There were moments of doubt during the war.
She projected hope through her words and her features, but there were times when her thoughts turned dark and she wondered whether it was worth it.
Even in a world so broken, sometimes she wondered what they were fighting for.
Zuko and Katara sit on the steps of the Palace Courtyard, resting their old bones and letting their old thoughts wander.
"It's strange. It feels like just yesterday I was criticizing Uncle for doing exactly this." Katara cracks a smile and takes a sip out of her porcelain teacup.
"It feels like just yesterday we were there, running around and being that."
They look out into the courtyard; Naga is pawing at Pabu, who deftly leaps out of the way with every swipe; Mako and Bolin are sparring in a very brotherly manner ("No fair! That's cheating!" "Stop being a baby and fight!"); Korra and Asami are laughing and betting on who will win.
"No. We never had that, Katara. We had to grow up too fast to have that." The old woman smiles sadly and nods in agreement.
"There were moments."
"I suppose there were."
Exiting through the heavy doors, Iroh carefully maneuvers around the two heroes, descending the steps and bringing a tray of tea out to the group of teenagers. They rush to him and arguments echo through the square.
"No way, there's only one ginseng and I have dibs."
"You were named after the best tea brewer in the entire Royal Line and you had to have the kitchens cook these up? Disappointing, Iroh."
"What, no snacks?"
Katara smiles and looks over to her friend.
"This is what we fought for, Zuko. We gave this up so that they could have it." His scarred eye creases as he returns her smile and her gaze.
"Yes. It is."
IGNORE THE FOLLOWING WORD-VOMIT IF YOU WISH.
So. I've recently been rewatching some of the series, and I got to thinking. Legend of Korra was supposed to be darker than ATLA, but I don't think it was. The Gaang is a bunch of kids. And they spent most of their lives fighting and running and killing.
Like it or not, there is no way that all those Fire Nation soldiers escaped every attack the Gaang put forth. There were fatalities, even if they couldn't be shown on kids television.
Kids died. The Fire Nation raided or invaded a pretty substantial amount of the world and they didn't do it peacefully. Jet was sixteen and Long Feng killed him.
Rewatching that episode, the significance of Longshot speaking for the first and only time during the series seriously hit me hard.
So, uh, anyway, I realized that there is very little that is darker than throwing a bunch of children into a full-blown war. The Republic City thing was serious, but it was confined to one city and the aim wasn't to decimate the population, just to, well, equalize it. Ozai was going to burn down the Earth Kingdom, kids and all.
The use of bloodbending in LOK was pretty dark, I suppose, but there is nothing in either series that's more chilling than The Puppetmaster. That episode literally gave me nightmares for days after I first saw it.
There isn't anything a lot darker than completely taking away so many people's childhoods. Korra still got to be a kid, even though she was training to be the Avatar. Mako and Bolin did grow up on the streets, but they weren't constantly chased down with death looming over them. Aside from losing her mother, Asami was a rich kid who probably got whatever she wanted, as shallow and stereotypical as that sounds.
No one in ATLA really had parents. Katara pretty much had to become the mother of the entire group (a particular scene of sewing Sokka's pants seems to come to mind, along with a cliffside Sokka/Toph conversation). She and Sokka saw their father very little. Toph's parents were overprotective and honestly didn't do a lot to better her life. I don't think Aang ever actually knew his parents, based on what we know about Air Nomad culture.
Let's not even start on Zuko's mommy/daddy issues.
They all became adults between the ages of twelve and sixteen, and they all jumped a few decades mentally in the course of one summer.
That's dark, bro. Quite frankly, LOK has nothing on that.
So yeah. This little rambling just lasted longer than the actual fic, but whatever. I've had a lot of feels lately.
Also, Zutara Week this year was running rampant with old-Zutara arts and fics, and it's now starting to make sense to me. Hence the whole old Zuko/Katara conversation.
And, uh, yeah?