i have had this idea since i watched atla in 2020, special shoutout to ocean for FINALLY getting me to write it!! i just have a Lot of feelings about how war (and as a subset, cultural oppression) impacts individuals and the passing down of language, which i paralleled with waterbending here. it's not a 1:1 comparison, but then again, what is? thank you for giving this story a shot!
(also, the title is taken from the shel silverstein poem of the same name, and i use a modified version of his poem throughout)
~*~
Once I spoke the language of the waters,
Kanna sat curled against her mother's side, watching with cautious fascination as her mother wove a tapestry of glowing blue liquid against her left calf. The water seemed to glitter, even in the low light of their icy home.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered, and Nida smiled, shaking her head.
"No, Kanna." She moved her hands, pulling the water up near her knee. "It's cold, but it doesn't hurt."
Kanna hesitated, then reached out to touch the bright water, giggling at the chill it sent flowing through her fingertips. "I want to do that!"
Her mother hummed, and Kanna frowned, staring up at her with worried eyes.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
Nida shook her head. "No, my love. One day, perhaps I will be able to teach you the art of healing. Unfortunately..." She trailed off, and Kanna pouted.
"I don't want to wait. Why can't you teach me now?"
"I would if I could, sweetie. But not everyone can heal like this. Not everyone is born a waterbender."
"That's not fair!" Kanna buried her face into the blue fabric and white furs of her mother's coat, eyes brimming with hot tears. "That's not fair. I want to learn water-healing, too."
"Shh, Kanna. Don't cry," Nida crooned. She waved the glowing water into a wooden basin that sat on her right before she wrapped her arms around her distraught daughter. "Time will tell where your talents lie. Whether you are a bender or not, you are a child of the Northern Water Tribe. No one can steal your connection to the waters."
Slightly mollified by her mother's words, Kanna lifted her head. "So you can't teach me anything about waterbending?"
Nida paused. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. "Well... There has always been more to bending than sheer ability." She kissed the top of Kanna's head, earning a delighted giggle from her daughter. "Would you like to know the most important rule?"
Kanna sat up, nodding eagerly. "Yes!"
"To speak the language of the waters..." Her mother winked at her. "The first thing you must do is listen."
Once I understood each word the ocean said,
Kanna closed her eyes, the ocean breeze whistling like a flute past her ears as her boat approached the icy lands of the Southern Water Tribe. Her journey from the North Pole had been...
'Treacherous' was an understatement.
Ukaleq had insisted day after day that Kanna was suicidal to take the long trip alone, but Kanna knew she couldn't stay. Not after she'd lost her mother, her father, her brother all within a single year. Not while other members of her beloved tribe were adamant her place was in the healing huts, that her role was to wait for the warriors to return home, that she was supposed to be one of the protected. She could do more. She wanted to do more.
Kanna opened her eyes, fingers brushing the blue jewel ever-present around her neck.
No, she couldn't stay.
No matter how much she might love him.
The Southern Water Tribe welcomed Kanna with open arms, easing her unspoken fears that they'd turn her away. She was met with reactions of simultaneous relief and disappointment when she revealed that she was not a waterbender, despite being highly knowledgeable of the Northern style, but she had little time to contemplate this oddity before she was whisked away to find a temporary place to call her living quarters.
"You're the one from the North, huh?"
Kanna blinked, stopping in her tracks. A beautiful young woman stood before her, with dark hair piled into a partial bun atop her head and piercing gray-blue eyes—clouds before the break of a thunderstorm.
"I am," she said after a pause, hoping she hadn't let the silence stretch for too long. "My name is Kanna."
"Hama." There was a sharp edge to the woman's tone. "I can't say I'm the most fond of my sister tribe, but..." Hama tilted her head, giving her an appraising once-over. "You came. The others stayed." An amused smile twitched at her lips. "I suppose that makes you special."
Kanna laughed, a touch awkward, a touch uncertain. "I don't think so. I'm not even a bender."
Yes, perhaps Kanna knew more about Northern waterbending than the average nonbender, a result of her mother's and father's gentle indulgence of her fierce love and curiosity for the awe-inspiring art, but 'special'?
No. Not her.
Hama's smile widened, mischief glittering in her stormy eyes. "Is that so?"
She stepped back, raising her arms and pulling a sphere of churning water from the open sea beyond them. "So if I threw this over you, there'd be nothing you could do to stop me?"
Kanna should have answered. She should have responded to this mysterious woman, extended a truce, offered an olive branch, taken some action to save herself from swimming, drowning, treading water in the open, icy air.
But she didn't.
Instead, Kanna watched, awestruck, as Hama held a storm above her head.
So this was Southern waterbending.
Once I smiled in secret gossip of the waves,
"Stay inside!" Hama shouted, pushing Kanna back into the Southern Water Tribe's central igloo. It was the most fortified building in their village, Kanna knew, but she didn't understand why she had to take shelter with the children and the elderly. She was young, healthy, able-bodied—
"I can help!" she insisted, trying to follow Hama. "Let me fight, too!"
This was her home now. She couldn't be expected to sit aside while the Fire Nation waged its unjust war.
"Kanna, it's not the same here. You don't know what we're up against," Hama warned. "If you did, you never would have left the North Pole."
"But—"
"Stay. Here." With a final threatening glance, Hama disappeared out of the igloo.
Kanna waited a single minute before she followed, ignoring the murmurs from the young and old advising her to stay.
When Kanna stepped past the Tribe's protective walls of snow, she was met with chaos. Three steel ships confronted her village, a crimson Fire Nation flag fluttering high above each. To the unknowing eye, the fabric might have been waving, extending a kind, welcoming gesture.
Kanna knew better.
But she had never seen the fabric wave so close before.
Metal ramps extended from the ships and slammed into the ice, shaking the ground beneath Kanna's feet. Dozens of Fire Nation soldiers poured from the ships, their blood-red armor screaming in stark contrast against the blue skies and white snow. Hot, black ash fell from above, stinging Kanna's skin.
When the soldiers' steel swords pierced the lines of her kinsmen, the snow turned pink.
"Hold them back!" a deep voice cried. A man pushed to the front, brandishing a bone-tipped spear. He fought off a Fire Nation soldier wielding dual broadswords. "In pairs, together!"
Kanna watched as her people rallied, each Southern warrior sticking to the side of a bender. Perhaps she should have seized the moment of control to return to the safety of the central igloo, and truth be told, Kanna did consider such a retreat.
Until she saw that Hama stood unguarded.
Kanna picked up a discarded spear, murmuring a prayer for its fallen owner, and charged into the fray.
"You idiot!" Hama seethed as Kanna took up station at her side. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
"Neither of us are dying today!" Kanna snapped, slashing aggressively—messily—at the Fire Nation soldier approaching Hama from behind. Hama turned on her heel and sent a wave of icy daggers into their chest.
"Optimism won't save you, Kanna!" Hama spun around again, pushing her hands upward and bending a shield of ice around them. "You're in over your head. Why didn't you stay in the village?!"
Kanna glared at her. "I won't be kept down!"
Not when someone needed her help.
Hama faltered, her icy shield cracking. Kanna planted herself squarely in front of her.
"Stay behind me."
Hama stared at her a beat longer, the battle still raging around them. She shook her head. "You're going to need some serious training."
Kanna chuckled as Hama's shield came crumbling down. "I look forward to it."
And shared a conversation with the sea breeze against my head.
"A baby, huh?" Hama mused. She was lying flat on her back, with her head presently resting atop Kanna's lap. She shifted to press her ear to the curve of Kanna's stomach. "I can't hear him kicking yet."
Kanna laughed. "Come on. You know it's too early for that." She raised an eyebrow. "And what makes you so sure my baby will be a boy?"
Hama shrugged, a smile twitching at her lips. "I've got a feeling."
Kanna hummed, contemplating her friend's words. In the North, certain people would have been overjoyed to know she was bearing a son.
Here, her husband kissed her stomach every night and prayed to Tui and La only that their baby would survive to the next day.
Kanna's fingers circled the blue gemstone that still hung around her neck, a memory of a different future she couldn't part with. Not yet. Not while the war raged on.
"I like how you've been wearing your hair." Hama reached up to trace the two slender braids, tied into perfect loops that framed either side of Kanna's face. "The beads are a nice touch."
Heat rose in Kanna's cheeks. "Thank you." Her fingers left her necklace to touch the pale blue beads near the top of her forehead. "They were... They were my mother's."
If Hama noticed the way Kanna's voice softened, fractured, stumbled over her words, she didn't comment.
"Is it true?" Kanna asked after a pause. "They're expecting another raid tomorrow?"
"Oh, yes," Hama grumbled. "They know there's only three waterbenders left." Her hand fell to her side. "They will be back every day until they've taken us all."
Kanna stiffened at Hama's words, swallowing hard. "Don't talk like that."
"Talk like what? A realist?" Hama shook her head. "It's a matter of time, Kanna."
"No," Kanna whispered. Her rejection was weak, even to herself. She blinked back tears. "You aren't going anywhere. You're the most powerful bender in the Tribe."
And Kanna still had more to learn from her, both about the Southern art and the ways of her people. Her child would learn from Hama, too, because Hama would be there when her baby was born, when her child grew up, when—
"Kanna." Hama sat up, fixing her with a steely glare. "The Fire Nation will not stop until they have captured each and every waterbender. Know that. Accept that."
When Kanna refused to meet her eyes, Hama placed a hand atop Kanna's stomach. "What will you do if your son is a bender? If they have children that are benders? What will you do when the Fire Nation comes for them, too?"
"I..." Kanna shook her head, pushing Hama's hand away and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Stop. You don't know what tomorrow will bring. None of us do."
Hama sighed. Soon, however, her expression softened, and she smiled, though it was a smile tinged with sadness. "I'm going to miss you, Kanna. You and your endless optimism."
"I told you that you aren't going anywhere." Kanna then chuckled, the sound still wet with tears. "But yes. One of us has to believe in the bright side."
Once I heard and answered all the questions of the tide,
A wail escaped Kanna's throat as she watched Hama be yanked into the Fire Nation's ship, the chains that bound her friend's hands and feet scraping along the steel floor. Her knees buckled, and the snow was a cold, unwelcome embrace as Kanna's shoulders shook with sobs.
Her husband knelt beside her, whispering gentle, comforting lies in her ear, and Kanna's hands drifted to the slight swell of her stomach.
What will you do if your child is a bender?
Kanna had her answer.
And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow,
"I want to marry her, Mother."
Kanna nodded. Her eyes remained focused on the sewing in her lap, not yet drifting to her son and his bride-to-be that stood before her. "Does she want to marry you?"
"I do, Kanna." Kya's certainty was clear as a bell—and her voice was as melodious as one, too. Kanna could understand why Hakoda adored her.
She allowed the silence to stretch a second longer before continuing.
"Kya." Kanna paused in her sewing, at last looking upward to make eye contact with her son's beloved. "Is there a history of bending in your family?"
Kya blinked, perhaps taken aback by the apparent strangeness of Kanna's question. "I..."
She exchanged a nervous glance with Hakoda, and Kanna watched him give Kya's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Well, my great-grandfather was a waterbender. Other than that, I don't... I don't really know."
It was obvious Kya had been uncertain about the 'correct' answer to Kanna's question, and yet she'd still handled her response with grace. Kanna was pleased.
"Well, I don't know why you two came to me looking for permission to get married," Kanna said with a chuckle, slowly getting to her feet. "But I guarantee that you will have a beautiful ceremony."
Their people needed the hope, needed the glimpse of a peaceful future. Kanna would do everything in her power to ensure it.
"It wasn't about permission," Hakoda said softly. "We just wanted your support."
Kanna stepped forward, and Hakoda leaned down so she could press a familiar kiss to the top of his head. "You will always have my support," she promised, giving him a fond smile.
She turned to Kya, and with shaking hands, Kanna removed her blue-stone necklace, Kanna removed the reminder of an impossible life she had never once let part from her skin.
Until now.
"Be happy together," she whispered, placing the necklace in Kya's palm. She curled her future daughter-in-law's fingers around the stone. "Choose each other, every time."
Once I spoke the language of the waters...
"Kanna! Kanna, come look at this!"
Kanna's pulse quickened at Kya's cry, her daughter-in-law's tone dancing on the fine line between elation and terror. Was it another raid? Were Sokka and Katara in danger from approaching ships? Attacks from the Fire Nation had lessened in recent times but not stopped—they'd never stop, Kanna feared, not for another hundred years.
Kanna emerged from her tent, circling around the back to see Kya kneeling in the snow before her young daughter. Sokka stood further away, sharpening a spear with an older man who had been wounded in the latest raid, three weeks ago.
With no waterbenders left in the South Pole to heal him, treatment of his injuries consisted of cleaning, washing, and time.
"Kanna, you have to see this," Kya said, a brilliant smile glowing across her face. White snowflakes dusted her dark hair.
Kya returned her attention to Katara, who was standing stiffly with her hands clasped in front of her. "Go on, sweetie. Show Gran Gran what you can do."
Katara's face grew red, her gaze flickering between her mother and her grandmother. "I'm scared."
A tender smile tugged at Kanna's lips. "Don't be scared, Katara," she said. Ignoring the ache in her old bones, she knelt beside Kya in the snow. "What is it your mother is so excited for you to show me?"
Katara exchanged a final nervous glance with Kya before stepping back. She closed her eyes, lifted her arms—
Kanna's blood ran cold.
"Isn't this wonderful?" Kya said, laughing with delight as Katara bent the snow above her to fall at her sides rather than atop her head. "Katara's a waterbender!" She beamed at Kanna. "And you can be the one to teach her. Hakoda says you know more about bending than anyone else in the South Pole. Katara will be so excited that she gets to spend—"
"I can't."
The words escaped Kanna's tongue before she could stop them.
Maybe she hadn't tried.
Kya stared at her, confused. "What?"
Kanna got to her feet, brushing snow off her knees. "I won't teach her. It would be safer if she stopped bending altogether."
"What are you talking about?" Kya stood, too, a frown pulling at her lips. "This is a blessing from La. It means our Tribe—"
"It means our Tribe is at risk. It means Katara is at risk." Kanna shook her head. "When the Fire Nation discovers there is another waterbender in the South Pole, they will not stop until they've taken her prisoner."
Or worse.
"Kanna, Hakoda and I would never let that happen."
"No. You don't know what tomorrow will bring."
Kya bristled. "Neither do you! Fear is no reason to—"
"We are not having this discussion, Kya," Kanna snapped. "Raise Katara as you see fit. But understand that I will not teach her waterbending." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I will not lose my granddaughter, too."
No one else.
Never again.
How did it go? How did it go?
~*~
kanna my beloved T.T