The Color of Water
By xannychan
A/N: This has been sitting for a long time in my laptop, so I decided, why not? This is when I was making up theories for if Aang ever disappeared again. I should probably start a series on it...
Warnings: I suppose you could take the ending whatever way you want. Maybe some slight Sokkatara if you squint and nod a little to the left in a handstand. Maybe.
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Her mouth moves in
funny ways, like she was making words.
His eyes are swimming,
like he was just pummeled in the gut with something like a swift,
fire-entwined kick.
Her face is wet, like
she was crying.His tongue is thick,
like his throat was convulsing blood into his mouth.
They had known this might happen.
Her hands are soft,
like she was waiting to catch him her whole life.
His body is twisting,
like he had been practicing to fall into her his whole life.
Fear is rising, like it
has been preparing for this for its whole existence.
Things have been just aching to make themselves known.
It's why Sokka and Katara are never ready when something so precious to them is stolen away from them.
Katara hates her brother and Sokka hates his sister, and that is what makes them, what binds them, what destines them, what defines them. Because hate comes from a love so deep and so very fragile that the weight of shared sorrow swallows it up faster than her water whip, than his boomerang, could ever break the frail human body.
Life has been waiting to smash their lives into a very messy pile. That's how it's been for as long as they've known what it meant to trust only in each other.
It's been a very long time since they last trusted Aang.
Not that Aang was ever a bad person. He had simply…vanished. As if the Avatar had never been born. As if they had never proven their worth in a few hundred battles. As if hope had died long ago.
Perhaps it had.
But Katara had been ever optimistic! The promises, the prophecies, the good ol' times they shared had kept her going. She dreamed and hoped and prayed. And it's the reason they were never ready to be swept away to the Fire Country.
But he knew. Knew things would just shatter to a million pieces just as easily as water washes away tears, just as easily as Katara becomes his.
It has been this way all their lives.
The color of water is clear, as clear as blue eyes and brown hair and the fire that sends them up in wisps over the world.