"You mean you woke up one day and everything you had ever known was gone, everyone you knew horribly murdered, and every single soul on the planet from your childhood long dead?"
Of course, I knew the basic facts of the Avatar's life, had heard of the airbenders' fate… I just never did this math before.
He doesn't answer, the flame in his hands growing visibly hotter.
"How did you survive?"
How could you, when losing my family and home, even knowing I'd someday return, was nearly enough to kill me?
"Katara," he answers softly, fire nearly invisible with heat.