[center][b]Siku
Southern Water Tribe[/b][/center]

They discovered Siku could Waterbend in his third year. He could move the water while he was playing in the bath. No one questioned it at the time, until it kept happening… Katara was already showing the same skills.

At four though, he demonstrated he could heal wounds with a touch. He was able to heal Sokka’s wounds when he scraped his knees. He remembered Katara wouldn’t develop healing abilities until later on. Sokka started calling him magic hands.

By six, he could move and shape water with the grace of a master. But that was also when the dreams started. The imposter was talking to him in his sleep. He would wake up gasping, and his twin had to soothe him back to sleep, but they just kept coming. Kept harassing him every night.

He was eight when it happened. When the Fire Nation raiders returned. His mother told him to take Katara and run. Katara begged him to get out. But Siku didn’t run. This was his chance. To change something for the better.

Siku moved, stepping between the captain and his mother. The Firebender Captain raised his hand. A flame shot toward them.

Siku raised his arms, and the snow around his feet exploded upwards. The fire slammed against the water, steam billowing into the air with a deafening hiss.

The Captain snarled. “A Waterbender? This far south?” He launched another flame. Siku didn’t have time to think. 

Siku didn’t have time to think, he raised his arms, and the water obeyed. It coiled around his wrists, flowed upward like serpents, and formed a barrier just in time. The fire scattered. The force of the impact knocked him back into the snow, but he never stopped bending. He twisted, redirected, shaped the water like he had been practicing this in secret for years.

Then he struck. A single whip of water hit the Captain square in the chest, unbalancing him on the icy ground.

Then, Kya lunged. She slammed the back of her spear into his temple, and he crumpled.

There was silence. 

The others retreated, seeing their leader downed, unwilling to face a Waterbender so deep in enemy territory without numbers on their side.

The snow hissed as the last embers died. Siku turned to his mother, and gasped. Her parka was torn open. Her side was scorched, badly. Blood seeping into the snow. “No no no NO!” He pressed his hands over the wound, calling to the water. “Please, please work, come on—” The liquid glowed faintly. It flowed into her wound, but he wasn’t strong enough. Not yet. It eased the pain, slowed the bleeding, but it didn’t undo the damage. Not fully.

Kya’s eyes fluttered open. “You… did good,” she whispered.

When the others arrived, they found Siku cradling her, water still glowing softly around his hands, his eyes red from crying.

Katara knelt beside them, holding their mother’s other hand.

Sokka stood in stunned silence, looking at his little brother like he was someone else entirely.

That night, the healers said Kya would live, but she’d carry the scar for the rest of her life. She would never fight the same way again.

And Siku was just stunned silent. He did it. He actually did it. He changed the story.