Darshi clenched her fists tightly at her side, letting out a deep breath overflowing with weariness. It wasn’t always easy to gather people and convince them that she had their best interest at heart. Especially when she was a woman.

But the only men around were the elders, who weren’t allowed to take over as chief, and young boys. All they had was her, so she didn’t understand why they were always testing her resolve.

For the most part the elders stuck to their tent, rarely coming out. If Darshi wanted to see them she had to go there, because they certainly wouldn’t come if she asked. Never mind they did for every chief before her. Lately, they wouldn’t even give her that. Each time Darshi asked for an audience she was refused. When she asked the messenger if she’d done something wrong they only stared at her, giving nothing away.

“Can I help?”

Jimin watched her carefully, those contradictory blue eyes flashing as he absentmindedly rolled a miniscule ball of flames across the span of his palm. Darshi turned away. Jimin had always been able to read her well. She didn’t want to make him worry. Somehow, he had all the confidence in the world about her.

Jimin was an adult male at eighteen years, but because of his element the water tribe would never accept him as a ruler. They’d rather die off as a civilization than allow that to happen, become a frozen blip in time so that all the people after them would wonder what had been and never know the answer.

“You’re doing enough,” she whispered. “I think we would have become ice popsicles without you.”

Jimin lined himself up with the edge of the cliff. She was watching that thin line of smoke on the horizon, the only hint the fire nation was still nearby. She didn’t trust them to let their tribe be, to live out whatever amount of life they had left.

At this point she couldn’t even say with confidence they’d survive another year.

“I want to be more than glorified flint and tinder.” He was annoyed, she realized. Perhaps she wasn’t make the best use of him, but there wasn’t much to do for a fire bender in the South Pole.

It wasn’t like he’d ever gotten any formal training for fire bending. Everything Jimin knew he found out from trial and error. There wasn’t anyone for him to study under, not even parents like she’d had. Once during childhood he had an outburst resulting in flames stretching out from him. No one ever made a big deal about it when water bending children did that, but fire had a stigma. It burned. Fire was relentless in its domination. It viciously ripped father from child.

Perhaps if the war wasn’t going on no one would have made a big deal about it. As it was, it had nearly resulted in him being cast out from the village. He had to learn to control his anger at a young age, something his mother helped him with. Darshi hadn’t seen an outburst from him since. Frustration, yes. Annoyance, of course. But never an unrelenting eruption of anger. What happened with Nami the other day could never happen with Jimin.

Darshi tucked her gloved fingers in her armpits, giving him her undivided attention. “Then tell me, Jimin. What do you want to do? How do you want to help?”

She didn’t know what to do with him, and the village had never made much use of him either. Jimin had always stuck to the sidelines, doing his best to disappear. It was a win for everyone. The village could pretend he wasn’t there, and no one could spew hurtful words of scorn at him.

Jimin kicked at the ice, staring straight ahead as his irritation diminished to the sizzling of embers. “I don’t know. I can teach the kids how to fight? Doing that takes up a lot of your time.”

She didn’t want to say what was on her mind. She wasn’t sure the children would ever listen to him. They’d seen the way their parents had disregarded him their entire life, as if he were less than the rest of them. That mentality ran deep in the tribe.

“The little one’s,” she said finally. “Work with them.” Assert his dominance and control. The children were still pliable.

His throat bobbed, cobalt eyes flashing dark. He seemed to pick up on the struggle she had been having.

He turned away, not saying a word. She let out a groan as soon as he left, feeling horrible. She always tried to treat him better than the tribe had. She understood how it felt to be disregarded, although not to his degree. Even when Darshi showed great promise as a bender they ignored her, telling her to stick with the women. With her parent’s guidance she had learned well, something she was thankful for. Without them she wasn’t certain she would have ever gotten past form one.

Her bending style was different than the others, something they used to show that she should have never learned it. Her brother’s was similar, but it was not as obvious since he rarely used his gift. Besides, he was a man. That afforded him the world. When she was little she imagined taking her canoe and disappearing into the sunset. There had to be more than this in life. Once she had even dragged her boat to the edge of the water. In the end, she only watched the sunrise.

The fire nation would have caught her anyways, and if they hadn’t she most likely would have failed for her lack of survival skills. She figured out how to hunt after her father died, but the men would teach her nothing else. She would have had to leave her family too, not that there was much left of it. All she had was her little brother Jungkook who would rather disregard her most the time. He heard the way the men of the village spoke to her. It influenced him too.

Shiro strolled over to Darshi, sliding into his spot for patrol. He took it very seriously. All of them did. They knew how important it was. She placed a comforting hand against his shoulder and gave a weak smile. His father had been one of the warriors that recently died. He was still grieving, but hid it well. She left him there on the cliff, pondering the latest news she had received.

Or rather, the lack of it.

The North had ignored their plea for help again. Darshi wasn’t surprised. It was a desperate move on her end. She had lost track of how many letters the South had sent asking for aid. No one bothered to send an answering letter anymore, ignoring them as if they were dead already.

Her people were more than that. If they died out here people would be remembered for more.

War in the South Pole had been going on for more than fifty years, but for the North it was just beginning. She hoped one day the North weren’t in the same position as the South because there would be no one there to assist them. Their brothers and sisters of the South would already be dead.

Part of her was angry at them, but another small piece of her understood. While the Northern Water Tribe had left the South to die, she could get why they made that decision. The South was a rag tag group at best. After being picked at for decades the best of them were already gone. They’d lost their castles before Darshi was even born. It was the first thing the Fire Nation targeted once the walls fell. The royal palace was their culture, the hub of their history. Stories from the first chief were etched into the walls, each ruler adding another and creating more history and lessons for the future to learn from. It was more than just a palace. It was a representation of the South itself. It was all gone now, she wasn't even sure where the original city was located. 

The same thing would happen to the North. She most likely wouldn’t be alive when it happene