Touched by a Spirit

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

~A~

Opening her eyes slowly and forcing herself to continue breathing lightly and evenly as though she really were asleep, Katara listened intently to the night sounds around her with almost preternatural stillness. She lay that way for several minutes but finally, when no sounds of movement were apparent from her friends sleeping in the rest of the house she slipped out of her bed and tiptoed out of her room, careful to make absolutely no noise.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she'd finally managed to get out of sight of the house, but she continued to move as quietly as possible along the rocky ground, glad when the stone began to become finer until she was walking across sand towards the shore of Ember Island.

For a few minutes she simply stared across the dark sea to the horizon, marveling in the beauty of a place she'd always hated even hearing a mention of – the Fire Nation. But there was no denying the land's appeal, and she had to admit that even most of the people weren't the evil monsters she'd always imagined them to be. Most of the Fire Nation citizens were just trying to live like everyone else on the planet, and it wasn't their fault that the wealthy, overly powerful minority of their nation had plunged it into a war that was slowly destroying it and the rest of the world.

Finally, with a deep sigh she closed her eyes and centered herself, and began what she'd really come out here to do – waterbend. There was no moon out, and while normally as a waterbender she would have preferred to be practicing under Yue's light, now the soft darkness of the night soothed something inside her.

Tui and La became all she could feel, and as she gave herself over to the slow, graceful movements of what she was doing she lost all track of time or place. She could feel her chi flowing from her and entering the water and kept her eyes closed, not even needing to use them to know what was happening to the ocean that was now dancing to her will.

To the boy who was standing back at the line where sand met stone she was the most entrancing thing he'd ever seen. She was like a water spirit in that moment, otherworldly and so breathtakingly beautiful she made his very soul ache. He was positive he would never see anything so heartbreakingly perfect as her... but even more stunning was the shock of what she was doing.

The water spun and whirled around the young girl in perfect symmetry, following her graceful movements with swift elegance. But the thing that had him gaping was the sheer volume of water she was commanding – she had moved the shoreline back by at least fifty or sixty feet for quite a stretch, the seawater towering above her and the beach by well over a hundred feet while she branched tendrils off of it to move around her slender body.

A wave like what she was currently bending would have been a deadly tsunami if she hadn't been in full control of it – one that would have washed over most of the island they were on. Even he couldn't do what she was doing without going into the avatar state! He'd always known she was a talented waterbender, probably the most powerful currently alive, but... this was beyond what a normal human could have done.

Even more impressive, when she'd realized he was there she hadn't lost control of the water in her startlement, simply allowing it to return to its bed so gently that there was barely even any spray from the motion. Aang blinked, just so stunned he didn't even know what to say as she turned around and opened her eyes to look at him.

There was a speaking silence between them for several eternal-seeming seconds, and then the young waterbender sighed uncomfortably and looked away from him. "How much did you see?" she asked softly.

The avatar did his best to shake off his shock. "Enough. How...? I mean, that's... that was... what was that?" he finally managed to spit out around his disbelief.

"To be honest, I'm not sure," Katara eventually replied, folding her arms across her abdomen almost defensively and turning to look back out at the once-again calm sea.

"Why... why've you been trying to hide this?" he asked next, his brows knitting together in confusion, not even sure what he was really looking for. His mind was just so... blank right now. "And how long have you been hiding this?"

"Well, I mean, look at how you're reacting right now!" she exclaimed defensively, spinning back towards him but not meeting his eyes. "You're looking at me like I'm some kind of freak! And... I only found out a couple weeks ago myself. I was just restless one night and went to the river we were near to do a little bending, and before I even knew what was happening I looked out and saw that I'd completely stopped it from flowing at all for about a mile in either direction, all the water rising into the sky like two huge walls and leaving the riverbed completely dry."

Eyes widening in further shock, Aang stared at her with deepening concern – and some mystification. That was... that was just impossible. If he hadn't seen what he just had he'd have had a hard time believing it. But there was something he had to clear up with her right away. "Katara, I don't think you're a freak. I could never think that! I'm just-" he shook his head as if to clear it, "-stunned. And a little worried, to tell the truth. Have you... have you had any run-ins with any spirits lately or anything?"

Reaching up with one hand she tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear and started to shake her head in the negative, but then something occurred to her and she paused. "Um... actually, yes," she said, her voice surprised. "But how did you guess?"

Really worried now, the airbender darted up to her, peering intently into her eyes as he tried to see if he could see anything dangerous staring back out at him. But there was nothing, nothing but the dubious expression that was completely Katara looking back.

"Uh, Aang, are you okay?" she asked hesitantly after a moment when he kept searching her eyes.

"I'm fine... and so are you," he breathed with relief, blushing when he realized how much of her space he'd just invaded. He stepped back a couple paces. "Sorry. Could you tell me what happened and what spirit it was?"

"I guess," she said, kneeling down in the damp sand and running her fingers through the little wavelets that were gently inching back and forth. Aang joined her on the sand and watched her closely, arms crossed loosely over an upraised knee.

"It was the Painted Lady," she said softly.

"The Painted Lady?" he echoed in astonishment. That was actually the last thing he'd expected – though perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised, since she was a water spirit. "She appeared to you?"

Katara shot him a look under lowered lashes. "Yeah," she admitted. "The last night we were near that village, you know, after cleaning the river up. I got restless and went down to the water's edge. I put my hands in it, enjoying the fact that it was clear again and I could actually see my hands, and when I looked up she was right in front of me. I was pretty surprised, but before I could do or say anything she smiled at me and thanked me before disappearing."

Aang's eyes widened. "Oh, wow," he said, his arms falling limply at his sides as he stared at the beautiful girl in awe. "Katara... you've been touched by a spirit! That's... that almost never happens! To have earned the gratitude of one of the spirits is, well, it's a really big deal. When a human is touched by the power of a spirit it changes them – makes them a little more than just a human. You've gained your own connection to the spirit world now, and if something ever happened and another spirit tried to attack you, like Koh-" the young man shivered, "-she would help you. This is really huge!"

"So... all that-" she tilted her head towards the water curiously, "-is because she... thanked me? Am I somehow using some of her power, or something?"

With a shake of his head, Aang demurred. "No. It's like... well... I guess it's more like she's opened your chi pathways up to a higher potential. What the monks taught me is that there are limits that the spirits put on what exactly a human is able to do. Chi is energy, and energy is limitless, really. But if we could access all of that energy we'd sort of destroy the world, you know? So we're limited in what we're allowed to use. What she did is to raise your limit a bit."

Katara blinked, and then her brows knotted as she thought about that. "Oh. I didn't do it because I wanted anything from her," she said, a little disturbed that a spirit was basically thanking her. She was just a human girl, nothing special – not like the spirits were.

"If you had done it for that kind of reason she wouldn't have bothered appearing to you at all," he reassured her, reaching out and tentatively touching her hand. He drew back quickly with another blush and looked away. He'd been very careful since the play the other night not to get too close, afraid to upset her and drive her further away. "Sorry," he apologized sadly. "I didn't mean-"

He broke off on a start when his hand was grabbed and folded into the waterbender's own, and Katara grimaced. "You don't have to be sorry, Aang," she replied softly, her own cheeks tinted pink as she avoided his surprised gaze shyly. "Thank you for trying to comfort me. I'm... glad you found me out here and were able to figure out what's been going on with me."

The teenaged boy gingerly squeezed her fingers and then asked, "So... why were you hiding this, Katara? You didn't really think we'd treat you like a freak, did you?"

She stared at her lap and shrugged tensely. "I didn't know what to think. I was worried... and confused. I kinda thought something might be wrong with me, and... I guess I was afraid that if you found out then I'd find out I was right," she said with a tentative glance in his general direction, wondering if he'd understand what she was alluding to with her admittance.

"Do... do you feel different?" he asked carefully, still trying to peer at her in hopes of catching her eyes, though he didn't respond to what she'd said in any other way, leaving her uncertain if he'd caught on to what she was trying to convey to him.

"No, not really. I just... feel water more strongly now?" she stated hesitantly, like she wasn't sure that was the right way to word it but couldn't think of any other way to say it.

"More strongly?"

She nodded, glancing at him from the corner of one eye for a second before looking away again, though her fingers were still clasped tightly around his. "Yeah. Like... there's a huge fresh water aquifer underneath the one the inhabitants use. This place actually has two sources of water. It's pretty far down, though."

Aang blinked, and then tried to send his energy out to see if he could sense what she had, and frowned when he realized that he couldn't. Now, using his earthbending he could feel the cavern beneath the main one that the water she was speaking of was most likely in, and it was pretty large, but... for Katara to be able to sense the water down so far should have been completely impossible, especially since he couldn't.

"Wow," he finally muttered, looking at her with bemusement. "I... I can't sense the water. I can sense the cavern with earthbending, but that's just because of the vibrations that Toph taught me to feel. Could you..." he hesitated, then finished, "could you reach the water down there and actually use it?"

Katara frowned as she thought about that. After a moment she let go of his hand and stood up. Taking a wide stance she closed her eyes and began flowing her energy down through the cracks and fissures in the rocky ground of the island. It took a few minutes for her to reach the lower cavern, but finally she jerked her hands up with a low yell of effort, startling the airbender still sitting where she'd left him and watching her closely – for more than one reason, if the truth were to be told.

A cracking sound behind him had Aang spinning around in the sand and then scrambling back in shocked reaction as a huge pillar of water erupted from the ground a ways back from where they were and then stopped, looking like nothing so much as a frozen waterfall – though it wasn't frozen at all. He stared at it in disbelief and then whipped his head around to look at her blankly.

She'd always been an awesome waterbender, but now she was in a class of her own. And it gave the young avatar a good look into how people probably felt watching him bend, doing feats that no one else in the world could do. It was a rather humbling experience – one he was glad he'd had the chance to have, actually, because he never wanted to become complacent about the fact that he was the avatar or arrogant about his abilities because of that fact.

With a grimace at the expression on his face, Katara smoothly and slowly transitioned back to her normal standing position while lowering her raised hands, letting the water dissipate back into the ground in easy increments. Shuffling her feet awkwardly as he still seemed unable to say anything, she eventually reached one hand across her abdomen and grabbed her other arm, hunching defensively and looking away from the young monk as though afraid he was going to run from her.

"Aang?" she finally prompted timidly, unable to wait any longer for him to speak despite her fear of what he was going to say.

The boy, seeing her reaction to his own finally shook his shock off and straightened up. He eyed her, and then gently patted the ground next to him, inviting her to sit down again. When she did so, he inhaled deeply and then slowly let it out.

"That was... that was totally awesome, Katara! I've never seen anything like that before." He bumped shoulders with her at her cautious smile and grinned. "I could sit here all day and watch you do stuff like that." The boy looked a little thoughtful, then. "You know... we should probably keep this between you and I right now," he mused. "This would be an awesome help during the comet, you know. And if no one knows that you can do this... they can't prepare a defense against you, you see?"

"Hm." Katara pondered that for a few and then nodded. "You might be right. What your enemy doesn't know about you is an advantage."

"Exactly."

The two teens grinned at each other and their gazes locked. Slowly, both lost their smiles and their eyes drifted to half mast as the air around them grew heavy, and without volition they started to lean into each other...

"Hey! What are you two doing out here?"

Aang and Katara both jumped, their faces exploding with fire as they whirled around to look at Sokka, who was standing behind them with his arms folded across his chest and a highly suspicious expression on his face as he glared at them sternly.

"Um, nothing-" Katara started.

"Just talking!" Aang squeaked, flushing guiltily, which Sokka didn't miss.

"Yeah, talking! Nothing but talking!" the two stuttered together, practically talking over each other in their hurry to get their denials out.

"Uh, huh, sure," the older teen drawled, rolling his eyes. "Back to the house, both of you. And don't let me catch you sneaking off to 'talk' in the middle of the night again, got it? Now let's go."

He turned on his heel and began stomping off, his blushing sister and a sheepish Aang getting to their feet and following. Katara stuck her tongue out at her brother, Aang smothering a snicker at the sight and they glanced at each other furtively before looking away again with deeper flushes painting their skin.

But they both smiled shyly at each other just as they reached the house and then separated to go to their sleeping chambers, Aang's quick finger over his lips noticed by Katara, but thankfully not by Sokka. The young woman nodded and winked in return before disappearing into her room.

Suddenly, Katara remembered something. Darn it... I forgot to ask him what he meant when he said that I'm a little more than just human now.

Oh, well, there was always tomorrow. And if her stupid brother wanted to get in the way again, she'd bite his head off and then send him on his way like she should have done a few minutes ago when he'd interrupted she and Aang's... discussion...

~A~

A/N: There will be a second part to this... sooner or later. I already know what I want to write, it's just going to be about finding the time to do it, so please bear with me.