Bending the Legend

From the Shattered Ice

One thousand years later...

"So, what do you think it is, Katara?"

"Why are you asking me?"

Sokka shrugged at his sister. "Oh, I don't know. This is strange, and you're as strange as it gets. I think the connection is pretty obvious."

The comment earned a stern glare from Katara, her annoyed expression framed by her dark hair loopies. "And what do you want me to do? Waterbend the thing to life?" she deadpanned.

"Uh, no thank you. Thanks to your magic, you already soaked me once and got us stranded... along with this thing!"

Katara frowned. Only minutes ago, her brother mocked her for her waterbending, calling it "magic." Of course, manipulating water with her mind always left Sokka soaking wet. She did much worse by breaking a huge iceberg into dozens of tiny pieces. Now, they were stuck on a tinier iceberg, in the middle of the South Pole with no way back. There was only them... and the 'thing' that Sokka mentioned.

That 'thing' was a body.

At least, that was what Katara thought. It looked like a metal copy of one, all broken up and scattered over the ice in skeletal-like fragments, not too far away from the giant canister it came out of. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn't human.

Katara trailed her eyes to the now-empty canister on the small island of ice. When she approached it to learn more, her brother thought otherwise. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going to take a look inside," Katara answered.

"Katara, no! Something might come out and grab your face!"

Rolling her eyes, Katara popped her head into the canister. Unlike the frost-covered shell, the inside was clean and smooth. Strange yellow lines spread all over, glowing faintly and interconnecting with each other to form equally strange shapes. To top it off, it was oddly warm enough that Katara pulled down the furry hood of her blue coat.

"Woah," she uttered. "Sokka! Come over here!"

"What happened? Did something come out and grab your face?"

"What–no! Take a look at this!"

"Just what..." Sokka stopped as he popped his head into the canister. "Woah..."

Katara shot a curious glance at him. "What do you think it is?"

"I dunno... It doesn't look like it's from the Fire Nation..." Sokka trailed off, pulling back his own hood and showing off his 'warrior's wolf tail.'

Katara drew herself out and pulled her hood back up before the cold air could nip at her ears. She envied Sokka enjoying the inside of something nice and warm. Almost, anyway. The canister, the whole thing, was just strange. What it was, what had been inside it, and how it became frozen in the ice were among the many other questions crowding Katara's mind.

'I never thought I could do something like that,' she thought, looking down at her mitted hands and remembering how her own powers shattered the ice surrounding the canister.

Suddenly, the air grew colder. The South Pole usually was between mildly cold and to below freezing, so Katara thought it was nothing. However, when she rubbed her arms for warmth, a slight rattle made her realize it was not 'just nothing.'

Katara's eyes darted back to the broken body some feet away. The lone rib cage, head, and even the fingers shook ever so slightly. Among the limbs, a severed arm moved towards the main body–

Wait.

The arm was moving. On its own.

Gaping, Katara barely heard her oblivious brother. "You know, it's not much, but I think we could work with this. Maybe we can use this thing to get back home."