Title: Walls Do Not Make a Prison
Characters: Katara
Word Count: 627
Rating: G
Summary: In Ba Sing Se Katara feels like she's in a prison but not because of the city's walls.
Notes: Spoilers for City of Walls and Secrets.
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Katara had once thought that the walls that surrounded her tribe's village were too constricting. They had been built to protect but she couldn't help but see them as a daunting obstacle blocking her from the rest of the world. Back then she longed for a life beyond them and couldn't understand no one else in her tribe seemed to feel as suffocated by their presence as she was. Why they didn't wish as she did to be able to see and experience the world that those walls closed off to them.
In the end she got her wish granted when she and Sokka found Aang. The young airbender gave her the chance to escape her old life to live the way she dreamed about, a life without walls holding her back from everything outside. Riding on Appa's back with everyone else Katara couldn't help but feel invigorated as she watched through the clouds the land and water bodies below that they passed over in their travels. There were no boundaries that could keep them from going anywhere they pleased as long as they had Appa to fly them there.
It had been humbling to remember how restricted their travels were without the flying bison. But seeing how miserable Appa's kidnapping made Aang, Katara knew that it was much more important to just have Appa back with them again. Even if they had to walk to the corners of the world, it would be ok if they were all together again. And while they no longer had the complete freedom of the skies, they still could make their way to their destinations even if they had to find a new way themselves to get there.
Ba Sing Se changed all that though. There was no finding their own way, no paths that they could make on their own without being forced to stop by some official or guard. And once again Katara felt that she was trapped behind walls. These walls though made the ones from her village seem like bumps in comparison. They divided the people within the city just as much as they blocked off the outside world and held no yield to their ever looming presence. They cast great dark shadows where there should be light the only place you could not see them was if you holed yourself up in a building closing all the windows.
Looking at them Katara only saw brick and mortar and wondered how they could be so oppressive when they were made of nothing but earth. After being in Ba Sing Se for a while she eventually realized that the walls themselves cannot make a prison or a blockade. One only had to look at the citizens of Ba Sing Se to see it was clear that the prison that held them was the fear and hopelessness that they tried to bury behind their faked smiles when they noticed you looking at them.
It made Katara realize that it was not the walls of her village that held her back from seeing the world outside of it but the fear she had, for she knew she would have had to make that trip alone. It was the presence of Aang and her brother that gave her the courage to finally move past the walls, her fear, to finally follow her dreams and leave her village.
With this realization she hoped one day the people of Ba Sing Se would too find someone to give them the courage to leave their walls behind them and see the world beyond. And perhaps the courage and hope that the Avatar had helped her find so she could leave her self-made prison would also be enough for them to do the same.