More Than a Body, More Than a Name

This is the first Avatar fan-fiction I've finished and shared, and as I am a rabid shipper, it's romantic and Kataang. Mentions of blood and death, so be warned. I like to think I've had enough experience with literature to know this doesn't suck, but just in case it does, I've got a list of reasons why you shouldn't eat me for it handy.
-I am barely thirteen years old (September 1994).
-English is my second language; I was Chinese till I was seven.
-This is the first Avatar fiction I've finished and shared.

Hm. It sounded longer in my head, but it will do. And now that you are quite sick of this lengthy and rambling Author's Note, disclaimers and fic, please.

I do not own Avatar, nor do I claim to. This is the work of an admiring fan, and no commercial use is being made of the characters, settings and plots of Avatar: The Last Airbender for personal benefit. Any intelligence related to and including Avatar: The Last Airbender is the sole property of their creators and shareholders. Pheonee is simply too hopelessly, rabidly obsessed with the awesomest-of-awesome that is Avatar.

Roll Fic!

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He ran. He ran and ran till he could run no further, and still he gasped and choked and was caught in an eternal struggle to be away, far, far away from the horrors that reality had so suddenly become.

Collapsed against something hard and rough, he cried; cried as if the tears running from his silver eyes held the awful truth, and expelling them forcefully from his system as he was could make the truth go away. Perhaps it could. Perhaps tears trapped bad things and by crying you could make any bad thing good. Perhaps, if he cried enough and enough tears escaped from the pools of quicksilver that were his eyes, his life could go back to being normal.

Perhaps Katara would still be by his side, where he needed her.

Perhaps Zuko would still be wrapped in the politics of his nation.

Perhaps his heart would mend itself and he could go on living without the awful pain driving him to madness each hour of each day.

Aang slid down the tree trunk and drew a deep, shuddering breath. Thinking about the perhaps's of crying made him feel marginally better. Though the tears did not cease to stream down his face, and his body still racked with great sobs, the pain in his chest lessened, very, very slightly.

His eyes remained tightly closed, for he feared that seeing reality would be accepting reality, and accepting reality would make it final; unchangeable and unmovable. If he refused to believe it, it wouldn't come true. So light-headed was he from crying that his anything could happen, anything.

He remained leaned against the rough bark for a long time. He did not know exactly how long, but it was long enough for the sun to go from the middle of the sky to right down near the horizon where it disappeared. It was long enough for the heaving, choking sobs to slow to small sniffles then stop altogether. It was long enough for the puffy red swell of his eyes to go down then vanish.

And it was long enough for him to realise that the truth was true, and could not be changed. This knowledge put a permanent fissure into his already wounded heart; his only consolation was that Katara appeared happy in Zuko's arms, and if she was happy, perhaps he could learn to be happy again, too.

And as this knowledge settled deep into his fractured heart, his eyes slowly cracked open for the first time in hours.

Katara was gone, he realised.

Gone.

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Blech. It sounded pretty good when I was writing it, but looking back it's rushed and wordy. Yuck. And omg, it's short. The ANs are longer than the story itself, dangit. Promise the next chap will be longer.

Review anyway, because it helps me pretend I'm a good writer. Critiques would be much loved, and flames will be smiled at. Flame if you have the time to, but if you use bad language my maneating unicorn will be set upon your hindquarters. JUST your hindquarters, mind. :D

And by the way, this story already has the next (fairly long) chapter written, I just can't be bothered uploading what could potentially be a five or ten thousand plus word story as a oneshot, and besides, I'm too impatient to finish the WHOLE story before abusing my ability to upload thingehs. . I also want to see just how much I suck at writing. If there's no positive response, I'll ditch this story (although the ending bits sound really good in my head . probably stink like heck on paper) and work on others.

So…review? Or gimme cherries. Pheonee likes cherries. -looks at cherries-