Part 1: The Boy in the Iceberg
“It’s not getting away from me this time,” said Sokka, his spear pointed at a fish in the water. “Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.”
Katara and her older brother Sokka were out fishing in the icy waters of the South Pole, near the Southern Water Tribe where they lived. Currently, Sokka had his spear raised, waiting to stab a fish that was swimming a little too close to the canoe. Katara rolled her eyes at her annoyingly obnoxious brother and turned away from him. Her eyes widened a bit when she saw another fish swimming near her end of the canoe. Taking a nervous breath, she removed her glove and used Waterbending to bring the fish up out of the water in a small bubble of water.
“Sokka, look!” she said excitedly.
“Shh, Katara!” Sokka said in a loud whisper. “You’re gonna scare it away! Mmm, I can already smell it cooking.”
“But Sokka!” Katara insisted. “I caught one!” She brought the fish closer to the canoe, aiming to drop it in the basket, when Sokka lifted his spear to stab the fish he was aiming to catch. The butt end of the spear popped Katara’s water bubble, causing her fish to escape and fall into the water, swimming away. Sokka gasped as the ice-cold water splashed onto him and Katara yelled “Hey!”
“Why is it--that every time--you play with magic water--I get soaked?” Sokka asked as he squeezed water out of his gloves and shot his sister a look.
Katara sighed in exasperation. “It’s not magic, it’s Waterbending. And it’s--”
“Yeah yeah,” Sokka cut her off, “an ancient art, unique to our culture, blah blah blah.” He squeezed out his wolftail (or as Katara called it, a “warrior’s ponytail”). “Look I’m just saying that if I had weird powers I’d keep my weirdness to myself.”
“You’re calling me weird?” Katara crossed her arms. “I’m not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water.”
Sokka--who had been doing just that--pushed his sleeve back down and glared at his sister. Before he could say anything, however, the canoe hit chunk of ice in the water and the siblings were thrown into the rapids. Sokka grabbed the oar to try and steer them, but he wasn’t having much luck.
“Watch out!” Katara screamed as they almost hit another ice chunk. “Go left! Go left!”
Unfortunately, the canoe got trapped between two large pieces of ice that were even bigger than the canoe, and Sokka grabbed his sister and pushed her onto the flat piece of ice before they were crushed along with the canoe. Katara managed to stop herself from sliding into the water and backed up to where Sokka was sitting near his spear, which had embedded itself in the ice. Miraculously, the rapids had ceased, leaving the waters calm and serene.
The siblings, however, were not. “You call that left?” Katara asked her brother.
“You don’t like my steering?” Sokka sassed back at her. “Well maybe you should have ‘Waterbended’ us out of the ice.”
“So it’s my fault.” Katara stood up and glared down at her brother.
“I knew I should have left you home,” Sokka said, not looking at her. “Leave it to a girl to screw things up.”
Katara’s eyes narrowed and she lost her temper. “You are the most sexist, immature, nut-brained--” She paused, swinging her arms around as she continued her rant. “I’m embarrassed to be related to you!”
Sokka looked up and did a double-take when he saw the large shark-tooth-shaped formation of ice starting to crack behind Katara. She didn’t seem to notice as she continued her rant.
“Ever since Mom died, I’ve been doing all the work around camp while you’ve been off playing soldier!” She swung her arms more, and the cracks increased.
“Uh…Katara?” Sokka pointed nervously at the ice formation, but Katara kept going.
“I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks?! Let me tell you: NOT PLEASANT!!”
“Katara, settle down!”
“NO! That’s it, I’m done helping you! From now on, you’re on your OWN!” She flung her arms with such force that the entire ice formation cracked behind her, splitting completely in half along with several other pieces breaking off on their own. Katara finally turned around to see what she had done, and gasped when she saw the ice formation. She dropped to her stomach next to her brother as the waves created by the falling ice pushed their little ice floe a few yards away from where it had rested moments before. When they finally stopped moving, Sokka removed his arm from around Katara.
“Okay, you’ve gone from weird to freakish, Katara.”
“You mean I did that?” Katara asked in shock.
“Yep, congratulations.”
Before Katara could retort, the water in front of them started glowing a greenish-teal color and began bubbling. Both siblings stood up and watched in a mix of fear and confusion as a giant iceberg surfaced before them. The pair stepped back a bit, watching as the iceberg settled itself on the water.
The iceberg was unlike any the Water Tribe siblings had ever seen before. It was like a giant sphere, with a thick ring of ice around the middle that seemed to be keeping it afloat. It was a light blue color, seemingly glowing from the inside. And it was the inside that was the weirdest of all.
Four figures were trapped inside the sphere. In the middle was a giant furry bison creature with six legs and a tail like a giant koala-otter. It was curled up around a little bald boy with glowing arrow tattoos on his face and hands. He looked about 12 years old, he sat in a meditating position with his fists pressed together, and his eyes were closed. Above the bison creature was something Katara had only read about and seen pictures of. Two figures rested in the ice above the bison, both appearing to be female. One looked about the boy’s age, with hair the color of sunshine braided behind her. Her bangs hid her face, but she also had glowing tattoos just like the boy, and her eyes were also closed. A dragon’s tail sprouted from her tailbone, and dragon wings came out of her shoulder blades, suspended in the ice as if she had been flying. The other girl looked about a year or two older than the dragon girl. Her hair was dark, and her arms were coated in feathers the color of fire. Like the rest of them, her eyes were closed.
Katara raised an eyebrow, unsure of what to make of these three kids and a bison creature all trapped in an iceberg. Before she could ask Sokka about it, however, the boy and the dragon girl both opened their eyes in perfect synchronization. Their eyes were glowing white, like their arrows. It was as if you were looking at the sun when you looked in their eyes or at their arrows for that matter; they were so bright.
“They’re alive!” Katara exclaimed. “We have to help!” She grabbed her brother’s machete off his back and hopped across the ice chunks to the iceberg.
“Katara!” Sokka yelled. “Get back here! We don’t know what that thing is!” He grabbed his spear as he followed his sister to the ring of ice that kept the iceberg afloat.
Katara ignored him, of course, and started whacking the side of the iceberg with the machete, using the blue-dyed ball of bone to make a hole in the ice. She hit the iceberg five times before she got through to the inside, and a gust of air shot out, knocking Katara into her brother. Sokka stood his ground and caught his sister as they fell back, somehow managing to stay on the ice and not fall into the frigid water behind them. Cracks moved upward from where Katara had broken through the iceberg, and as the it blew its top, a beam of bluish-white light shot up into the sky.
A few miles away, on the deck of a Fire Nation ship, a tall boy with a large scar on the left side of his face watched the beam of light with a hungry and determined expression. “Finally,” he said softly before turning to face the elderly man behind him. “Uncle! Do you realize what this means?”
“I won’t get to finish my game?” the old man answered from where he was sitting on a pillow, a low table in front of him on which cards and a teapot set, steam curling from the spout of the pot and the cup that sat next to it.
“It means my search,” the boy corrected darkly, turning back to the beam of light, “it’s about to come to an end.”
The old man, who was also the boy’s uncle Iroh, sighed and placed another card on the table.
“That light came from an incredibly powerful source!” the teenaged boy said as the light disappeared behind him. “It has to be him!” He turned back to where the light had been.
“Oh, it’s just the celestial lights,” Uncle Iroh responded. “We’ve been down this road before, Prince Zuko. I don’t want you to get too excited over nothing.” He placed another card on the table. “Please sit. Why don’t you enjoy a cup of charming jasmine tea?”
“I don’t need any calming tea!” Prince Zuko threw back at his uncle. “I need to capture the Avatar! Helmsman! Head a course for the light!” The prince pointed in the direction the light had come from. Iroh just sighed and placed yet another card on the table. The wind picked up a bit, rattling the cards and making the steam from the tea dance in the air.