Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or anything associated with it except my fanfictions.
So, it's been brought to my attention that this could actually go both ways: Zutara/Kataang. I am willing to do this once, and ONCE ONLY. IF - AND ONLY IF - PEOPLE CRY FOR ZUTARA, AFTER I FINISH MY KATAANG VERSION OF THIS, I WILL CREATE A ZUTARA FANFICTION, MY FIRST AND ONLY ZUTARA FANFICTION FOREVER, ON THE BURNED PRINCE AND THE FROZEN AVATAR. REVIEW IF YOU WANT A ZUTARA AU OF THIS. I'm no fan of Zutara, but I'm in the minority. And I want this story to be available to all, even if most people will only ever read one certain side of the story based on their shipping preference.
Edit: Some qos (quality of story) edits. Kataang too rushed; trying to tone it down a notch or two.
New Edit: Making Kataang Romance more one-sided. Will be added on in later chapters. You'll like what I do with Katara much better.
Aang, Jee, and Iroh were chatting amiably while waiting for Zuko to do the talking for them.
"So, how's your day been going, guys?" Aang asked with a mischievous grin.
Jee rolled his eyes, smiling all the while. "Same old, same old. Woke up with a headache, drank Iroh's awesome tea, got a lot better, crashlanded a ship, met some snow savages - nothing much," he concluded with a grin.
Aang fidgeted uncomfortably, and Iroh noticed. "Hey, Avatar Aang. Is there something wrong?"
"Um... uh..." he stuttered. "I'd... kinda prefer... you refrain from the name calling."
Jee snorted derisively. "They call us 'Ashmakers,' although I do suppose we deserve that term," he said dismissively. "I don't see why we can't call them on our own terms as well."
"But still..." Aang pouted and looked up to the Lieutenant with puppy-dog eyes.
Jee sighed. "Alright. But only as long as we stay here. Everything else is fair game."
Aang wasn't happy with this deal, but he nodded anyways. "Alright, I guess."
Iroh noticed Aang's sadness. He put a reassuring arm around the boy. "Aang, I know it is very hard to let go of the people you lived with, the people you laughed with, the people you loved. But that is a long time ago, and this is the present. You must not let the echoes of the past direct the path of your future. And who knows? Maybe you will find something new to love, something that will fill the empty void in your heart."
Aang rolled his eyes. "Come on, old people. What is it with love?"
Iroh shook his head. "Love is a beautiful and powerful thing. It makes us do things we otherwise would not dare to dream of. You are young yet in the ways of the world, but perhaps with the passing of time you will come to realize the wonders of love."
"Oh pu-leeze. Love is just a silly fluke- flu- fl- uh- um... erhm... hi?" he smiled and blushed furiously at seeing a breathtakingly beautiful girl with blue eyes standing right in front of him, eyebrow raised in a quizzical expression.
"Er... you're beautiful?" he offered, rubbing his neck, which had also took on a rosy hue.
"Or maybe he found out what love is just now, General Iroh," Lieutenant Jee whispered to the old man, smirks on both their faces.
After a moment of stunned silence, the girl laughed, a beautiful, loud, clear, ringing laugh that made the world seem brighter, and which made Aang's face turn all the redder.
After drying her tears, the girl said, "You're so cute and awkward and funny. I can't believe you're Fire Nation!"
"I'm not." The entire village gasped and looked at him closely. He was embarrassed by the attention, but he decided to just get it over with as soon as possible. "My name's Aang. I'm an airbender. The last one. I'm also the Avatar. I froze myself in an iceberg during a storm and then Commander Prince Hotman over here - " despite the tense situation, the villagers and the crewmen laughed while Zuko angrily shouted, "Don't call me that, Avatar! What have I told you over and over again?"
Zuko asked for it. Aang scratched his head. "I need to restore my honor, Commander Prince Hotman, Sir?" His gambit worked. He managed to annoy his captor while making peace between two different sides. Not a bad start for a newly discovered Avatar. Although he would have to start improving his poker face, because he highly doubted his huge grin was gaining any traction with the fuming prince, especially with the crowd on both sides laughing at him. "But seriously, all these guys want to do - I think," he added, playfully squinting at the prince. "- is to repair their ship so that they can get out of here and back to their homes. Or something like that. Mr. Hotman over here didn't give me many details."
A teenage boy with paint on his face - the oldest male in the tribe, Aang now realized - stepped forward. "How do we know you're telling the truth?" the boy said. But the boy's harsh words were offset by the grin across his face at Aang's poke at Zuko.
"You don't," everyone turned to face Zuko in surprise. This was not something they had expected. They thought he would give half-frozen reasons, would make empty promises, would try to deem himself trustworthy in their eyes. "We don't have proof that we won't hurt you, we don't have anything to prove our sincerity or our innocence. But I swear on my honor -"
"Not a good move, Hotman. Wasn't that paint boy talking about it before? Or rather, your lack thereof?" said Aang, prompting another round of laughs and groaning.
Zuko was making the ice beneath him steam. He took a deep breath. "We're just staying till we fix our ship. Then we're out of here."
"How do we know you won't give us away? How do you know you won't take away our waterbender? Can we trust you, Aang?"
"Well... I guess since I am the Avatar, and I don't stand for war - I didn't even know there was a war until Hotman broke me out of the ice," Aang said with a shrug. "But even if you don't believe me... how about I show you guys some airbending?" He took out his staff.
The boy's eyes widened. "Hey!" he shouted. He snatched the staff away with his hand. "What is this? Some trickery? A new weapon?" Sokka tried experimenting with different moves with the staff, and Aang decided to step in.
"A-actually, it's a glider staff," Aang said. He grabbed the staff from Sokka, who promptly fell to the snow after losing his balance and got up, cursing all the while. He hit the ground with the bottom of the staff, and the glider's wings suddenly unfurled. Sokka yelped and ended up on the snow for the umpteenth time that day.
The village's children were especially excited. "Can you fly with that, mister Aangy?" said a girl excitedly.
The teenaged boy snorted. "Of course he can't. People don't fly. Birds fly. Wolf-bats fly. People don't."
Aang just grinned. Time to show this upstart boy that he was wrong. "An airbender can." He leapt off the ground and started flying in the air, much to the boy's shock and the delight of the village children. "Yay! Flying!" the children laughed and clapped. But Aang only had eyes for one girl in particular.
She looked up at him in wonder and awe, and his heart fluttered. He smiled at her, and she smiled back at him. He had never felt so happy in his life, not even with Monk Gyatso. All the pain in his world was washed away by the blue of the girl's eyes, by the sound of her laughter, by-
And then his vision turned white as he crashed into a snowy fort that was located within the now-broken walls of the village. He lost conscious temporarily, and when he woke up, he saw the girl standing over him.
Katara was frightened for the boy.
He had been so full of humor, and life, and fun... things that she had forgotten had existed. He had brought light back into the long night that was her life, had brought her joy when she had all but given up.
And here he was, unmoving on the ground, face pale. She rushed towards him, all worries and thoughts of Fire Nation and danger long gone from her mind, chased away by this young bundle of amusement and joy.
"A-Aang?" she said, terrified of what would happen. She saw to her relief that the boy's eyes opened, and that he mumbled something to her. She brought herself closer, to better here what he wanted to say. She prayed that it wouldn't be the boy's last words. It was horrible enough that her mother was claimed by the war, and that her father had gone away because of the war. If she lost just one more person...
"P-please... come closer..." Aang said weakly. Concerned over the injured boy and wanting to respect his wishes, Katara brought herself closer... and closer... and closer...
Suddenly, Aang brightened and shot up. "Wanna go penguin sledding with me?"
Katara was taken aback at the sheer audacity. Take her? A watertribe girl? To go sledding? With the Avatar? Who was in cahoots with the Fire Nation? Who just tricked her into thinking he was badly hurt?
And then she laughed. She had forgotten what joy was, forgotten what fun was, forgotten what good there was in life - but this young boy had brought it all back to her.
Katara stepped back, wiping a tear from her eye with her mitten as she said, "Yes! Of course! I'd love to go penguin-sledding with you, Aang..."
Maybe this was the Spirit's form of apology... giving her someone new to replace someone she had lost...
But I'm sure, even for a boy I've just met, even for being an airbender, or, if he's honest, the Avatar... that he is truly unique...
She shook her head to dispel the thoughts from her head. "C'mon, let's go and catch some penguins." She clicked her tongue impatiently grabbed the boy by his clothing and dragged him off to a special place where she knew the penguins would gather...
Zuko and Sokka were talking together.
Surprisingly, they had a lot in common. They were both the sons of their leaders. Both were at war. Both had lost mothers. Both had annoying younger sisters.
Zuko could see her, laughing and smiling and talking to Aang. He rolled his eyes. "Bet Aang's gonna be hopelessly in love with someone that returns the feelings."
Lieutenant Jee agreed. "Their age difference is a real barrier. They're so nice and friendly towards each other, but... that just seems like their normal dispositions."
Sokka cleared his throat, and everyone turned to look at him. "You know..." Sokka said quietly. "... she's never even smiled after our mother died, ever since she was eight. Six years of no smiling and no fun and no laughing and all seriousness and yelling at me, and then Aang comes along, and suddenly the barrier to her happiness shatters. I've never seen her this happy before - not even when mom was alive. At the very least, they're going to become fast friends."
And they all quietly observed the girl and the boy in their antics of love. Katara was dragging Aang off with an excited on her face, presumably bringing him to go penguin-sledding. Iroh finally spoke what the rest of them thought: "It is going to be terrible to see them when they are forced to part from one other."
From that day on, there was rarely a moment the two were apart. Aang was there for her when she cooked; Katara was there for him when he was entertaining the young ones. If one of them had to do something, the other was sure to follow - and more often than not, helped out with what the other needed to do. They were inseparable, much to Sokka's and Zuko's annoyance.
"So, I thought I heard you saying that love was a fluke, Aang," Iroh said dryly.
"I... I think that was the wrongest thing I've ever said in my entire life," said Aang with a lovestruck gaze.
"In over a century of life too, huh?" said Zuko with a smirk.
Aang was too much in love to care. "Yeah... she's beautiful." Zuko chuckled at the helpless face on the Avatar's face. Then the headaches came back. He winced. What is wrong with me? he thought. This has never happened to me before. Not even when father put his burning hand on my left...
Stop it, Zuko. The past is the past. Don't get stuck in the quicksand.
Despite the perfection of those few days where the Fire Nation crew was stuck at the icy shores of the remains of the Southern Watertribe, the inevitable day came when the Avatar and company had to move on, to go to the North, to begin the Avatar cycle anew...
"Can't you two get a grip?" Sokka griped. "Like seriously, you're practically like my younger brother by this point, Aang. And let me tell you, Katara is one sibling too much! Ow!" this he said to a snowball tossed by an irate Katara.
"Sokka, leave him alone!" Katara said. "It's not like we're lovers that sneak all over the place together." Katara looked blankly at the knowing faces of Zuko and Sokka. "What?"
Sokka opened his mouth to say something, but Zuko elbowed him. "Hey! Can't you guys let me off the hook?"
Zuko shook his head. "The reason I came here is because... the repairs are finished. We're leaving tomorrow morning."
And the shattered looks on their faces - he felt a real twinge of sadness at breaking those two apart. When they were holding hands at the beginning of the conversation, now they gripped each other so tightly their arms were white with the strain.
Aang desperately asked, "C-can't she come with us? She's a waterbender. We could take her to the North Pole. She could learn waterbending with me!" Aang's eyes were wide with hope, with optimism, that maybe he wouldn't have to say goodbye to his angel.
Zuko sadly shook his head. "We can't rip them from their families, Aang. You know important family and community is to these people. We can't just go off our own selfish whims. I'm sorry, Aang. But we can't. I don't even know if we have room for them. It's already been a stretch with you and Appa joining us, and... I'm sorry. I really am."
For a moment, Aang just stood there. Then he stomped the ground and shouted, "Fine! I'm not going then!" He stormed off into the snowy wilderness. Zuko and Sokka made a move to retrieve him, but Katara stopped them.
"I'll go. I'll talk to him. Make him see sense," she said bitterly, and trudged away. Sokka and Zuko were near tears to see Aang and Katara in so much pain and grief and sorrow. They had already lost so much, and now... and now...
There was nothing left for them.
Katara finally found Aang meditating in a snowy cavern.
She crept up to him and put a hand - she had took off her mittens since Aang had came, because she wanted to be in as close contact as possible to the sweet angel - on his shoulder. All she received was, "Go away."
She did not go away, and eventually, Aang sighed and turned around to face Katara.
"I hate this."
Katara was confused. "Hate what? Me?"
Aang's eyes widened. "No, no, no! I mean, you're the reason I hate that we're going! You're the reason I hate being the Avatar! Because now, when I want you in my life forever, we get torn apart. I don't even know if we'll ever see each other again..."
Both of them were crying, tears that froze and shattered on the cold ground where they sat. Finally, Katara pulled her coat down. "Aang... do you see this?"
Aang's face softened. "It's a necklace."
Katara nodded. "It's a family heirloom. My grandmother passed it on to my mother, and when she died she passed it on to me. It's all I have left of her."
Aang bowed in respect and grief. "I'm so sorry, Katara... that you had to go through so much pain and suffering."
"That's why you have to go." Aang looked at her. "My mother was killed by the Fire Nation when they tried to get the last waterbender of the tribe. She saved my life. But the loss never goes away. Aang, if you go away, if we say our goodbyes... I hate it as much as you do, but this isn't just about us. This is about the many people who have been affected by the war. Please, Aang, for everyone else. For me. Please do your best to end this suffering as soon as you can. Even if it means... we don't get to see each other again."
Aang sniffled, and then they embraced each other, drinking in the other's presence, enjoying their last moment together. When they broke apart, Katara unclasped her necklace.
"Aang... please keep this."
"But -"
"As a way to remember me. As a way to remember you. Please. Remember. Remember what you fight for. Who you fight for."
Aang straightened up, and nodded in determination. He put the necklace on.
And she kissed him on the cheek, blushing all the while. He blushed in return, and they spent their last moments together, reveling in the other's presence, until finally, Aang's name was called by Zuko and Iroh, and Katara's was called by her Gran-Gran.
And they walked back to the village, hand in hand.
Everything the next morning was a blur.
Saying goodbyes. Boarding the ship. Waving until the village disappeared into the distance.
In the night, he lay on his bed, fingering the necklace Katara had given him.
She won't remember me, will she?
Yeah. She's too beautiful, too kind, too compassionate. I don't stand a chance. Someone else will take her...
It doesn't matter. She's the only person for me. Even if she doesn't feel that way, and loves someone else... it's better for her to be happy than for her to be with me. Seeing her happy, hearing her laugh, even though I know it will never be for me again... knowing I will never experience them again... she's all that matters to me.
Twelve years old. And already head over heels for a girl.
But I would've thought I was crazy if I didn't fall in love with her.
I will never love another girl. Ever. Again. Katara is the only one for me, even if I'm not the one for her. She is a free soul, I'm... stuck with all this duty and responsibility.
A tear flowed down his cheeks as the village grew further and further into the distance, and disappeared. Gone was the village, was the love of his life, was Katara. Forever.
I never realized how beautiful, how serious, how right love was...
And he sighed happily, glad that he had gotten to know Katara, glad that a hundred years had gone by, selfishly glad that his people had died and that his friends and everyone he knew was gone.
Because the only thing that ever mattered to him ever again was her.
