Chapter 1
~ Katara ~
As Korra battled through her fire bending test, barely breaking a sweat, Katara smiled to herself. The girl, the young Avatar was strong and determined, passionate and bull-headed. Not to mention, she had quite a temper. It reminded her of someone she once loved, so many years ago, before the war ended. Someone whom tried to capture her, and then ended up saving her life. Someone with a scar worn proudly as a badge of honor.
It began not long before the end of the Hundred-Years War. The Fire Nation had ravaged the planet, and people were taken from the living world daily as a consequence. Katara and her brother, Sokka, had lost their mother to the greed of powerful people, and their tribe was no more than a few dozen; most of the inhabitants were fighting on the front lines. Katara and her brother found a young boy and a sky bison, frozen in a block of ice. His name was Aang, and he was the only surviving Airbender—he had been frozen for 100 years. She knew right then and there that he was their savior; the Avatar.
Then, one day, a Fire Nation ship anchored itself to their humble ice cap. As the gate on the bow of the ship lowered itself, Katara was reminded of the same situation many years before, when the Fire Nation took her mother away. One man swaggered out of the ship, his head shaved, save for one ponytail on the back of his head. His eyes were golden, but shone with an unyielding and fierce light. He would have been handsome, had he not been so haughty and proud. When this man, this Firebender, turned his face towards her, she saw the mark on his face; red, wrinkled, burned skin, covering nearly half of his face, marring his eye and ear; she couldn't breathe. The scar gave him away for what he truly was—a monster.
For most of a year he attempted—and nearly came close to—chasing her, Sokka, and Aang down. He was always preaching about honor. How capturing a 12 year-old boy would restore it to him, how his destiny was to find, and destroy, the last hope of the world. Then one day, everything changed. In Ba Sing Se, trapped in a dungeon made of gemstones, Katara saw the war raging inside him. Torn between his family, enraged at himself and seeking forgiveness, she took pity on him and began to trust again. Yet old habits die hard, and when Zuko saw Aang again, he sided with his sister in an attempt to regain his father's respect.
Azula. She was the root of many problems in those days. Had Azula never existed, perhaps Zuko would never had felt the need to persist in chasing her and her friends. But then again, perhaps the war would never have been won, had Azula not pushed Zuko to change, to metamorphose into the honorable man he grew to be.
Good and evil. Dark and light. She knew all too well about them. And she knew that Zuko did, too.
They shared an understanding. It was one day that she learned how easy it was to succumb to the darkness inside her. But she knew if he hadn't been there with her, on the day she sought out the man who murdered her mother, she would have become a monster herself. A person she did not deem worthy to forgive. A Bloodbender. After that, Katara never doubted Zuko again.
After that day, Aang spent most of his time training to defeat Fire Lord Ozai. There was no doubt that he was normally childish, but his insistence on not killing anyone in the fight was mature beyond his years, and she admired him for his determination. Slowly, Katara began to realize how much she cared for that small Airbender, but she mostly felt like she was always having to mother him. Except, of course, when he would try to protect her. Then she mostly felt like hitting him upside the head. But Zuko never questioned her. She supposed it came with the territory of having Azula for a sister. After the day in Ba Sing Se, Zuko never doubted Katara's skill, or her ability to fight, protect, and heal. She loved that about him. He understood her.
Sometimes, Katara wished for a different past. One where the Firebender loved her in return. But she had three wonderful children, and grandchildren as well. And wishing for a different life was an insult to Aang's memory, and she did love her late husband deeply.
But if he had loved her, perhaps her life would have been different. There was a day when she thought she saw something reflecting in his eyes, but she brushed it off as the aftereffects of healing him. In his final Agni Kai, he had fought Azula bravely, but Azula tricked him, firing lightening at Katara instead. Zuko rushed in to save her, and was electrocuted in the process. Katara was afraid he had died, and in her fury, she managed to capture the insane female Firebender, before rushing over to find that her friend, her love, was still alive, determinedly grasping on to life. She healed him with waterbending, letting her love and energy flow into him. He uttered his thanks, and she cried, just like a Waterbender would.
She stayed with Zuko until he was safe, and even after that, until he fell asleep. She was determined to tell him the truth, tell him how much she loved him. Uncle Iroh helped her look after him. But as they was watching over his bruised and battered body, Katara heard a name rise from his lips: "Mai…" At first she was surprised, unsure of what to do, until he cried her name out again: "Mai!" Katara left the room in tears. Zuko awoke to his uncle caring for him alone. It was that day that she decided to do what was best for the world, instead of what her heart was telling her to do. It was that day that she chose Aang, instead.