The painted lady and the blue spirit

Prologue

I threw a snowball at my brother Sokka before he could. I giggled. We were having so much fun. Little did we know, this day was going to turn out far, far worse.

Just as Sokka made a huge snowball, he dropped it. The snow turned black. Everyone knew what it meant.

A fire nation raid.

'I'm going to find mom.' I told my brother before running to our hut. I opened the flaps to find my mom sitting on the floor.

And a fire nation soldier standing in front of her.

'Mom, I'm scared.'

'Go find your dad sweetie. I'll handle this.' Kya, my mother, looked at me with a reassuring look and nodded.

'You heard your mother. Get out of here!'' The soldier said. He had a scratchy voice and an evil look in his eyes. I ran.

I found my dad throwing a fire nation soldier into a snow mound. 'Dad! Help! I thinks mom is in trouble! There's a man in our house!' I shouted.

My dad looked toward our hut. 'Kya!' And he ran as fast as he could. Before we opened our tent flap, we looked in the little crack to see the man burning the inside of our house. Dad opened the flap, took the mans wrists, twisted them and pushed him against the outside of our hut. 'Who are you and where is my wife?!?!' The man just laughed. It was a sickening laugh.

'Your too late. The water bender is dead. And your house is burning with her inside.'

'No. NO!' He pulled the man back and pushed him face-first to the wall of our burning house. 'My wife wasn't a waterbender! There aren't any waterbenders left!'

'Dad...what's this man talking about? Mom is in there?' I said with a horrified look on my face and pointed inside.

'Katara go find bato and stay with him. I'll handle this.' He repeated my moms last words to me. I couldn't take it anymore. I lost it.

'Dad! Last time one of my parents said that, our house got burned! I'm not leaving you now!' I screamed with all of my little lungs and the snow from the ground bursted up. Both my dad and the man looked at what I had caused. The man saw my dads face and took it as an advantage.

He kicked my dads leg. He let go of the man and got pushed over. By now, bato was coming with two other warriors. He knew he couldn't fight all of us so he picked my up, flung me over his shoulder and ran to his boat. I screamed and kicked as hard as I could but nothing was helping. My dad, bato and Sokka were running toward us but they were too far behind.

I was already on the ship. And the doors were closed.

The man threw me into a cell and locked it. I banged on the bar but he just walked away. I screamed and shook the bars for hours until my eyes were dry from crying and my voice couldn't scream anymore. Another soldier came by, took his helmet off and looked at me.

'Get me outta here! I need to go home! My mom needs help!' The guard was taken aback by my outburst but didn't move.

'Where is your mother?' He asked. His voice was very gentle. He was a young man, about in his twenties and his dark brown was knotted into a bun.

'I...I don't know.' I sniffled and sat down on the cold, metal floor.

'I know how you feel. I lost my mother at my birth so I never got to see her.'

I looked at him with sad eyes. He knew what it was like to lose his mother. Maybe he would understand. Maybe he wasn't as bad as the others. 'What's your name?'

'My name is Lu Ten. What's yours?'

'My name is katara.'