"I'm not turning my back, I'm just being realistic – we can't go around helping every rinky-dink town we wander into!"
She would have laughed if the circumstances weren't so grim – Mr. Jokester, the team funny guy, giving her a lecture on being practical and reasonable! How could somebody be such a comedian and such a cynic at the same time? How did someone whose lifestyle revolved around making jokes also become the defender of the "realistic"? This great paradox was the one thing Katara would never understand about her brother. While the rest of them were idly concerned about the pollution in the river, Sokka made jokes about things being "off the hook," couldn't care less, but when she desperately wanted to help suffering people, he decided to turn serious. Typical! He could only be serious when it was inconvenient.
A part of Katara couldn't deny he was right, though. She tried to tell herself that the sooner they defeated the Fire Lord and freed the world from this war, the sooner things could improve for this village, and the invasion failing due to any delay on their part would doom them along with the rest of the world, but that wasn't good enough when the child came up and begged her for help. She wanted to do more, now.
"There must be something we can do," she whispered to Aang as they walked down the wooden path to the boat, sure he would take her side.
Sokka, only a few paces ahead with Toph holding his arm, stopped dead in his tracks. Guess he'd overheard. "No, there isn't," he said softly but definitively.
Toph sighed in boredom and released his arm. Aang looked awkwardly from one sibling to another and slid forward to offer his blind friend his arm instead as an excuse to stay out of this confrontation.
While Aang led Toph down the pier, Katara whispered, "How can you say that? I know we can't do much, but we have the ability to..."
Sokka didn't let her finish. "It doesn't matter. It's not our job."
In spite of her anger at that statement, Katara was careful to keep her voice low. "Says who?"
Sokka pointed at her chest. "Says you. You signed up for the job of getting Aang to the Capital in time for the invasion, right?"
"So, what, we're just supposed to ignore everyone we find in danger on the way?"
"No, but..." Sokka shook his head and sighed, and Katara did give him the credit of hating what he saw and wanting to stop it as much as she did. "... that's not what we do. We don't patrol the streets looking for things to fix and evil to fight. We're not some free-roaming crusaders who randomly travel the world, righting all wrongs and punishing all injustice we come across – we have a job to do." He gestured towards the factory in the distance as he spoke. "Yeah, what they're doing is terrible, but it's not our responsibility, and we can't take it on as a project. We have a mission to accomplish, Katara; we're not vigilantes. We can't go chasing after every piece of wrongdoing in the world just because it's there."
It was Katara's turn to sigh now; she searched for something to say to that, but nothing came to her. She knew it was true, that they didn't have the resources to help everyone and fix everything. She also knew they had a job to do, and dispensing vigilante justice as the whim struck them wasn't it. We're not vigilantes, she repeated in her mind. They weren't like the characters in the stories Gran-Gran and the other elders used to tell the kids around the campfire – heroes like the Blue Spirit who hid behind masks and traveled around looking for innocent people to protect and Fire Nation soldiers and evil spirits to fight. An admirable lifestyle, she couldn't help thinking, but it just wasn't possible for them.
Katara closed her eyes briefly as she reminded herself yet again, We're not vigilantes – we have a job to do. Out loud, she said, "I know, Sokka..."
"Good." Satisfied with that response, Sokka nodded and turned around to follow Aang and Toph, not giving his sister the opportunity to argue herself out of her acceptance.
Unfortunately, those three words hadn't been a statement of acceptance but simply of acknowledgment – Katara understood Sokka's position, and she couldn't fault him for it, but she couldn't let go of her instinct to help, either. "I know, Sokka," she repeated, although the object was, by now, too far away to hear. As she followed after her friends, Katara looked out over the dismal village and silently added, But I still wish I could try...