short breaks and kept flying. Only her strong will and her 'partner' were keeping that weakened body going. She collapsed on the ground and fell asleep right where she was, but only for a little time. She rummaged through her bag and ate some leftovers she had put in a box. After escaping, she had gone to her mother's younger sister's house to take money as well as food, a few useful items and some of her own belongings. Things that reminded her of those happy times. Keepsakes whose sentimental value far exceeded the pretty penny they were worth but that she was ready to give away if necessary. She had considered stealing from that foolish Lord. Ever since those two had left on that 'fool's errand' there were only people she hated in that palace. That would have been pay back –at least in part– for everything he had done to her. That would have been justice. But Chenlian did not want herself to sink that low because of him and those who blindingly obeyed him. She wanted to remain true to herself. That was how she had been raised. She had had an upright upbringing, and had always been taught to be honest and honourable at all times. They had pounded into her that she should always behave exemplarily. It was certainly because she knew her own worth by achieving that that she was so proud. Although some could say that she was arrogant and self-righteous.

Even though after that day years ago when everything changed it had become increasingly difficult, she still strived to live up to her family's teachings. She could not ask her friends either and did not have much anyway as they were all scared of the royal family. Nor did she want to trouble her aunt and uncle any more than necessary. But she still left a letter to reassure them. She was alive and well but they should not search for her, promising that somehow, someday, everything will be alright, and she will return to them after having restored everything to the way they should be. And then she will repay them. Knowing them, they certainly cried, glad and relieved she was alright, and yet dreaded what was going to happen to their beloved niece.

Then Chenlian quickly made a few traps for fish and rabbits (or any animal that would have the kindness to get caught) using strings and food scraps she had brought while she went to look for wild berries or other edible tubers and herbs before gathering logs washed of by the sea and bent a little fire. Then she did soft rehabilitation exercises to stretch and strengthen her atrophied muscles. She had no time to lose. She had to regain her best condition as soon as possible. Once she had finished, she did a little meditation, covered herself with her blanket using her bag as a pillow and fell asleep.

Katara, who was in the saddle on Appa's back with her brother, crawled forward and looked down at Aang who was lying on his back at the top of the beast's head.

"Hey."

"Hey. Whatcha thinkin' about?" The boy asked.

"I guess I was wondering your being an airbender and all if you had any idea what happened to the Avatar."

At this, Aang looked quite disconcerted.

"Uhh... no. I didn't know him... I mean, I knew people that knew him, but I didn't. Sorry."

"Okay. Just curious. Goodnight."

"Sleep tight."

Katara turned back and Aang looked away an expression of fear and guilt on his face. And Appa kept swimming to the Southern Water Tribe village.