Anymore - Emmy Rossum
"Don't you look so pretty," her father's melodic voice reverberated through the drums of her ears, she blinking up and smiling in the happiness that she felt for that moment; that life. Filling her hair with smooth tribal beads of jade and ivory and coloring her face with her father's war paint, she had become quite a sight to the unaccustomed eye; her parka lay cast to the side, and it was apparent that she had used it as a cloth.
"Kaya, come see this," he called out, amused. Amusement. Her family had possessed the quality of being amused often. Sometimes her mother did not care for Hakoda's childish humor, but even so she tolerated it. Her mother came, and looking upon the sight, laughed into her mittens. She looked at Hakoda in that way that parents do when they feel something mutually affective, both pairs of eyes lit verdigris in the firelight of the cozy igloo.
"Dad, Sokka said I couldn't be a warrior 'cause I was a girl. So I told him!"
"Told him what, honey?" her mother interjected.
"I told him that I could and I'd show him that I was an even better warrior. But I don't have a boomerang, so I can't really show him. I'll scare him, though"
"Did you!" Hakoda said, "Well, you would make the most beautiful warrior I ever saw, snowflake. You'd stun any boy on the battlefield."
Kaya glanced at him disapprovingly.
"But maybe you shouldn't scare your brother…" he amended, turning back to his wife and giving her that baby seal face he dawned so well when he wanted to be forgiven.
Katara nodded, and went back to smudging her face in he mirror.
***
She stared into a bowl water, reflection frowning back as she recalled that precious memory. She was on a fire nation ship, and had turned Aang over into a recovery position to attempt to heal him again--he was still unconscious-- when she caught her reflection in the healing water. Consciousness quickly dissolved into memory. Above, she could hear her father's voice calling out on deck, melodically reverberating in her eardurms. Why did she get this jaded feeling every time she heard his voice… every time she saw him? Before, all she could do was miss him. But now that he was here; now that he was accessible, all of that longing had mutated into some rash sentiment of victimization.