[On Hold] How to Measure Worth || ATLA

1 || Becoming Saki

(Unedited, 3118 words)

My name is Masha, but nobody has called me that since I was four years old. And it's not because I asked them not to, or even because my parents wanted to formally change my name. In all honesty, I'd rather be called Masha because it reminds me of my sister's name: Miki. But that's not the case, and it never could be.

Nobody calls me Masha because everyone thinks Masha is dead.

In the eyes of the public, Masha died on her forth birthday after wandering away from the village and freezing during a snowstorm. My parents found Masha, completely frozen to death and pale as freshly fallen snow, the day after she turned four, when it was safe to leave in the storm. They buried her there, right where they found her, using my mother's waterbending to melt the snow down to the rock and my father's earthbending to make a cavity where the body would remain. Nobody has seen Masha since. 

Except they have.

When my parents returned to their home, crying and wailing and praying to the spirits, asking them why this had happened, they promptly announced the news to the public. Sadness and mourning lasted for a few days, but the village then moved on. 

If she wandered out during a storm, she couldn't have been that bright, they said. I became a bit of a joke, but only until my grandfather caught wind of it.

Regardless, a few months after my death, my parents 'adopted' a little boy from an Earth Kingdom merchant ship. A little boy named Saki.

Me.

The story as to why this occurred is... long. But I'll do my best to explain it thoroughly.

Decades before I was born, my maternal grandfather— a man named Korrur— was elected to be part of the Northern Water Tribe Council following the death of his own father, Council Member Po. He quickly became one of the most adored council members because of his warm personality and his openness to new ideas. Because of this, he quickly became one of the most powerful members of the Council, backed by public approval of his people and his own powerful waterbending that intimidated even the most stone-cold council members. That's why, when he made the unorthodox choice of marriage, nobody questioned him. 

Korrur was wealthy by the time he married, and he owned a large house with multiple floors. However, this wealth never changed the fact that he was a man of tactics, and he believed the most effective way to run the Tribe would be to pursue the option that helped the masses, not the rich. He had been asked by many Tribe fathers to allow their daughters a chance at his hand, but Korrur had no interest in women. 

Not until he met my grandmother. 

Three months prior to her arrival in the Northen Water Tribe, Fire Navy General Izira Soliel was challenged by her future successor to an Agni Kai. Izira was a feared firebender, one of the first female Generals in Fire Nation history. She still tells stories to this day how her crew would tremble so badly when she was upset with them that the water would ripple around their ship even when it wasn't moving. But nothing could have prepared her for the electric Yaizen, the boy who burned and shot lightning at my grandmother. After she was near-fatally wounded, she abandoned her post to seek medical care on the shores of the Earth Kingdom. They patched her up, turned her North, and set her off. 

When she arrived at the Northen Water Tribe, the Council immediately put her on trial for being a Fire Navy General. Korrur, a man of the people, was one of the council members meant to prosecute her for her crimes. But he also saw how wounded she still was from her Agni Kai, and he called off the trial until she was well. He had his mother heal her, and in the days it took for her to recover, he fell in love.