Chapter Ten:
playing games
Zuko stares at the unlit furnace. Cold ashes stir in a draught. It's been just over a week since Katara was burned, and the ship has not moved since.
"Get the engines going."
Zuko turns, startled. Katara stands in the doorway.
"What?"
"Get the engines going." She nods towards the furnace. "We need to get moving again."
Zuko hesitates.
"Don't look so worried. I'll be fine. My hand hardly hurts. Besides," Katara continues, "if I get too tired or my hand starts really hurting, we can anchor and I'll take a break, okay?"
"Well..." Zuko frowns. Katara still looks a little tired; perhaps just a little more rest is needed. "We'll start tomorrow. It's a little late in the day to start the engines, anyway."
"I guess we can wait, then." Katara pauses and looks around the engine-room. "Any jobs that need to be done?"
Zuko tries to think of something, but truthfully, he's been quite restless while waiting for Katara to recover and the ship is probably the cleanest it has ever been. Yesterday — after realising every chore had been done twice — he actually considered goading Azula into a fight just so he could practice redirecting lightning.
"No, not really," he says at last. "You should be resting, anyway."
"I'm sick of resting." Katara gives the engine-room another hard look, as if expecting exciting things to suddenly appear. "Hmm. Know any games besides Elements?"
"Pai Sho?" Zuko says hesitantly. His Uncle was forever explaining the rules, but Zuko never paid much attention.
"Oh, good. You can teach me how to play." Katara walks away, looking quite pleased. Zuko doesn't have the heart to ruin her good mood and explain that his knowledge of Pai Sho is limited to 'quit wasting time, Uncle'.
He trails after Katara, feeling apprehensive.
Zuko, at first, thinks perhaps he was wrong to feel apprehensive. They find a Pai Sho board in the crew's sleeping quarters, dust it off, and set it up in the galley so they can keep an eye on dinner — a slow-cooking stew. However, after he vaguely outlines the rules and even more vaguely describes the set-up, the game begins to quickly descend into confusion.
"You can't do that move three times in a row," Katara points out, leaning forward over the table.
"Now you're just splitting hairs," Zuko groans.
"No I'm not!"
"You're just annoyed because you're losing."
"But I'm winning," Katara protests, reaching for another Pai Sho tile.
"You mean I'm winning," Zuko counters.
"No, I am."
They pause and stare helplessly at the board.
"I thought whoever had the least tiles on the board was in the lead," Katara says.
"I thought the aim was to keep the most pieces on the board," Zuko retorts, stopping Katara as she raises her tile. "You can't move sideways!"
"What are you talking about? You did, last turn!"
"I moved diagonally, remember? Otherwise how else could I have captured your three gold lilies?"
"I don't know," Katara mutters suspiciously, "but I think you must have cheated."
Zuko crosses his arms. "I do not cheat."
"Okay, okay." She takes a breath and cautiously pokes a tile forward. When Zuko doesn't say anything, she leaves it there and leans back. "Your turn."
Zuko wordlessly moves a tile. Katara gives a little sigh.
"What?" he says irritably.
"I wouldn't make that move. I'm just saying."
"Why not?"
"I'm just saying," Katara repeats. "Maybe you want to try moving that piece over there instead."
"Don't patronise me!"
"I wasn't!"
"Yes, you were!"
They pause and in the silence, somebody starts giggling. They both turn angrily.
"Losing again," Azula says, stepping through the doorway and grinning. "Always losing..."
Zuko is about to lose his temper when Katara speaks up. "Who cares?" she snaps. "It's just a game. I don't care if I win or lose."
Azula stands there for a moment, then reaches forward and upends the board, sending pieces flying. Zuko jumps to his feet, but Katara laughs.
"Is that really how you're going to behave? You're like a child."
Despite Katara's laughter and casual remarks, Zuko notices her hand already reaching for the safety of her water flask. Across the galley, in the hearth, the pot of stew is beginning to slosh around. He begins to adopt a firebending stance, wondering what Azula has planned.
But evidently, Azula is not in the mood for a fight. She studies Katara intently, then slowly leaves. Zuko exhales.
"She's a nightmare," he says, placing the board back upon the table. Katara begins setting up pieces.
"The white pieces go on the black squares, right?"
"Okay," Zuko says readily, keen to avoid any further disagreements.
"Well, do they or not?"
"We can say that they do."
"Okay. And no moving sideways?"
"Unless you have the snapdragon tile," Zuko says, snatching up a piece.
"Fine, but the lotus tile means you can do anything."
"Unless it's countered by the cherry blossom."
"Which is useless if you're wearing red."
"Shouldn't we be writing these rules down?"
Katara grins at him and picks up a tile with her burned hand, giving it to him. As Zuko accepts it, he notices her fingers can't quite close properly around the tile; her grip is clumsy and the tile nearly falls.
How can she forgive Azula so easily? Has she forgotten his words of warning?
Yet as he looks up to catch her eye, he can't help but return her smile.
Katara has not forgotten Zuko's words of warning. Her heart is still racing slightly, adrenalin coursing through her as she sets up the pieces and hands Zuko a tile.
Her healed skin prickles; Azula's presence reminded her again of the damage caused, although she'd nearly forgotten the incident while engrossed in playing Pai Sho. Now she's doubly aware of the sensations of the healed burn; the unpleasant tightness of the skin, the way it hurts to flex her hand — even simply picking up a tile — as if the skin has shrunk and no longer fits.
But until now, she was genuinely in a good mood — and she's determined not to let Azula take that away from her. She smiles and laughs at Zuko's mistakes, does several poor impersonations of Iroh, and declares the game a tie after an hour of recklessly moving pieces about. Zuko suggests switching to a game of Elements and Katara ups the ante by using a stack of rice-cakes as wagers, evenly dividing the cakes into two piles.
"One, two, three," Zuko says, forming the air sign by holding his hands out perpendicular to the table. Simultaneously, Katara holds up three fingers to represent fire.
"Tough luck," she says, collecting a rice-cake from Zuko's pile. "Your turn." She watches his face, trying to decide what element he'll go with. Not fire, that's too obvious. The opposite? Water? But maybe that's what he wants her to think. She narrows her eyes and counts to three, quickly forming the fire sign again. Zuko smirks over his closed fist — the earth sign — and takes his rice-cake back.
"We should play Hide and Explode after this," she says and Zuko stares. "What? Aang mentioned it once. It's a traditional Fire Nation game, isn't it?"
"Yes," Zuko agrees slowly.
"If you don't want to, that's fine," Katara says. "If you think I'll win — "
"I'll play," Zuko says instantly.
"Okay, but you can't get mad when I keep beating you." Katara pauses and a small silence stretches on. "Uh...what are the rules?"
Zuko looks like he's won already.
Of course he'd only tell her it's a firebending game after he'd agreed to play. Katara fumes as she hunts through the ship. The overcast day has given way to an early sunset, the sky already darkening outside as Katara creeps through dusky shadows.
The first place she checks is the forecastle, deciding that it would be a good hiding place. She ducks amongst the hammocks, tripping over coils of rope and mooring lines. She stumbles around, checking in every hammock and behind every hulking heap of tangled ropes and buoys. No firebender lurks, no eyes gleam in the dark.
Katara walks from the quarters, trying not to show her nervousness just in case Zuko is watching. She hates to admit it but she half-expects him to leap out and grab her...
Don't be stupid, she tells herself. That's something Sokka would do. One of his lame tricks.
She walks down the dark passageway and slowly pushes open the door to her own cabin. Zuko wouldn't dare hide in there, would he? A quick search gives Katara the answer: no.
Next is Zuko's cabin. She edges inside, instantly checking behind the door. She thinks, darkly, that she can trace this fear back to her childhood days. Hakoda used to lurk behind snow drifts and grab her as she went past, laughing as she squealed in fear and then indignation, hitting him with tiny and ineffectual fists. Later on, Sokka would do the same, laughing helplessly as she jumped and shrieked.
She grins a little, however, remembering how he suddenly stopped playing those tricks after she mastered the art of waterbending all his snow forts into puddles.
Zuko's cabin is empty and she leaves it, walking along to the galley and scullery. Both are tiny and easily searchable by just a glance. No Zuko.
Down into the engine room, then. A solitary lantern swings from the ceiling, illuminating someone.
Azula.
Katara has seen her in the crow's nest a lot lately, or lurking in an unfrequented area of the deck. The girl seems to be keeping her distance recently. Katara herself still has mixed feelings; she wants to forgive Azula — it's hard to be angry at someone who isn't truly there, and there's no use dwelling on it anyway — but Zuko's words still haunt her. She manipulated you...
Azula turns her head slightly.
"Zuko isn't here," she says. Katara hesitates.
"There's stew in the galley if you're hungry."
Azula doesn't answer, her gaze embedded deep within the darkness of the furnace, and Katara leaves the quiet room. She climbs deftly up the ladder and makes her way to the deck, frowning and looking around. Zuko isn't anywhere in immediate sight. Perhaps he's in the hold, she muses, checking underneath a small vessel. Rain patters around her and she lets it soak into her hair, her clothes, her skin.
Or perhaps he really is in the engine room and Azula was lying, she thinks as she glances behind the windlass. After all, Azula always lies...Katara glances to the crow's nest, then does a double take.
Of course! She grins and makes her way across the slippery deck, climbing the rain-slicked footholds with care and at last she pauses at the top, both arms clinging to the mast as she leans outwards and grins at Zuko, sitting awkwardly in the cramped lookout.
"I was nearly ready to give up," she shouts against the rain as her hair flicks wildly across her face. This game isn't so bad after all. Hide and Explode.
Wait —
Mindful of Katara's vicarious position, Zuko grabs her wrist and raises his other fist to the sky, issuing an explosion of fire. Katara laughs as the flames burst brightly across the night sky.
"I'm supposed to do it just before you find me, to shock you," Zuko says, raising his voice as the rain steals all silence, "but I didn't think it was a good idea, with you on the footholds and all."
"I'm glad you didn't," Katara says, squeezing in next to him. "Is it your turn now?"
"I think I should change first," Zuko admits, and Katara reaches out to touch his tunic.
"You're soaked! And your hands are icy," she shivers, recalling his touch as he steadied her. "Honestly, who hides on a mast in the middle of pouring rain?"
"I can warm up," Zuko says defensively, producing a flame.
"I can stop the rain altogether," Katara says, smiling and lifting her hands. The rain curves around them, additional water flying away from them as she bends the rain from their clothes. "This is a good hiding spot," she admits. "If it hadn't been for Azula, I probably would have given up."
"Azula gave me away?" Zuko says unhappily.
"Well, I remembered she's been up here a lot lately," Katara confesses.
Zuko frowns. "I wonder what she was doing up here."
"Maybe she was hiding too." Katara holds her hands to the flame, warming them up.
"Don't get too close."
"I know how to avoid your flames."
They fall into a comfortable silence for a while. Katara listens to the soothing sussuration of the rain, wondering if it's raining wherever Aang, Toph and Sokka are. She misses them suddenly; Zuko is surprisingly good company, but she misses Aang's cheerful smile, Toph's sarcastic remarks — even Sokka's lame jokes. You know it's bad when you start missing Sokka's terrible puns, she tells herself.
Nevertheless surely they would be searching for her. Would they have returned to the Fire Nation, thinking she had fled into hiding in the city somewhere? Or perhaps they somehow know of the missing ship and are searching the seas right now. She stares into the night sky, watching a cloud scud across the moon and wishing it was Appa's shadow instead.
A sudden cramp of pain seizes her right hand and she winces. It happens often when she waterbends for an extended amount of time, but she hopes it will fade in time. For now, the best she can do is ease her waterbending, allowing more rain to come through, and try to relax her hand a little.
She looks up and catches Zuko staring at her hand. He must have seen her wince, she realises.
"Just a little cramp," she says with a taut smile. He looks up and frowns, then glances towards the sky.
"Can you see the Helio Sequence?" he asks, and Katara recognises the deliberate distraction.
"Well, it's a little overcast, but I think that's the first star there, isn't it?" She points to the formation.
"No, that's the end of Agni's Arrow."
"No, it's not. That's Agni's Arrow, over there."
"Really?" Zuko says skeptically. "What's that star, then?" He points.
"That? That is the moon, Zuko."
"Oh, very funny. I meant the star near it."
She laughs at him, the pain in her hand already fading.
The moon is a clear circle of perfect white and the stars, although misted by clouds, are visible occasionally. Yet, as Azula prowls the ship, she notes the maps lie forgotten upon floors and the helm lists emptily. The coals in the engine room stay cold and the sea ahead remains a dark enigma. The ship is, mysteriously, bereft of any navigational activity. Azula stands alone on the deck, gazing skyward to the soft glow of fire emanating from the crow's nest.
Perhaps another person gazing at that glow would call it warm. A warm glow. Red is a warm colour, a passionate colour. Next to it, Azula's blue flame would look cold, as icy as winter.
But Azula knows, she knows, yes, she knows that the blue flame holds the most heat of all. In its deep heart lies a fire and blazing heat that ends all others. She wields it like the weapon it is, this strange thing that holds more warmth than all of her heart, all of her memories, all of the lovely things she's spoiled.
So she closes her eyes and dreams, dreams of lightning and faces that cry out as they drift alone down the galleries of space and time.
Zuko wakes early.
Today, they will finally begin moving again.
But are they going in the right direction? He had woken early with the intention of doing some firebending training, but he ends up poring over the maps instead, staring at the little dot in the mountains of the Earth Kingdom.
Sun.
He's never been one for heart-to-hearts, and he's made a good effort so far to hide his doubt from Katara. But...
It's hypocritical, he thinks, to warn Katara about his crazy sister's manipulative nature when he's the one to ultimately choose this course, based on a half-forgotten lullaby and Azula's mumblings. Who knows where she's taking them?
He wants to go home. Home, to the Fire Nation. Mai will be waiting for him, and the turtleducks will be looking for bread, and the maple trees will be coming into colour, and his soft, comfortable bed will be there...
But of course, he thinks bitterly, all those things have been taken from him again. He remembers, on the eve of his coronation, Mai warning him never to leave her again...
...and now he's left. No letter this time, no goodbye. He stares gloomily at the map. Will she understand that he had no choice? Or will she think he deliberately fled?
"Zuko?"
He looks around, startled from his reverie. Katara stands in the doorway, balancing two bowls of rice.
"Breakfast," she says, and he stands up, taking a bowl from her.
"Oh. Thanks."
She sits opposite him and frowns, tilting her head to look at the map. "Double-checking our course?"
Zuko nods. It's easier than telling the truth. Nevertheless, Katara doesn't look convinced. She slowly eats a few mouthfuls of rice, looking thoughtful. Zuko notices she's still using her left hand to manipulate the chopsticks; her right hand remains resting in her lap. After a long moment, she speaks.
"Do you think they're looking for us?"
"Who?" Zuko says, instantly thinking of Mai.
"Everybody, I guess." Katara looks at the map a little forlornly. "I'm sure they would be searching on Appa...wouldn't they?"
Zuko remembers Katara has people she left behind too — more people than him. Her brother, her father, her boyfriend, her friends.
"I don't know. Nobody knows where we went. For all they know, we're still in the Fire Nation. Hiding somewhere."
"They can't go there," Katara says immediately. "When we left, it was chaos. So many people were hurt...what if the rioters are targeting people from other nations?" Her hand creeps towards her necklace. Zuko's noticed it's an unconscious habit she has, as if reassuring herself it's still there.
"They'll be fine," he says, wishing he hadn't said anything. Katara looks quite worried now. "Aang's the Avatar. Nobody's going to attack him."
She still doesn't look very reassured — but at least she brightens up after breakfast, when Zuko rolls up the map and asks if she's ready to take the helm.
"Finally," she says.
He just hopes they're going the right way.
The journey seems to continue smoothly, marked only by one notable storm. Katara loves watching the wild rain lash the deck, the bruised clouds rolling in low and dark.
"We don't get any storms at the South Pole," she tells Zuko later in the evening, after finding him in the captain's room. He's rifling through scrolls and searching among the maps for something. "What are you looking for?"
"The captain's logbook," Zuko says. "Have you seen it?"
"You mean this one?" Katara casually picks up the logbook from beneath a pile of maps. "I already filled it in."
"Did you mark the distance?"
"Checked it twice with the astrolabe. We travelled twenty leagues today."
Zuko gives her a slight smile.
Azula likes wandering round this old metal beast that roars on the water, hungry for salt and sea. She likes it better at night, when everything is dark and the senses are dulled.
But it is not night, no. There's daylight, thick and strong and heavy on her, like a sad song. But Azula doesn't like music. Music is for weak people, people who need to sing to survive.
Azula lives her life by no tune; there is no lullaby for her childhood and no sweet melody in her future.
Lullabies. Someone sung one to her once, only she can't remember what it is and she's so angry she doesn't care. She remembers there was a moon mentioned in it somewhere.
That water girl, she has something to do with the moon. That makes Azula hate her even more, that motherless child of the lunar star. She wants to kill her and she decides she will, and maybe then the moon will stop staring at her, that pale eye that fills her with loathing.
But the madness comes again, and she forgets what she was looking for. A person, she thinks. For a very long time, it was a person. But then she forgot the details, and it became an idea, a memory she was looking for.
And now it just feels like she's endlessly searching for a state of mind.
Katara finds herself being hot and cold with the Azula; some days, in a fit of pity, Katara is polite and almost gentle towards her — yet other days, she's unable to stop herself from glaring at her and fuming over the burn incident. Sometimes she's caught between the two attitudes and finds herself polite but guarded, avoiding Azula to spare herself the discomfort of an unexpected meeting.
Like now. Katara would never admit it to herself, but the real reason she's filling in the captain's logbook behind the capstan rather than in the wheelroom is not simply a matter of fresh air.
Footsteps. Spirits help her, surely Azula hasn't found her here? Katara peers around the capstan. No — it's Zuko. She frowns. He's got a smudge of engine grease on his nose and is looking distinctly displeased.
"Zuko?"
He looks around, startled.
"Katara? What are you doing there?"
"Nothing." Not hiding from your crazy sister and her bizarre conversations. "What happened?"
"The engine stopped working."
Katara had assumed they'd stopped early for the night. The engines had stopped a little sooner than usual, but she hadn't thought too much of it as she locked the helm and got the logbook. Just assumed Zuko had been unusually tired or something.
"Well, what broke?" she asks.
"The engine."
"I got that. What part of the engine?"
"I don't know! The part that makes it go," Zuko retorts.
"Well, figure out which part. You were on a ship for three years, I'm sure you've dealt with breakdowns before," Katara says with a shrug.
There's a long silence. A shifty expression steals over Zuko's face and Katara frowns.
"You've fixed engines before, right? Right?"
"Well — not personally," Zuko says awkwardly. "I mean, I've been on ships that have broken down."
"You've got to be kidding. Three years on a ship and you can't fix an engine?"
"I was the captain! Captains don't fix ships! That job is for — "
"Peasants?"
" — crewmen," Zuko finishes, glaring at her.
"Well, well," Katara says, perhaps a little smugly. "Isn't this interesting. I can fix a Fire Nation cruiser engine and you can't."
"What? You can fix it?"
"Don't look so surprised." Katara stands up and tucks the logbook away, dusting her hands off. Zuko follows her as she makes her way below deck and down into the boiler-room. It's a mess — there's spanners, screwdrivers and smudges of grease everywhere. Katara gives Zuko an accusatory look.
"What's all this?"
"I was trying to fix it."
"Spirits help me," she sighs. "Have you disassembled anything?"
"I was trying to, but — "
"Good. Light the furnace."
Zuko looks as though he's about to protest again, but takes one look at her face and lights the furnace.
"Bit hotter," she says, edging around a boiler. "Bit more. Bit more."
"What are you doing? Those copper pipes get hot," Zuko says warningly.
"I know. Just a little more heat."
She picks her way along the pipes, then smiles. "Zuko, come look at this. See all that steam coming out of the pipe? It's got a leak. That's all the problem is. It can't create enough pressure to keep the engine going."
She can't help but laugh at his surprised expression.
It's a memory she nearly forgot. Her time spent on the Fire Nation cruiser as Aang healed from Azula's lightning and her friends gathered their strength for the Sozin's Comet invasion. The engine had broken down momentarily and Katara — still waiting for Aang to wake up — had grown bored and accompanied Teo's father to the boiler room to help fix the problem.
"Trust me," she says to Zuko as he welds the faulty pipe, "when a steam engine has a breakdown, it's usually either a leaky pipe losing pressure, or it explodes and kills everyone."
Zuko seems quite interested in the anecdote, particularly in the strategies used by the Water Tribe soldiers and their allies, wanting to hear more details about how Hakoda managed to take on a Fire Nation fleet and secure a vessel with such small numbers.
"Your father definitely knows some good strategies," he tells her, and Katara feels a surge of pride.
"That's how he earned the place of chief," she says. "And after years of fighting, I guess my father learned a lot. How the enemy's ships work, how their weapons work."
"How long was he away for?" Zuko asks.
The question throws her off. She can't really remember. "Well, soon after my mother died...I would have been around ten when he left."
"And when did he come back?"
Katara frowns. "He...I'm not really sure." She trails off. "I mean, he came home once to gather the last men of fighting age, but he left again soon after. He brought us some souvenirs and told us a few crazy stories. Looking back now, I think he made most of them up. Stories about earthbenders creating huge cities in a single movement, or firebenders who could control the sun."
"Could be true." Zuko sounds faintly amused. He finishes the weld and sits back, checking over his handiwork. Katara, lost in thought, doesn't reply. He never came back...
In a sense, she lost her father as well as her mother. Before her mother's death — before he went away to war — he was always telling crazy stories or playing pranks with Bato, or sharing lame jokes with Sokka. And of course he still did that. But there was also a distance there. She often caught her father gazing at nothing, or sitting silently by the water spirit shrines. And while he often shared funny stories about his journeys, he never discussed anything serious.
But what was it really like? Sokka had asked him once. What's it like, going to war?
And her father had tried making a lame joke about hot-headed firebenders, and when Sokka had pressed the matter, their father had simply gone quiet and went for a long walk.
Yes; her father had gone away to war and never really come back.
"Katara?"
She snaps out of her reverie. Zuko is looking at her, an eyebrow raised.
"I was asking what Hakoda would be doing now that he's back home and isn't needed for a war."
It's a good question. Her father has always thrived on helping others, taking control, organising, debriefing, strategising. What will he do now?
"I'm not sure," she says honestly. "All I know is, he'll be busy. He always has to be doing something."
Zuko looks like he approves of that attitude. Katara opens her mouth, about to ask a similar question of Zuko — what happened to Ozai? but realises he probably doesn't know. Ozai was imprisoned the last time Zuko saw him, but who knows what has happened since they left the Fire Nation.
She wonders what it would be like, having Ozai as a father. Was there ever a time when he was kind to his children, caring, or at least attentive? Surely, when he first held his newborn child, there was some semblance of affection...
Zuko is looking at her. "You were just about to say something?" he prompts.
"Nothing, I was just...it's getting dark, we should start cooking dinner."
To her relief, he just nods and follows her to the galley.
After the engine is repaired, the days pass as quickly and fluidly as the water that flows through Katara's hands. Both she and Zuko are kept busy by the constant demands of the ship: stoking the furnace, manning the helm, keeping all equipment in order, monitoring the food and fuel supply, filling the captain's logbook, navigating by the charts and stars.
However, Katara wishes there was more spare time during their busy days and restful nights. Time for another game of Pai Sho, for more conversations, for them to lean over the deck railing and tell stories, stories of foreign lands and legends of constellations. But the ship keeps them busy with its hunger for fuel and demand for constant maintenance.
Nevertheless, Katara sometimes finds time to seek Zuko out and ask him questions, questions he's always able to answer. It's a windy autumn evening when Katara asks him about a certain knowledge guardian.
"Have you heard of Wan Shi Tong?"
She's sitting in the wheelroom, as usual, facing Zuko. He, in turn, has just finished marking the last of the leagues travelled for the day. She waits for him to nod in assent, as ever, but instead he leans forward, the dying sunlight angling across his face.
"The name sounds familiar," he says.
"The knowledge spirit that guards the spirit-world library," Katara elaborates and he frowns.
"I thought that was just a myth."
"No," Katara replies. "Wan Shi Tong brought his library into the physical world. Into the middle of a desert, to be exact." She pauses. "I've been there."
Zuko leans forward. "Really? What did you find?"
Katara settles back, the sunlight fading as she tells her story. Azula stops by the doorway and Katara pauses a moment, expecting the girl to do something, but she merely watches silently, and Katara continues her tale.
"...and poor Toph had to choose between the library and Appa," Katara says, finishing her story. Zuko leans back.
"So that's how the bison got stolen," he says, "and ended up in Lake Laogai."
"Where you set him free," Katara says, looking at the firebender in front of her and suddenly thinking how of far he'd come from the angry prince who first sent fire cartwheeling across the icy plains of her childhood.
He checks the maps, oblivious to her thoughts, and glances up at her again, looking reinvigorated.
"We should see the coastline soon. Not tomorrow. Maybe the day after, if we make good time."
Katara feels both apprehensive and pleased about that. The next step of their journey will begin...and she won't have to steer anymore. She doesn't mind the callouses lining her palm, but her right hand still begins to ache if she grips something too long or tries particularly lengthy waterbending techniques.
She looks down at her palm and wonders if it will leave a scar.