CHAPTER SEVEN
The bent figure startled Katara out of her slump. She swiped at her cheeks with the fur lined sleeves of her wedding robes.
"Katara?"
"Gran Gran!" Katara exclaimed. Her grandmother lowered herself to the floor, gathering up her granddaughter into her embrace and stroking her hair lightly until she stopped sniffling.
"If you keep crying, there won't be any water left in you," Gran Gran said.
Katara ached for honesty, but she couldn't muster the words to tell her grandmother about the man her heart wanted and the boy the world needed. "Gran Gran? When did you know you couldn't marry Pakku?"
"When did I— oh my. Well, it was so long ago… But even now, I still feel trapped when I think about that arrangement."
Katara's hand unconsciously fumbled for her betrothal choker.
"It wasn't Pakku, you see. It was our tribe that smothered me. I couldn't live there as a woman— a second rate citizen. I needed freedom, not the responsibility to act the way everyone expected me to act."
Katara studied the ground, more confused than ever. "But by leaving, you knew you were going to disappoint your family and your tribe… and Pakku."
"Yes," Gran Gran agreed. "I struggled with those fears for several weeks before making up my mind to leave. One evening, after a long day of healing, I sat alone on a snowdrift at the edge of our city. Healing exhausted me, but so did trying to please everyone trying to sculpt my future. Out there alone, the thought hit me— it was not my responsibility to live up to others' expectations at the expense of my happiness."
"Did it hurt to leave?"
"No." Gran Gran shook her head. "For the longest time, I felt guilty that the loss didn't sting. But when I sailed away the next morning, I finally tasted freedom. How could I look back in regret for a time where my hands were bound and my fate sealed?"
Gran Gran was wrong. It did hurt, more than anything. More than getting hit by lightning. More than seeing Zuko get hit by lightning. Watching Aang's face crumple as her words landed like blows on his neck nearly broke Katara. It was almost enough to stop her. Almost.
He had stirred awake, sleepy delight painted across his smooth face. "Katara!" he mumbled.
"Aang. I can't do this."
He didn't understand at first. This was just a nightmare, one he would wake up from soon to marry the woman who rescued him time and time again. She wept, waited, watched. He slowly realized there would be no waking up from this dream.
Master Pakku acted more upset than Chief Hakoda the next more when they discovered Katara gone and the Avatar a wreck. Gran Gran smiled knowingly as she held Pakku's hands and tolerated his rant. "Leaving Aang at the alter— the nerve of her!" he grumbled. "It's just not done."
"In our family, it is," Gran Gran chuckled.