Katara loved the rain. She loved grass and bluebirds and dirt, and all the things she'd only discovered upon leaving the Southern Water Tribe, but rain was her favorite. She could stand in the rain for hours, letting it soak through her blue outer robes, feeling the cling of her white undergarments to her skin. She could listen to its steady drumbeat across all the surfaces around her, enjoying the differences in the sounds—a dry splat when it hit the ground, a hollow thump when it fell on the corpses of the trees and a resonant splash when it landed in water.
She loved the thunder. She loved the sound of it, like a great bass drum, rattling over the landscape. Sometimes it came before the rain, as a herald of things to come. Sometimes it came with the rain, and that was the best. Then she would dance under the rhythmic thrum of the raindrops, and she could almost hear the tribal drums of her people in the low rumble of the thunder.
She loved the lightning. She loved the way her ears popped in the sudden pressure change just before it struck. She loved the way the fine hairs on her body stood up as if to meet it. It illuminated the sky, revealing every detail of everything around her. For a fraction of a second, everything would be a brilliant, blinding white. Then there was the smell of plasma, and her eyes would adjust to the darkness once more. If the rain and the thunder were the musicians then the lightning was a fellow dancer.
She stood at the edge of the cliff, facing away from where the others were a safe distance back, still sleeping in the gray of the predawn. She had smelled the rain coming from miles away and she had awoken to greet it. It was still a ways off, coming down in silver sheets that blurred the rolling landscape before her. But the thunder was just beginning its booming song, rumbling along the hills and valleys and vibrating up through her feet. She took a deep breath and she could smell the storm on the air, thick and heady. The clouds roiled above her, buffeted by the same wind that tossed her hair and whipped her robes about her. The first few drops hit, on her shoulder, her arm and onto her upturned face. It was time. She raised her arms and as if in response the heavy raindrops began their torrential drumming around her. Lightning flashed and thunder roared, and the rain pounded out a steady beat upon her skin.
She danced.
A/N: In honor of the rain. We've sure missed you down here. Welcome back. Title by Led Zeppelin.