Blue
She was emotionless before battle.
Katara wasn't supportive like Aang thought she would be. She didn't make an effort to tell him everything would be alright, or that she believed in him, or that no matter what happened he would always be the winner in her eyes. She didn't say anything at all.
Katara wasn't scared like Toph thought she would be. She didn't pace Appa's saddle, or needlessly sew Sokka's pants to busy herself and take her mind off things, or worry and doubt every little detail in the plan they had made. She didn't do anything at all.
Katara wasn't sad like Sokka thought she would be. She didn't cry over the future, or reminisce with sobs moments of the group's past, or hold Aang extra tight like she normally did on her bad days. In fact, Sokka thought his sister felt nothing at all.
And although Katara didn't feel, she thought long and hard. She sat on the edge of Appa's saddle; like she knew something the others did not, and stared out into the ocean and focused on one thing and one thing only…
Blue. Blue and the color of her tribe, the color of her Gran-Gran and her Papa and Mama. The blue-black of the ocean at night –like the color of Toph's hair- and the blue of Yue's pale moon in the midnight sky, and the sharp blue glare of the never-ending light on the ice –like the color of Sokka's sharp warrior eyes- and the soft blue of her parka and her thread and the glowing-healing blue of her hands.
The blue of the pitter-patter of raindrops and the claps of the thunderstorms, and the vibrant, full-of-life blue from clear nights when it would paint the sky it's moving, living, breathing blue during the arora australis –like the color of Aang's tattoos- . And the blue of the water, her water, her beautiful element given to her by the moon and the ocean, and the blue of her talent and her training and her teaching and her water and her life.
Somewhere along the course of that day of black sun, Katara lost sight of Toph and her hair, and Sokka and his eyes, and Aang and his tattoos, and she was left to fight the battle alone because she left her family and her thread and her parka and the cool breezy blue of home for this crimson blood war.
And when her water- the only bit of blue she has left- runs out, she is forced to take extreme measures and bend the pools of blood around her out of defense, and she knows that the blood is a liquid, and there is water somewhere in there, but she feels as though her life is over, right then and there, because of the color of the Fire Nation's army and the color of the burnt flesh and the color of the blood she's bending and everything around her is just so red.
If the crowd hadn't moved at that exact time, at the perfect angle, then she probably would've died, too. But the crowd did move, and she caught sight of Aang, and yes, his tattoos were blue, but that's not the blue that sucked her breath right out of her.
It was the hurt on his face, the depression she sent him into, his deeply broken innocence, as severed as the bodies that littered the ground. It was the blueness- the sadness she had sent him into by bending the blood of fallen soldiers, that was what hit her in the gut. It was the blue of his heart, the blue of his tears that made her feel so unclean-so horrible and dirty and unworthy. And suddenly Katara didn't know what was worse, the blue of Aang's pain, or the red blood that swam all around her.
Note: I my gosh, I don't know where this came from! It's so sad, it makes me want to jump off a bridge or something! I swear I am a very happy person, I just had to write something sad because I had been working tirelessly on my newest oneshot, and it was just so happy, and I was listening to the sad song "Shadowland" from the Lion King musical, and it made me want to write something sad. Sorry, you guys.
My friend and I were trying to figure out what to call this, and she was like how about Red v.s. Blue, which sent my brother into mad fits of laughter, seeing as how he loves that show.
I know, this story was so prosey it was annoying, and when I read it, it sounds kind of forced and like I was trying to hard, but hey, what can you do.
Review if you liked it, if you didn't…then I'm sorry, my happy one-shot should be here soon!