A/N:
A back to back update?
Yeah. This will never happen again.
At first Zuko thinks it's the Avatar that's weird. His life views are strange—too peaceful really, to be believable. There will always be bad apples existing in the world, and Zuko wonders why the Avatar doesn't seem to understand that.
But after spending a few months in the Western Air Temple, Zuko realizes it's not the Avatar that's weird, it's the Air Nomads.
They're a carefree sort of people.
Zuko has no longer has patience for people who are carefree.
Thinking of a future lost, he challenges the Avatar to a firebending duel (out of boredom, he'll later say).
He promptly has his ass handed to him.
He spends the rest of the evening listening to the Avatar talk about spirituality and how understanding that everyone thinks differently is one of the many keys to life.
That was the day he turned nineteen.
The waterbending women of the North Pole give her all sorts of different looks when she demonstrates bloodbending during a healing lesion.
There are looks of horror, looks of curiosity, looks of disgust, and looks of wonder.
She's never asked to demonstrate in another lesson, however.
So Katara fills up some of her time by teaching some of the young girls a couple of seemingly innocent waterbending tricks, like how to pull water out of people's clothes, or how to pin things to the walls of their homes using ice picks.
It's a good hobby, she thinks.
One day she builds up enough courage to approach Master Pakku and show him how she uses bloodbending to stop an enemy. You don't have to harm them, she explains, just detain them.
He tells her that from now on she can sit in on his waterbending classes. She finds this amusing, since she's already a better waterbender then all of his students.
Later, she'll wonder for the umpteenth time whether or not moving up here was the correct decision.
That was the day she turned seventeen.
He and the Avatar are in Ba Sing Se when Zuko sees him.
Him being Jet.
They're outside of the same government building (Zuko is waiting for the Avatar to finish up some business) and Jet is unsaddling his ostrich-horse. Zuko is perfectly fine with ignoring Jet's existence and for a while Jet seems to be ignoring him as well.
Until he asks, "You marry her?" He drawls it out like he doesn't care, but Zuko can see the tension in his shoulders.
"No." Quick and to the point. They can go back to silence now.
"Well, you're an idiot."
Zuko's fingers curl into fists and he has to remind himself that he travels with the Avatar, and that burning Jet's arms off in the middle of a populated street filled with small children would be inappropriate.
Even if Jet was a rude little fucker.
"Who broke up with whom?"
Zuko isn't sure why he answers, but he does. "Technically she did."
He glances to the side to see Jet smiling. "She was always smart."
Four hours later they're both drunk in the nearest pub. While Zuko thinks he'd rather cut off, fry, and eat his own fingers before he called Jet an acquaintance, let alone a friend, he muses that Jet makes a decent drinking companion, if anything.
Jet flirts with the female bartender, but she's batting her eyes at Zuko. Jet insists that Zuko should do something about it, but Zuko simply shakes his head and sobers up.
On his way back to the house where he and the Avatar are staying, Zuko thinks that maybe female bartenders just aren't his type.
He ignores the fact that she had had blue eyes.
That was the night he turned twenty.
Katara has never really drank before.
Her friend Kamik resolves to change that. He gives her copious amounts of ice wine, and she spends the rest of the evening giggling uncontrollably and dancing with anyone who will stand still long enough.
The next morning she wakes up to a pounding headache that even her water won't soothe and a letter that she'd written to Zuko the night before.
It's both apologetic and poetic, and she considers actually sending it until the fifth paragraph, where her drunken self spirals off into a full blown description of her toes.
Sighing, she crunches the letter up in a fist. She decides that next time she drinks she should hide her parchment and ink beforehand.
That was the morning after she turned eighteen.
At the end of each of his letters to Zuko, Sokka always off handedly describes what's going on with Katara.
This is one of the many reasons why Zuko considers Sokka his best friend.
Today seems like any other. Zuko is leaning against a tree, writing a reply for Sokka, when the Avatar walks right up to him.
At first Zuko assumes that the Avatar want to talk philosophy over tea, but the Avatar shakes his head and informs him that they'll leave for the North Pole in a few months. It's been quite some time since the Avatar has been there and he thinks he might like to talk to Chief Arnook.
Zuko tries not to let his panic show, but there is a knowing twinkle in Avatar Aang's eye.
He spends the rest of the evening staring at his unfinished letter and trying not to shake.
When dawn finally breaks Zuko realizes that there are still thousands of things he wants to say but isn't sure if he'll be strong enough to ever utter them aloud.
That was the morning after he turned twenty one.
Katara is practically an old spinster by the Northern Water Tribe's standards. She is both unmarried and childless, which is frowned upon by basically everyone.
Because of this, Katara decides that maybe she should spend the rest of her life unmarried and childless, just to irritate them all.
Although, it's not like men haven't been interested, because they have. She's had quite a few wannabe suitors these past couple of years, but she thinks that maybe she doesn't have any concern for them.
She ignores the fact that none of them have golden eyes.
Besides, Pakku has "allowed" her to start up a waterbending class for young girls, and the overwhelming amount that want to learn are enough like her children as it is. Katara decides that she'll be the one to teach them how to be independent and strong, since their own mothers will not.
It's after she's finished class for a day when she first hears it. She's writing a letter to Azula (who always opens her letters with a throwaway paragraph on how Zuko is doing, which Katara will always be grateful for), when Kamik bursts into her one bedroom home.
"The Avatar is coming!" he exclaims with excitement.
Katara spends the rest of the evening sitting on her bed, contemplating whether or not it would be healthy to build a fortress underneath the snow and live off seal jerky and bits of ice for the next six months.
That was the night she turned nineteen.
A/N #2:
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