Chapter Text
[. . .]
"I think you have the biggest fucking forehead."
[. . .]
Chapter 1
Are You Fr
[. . .]
"Why are you so tall? Is it because of your funny hair and eyes? Are you a monster? Are you a ghost?"
Rosalinda deadpans at the little boy she's come to know for the better of two weeks as Pakkan standing just to the left of her, hovering impossibly close to the frosty bucket of soaped water. She momentarily stops her frustrated washing of several parkas in the freezing liquid quickly making her fingers numb to regard him, knowing from habit that the child won't leave unless she addresses him.
"Can you not?" This is about the third time this anxious boy has asked that since she had mysteriously arrived here just two weeks ago. She's beginning to suspect he's saying that just to annoy her. She may be taller than most if not everyone in the village, but she's not that tall, damn it. Being 5'9 is just a little above average height!
The boy issues her a look of clear disbelief.
"And no," She huffs, returning to her maniable task, "I'm not a monster or a ghost. If I was, I would've been dead on the ground. Your momma would've killed me." Despite her irritation, she's not mad at him. The boy's mother should be teaching him not to point out someone's differences, as she's been instructing him not to do for the past week. She doesn't consider it too rude because the boy's just that naturally curious, but someone else might. The fact that the lady—Puka if she's right—hasn't corrected him is aggravating.
Pakkan doesn't listen to her for shit. The only person he listens to is his mother. His mother, mind, who thinks she's some sort of demon.
The kid looks disturbed. "...Oh."
"Yeah," She side-eyes him. "Now go, I'm busy." She adopts a gentler tone, acknowledging that children will behave as children do, and at times, when they seek assistance, will express it in the most unclear manner imaginable, "Unless you need something?"
The boy shuffles, looking unsure. She waits, eyebrow raised, expecting him to scamper. He doesn't. "Big Brother Sokka said to come get you," He says, head hung down. "He said it was super important!"
She rolls her eyes. "If it's to watch him train, then I'm not going. I'm busy here." At first, watching the boy, who was just a year younger than her, named Sokka, show off his lack of skills was okay. It served as a distraction from her dwindling sanity desperately concocting rationale as to how she came to be here—whether it was a kidnapping attempt gone wrong or a damn alien behind her abduction, anything then made more sense than just... sleeping and waking up to the frozen fucking tundra.
Observing Sokka cast fleeting looks in her direction became tiresome rather quickly, however. Initially, it stemmed from fear, as many believed she was a walking corpse or a ghost due to her unnaturally pale skin, hair, and eyes the color of an unusual hazel. This perception eventually shifted to admiration, which left her uncertain about how to react once they recognized her as essentially normal. They complimented her features or sometimes downright condemned them, either pitying her or wondering how she could be born like that.
The worst part was, they weren't doing this to ostracize her. They welcomed her in as any other part of their group. They were just. So damn curious.
(And still, she felt distant.)
Sokka, at least, stopped commenting on her appearance and began to blatantly flirt with her on the third day in. Like, okay. Rosalinda was understandably flattered that a cute boy was paying her some attention, but with her possible dimensional problem and the fact that she had nowhere to call home besides a strange new land, nor did she have her precious shades to help her eyes, her intrigue with his awful pick-up lines soon became irritation.
Which brought her into Katara's arms. Katara, ever so happy just to see her and marvel at her white locks of hair, quickly assigned her some manageable tasks. Laundry being one of them.
It's now her mandatory chore almost every day, though Rosalinda doesn't mind one bit.
Any type of distraction is welcome.
She scowls at Pakkan. "If he sends you to bother me again, I'll drag him by the ear so that he can wash the clothes on my behalf," She hisses with visceral warning, and it seems to satisfy the kid of his imploring because he shrugs before running off to who knows where. Maybe off to play Frosty the Snowman with the other kids.
She hates that thing.
Snow, too.
She hates snow so much. It's too damn bright. It hurts her eyes something fierce, especially when she's overwhelmed by her rampant thoughts and emotions. It's also fucking cold. Nothing like the tropical waters of her grandmother's country, nor the bearable bipolar weather of California. Texas even gets a pass with its snow, because at least Texas gets warm the next fucking day. Here? It's the fucking arctic day and night. You're lucky if you even get a glimpse of the sun.
(She doesn't like the sun, either. Her grandmother understands her plight, but her parents tend to neglect the shitty aspect of her sensitive eyes.)
Rosalinda lets out a breath that turns into visible smoke thanks to the drastic change in temperature.
She's been at this damn washing for who knows how long. It's starting to make her dizzy. Everything is so much more difficult without plumbing or hot water. Well. Sometimes the water gets warm enough that she tolerates it, but the physics of how that comes to be when it's so damn cold here is beyond her. It's only ever when she's angry, too. Maybe if things weren't so insane, she might've thought about it harder.
Alas, patience for her weak state of mind evades her. She's seen Katara move the ice at her feet once or twice. With her hand.
Truly, it's something remarkably insane.
Rosalinda just wants to go home. The bonds she's made are so brittle, and now is the perfect time to leave before she inevitably gets attached. Which she's becoming, currently, and at an alarming rate at that. If she stays any longer, she's going to lose her mind. She wants the darkness of her room. She wants to sit still in the empty solitude of her parents' vacant home and be nothing.
But she's not home.
She's stuck, here, somewhere, possibly in the North or South Pole, speaking a foreign tongue she shouldn't know nor understand.
For a moment, Rosalinda stops washing and curls into herself with defeat.
How is she supposed to get home? How can she possibly perceive anything with a logical mind when nothing answers her bizarre questionnaire as to how she came to be here? Here, thousands of miles or possibly dimensions away from home!
Home.
Rosalinda nearly snorts. Home, where her father pays her no mind, home, where her mother is too afraid to leave the man keeping a roof over their head. Ridiculous, honestly. She doesn't even know why she wants to go back.
Because it's all you know.
Right. Yeah.
She lets out an exasperated sigh.
She remembers going to sleep in the comfort of her room. She'd just gotten done crying after her mother's verbal lashing, complaining about how useless she was for not bothering to clean her room despite her having cleaned it not even moments before her mother barged into it uninvited, when she'd felt an odd, empty sensation run frissons across her shaking body. It became unbelievably cold then, so cold that she decided to bury herself in the old, fuzzy blankets she'd washed so much they were now gray with age and use.
She fell asleep.
And then she woke up here, with just the clothes on her back and the blanket to keep her company.
"Everything okay out here?"
She straightens from her gloom at the sound of Katara's voice, quickly turning her head toward the direction it comes from. Sure enough, there Katara is, bundled, looking at her with an expression of concern.
Katara. The girl who understands her quite perfectly. Also, consequently, the girl who feeds her copious amounts of stewed sea prunes. "Ah, hey. I'm fine," Rosalinda waves off, leveraging her aching knees to anew her washing. "How are you?"
"Just coming to check on you," Katara politely replies, crouching next to her. "I finished tending to the dry seal jerky. Do you need some help?"
Rosalinda smiles softly at her. Something tells her that Pakkan must have delivered her message and that Sokka is now desperate, sending in his sister. But maybe she's overthinking. "Nah, I'm okay. I'm almost done. Thank you, though."
"Thanks for helping out then, Rosa," Katara expresses in profound gratitude with a brilliant smile sent her way, gathering the damp clothes she'd finished washing into a self-woven hamper half her size that Rosalinda had completely missed by her leg. She begins to pick them apart, gauging which is which with expert eyes. "Sokka never helps."
Rosa narrows her eyes, rubbing her hurting wrists. "You should beat the shit out of him for that," She advises, causing Katara to give her a strange smile. She shrugs. "What? It's true. Sometimes men need a good ass whooping to get in line and do something with their lives." Her father being one of them.
Katara snorts. "Oh, I've tried. He's as lazy as they come."
"Huh. Do you want me to set him straight?" Rosalinda asks innocently. She's not above getting into a fight with her hosts if one of them is being lazy as all hell. It's cute that Sokka is playing warrior, but there are responsibilities within the small community that he must contribute to. Otherwise, he's doing nothing with his life.
Katara shakes her head. "It's fine," She pauses, considering, as she hovers her palm against the dripping clothes, "We can try to beat him up tomorrow, instead?"
Rosalinda makes a noise of assent. Whatever works.
Katara looks shy. "I'm saying tomorrow because I'm supposed to go canoeing for some grub with Sokka later. Do you want to come with?"
Now everything makes sense. Sokka and now Katara are hoping she joins them in the water. They'll be sorely disappointed, though, because just as when she first arrived, not even her proximity to the dangerous, icy ocean for two weeks has changed her magnificent fear of it. "Ah, no, it's fine," Rosalinda smiles tiredly. "I think your Gran-Gran needs me for another sewing lesson."
Katara visibly deflates. "Oh. That's okay, then. Will we be able to hang out later?"
Rosalinda nods. She can do that. At least, to make up for yet another failed attempt on getting her to leave the icelands she's begrudgingly becoming fond of. Before she can reply in the affirmative, she goes still as Katara abruptly pulls out a spray of copious amounts of water from nowhere. No, Rosalinda thinks, not from nowhere.
Immediately, the parka in her hands is as dry as can be.
The casual display of impossibility quickly causes a churning nausea in her stomach. Her heart drops and her hands seize against her clothing, questioning reverently in desperate tunes of why, how, and what the fuck? Sweating, Rosalinda stands on shaking feet. "I think... I'm done cleaning?" She whispers, and she curses herself for not masking her fear better when Katara looks at her with something akin to alarm. "I'm going to meet with your grandmother right away. Be careful out there, yeah?"
Before Katara can reply, Rosalinda scurries away.
She's never going to get used to that.
[. . .]
That was a week ago.
She never went to Grandmother Kanna. She'd gone into her hut to sleep off the insomnia and woke up to yelling. She was confused as shit. Because. Really, waking up to someone moving her shoulder roughly—Puka is the culprit, her usual, softened brown eyes now broadened with fear—was the last damn thing she expected. Even worse, was her whisper-shouting at her that she'd been asleep for two whole fuckass days, and that they were scared because they thought she'd died, and nobody bothered to wake her up because they still thought she was some fucking ghost! Which, what the hell! She could've developed anemia! Or died, unknowingly, because of the damn cold putting her to damn sleep!
But those thoughts are for later.
So much has happened.
Apparently, Katara found a bald kid with tattoos, who everyone thought was the Avatar, and who was not affected by the cold. Who also had a large white bison with six legs? One of which, at the time of her waking with a horrible headache and desperate hunger, could see at a distance. Right behind a large, black metal ship that sported soldiers dressed in intimidating assembles of red and black armor.
When she was led outside, gathered in a crowd with terrified women and children, Rosalinda felt like she was going to puke.
The atmosphere reminded her far too much of the crisis at Home.
Home, of which she had yet to return to.
She remembers swallowing the bitter taste of stomach bile caught in her throat, the way the snow curdled underneath her cold feet as she shakily gathered her thoughts as fast as she could to assess the situation. She could smell herself, and she hated it, and all she remembers is being hidden among the crowd one second, and then wrenched away from Puka's grip by a scorching hand that nearly burned her through the thick fabric of fur.
A bald boy with a stupid neatly-arranged ponytail on his stupid fucking head was sneering at her with an angry, angry scar. A scar that looked like fire with how his gold eyes glinted dangerously.
"The Avatar!"
What the fuck?
From there, a boy covered in black and red armor took hold of her and brought her to his ship, with Katara's echoes of her name ringing in her ears.
Now, she curls into herself in the stuffiness of a dark cell, shivering from the unbearable cold seeping through the inches of her skin.
She has no idea what will happen next. All she knows is that she wishes for a proper shower, because she stinks of sweat and unwashed ass. Or maybe the scent is coming from the next cell over, where, for some reason, there are huge, munching creatures that look like a combination of Rhinos and Lizards.
Rosalinda also needs to pee. Really bad.
She nearly cries out of frustration.
What did she do to deserve this bullshit?
"Get up."
Rosa startles, snapping her head toward her cell door. The same boy who took her stands with an older man behind him, nursing a cup of tea. Said old man smiles softly at her. She shrinks, feeling her heart dip into the acids of her stomach. What are they going to do to her that warrants such a look from the older man?
She gets up on shaking legs when it looks like the boy will snark at her again.
She grips the wall, weak.
Her stomach growls.
Tears gather in the corner of her eyes. "If you're going to kill me," She murmurs in defeat, "Please do it quickly. Please." She doesn't want to live like this—not starving, not filthy, not reeking of her own neglect. She needs food. A toilet. A shower. She's a horrible case of neglected Sims, and somehow that absurd comparison only makes it worse.
The boy looks put off for a minute, but Rosa can't tell. His angry expression wavers for one of confusion, unfurrowing his brow slightly before he scowls and opens the cell. "...We'll see," He says contemptuously, but he makes no move to grab hold of her like he did the last time. He only motions with a flick of his fingers, commanding her to step forward.
She does.
"Now, Prince Zuko, that's no way to treat a guest," an older man chides pleasantly, as though this entire nightmare isn't a twisted parody of hospitality.
Rosalinda stops short, her bloodshot eyes shifting between the boy—Zuko—and the older man, who calmly sips from a steaming cup of tea like this is all routine.
"This is no guest, Uncle," Zuko says, disgust curling in his voice. "This is the Avatar."
Oh my God. That fucking name again.
A dam bursts. "What the fuck is an Avatar?" She snaps, feeling something hot gather in her palms.
Both boy and elder pause to stare at her.
She gestures weakly to herself, too tired to care, too numb to pretend. "I don't know what that is. All I know is I woke up in this fuckass place, got kidnapped, and now I'm hungry, I smell like death, and I have no idea who any of you are and I'm—I'm—" She chokes on her next words, feeling so revolted with herself that she nearly pukes out the entrails of her stomach. She's so grossed out at her pathetic behavior that she forces herself to breathe, to withhold from sobbing her lungs out by the sheer humiliation she feels trying to asphyxiate her.
Zuko makes a face at her. An explosion of fury courses through her. She nearly screams in his face for it, that burble of rage coming from her hoarse larynx. Her mouth feels like cotton.
"Fine," The angry teenager says after a moment of tense silence, sneering. "We'll get you some accommodations."
Rosa lifts her head hopefully.
"So long as we get our answers."
Silence.
Then, the room explodes in a fury of fire.