Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Aboard a Ship ❯ One-Shot

Aboard a Ship

 

There is a woman among the Fire Nation soldiers.

 

The war is not quite over, but the Fire Nation is no longer winning it. Ozai has been dead for a year and his daughter has mysteriously gone missing, but it's not anyone's concern. The soldiers are no longer making war, instead bringing support to towns and cities they'd destroyed, bringing healers to the wounded as well. They approach without the full ensemble, leaving the skull masks behind as a sing of friendship and peace.

 

A city has fought back against the soldiers, so wounded by their presence that they cannot allow their help. A man is wounded, and the others are waiting for the city to calm. A woman steps out among them, and any villagers would have stopped at her presence.

 

Her hair is a dark brown, pulled back from her face. Her garb is simple, colored blue and she wears leggings instead of normal skirts. She looks unimportant but her presence is enough to make those around her step back. She opens a water pouch on her side and begins moving her hands as if stringing a violin, pulling out a small sliver of water. It levitates above the man's wounds, materializing into them to purify it. A few seconds tick by and she is done, closing her gourd and disappearing back behind the men. The soldier stands up, completely healed.

 

The soldiers convince her to step forward and approach the city before they do. At first the people are suspicious, but her skin is not pale and she bares no resemblance to any of the men they should fear, so they let her speak. A few minutes later the supplies are brought in, but still only one soldier is allowed in the city at a time. It is understandable, she says, and thank you for allowing us to do this.

 

This woman, no one knows her name, or her status among the men. She is merely a rumor to most, but some know the true meaning behind her. She is a symbol of peace among the Fire Nation, someone who volunteered herself to stop a war with almost too much momentum to halt. After long journeys she does not return to the Fire Nation palace, but instead her home in the South Water Tribe, where she helps her people there rebuild what they have lost.

 

On occasion, she is known—among selective groups only, for few have actually admitted that her existence might be a fact—to slip into the Fire Lord's palace and greet him warmly, as a friend might. She speaks with the Avatar as a personal advisor and almost as if she knew him long before he had duties and such a life.

 

And, as no one knows, besides two, or maybe more, if they are watching close enough, she is seen in the Fire Lord's arms, sharing a warm kiss.

 

But this woman, who is rumored to be called Katara by close friends, is only, in fact, a rumor.