by Michael Teitelbaum
illustrated by Patrick Spaziante
Based on screenplays by
Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko,
Ian Wilcox, John O’Bryan, and Aaron Ehasz.
© 2013 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. Nickelodeon,
Nickelodeon Avatar: The Last Airbender and all related titles, logos and
characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.
Based on the TV series Nickelodeon Avatar: The Last Airbender ™
IF YOU ARE READING THIS,
you have uncovered one of the four hidden scrolls I
have compiled about the world of A
you have found contains sacred stories, legends, and
facts that I have gathered so far about the proud
nation of the Water Tribes—its history, its culture,
and the great tales of its past and present. I hope
that this information will be as useful and intriguing
to you as it is to me. As a great friend of the Water
Tribes, I ask that you keep this scroll safe and share
it only with those you trust. Beware, for there are
many who wish to expose its secrets. . . .
Long ago, in a time of peace, the Avatar kept
balance between the four nations of the world—the
Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation,
and the Air Nomads. In these nations there are people
who have mastered the ability to control their culture’s
native element, an art form known as bending.
They call themselves Waterbenders, Earthbenders,
Firebenders, and Airbenders—only the Avatar can
manipulate all four elements. When an Avatar dies,
his or her spirit is reborn into a bender of the next
nation in the cycle of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. This
cycle provides a natural balance, keeping any one
nation from growing more powerful than the others.
As you know, the four nations lived in peace for
many generations. But all that changed one hundred
years ago, when the Fire Nation attacked.
The leader of the Fire Nation at that time, the
powerful Firebender known as Fire Lord Sozin, had
secret ambitions to take over the world by conquering
the other nations. When Avatar Roku died, knowing
that the next Avatar would be a child who needed
training and maturity before he or she grew powerful
enough to oppose him, Fire Lord Sozin secretly began
to build a fleet of massive ships and train an army
of Firebenders and soldiers. Throughout the years
the Fire Nation’s armada grew strong while the other
nations remained ignorant. Then, using the energy of
a passing comet, Fire Lord Sozin attacked the Water,
Air, and Earth nations at the same time.
Only the Avatar had the skills to stop the ruthless
Fire Nation. But when the world needed him most, the
Avatar did not appear. Following the natural cycle—
since Avatar Roku was from the Fire Nation—the
next Avatar would come from the Air Nation. Sozin’s
army wiped out all of the Air Nomads, so the Avatar
could never return.
Or so the world believed.
The war has raged for one hundred years. The Air
Nomads were believed to have all been wiped out.
Most of the great cities of the Southern Water Tribe
were destroyed. Many of the Earth Kingdom’s cities
were taken over by Fire Nation soldiers, and hope was
beginning to fade from the world. . . .
Until the day the Avatar returned.
My name is
Katara. I’m a
member of the
Southern Water Tribe.
I’m fourteen now. I was
told that my mother died
when
I was eight during a Fire Nation
attack on my village. Two years
ago my father and the other
men of my tribe journeyed to
the Earth Kingdom to help in the
fight against the Fire Nation. He
left me and my older brother,
Sokka, to help look after
our tribe.
Some people believe
that the cycle was broken
and the Avatar was never
reborn. But I always
believed that somehow
the Avatar would return
to save the world.
the Waterbender who, along with her brother,
discovered the Avatar and helped set him free.
Sokka and I were in our canoe, fishing among the
ice floes.
“I’ll show you how to catch a fish, Katara,” Sokka
bragged.
That’s my brother. He thinks he can do everything
better than anyone else! But I was born a Waterbender,
and although I have no training, I can still make water
do some pretty neat things . . . and I was not going
to let Sokka catch the only fish that day! Using my
Waterbending abilities, I shaped a bubble out of water
and caught a fish inside it!
“Sokka, look!” I cried.
“Shh, Katara!” Sokka whispered. “You’re gonna
scare the fish away.”
My brother can be so infuriating sometimes! The
“great fisherman” wouldn’t even bother to look at the
fish I had caught!
Sokka lifted his spear to go after his fish and
accidentally burst the water bubble, soaking himself
and letting my fish get away.
“Why is it every time you play with magic water,
I get soaked?” Sokka grumbled.
“It’s not magic, it’s Waterbending,” I explained for
the millionth time. “It’s—”
“I know,” Sokka interrupted. “It’s an ancient art
unique to our culture, blah, blah, blah!”
Like I said, Sokka thinks he knows everything.
Suddenly the current picked up, smashing our
boat into a huge chunk of ice. Sokka couldn’t control
the boat, so we jumped onto a floating iceberg.
“Leave it to a girl to mess things up!” Sokka yelled.
He was blaming this on me? That did it! “You are
the most sexist, immature . . .” I could hardly get
the words out, I was so furious. I realized Sokka was
giving me a frightened, wide-eyed look. I thought I
had fi
nally gotten through my brother’s thick head.
All of a sudden I heard a huge cracking noise from
behind, then spun around in time to see that an
enormous iceberg had been split in half!
“Your powers have gone from weird to freakish,
Katara!” Sokka cried.
“You mean I did that?”
I asked. I was stunned. Could
I really be that powerful a
Waterbender?
“Yup, you did that,” Sokka
replied. “Congratulations!”
Suddenly
the
iceberg
began to glow. “Look!” I
shouted. “There’s a boy frozen
in the ice. And some kind of
huge creature. Sokka, that boy is alive!”
I began hacking away at the ice with Sokka’s war
club. Finally the iceberg cracked, sending a brilliant
beam of light into the sky and releasing its prisoner.
As Sokka and I hurried to the boy’s side, the arrow-
shaped tattoo on his head stopped glowing.
“How did you get into the ice?” Sokka asked as the
boy’s eyes opened. “And why aren’t you frozen?”
We were all startled by a loud grunt.
“Appa!” the strange boy shouted, jumping to his
feet. “Are you all right, buddy?”
“What is that thing?” Sokka asked.
“This is Appa, my flying bison,” the boy replied.
“Do you guys live around here?”
“Don’t answer that!” Sokka shouted to me. “You
saw that beam of light. He could be trying to signal
the Fire Nation!”
“The paranoid one here is my brother, Sokka,”
I said, rolling my eyes. Sokka could be so mistrusting.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . A-A-ACHOO!” The boy sneezed and flew
ten feet into the air. “I’m Aang,” he said as he floated
back down.
“You’re an Airbender!” I cried.
“I sure am,” Aang said proudly. “You guys need a
ride?”
After convincing Sokka that the boy was harmless,
the three of us climbed up onto the giant bison. Appa
had some trouble getting up in the air. Sokka was really
rude—he doesn’t believe anything he can’t prove—but
I knew Appa would fly. All it took was some patience
. . . and a little faith.
“Appa’s just tired,” Aang told us. “After he rests,
he’ll fly. You’ll see.”
Appa paddled through the water, all the way
to my village. There, we introduced Aang to our
grandmother, Gran Gran, and the other people of the
village.
“No one has seen an Airbender for one hundred
years,” Gran Gran said. “We thought they were
extinct.”
“Extinct?” Aang said, sounding worried.
That’s when Sokka grabbed Aang’s staff. “What
kind of weapon is this?” Sokka asked.
“It’s not a weapon,” Aang explained, taking back
his staff. “It’s a glider for Airbending. It lets me control
the air currents and fly around.”
“You know, last time I checked, people couldn’t
fly,” Sokka said.
“Well, check again!” Aang said.
Then he soared into the sky on his glider! It was
amazing to see a real bender practicing his art. All the
little kids in the village squealed with delight!
Suddenly Aang crashed into the watchtower Sokka
had built and knocked it over!
“Great!” moaned Sokka when Aang had landed.
“You’re an Airbender; Katara’s a Waterbender.
Together you can waste time all day long!”
I think Sokka was a little jealous of all the attention
Aang was getting. The kids in our tribe had always
looked up to Sokka, but in a matter of seconds, Aang
stole the show.
“You’re a Waterbender?” Aang asked me.
“Sort of,” I replied. “I’ve got no one to train me. I’m
the only Waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe.”
“What about the Northern Water Tribe?” Aang
asked.
“It’s all the way on the other side of the world,”
I exclaimed.
“Appa and I can take you to the North Pole!” Aang
said excitedly. “You can find a Waterbending master
there to teach you!”
Finding a real Waterbending master to train me
was what I had wanted my whole life. Part of me
was ready to say yes right away, but the thought of
leaving home was scary. What about Gran Gran and
the rest of our village? Could I just walk away from
them?
“While you think it over,” he said, “let’s go penguin
sledding!”
I’ve never had so much fun! We slid down a steep
hill on a couple of penguins. But at the bottom we
saw an old Fire Nation ship that had been there for
years. I told Aang we’re not allowed to go near it, but
he didn’t listen.
“Katara,” he said, “if you want to be a bender, you
have to let go of your fears.”
Aang was right. For years I’ve been afraid—afraid
of that ship, afraid of the Fire Nation, afraid that I’d
never be a true Waterbender. Yes, if I was to become a
bender, I had to stop being afraid.
So I followed Aang onto the ship.
“This ship is a very bad memory for my people,”
I explained to Aang. “It’s from the Fire Nation’s first
attack on us in the war.”
“Okay. Back up,” Aang said. “I’ve never seen any
war.”
How could anyone not know about the war? Unless
they were stuck inside an iceberg for . . .
“Aang,” I said, not believing what I was about
to tell him, “I think you were in that iceberg for a
hundred years! That’s why you don’t know about the
war.”
“That’s impossible,” Aang cried. “Do I look like a
one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old man to you?”
“Think about it,” I told him. “The war is a century
old. You don’t know about it because, somehow, you
were in ice that whole time. It’s the only explanation.”
Aang dropped to the ground. He seemed stunned.
“A hundred years . . . I can’t believe it.”
“Come on,” I said, helping him to his feet. “Let’s
get out of here.”
But on the way off the ship, we triggered a booby
trap. A flare shot high
into the sky and exploded.
Aang put his arm around
> my waist and Airbended
us into the sky and away
from the ship.
“I knew it!” yelled
Sokka when we returned
to the village. “You
signaled the Fire Nation
with that flare!”
I pleaded with Sokka,
telling him that it wasn’t
Aang’s fault. But Aang took the blame for me.
“Aha,” Sokka cried. “The traitor confesses! The
foreigner is banished from our village!”
“Aang is not our enemy!” I cried, but no one
seemed to listen to me. I felt so helpless. Once Sokka
gets something into his head, there’s no changing his
mind.
Gran Gran lowered her head. “Katara,” she said
softly but sternly. “Going onto that ship is forbidden!
Now we are all in danger. Sokka is right. I think it
would be best if the Airbender left our village.”
And so Aang left. I wanted to go with him, but
I couldn’t. Family comes first. That’s how Sokka and
I were raised, and that’s what I believe.
But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t furious! “There
goes my one chance of becoming a Waterbender!”
I shouted at Gran Gran. I was so sick of this whole war,
of what had become of all of us. It was all so unfair.
I had never raised my voice to my grandmother in
my life. And yet there I was, screaming at the woman
I loved most in the world.
Just then a huge Fire Nation ship landed on our
shore. The flare must have brought them to us.
Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation strode from his ship
and marched into our village as if he owned it. The
people of my village trembled and ran for cover.
I was scared too, though I did my best to hide it. Sokka
bravely stepped forward to confront the prince, but
I knew that he couldn’t take on a ship full of
Firebenders all by himself!
The Lost Scrolls: Water (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Page 1