Sandboxing in the Sandbox

It has been a long, long time since strangers last approached the Southern Water Tribe. There are rumours of great doings in the world outside, but the world and its great ones seem to have forgotten the women and children of the South Pole.

Kanna has almost given up hope of seeing Hakoda and his warriors again. She doesn't tell the girls that, of course. It would do them no good. They're worry enough about Sokka and Katara, and the Avatar, and the distant rumbles that are sometimes heard over the horizon. Nobody strays far from home unless it's to hunt now.

And everyone is within the walls, sitting around the communal fire to eat, when the child on the remnants of little Sokka's watchtower squeaks in panic and skids down the snowy walls towards the fire.

"Someone's coming! Gran-Gran, there are people coming!" she shrieks, grabbing at Kanna's skirts. Kanna looks up to meet the eyes of Issa and Nata, the two oldest of the women she still thinks of as 'the girls', petting the child's hair with stiff hands.

They look back at her, frightened, but when she stands they follow, and after a moment the other women do the same.  The last visitors here was the Fire Nation ship that took the Avatar. No wonder they're all afraid.

"Get spears," she tells them. "And ask the children to stay in the tents." Like that will work; but at least they can try.