Chapter Text
Aya stood outside an igloo, basking in the sun. It felt nice on her face. During the 60 days of sun the winter months provide in the South Pole, she would take advantage of every ray Agni could bestow upon her. The 60 days of darkness in the summer months are agony. Aya knows she stands out in this small village. All the tribes people have on blue parkas. She had a maroon coat that is more like a very thick dress. She had 3 like this made before she left the Fire Nation. The hoops her father and grandfather had to go through to turn her from "hostage" to "bride" were many, but she didn't know the details. It was all discussed without her. All she knew is that she was imprisoned and then put on a ship and taken there. How quickly one can fall from being a celebrity, noble lady, mentor to a princess, world traveled star, to the wife of a back-water chief.
Chief Hadoka left the day after their "wedding" to go fight against the very nation he had just been tied to. Aya honestly didn't care. She was hardly "Fire Nation" at that point. A traitor, a rebel, and a disruptor. She liked these titles. Chiefess and step-mother were the ones she had an issue with. Her mother-in-law, who insisted everyone call her Gran-Gran, was the one who took care of most things. If there was any trouble from out-siders, then it was Aya's turn. She mostly just had to glair with what Sokka called her "Scary Ash-Maker Eyes", and usually it scared people off. One winter, they ran out of fuel, and Aya had everyone huddle in one igloo and she generated heat for everyone for 48 hours straight, before passing out from exhaustion. This earned her respect from the other women in the village. It was all women and children. All the men had gone to war. She suppressed her emotions, her worry. Its what all noble ladies of the Fire-Nation do. It's proper. Conceal, don't feel. Don't let your own flame consume you. Men could let it out and burn down everything around them, but women had to be demure and humble. A flicker of annoyance crossed Aya's pale face.
A commotion snapped her attention from the sun. Gran-Gran was calling for her. She opened her eyes and say a big hairy monster, and her step-children. There was someone else, an unconscious child, dressed like the Air-Nomads of old. Except Aya was pretty sure this was no costume, that this boy was the real deal.
"Did you bring back any fish, any at all?" Aya asked Sokka flatly. The boy glared at his sister. Aya's eye-brow twitched. "You were supposed to go fishing, and you've brought back a child. Explain."
Katara spoke up and gave run down about her and Sokka arguing about bending, and the Sokka interrupted and said Katara went crazy and dislodged an iceberg, then Katara interrupted him and said they found this boy inside, and they kept going, interrupting each other. A big flash of light, a giant bison, the boy fell asleep on the way back. Aya pinched the bridge of her nose.
Air Nomad, giant bison, a beam of light. Aya wondered if somehow these kids had awoken the Avatar. She looked to Gran-Gran, who shrugged and shook her head.
"They can't stay here." Aya concluded. Katara tried to speak up, but Aya held up her hand, "Katara, that bison will need hay and grass. Where are we supposed to get anything like that?"
"Oh... I didn't think about that." Katara said, wringing her hands, "But.... he is a bender and...."
"I know you want to learn how to bend better, however, you'd run into the same problems we ran into. Air is a different element, same as fire. Different element, different technique."
"I know...."
"He can rest here a while, then we will talk about this with him."
Sokka liked Aya. She could come across cold, as crazy as that sounds considering she was a fire-bender, however, she seemed to care about him and his sister. She hadn't tried to replace their mom. She was really just like an older sister who his dad left in-charge. She made sure Katara didn't always get her way, she took a load off Gran-Gran, she did the chores Katara refused to do, or got fed-up with doing, and she taught him how to play the liuqin and the pipa. Once, pirates had tried to raid their village, and Aya sprung into action. She had never mentioned before that she could also BEND LIGHTNING and zapped the pirates into the next ocean. It had been fearsome to see. From what he had heard, lightning bending was rare among fire-benders, as was blue flames, that Aya also rarely used.
"No one likes a show-off." She said. She used her bending daily to light the fires of the village and such, but never her blue flames. For an Ash-Maker, she was alright. If a little gloomy. Yet, he didn't know much about her. She seldom talked about herself. She quietly listened to him or Katara tell her things. She gave them input or feed-back. Now and then she'd spring a story about her traveling in the Earth Kingdom, about touring as a musician, about a girl she mentored at school named Azula. She even once mentioned meeting the Fire Lord.
"He is a dick-head." was all she would say. It made him laugh.
Now he watched her comb out Katara's hair as Katara rambled on and on about Aang. Aya listened quietly, as she usually did. Katara kept going as they traded places and Katara combed Aya's long black hair, loosening it from its coiled braid, normally held up with a thick, silver hair-stick. When Katara settled down, Aya began singing. "Foolish dreamer, be awakened, do not walk to where you were, to where you're staring...."
She knew song no one else knew, songs from all over the world. Ancient songs that she had unearthed in ruins, she had told him.
Aang woke up, and he and Katara wandered off. Aya went with Sokka to actually get food. She was better at this anyway. She was quiet and didn't scare the fish or douse him with water. They were not out long when they saw the flair. Neither had to say a word to each other before they ran back to the village. Gran-Gran was already scolding Katara and Aang. Sokka stepped in and told her that Aang had to leave. Katara began to protest, but Aya spoke up.
"He was going to have to go eventually, Katara. If the Fire Nation saw that flair, they will be here soon, and if they find him, they will burn this village to the ground, and take you, myself and him back with them. I cannot defend you from an entire fleet."
Katara sulked. Aya looked unmoved. Aang left. Sokka went to prepare for battle. While he was painting his face, Aya came in and knelt by him and began to wipe it off, "Let me handle this, Sokka. You are no match for a boat full of fire-benders."
"Neither are you." he grumbled
"I will try to talk to them first. They may listen, since I'm from the Fire-Nation."
"At least let me stay by you"
"Your father told me to look out for you two, and I will. Stay behind me."
Aya stood tall, hands neatly folded, as the fire-nation soldiers disembarked. Gran-Gran, Katara, and Sokka flanked behind her. Aya bowed with her hands folded and up still, as a noble woman would, "Prince Zuko, I, Chiefess Aya, welcome you to the South Pole. It is an honor to have you here, but may I ask why you have come, your highness?"
"The Avatar. Where is he?!" the scared prince demanded. Aya's mouth almost smiled.
"My prince, no one has seen or heard of the Avatar for a hundred years."
"I saw a beam of light and a flair! Tell me where he is!"
"My prince, forgive me, that beam of light was myself. I was practicing lightning-bending, and it bounced off a glacier."
"And the flair?"
"Some of the children were playing too close to an old war-ship and set it off on accident. We have warned them time-and-time...." Aya made a pointed look to Katara "...again, to stay away from that old ship. Maybe you can send someone to skuttle it?" Aya actually smiled then. It sent a chill down the soldier's spines. It seemed to affect the prince as well. He took a step back and turned to get back on his ship, but then a voice called out and Aang landed in the center of them on his glider.
"For fuck's sake, Aang!" Aya shouted, as she shifted into a fighting stance, just as the prince turned to attack Aang.
Zuko had seen that sort of smile before. Sinister, a promise to do something awful if her way wasn't done right then and there. He slightly remembered Aya. She had been Azula's mentor at the Fire Nation Academy for Girls. Girls are crazy and scary and he was convinced that the school trained them to commit atrocities. He knew Aya had been a famous musician, committed treason and had been banished to the South Pole. Had she threatened the tribe and twisted the chief's arm and forced the poor boy to marry her so she could take over? How very patriotic of her, maybe she could earn her way back into the Fire Lord's favor. That's what he thought, but later he would learn, he knew nothing. That moment came once the Avatar came crashing between them.
Zuko instantly went into action to unleash his fire upon the monk to capture him, but the fire rose was faster and got between them. Her fire was blue, and she knew things Zuko didn't. Her moves were fluid and fast. Her form was like a dance, a fire storm. When the other soldiers closed in, she stretched a stream of lightning out from between her hands, her gold eyes aflame with intense determination. Aang shouted for everyone to stop.
"If I go with you, will you leave everyone alone."
"He will leave everyone alone when I blast him all the way back to the Fire Lord." Aya snapped.
Zuko ignored her and nodded to the boy-monk, who then followed him onboard. Aya discharged her lightning into the sky with a frustrated scream.
"Was that THE Aya, the Dancing Flame?" Uncle Iroh exclaimed, leaning over the ship, "Let me go ask for her autograph!"
"NO UNCLE!! WE ARE LEAVING!!" Zuko shouted
"We have to go after that ship! Aang saved our tribe, so we have to save him!"
"Aang.... saved us?" Aya asked
"Katara we-"
"Why can't you both realize he's on our side!?" Katara kept going, "If we don't help him, no one will! I know you don't like him--"
"Katara, are you going to talk all day or help us pack!?"
"I don't want to break your heart, Sokka, but we're not going to catch up to them on a canoe." Aya pointed out
"You're both coming!?" Katara asked
"I promised your father I would look out for you both and this was Sokka's idea. Any more idea's on how we will catch up to them, Sokka?"
A groan was heard from over the hill.
"Appa!" Katara exclaimed.
Once they figured out the magic word to get the endangered buffalo into the air, catching up to the Prince's warship was a breeze. They found the child already mid-escape once they arrived. Then they just had to assist. Aya was eager to fight the soldiers. She had some pint-up rage of her own against the Fire-Nation, after all. After sending most flying into the ocean and running the ship into an iceberg, they all made off on Appa.
"Wow, ma'am, you're an amazing fire-bender!" the monk said cheerfully, "Think you can teach me?"
"Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?" Karara asked
"Because... I never wanted to be...."
"None of use get to chose who we are born as." Aya pointed out, "All we can do is chose how we spend the time we are given."
"So what should I do?"
"As the Avatar, you will need to master water, earth and fire-bending."
"And you'll teach me fire-bending?"
"When the time comes, I suppose I can. But first, you'll need to master-"
"Yeah yeah I know, but first I wanna ride the hopping llamas, then the giant koi-fish...."
Oh boy, Aya thought to herself, she has 3 kids to look after now......