Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of ATLA. They are the property of Nickelodeon, Viacom and Bryke.
Prompt: Selflessness
Rating: T
Summary: The Siege of the North goes differently.
"No! I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me."
-Katara, The Painted Lady (S3E3)
They're gone.
And she can't think.
People are screaming, she figures. Maybe she is.
She should be, since it feels like her heart's been punched out of her chest. Her head swims before her and she feels so horribly empty.
Dimly, she recognizes that the water isn't calling to her anymore. She can't feel it at all.
Fire blooms in front of her, and she should be diving backwards to avoid it. She should be screaming as the too-familiar scent of roasted flesh permeates the air, and the Fire Nation soldiers drop to the grass, cooking in their own armor.
She should care that the man who killed the moon and the ocean was struck down by one of his own.
She should be grabbing Sokka's boomerang and lunging across the oasis at him, crying for his blood, because he's a firebender.
But she's rooted in place, staring numbly at the hollow indentation in the middle of the oasis, where there should be water but isn't, using the dim light the stars provide because there's a hole in the sky where the moon should be.
Nothing matters now. There is no hope. There is no future. There's no moon to guide her waterbending, no water to bend.
The rest of the Fire Nation will come soon enough, melt the great city to the ground and destroy the oasis in an inferno, and she can't bring herself to cry or scream or feel anything at all.
In the back of her mind, she feels responsible. If she had beaten Zuko, if he hadn't taken Aang, if Aang's body were here hours ago, they could have stopped this.
This is her fault.
And she has to do something.
Somehow, dimly, in the back of her mind, she knows that Yue feels this too.
As Aang and the old man (what's his name, Iroh?) gently step into the oasis (How dare you, she suddenly wants to scream at him. How dare you step in here after everything your people have done!) and scoop the limp, charred bodies of Tui and La off the bone-dry ground, she hears the princess whisper, There is no hope now. It's over.
Dully, she registers Aang saying something before rushing off, but that doesn't seem to matter now. Nothing does. Nothing besides Tui and La and they're gone and it's all her fault.
Katara steps forward, closer, and watches Iroh lay Tui on the ground tenderly beside La, staring at the dead spirit as if he's lost a part of himself too, as if he's still checking for signs of life.
It's too late, she hears herself speak as she hangs her head, they're dead.
(Of course they are, what are you, an idiot?)
She stares at the ocean's limp form, studying the dark, burned scales that were so mesmerizing just a few hours ago, that seemed so familiar. She'd seen this before, she'd known exactly who this was even before Aang revealed the identities of the moon and the ocean to her, Yue and Sokka on their hectic ride back to the oasis.
She could never bring words to it until he had told her, but she had always known. Tui and La, push and pull, yin and yang, darkness and light, moon and ocean. Of course that was who they were.
Iroh's voice breaks her trance. You have been touched by the moon spirit. Some of it's life is in you.
(Her life, Katara corrects him automatically, though she doesn't know where the distinction came from, or why it matters in the slightest. It feels important nonetheless.)
She doesn't need to lift her head to know he's talking to Yue, and she isn't shocked in the slightest that she knows exactly what he means.
(But what does it matter if part of it is in her? The moon and the ocean are a pair, and he's only talking about the moon. Suppose the moon does return, she won't last long without her partner.)
Yes, you're right. It gave me life. Maybe I can give it back.
(But a fish cannot live without water, and there's no way that her sacrifice will mean anything without the ocean rejoining her.)
Oh. She raises her head, eyes widening. She sees now.
As Sokka's voice shudders, as he begs Yue not to give herself up, Iroh looks at her closely, and seems to know what she's thinking. He asks her quietly, do you think it would work?
;
.
;
.
;
She would have to be Yue's equal for this to happen. They'd have to have just enough in common, and just enough different to compliment each other properly.
The more she thinks, the more she realizes that yes, they fit each other well.
She's the closest thing the South has to a princess, and that would make her Yue's equal socially (For what little it matters).
She's from the South Pole, and used to struggle and strife where Yue, a Northerner understands splendor and special treatment.
Katara, the last Southern waterbender, can both heal and fight with water, and can more than make up for Yue's lack of bending abilities.
They're both similar of age, from both Tribes, both bound by duty and determined to do whatever it takes to save their people.
One is bound by tradition, the other is determined to destroy it.
One has never left the Tribe, the other has traveled the world. (And if she doesn't make this choice, she'll likely keep traveling for the rest of her life, but she can't afford to think like that, so she shoves the thought away.)
Yue was saved by the moon, and Katara saved the Avatar.
Yue is merciful, diplomatic and kind, and could easily be cold, distant and aloof. Katara is calm, generous and supportive, but she has always known that she has the capacity to be ruthless, unforgiving and terrifying.
Together, they could be an ideal partnership, each making up for the other's weaknesses, and keeping one another in check.
Everything she's seeing here has to mean something. The fact that they're here together, despite everything that could have happened to prevent this moment, only seems like fate itself is in support of this choice.
Yes, this could work quite easily. They'd make a good team, if only they knew each other better, but if what Katara is considering happens, then they'd have all of time to become familiar.
But would the Ocean spirit accept her as his successor?
They're certainly similar enough.
Katara, as much as she is kind and genuine in her desire to help everyone, can be wild and dangerous and utterly merciless. There's a rage there, and a passion, just beneath the surface, that's been itching to come out, a power that's long been denied.
As much as people think they know her, they have no idea about what she's really thinking, about the darkness at the core of her being, the secrets that will die with her about the tribe's survival during the war, and the humanity they've had to give up along the way.
Like the ocean, she is only as kind and gentle as she chooses to be, and maybe it's time that the whole world knows it. Maybe it's time that she stops being calm and inviting, and begins being furious and tempestuous.
As the ocean, she can bring the monsters in her depths to the surface at last. She can keep her people safe with a ruthlessness that she's always had, without fear of repercussion.
As the ocean, she doesn't have to restrain her wrath.
As the ocean, no one will dare disrespect her or downplay her importance, and no one will ever try to write her off as just some girl again.
As the ocean, she can work with Yue (and if he's able to reach them, Aang) and keep the Tribes- no, not just the tribes, the world safe.
Yes, she can carry the ocean's mantle.
;
.
;
.
;
When she looks at Iroh again, she nods confidently, and catches Yue's eye.
;
.
;
.
;
It's my duty, Sokka.
Would it be easier not to tell him? He'd try to stop her. She'd have to do it now, while Sokka's trying to stop Yue.
I won't let you! Your father told me to protect you!
No. She has to. He has to know that she's doing this. His heart will break either way. He'll think he's failed his promise to Dad, and likely never forgive himself, but at least he'll know. If she leaves without saying a word, he'll always be full of uncertainty and doubt, like how they felt when Dad sailed off to war years ago and left them wondering if he'll be safe, if he's hurt, if he's been dead for months and news hadn't reached them yet. And she can't do that to him.
I have to do this. Yue's hand slips from his grip, and she reaches out to the moon in Iroh's arms, places both hands onto it delicately, and a rush of power overwhelms Katara, filling the insides of her eyelids with blinding white light.
No! Sokka cries, and Katara opens her eyes to see Yue's limp body cradled in Sokka's arms. He whispers, she's gone, she's gone, and holds her close.
But nothing happens. The moon does not return, and though it's wounds are healed, the fish stays still.
Yue is waiting, she realizes. For me.
Katara scoops up the moon spirit gently, and slips into the hollow shell of the oasis, placing it gently in her lap.
Sokka turns, and gapes when he sees her.
Katara, he begins, his voice quivering, eyes full of tears, a hand reaching out to her. Katara, no.
Sokka, this is something I have to do. She sets the moon down gently in Iroh's hands, and reaches for the ocean spirit, removing her gloves. Sokka releases Yue and dives for the fish, snatching it and grabbing her hand.
Katara, no. You can't.
The tremor in his voice and the pain in his eyes makes her hesitate.
Can she do this? Can she really leave Sokka alone, when Mom's dead, Gran Gran's on the other side of the world, and Dad is somewhere they don't know?
Can she leave Aang too? She's come to really care about him in the months that they've been traveling together, and she knows he'll be heartbroken.
And she really doesn't want to die. Because whether she says it or not, that's what she's doing by taking this choice.
(She wonders if the train of thought is similar to that of her mother's in her last moments)
There's so much she wants to learn and do. The world is so big and she wants to see it all.
But she also wants this war to end.
And she will never turn her back on people who need her.
This is the only way, Sokka. Please, let me go. I'm doing this for everyone.
He stares at her for what seems like forever, before a shuddering sob escapes his throat and he releases her hand.
Sokka sets the fish down for a moment, and leans in, embracing her gently. She feels tears begin to run down her face, and she trembles, because this might be the last time she'll ever see him again, or touch him, and she feels a leaden weight settle in her chest because she's never known a life without Sokka. He's always been there, and where she's going, she'll be separate from him forever. If she even remembers who he is, and can even interact with him, it'll never be the same.
But this has to happen.
She steels herself, and gently disentangles herself from his embrace. There's one more thing.
She reaches up behind her neck, and fumbles for a moment before she finds the clasp.
Katara gently unties her mother's necklace and removes it, stroking the well-worn carving before she reaches for Sokka's hand.
Katara opens it, places the necklace into his palm, and closes his fingers around it.
She doesn't let go of his hand yet as she reaches for the ocean, now cradled in one of his arms. Gently, she plants her free hand on the fish's marred scales.
Katara feels the tugging deep in her spirit, urging her to leave behind her body and become something new, something dark and powerful.
It's so much easier than she could have imagined. But she's done this so often that she should be used to it by now. Katara is used to giving everything she has to everyone she meets, from Aang and Sokka and her village to complete strangers they meet for only a few minutes on their travels.
She's sacrificed her childhood to keep her family together. She's sacrificed precious time she could spend waterbending to keep her village running. She's sacrificed her home to help Aang save the world.
She's known ever since their arrival at the North, when she dared to dream about a life after the war is over, that she'll sacrifice much more than that in the years to come, in order to help her tribe recover.
It's only natural that Katara will sacrifice her life to save her people.
She closes her eyes and lets the darkness consume her.
;
.
;
.
;
They circle each other, in water that only moments ago was gone completely, around the fading corpse of a girl who collapsed into the oasis only moments ago, her grip on her brother's hand finally released by oblivion.
The two get accustomed to one another, to the new dance they will be sharing, before they turn, remembering the boy they care deeply for. He's staring with wide, teary eyes down at them as his sister's body turns to water and vanishes into the oasis, much like how the girl who is laid out beside him has faded into moonlight.
For a moment, they pause, and agree immediately on who should greet him first.
The ocean spirit vanishes into the dark depths of the pool, and the water of the spirit oasis glows a deep, ominous blue, before rising, crawling up the walls and gathering all the fountains, canals and waterways in the city, forming a monstrous body that slithers over buildings, inspiring terror and awe in the hearts of all who see her.
There's work to be done.
;
.
;
.
;
Yue rises, transparent and cloaked in silvery moonbeams, glowing softly and sweetly. She is lighter than air, hovering over the oasis, and smiles at him benevolently.
Goodbye Sokka, I will always be with you, she says, planting a kiss on his lips before fading into soft, soothing light.
As the moon flashes back into being, bathing the ice below in light, a thousand waterbenders simultaneously look up into her face, feeling that something fundamental has shifted within them. The call of the water has returned, but it's different somehow.
But they are waterbenders. Adaptation is natural to them.
And the monster that crawls through their city towards the outer wall is on their side.
;
.
;
.
;
The leviathan slithers on through the streets, her fins flickering as she passes rows of deserted houses, shops and streets.
For a moment, she pauses, and turns her gaze to the battered prince gaping at her, alone on a bridge overlooking a canal. Looking for the Avatar? Or just running away?
She leans closer and closer, delighting in his dumbstruck expression and the way he drops to his knees and flattens himself against the railing.
She wonders if he knows who she is. There's something in those bright yellow eyes that recognizes her, though he doesn't seem to realize exactly from where. If he looks close enough, maybe he can see her wreathed in shadow in the heart of her monster's body.
How easy it would be, she reflects as she inches closer and closer, until only a thin skin of water separates them, to just swallow him up right now.
She lets her face slip out of her monster's watery jaws, and is close enough to brush noses with the prince. Of all the things she could do, she finally settles on a smile (Just the right kind, a mix of mysterious, wry and amused that she's sure will be burned into his brain for the rest of his life), a cock of the head, and a raised eyebrow. Yeah, she thinks, I didn't expect things to turn out this way either, Prince Hotpants.
The stuttering gasp he responds with when he finally seems to recognize her is music to her ears.
Who's the peasant now? she decides she wants to say. (I'll save you from the pirates is a close second)
She's about to speak when she notices Iroh has appeared, huffing and gasping with a bright red face, leaning against a building. He meets her eyes and his ruddy complexion turns white as the ice around them. He shuffles towards her with the exhaustion of one who's run around the earth without pause, but also with the grim determination that she's observed many times in the boy who trembles before her. Iroh limps to stand between them, and she smiles fondly at him.
They regard each other for a long moment as the sound of battle echoes through the icy streets, seemingly so distant even though she knows they're seconds away.
She owes this man greatly. He killed the monster who destroyed their predecessors, and allowed them to be reborn. And she sees a profound humanity in him that draws her to him like a butterfly-moth to a lamp light.
The leviathan flicks her fins and pours herself back into the canal, whipping through the city and dragging a trail of drowned firebenders in her wake, their armor clanking as they bump against one another. She's been delayed long enough, and there's a war to win.
She will repay the old man twice, she decides. For destroying the monsters who killed Tui and La, she will spare the boy he loves enough to stand in the way of a god. For allowing herself and Yue to replace them, she will aid them later in their escape.
Even though she can't see it, she can feel Yue smiling at her.
As her partner gives the waterbenders strength, she leaps over the ice wall with the force of a tsunami, screaming razor winds and spitting splintered hail.
She tries not to look at the boy standing on the wall behind her, watching her devastate the fleet with all the graceful malice and tranquil fury of a hurricane.
But every once in a while, she catches him in the corner of her eye, and sees that he is crying.
She wonders if she should reach out to him, but stifles the impulse. He'll seek her out when he's ready, when his grief-stricken mind can make sense of what she's become.
;
.
;
.
;
The ocean comes to him when it's all over and the tip of the sun is just brushing the horizon, coloring the ice a soft pinkish orange.
She slips up from the oasis quietly with darkness clinging to her form, water streaming down from her loose, wild hair and clinging to her hair loopies.
He's sitting with his back against one side of the spirit gate, his eyes red and swollen, breathing softly with little gasps, tracing the pattern of the necklace in his hands over and over.
She smiles sadly at the boy who was once (No, still is) her brother.
He glances up for a moment, and sees her. He draws himself shakily to his feet, and collapses into her arms once more.
They hold each other and speak quietly for a long time, before she feels Yue call her back. She has one more debt to pay and he has a tribe to help rebuild.
Before she goes, she promises to meet him again.
;
.
;
.
;
She resurfaces in the frigid waters lapping along the coast of the outer edges of the North Pole, where Iroh is struggling to send his raft away, while the prince lays exhausted next to him, staring with half-closed eyes at the horizon.
In theory, she doesn't have to help them at all. She can consider her debt repaid by not guiding a canoeful of waterbending warriors to them.
But she can't turn her back on them. Though they are the enemy of her people, they're still humans, and they're desperate and harmless.
The sea is as merciful as it is brutal, and she sends them on their way peacefully with a swift current that will deposit them near the shore of a coastal Fire Nation colony.
For a while, she drifts just below the surface, keeping pace with them, scaring away curious sea serpents and coaxing schools of fish to drift just under them so Iroh can make sure they won't starve.
At some point, the prince awakens and peers down at the water below him, lost in thought.
She can't tell if he's seen her or not (Or even if she's visible to him at all), but he watches for a while nonetheless, as she stares back at him, wondering if in a different world, they could have been friends somehow.
Finally, when they're well out of Water Tribe territory, she allows the raft to slide ahead of her as she slips deeper into her element.
Yue is calling her, and they have much to do.
;
.
;
.
;
When Master Pakku denies a crowd of girls who had witnessed his fight with Katara the right to learn to martial waterbending, he turns and strides away.
Immediately, he is slapped in the face by a water tentacle that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and an ice disc whizzes by his face, close enough to slice off the ends of his mustache.
He pauses, then turns back and walks back to the group, who gape at the strange display of waterbending that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
To their utter amazement, he bows low before them and says that it would be his honor to teach them everything he knows.
When his decision is laughed at by the Chief's government and his students, he leads them into the spirit oasis with a wry grin.
That night, the spirits appear before them for the first time as mortals, and the forms they choose are those of the daughter of Chief Arnook and the girl who accompanied the Avatar.
They explain with voices cooler than polar nights that the moon and the ocean, and all the power they hold, are under new management. That the Tribes are going to start treating girls and women with the respect they've deserved all along and any objectors will find themselves at the bottom of the ocean.
;
.
;
.
;
In the months that pass, the remains of the Southern Water Tribe's navy becomes a fighting force that the world has never seen before.
Those who survive the raids say that it's as if the ocean itself is on their side.
;
.
;
.
;
When the sun is blackened by the moon and the invasion begins, the ocean surges far past the coast, and sweeps through the streets of the Caldera, hunting down anyone who would stand in the way of the Avatar as he races towards his destiny.
When the Firelord is nowhere to be found, she slips into the cracks of the stone and searches until she finds his hiding place, and Yue tells her that there isn't enough time to wait for Aang to find him, that she can't cover the sun for much longer.
That if they want this done now before any other lives are lost, they'll have to do it themselves.
When the Firelord is waiting for the eclipse to end in his bunker, and feels rage burn inside him as he listens to his son denounce him and announce that he's joining the Avatar, it's easy to ignore the minor discomfort of the feeling of something cold dripping onto his head from above. He doesn't expect the screeching as the stone and metal of the ceiling crumbles and tears and the weight of the sea drops onto him, smashing him to the floor, sucking the breath out of his lungs.
Somehow, though there's water in his lungs, he can still scream.
A/N: The scene with Yue and Tui has always stayed with me (And it popped up when I read the prompt, since I thought of selflessness and immediately thought, Yue). At one point while rewatching The Siege of the North, I wondered what would have happened if Zhao had killed the ocean too, either intentionally or by mistake. I mean, when he blasted the oasis, he could've gotten both of them.
A friend also talked to me about the first time she'd watched the episode, and she honestly thought that La was going to die as well, and that Katara was going to take his place. Although that sure as hell didn't happen, I always thought that would have been interesting to explore.
So yeah, this is an AU where Katara replaces La and becomes the ocean. It really strayed from the prompt, but I still like how it turned out.
Thanks for reading!