Katara Week 2015
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters depicted here. ATLA is the property of Viacom, Nickelodeon, and Bryke.
Prompt: Realizations
Rating: T
Summary: Katara realizes the nature of her life in the Southern Water Tribe, and the price she has to pay for being a waterbender.
"I was young when I learned
just how fragile life could be"
When growing up in the Southern Water Tribe, one learns quickly about the nature of life.
How one single misstep on the ice can lead to a long, cold plummet.
How one moment an otter-penguin can be alive and squawking, and the next, crushed in the jaws of a polar bear dog.
How the tribe lived, and is living, on the edge of oblivion, balancing on the edge of a sheet of ice.
How every year, they teeter closer to the abyss, and no one says anything about it.
Katara understands it just as well as any child.
Watch where you step.
Watch what's around you.
Watch who's around you.
Keep your balance.
Hold on just tightly enough to the people balancing with you.
Know when to pull them back and let them go.
Know when to give them a push.
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But understanding is different from knowing, or realizing.
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Understanding is implied. It isn't obvious. It's a quiet and subtle kind of awareness, brought on by familiarity, by recognizing a part of your self in something or someone else. You may not even realize that you understand something, or someone. Understanding is something you feel.
She understands that there is danger beneath the ice, and if she slips through, she'll never come back.
She understands that there is something waiting in the tundra, looking for something smaller and weaker to eat, and that if Sokka hadn't rushed her away when he saw that something plodding towards them, it would have been her.
She understands that there's something much bigger out there in the sea. Something so terrible that it makes the adults' voices drop to whispers when they talk about it. Something that made the great Southern cities she's heard so much about vanish. Something that's surely kept the North away because they have to know. Something that makes babies with yellow eyes, straight black hair and pale skin. Something that somehow is related to the disappearance of children who are discovered holding fire in their hands.
She understands that her uncle Nukka isn't coming back from that hunting trip he and six other men set out on two weeks ago far faster than her brother does.
She understands that the tribe is delicate, and the only thing that is holding them together is each other. That they are all standing in a line on the edge of ice, holding hands, and they have to have a tight grip to stay on the edge, and know when to let go if they're dragging everyone down with them.
She understands the nature of life because she's seen it ever since she was a baby, but more so, because she has that same conflict within her. A constant balancing act, atop the edge of thin, thin ice. A different, sharper edge that somehow binds her to and isolates her from her tribemates. Lean too far in any direction and the abyss will draw you into itself.
She understands that the water is calling to her, and she longs to answer. But to do that is to jump off the edge.
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Knowing is much simpler. It's recognizing something much more concrete. Observations backed up by facts. It requires little intuition, and is much more black and white. You know something or you don't. (Sokka's better at knowing than she is, but she does her best.)
Katara knows that if she steps on the cracks, she'll probably fall in, and she knows that the water is cold enough to kill a child as small as her in minutes.
She knows that if she doesn't watch for predators like Sokka did, she'll end up like that otter-penguin that didn't pay enough attention.
She knows that the Fire Nation has been at war with the world for more than ninety years now. She knows that the something prowling on the seas is the Fire Nation. She knows that the last time they came was a year before she was born, and that when they come, black snow falls from the sky. She knows that the last time they came, children with yellow eyes were born soon after.
She knows that the illness that swept through the village three years ago is responsible for the sudden disappearance of all but four boys a few years older than her (Sokka's her brother, so he doesn't count). She knows that the other children are dead, and that only now are babies being born again, and toddlers waddling through the snow.
She knows that the tribe looks on the new children like miracles, and that they are why everyone keeps fighting. The new children haven't seen terrible things yet, they still smile and laugh and look forward to every day without knowing what's out there, they haven't learned about the balancing act, and they must be protected.
Katara knows that there haven't been waterbenders here for a long time. She knows that no one can know about her. She knows that this has to be our secret, Katara. You can't show this to anyone, understand?
She doesn't know why. Yet.
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Realizing is different altogether. It's a moment where everything clicks. Where the quietness of understanding has a hole torn into it suddenly and violently and you see it in a much harsher light. When there's no way you can deny it or look past it, and you have to see it in all it's ugliness.
She realizes that water is cold enough to kill, and ice is thin enough to break beneath you when her neighbor Ailik is brought home covered in furs head to toe, with only pale blue fingers slipping through. His mother, Nita simply nods solemnly when the men tell her that he was playing on ice far too thin to be safe. If it's any consolation, he didn't suffer. For a boy small as him, it would've only taken a few minutes.
She realizes that the otter-penguin should have been careful. She realizes that she was so close to that polar bear dog and didn't even see it, what were you thinking? She realizes that she can't go penguin sledding with Sokka anymore.
She realizes that the Fire Nation is evil. That they are the reason for the existance of the children with yellow eyes and pale skin and dark hair and fire in their hands that make their mothers' hearts break. That they are why the South hasn't spoken with anyone else in decades. They are what keeps her mother up on nights when the wind circles their igloo like a rabid wolfdog, staring at the flames, her eyes flickering to Katara now and then, like she's searching for something, and is terrified of finding it.
She realized she was a waterbender when she was six, when Sokka whacked her with a snowball (More snow than ice, but no one believes her) to the face and she retaliated by wailing and bringing a section of the igloo's roof down on his stupid head. The look on his face still brings a smug grin to her face.
She realized that being a waterbender was a bad thing that night, when Mom, Dad, Bato and Gran Gran huddled together and spoke with hushed, hurried voices, casting her terrified looks. She couldn't tell if they were scared for her or of her. When her brother frowned at them and refused to let go of her hand, and never strayed far from her during the few times she was allowed to leave the igloo after the incident, she realized that it wasn't her they were discussing.
She realized soon after that it could have been worse, when she and Mom are alone for several hours during a night when the wind howls. The moment Mom realizes everyone else is gone she crumbles. Mom sobs, cradling a concerned Katara close in trembling arms and whispers in a high, trembling voice, so quiet it could be mistaken for the wind outside: Oh thank you! Oh thank you, La. Thank you for making her yours. If she'd been like...
She realized that night, comforting her mother, that for all the bad she'd done, she'd at least been a waterbender. She could have held fire in her hands that afternoon. She has to hide now, but she doesn't have to disappear.
She realizes when she's eight, when the black snow (Not snow, Katara, soot) falls and all those stories come rushing back, that they're here again. I'm going to find Mom.
She realizes when her mother says, I'll give you the information you want, that they're looking for something.
She realizes what the Fire Nation were looking for that night, when the rest of the tribe learns what she is.
She realizes just how fragile life is when she bursts into the igloo after Dad, the scent of burning meat wafts into her nose, and sees her mother lying there.
She realizes how fragile it is as she sits quietly between Dad and Gran Gran, behind Sokka, shying away from the fire grinning maliciously at her from the center of Bato's igloo, and the harsh stares of the people packed in around her.
The rumors hiss and snarl like the wind that used to circle the igloo. Little things they'd noticed about her over the years. Spills, sudden sheets of ice, and most frequently, the roof incident. Suspicions about her mother, and the identity of her grandfather. (Oh. She realizes what that means too.)
She listens to the tribe argue about her. The odds of spiriting her away across the world, of the raiders returning, of more yellow-eyed children suddenly appearing months from now (They came and went in less than an hour, but less than an hour's enough time, we need to check), of being able to rebuild the wall before the storm hits.
Every few minutes, the verdict changes, and she's pushed and pulled over the abyss and back again.
Turn her over before they figure it out and come back. Dead.
Send her to the North, she's their problem now. Alive.
Send her out into the tundra and leave her. Dead.
Send her to Kyoshi. That's far enough. Alive.
Give her to the sea, like the rest of them. Dead. Like the rest of them.
She hears the whispers, feels their spearlike gazes, realizes that waterbender is synonymous with deathbringer, and realizes exactly what happened to the rest of them.
Her eyes flick over to a woman cradling a fussy baby across the fire, and realizes once more. They must be protected at all costs. And because she's here, they're all in danger.
A harbinger of death cannot be trusted. But a daughter of the chief can.
She bows her head, and accepts whichever direction they decide to push her. Life is a fragile thing, easily persuaded one way or the other. If sending her over saves the tribe, and keeps their deadly balancing game from tilting as horribly as it has with her, she'll take that risk. If they decide to send her away, she'll go quietly.
If they decide to let her stay, she'll become the perfect example of a dutiful Water Tribe girl. She'll never waterbend again, and do everything her mother did twice as well, because the void now present in their family is there because of Katara, and she has to make it up to them somehow.
This is the price she'll pay for living in her mother's place, and she'll pay it a thousand times over. Because these children deserve to grow up in a world where there is hope, where there is no constant fear and no balancing act, where they won't have to spend time wondering about black snow and yellow eyes and nine months from now. These children don't know about the war yet, about waterbenders yet, about the terrible things they've done to survive, and the blood staining their hands.
They will someday, but for now, they will stay naive. And Katara will do her best to keep them that way.
A/N: So this is corresponding with Katara Week's prompts on tumblr (Check them out if you want). This is the first time I've done this kind of thing, and I'm not quite sure if all the prompts will be interconnected or just one-shots, but I will be following them according to the quotes that were posted alongside the prompts (I didn't have to, but figured, hey, why not?), to varying degrees of faithfulness to canon and the prompts (Seriously, I'm gonna go off into some crazy AU stuff at some point).
I feel like this definitely could have been written better, but I'm mostly satisfied with how it turned out.
This is pretty self-explanatory: It's Katara's childhood in the Southern Tribe, and plenty of my ideas about how the war affected the Tribe come through here. And it's also probably the only one that's going to be canon-compliant.
Review if you like. Questions and criticism are always welcome, and I'll respond to any questions related to this prompt in the AN, so if you ever decide to come back if you asked a question, check again.
Thank you for reading.