A/N: I go away for a long time and all you get is this stupid oneshot. Seriously, though, this is pretty much all I wrote during my hiatus. I wrote something else as well, but I can't decide whether to keep it as it is or continue it.

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Happy Reading!


A Bad Place

I'm not in the best situation at the moment. If word gets out of what's going on in my head, everything that I've worked for could be over in a matter of hours. The entire situation is incredibly difficult to explain; I don't even know what I'm feeling, and am not able to properly describe it. I just… don't even know where to start. I'm not the best politician, and the people here aren't exactly the most welcoming I've ever met in my entire life. I miss my life back in the South Pole, where one could just be happy with a simple jacket and maybe some stewed sea prunes. But I'm here now, though I don't know how much longer I'll be able to stay, and everything in my head had been rearranged. To be honest, I'm not even sure how I got here in the first place.

This whole messy ordeal started a few years after the war. I was in love. You see, for the longest time I had been waiting for my real hero, my prince, the one man who would take me up in his arms and carry me off to some faraway place, where I could discover new things and meet people and do everything I'd fantasized as a child. Call me a hopeless romantic if you like, but it actually happened. My one true love came, swept me off my feet quite literally, and took me away to a faraway place. And guess what? He was even a real prince. Our post-war euphoria took away my rational, cautious thought and replaced it with sheer joy. We were in love, or so I thought.

So why, after all the good things that have happened to me, am I not happy? Zuko loves me; he would never hurt me, not even under the direst circumstance, but still I don't find myself smiling anymore, never laughing. The answer can be summed up in one word, one measly syllable that keeps me awake at night while the Fire Lord sleeps beside me: Aang. Aang the Avatar, who I had grown up with, fought beside, and waited for since I was young enough to learn about the great Airbenders.

How could I not have realized, back in the beginning, my feelings for the boy? He'd done, at the age of twelve, all of those things I'd always yearned for as a child. He'd swept me off my feet and brought me across the entire world, where I met some of my best friends (as well as my present husband) and learned so much about the world. He'd saved my life, the lives of my people, and the world! My hopes and dreams of finding the Avatar had somehow become intertwined with my desire for true love as soon as I'd rescued him from the iceberg. He wasn't a prince, no, but he was more honorable than any royalty I had ever met, and I had met quite a few. In fact, he still is. At this very moment, he is asleep down the hall in the palace, which he had come to visit for government matters. Never in my life has he seemed so far away as he does right now.

The answer is clear. Aang had placed what he had had to offer right on the table, he'd laid it out in front of me, and I had turned him down for something I had not fully understood. The fling I had experienced with Zuko had turned to steam and blown away, leaving me unhappy, and he wondering what he'd done to take the smile out of my eyes. I cannot bear the burden of two men, though, and I cannot break the fragile heart that I had taken so much pride in mending. I will spend the rest of my day as Fire Lady, raising children and wondering what a newborn Airbender would have been like, and I can now tell you one thing for certain: you don't know what you have until it's gone.

Royalty and wealth aren't substitutes for true, unconditional love.

-

Fin.


A/N: Yes, that was Katara. Yes, I realize that this was a crappy excuse for a story. I figured the only way she would get with Zuko would be in the post-war euphoria, when she let her guard down. Of course, then she'd realize what she really wanted all along.

Someday I shall post my other one here as well.