a/n just wanted to take a moment and credit itsmoonpeaches's original fic The Air Meets the Trees for the inspiration for the premise of this fic. all of you should absolutely read this fic - it is absolutely amazing, and you should give the author some love!

hope you enjoy this forbidden lovers au for kataang!

They've known each other for as long as she could remember.

Katara couldn't remember the first time they had met; it seemed that he had always been there. Perhaps it was during the annual visit of the Air Nomads to the Southern Water Tribe for the Festival of Dancing Lights; perhaps it was during the weekly trade between their nations. Perhaps it was even as simple and innocuous as a trip Gyatso had made to her home—he and her parents were close friends, after all.

Whatever the case, Aang had become a part of her family, as surely as the sky was blue and the ocean ran deep.

Her first, half-formed memory of him had been rather strange, in and of itself—to this day, she still wasn't sure if she dreamed it. She had been six, and wandering around the snow fields in search of cloudberries, since her mom had wanted to make some tarts "for some special guests."

She had just found a bush and was plucking them from their branches when she felt a burst of hot air on her neck and the huff of a breath, and she turned to find herself face-to-face with a giant, fluffy beast.

She remembered shrieking in surprise and falling to the ground, instinctively thrusting her hand out at it. The snow had only stirred a little, not enough to fight off the beast but enough to send a light spray of frost towards it.

That was the day she had learned she was a waterbender.

But that was not the only thing she learned that day, for a child—dressed in the colors of the Air Nomads and no older than she—came running up. He threw his arms around the beast, alternating between apologizing to her and reprimanding the creature, whom he called Appa.

He had offered a helping hand to her with a beaming grin and shining gray eyes. He had asked for her name.

That was the day she learned his name was Aang.

After, when all had been said and done and he had helped her pick the berries, they had trudged back together towards the village. It wasn't until they began heading towards the same direction, her family's igloo, that she realized he must be one of the "special guests" her mom had been talking about.

They had entered together, his hand clasped in hers (or was it the other way around?) to see her parents and her brother sitting around the dining table along with an elderly Air Nomad with a flowing gray mustache and kindly gray eyes that matched Aang's. Aang had squealed his name—Gyatso—and let go of her hand to race towards him. At the same time, she had run to her mom, presenting the basket full of berries with a grin of her own.

And from then on, they were friends.

Her second, more concrete memory had been when she was seven and he was six. Gyatso had brought him along to the Festival of Dancing Lights. She had remembered waiting in eager anticipation for the moment he would arrive, silently counting down the hours until he would come back. She remembered somehow hearing Gyatso's flying bison before anyone else and running out the door before they had even landed. She remembered running up to him just as he slid to the ground and tackling him in a tight, gleeful hug.

The festival that night was brilliant and joyful, even more so with him by her side. The thrum of dancing and singing had filled the air as the lights in the sky danced above, like the spirits themselves had come out to play. She had watched and laughed as her people danced under the stars, as her own parents made their way across the snowy fields, as elegant and flowing as the rivers of the tundra.

And then she had felt a tug on her hand, and Aang had looked at her with a playful grin on his face, and before she knew it, she was being pulled right into the center of the crowd, under the watch of everyone around her. The way he moved was unlike anyone else she had ever seen before: light and flighty like the wind of his element, but also graceful and gentle like the waters of her home.

That was the day she learned Aang was a boy who loved to dance.

She had tried to keep up—and she was far less elegant and nimble than he was, she hadn't had much practice at all—but the grin he gave her had been brighter than even the sun itself and outshone any shame she felt at her lack of skill.

(but for him, just for him, she practiced and practiced and practiced until her limbs were numb with cold and her sweat froze on her skin and it was hard and exhausting but fun, and the delight on his face when she showed him more than made up for it)

The seasons changed, slipping from her fingers as quickly as they had come, and they both changed and grew along with them, but his gray eyes were always playful, always beaming, always sparkling with life and everything worth living for. Daylight saw them chasing each other in the snow, laughing and bantering and racing away into the tundra to penguin-sled; nighttime saw them sitting right outside her family's igloo, him and her and sometimes even her brother, looking up at the stars and teasing each other.

It was a world that belonged to just her and him, a world in which she lost herself, and as she pressed her shoulder into his and looked up to the stars, she could hardly remember that time in her life when he had not existed.

He had always been a part of her life, and for that, she couldn't be more glad.

She was ten and he was nine when her mother died.

They came first upon clouds of smoke and smog and soot and ash, upon monsters of black steel that hoisted red flags emblazoned with sea ravens. She would never forget the day it happened, how their air of fun and carefree happiness had turned quickly to fear and hardened determination.

She couldn't remember much about the fighting and chaos that had whirled all around her—all she remembered was running. Freezing air stinging her lungs, chest heaving in and out, her tiny legs carrying her as fast as they could go as she ducked under fighting men and dodged wayward fire blasts.

She couldn't remember the fighting. She could only remember running, running, running to her family's igloo, running to seek her safety, running to find her mother.

But when she got there, all she found was a man with sneering golden eyes, towering over her safety, her shelter, her mother.

She couldn't remember what they said—she only remembered the blood on her mom's face, the bruises blackening her cheeks, the fear in her eyes. She had never known her mother to be someone less than invincible, someone who could feel fear, and for the first time, she was afraid for her mother's life.

Then the man said the one thing she would remember for the rest of her life.

"You heard your mother, get out of here!"

She looked at the man (invader, invader, invader) and his menacing golden eyes, and her mother and her kind, comforting blue eyes. Of everything from that day, that would be the clearest thing she would remember: her mother's eyes, blue and kind and comforting and even sad.

She turned and ran.

Everything after, like everything before, was a blur of fighting and shouting and screaming—there was nothing she would remember from the battle, only that there had been one. She remembered finding her father, though. Finding him and calling to him and begging him to please help mom's in danger mom's alone with a man mom's gonna—

Hakoda ran, and so did she. She ran and ran and ran—they both did—but it wasn't enough.

Because when they returned, she was already gone.

...

"Katara!"

She looked through the window of her igloo to see a boy in orange and yellow robes dashing towards her. She hesitated for a moment, looking up to Gran Gran for direction—a part of her wanted to go, and a part of her felt she couldn't afford to go. Her grandmother merely nudged her towards the door, a silent encouragement.

Slowly, Katara set down the basket she was weaving and trudged out the door—and perhaps in any other life, in any other time, she would run out to him with a grin and a laugh. But not now, when her grief still scraped the inside of her chest raw, when it didn't feel right to be happy when her mom never will.

Aang slowed to stop just a little within arms' reach of her. A part of her vaguely wondered if he understood her silent desire for space in her eyes, in her expression. "Your dad, he told us— We heard— I was—" He stopped, perhaps aware of the way he was rambling on, the way his words were tripping over themselves. Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out to grasp her shoulder, his eyes peering at her worriedly. "Are you okay?"

Katara raised her eyes to his and had to stop herself from flinching when gray peered back at her—gray like the ash that had fallen on their village, gray like the smog that had choked their air. "I—" Her breath shuddered involuntarily, and she dropped her gaze so he couldn't see the tears in her eyes. "I don't know."

For a long moment, the only sound that came from him were his breaths, puffing out in crystalized mist, one after the other. She kept her head down and her eyes trained on the snow beneath her feet, dreading what he would see if she looked him in the eye again.

Then she felt two arms encircle her shoulders and pull her into a tight, warm hug. She stiffened instinctively, a part of her wanting to pull away, but her arms were already wrapping around his shoulders, as though unconsciously craving the warm, solid, real, alive presence in her embrace.

"I'm sorry, Katara," he said, and the tremble in his voice made her breath catch in her throat. He pulled her closer and pressed his cheek to her neck. "I'm so… so sorry."

A sob rose in Katara's throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will away the hot tears stinging in her eyes. Her arms tightened around his shoulders, ready to pull him even closer—and then a flash of golden eyes. Her mother's eyes, staring out at her and so sad, so so sad.

Why didn't I run faster?

Her breathing shuddered, and she pulled away. As if sensing her unspoken wish, Aang's arms fall away from her. For a long moment, the tundra wind was the only sound that filled the silence between them.

Katara schooled her face into a blank mask, forced her lips to curl in a smile that felt fake, fake, fake. She looked up to Aang's eyes. Gray, she couldn't help but think, like ash. "I'll be okay," she said, her smile stretched across her face—beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, fake.

(her mom always did say her smile was beautiful)

But even as it stretched her face and made her cheeks ache, even as her eyes stung and her face hurt, even as she tried so desperately to hide, Katara couldn't help but think Aang could see right through it.

...

He found her later that night, slumped against the side of a hut and sobbing.

In truth, she wasn't entirely sure how she ended up there—everything from before was a blur. But she remembered the screaming. She remembered the way her father and brother tried to placate her, the way her blood had boiled over. She remembered the anger—fiery and all-consuming, burning just beneath her skin, exploding at the first chance she could get.

She remembered running, running, running, until she could no longer run, until she collapsed under the weight of her grief and rage at the world, under the anger at herself for not running faster she should've run faster why didn't you run faster—

She didn't know how long she had been curled up against the hut or when he found her. All she knew was that he was suddenly there, his shoulder pressed into hers, grounding her with his solid, warm, alive presence. She also didn't know how long she had cried for, only that when her sobs died down to sniffles and she scrubbed at the cooling tears on her face, he was there to clasp her hand in his and gently tug her to her feet.

Slowly, he led her out to a snowy plain, where their only witnesses are the stars glittering above and the moon shining softly down upon them. Her breath caught in her throat at the sheer number of constellations that glittered in the sky, and she craned her neck up to gaze upon them all.

(a part of her wondered if her mom was looking down on them now)

Movement rustled out of the corner of her eye, and she turned to see Aang standing in a snow plain, not unlike the one they had danced upon all those years ago, during the Festival of Dancing Lights. He held out his hand to her, his eyes gentle and concerned and gray, gray like the ash that had fallen, like the smoke that had wafted up from—

The force of his silent request was a sledgehammer to her ribs.

She shivered and hunched over herself, feeling like her insides were torn out, leaving her bloody and raw. "I can't," she whispered. It was only the barest breath, a step above silence. But Aang heard her.

He heard her.

His eyes glistened with sorrow. It was not the sorrow of someone who had lost a loved one, but the sorrow of a friend watching others grieve. It was not the sympathy that felt empty and shallow when others gave words of condolences to her, but the empathy of someone who saw others hurting and hurt alongside them.

It was sorrow. It was empathy.

It was understanding.

"Okay."

And he said nothing more.

That was the day she learned Aang was a boy who was kind, who understood even when she said nothing more. But that was also the day she learned Aang was a boy filled with life and hope, a boy who would wipe her tears away and pull her up with him and teach her how to laugh and dance again because always, always, there was still something worth living for.

Though she did not dance or smile for a long time, Aang's gentle gray eyes were always there, always kind, always encouraging. Step by step, day by day, she learned to pick up the pieces and put them back together. It was slow, slow, ever so slow, but he was patient and understanding and kind, and he never asked for more than she was willing to give.

And in time, when her smiles began easing into something more genuine and real, when she could breathe without inhaling smoke, when she could finally look into his gray eyes without seeing ash and smog, she learned to dance again.

She danced again, because it was the only thing she had left to go on. She danced again, because it was what her mom would've wanted her to do. She danced again, because war would take and take and continue to take, and this was the one thing she refused to let it take.

She danced again, because when she looked to her side to see gray eyes, glimmering softly with the constellations of the Southern Water Tribe, she knew that everything would be okay.

He was her best friend, and she loved him.

a/n and thus begins the kataang forbidden lovers au!

this first chapter is mostly here for worldbuilding/establishing character relationships in this new universe, so it's pretty short compared to the other chapters. but no worries, the forbidden lovers part will come into play very soon! in the meantime, i hope you enjoy the beginnings of the idea that i thought would be a 5k oneshot but turned out to be a 20k+ multichap 💀

anyways, i hope you'll stick around for what comes after, and i hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it!