ONCE YOU'VE BEEN ON THE RUN AS LONG AS KIDA HAS, you develop a certain set of rules.
The first rule: never stay in one place for too long. Move from village to village every couple of days and stay mostly out of sight. Don't be too talkative or too aloof when interacting with others - the perfect balance between the two is what makes you forgettable.
The second rule: be ready for anything. Always be aware of your surroundings and have a way to defend yourself at all times. If someone's life is in danger, help, but wear a disguise to protect your identity.
That brings us to the third rule: find trouble before it finds you.
It's easy to tell when someone doesn't know their way around. Case in point: three teens, a girl and two boys, being coaxed onto a pirate ship, seemingly unaware of the potential dangers of bartering with them. Normally, Kida wouldn't pay much attention to a situation like this, but she notices an arrow tattoo on the shorter boy's head, meaning he's an airbender, and most likely the Avatar. A voice flashes in her mind.
It's your destiny. You can't run forever.
The tarnished gold band on her pointer finger briefly glows, revealing an engraving of a dragon. The ring, along with a woven bracelet made by her brother, are her most prized possessions.
Finding a good vantage point on a rooftop, Kida waits. By the time she's done attaching smoke bombs to some of her arrows, the group of teens disembarks the ship. They walk a few feet before realizing that a few pirates were moving in on them. That's when they start running; Kida follows.
Kida jumps from rooftop to rooftop, keeping with the chase. She notices that the Avatar uses airbending and the girl uses waterbending to try to keep the pirates from catching up. This keeps them safe for a while, so Kida bides her time for when to directly intervene. It happens once the group is cornered in an alley by three of the pirates. Kida shoots an arrow nearby, the smoke bomb that came with it exploding on impact with the wall. Then, she jumps down, swiftly replacing her bow with a sword.
With the pirates disoriented in a cloud of smoke, Kida easily disarms the first pirate, using her elbow to jab the second pirate in the face, effectively knocking both of them out. The third pirate doesn't go down as easily, but after parrying for a few seconds, he falls like the rest. As she notices the cloud of smoke clearing, Kida turns to the group, who stare back at her in awe and confusion.
"Follow me!" she shouts, her voice muffled by the bandana she wears to cover her face.
Kida starts climbing the closest building, which thankfully wasn't too tall, but notices that the teens don't immediately join her. They glance at each other, sharing a silent conversation that Kida imagines has to do with whether they could trust her or not. Thankfully, they decide on the former, much to the dismay of the blue eyed boy, who is the last to start climbing. When the girl, who Kida assumes is his sister, glares at him, he gives in, muttering under his breath in annoyance as he does so. Just as he's about to reach the top, something pulls him back. One of the pirates had latched on to his foot, and while the boy successfully kicks the pirate away, he stumbles in the process. Thankfully, Kida stayed near the edge and is there to catch his hand before he can fall.
She helps him regain his balance so he can complete the climb. Once he's standing at the top, Kida points in the direction for him and his friends to run in. She looks back and sees another group of pirates about to turn the corner into the alleyway. Kida sends another smoke-bomb-arrow their way to cause a distraction before sprinting forward to catch up with the teens, leading them to safety.
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BY THE TIME THE GROUP REACHES KIDA'S HIDEOUT, they're all out of breath.
"Thanks for the help, we were really cornered there," the Avatar says, causing the other boy to roll his eyes at the pun. "I'm Aang, and these are my friends Katara and Sokka." He points to the girl, who looks just as grateful as him, then to the boy, who looks as though he's still deciding whether or not this is a trap. "What's your name?"
At first, Kida doesn't respond; after years on her own, her automatic response is to run away, but Kida knows that those days are now behind her.
"My name is Kida," she murmurs and starts to remove her bandana.
"Kida?" Sokka asks. "That sounds like a girl's name, but you just -" He stops when Kida's face is fully revealed, her amber eyes meeting his blue ones, as if getting ready to challenge him.
"I just, what? Single-handedly fought off a bunch of pirates and saved you from falling your death?"
"Oh, please, that height was nothing! The worst thing that would have happened is a broken arm."
"Maybe she should have let you fall," Katara scoffs. She and Aang giggle.
"So, is this where you live?" Aang asks, poking around the room. Although, there was nothing much to see. For the time being, Kida had set up camp in the attic of a small, abandoned house. In one corner lay her weapons and her food, and in the other she made a sleeping space with a bag of spare clothes acting as a pillow.
"Not really," Kida answers. She grabs some food and hands it to Aang, Katara, and Sokka, who all follow her lead in sitting crosslegged in the middle of the room. When Kida receives looks of confusion from the group, she elaborates: "I move around a lot."
"You mean, you're traveling somewhere?" Katara asks in between bites of her apple.
"Or she's a fugitive," Sokka grumbles. Kida notices that he hasn't touched his food.
Katara and Sokka, in true sibling fashion, start arguing about whether or not Kida can be trusted, while Aang starts feeding the flying lemur monkey Kida just realized was there.
Kida plays with the moon peach in her hand before taking a bite. While she's chewing, she tries to craft a believable story. She's so immersed in her thoughts that she doesn't realize that something fell out of Katara's sleeve, until Sokka yells:
"You stole that waterbending scroll!"
"No wonder those pirates were after us," Aang mumbles, though his attention still remains on the lemur monkey.
"Yeah, no wonder!" Sokka growls. "You stole from them."
"Sokka, where do you think they got it? They stole it from a waterbender," Katara counters.
"I don't care. You put all of our lives in danger just so you can learn some stupid, fancy splashes."
"These are real waterbending forms. You know how crucial it is for Aang to learn waterbending!"
Sokka glowers, pointing to Kida abruptly. "Katara, you can't just go around, revealing that, you-know-who is you-know-what."
"I know that Aang's the Avatar," Kida informs.
This finally grabs the boy's attention and suddenly all eyes are on Kida.
"You do?" Aang wonders, although he doesn't seem too bothered by it.
"I saw your arrows and your airbending, so I kind of put two and two together."
Sokka narrows his eyes and gets up. "We're leaving."
"What?" Katara asks.
"We're leaving," Sokka repeats. "For all we know, she's a Fire Nation spy."
"Then why would she save us first?" Katara challenges.
Aang nods in agreement, but Sokka doesn't back down. "I don't know! People from the Fire Nation are messed up. Maybe she wants to lead us into a false sense of security and strike when we least expect it, then take Aang directly to the Fire Lord and -"
"Why would I work for the man who murdered my parents?" Kida snaps, finally bringing some sense into Sokka. He doesn't sit back down, but he looks into her eyes sympathetically before looking at the ground. Kida turns to Aang. "When I realized who you were, I knew I had to help. So many people have lost so much because of this war and I just, well, I just want to do something about it."
Katara places a gentle hand on Kida's shoulder. "Sokka and I lost our mother to a Fire Nation raid. We know how you feel." Kida glances toward Sokka, who just turns away.
"So, you really are alone?" Aang wonders, his eyes filled with sympathy. Kida nods and Aang furrows his brow, then perks up. "Well, then what if you joined us? We could use someone like you on the team."
"That's a great idea, Aang," Katara notes excitedly. "Since you've traveled around so much, you could help us navigate. Plus, you're a great fighter, which would come in handy because trouble tends to find us."
"Are you guys sure?"
Sokka turns to Kida and crosses his arms. "I think our little gang is perfectly fine the way it is."
"Sokka, be reasonable," Katara pleads. She, Kida and Aang start getting up, ready to bring Kida where they had set up there own camp. Kida starts to pack what little stuff she has, allowing the three to have a private conversation. "We can use all the help we can get."
He glares at his sister and Aang, but ultimately gives in. "Fine," Sokka sighs. "We'll bring the mysterious archer girl on our quest to save the world."
"You made the right choice, Ponytail!" Kida exclaims as she walks up to the group, holding all her belongings. Katara and Aang laugh as Sokka's cheeks turn red.
"For your information, this is a warrior's wolf tail!" he defends and points at his hair.
"Whatever you say," Kida shrugs, walking past him to stand in the doorframe. "So, where to now?"