(A/N) Hey all sorry for the wait. I don't know how many months is has been, but its been awhile. So here's the next chapter. I think it's kinda sad, cuz I cried when I wrote it. But I hope it satisfies. Enjoy!
-Katara-
Katara heard her lonely steps fall back behind, receding into the cold emptiness of the main hall. She breathed out, a cloud of steam curling around her lips. No matter how many fires were burning in the many surrounding fireplaces, the flames never seemed able to lick the chill from the air. The chill that made her feel so isolated. Katara never knew it would be this way. She thought her adventures with Aang were her life and she could keep on like that. But she never once thought she would have to bear the weight of a fourth of the world on her shoulders.
She gathered the soft fur robe around her, and began to walk down the halls of her marvelous palace. It seemed to be made of ice, the white walls glowing in almost any light. The stone had been a gift from Toph. Well Queen Toph, now. Katara could never really get over the fact that they had all grown up and people now looked up to them, they depended on their leadership and guidance. Sometimes she almost wished she could've stayed a child for just a little longer. As the years passed by Katara could help but mourn for her childhood. There was just something still lingering there in the shadows, like she had left something unfinished.
Remembering how cold she was, Katara shuffled down the ice-cold hall, and continued up the winding white stairs to where the hall of the royal chambers was built. This was one of her favourite places in the palace. The architect who designed the palace was also a famed artist as well. And this hall, he designed especially to give the royal family a constant reminder of the beauty in the world and the rights of passage that humans have into it. The hall was adorned in icy arches over every doorway, seeming to be made of smoke, the plumes delicately entwining themselves into each other. The arches were made of a strikingly icy sunstone that flared naturally, giving the straight hall a faint frosted glow, reflecting off the marbled walls brilliantly making them twinkle like freshly fallen snow.
This hall in particular never ceased to amaze Katara as she walked down this alley every morning and every night. But as she strolled down to the grand door to her chamber, Katara heard a low and faint voice echoing from the chamber next to hers. She peeked through the open door into the vast room adorned in various dark pelts and furs. Her eyes glided over to the balcony where her brother stood, the full moon's light playing on his strong features as he stared back up at the pale moon floating delicately in the night sky.
"Oh Yue, Yue…" Sokka pleaded with the moon in his solemnly dark voice, "Why did you have to leave? The love I felt… the love I still feel, it won't leave me alone." His voice quavered and paused, as if he the moon, Yue, was really talking back and yet Katara heard nothing except the polar wind whistling against the palace wall.
"I've tried!" he shouted suddenly back at the moon, his voice now filled with hurt, a pain Katara tried to imagine but couldn't. Sokka looked down and sighed, his bold shoulders sagged miserably, and looked back up to stare at the moon his eyes gleaming with tears. Throughout her entire life Katara had never seen only seen her brother truly cry once. And that was when Yue…left.
"Yue," he continued softly, "I have tried to love again. Every time I look at another woman, all I think is 'she's not you.' I need you. Life just seems so unbearable without you, Yue. I love you. And I can't live knowing you are so far away. I want to hold you again, I want to caress your face and smell your hair, but I can't and it's killing me."
Sokka dropped helplessly to his knees on the smooth stone, his shadow quivering against the moonlight, looking defeated. Katara felt a tear drop a fall from her cheek, the trail of water left behind stinging her cheek as it froze. She then realized she was still standing there in plain sight of her brother, and she didn't wish to disturb him anymore than he already was.
Katara gathered her skirts and glided silently up the small flight of steps into her bedchamber, and sighed as the door quietly thudded shut. A fire blazed in the fireplace adjacent to her large bed. The shiver running down her back reminded her how cold she really was, so she hastily stripped down to her under gown, and flitted over to curl under the multiple dark layers of bedclothes and linens. Katara leaned back into her well-fluffed pillows her dark tresses of hair framing her heart-shaped face like a halo.
She sighed yet again, restless thoughts engaging her mind. She wondered if she would ever find that deep love like the kind Sokka had found with Yue. She began to wonder if she'd always be alone, always wondering what it would have been like to really love someone. To be held and to know you weren't alone in the world. But as her thoughts faded, so did her mind and soon she drifted off to sleep as the shadows that dancing on the wall dimmed.
(A/N) BTW, I would just like to tell the readers, in reminder for the chapters to come, that I did change some things in Avatarland. I know originally, the four nations are called the Water Tribe, The Earth Kingdom, The Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads, but due to the change in seven years, these groups have evolved if you will, and are now known as just the Four Kingdoms, The Water Kingdom, The Earth Kingdom, The Fire Kingdom, and the Air Kingdom. I would just like to clear that all up ;
