Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aang was just training with Zuko while the rest of the gang watched peacefully, when all of a sudden he felt a wave of dizziness. He wasn’t the only one. He could manage to see through his blurry eyes that everyone else was feeling it. It wasn’t long before Aang fainted. Shortly after, everyone else fainted too.

~ ~ ~

“-ng?” Aang woke up to a voice calling his name. “Aang? Oh, thank goodness, you’re up.” It was Katara, kneeling next to him. Aang rose up, though he got back to the floor, still feeling a bit dizzy. “Katara, what’s going on?” He looked around, noticing his surroundings.

 He was in a theater-like room, a massive black rectangle in the middle of the wall where the stage would normally be, there were also two doors on either side of the wall. Aang also noticed the others were here too, also just waking up.

“I don’t know, I’ve tried opening the doors, but they won’t budge a bit.” Katara said, clearly nervous. Everyone else was now up, also confused.

“Please, do not worry.” A foreign voice spoke, the source of the sound was nowhere to be seen. “You are simply here to watch your past, present and future.” 

“How can we trust you? You aren’t even here!” Zuko shouted.

“You have to. I have power over anything and everything. You’ll notice that you can’t bend in here either.” Aang blinked, and tried to airbend, but he couldn't. He was getting more anxious.

“How do you expect me to watch, huh? In case you haven’t noticed already, I’m blind .” Toph said sarcastically.

“Do not worry, Toph. I will give you an earpiece that describes the scene. Once you have all watched the first episode,” What? “I shall open the door you can see on your left. It’s the door to the bathroom. After the second episode, I may open the door to the right, which is to the kitchen.” 

They heard a sound, close to fingers snapping, and then they all were sat in the seats facing the black rectangle. 

“Oh, yes, I suppose I should explain that. The black rectangle you see in front of you is where the scenes shall play. If you have any questions or need a break, please just call me by ‘Lady Void.’” 

“Wait,” Suki sharply said, “We can’t just stay here watching whatever you present, we have stuff to do.” Sokka, who was sitting next to her nodded.

“Ah, don’t worry. All time is stopped outside here.” How is that even possible? Aang pondered.

“Any other questions?”

No one spoke.

“Perfect! This may be weird at first, to be watching yourselves, but I assure you, you’ll get used to it in time. Enjoy.”

Chapter Text

Aang still felt very anxious, though watching the future could help them greatly. 

The screen started, catching everyone’s full attention.

“Water. Earth. Fire. Air.” Katara narrated.

“Woah, what? When did you say this, Katara?” Sokka looked over to his sister, visibly dumbfounded.

“I don’t know, I never said that!”

Lady Void spoke again, “Ah right, please ignore that, It’s just Katara narrating, though she never did say it. Like I said earlier, it may be weird at first.” Once Lady Void stopped speaking, the ‘episode’ continued.

“My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days: a time of peace when the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements: only he could stop the ruthless firebenders. But when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

Aang shrank a bit into his seat.

“A hundred years have passed, and the Fire Nation is nearing victory in the war. Two years ago, my father and the men of my tribe journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Fire Nation, leaving me and my brother to look after our tribe. Some people believe the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads and that the cycle is broken, but I haven’t lost hope.”

Aang smiled at Katara for not losing hope in him. She smiled back at him.

“I believe that, somehow, the Avatar will return to save the world.”  

As the title card fades, the scene opens onto a shot of an icy sea before slowly panning to the left, revealing more towering icebergs drifting in the water as the shot rotates, moving over a large snow-covered area where the untouched snow is broken by two tracks of footprints. The shot fades to another shot of the sea and icebergs. 

“Hey, Sokka, isn’t this where we met Aang for the first time?” Katara questions.

“You’re right, it is!” Sokka laughed a bit.

As the shot once again pans to the left and rotates likewise, a small canoe comes into view. The shot zooms slightly on the canoe before cutting down to it. Sokka, a teenage boy, and his younger sister, Katara, a teenage girl, are sitting in the boat; Sokka holds a spear at the ready, while Katara simply stares into the water on the other side of the boat.

“Woah! Suki, look, it’s me and Katara on the big rectangle!” Sokka looked between Suki and the screen, pointing. “Haha, yeah I see. It’s still kind of creepy, though.” Suki chuckled.

The shot cuts to an overhead view, revealing that a fish is swimming close to the surface right in front of Sokka, who is focused on it, following its every movement. Cut to a frontal view of him. 

“It's not getting away from me this time.” Close-up of Sokka as he grins confidently over his shoulder in the direction of Katara. “Watch and learn, Katara. This is how you catch a fish.”

“Who wants to bet snookles won't catch it?” Toph grins.

“Hey!”

The shot pans quickly from Sokka to Katara, who seems indifferent to his claim and turns back to her side of the boat again. Her expression changes to surprise; as the shot jumps behind her, looking down into the water over her shoulder, another fish quickly swims by her, close to where she sits. She shoots a quick glance toward her brother, removing the glove from her left hand. She stretches her arm out in the direction of

the fish, taking a deep breath. Her look is a mixture of concentration and apprehension as she starts making a wavy motion with her wrist, moving her hand up and down.

The shot widens out; Sokka, still focused wholly on the fish in front of him, is completely unaware of what is happening behind his back. As Katara continues to move her hand, the water in front of Katara, just in front of the shot, starts to ripple. Suddenly, a bubble of water rises up from the ocean containing the newly trapped fish.

“Awesome!”

“Sokka, look!” Katara calls her brother, happily surprised.

Close-up of Sokka; whispering. “Sshh! Katara, you're going to scare it away.” A look of bliss adorns his face. He licks his lips and wiggles his fingers, not taking his eyes off the fish.

“Mmmm ... I can already smell it cookin'.”

Behind Sokka, Katara is still making circular movements with both her arms, suspending the bubble of water that holds the fish in the air and moving back and forth. The camera cuts to her face, contorted slightly by the focus it takes to control the water.

Struggling with the water that passes right in front of her. “But, Sokka! I caught one!”

“This really shows how much you’ve improved, Katara!” Aang grins at her. “Thank you, Aang. It’s weird to see how I used to struggle so much.” They both turn back to the screen.

The bubble containing her fish slowly drifts around her to hang over Sokka, who is still oblivious. As the bubble hovers over his head, Sokka raises his spear to strike the fish he was following. He bursts the bubble of water with the blunt end of his weapon, causing Katara to lose control of the water; it rains down on Sokka, soaking him.

“Hey!” Sokka exclaims indignantly. 

Toph burst out with laughter, “Called it!”

As Sokka lets out a gasp of discomfort, the fish tumbles through the air and Katara follows its arc with her eyes as it flies over her head and splashes back into the sea. Sokka rounds on his sister, placing his spear perpendicular to the rim of the boat as he yells irately. The shot cuts to a close-up of him.

“Why is it that every time you play with magic water, I get soaked?”

Sokka clenches his fists and a few drops of water fall from his gloves.

Cut to her face; she sighs lightly before answering in slight annoyance. “It's not "magic", it's waterbending! And it's…”

Cutting her off. “Yeah, yeah, "an ancient art unique to our culture", blah, blah, blah. Look, I'm just saying” Grabbing his warrior's wolf knot with his left hand as he turns away from her, wringing the water out of it. Meanwhile, Katara has crossed her arms. “ that if I had weird powers, I'd keep my weirdness to myself.”

“Man, sorry about before, Katara. Bending isn’t weird at all, I was just upset.” Katara smiles slightly, “Don’t worry about it Sokka, past is past.” Sokka smiles.

Zuko wonders when he will be shown.

Cut to her face as she raises an eyebrow sceptically, arms still crossed. “You're calling me weird? I'm not the one who makes muscles at myself every time I see my reflection in the water!”

Toph snorted,

Near the end of her response, Katara smiles smugly at her brother; as the shot cuts to him, he is flexing at his reflection in the water and grinning confidently. His happy look vanishes upon hearing his sister's remark and he turns around slowly, meaning to face her. Before he can say anything, however, the canoe suddenly shudders. As they both try to keep from falling over, Sokka whirls around toward his end of the canoe, a frantic look on his face.

The camera cuts to a far view of the canoe, which pans up as the boat moves away from it. The boat is caught in a rapid current, which is pulling it swiftly toward a jumble of large icebergs which block the end of the narrow passage formed by the towering walls of ice. Sokka paddles the boat in an attempt to stay clear of any floating chunks of ice. He manages to gain just enough speed to keep the boat from being crushed by two icebergs which slam together behind the boat. A series of shots follows: the canoe moving through the water as Sokka rows furiously; a close-up of Sokka's head; and a frontal shot of the canoe as it is nearly pinned by a number of smaller chunks of ice. Cut to Katara's face, both her face and voice full of panic as she yells commands to Sokka.

“Watch out! Go left!”

“Were you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we were fine.”

The shot shows an overview of the ice floes moving closer together in front of the boat, narrowing their path. The boat manages to stay clear of some of the icebergs, but it veers to the right with the current and becomes pinned by three large chunks of ice. As the canoe is completely crushed by the ice, Katara and Sokka throw themselves from the canoe and onto one of the floes; Katara nearly slides off the other side into the water, but comes to a halt at the floe's very edge. As she raises her head, looking around, the shot zooms out to reveal the siblings are floating on one floe among dozens.

Katara, shuffling on her hands and knees, moves away from the rim toward the middle of the floe, sitting next to her brother. His spear is embedded point-first in the ice just behind him.

A touch of bitterness in her voice. “ You call that left ?”

“You don't like my steering? Well, maybe you should've-” He waves his hands, mockingly imitating waterbending. “- waterbended us out of the ice.”

The shot cuts to a wide shot of the two on their floe; among the large icebergs and tiny floes surrounding them stands a massive, towering shard of ice, its craggy peak rising high above the siblings. Katara gets on her feet again, facing Sokka so that the pointed iceberg is behind her.

“So it’s my fault?” 

Sokka, Annoyed. “I knew I should've left you home!” Cut to a close-up of the siblings; Katara is staring down at her brother in anger while he rants calmly. “ Leave it to a girl to screw things up!”

Suki is glaring at Sokka, who chuckles nervously and faces her, “I promise I’m not like that anymore!” Suki is still glaring at him, Sokka sweat drops, “Suki, you know me!” He says desperately, Suki starts to laugh, “Of course I know you’re not like that anymore, Sokka.” She smiles whole heartedly at him. Sokka breathes out a sigh of relief as the screen plays again.

Cut to a close-up of Katara's face as it contorts with fury. The shot cuts to a side view as Katara points accusingly at her brother, who makes no movement as she screams her disgust at him, the floe bobbing lightly up and down.

“You are the most sexist,” She brings her hands up to her head and swings them back down and behind her in her rage; the movement creates a small wave of water behind her.

“immature,” Hands raised back to her head . “nut brain…” Swings her arms back down again, creating a slightly larger wave; she raises her hands back to her head during a brief loss for words. “I'm embarrassed” Throwing a hand upward, a short jet of water shoots upward as well. “ to be related to you!”

Katara winces.

She swings both her hands back forcefully once again and her unconscious waterbending hurls a wave directly into the towering iceberg behind her; with a loud, splitting crack, a hooklike fissure arcs up its surface and out its side, leaving a spray of ice where it ends. Sokka, who wears a somewhat disinterested expression, glances briefly in his sister's direction and sees the iceberg; after a short moment, he does a double-take, his expression morphing into one of terror. The shot cuts to show Katara's outburst from behind Sokka; as she continues with her verbal outburst and arm movements, little chunks of ice from the iceberg splash into the water, unheard and unnoticed by Katara.

“Ever since mom died, [Points to herself.] I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!”

“Um, Lady Void?” Aang questions, “Yes?” The voice speaks. “Isn’t this personal?” Aang frowns as the voice chuckles. “You all should get used to this. You’ll be seeing something personal to you all. You cannot skip either. If you ask for a break, you’ll get right back to it after.”

Katara shakes her head, “No, we don’t need a break for something like this. Don’t worry, Aang.”

“If you say so, Katara.”

The screen plays again.

She emphasises the last words with a strong swing of her hand, waterbending and deepening the crack in the iceberg. Sokka's terror deepens.

[Pointing to the iceberg behind her, his voice subdued by fright.] “Uh... Katara…”

[Close-up of a rage-fueled Katara as she continues her outburst, a finger pointed in Sokka's face.] “I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you, not pleasant!”

Sokka goes pink in embarrassment.

As she yells out that last word, she unconsciously waterbends once again, causing two new splits in the chunk of ice.

[In a screeching voice, his eyes open wide in fear.] “Katara, settle down! ”

(Angrily) “ No! That’s it! I’m done helping you. From now on,” (Katara shrieks) “ you’re on your own!”

Her last movement is her most agitated and it creates a huge wave which, when it impacts the iceberg, sends a number of fissures to snake their way up the iceberg; one of them reaches the top of the iceberg, splitting it completely in half.

“...Woah, Katara, you’re so cool!”

Katara blushes.

 Petrified, Sokka gasps for air, and it is only now that Katara turns to look behind her. She gasps and the shot cuts to the iceberg; the two halves begin to fall away from each other and the siblings can be seen through the widening space between them. The shot jumps to the siblings' backs as the two halves collapse into the water; a wave larger than any Katara cast at it radiates outward toward them and they are thrown to the ice as it pushes their floe backward.

As the waves subside, the shot cuts to a head-on close-up of the siblings, their heads slightly over the edge of the ice. Sokka, holding a protective arm over Katara, turns his head toward her.

“Okay, you've gone from "weird" to "freakish"”, [He releases her.] “Katara.”

[Katara, Astonished.] You mean I did that?

[Sarcastically, glancing at her and smirking.] Yep. [Nudging her with his elbow.] Congratulations.

Several small bubbles appear on the surface of the water directly in front of them and a small spot of water begins to glow with a bright bluish hue. An overhead shot shows the spread of the brilliant glow and the bubbles within. Cut to the head-on close-up as the two siblings scramble back in renewed terror from the edge, just as a large, roughly spherical iceberg breaks the surface of the water.

“Woah, so that’s the iceberg I was in for a hundred years?” Aang never actually saw what it looked like. “Yeah.”

The shot jumps behind Katara and Sokka as an iceberg rises above the surface, revealing its massive form to be the source of the glow. The crashing waves generated by the iceberg's rising push the floe backward as the berg itself rocks to one side, before coming to rest with its rounded dome exposed above the water. Mesmerised by the iceberg, Katara strays closer and stares at the iceberg; behind her, Sokka halfheartedly stretches out his hand, as if to hold her back. A few cuts ensue: the iceberg from behind Sokka and Katara; Katara's face as she stares at the object; and a shot of the iceberg itself, revealing a human shape within below a larger, indistinguishable mass. The human figure, perched in lotus, has glowing arrows on its head and hands. Close-up of Katara as she raises an eyebrow in confusion. The shot cuts to a closer view of the figure in the ice, its features accentuated by

reflected light, revealing it to be a boy. Suddenly, the boy opens his eyes, the same brilliant light emanating from them, eliciting shocked gasps from both of the siblings.

“That was so creepy,” Sokka recalls.

“He’s alive! We have to help him!” [Katara says]

Before Sokka can grab it, Katara grabs Sokka's club out of its sheath on his back and pulls her hood over her head, heading in the direction of the strange boy sealed in the iceberg. Sokka again reaches out his hand in an attempt to hold Katara back, though she is already running across the ice.

Katara, get back here! [He grabs his spear from the ice and runs after Katara, who is already at the ice's edge.]   We don't know what that thing is!

“Haha, thanks, Sokka.”

Katara hops across the short distance between her floe and the iceberg on five tiny chinks of ice; Sokka, close behind her, does the same. Reaching the iceberg first, Katara repeatedly strikes the iceberg with Sokka's club. On her fifth strike, the club breaks through the surface and a great gust of wind, which escapes from within the iceberg, throws her and her brother back from the side of the dome. Fissures quickly snake their way over the whole iceberg and, in a massive outward explosion, the entire orb of ice destroys itself. A beam of light bursts from the core of the iceberg and rockets into the sky. The camera shows the iceberg from the shallow sea bottom as it emits ripples of light. The scene switches to a group of tiger seals, who erect themselves to growl at the distant beam of light.

Cut to a Fire Nation ship, where a boy in a Fire Nation military uniform stands on the deck, gazing at the light. His ponytail flutters in the wind.

“Oh no.” Zuko mutters. Sokka snorts, “Man, I do not miss that haircut.” Suki smiles in amusement.

Finally! [Zuko turns around to face another person in uniform, who sits at a small table.] Uncle, do you realise what this means?!

[Iroh is playing some sort of card game. He answers calmly while looking over the tile he's holding toward his nephew.] I won't get to finish my game?

Zuko has a small smile.

[Turning around again to face the light.] It means my search is about to come to an end.

Iroh sighs uninterestedly and places his tile on the table.

[Gestures at the light while facing his uncle again.] That light came from an incredibly powerful source! [The light dwindles and disappears.] It has to be him!

[With continuing disinterest and an air of scepticism.] Or it's just the celestial lights. We've been down this road before, Prince Zuko. [He looks at the tile in his hand, depicting the symbol of airbending.] I don't want you to get too excited over nothing. [He places it on a tile carrying the symbol of firebending and gestures toward the open place at the other side of the table while continuing in a relaxed voice.] Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming Jasmine tea?

[Furiously, still facing Iroh.] I don't need any calming tea! I need to capture the Avatar! Helmsman, head a course for the light!

Zuko winces at his past behaviour.

Zuko points in the direction of where the light once was. Iroh calmly continues with his game, placing another tile bearing the airbending symbol on the previous one. As he does, a gust of wind washes over him, shaking his tiles.