Chapter Three
Tribe
She can almost hear Aang's heartbeat as she passes by his tent when "morning" has come. She can almost feel the way his blood rushes through his veins as though trying to flee from a pack of arctic wolves and realizes that he is in the midst of a nightmare.
(How can Sokka not hear him, sitting vigil just outside the tent as he is?)
(She very, very carefully ignores the fact that it is his blood and not his breathing that has alerted her.)
(No, she must have heard his breathing. Surely she cannot hear Aang's blood. No one can hear blood from as far away as she is.)
Katara leans down, reaches out a hand- blood, pulsing through his veins and a frantic tattoo beating in his chest, so different from the smooth, pooling rhythm that hums from the flesh under the blue arrows decorating his skin- And then she pulls back and, instead, says, "Aang, wake up," until the boy wakes with a gasp and wild eyes. She has had enough experience with nightmares to know not to bring attention to his. "Get ready; everyone is waiting to meet you."
She can't help but stare at the markings that he has adorned himself with as he pulls his strange, colorful shirt back on. She can still almost feel the humming of energy coming from it. Katara has never felt such a thing from another person before.
"Aang," Katara says the next morning when everyone has come to stare at the tattooed boy, "this is the entire village. Everyone, this is Aang." Perhaps some would be embarrassed to introduce her tribe of survivors to this airbender- this child out of time who is so full of hope and laughter and light- the way she does.
But instead of the small, unsmiling, underfed group she knows Aang sees (she can tell he does, from the look in his hazel-gray eyes), Katara sees a people that will outlast even the worst of wars. She sees Sara, who has burn-scars under her clothes from a past raid and nightmares that won't cease, but still sings lullabies for frightened younglings and tells them to not be afraid. She sees Gran-Gran, who talks with a different accent from everyone else and refuses to speak of her life before she turned up here alone and broken-hearted, pregnant with Katara's father. She sees Hana, whose two-year-old twins have never met their father, but still know what it is to always feel loved. Katara sees the scars of her people, and the strength they have to move past them.
So when the look clears from Aang's eyes and he greets her people, Katara smiles.
That his eyes clear up does not mean that the tribe reciprocates his action, though. In fact, they take a collective step away from him.
(Katara is the one to introduce him, the one who has decided that they will offer him and his giant, fuzzy snot-ball of a pet shelter for however long it takes the beast to be able to fly again- if it can fly. Her endorsement is a strike against him.)
The boy notices. "Uh... Why are they all looking at me like that? Did Appa sneeze on me?"
"Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years," Gran-Gran, with her purple parka and hair-loops, steps forward and deadpans. "We thought they were extinct."
Katara bites back a sigh at the hostile faces of her tribe and the hurt look on Aang's face. What are you supposed to say to that?
"Extinct?"
"What is this anyway? A weapon?"
Thank the spirits for Sokka. And wow, that feels weird to think.
Sokka makes a grab for Aang's staff, and the airbending boy does something to it, opening it like one of the fans that the Earth Kingdoms once. He shows them airbending tricks until he crashes into the lump of snow that Sokka calls a watchtower.
And then Gran-Gran tells her to get back to her chores and Katara feels something that might be mild disappointment, but she understands that his presence means there is another mouth to feed- that she is responsible for this strange boy since she brought him to the village, and she is content enough to simply glance at the way he plays with the children from time to time. (A big part of that contentment is the way she manages to avoid her brother, avoid talking about yesterday, all day.)
When everyone is called for midday meal, Aang shares stories, eating very little and then returning to his bison.
"Where did you find him?" Gran-Gran asks after they clean up. It is just the two of them, as Sokka is still convinced that Aang is a Fire Nation spy and has decided to keep a close eye on the boy again.
Katara pauses in the middle of scrubbing a dish. She's really not sure how to say this. Oh, that. I just had a breakdown and my bending went haywire and completely destroyed everything above the surface within a half-mile radius. And he was trapped in a glowing sphere of ice that had been part of the no-longer-there canyon but managed to be perfectly fine after I broke him out. No biggie, Gran-Gran.
"We...Well, that is, he was...," she stalls.
Gran-Gran, with a wisdom born of experience, says, "I will not like what you have to say, will I?"
"Probably not." They're silent for a little while. Then Katara fists her hands and stares at the walls. "Gran-Gran, I think-" Her voice breaks. "I think I might be dangerous."
Her grandmother doesn't reply. The silence feels damning and Katara hastens to fill it.
"I've always known that I can do things that Sokka can't- and I-I know that you and Dad don't want me practicing my bending," Katara knows why, too, which is what makes this next part so hard, "but I have been."
"Katara."
"I only do it when I have to, Gran-Gran, like if we really need freshwater, or if someone falls in the ocean, or if Sokka can't catch any fish-"
Gran-Gran frowns, knowing that her grandson isn't the best fisherman (and that he falls into La's domain. Often). "That-"
"But I don't think it matters!" Katara throws her hands up, and suddenly a portion of their snowy wall is solid ice. Gran-Gran draws in a sharp breath. "See? I wasn't even trying to do that just now! And yesterday..." Katara falls silent, unable to continue without prompting.
Gran-Gran's hands clamp down on Katara's shoulders, turning the girl to face her. "Katara, what happened?" The old woman's eyes are wide.
It is in a small voice that Katara says, "I lost my temper." And then the words pour out like the spreading of cracks in thin patches of ice. Her words are running together and she's crying but she can't stop herself. "I know that I'm not supposed to bend, Gran-Gran, but what if not bending makes it worse?"
Gran-Gran is quiet and her hands fall from Katara's shoulders. The girl looks up at her grandmother through teary eyes and flinches, because she knows what the old woman is thinking; she knows because she, too, is thinking of the raids and the burning bodies and swelling stomachs and drowned children and people who are just gone with only the scents of soot and blood and broken hearts left in their place. Gran-Gran doesn't need to say anything, because Katara can see it in her eyes: the older woman is accusing her, just like so many did when her mother was lost.
Katara stands frozen for one long moment, but then she runs.
It's dangerous outside the village, even during the day. Even during the winter months when the weather is calm and the sunlight never fades there are predators that would not hesitate to eat a human- to hunt one down like an arctic hare and feast on manflesh. But Katara isn't thinking of the tigerseals or arctic wolves or polar dogs.
She just needs to run.
A short time after her mother's death, Katara had done this very same thing. No one in the village could stand to look at her, no one wanted her help with anything and sometimes they forgot that she was just a child and used more than simply harsh words to scare her away. So she taken to spending time outside the village. One day during that horrible spring, she had gotten lost.
It was common for the village to move after raids- and after the one that stole Katara's mother, the village had done so; they couldn't stand the memories that the sooty snow carried, despite the danger of the coming summer. It was during that short period between the men scouting for a decent location and the tribe carrying out their belongings to settle wherever the warriors chose that Katara had slipped away. She was young then, nearing eight summers, and the last time the village had moved, she hadn't even thought to dream of her third longnight.
So Katara had slipped away, knowing that the grownups were preparing to do something important but not knowing what, afraid to even stick around and see- never mind asking- because she knew that it was her fault. And when the tribe moved, they did not send someone to look for her.
She spent the day sledding with the penguins and watching wild polar dogs from a distance and not playing with the snow and ice as she had only weeks before. Katara, for the first time since her mother's death, spent the day feeling... not quite okay, but very close to it. And then, when she felt the sun trade places with the moon as it always did in preparation for the coming summer's longnight, she returned to the village.
And she neither saw nor heard anyone.
She ran through the streets, eyes wide but unseeing, until she found the imprint of where her family's home had stood on the packed ice and snow. For a moment she stared at the empty ground. Then she lifted her eyes and finally saw that only a few structures- the permanent ones like the village meeting hall and the food storehouse- remained.
Her heart skipped a beat as she realized what had happened: everyone had left and they had not thought to take her with them.
But she had no tears left; they had all been spent on her mother. So she did not cry. Instead Katara recalled words that her father had spoken to her brother. "Remember, Sokka, that a warrior always observes and follows the tracks that their prey has made..." There had been more to it, something about working together like the arctic wolves, and something else about tigerseals and traps and thin ice, but she only remembered that first bit. And something Gran-Gran had said about blessings and spirits and music.
She figured she could do that- follow the tracks her village had made as they left behind this place of blood and tears; if her dad thought Sokka could back when he was the age she was now, then she could do it too. And if music was supposed to help, she could sing.
"Father La and Mother Tui," she murmured as darkness grew. Her heart stuttered as she heard the arctic wolves begin calling to one another. She took a steadying breath, "F-Father La and Mother Tui, listen now, I beseech thee..." She chanted the words of the children's song a little off-key and a little too quietly, but she sang the one verse she knew the over and over, feeling a sort of pull in her bones that lead her northeast-wards. She found footprints, and a few dropped items that she carefully picked up, but no wolves.
By the time the moon had fully risen, she saw the outlines of smoke from cooking fires.
She dropped the items by the new central fire and went in search of her father and brother and grandmother.
(No one had even realized that she'd been left behind. Or, if they had, the surprise on their faces reaffirmed what she already knew. They hadn't expected her to come back.)
The village moves again, several times, before the men leave for the Earth Kingdoms. She is always out of the village when they do. She always finds them by high moon. After a while they stop pretending to be surprised.
Katara runs and runs and only when she feels she will collapse and never rise again does she slow enough to take in her surroundings.
Word Count: 2,181. Posted: 1/27/17
