29~
The Eastern Air Temple was just as beautiful as Aang had promised it would be.
They had arrived several days early to prepare for the sheer number of guests they were expecting (conservative estimates said five hundred) and Katara had not had a chance to sit down since they had arrived. Aang wanted everything perfect. On the main landing pavilion were hung the banners of every nation, food (all vegetarian) had to be prepared in vast quantities, and endless rooms had to be made ready. And to top it off, their numbers were thinned since about half of the adult Airbenders had gone out with their flying bison to collect said guests for whom the banners hung and the food was cooked and the rooms prepared.
Katara did not mind the work at all. In fact she relished it because it took her mind off the misery she knew she would shortly be causing Aang. And it wasn't like she was happy about ending things either: she did love him. Just not enough to make up for everything else. And the other good thing about the work was that it let her avoid Malu. Her opinion about the old Airbender had not softened just because their views about Aang dating her suddenly coincided a little better. It wasn't for the same reasons, and Malu had still tried to break them up all those months ago. So avoiding her was the best of bad options.
The first guests to arrive were from the eastern Earth Kingdom and Ba Sing Se, since they were closest, which meant that she got to see Iroh again. She was shocked at how much his hair had whitened, and how gingerly he moved. The heart problems Zuko had spoken of must be really serious, she thought behind her delighted smile as she and Aang greeted him. He wanted a rest and an Airbender child led him to his room, but by then more guests were arriving and Katara got busy.
She stayed busy for the next thirty hours as everyone arrived. She helped a lot of people with altitude sickness and some with motion sickness just as they came off their bison, and very few people were expecting the air to be so thin, or knew how to deal with it. She was the de facto head of first aid until she could show some of the Airbenders what to do, and by then Sokka and the rest of her family were arriving. Greetings were effusive and lengthy and Katara came out of them feeling refreshed and happy and then walked right into Zuko who had just arrived from the Fire Nation with his delegation of Jeong-Jeong, Piandao, and several advisors and governors. Some part of her mind registered that there were three women with him, but all were too old for him.
"Oh," she said. "Hi."
"Hey," he replied blankly. He blinked his clear, honest, amber eyes. In the hubbub of the crowded pavilion, they had a perfect silence. That insidious something was back, nosing hopefully at her resolve. She shoved it away.
"Your uncle got here earlier," she said, sweating. "He's resting. I'll ask someone to show you to his room."
"Alright. Thank you. Katara. Good to see you again."
"Likewise."
Once he was gone, there was a moment when she had to seriously resist smacking herself on the head. If such a simple conversation got her so worked up, it was a good thing she was breaking up with Aang: he deserved someone better than her.
A/N
Oof, that last line though. I thought it was important to touch on the issue of someone "deserving" another person, partially because it seemed to play such a big part of the canon ending, and also because it's an incredibly insidious idea in real life that a lot of people believe. NOBODY "DESERVES" TO "HAVE"/"GET" ANOTHER PERSON, KIDS. Katara's gonna have to work her way out of that idea the hard way. In the mean time, she's living her life by the rule "you can't control how you feel but you can control how you act", which I think is a great rule and highly applicable here.
Tomorrow, things come to a head...
All characters are owned by Bryke, Nick, and Viacom
E.I. signing out
