Chapter Fifty
"Do you know where Aang went?" Sokka shrugged at Katara's question, barely glancing up from the map spread across the table where he was seated. He was unaware that his casual response pressed the limits of his sister's patience and left her growling in frustration.
Following Katara's conversation with Hama, the situation with Aang had gone rapidly downhill. Several times she had approached him with overtures to talk and several times he had taken active measures to avoid her. If she did manage to corner him, there was always something else he had to do. At first she had been frustrated and filled with regret, but those emotions quickly gave way to annoyance and anger at his continued avoidance. She seriously considered ignoring him altogether, especially when she thought about the fact that she'd actually done nothing wrong, but she hated the idea of him walking around believing that she agreed with even the smallest bit of Hama's rant.
Consequently, after he disappeared entirely, Katara had searched all corners of the inn before finally taking the miniscule chance that she might find him in his room. But, of course, that had yielded nothing. Now, dusk was beginning to fall and, in addition to the misunderstanding between them, Katara didn't even know where he was. Not only was he evading her, but he had completely disappeared.
She was beginning to worry, but she also couldn't shake her growing irritation with Aang over his reaction. While she understood his hurt and confusion over what he'd heard, it wasn't at all fair that he'd not given her the chance to explain. He was jumping to conclusions again; just as he had the night she'd told him she loved him.
"What's eating you?" Sokka asked, noting Katara's sullen expression in his peripheral vision.
Katara snapped erect, unaware that her inner turmoil had been playing out plainly on her face. She fixed her brother with an aloof stare. "Nothing's eating me," she brazened. Sokka shot her a skeptical look. Seeing it, Katara made a rather obvious attempt to change the subject. "What are you doing here anyway?" she asked, "I thought you'd jump at the chance to go shopping with the others."
"Couldn't do it," Sokka replied absently as he carefully charted points on the map, "Someone has to plan out tomorrow's journey and since you're too busy making best friends with Hama, Suki and Toph wanted to spend the day lollygagging, Zuko wanted to train and Aang's got some kind of beetle-bee up his shorts, I guess coordinating this journey is up to me." He paused and lifted his head to peer at his sister suspiciously. "Speaking of Aang…" he began in a curious drawl, "what did you do to him? He's been moody all day. Did you guys have some kind of fight or something?"
"What makes you think that?" Katara asked a little bit too innocently.
Sokka snorted in disgust at her coy attempt. "That's what I thought," he huffed, "This is why I was totally against you and Aang being involved in the first place! You're completely messing up the group's dynamic, Katara!"
"What? How am I 'messing up the dynamic'?" she demanded irritably, "And what do you mean you were against it? What are you saying?" After her conversation with Hama, Katara was more than a little sensitive to people criticizing her relationship with Aang. "Are you saying there's something wrong with us being together? I thought you liked Aang!"
"I do! Sheesh," Sokka grumbled, "Simmer down! I think Aang's a great guy and an even better friend. But let's be completely honest here. He has problems concentrating when you're around."
"So says the guy whose lips are permanently attached to his girlfriend's! You're not exactly focused these days either, Sokka!" Katara retorted, "If Toph weren't already blind, she'd have willfully gouged out her eyes the way you and Suki carry on!"
"Hey, this is about you, not me! I know how to separate business from pleasure!" Sokka flung back.
Katara drew herself up straight with a derisive snort. "I don't know how you managed to say that with a straight face."
"I'm just saying it's different," Sokka rephrased.
"How's that? Because I'm a girl? Is that it?"
"I'm not trying to tell you what to do, Katara," Sokka prefaced in an attempt to mollify her, "I just think it would be best for the group if you resolved whatever is going on between you and Aang as quickly as possible."
"What do you think I've been trying to do all afternoon?" Katara snapped.
"Alright, alright," Sokka grouched, throwing up his hands in surrender, "You don't have to get so testy about it!"
"So testy about what?" Suki asked as she strode into the bedroom and made a beeline towards Sokka.
The moment he saw her, his mouth stretched in a beaming smile. The two exchanged a soft kiss, which gradually deepened into something more. Katara had to clear her throat loudly several times before they finally broke their kiss and remembered she was in the room. "Sorry about that, Katara," Suki mumbled sheepishly. She perched herself onto Sokka's knees and regarded her friend with an earnest expression. "What's going on with you?"
"She's just upset because she can't find Aang and she's taking it out on me," Sokka interjected, scowling his affront.
"He's not missing," Suki said before Katara could bite back a retort, "I just saw him outside talking to Hama a few minutes ago."
"You saw him talking to Hama?" Katara pressed, her eyes going wide with excited relief, "That's great! Maybe this whole thing will be resolved now that they're speaking." She closed her eyes and exhaled a deep sigh. "What a relief!" Unfortunately, her bit of respite was short-lived.
"What whole mess?" Sokka asked. Katara's eyes snapped open. "What happened?"
"Um…well…you see…Aang kind of overheard me and Hama talking earlier and he…uh…kind of got the wrong impression, that's all," Katara hedged.
"The wrong impression about what?" Suki queried, "What were you talking about?"
Katara cleared her throat. "The Fire Nation," she revealed reluctantly, "You see…Hama told me how she felt about them, especially in regard to what they did to our people. She feels that me being with Aang, because he's a Firebender, is a betrayal to our nation and our heritage. She said that if it wasn't for what the Fire Nation did to us, I wouldn't have even looked twice at Aang because there would have been plenty of Water Tribe boys for me back home."
"She said what?" Sokka balked.
Sokka's blustering reaction had Katara dropping her eyes. "I…I guess she thinks I can do better or something."
"You told her that?" her brother demanded.
She fixed him with a wild look. "No, I didn't say that," Katara stressed, "Hama said it…or at least that's what she implied. She said the fact that I should love Aang at all is…is obscene."
"And what did you say to her?" Suki asked, unable to reconcile the Hama her friend was describing with the little, old lady that had taken them in.
"I hope you told her off," Sokka declared, frowning, "What right does she have to say anything like that? She doesn't even know Aang!"
"Well…I…I didn't say anything," Katara stammered, "It was so unexpected. I was shocked."
"So you just stood there and listened to her spew all that garbage?" Sokka cried incredulously.
"What else was I supposed to do, Sokka?" Katara flung back defensively, "She's entitled to her feelings! Besides, I can sort of understand where she's coming from."
"Are you saying you agree with her?" Sokka snorted shrilly.
"No, I'm not saying I agree, but…look at this from her point of view," Katara argued, "Before Hama met me she thought she was the last Southern Waterbender alive. She believed that our people's tradition was going to die with her and then I came along and she was suddenly presented with the opportunity to teach me all that she knew. How do you think it makes her feel to know that the girl she placed so much hope in is in love with a Firebender, especially when all she's known from the Fire Nation is cruelty, death and destruction?"
"She has a point," Suki interjected softly.
"I'm not saying I don't sympathize with Hama," Sokka sighed, "or that I don't understand how she feels. I do. I've struggled with the same feelings myself. But we have to look at this from Aang's perspective too. From the moment he met us he has done nothing but stick his neck out to prove his loyalty. He has risked his life and fought alongside us from the very start. He's earned the right to be called our brother and more. Can you imagine how he felt standing there while you were listening to Hama describe what you felt for him as obscene? Katara, come on!" he finished in exasperation, "I know you get this!"
When stated in such a brutal fashion, it was impossible not to. Suddenly, the righteous indignation she'd felt over Aang's constant dodging became massive waves of shame. She slumped under the figurative weight of it. "You're saying I messed up, huh?" she asked her brother glumly.
"Big time," Sokka confirmed.
"Sokka, what do I do?"
"Just apologize," Suki advised her, "Aang adores you. He's not going to hold a grudge if you go to him and sincerely admit you made a mistake."
"And grovel," Sokka threw in, "Do lots of groveling. Girls don't do that often enough." That advice earned him a slap on the shoulder from his disgruntled girlfriend. "Well, you don't," he insisted, which earned him another slap. After he finished grumbling about "unwarranted abuse," Sokka said, "We should probably go ahead and leave here after Aang gets back."
"But it's already dark," Suki pointed out, "Why can't we wait until morning?"
"The stuff Hama said," Sokka replied pensively, "it doesn't sit right with me. Her hatred for the Fire Nation is too deep. There's no way that Aang would be welcomed or accepted here and, if he's not welcome to stay here then neither are we."
Katara nodded her agreement. "I'll go tell Zuko and Toph."
The sun had been set for more than two hours and still neither Aang nor Hama had returned. Katara peered outside the stable doors for the fifth time in a ten minute span before pivoting to face her friends. "I think we should go look for him," she announced. She received surprisingly little opposition to the decision.
"I agree," Zuko said.
"I think we should have started an hour ago," Toph added.
"It's not like Aang to be gone this long without word," Suki tacked on.
Sokka, however, had to play devil's advocate. "I seriously doubt anything has happened to him," he said. "I mean, this is Hama we're talking about. I know she's supposed to be this impressive Waterbender and everything, but if Aang can't take a little old lady then…" He trailed off into silence when he noticed the death glare his sister was shooting in his direction. "Er…I don't know what to tell you," he finished weakly.
"Is the idea of him and Hama fighting supposed to make me feel better, Sokka?" Katara deadpanned.
"I'm just saying Aang probably has a lot of aggression stored up," he phrased carefully, "After everything Hama said about him, he probably needs to get some stuff off his chest."
"But they've been gone more than an hour," Katara argued.
"It can't hurt to look for them," Toph said, "The later Aang gets back, the later we leave. Worst case scenario…we walk in when they're in the middle of a heated bending match."
"Like that'll happen," Suki mumbled under her breath.
"A girl can dream, can't she?" Toph sighed.
"We should split up then," Sokka suggested. "We'll find them faster that way."
Sokka, Suki and Toph headed off towards the base of the mountain chain while Katara and Zuko took off towards the spot where Hama had given Katara bending lessons earlier that afternoon. "This is all my fault," Katara lamented mournfully to her friend as they walked on.
"Yeah, it kinda is," Zuko agreed, "But you know Aang will forgive you for it. I'm not sure he even knows how to hold a grudge."
"It's not that I agreed with what Hama was saying," Katara explained desperately, "I didn't. I know that Aang isn't anything like the Firebenders Hama has known. But, at the same time, I can't help the part of me that does feel guilty…the part of me that wonders if I am betraying my people. I don't know." She glanced at Zuko for guidance, hopelessly confused. "What do you think, Zuko?"
"You're asking me?"
"Well, you're the Avatar," she stressed, "Share your wisdom. I need your advice."
"Somehow that idea really scares me."
"Zuko, I'm being serious!"
"So am I! I think I might be the wrong person to ask, Katara," he considered. "Think about it. The Fire Nation wiped out my entire culture. All my people are gone. I am the last Airbender. But if Mai were here right now, if I could be with her, I would. I wouldn't even hesitate."
His poignant confession stopped Katara in her tracks. She stared at him with round blue eyes full of amazement and sorrow. "Wow. You really loved her, didn't you?" she queried softly.
"I never really thought about what I felt for her," Zuko replied, "I didn't have a label for it and I didn't need one. All I knew was that, when I was with her, I was happy." He cleared his throat and blinked back the sudden tears that filled his eyes. "I was really happy."
"I'm sorry, Zuko," Katara whispered.
"The point is," he continued, deliberately pressing past his grief to address her concerns, "who cares what other people think, Katara? What do you think? What do you want? How does Aang make you feel? Ultimately, you're the one who has to be with him, not your people, so it shouldn't matter what they think at all. If Aang makes you happy, then follow your heart."
"I don't know where you ever got the impression you aren't wise, Zuko," she whispered proudly, "because you're one of the wisest people I know." Before he could prepare himself, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard.
Zuko emitted a sigh of pure long-suffering. "I wish you would stop doing this," he grumbled, "Hugging isn't my thing, Katara."
She hugged him tighter. "Oh, you know you love it."
He started to argue that point when a man suddenly burst from a nearby forest of trees and startled them apart.
"Aang! Hama!" Sokka called out their names at regular intervals, but received no answers. He frowned to himself. "Where could they have gone?"
Suddenly remembering something she'd heard in the marketplace earlier that day, Suki tipped a glance up at the sky and noted the brilliant light of the moon overhead. "Toph, it's a full moon," she said quietly.
"Yeah? So?" Sokka charged, "What has that got to do with anything?"
"Earlier today when we were in the marketplace we overheard some of the people talking," Toph explained, "Apparently, there have been a number of disappearances in this town…actually it's been all over this province. People just vanish and they're never heard from again."
"And it always happens during a full moon," Suki added ominously, "It's a full moon tonight."
"So what are you saying?" Sokka snorted, "You think the moon kidnapped Aang and Hama?" Suki and Toph's answering silence confirmed that they fully believed moonlight shenanigans were involved. "That's ridiculous! The moon spirit is kind and gentle and rules the night sky with compassion and lunar goodness!"
His passionate outburst left Suki nonplussed. "Um…kay," she answered slowly, "I didn't mean to hit a nerve. Do you have a better suggestion?"
Sokka counted to ten before he answered her. "I'm just saying that I'm sure there are more plausible explanations than—,"
"Shh!" Toph interrupted sharply, her brow furrowed in an intense frown of concentration.
"What is it now?" Sokka hissed.
"That sound from the other night," she whispered, "I hear it again." She listened closely, feeling the vibrations strongly beneath her feet. "I can't believe it. You guys, I was right!" she gasped in disbelief, "It is people screaming. There are people under the mountain!" She started running in the direction of the muffled tremors. "Come on!"
His arms and legs moved with grotesque rigidity, as if he were nothing more than a marionette under the control of a skilled puppeteer. Terrified, the man screamed at Zuko and Katara to help him even while he continued marching forward towards an undetermined destination. The two teens flanked his sides and reflexively grabbed hold of his arms, but were subsequently dragged along for their trouble. The man did not stop…or, at least, he couldn't.
"What's wrong with you?" Zuko cried, finding that everything he and Katara did to slow the man down resulted in them being pulled or mowed over entirely.
"I don't know what's wrong with me!" the man panicked, "I can't control myself! Please, do something! Don't let me die! Please, don't let me die!" Left with few options and knowing full well he was risking exposure by doing so, Zuko bent up a band of earth around the man, immobilizing him. "Thank you," the man sighed gratefully only seconds before he began making an odd choking sound and his eyes rolled to the back of his skull.
Katara released a terrified yelp as the man started an anguished keening. And then, abruptly he went silent. Quickly, Zuko bent him free again, but his efforts to save the stranger proved too late. He stared down at the deceased man in horror.
"I…I don't know what just happened," Zuko stammered, visibly unnerved.
"You really gave me no choice." Zuko and Katara whirled around to find Hama standing a few feet away, bathed in the moonlight, gray hair flowing loosely in the wind and blue eyes gleaming maniacally. "It's for the best," she said without even the slightest hint of remorse, "He was a Firebender, you know."
"Hama, what did you do?" Katara demanded in a horrified whisper.
The old woman smiled at her, a smile that no longer seemed benign and unassuming, but twisted and evil. "This is the technique I wanted to teach you, Katara," she said, "I call it…bloodbending." She smirked at Katara. "Remember what I told you…water is everywhere. There is no form of bending more powerful than this. With it, we can destroy the Fire Nation! They will bow to us!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Katara replied, backing away with a shiver of disgust, "And I want no part of it."
"You think you have a choice?" Hama exploded, "There is no choice, girl! It is kill or be killed!"
"I can't let you hurt anyone else, Hama!" Zuko spit tersely, "It's over!"
"I'll say when it's over!" Hama growled.
She turned her hand deliberately so that, when Zuko attempted to bend at her, his arm locked in place and twisted behind his back. Very soon that arm was joined by his other. She forced him to his knees then, holding him to the ground with a sneer of satisfaction. It only took a few seconds for Katara to overcome her horrified shock, but her attempt at a counter-attack landed her in a similar position. She found herself flattened against the earth, her arms and legs flattened in a spread-eagled position.
"If I wanted, I could burst every blood vessel in your body," Hama hissed, "But I'm willing to give you a chance, Katara! Learn me from me! Avenge our people!"
"No…no…" Katara sobbed, "I could never be like you! I could never do what you've done!" She mewled with pain, feeling the pressure build up in her body. It wasn't localized, but seemed to expand everywhere, in every vein, every cell. Katara felt light-headed and short of breath. She wondered vaguely if she was dying.
"This is that boy's doing!" Hama spat, "He's twisted you around! You don't even know where your loyalty should lie!"
The mention of Aang chilled Katara thoroughly. Not six feet away lay the remains of Hama's merciless handiwork. Katara cringed inwardly when she thought of what Hama may have done with Aang.
"Where's our friend?" Zuko demanded belligerently, despite his helpless position, "What have you done with him?"
Hama cackled, dismissing Zuko altogether to focus entirely on Katara. "If you won't learn the technique for your people, then perhaps you'll do it for that boy," she whispered menacingly, "I might even be willing to spare his life in the end…"
Katara was strangely relieved by the threat. At least she knew that Aang was still alive. But she was also overwhelmed by the depth of her naiveté and foolishness. Tears leaked from her eyes. Not only had she compromised herself by trusting Hama so easily and completely, she had placed Aang in danger as well. The combination of it all was simply too much to bear.
Saddened and betrayed, but filled with determined rage as well, Katara gathered her strength even as she gathered the water from the blades of grass crushed beneath her curling fists. "Alright…alright…" she wept brokenly, "I'll do what you want, Hama…"
However, the moment she felt Hama's hold on her loosen, Katara struck and hurled forth half a dozen daggered blades of ice. Hama's eyes widened a split second before she collected together the droplets of water from the atmosphere and banded them together in a protective wall. Shards of ice shattered against the glistening shield.
Zuko scrambled to his feet the moment Hama lost her grip on him, quickly bending out jutting pillars of earth to knock the old woman off balance. Bracing herself up onto a moving band of ice, Hama slipped and slid around and between Zuko's attempts to subdue her. She smacked him hard with a stinging water whip only moments before she was flipped from her perch by Katara. She slammed to the ground with a disoriented groan. Yet, as Zuko and Katara closed in on her, the prone Waterbender regained control of Zuko so that he turned on Katara.
Hama commanded the movements of Zuko's arms and legs so that he slashed and punched at Katara with brutal force. He clipped her shoulders and arms several times, apologizing and berating himself profusely for the inadvertent blows. Ignoring Zuko's strident commands to knock him out, Katara leapt out from beneath her friend's involuntary, chopping assault, ducking Hama's deadly pins of ice as she did.
"Don't hurt your friend, Katara!" she taunted as the younger Waterbender struggled to subdue her friend without harming him, "And don't let him hurt himself!" Bending forth a stream of water from the ground and surrounding trees, Hama formed a crystallized point of glittering ice and sent Zuko hurling straight for it, intent on impaling him.
His yelp of stunned horror mingled with Katara's fearful scream. He moved towards the glinting point with alarming speed. Zuko closed his eyes, preparing for the bloody impact, when suddenly…he stopped. Breath suspended in a painful wheeze, Zuko slowly opened his eyes to find that the ice shard was mere inches from his face. He wilted to his knees in shaking relief.
A few feet away, Hama stood with her arm frozen in a trembling pose which was controlled by a weeping Katara. Though Hama could have easily reversed Katara's hold, having had years of experience and practice with the technique, she didn't. Rather than attack again, the old woman rumbled a satisfied laugh. "Well done, my pupil," she commended proudly, "Well done. You're a bloodbender now."
Katara was still shaking with disgust over that pronouncement when a sudden commotion erupted from behind the trees. "There she is!" a woman cried. She was followed behind by Fire Nation guards. The moment she cleared the trees she pointed at Hama. "That's the woman who kidnapped us! She's a Waterbender and she's crazy! She was going to kill us all!"
As the authorities rushed in to charge and sentence Hama for kidnapping, murder and forbidden bending and pushed her to her knees in preparation for a swift and unmerciful execution, Katara was unable to watch and turned away. Her stomach rumbled as she listened to Hama struggle, cursing the Fire Nation even when she was only seconds from death. Katara knew that speaking out on her behalf would put the entire group in danger, but she still couldn't help but feel like a coward for standing there and doing nothing. She was shaking all over, very aware of how easily it could have been her in Hama's place. Katara wanted to run and hide, but her knees felt like jelly. She was sure if she attempted to take even one step, they would not support her. It was almost a relief when she heard her name being called because it provided a distraction from what was happening behind her.
She glanced up just as Sokka, Suki, Toph and Aang came rushing towards her. Before they had even reached her and Zuko's sides, she was flying forward to fling herself into Aang's arms with a choked sob of relief. She buried her face in his shoulder, hugging him so tightly that the trembling in her body caused him to tremble as well. No one acknowledged the small group of Firebenders carrying away Hama's lifeless body. They closed their eyes to it, horrified and relieved all at once.
"Are you guys okay?" Sokka asked even as he diligently looked his sister and friend over to find out the answer for himself.
"Not really," Zuko grunted, still shaken in the aftermath of his near death experience, "Hama just tried to kill me!" He looked over at Katara who was still burrowed in the circle of Aang's arms and weeping softly. Though nearly imperceptible, he detected the subtle stiffening of her shoulders at the mention of the old Waterbender. He was determined to let Katara know that she had nothing to be ashamed of. "She almost did kill me too," he added quietly, "but Katara saved my life."
"Well, you're not the only one she had lethal plans for," Toph told him, "She had more than a dozen people stashed under the mountain, including Aang!"
"She had this ability…I don't know what it was," Aang explained, frowning with the recollection, "One minute I was walking away from her and the next, I wasn't in control of anything anymore. She made me go to this secret place that was tucked beneath the mountain. She said you guys thought I'd run off and abandoned you after what happened this afternoon. I thought I'd never see you again." He and Katara exchanged a meaningful look.
"Apparently, she'd done this before in other towns," Suki recounted further, "Someone recognized her and that's how it started all up again here. She had been trying to cover her tracks."
"There's that and the fact she was completely insane," Toph interjected dryly.
"Well, at least it's over now," Sokka sighed thankfully, "Let's get out of this crazy town and head for Piandao's before those Firebenders discover who we are and that we're hiding a magical bison in Hama's stable."
Half an hour later as the group had finished packing the last of their belongings onto Appa. Only when they were all loaded up and ready to go did it become apparent Katara had wandered off. Aang volunteered for the search and found her curled beneath a tree on the edge of Hama's property. Wordlessly, he sat down beside her and took her hands and sandwiched them between his own.
"We're ready to go now," he informed her softly, waiting a beat before he asked, "You okay?"
"Not really."
"She didn't hurt you, did she?"
Katara shook her head mutely. "Not physically anyway."
"I'm sorry this happened to you, Katara," Aang whispered, "I know how much it meant to you to find another Southern Waterbender."
"No, I'm the one who's sorry, Aang," Katara countered feelingly, "When Hama said all that stuff to me this afternoon, I should have shut her down. But I let my admiration and awe of her cloud my judgment." She shifted around to face him fully. "For the record, I don't feel that way about you. I'm not ashamed of being with you or…loving you."
"I know that," Aang acknowledged softly, "I really do. I guess I was too angry to listen to reason earlier."
"You wouldn't even give me the chance to explain," Katara reminded him in a hurt whisper, "You completely shut down and you shut me out in the process. How could you just assume the worst of me like that?"
"I don't know," he mumbled thickly, "I don't know why I did it and I'm sorry. I know I wasn't fair and it won't happen again. I promise." He peered at her from beneath his lashes. "I guess I'm still a little insecure about all of this. Sometimes I can't even believe that we're together," he confessed, "I keep expecting you to change your mind about me."
"I'm not going to do that."
He shrugged at her promise. "Maybe you will," he considered in an impassive tone, "Who knows what'll happen in the future or how we'll feel about each other? The point is, we're together now and I want to enjoy that. I can't keep punishing you for something you haven't done yet."
Katara couldn't decide if she felt comforted or disheartened by his realization. "Why are you talking to me like we're only temporary or something?" she asked him in a small tone.
Aang sighed deeply, meeting her wet stare directly for the first time since he'd joined her. "I don't want us to be," he admitted fervently, "But…being with me isn't going to be easy, Katara. Some people will accept us and some people won't. It's entirely possible and likely that you're going to encounter people who resent you for being with me. They may even hate you for it." He leaned into her so that their foreheads were just touching. "You have to ask yourself if it's worth it," he whispered, "…if I'm worth it."
She didn't even have to think about it because Katara realized that decision had been made a long time ago. "You're definitely worth it, Aang," she murmured with absolute conviction before pressing her lips to his in a love affirming kiss.
