"I know you don't want change, but nothing is ever what it used to be. Grab the rope, hoist yourself up.
Grab the rope..." St. Broderick, His Mistress, and The Blacksmith, The Sound of Animals Fighting
Xx
The weeks after the battle at the North Pole are exhausting, to say the least. Sleep is hard to come by for all of them; Sokka is still mourning Yue, Aang is coming to terms with the destruction his merging with the Ocean Spirit had caused in the North Pole, and Katara… Katara is all over the place. She still can't forget the words Zhao spoke to push Zuko to the edge, playing over and over in her head every night like the mocking call of a screeching bird. Zuko had been supposed to capture Aang? The Fire Lord was willing to kill his own son? Apparently he removed him from the line of succession, but why? And the only way to restore his birthright was to capture the Avatar? But Aang had only woken up a few months ago, how could Ozai have known that Zuko would find him? And what the fuck is an "Agni Kai"?
The Avatar state, and Aang's inability to control it, has been weighing heavily on the boy's mind, but none of them know enough about it to even begin to try to understand how Aang could control it. They worry that, unchecked, the Avatar state could cause equal, if not more, destruction than what happened in the North Pole. They had tried enlisting the help of a general to assist Aang in mastering the Avatar state, but it had ended very poorly, and had resulted only in upsetting him even more. So, they push forward into the Earth Kingdom; now that Aang has mastered waterbending, he must tackle the next element in the cycle: earth. They agree that going back to Omashu is probably their best bet; King Bumi is a personal friend of Aang's, and the familiarity that comes with their friendship appeals to the young Avatar. Bumi already knows him, which he thinks will make learning a new element easier.
They've stopped for the day to let Appa rest near a sizable pond, and the warm weather steadily lifts their spirits. Katara and Aang practice the octopus form as Sokka sunbathes in the water, the hours passing lazily by under the sun's balmy glow.
"Okay, enough relaxation," Sokka says without moving an inch. "We have to get going if we want to get to Omashu. It's a long way between here and there, and no doubt crawling with Fire Nation troops."
"Hey, do you hear that?" Aang pipes up, and the trio goes silent. Sure enough, faint music is playing somewhere in the surrounding trees, and it's steadily getting louder.
"Don't fall in love with a traveling girl..." The music and singing continues to get louder. "She'll break your heart and leave you broke and broken hearted!" A group of strangely dressed strangers wander into the gang's space, most of them holding instruments. "Hey, rivier people!"
Sokka is standing in the pond with his arms crossed over his chest. "We're not river people."
"You're not?" The singer replies. "Then, what kind of people are you?"
"We're just..." Aang shrugs his shoulders. "People."
"Aren't we all, man, aren't we all." The singer turns slightly to fist bump one of his friends. "Right on."
"Who are you people?" Sokka steps out of the pond closer to Aang and Katara.
"I'm Chong, and this is my beautiful wife Lily," he gestures to a pretty woman in a long red and black striped dress. "We're nomads! We follow the flow of life through the Earth Kingdom to wherever the wind takes us!" He strums erratically on his lute, and his wife taps her tambourine a few times above her head.
"You're nomads? I'm a nomad too!" Aang sounds excited, his spirits temporarily lifted as his mind strays from the events in the North Pole.
"Wow! We're nomads too!" Chong replies with just as much enthusiasm as Aang, who now looks a little confused.
"I know." He scratches the back of his bald head. "You just said that."
"Oh." Chong looks around and sets his gaze on Sokka. "Nice underwear!"
Sokka lets out a very un-manly squeak, realising he is only in his swim wear, and rushes to get the rest of his clothes. "Well, it was nice meeting you folks!" Katara isn't sure if he's even attempting to sound genuine at this point. "But we have to get going to Omashu— we can't waste any more time."
"You're focused too much on the destination, friend!" Chong scratches his belly under his shirt. "You gotta enjoy the journey!"
"No, Sokka's right," Katara speaks up, gathering their things and putting their packs together. "We really do have to get there soon. Aang needs to start learning earthbending from King Bumi."
"King Bumi?" Chong shares a look with his wife. "Sounds like you're headed to Omashu!" The trio stare at Chong with raised eyebrows. "There's an old story about a secret pass to Omashu through the mountains."
"Is this a real story, or just a legend?" Katara is skeptical of everything that comes out of this guy's mouth; it sounds to her like he's been smoking too much, and she doesn't think he smokes tobacco.
"Oh, it's a real legend, old as earthbending itself!" He starts strumming on his lute, the other members of his group joining in with their instruments as well. "Two lovers, forbidden from one another, the war divides their people, and the mountain divides them apart! Built a path to be together!" They stop playing for a moment, looking a little lost. "Well, I forget the next few lines, but then it goes—" the band continues playing, louder and more excited this time— "secret tunnel! Secret tunnel! Through the mountains! Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel!" The band makes a dramatic ending, striking poses once the last note is played. "Yeah!"
"You've got to be kidding," Sokka grumbles under his breath and moves to help Katara pack up their things. "No offense, but I think we'll just stick with flying."
"Yeah," Aang chimes in, sounding a little sheepish. "Appa doesn't really like being underground, and we gotta do what makes him comfortable." Appa lets out a soft groan to punctuate Aang's point.
"The Fire Nation has camps all over the mountain," Lily cuts in with a soft voice.
"We'll be fine." They all pile onto Appa as Sokka relays their excuse. "We've dealt with the Fire Nation plenty of times before, and we'll do it again."
After attempting to fly over the mountain and subsequently getting blasted at with far too many fireballs, they end up back at the pond with the nomads.
"Secret tunnel it is, then," Sokka grumbles, and Katara can sympathise. She isn't very fond of the idea of traipsing through a long underground tunnel with the obnoxious nomads either. As it turns out, it's just about as fun as she thought it would be, and her head is pounding before they even get to the tunnel.
"How much farther to the tunnel?" Sokka sounds like he has a headache that might be even worse than Katara's.
"Oh, it's not just one tunnel." Chong doesn't turn around as he speaks, continuing to head towards the tunnel. "The lovers didn't want anyone knowing about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth so people couldn't follow them!" Sokka stops in his tracks, his mouth falling open in shock.
"A labyrinth?!"
"Don't worry, with our combined brain power, I'm sure we'll figure it out!" Chong is totally unbothered, the fact that they will soon be wandering around a labyrinth under a mountain somehow not phasing him one bit. Katara is doubtful that he has much "brain power" at all.
"All you need to do is trust in love," Lily pipes up, twirling around and walking backwards as she speaks to Sokka. "At least, according to the curse." Katara looks over at Aang, his face a mirror of her anxiety and confusion.
"A curse?! Are you shitting me?!" Sokka trails behind for a while after that, moping in the back of the group, grumbling to himself quietly. Katara can understand why; she kind of feels like moping right now too.
"We're here!" Chong announces as they come upon the entrance to a dark cave, and Katara walks up to read an inscription on the side of it.
"What's this 'curse' stuff actually about?" Katara asks, having trouble reading the faded characters on the stone.
"It says that only those who trust in love can make it through the caves. Otherwise, you'll be trapped in there forever."
"And die," Lily interjects unhelpfully.
"Okay!" Sokka throws up his hands in annoyance. "That's it! There's no way in hell that we're going through that cave." He turns around to walk away, but stops short. "Oh, no."
The group turns around and sees a large plume of smoke trailing into the air, emanating from somewhere behind them. "That's a big bonfire someone's having!" Chong pipes up, unaware of what the smoke really means.
Katara swears under her breath. "That's not a bonfire. It's the fire nation tracking us." She shares a look with her brother and Aang, realizing they only have one option.
"So..." Aang turns to the group of nomads. "All we have to do is trust in love and we'll be fine?" His voice is skeptical.
"You got it, master arrowhead!"
"What the hell does that even mean?" Katara says quietly in Aang's ear, and she sees him stifle a laugh. "Well, let's get this over with." The group heads into the cave; the Fire Nation soldiers catch up to them and close them in by causing a cave in at the entrance. Katara does not like the fact that she hears one of the soldiers say "Don't you know about the curse?" before they seal up the tunnel, but it's too late to turn back now. Katara really hopes that nothing goes wrong.
Xx
Something always ends up going wrong— she doesn't even know why she bothers to wish they wouldn't anymore. Not two hours into their misadventure, they realize that the caves are actively changing as they go through them, making the map Sokka had been drawing completely useless. After that, they were attacked by a swarm of wolfbats, and in the ensuing panic, Appa had gotten started by the torch Sokka had been waving around. In his frenzy, he caused a cave-in that separated Aang, Katara, and Appa from the rest of the group. Luckily they had a torch when they were separated, and it's now burning brightly between the two benders as they come upon a stone door.
"It's the exit!" Aang shouts excitedly as they run forward to push the door open. It doesn't budge, and after a minute Appa growls behind them, forcing them to jump out of the way as he crashes into the door, causing the stone to break apart.
"It's not the exit..." Katara stands in awe of the scene before her. "It's a tomb."
The door had led into a massive room with high ceilings, the far wall taken up by a large statue of a man and woman kneeling across from one another, kissing over some vertical characters etched into the wall. The surrounding walls are covered in small pictures.
"It must be the two lovers from the legend." A strange feeling makes its home in Katara's chest. The cave almost feels… familiar? "The pictures tell their story." She walks over to the first of the pictures and begins reading.
"They met on top of the mountain that divided their two villages." The first picture depicts a man in blue and a woman in red, holding hands atop a mountain. "The villages were enemies, so they could not be together, but their love was strong, and they found a way." The next picture shows the man kneeling on a mountain close to the viewer, and the woman kneeling on a mountain farther away, clearly longing for each other. "The two lovers learned earthbending from the badgermoles; they became the first earthbenders. They built elaborate tunnels, so they could meet secretly." Accompanying the text is a picture of the two lovers earthbending next to two badgermoles. "Anyone who tried to follow them would be lost forever in the labyrinth." She traces the edges of a picture of the two lovers kissing. "But, one day, the man didn't come— he'd died in the war between the two villages." There is a picture of the woman crying next to a grave. "Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her earthbending power— she could have destroyed them all. But, instead, she declared the war over." The picture shows the woman standing on a hill between the two villages, a crowd of people from each looking up at her. "Both villages helped her build a new city where they would live together in peace..." A picture of current-day Omashu stands out on the stone wall. "The woman's name was Oma and the man's name was Shu. The great city was named Omashu as a monument to their love." She moves to read the large characters etched into the relief between the statues. "Love is brightest in the dark." Aang and Katara stand silently after she finishes, absorbing the story of Oma and Shu.
"Woah." Aang's voice sounds far away as Katara's mind reels with the new information. Red and blue, a man and woman on two different sides of a war… the similarities are startling. The words of the fortune teller travel back into the front of her mind. "The twin flame energy binds two people to each other, their destiny as undeniable as the stars in the sky… It will feel like coming home. Like you've known them your whole life, even if you have just met." Her and Zuko's strange meeting, coming together and splitting apart so many times, feeling like she already knows him even though they hardly know each other at all. She feels a tugging on her heart, as if she's looped one of Sokka's fish hooks into it, and someone is reeling it in. Zuko. The desire for him to be here with her right now is a staggering, almost physical ache in her chest. The power of this sudden desire is chilling, and she feels goosebumps cover her skin. It's not a sensual desire; it feels like her soul is longing for him, and if she could somehow touch him, even just hold his hand, it would ease the pressure building in her chest.
"Katara?" As soon as Aang speaks, the sensation is gone as quickly as it came. She's confused, and for a brief moment she feels lost, as if she's just woken up from a deep sleep. But her awareness comes back to her swiftly as she shakes her head.
"Sorry, I spaced out for a minute." Aang is looking at her strangely, eliciting an embarrassed feeling and a blush on her cheeks. "Let's just keep going."
They continue on through the cave, their torchlight burning lower and lower as time passes. Eventually the thing is barely a nub, and they are no closer to finding an exit. Panic is slowly creeping up on her like the rising tide, and she is starting to feel genuinely scared.
"The torch is going to go out any minute, isn't it?" Aang's voice is dejected, his face conveying the same nervousness as Katara is feeling. "What are we supposed to do?"
She pulls him into a hug as the light snuffs out, and closes her eyes. She thinks of golden eyes and silky black hair; she feels the tug on her heart and holds onto it, wondering if Zuko can feel it too.
"Katara, look!" She pulls away from Aang and opens her eyes, which are immediately drawn upwards to a path of glowing green crystals on the ceiling.
"We did it!" He pulls her into another hug as she lets out an incredulous laugh. "I don't know what we did, but we did it!" He starts down the path illuminated by the crystals, and Katara follows, the story of Oma and Shu dancing in her mind as her own story twirls and unfolds beside it.