I would post these notes at the end of the chapter, but they're going here because reasons.
If you like superhero stories/themes, last week in a fit of insomnia I posted a chapter – let's call it a teaser – for a future Zuko/Katara story called "Vigilante Justice."
I know I said this a few months/chapters ago, but I absolutely hate the title of this story. And even though I've told a few people that I probably wouldn't change it, it turns out that was a big fat lie. So when I post the next update, the title of this story will be "Together at the Horizon." Read into that what you will.
Also, did I watch Princess Mononoke for the first time in a few years last weekend? You tell me.
All right! Less talk, more reading!
Katara pulled out the map Toph and Zuko had found the night before while exploring the catacombs beneath Taku's temple. She impatiently elbowed Sokka when he breathed in her ear too heavily. "You know, you're not the only one in this group who can navigate," she snapped.
When she had transformed that morning, Zuko presented the map with flourish and a rather promising kiss. She had allowed herself to drool for a few moments before waking up her brother for a good, old-fashioned Southern Water Tribe adventure, just the two of them. Even Zuko had hung back at camp with Toph and Aang in his hawk form.
Katara had conveniently forgotten how domineering Sokka could be when it came to navigating, though.
"Yeah, yeah, old habits," Sokka said in lieu of an apology. "We're sure that it's this peak though? We don't exactly have an air bison to hop on if she's on a different one."
Katara shoved the map in his hands. "Check if you like, but this is the one," she said, sticking her chin out and walking ahead. She rounded a bend in the path and saw a sign that made her smirk. Sokka was wrestling to fold the map back down when she hit his arm and pointed.
"Yeah yeah," Sokka grumbled and pocketed the map. "You don't have to say it."
The path was well maintained, and it took them little time to reach the bottom of an endless set of stairs cut into the face of the mountain. They looked at each other, the sun, where it was already halfway down to the horizon, and back up the stairs.
"Well, now seems as good a time as any to set up camp," Sokka said as he unstrapped his bag and dropped it to the ground.
Sokka had shocked Katara during the journey from the Stone Fingers. The Sokka she grew up with and knew before his transcontinental sojourn would have waited for one of the women in the group (her) to start cooking dinner. This new Sokka, though, brought out a small block to chop food on and even carried salt and spices. This excursion was no different. When she returned from gathering water from a stream, he already had a fire started and some roots chopped and rice measured out, ready to toss in the pot.
"So I see that you've got a culinary side now," she said as she set the pot near the fire.
He did blush a little, but his jaw had a proud set to it. "Yeah, I had to figure out a few things on my own, and I knew when Toph joined up that there was no way she was going to coddle me. But she's very handy in finding root vegetables and making hunting pits."
Katara smiled, wondering what other little new traits he had picked up. Did he still snore like an elephant seal? Did he still try to hit on any woman between the ages of 18 and 34? She guessed not, since his relationship with Toph seemed platonic. She was proud of her big brother, and a little sad that he had grown up so much without her around.
"Katara, what are you going to do after?" Sokka broke her train of thought.
"You mean after jumping Zuko and trying to make you as uncomfortable as possible?" She asked mischievously. He made retching sounds, and she laughed. "Stick with Aang, I guess. I was there when he realized that he could waterbend and figured out what he was. He's still a kid, you know? Nobody should have to face that by himself."
"Well don't you ever think about coming home and helping us rebuild?"
Katara paused, and opened her mouth a few times before the right words came out. "I don't even know where home is any more." She sounded small and she hated that. "But I'm not sure it's at the South Pole, even if everyone returned. I've been gone for half of my life now."
Sokka looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. "You know we would accept you back. We've all missed you."
Katara wasn't so sure how far that acceptance would go. "They'd have a hard time accepting me back, and there's zero chance they'd like having a banished prince from the Fire Nation around."
"Things have changed, you don't know-"
"Sokka, I don't belong there anymore. You and Dad left me. I know he didn't really have a choice, but he left me in a pit of vipers," she interrupted sharply. "I came to terms with the idea of never seeing the South again a long time ago."
Sokka stared into the fire with a dark expression. Katara tried not to think about the first two years. The new Fire Lord paraded her around at dinners for a few months, bidding her to bend water for them, before forgetting her about her until she was under Iroh's protection. She could barely form a bubble, and the courtiers laughed at her and called her barbaric. The Princess seemed nice enough at first, but that sweetness just turned out to be sugar on the edge of a razor blade.
The only companion she found was a reluctant boy who also missed his mother. True, he didn't really go out of his way to be nice to her before Iroh returned, but he hadn't been cruel either, which had been enough to gain a homesick nine-year-old's trust. He had begrudgingly let her trail him around the gardens and halls, and while he turned red when Azula and her cronies teased him about it, he never lashed out at her or told her to stop.
"I was getting ready to visit you," his voice was small in the waning light. "When we heard about Zuko's banishment."
Katara felt a pulse behind her eye from the conversation. "How did you know-"
"Iroh sent us letters once he adopted you. He knew that you couldn't risk writing us without it looking like you in collusion with us, but he let us know little things, like when you mastered waterbending and the first time you beat him at Pai Sho. When you beat Zuko in a sparring match," he smiled wistfully. "He was trying to broker a deal where we could come visit when everything happened," he said. "Dad thought he was going to try to help us rebuild the South as part of a marriage contract for you and Zuko."
She felt like her world was tipping sideways. So many things from her time with Iroh made sense. Why he insisted she wear red in public and watch her words. She might have been a pawn, but she still represented a threat. The barbed comments and snickers behind her back had stopped once a spar with Azula ended when she held an ice pick to the princess's neck.
"But Katara, it's been a year since you really spent time with Zuko. He's a great guy and all, but how are you sure that it isn't just – I don't know – puppy love?"
She closed her eyes and swallowed, her throat thick. "I worry about that too." She couldn't voice all of the possibilities that looped through her mind during those exhausted quiet times she wished for sleep instead: what if the only reason they had stuck together was because of their curse? What if they have changed into two completely different people from where they were when the curse began? What if they were still too young, and would find other people they would rather spend their lives with? They paralyzed her if she let their chorus overtake her thoughts.
After a painful minute, Sokka spoke again. "I'm sorry for bringing all of this up right now, Katara. I guess maybe we should focus on the next two weeks first."
"Are you going back?" He voice betrayed how worried she was. "Or are you going North, or are you gathering our people?"
Sokka shook his head. "I don't know. I've been so focused on finding you before Solstice for the past few months that I haven't thought about it either. We'll see what happens I guess."
"Yeah, I guess," Katara, feeling smaller and more exhausted than she had in weeks.
Sokka grumbled the next morning when Katara woke him shortly after she changed back. It was strange going even a day without seeing Zuko, and she found she missed the constant companionship of the hawk on her shoulder.
Katara bent the stairs clear of the thin sheet of ice that slicked over them in the morning. As the sun rose and the ice melted, she still found herself removing water to make the steps less slippery.
They reached the round stone gate by late morning. Both siblings were panting and sweating heavily beneath their cloaks and took a moment to pass a water skin back and forth. Katara took in the institute while fanning herself and loosening the scarf around her neck. The courtyard was in disrepair, and she thought she saw an entrance to a garden behind the lower pagoda. Higher up the slope sat another pagoda, but it looked like nobody had lived there for decades.
"I hope Kyoshi knew what she was talking about," Katara grumbled to Sokka. He nodded in agreement.
A movement near the garden entrance made Katara reflexively reach for her knife. She relaxed when it turned out to be a white cat. Sokka had also brought his boomerang out, and she playfully shoved him and he smiled back before they walked toward the cat.
It was indeed a garden, and a hunched woman with stark white hair bent over a shrubby herb. She muttered under her breath, and Katara couldn't make anything out.
Sokka coughed to get the old woman's attention, and she whipped her head up to stare at them faster than she looked like she could move. Her bun was haphazard and frizzy, and her mouth collapsed in on itself so it looked like she no longer had lips. She had more wrinkles than anyone else Katara had ever seen before, but her sharp eyes were a brilliant green, like buds in spring. Sokka stepped back in surprise, but Katara stood her ground.
"Good morning," she started, bowing in respect. "We didn't mean to startle you, but news of your skills have traveled far, and we request your help." The formal speech rolled off her tongue by second-nature, and she was a little relieved she could still pull off that refined edge.
The woman cackled. "Oh Miyuki, what have you brought me today! These mice look more like fish to me – have you been playing in the pond again?" The woman leaned down to the white cat's level and tweaked its nose while it rubbed against her leg.
Katara felt her heart drop. For all the awareness behind her eyes, this woman was insane.
"Many Earth Kingdom troops have stopped here and I always patch them up better than when they came in. Yes, it has been too long since I saw those nice Earth Kingdom boys," the woman prattled on. "Strong boys, like ostrich horses. But what are two fish doing here, looking so dried far from the sea?"
Katara swallowed her discomfort. In the corner of her eye, Sokka shifted his weight and discreetly placed his hand on the pummel of his machete. "I'm trying to access the Spirit World," she said. "And we heard you might know of herbs that can help."
The woman narrowed her eyes at Katara. "It does no good to meddle in the realm of the spirits," she said and reached a thin claw-like hand out toward Katara's arm. "Off to find your sweetheart there? So many young girls try. I'm sorry to say more than a few of them attempt it by throwing themselves from my back step if I won't help them in their quest."
Katara looked down and covered the woman's gnarled hand with her own. The herbalist's hand was ice cold, covered in an aging topography of veins. "The spirits have meddled with me, and I seek justice," she said simply.
The woman' hand snatched up and grabbed Katara's chin. She held Katara's face still and searched her eyes for something for a long moment. Katara was afraid to blink. The herbalist chuckled low.
"Well it looks like I was wrong about you. You are not a fish at all, are you? I have just the thing for you," she patted Katara's cheek with her free hand and released Katara's face. "Miyuki! Watch our visitors while I fill this little wolf's order." She hobbled to a greenhouse at the end of the garden.
Katara bent to put her hands on her knees and inhaled sharply, feeling as though she had just passed a test of a sort.
Sokka exhaled slowly, as though he hadn't breathed during the whole exchange. He leaned toward her. "Okay, little wolf," he whispered. "How much creepier could this get?"
Miyuki the cat yowled at him, and Sokka jerked back upright. The cat sat, staring the two of them down silently, until the woman returned.
"All right, fierce little wolf, brew this as a tea," she said as she handed Katara a fat envelope the size of her hand. "There is enough there you can take a few trips to sort out your business with the spirits. And don't forget to come back for your moon tea once you work things through with your sweetheart."
Katara sputtered thanks, and asked the woman what payment she required. "Tell my Earth Kingdom boys to come back and visit. And I hope to see you again as well! I'll start making a new batch just for you."
The woman led them back to the gate, and watched until they were out of sight down the stairs.
It wasn't until they reached the bottom that Sokka spoke again. "Can we double-time it off this mountain? And if you come back here for your moon tea, make Zuko go with you."
The tea the herbalist gave Katara helped heighten their senses to the spirits who were constantly around but not noticed by most people. The more they talked about what they saw and heard, the less interested Toph and Sokka were in trying the tea with them.
Katara saw shin-high white spirits near the stream where she refilled their water skins. They lived in the water and the trees. Their eyes and mouths were black voids, and when she spoke to them they twisted their heads to the side and loosened them back quickly, creating a rattling noise. Even at their campsite on the temple balcony, Katara started hearing rattling echo across the mountains and through the empty streets. They never seemed dangerous or threatening, just curious of the human aware of their presence.
Zuko, on the other hand, found he could speak to flames. The first time the cook fire spoke to him, he dropped a pan of fresh turkey duck Sokka had hunted that day, and his face turned a shade of white. The fire sassed him, but he found that if he kept him fed, he was enjoyable company while the rest of the group slept in the deadest part of the night.
For all of the spirits they saw in the physical world, neither was having luck visiting the Spirit World. While sitting on the balcony and meditating while waiting for the sun to set, Katara glimpsed a pool in a forest, and a deer-like spirit with dozens of antlers glowing and its neck elongating before she was pulled back into the physical world by her transformation. Zuko's voice called her name frantically, and her eyes snapped open to see the fear in his retreat. Then the fear was nowhere to be seen and he touched her face with the back of his hand and it was morning again.
Aang met more of his past lives. There was Kuruk the waterbender, Yangchen the airbender, Kobe the firebender, Hu the earthbender, and the cycle kept rewinding until the connections felt more frayed and distant.
They advised him about the Spirit World and shared some of the obstacles they faced in their lifetimes. Kuruk of the Northern Water Tribe knew the Faceless One.
"He's not faceless anymore – he steals others' for his own use. Koh is one of the oldest spirits, and I never figured out how he is able to trap so many humans in his black deals from the Spirit World."
"How does he steal faces?" Aang asked.
"He feeds on emotion. If you keep your faces flat, no matter what is in your heart, you can survive," Kuruk warned. "If he steals your face, you will remain an empty shell for the rest of your life."
"Koh the face-stealer," Aang repeated.
If he slept now, he didn't remember it. He must have, though, because they all said he spoke in his sleep. The others in the group heard one-sided arguments with Sozin, curses at Chin the Conqueror, and once Zuko shook him awake when he screamed at Amon the Equalizer not to take his bending from him.
He forgot how time passed, and constantly checked the countdown to the Solstice they had posted on the wall. He barely ate. The others hushed their conversations around him, and even Katara and Zuko pressed him less to share information on the spirits they saw.
"Aang, I think we need to talk," Katara sat down with him one morning by the campfire while Toph and Sokka discussed possible armor designs for Appa. "You've turned into a different person in the past few days."
"I'm finding out more about the Spirit World," he said, trying to dismiss her concerns. "They're more restless now that the Solstice is close and I'm reaching out to them." He wasn't sure about this, but he wanted to inspire belief.
"As much as Zuko and I appreciate the effort you're putting into this, we need you to be healthy after Solstice too. The world needs you to be able to help," she said gently.
Aang felt a rage like he had never know bubble up and burst all at once. "The world needs to figure out how to solve its own problems. Millions of people need to depend on themselves instead of me." Now that he had started, he couldn't hold back the flood that had built up over weeks. "I'm only sixteen – I wasn't alive when this war started, so why do I have to be the one to end it? One man can only do so much, and it's hard enough to just help you and your boyfriend."
As soon as he looked at Katara, he realized he had gone too far. She stared at a point on the floor, and Aang could see her jaw clench. "I'm sorry that we were such a burden on you. We'll figure something out. Thanks for the help you've offered so far," she said, her voice quiet and dangerous.
"Katara, I'm sorry," he started.
"No, you don't get to say those things and then think it will all be fine" it was her turn to explode and she stepped closer. "We've never asked you to do this by yourself. You think we're going to just leave you to figure out how to end the war on your own in a week? How dare you be so selfish."
Aang felt the rage roll off of her in waves, and his insides were hollow. He didn't react when she shoved him, he just fell into the railing for the balcony. She cried now. "If it's so hard for you to be here, then leave. Go hide out at one of your temples and spend the rest of your life meditating and keep your fucking secret."
He hadn't meant for this to go so far. He didn't believe what he said, and he saw that now. Sokka and Toph had stopped talking and stared at him with wide eyes and open mouths. He felt as disgusted with himself as the others looked. He couldn't apologize, and he couldn't defend himself so he did the only thing he could.
He ran.