Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the last airbender. I idolize the people who do. I am not responsible for any trauma you may experience when reading this piece of purely fan-made fiction. I make no profit off of the characters or concepts of Avatar: the last Airbender.
A/N: HOLY SHIZ YOO GAIZ. Avatar is over ;-; it's so sad. I cried multiple times.
I wrote this after seeing the finale. I got all sad and dare I say horrified that it was the END of the series, and I decided to transfer these emotions into an epilogue of sorts.
For a whole night, I couldn't sleep, and I was hit so hard that I was left sweating, shaking, and hallucinating in my bed. This is partially due to the fact that my county was shrouded in fog that night, but it still made it a hell of a lot less pleasant. xD I was seriously in a state of shock. Not fun. But after it ended, I realized why I was getting so depressed. It ended without leaving enough hope for things to come. In the last scene, it really wasn't the same show. It was fluffy, and over-romantic, and KATAANG. ugh. And it felt to me like the charas could really never be the same if they weren't fighting for something together. It just bugged me that they made everything so perfect at the end, because that's not what their lives are supposed to be like. xD
So, when the shock receded, I wrote this. I felt just like Katara does. Like I had no purpose. But this helped immensely. Like fandom therapy.
It started out as a oneshot, just about Katara's feelings about the ending, basically.
It was a Zutarian outlook on what happened.
But then it grew to be something bigger, and hit the root of what could possibly be an emotional depression for our favorite little waterbender. xD It's a little angsty, but a lot of what you'll see is what I went through.
It takes place right where the show leaves off, and is centered around Zuko's journey to find his mother, and Katara's journey to find her purpose after the war.
They are at Iroh's estate in Upper Ba Sing Se.
At a World's End,
Chapter one: Golden but for her.
He finds her sipping tea on the porch in the middle of the night. The likeness between the two benders is inevitably clear at times like these.
"Hey," Zuko says, in a rough voice. Exhaustion seeps into his tone.
"Couldn't sleep," Katara says, eyes trained of the silhouettes of the buildings before them.
The two had learned quickly that a blunt approach was best when they needed the other's comfort. Neither can deny their closeness since their little field trip during the war. They had found that they could relate to each other an awful lot of the time. Katara had found a compassionate soul constantly there to comfort her. Zuko had found a patient listener, always open-minded.
"Me either." He states, a touch of concern etched into his tone.
She catches the hint. "I just…I can't believe it's over."
"I know," he says, sitting down next to her. She clutches her teacup a little tighter.
"Everything is going to change now." Her voice is high and scared. It relays the fear she keeps hidden around everyone else.
"I know." His statement comes out strangled, like a person about to cry. He sees that her eyes are already swollen.
"I don't think I can take this." This is what surprises him. She has never admitted blatantly that she was scared before. He has never heard this from her. Not once.
He raises his eyebrows at her, in a half sympathetic look. She goes on.
"It's just that…this war is all I've known. And now that things are peaceful, everyone expects me to…stay hidden and…and to be at rest."
He thinks he understands. "I know. We go around the whole damn world, and they think we'll be happy with a 'peaceful existence.' I'll miss even the hard times."
"Well that's part of it, yes," She states with a hint of uncertainty. She still has not looked him in the eye. Her knuckles are white against the teacup in her grasp.
"Being out there this past year was amazing. But it's like everyone else is still involved but me. Everyone expects me to go along with everything they ask of me. I have to take over the tribe in my father's place, since Sokka is staying with Suki. I have to apologize to the men of the northern tribe for insulting their stupid customs. I have to…be the avatar's loyal wife…" Her voice is small, but her mouth is contorted in a scowl.
He is staring at her. She knows it.
"I though you two were…" She is holding herself differently now. Her shoulders have gone tense and her arms are hugging her knees.
"I know. I thought so too. At one point it all seemed right, but we are not the same kids we used to be. And he's younger than I am, and innocent, and there's so much I just wouldn't feel comfortable with when I'm talking to him or-or…well," She trails off and swallows, a blush covering her cheeks. She looks mortified, trying to imagine this. When I kissed him, it wasn't there. It wasn't.
Zuko feels sorry for the girl.
"And it's not just that, either. I'm not ready to be still again. My journey just isn't over. I still have to have some surprises left."
"I feel the same way."
"And we see the world so differently. He's such an optimist, and I feel like I could just punch through the canvas sometimes, like it's all just an illusion." Zuko starts to feel uncomfortable at this. "Everything's perfect for him, and he's supposed to get everything he wants, but as soon as something is wrong, he runs away."
"Katara…" She is beginning to ramble. A hint of hysteria touches her voice.
"I can't ignore these things like he can. Not everything would be perfect for us. But I don't get a choice. We don't think the same way. We've grown up, and moved on, and gone in such different directions, and nobody but me realizes-"
"Katara." He interrupts. She swallows and takes a breath. Her lip trembles. "I know how you feel. Believe me."
"You do?" she asks weakly.
This brings a sigh from him. He has to resist the urge to bring his arms around her. "I told Mai that I'm going to look for my mother in the Earth Kingdom. I told her she should find her own path. Something else for her to care about. She probably hates me now, but…" He looks at his feet instead of making eye contact with her.
"She couldn't hate you. She never will." Her words are kind. She is finally looking at him. This makes him feel even guiltier than he did before.
"I want her to." There. He said it.
He hears her take in a small gasp, and looks up at her to see her eyes widen, her eyebrows knit together.
"All she has ever done is follow someone's orders. She doesn't care about the rest of the world. She only cares about me, and nothing else.
"When she saved us at the boiling rock, she wasn't doing the right thing. She was just blindly helping me. That's all she wants. It feels wrong-I hate ordering people around. It makes me look like…" His tone had become weak. They were both reaching out.
"You're not like your father, Zuko. You never were."
She read my mind, didn't she? "You think so?" It comes out as a pathetic, desperate question and he doesn't care.
"Yeah. I do." They sit in silence for a while. The sun starts to illuminate the sky and color it a brilliant gold, though it had not peeked over the rooftops of the houses in Ba Sing Se's upper ring. Touches of blue teased at the corners of the golden sky.
It gave her an idea. "Hey, Zuko?" Her tone is mischievous.
"What is it?" Should I be scared?
"I'm going to help you find her." She smiles and stares at the almost blinding horizon.
He looks at her and sighs. "I'd like that," He says, knowing he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He can't help but smile at her choice of words. It was no coincidence, he knows. "You deserve to know that story… I had half been hoping you would want to…"
She lets the teacup down on the stairs of the porch. "Thank you," she says. "I'm glad this doesn't have to be an ending."
"I feel the same way."
A/N: yeah, there's another three chapters or so on their way
It'll be good if you liked this.
This fic will be a send off, in a sense, but with a Zutarian twist.
As for Katara's character in this oneshot, I gave her a bit of a nudge in the zutarian direction.
After Ember Island Players, we were almost sure she was gonna say no to Aang. But she didn't. It was a little random, and some of us can't get over that. Like me.
I mean, she just went through a life-changing experience with this other guy, hasn't talked to Aang in days, and doesn't even see him untill after everything is over. And A year later she is just ready to give in to being the avatar's girlfriend. I feel like Katara was doing that out of guilt or something. It was just too cheesey and overly romantic in the end to really be considered as an honest moment. I don't know how else to put it.
I think She was compensating for something, and felt like it was her duty to be the avatar's girl.
As for the "not ready to settle down" part, I felt like that's how all the charas might feel. I will bring this up again later, but it seems as if everyone would get the life they wanted, and stay active in the world, but for Katara. She was female, and back in her tribe, she probably would have been pushed away, and kept isolated from happenings in the world. And with Aang, she still would not have been recognized singularly, only as the Avatar's waterbender, because he is supposedly that much greater than her. Still, she probably felt like that was the best it could get.
Anyways, I hope this helped all those who were deeply disturbed by that finale. And I hope even more that those who weren't will not try to bash me for this. I wrote it for myself. Not to prove a point. It is merely chicken soup for the momentarily beaten Zutarian's soul.
-Fishy