Collectibles

Choices

Song Number Fourteen: Twisted by Carrie Underwood

Quote: I'm caught up and I'm hangin' on/I'm gonna love you even if it's wrong…

Summary: Katara didn't care anymore. Who she loved was her choice. And if she loved Zuko…well, that was her decision.

Hakoda shuffled some papers around, looking for two specific ones. His desk was littered with piles of parchment and unfurled scrolls, each one separated into one of three groups: 'yes,' 'no,' and 'maybe.'

The 'no' pile was, by far, the largest and had taken up most of the Southern Chief's desk and part of his floor. They were meaningless offers presented by unknown families or old men with an excess of money. Hakoda wanted his daughter to marry well, but he didn't want her married to some old man who was liable to kick the proverbial bucket at any given moment. Katara deserved happiness, a family, and a life.

The 'maybes' were starting to meld with the 'no's. After all, the chief had two solid 'yeses' and one shakier one. Why keep the 'maybes' around? Still, there were some nice noble families in that stack. A cousin of the Bei Fongs (it might be nice for Katara to be related to one of her friends. Even if it was a grungy little girl with little patience for manners and a talent for being, perhaps, too blunt), somebody related to Arnook's uncle, a young man who lived in the cushy Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se with his well-to-do parents… All nice prospects, but eventual 'no's nevertheless.

Finally discovering the two definite 'yes' papers, Hakoda presented them to his scowling daughter, saying, "These are the two young men Chief Arnook and I decided on, Katara. We…we want you to choose."

"Oh, yay," she replied, her falsely happy tone deeply sarcastic. "I get to choose."

"Katara," her father sighed, "I know this isn't the most ideal of situations, but-"

"But I'm here to serve my people, not my heart, right?" Katara snapped, her voice loud in the otherwise quiet room. Her father's soft glare was enough to silence her and make her sigh in resignation. "Who are they?" she asked, closing her eyes in preparation for the words to come.

"Arnook's nephew Askook and King Kuei's cousin's son Hadyn." Katara's eyes snapped open, and Hakoda found himself staring into the exact replications of Kaya's own eyes. They were the exact same shape, the same shade of blue. The only difference was the emotions burning in the depths of his daughter's eyes. Kaya had been such a peaceful woman, so in awe with the world around her, though it rarely ever changed and was fraught with hatred and death.

Katara's eyes were jaded, filled with knowledge beyond her young years. Hakoda often wondered what his youngest child had seen, what sort of living nightmares she had endured in order to help her airbending friend save the world. It was moments like this that scared him. It was like he could see the entire war in her eyes.

"What about Zuko?" she demanded softly, her voice calm, unaware of how her dad could read her betraying eyes like a book. "Which of your piles did he end up in, Dad?"

After a brief moment of tense silence, Hakoda replied.

"He was our third yes, Katara."

"Then why do I only have two papers?"

"Chief Arnook wasn't so sure about the alliance. I agree with him."

Katara's scowl deepened. "How could you agree with that?! Do you know how much effort and time Zuko put in to convincing his advisors that an alliance between our nations was of vital importance?" she exclaimed. "You and Chief Arnook are looking for the best possible political alliance for our tribes. Zuko's advisors are looking for the best one for the Fire Nation. It's a logical choice!"

"We just…didn't think it best with their history, Katara," Hakoda explained.

"Someone's gonna have to do it, Dad. Who better than us?"

Hakoda frowned, sensing something deeper behind his daughter's insistence. "Katara, why are you pushing so hard for Zuko? Don't you want to consider-"

"I love him, Dad."

The words were so quiet that he almost missed them, but catch on to them he did. He blinked at his daughter, dumbfounded. She was staring persistently at her hands which were bunching the fabric of her parka. At first, he thought he hadn't heard her correctly, but then she looked up at him, her jaw set in a way that he had often seen on Sokka.

"I love him," Katara said a bit louder. "And he loves me back. And that may not mean anything to you or Chief Arnook, but it means something to me. So you know what, Dad? I don't care anymore. I'm done with trying to please everybody! I'm done with trying to be perfect and trying to conform to what everyone else thinks of me. I've done that for two years, now. Zuko is the only person I can be myself around! He doesn't have some twisted sense of who I am. The past two months were the best of my life since Mom died and you left us! I was me, Dad!" She was crying now, tears snaking one by one from her eyes.

Hakoda opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"You can try to marry me off to one of these guys," Katara waved the proposals under his nose as she rose from her seat, "but I won't do it. I don't care anymore! Who I love is my choice! I won't be oppressed because of my status in this tribe. I want to be Katara for once. I'm Katara with him, Dad.

"I can yell, I can cry, I can be the happiest damn person in the world: Zuko doesn't care! He lets me be me. Do you know what it's like to find someone like that, Dad?"

He did, and he had never found it again after Kaya was murdered. Did he really want to do that to his only daughter?

"I've been Aang's vision of perfection, I've been Sokka's mother, I've been this tribe's princess, I've been a healer, a bloodbender, a waterbending master…and nothing has ever made me more happy that being myself with Zuko."

With that said, Katara stepped out of the room. Hakoda watched her go in silence, accepting her decision and pulling Zuko's contract from where the 'maybes' were meeting up with the 'no' pile.

O-kay, you guys. The next one is the last one. I'll get it up really soon, and after that I swear I'll get up the next chapter of Shaping Destiny. I'm working on it right now.

Let me know what you thought of this one.

Love,

EmbracingRain