Katara loathes Republic City.
She goes because there is no other option. Political negotiations are made in Republic City, or not at all. Since she'd rather not have a war, she goes.
But the statue of Aang casts a long shadow over the boat. It seems they will never sail out from under that shadow, and she wonders how much Aang has changed, that he would allow that to go up while he is still alive.
Coming up with no answer, she goes below deck until the crew shouts their arrival.
..
Whale Tail Island has been a contentious issue since the end of the war fifteen-some years earlier.
"It's been Fire Nation for nearly two hundred years," Zuko would say at state dinners, surprised every time, looking at her over his wine.
Katara would swirl the wine in her glass and force herself to hold her tongue. "It was Water Tribe for six hundred," she'd point out.
And then, if someone else were there, maybe Suki or Aang, they'd point out that before that, Whale Tail Island belonged to a small tribe of non-benders who had been conquered by the Water Tribe on their southward journey after a raging civil war in the north.
"We're talking in circles," Zuko would say. Katara would massage out the crease in her forehead, and ask for more wine.
..
The papers in Republic City declare, in large bold headlines, WAR IMMINENT AS TERRITORIAL DISPUTE CONTINUES. Katara can read them from the inside of the carriage, and if she couldn't, the paperboys are screaming out the news down the crowded streets.
"I guess we're keeping this quiet," Katara remarks, looking at her advisors in turn. Bato, face lined with age, watches her with a level gaze for a moment and then says nothing, turning his head to look out the window. A paperboy's shouts reverberate through the windows as he yells about the riots in the Fire Nation and the skirmish on Whale Tale Island that left fifteen dead. Katara presses her fingers to her temples.
She was chosen as the Southern Water Tribe's new chief seven years earlier. "A new kind of leader for a new kind of world," her grandmother had said. She hadn't meant it positively.
It was a new world. The letters Katara received from Aang and Sokka, first from Ba Sing Se and then from Republic City, described a society changing so quickly that by the time fifteen years had passed, the scars of the old war had been covered over by the polluted air of reigning industry. "I don't like what it does to the environment," Aang confessed on a rare visit, "But Sokka's right. The world needs to move forward. And all these inventions and industries—it's a revolution, Katara. You need to come see it."
Katara stayed home for as long as she could.
Sokka meets her when she arrives at the spacious Water Tribe embassy. "Don't mind the papers," he says quickly as he wraps her into a hug, already anticipating her complaints. "They're just selling the story. I'm sure it won't come to that."
Katara thinks, but doesn't say, You haven't been home in nine years, how would you know what it will come to? Instead, she greets Suki and her two nephews with a large smile, and does not talk about politics for the rest of the evening.
At night, though, she steps out onto the balcony of her suite and looks at the glow of the city. "It could come to that," she says into the lonely night. A siren wails in the distance.
..
The people of Whale Tail Island aren't Water Tribe, not exactly, but they're more Water Tribe than they are Fire Nation. That's what their spokesperson said to her in their private meetings back in the Southern capital three years ago, his eyes burning with purpose. "We'll do whatever it takes to get out from under their crushing hand," he said. "The Fire Nation burns everything it touches, and we will not let them have us."
"I'll do what I can," Katara said, because the years had made her cautious. She wrote to Zuko. He wrote back a long letter, but what it really amounted to was, I don't have time for them. Katara stared hard at the rows of cramped, handwritten characters, and reminded herself that Zuko wouldn't take this kind of time for just anyone. He'd listened to her, and he was already putting out fires around the world. He was right—the anger of Whale Tail Island was not a priority.
But after a year, Zuko's policies put incredible economic strain on the colonies still under Fire Nation rule. Zuko's policies were a result of the incredible political pressure being put on him by Aang and his friends in Ba Sing Se. Katara knew all this, but she couldn't help but feel disdain when they were surprised that the Whale Tail Islanders set fire to the Fire Nation compound. They were sending a message.
We won't wait, the Whale Tail leader wrote to her, but we can't win without you. Do not leave your tribe to suffer this injustice.
And so it happened that the Southern Water Tribe declared its formal recognition of Whale Tail Island as Water Tribe territory. And so it happened that people began to speak of war.
..
Zuko looks ill.
This is her first thought when they meet, wearing overly stuffy and old-fashioned robes in the beautiful marble hall of Republic City's Capitol building. There are at least twenty reporters watching from a balcony, and far too many politicians surrounding them. The place reeks of power. And all Katara can think is that Zuko looks thin and wan. She wonders if the scar on his chest troubles him. She wonders if he sleeps at all.
There is a lot of formal talk while Zuko and Katara watch each other, neither inclined to speak publicly until they've had a chance to speak privately. Plenty of others—diplomats and generals and such—are more than happy to wax eloquent for the better part of the morning. Sokka, Katara notices, spends most of the time writing notes. Aang is in Omashu. Toph declined her invitation with no explanation.
Katara does not want a war.
..
They don't get a chance to speak until late that night, when Zuko manages to sneak into the Water Tribe embassy unnoticed—a remarkable feat for the second most powerful man in the world.
"You're ill," is the first thing Katara says. Zuko frowns.
"I don't know what else you expected," he says.
They sit on her balcony. It's a warm night with a light breeze. Katara can smell the smoke of the factory that sits on the hill a mile away tingeing the air. The city is an oasis of light, shining with the miracle of electricity.
"You can't see the stars," Katara remarks. Zuko follows her gaze.
"Do you remember," he says, "That night we spent on—" He stops short.
"Whale Tail Island," Katara offers. Zuko's mouth presses into a thin line and he does not continue. Katara sighs. "The stars were beautiful that night."
..
There are rumors among the rich and powerful of the New World—and those who would like to be—that Zuko and Katara were once lovers. Or are still, depending on who you ask. Katara only knows of these rumors because Aang mentioned it, shortly after she was announced as Southern Water Tribe chief and they were in the Northern Tribe for a month of ceremonies.
"That kind of rumor isn't good to have," Aang said, because he was old enough to express jealousy in cloaked words and vague terms.
"It ended a long time ago," Katara said, because she was old enough to be tired of lying. Aang didn't speak to her for three days.
Katara wanted to explain—it started because we were children and the world was falling apart. It started because we were lonely and we had to be strong for everyone else. It started because he understood things about me that you couldn't, things that I didn't want you to know.
And she wanted to say—it ended because we both needed to serve our countries before ourselves. It ended because neither of us could look you in the eye and know how much you would hurt. It ended because the war drew a line because his people and mine, and no matter what we said, my people would look at it as his people winning.
But in the end, she let it rest. Aang forgave her.
They were all lonely.
..
The Fire Nation suffered badly after the end of the war. Zuko insisted on reparations with the clear notion that he was paying penance, to the detriment of his popularity with the populace. But he was royalty, and he would do what he thought best. Other prominent world leaders thought it sensible to leave some of the colonies under Fire Nation rule, and Aang, too young to give much of an argument against that besides "I think it's wrong," eventually assented.
The majority of colonies had assimilated under Fire Nation rule. Whale Tail Island was not one of them. They were defiantly Water Tribe, even as they grew less and less like the Water Tribe over the span of two hundred years, and since the Fire Nation settlers lived on a separate part of the island, assimilation was unlikely. The climate of the island was unforgiving and eventually many of the settlers left, leaving officials and military and the islanders themselves. If one had listened, she could have heard a storm brewing there years before it began.
..
She and Zuko do not speak of war. They do speak of politics—the drain of a thousand treaties, the agony of suffering the petitions of too many politicians, the desperate sense that neither of them can really do any good for their peoples. But they do not speak of war.
They finally come around to the subject when it is so late that a thin line of morning can be seen on the horizon.
"We need Whale Tail Island," Zuko says, rubbing his eyes. "You have to understand, Katara—all of my generals look at it as the last real stronghold we have. They say that without Whale Tail Island, we're just asking the rest of the world to destroy us. My people will riot if I sign it over to you. I don't know what you want me to do."
Katara looks at that distant glow of light and wonders how it's come to this—a king next to her grasping for his dying idealism. Herself caught between personal affection and political outrage. "You know what will happen, Zuko," she says quietly, turning to watch him. He has dark circles around his eyes. He sighs.
He kisses her cheek as he leaves. There is the familiarity of an old love, the quiet desperation of being so close to something one has lost. She holds his hands tightly between hers, briefly, and then lets go.
..
In the Capitol, she says, "I cannot stand by and ignore the pleas of my tribe on Whale Tail Island. The Southern Water Tribe will do whatever it must to ensure that they are restored to their rightful place in the New World, regardless of what the Fire Nation decides."
The papers cry: PEACE NEGOTIATIONS HALTED; WHALE TAIL ISLAND STATUS UNDETERMINED
She does not meet Zuko's eyes.
..
Aang arrives in the city the next morning.
"No war," he says as he strides into the embassy. It sounds like a command, but he's pleading. Katara can see it in his eyes.
"I've already said what I have to say," she tells him. They look at each other, neither making a move. She can hear the others in the room listening, but no one speaks. Aang looks like he might yell at her. She feels as though they are a thousand miles apart.
"Katara is right."
They turn suddenly at the sound of Bato's voice. His gray hair has been braided with the bones of a sea monster slain years before Katara was born, and he looks like a true warrior, the kind that has no place in the New World. He stands up, and even though Aang has grown, Bato is taller. "We cannot ignore this."
"War starts with one small battle," Aang says. "Peace isn't guaranteed. The world needs peace."
"At whose expense?" Bato demands. No one answers.
..
The evening papers read: TWENTY-SIX DEAD IN WHALE TAIL ISLAND SKIRMISH
Katara reads the article three times before she absorbs it. The Fire Nation had sent one of their largest warships to the island, obvious posturing. The islanders had reacted by destroying the boat with the same methods they'd been using on deep-sea monsters for thousands of years. The real miracle, Katara is sure, is that more people did not die.
When she puts down the paper, her hands are shaking. Now, there will almost certainly be a war.
She locks herself in her suite and sobs.
..
When they were together, Katara had never been able to look straight at Zuko's scar. Acknowledging it would bring on memories of that night in the palace, and leave her shaking as memories of war tore through her, one after the other, a ghost scent of smoke in her nose, causing her to retch. Many people suffered this way. Zuko had dreams. He'd wake them both with his yells at invisible attackers, more than once shouting for her to run. Neither of them slept much, those first few years after the war.
..
The morning papers read: AVATAR AANG DEMANDS RENEGOTIATIONS OF PEACE TREATY
It takes half of the staff at the embassy to defrost the pipes, but no one sees Katara's face that day.
..
Sokka tells her to keep quiet and sneaks her off to his compound of factories at the edge of the city. There are ten buildings, some for manufacturing light bulbs or other electronic gadgets, but it's the ones at the end of the compound that he leads her toward.
"I'm not unpatriotic," he tells her, frowning, "And I know that Aang will never understand. I don't want a war, though." He looks at her, and she wonders when he started to look so much like their father.
"I don't either," she says.
"But if it comes to that," he says.
"If it comes to that."
There are three buildings at the end of the compound dedicated to making weapons, something Sokka has concealed from Aang for years. Aang is a great Avatar because he believes in everything he says. But Sokka is practical.
He shows Katara a machine that amplifies earthbending into a massive quake. Another machine that gives an earthbender unprecedented detection of movement miles away. No designs of weaponry for firebenders are permitted. It has, after all, only been fifteen years since the end of the war.
For the waterbenders, the inventions are focused on weapons that will be useful at sea. But there is one that Sokka avoids showing her until she asks for it. He frowns, but hands it to her. The moment she touches it, she shivers. She can feel the water in it, coursing through the metal contraption like blood in veins.
"This isn't—this isn't designed for bloodbending," she says quietly. She looks back at him, but he won't meet her eyes.
"Bloodbending is too—well, too precise, for a weapon," he says, avoiding a clear explanation. But she knows what it would do. It is not a weapon for control. It is a weapon for obliteration. Shuddering, she sets it back on the table and hugs her arms around herself.
"That shouldn't exist." She looks at him. "Sokka."
He shakes his head and steps away, still refusing to look at her. "Yeah, well," he says, "The war shouldn't have happened either, should it?"
..
The next day, they go to the Capitol. The Avatar stands with the Fire Lord and watches Katara enter. They all stand tall, shoulders back, and bow in deference to ancient ritual. The ritual may be the only thing to last when the Old World has been washed away, Katara thinks.
But Aang has never been good at the dance of political maneuvers, and states his thoughts too plainly. "The world needs peace," he says, to Katara. The reporters in the balcony scribble furiously. "We cannot afford another war."
Katara folds her hands in her lap. So it has come to this. "After all this, Aang," she says quietly, "You would side with them?"
Zuko winces. Aang looks furious. But Katara has done what she meant to do.
..
The papers read: SOUTHERN WATER TRIBE DEFIES AVATAR'S DEMANDS
Katara pretends not to know when Sokka commissions a ship bound for Whale Tail Island, and instructs his factory warden to have it loaded in the middle of the night.
..
Zuko sneaks into the embassy again, appearing at the door of her suite when the lamps have already been turned low and the place is stifled with quiet. In the dim light, the scar across his eye looks black. She lets him in.
He sinks down onto a couch, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Katara," he says. But then he doesn't say anything more.
She sits next to him. Outside the window is Republic City, his and Aang's promise of the New World.
"You understand why, though?" she asks. He looks sick, but he nods.
"I can't get angry with you," he says. "Though I don't blame Aang for it."
She plays with the whale-bone rings on her fingers and tries to remember a time before all of this—before they had real power, or real responsibility to the populace, or to the future. "It would be easier," she says, "If you would just sign it over to us."
She can feel him watching her but doesn't turn. "Katara," he says, and sighs. "For fifteen years I've been fighting to keep my throne. If I do this now, I'll lose it. Someone else will be waiting to take over, and they'll definitely do worse than I could ever do. So which would you rather have—a war, or another Fire Lord?"
Katara leans back into the couch and chews on her lip and looks at the city. She aches for the Old World, but it is already lost. "Then you will do what you think is right, and I will do what I think is right."
"And the Avatar will hate both of us," he answers. She doesn't respond. But she's surprised when he reaches for her hand, his soft fingers running over her rings, the raised calluses on her palm. His hands are feverishly hot. She interlaces their fingers, and her eyes drift over to meet his.
When they were younger and more desperate, she thought she loved him. Now she doesn't know what it was back then, but it is nothing but sadness that wells up in her as he leans forward and presses his lips against hers. His mouth tastes of ash. But she leans into the kiss, pushing closer to him.
In the morning, he kisses her gently, rather than saying goodbye. Katara wraps the ache in her heart up tight and buries it deep in her chest. He does not look back at her as he leaves.
..
The Southern Water Tribe delegation is ordered to leave Republic City for threatening the peace of the New World. Katara accepts the papers herself.
"Did I do the right thing?" she asks Bato in a small voice when they are on the deck of their ship, watching the city disappear on the horizon.
Bato doesn't answer her for a long time. When he does, his voice is as deep as the sea. "The Avatar is right about war. We have had enough of it, and it is a terrible thing. But you are right about defending your tribe." He looks at her with a storm in his blue eyes. "If it wasn't Whale Tail Island, it would have been something else."
Katara thinks about the rows of weaponry in Sokka's factories, and knows that he is right.
..
The war for Whale Tail Island only lasts five years, and in that time, the Earth Kingdom breaks out into a series of civil wars, the Northern Water Tribe's chief is assassinated, and Fire Lord Zuko executes five of his foremost generals for plots against the throne. The Avatar cries out for peace, but his pleas are not heeded. The New World spins on as it wills.
..
The peace treaty for Whale Tail Island is signed in Kyoshi—neutral territory. Katara and Zuko bring small delegations and sign the papers with little fanfare.
"Aang blames us, you know," Zuko tells her later. As the leaders of two nations recently at war, it is strange for them to sit together like this. Katara can't help but count up the death toll in her head.
"For what?" she asks.
"The world's out of balance again," he says. In front of them, the sun is setting over the ocean. Katara stares at it. It has turned the sky a bloody red.
"That was always a myth," she says. Something inside her takes its last gasp. The Old World dies, the New World is born. She says, "With or without the Avatar, the world was always going to be like this."
..
end.