Inspired by this one fanart of Katara sitting by a window in the Fire Nation and feeling foreign. I can't stop writing Kataang. It's like a disease, a GOOD one, if one ever existed. Besides, the world needs moar Kataang anyway, and I'm happy to be part of the movement. :)
She kind of wonders, and even though it's something she doesn't like to admit she still thinks about it from time to time, about what her place is now.
She sits by a window, calm and patient, as the cool air of the night blew in pushing the curtains left and right with its force.
It reminded her of Aang.
Perhaps maybe even too much than she'd like it to.
He's gone now. He's probably somewhere in the Earth Kingdom doing his duty, helping the world cope after the hundred year war. They haven't spoken to each other in a year, or maybe perhaps even more. Katara didn't understand why they had to separate, why they had to be apart from each other. Family sticks together, not break apart, right?
So then why didn't Aang hesitate to leave?
Was he growing up too fast? And if so, did that mean that his feelings would grow up...too?
Katara cries. She cries a lot, especially at night when she's all alone with only her memories to keep her company. Memories and mirages of a yesterday that she remembered so vividly, that it tasted incredibly bitter to the tongue. Sometimes, she would try to push back those memories and try to live in the life that destiny had given her, and even then it wouldn't work. It'd just come flooding back, no matter how hard she tried.
She blames the little things that remind her of home, of her brother, of Toph and Aang. They've become adults now, and maybe they're too busy being adults and partaking in their own duties that they can't meet as much as she'd like them too.
Katara loved helping her people, she really did, but she didn't want to do it alone...
On most nights, she lets her heart open up wider than it ever does, and gazes across the horizon hoping to find a pair of gray eyes staring back. Then a wide grin, a bald head and an arrow tracing down said head all the way back down across his spine, then across his arms, but covered in some Air Nomad tunic: yellow or gold.
He'd say her name ("Katara...") and then she'd smile, wide as ever, before saying his. ("Aang...")
Who'd know she'd fall in love with her best friend? The distance between them didn't help her growing feelings for him, either. It just made things harder, painful, and unbearable. She'd hear rumors about him, and trace each and every one in hopes of finding him somewhere out there. In most cases she couldn't find any trace of him, but she's not going to lose hope. She never lost hope in him before, and she wasn't about to start now.
Before, she used to know every single thought that ran through his head. He was just that transparent to her. She knew he loved her, and she knew from the moment they left Ba Sing Se after a failed attempt to stop Azula's coup that she loved him, too. She didn't know how much before, but holding him in her arms as they flew away on Appa, her face messed up and strained from tears, made her realize just how much.
And the older she became, the more intuitive she became of them. So strong, that most of the time she felt connected to him. She didn't know how, but she didn't dare question it again. She knew it was there, somewhere burrowed deep inside of her, and she didn't want it to go away. It was the only trace of Aang she had left in her life, for now.