"Come on, Toph, hurry up! We'll be late for dinner!'

"No, Sokka, listen! Can't you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Aang touched Toph's arm worriedly. "I don't hear anything."

"It sounds like people screaming."

"Where's it coming from?"

"I don't know!" Aang looked at Sokka. It wasn't like Toph to be wrong or to hear things. Sokka nodded.

"Let's check it out. We'll follow you."

Toph nodded once and stomped her foot. A pillar of earth rose from the ice, and she put her hand to it, frowning. A minute later she took off running through the streets.

"This way!" Sokka and Aang followed her, both confused but trusting Toph. It was the only lead they had, anyway.

**__**

"Can you feel the power the full moon brings? For generations is has blessed waterbenders with its glow, allowing us to do incredible things. I've never felt more alive." I watch Hama as she opens her arms to the moon, and I close my eyes, tilting my face up towards her.

I've always loved the full moon, even back when I didn't know I was a waterbender.

I met Zuko under a full moon.

That was when I first saw the real him-

I scowl. But it wasn't him. It was never him- it was all an act. He never loved me. I turn back to Hama, feeling the cold wind whip around me as it descends from the ice canyon we're in.

I'm ready to learn whatever she has to teach me.

**__**

The ran through the streets, with Toph stopping every few minutes to raise a pillar of earth and check that they were going the right way.

The left the city behind, heading into the outskirts, then the tundra. They were heading for the pole itself, when Toph stopped suddenly and pointed at an ice cliff several feet to their left.

"That's it. It's coming from in there!"

Aang touched the ice, and his eyes widened. "You're right! There are tunnels leading back into the rock!"

He stepped back and threw his hands to the sides, oppening a door in the cliff face. It was pitch black inside.

"I can't see anything in there."

"That's why you have me. Let's go!" Toph grabbed Sokka's arm and leaped into the darkness, and Aang followed them, hoping that this would be the answer to Chief Arnook's troubles.

They ran through the ice tunnels, heading deeper inside, until they reached rock. They turned a corner and met a metal door, with torches on either side. Toph didn't hesitate- she ran up to it and bent it open, and it flew against the opposite wall.

Inside was another tunnel, no longer in ice but in the cliff itself. Sokka grabbed a torch and they ran through, only to stop in shock as the firelight revealed men and women chained in a small, circular room. They looked up at the light.

"We're saved!"

"I didn't know that spirits made prisons like this." Aang looked around in wonder. "Who brought you here?"

"It was no spirit."

"It was a witch."

"A witch? What do you mean?"

"She seems like a normal old woman, but she controls people, like some dark puppetmaster." Toph went around, breaking the chains that held them, as Sokka queried the prisoners.

"Who?"

"Hama. She owns the flower shop." A flower shop in the North Pole? Okay. I guess weirder things have happened...

"We have to stop her!" Aang's voice pulled Sokka out of his mussing, and he nodded.

"I'll get these people out of here. You go!" Sokka and Aang ran, leaving Toph and the others behind in the middle of the cliff.

**__**

Hama and I stand across from each other in the canyon, with ice hills and drifts surrounding us. The wind pushes my hair and deep blue skirts around, and I smile at Hama's silhouete.

"What I'm about to show you, I discovered in that wretched Fire Nation prison. The guards were always careful to keep any water away from us. They piped in dry air and had us suspended away from the ground. Before giving us any water, they would bind our hands and feet so we couldn't bend. Any sign of trouble was met with cruel retribution. And yet each month I felt the full moon enriching me with its energy. There had to be something I could do to escape! Then, I realized that where there is life, there is water. The rats that scurried across the floor of my cage were nothing more than skins filled with liquid, and I passed years developing the skill that would lead to my escape. Bloodbending. Controlling the water in another body, enforcing your own will over theirs. Once I had mastered the rats, I was ready for the men. And during the next full moon, I walked free for the first time in decades, my cell unlocked by the very guards assigned to keep me in. Once you perfect this technique, you can control anything, or anyone."

What she's saying... it could change everything. How we look at waterbending, how we act towards it. It could change me. I would never be helpless again, not forever. And neither would my daughter. This kind of power... it's amazing. But at the same time...

"But... to reach inside someone and control them? I don't know if I want that kind of power."

"The choice is not yours. The power exists. And it's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out, our entrie culture, your mother!"

"I know. But the war is over, Hama. We won."

"We're the last waterbenders of the Southern Tribe! We have to fight, to avenge our people!" That's when it hits me, all at once. And I can't believe I didn't see it before.

"It's you! You're the one who's making people disappear!"

"They threw me in prison to rot, along with my brothers and sisters. They deserve the same!"

"But this isn't the Fire Nation, Hama! These are your people, too!"

"They did nothing! Nothing, while we suffered! The Fire Nation took everything from us and our sister tribe stood by and watched! They deserve the same fate!"

"No! No they don't, Hama! There was nothing they could have done!"

"They could have fought for us! But they left us to die!"

"I won't let you do this, Hama. I won't let you keep terrorizing this city! They're our family too! People make mistakes, you just have to get over them and move on! Accept that people aren't perfect and they do things that they wish they hadn't, but there's no changing the past, Hama! You can only decide the future!"

Says the girl who hates her husband because he lied to her.

THAT'S DIFFERENT! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

Suddenly my body is wrenched out of my control- it feels like my blood is pulling me around and I can't keep up with it, like my own body is rebelling against me. It feels horrible.

I have no control.

"You should have learned the technique before you turned against me! It's impossible to fight your way out of my grip. I control every muscle every vein in your body!" She forces me to my knees, and I can't take any more.

"Stop, please, this isn't right!" She just laughs.

But it doesn't sound like a laugh. It sounds like madness, like insanity and hate. She's insane. How did I not see this before?

No! I am the strongest waterbender in the world! I will not let her do this! I WILL NOT! I AM KATARA! I AM THE PRINCESS OF THE SOUTHERN WATER TRIBE AND THE QUEEN OF THE FIRE NATION!

I clench my fists in the snow beneath my hands, drawing strength from the water and the moon's cold glow.

I stand, slowly.

"You're not the only one who draws power from the moon. My bending is more powerful than yours, Hama. Your technique is useless on me!" I lift the snow around me and form it into a rushing ribbon of icy water, and send it at her like an arrow.

But she catches it and sends it back at me, and I send it back at her, again and again until it becomes a huge wall of water rushing at me. I raise a hand and stop it, stop the whole thing in midair.

Hama stares in shock as I send her to the ground with two streams of water. She lays there, groaning. I stand, staring down at her, feeling nothing but sorrow.

This woman was a hero once, powerful and amazing.

Now she is a shell of herself, so focused on getting revenge that she has lost who she is. I shudder at how obviously her situation mirrors mine.

I lost myself up in the mountains, I let myself believe that I was nothing, that I was broken beyond healing.

But I'm not. The old wounds are all but sealed, and I was only clinging to phantom pain. Yes, Zuko's betrayal nearly killed me. And it still hurts to think about him- but look at what he gave me.

A stronger sense of self, an iron will, a refusal to let others walk over me. And a beautiful daughter whom I love more than life itself.

Yes, I hate Zuko.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for the lessons he taught me.

"It's over, Hama. You're done hurting these people, and you're going to tell me what you did with the ones you took."

"You are betraying your people, Katara."

"No. I'm saving them."

"Mommy!" Suddenly Lia runs up behind Hama, skidding to a stop mere inches from her. I stare.

"Lia! What are you doing here, go back to the city! You shouldn't be out here!"

"But-"

Hama's laughter cuts her off, and I feel myself blanche.

Hama moves, and Lia runs at me, a look of pure terror on her face. I dodge, trying not to hurt her. I pull water from the snow and the ice, transforming it and sending it in waves at Hama.

But she puts Lia in my way, and I'm forced to drop the streams.

"Don't hurt your daughter, Katara! And don't let her hurt you!"

Lia picks up an ice knife from the ground and comes at me, swinging it. I push her out of the way with a water circle, and I'm crying now.

"Please, Hama, stop!"

But Hama doesn't stop.

Lia flies at me, the ice knife held out. She's sobbing and screaming and suddenly I am filled with a terrible rage, the likes of which I have never felt before. She is hurting my daughter!

I raise my hands, and Lia stops, dropping to the ground. I move, and Hama moves, as I force her to the ground. There is a look of extreme pain on her face, but I don't care. All I see is Lia's face, contorted in pain and fear.

She hurt my daughter!

I force her back, bending her, and she screams, but I barely hear it. I am nothing but fury.

"Katara, stop!" I don't know where Aang came from, but he's holding me, pulling me out of my stance, telling me it's okay, Lia's okay, everything's okay.

I jerk away from him, shouting Lia's name. She runs to me and I hold her, crush her tightly. "What were you doing here, you foolish girl?"

"I followed you, I'm so sorry, mommy, I just wanted to see!"

I hold her tightly, filled with the knowledge that she's okay.

Everything's okay now.

She's okay.

**__**

Aang watched with a heavy heart as Toph and the others grabbed Hama and bound her hands. But his gaze strayed back to Katara, remembering what it had felt like to hold her in his arms, even for a few moments.

And remembering the sheer force of the pain that he felt when she pulled away.

She's not yours, Aang. Remember that? She's. Not. Yours.

Aang turned away, clenching his fists.

No, she wasn't his.

But when he got his hands on whoever she belonged to, he would kill him.

_____

0,o Vengeful Aang! Soo, how d'ya like the way I changed it up? I thought about doing the whole Hama thing in her actual town, making them go to that place in the Fire Nation, but I couldn't figure out a non-cheesy believable way to do it, so I did this. Is it believeable or should I change it, do you think? TELL ME!! :D

Anywho.. I haven't written the next chappie yet and I'm going to be super busy from now on, since I finally started my new job. I'll write when I can and update when I can and read y'all's stuff when I can, but I won't be on as much as I have been, sorry, and we'll probably be back to once or twice a week updates.

COMMENT, guys, you know the drill, and it's still five comments at least if you want me to update once I've gotten a chappie written. :)

Also, sadness, this book is coming to a close! I figure five, maybe six more chappies... maybe not even that, we'll see, lol. Then it's on to Book 2: the Sea of Ice. (that's my title so far... I might change it, I'm not sure yet. :)

Love y'all (platonically, of course)

-Tess