Notes: Love to hobviously for the beta. Please don't archive without permission
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The ascent into Jet's treetop lair is a dizzying rush of colour and light. The wind whips her hair around her face and the ground falls away with frightening speed. So this is what it's like for Aang, she thinks. Jet is warm beside her, and he holds her securely to him with a hand around her waist. Just when she's beginning to contemplate the implications of that, their journey ends. His hand brushes her wrist as he lets her go, and she tries her best not to blush.
Aang doesn't seem to have noticed, and she's grateful for that, for reasons she can't pinpoint.
Jet shows them around, and introduces them to everyone. Soon it's just a blur of foliage and names and faces she won't remember. Many of them are young—her age, Aang's age. Some younger. There is a uniform gauntness to them she finds frightening, as if all their childhood softness was lost to hunger and the Fire Nation. Then again, perhaps it was. She stays close to Jet, reassured by his solidity.
They tell stories that night over dinner. Jet seems glad of an audience, and the tales of his exploits grow grander as the night goes on. His shadow, dim in the lamplight, is stretched and distorted by the trees, making his gestures seem wild and strange. His followers are enchanted, watching him re-enact their greatest victories. He is mesmerizing, with his fine words and grand plans, and the forest rings with cheers after his speech. Katara claps despite (because of) Sokka's glare.
They sleep in the trees that night, despite Sokka's protests. The wind is a comforting whisper, and Katara thinks she could almost get used to this.
-
An assassination attempt. She shivers at the thought. Sokka is incoherent in his rage, and stomps out so loudly the platform shakes. Jet is sincere, and his voice is deep and reassuring. Besides, he needs them, and Katara can't say no.
-
He doesn't struggle against the ice trapping him to the tree—he doesn't need to. His plan is already in motion, moving swiftly past them, an unstoppable tide of pent-up grief and anger and retribution. His voice never wavers as he lays bare the lie, and bile rises in her throat as she realizes how they were played.
He was eight. She was seven. And yet she still seems to have learned right from wrong.
The explosion flashes in the distance, and the dam bursts. The water pours forth in a torrent, flooding into the valley. She fists her hands in her robe, white-knuckled in rage and grief. The water has turned into something she doesn't recognize, something far too powerful to comprehend.
She glances at Aang. He gazes off into the distance, shoulders slumped, face blank. She tries to say something, but her consolations die unspoken. From her, they are meaningless.
The Fire Nation is gone and this valley will be safe, says Jet, and she hates him for being right.
-
Sokka, stupid, brilliant, insufferable Sokka has turned a loss of life into a loss of livelihood. She hugs him in gratitude and apology.
His backwards sense of direction sends them flying over the valley again. The water is still running, muddy and grey and clogged with flotsam. She wonders, treacherously, if the lives saved outnumber the ones lost when the Fire Nation attacked the valley. It's not arithmetic, she reminds herself, though it makes things much easier to think of it that way. She wonders what her mother would say.
The wind rushes past her, and it gives her no answers.
- Fin