Zutara

1

Katara and Sokka decided to go hunting in the closed off Tribe in order to get food. Katara, who is eighteen is playing with some water droplets and hitting the neck of her brother, while Sokka continues to try to catch a fish.

"Sokka...all the fish are gone. You know it, we're been at this for days and we haven't found anything."

Sokka sighs loudly and groans. "I know. But it's my responsibility to fix stuff like this. To find a new hunting spot. Man what I would do for some yummy meat though!"

Katara laughs softly as he gathers up his hunting gear. "But seriously Katara we need to find food. And fast."

Suddenly Katara gets an idea. "Why don't we travel to the other nations and convince them to give us food?" Sokka turns around and stares. "No. The Fire Nation doesn't even know we exist and that's what how it should stay."

"But-" Sokka walks faster towards the circle of tepees completely ignoring Katara. Katara let's out a irritated huff before marching into her room and gathering her things. "I'll show him. I can help if they would just let me."

As she gathers up her things she hears the storyteller tell the legend of the Painted Lady. Katara smiles and adds a few more items to her bag.

Katara hears footsteps crunch on the snow outside and immediately hides her bag and snuggle into the thick warm folds of her blanket.

She pretends to be asleep until her brother starts to snore. Then, as quiet as she can, she leaves the tepees and walks to where the Northern Water Tribe go to leave.

The huge boat seems the tower over her as she walks on slowly trying to comprehend what was going to happen. Finally, after days of waiting they pull up in front of an old swampy earth town.

The whole town is on a platformed dock way above the swamp. The whole place was green and colorful unlike the dull and cold land that Katara lived in for her whole life.

As she walked off the boat someone grabbed her furry hood and lifted her up. The Earthbender scowled as Katara thrashed trying to get him to let her go.

"Watch yourself savage, this is nothing like your barbaric little home." He throws her on the dock before the boat slowly leaves. Katara holds her bleeding elbow and scraped hand with a slight wince.

As soon as she realized everyone was watching her she gets up and walks into the forest with her face burning in embarrassment.

Then out of nowhere a man with a mask hangs from the tree branch and stares at her with a curious tilt of the head.

She stares right back before walking away from the strange figure. Then again he jumps in front of her with something in his hand.

"Who are you?" The person grabs her arm and carefully wraps it with gauze while remaining completely silent. Katara asks again, "Who are you?!" The figure sighs and says clearly. "Blue Spirit."

Zuko's POV

I have been hiding in this small town for months on end but never have I seen a water Tribe member come here alone. Especially a woman. But this one, was special.

I saw her hands clench when that Earth bender grabbed her hood. She was ready but she chose not to engage for some reason. I wanted to defend the woman but she didn't seem fazed by the man's behavior and just walked away into the forest as if nothing ever happened.

She didn't even seem fazed by the scrapes and cuts she got from being thrown into the deck. I slipped away from the crowd unnoticed and put on my Blue Spirit mask and went to give her gauze to wrap those scrapes.