/ / /
you'll learn to be careful, and heartbreak will be your teacher
It takes getting foolishly smitten with Jet for Katara to learn than not all proclivity for violence is clad in red and gold.
They call themselves Freedom Fighters, but that self-righteous name doesn't justify the means they use to get what they want.
Jet appeals to her and for a stupid second she believes they're fighting for the same thing. (Though it may have more to do with the tilt of his mouth and the deliberate charm in his eyes, more so than the actual sense in his coaxing words. She'll smack herself upon realising that later.) But once again, reality reminds her that she can't afford to trust anyone outside of Aang and Sokka, idiotic as they both may be sometimes.
Water can be just as devastating a weapon as fire if it is wielded by the wrong hands, she learns. Not that she's ever truly hated the fire element itself, but those lines become easily blurred when human cruelty gets added to the mix.
They fly away, like they always do, but her faith seems to have taken a slightly bigger hit this time. There's hardly anything in this world she can trust, and she now knows most untrusthworthy of all is her own heart.
/ / /
in myths we trust
Katara hardly finds Aang's tale of how he got saved by the Blue Spirit believable. He must have had a fever of his own to see a spirit of all things, even if he is the bridge to that unknown world. But he's bursting at the seams with excitement about this new mysterious entity that has crossed his path, and Sokka is humoring him just as enthusiastically, so she manages to feign interest for the sake of not hurting his feelings.
After all, his feelings are very easily hurt. All she wants to do is shield him and care for him as much as his destiny as the Avatar would allow. The world's savior or not, he's still just a kid.
She still is one, too, but that frequently goes forgotten.
/ / /
an unlikely story, and not one you want to live
"I see a great romance for you," Aunt Wu is telling her, deliberately shrouding her voice in mystery. Katara has let herself be frivolous this one time, if only to alleviate the responsibility of the path she's chosen. "The man you're going to marry... I can see that he's a very powerful bender."
She nods in appreciation, mildly distracted by the faint footsteps on the other side of the walled sanctum. Aang is tiptoeing right outside, and not even his being an airbender can mask the fact that he's been eavesdropping.
Aunt Wu is smiling at her knowingly, perhaps convinced she couldn't be anything but in love with her travelling companion. Even if he is a dangly fifteen year-old, he is the Avatar.
For some reason, the thought irritates her. She pushes it out of her mind, almost thankful for the distraction when the next disaster strikes.
/ / /
dare to hope for more, this once
Aang has burned her by accident and is now resolved never to use firebending again. But this time, she can't bother to calm him down and ease his mind. She doesn't even want to.
She can heal. She can make a difference, beyond traipsing around the world and cooking the Avatar's meals.
Unlike Aang, she won't shy away from these new powers she's discovered. Maybe she can grow to be more than the weak shadow that stands on the sidelines while he saves the world. It's not so strange that she's been acting like her companions' mother after all. She wants to help, to heal, to protect. And now, she can.
/ / /
all you've been waiting for, and it tastes bitter
Master Pakku may be a waterbending genius, but he's also a wrinkly conservative misogynist. Katara had such high hopes on the way to the North Pole and being the last waterbender of her tribe, she never imagined she'd be turned away with little more than a condescending sneer.
She manages to prove herself, in the end, but was any of that really necessary? She may come from a small village, but she's travelled a good deal now, and this narrowmindedness of her sister tribe is beyond boggling. It's no wonder her grandmother left.
Aang doesn't need to prove anything, of course, so it's only natural he doesn't take his training seriously. Katara can't help but slightly resent him for it. He doesn't appreciate what's being handed to him and it strikes her as awfully entitled, spoiled even, especially after she's had to face this type of humiliation and disregard for her abilities.
He's been through a lot, she has to remind herself. But he hasn't borne witness to any of it first-hand, he hasn't struggled, not really. It's petty of her to think that way when she should be happy his youth is still untarnished by the war's horrors, and he has lost all his people. But Katara has fought tooth and nail to get here and she'd be damned if she allows him to slack for another second.
She's disgustingly self-satisfied when she masters the new techniques faster than him. He's a natural at all of this, but he doesn't apply himself, and that makes all the difference. And seeing the irritating amount of external motivation it takes him to try and improve makes her think perhaps she isn't just the useless companion she's previously viewed herself as. For all his power, the Avatar is way too easily distraught and desperately needs someone to kick his ass into shape. That's a mission worthy of her efforts, she thinks.
/ / /
can you see how much I've grown
Her training couldn't have come at a better time, because next thing she knows, Zhao's fleet is attacking. The vision of the black snowflakes falling soundlessly to the frozen ground as civilians' screams echo in the background prompts a nasty string of memories she has no time or emotional strength to examine right now.
All Katara knows is, she must fight and she must protect.
Aang is off in the Spirit World looking for answers, and the next instant Zuko is there lunging fireballs at her head.
She suspected they might see him sooner or later, considering it's his ships that have put the city under siege, but she was imagining he'd be leading the troops and not sneaking around alone in the ice. His gaze is feral and he fights more desperately than usual.
Against herself, Katara wonders what's happened to him. His face is battered, gold surrounded by new cuts and bruises that possibly scream of his own nation's betrayal to him. But he's still her enemy, and she has no compunctions about flinging him to the wall and freezing him in a block of ice.
For a moment, he looks stunned and she thinks she sees a flicker of awe on his face. But his shock only lasts for a second and then he's advancing again. He has the audacity to call her a peasant, but she can see he's giving it everything he's got and she knows she's now a formidable opponent. He seems to know it too.
Steam flares from his nostrils as he launches his attack and Katara does her best to dodge, not only the flames of his hands but also the burning intensity of his stare, but it isn't enough. Her back hits a tree and the impact is so painful her vision blurs.
The last thing she hears before losing consciousness is, "You rise with the moon. I rise with the sun." For some reason that is entirely inappropriate given the situation at hand, she wants to laugh through the fog that's rapidly enveloping her. The Fire Prince is always so unnecessarily dramatic.
/ / /
and the best thing I can be, is merciful
She gets her rematch shortly after and it takes confoundingly little to best him. It would seem he's just as reckless as his element, because he's darted out into the blizzard with no apparent plan for survival, so it's a good thing they find him, and not only because he has Aang.
She's glad they don't leave him to freeze to death in the tundra. Whatever he's been doing out here, it's clear he's been doing it against Admiral Zhao's orders.
The muted color of his robes looks out of place on him, but what's more striking is how frail he looks when he's unconscious. Up close, the bruises on his angular face are even more prominent, and Katara can't help the uninvited surge of sympathy for this boy who's been nothing but an obsessed jerk to all of them.
She wonders what it would take for this prince who is obviously plagued by the notion of his lost honor, to finally turn his back on the country that keeps on betraying him. But that isn't for her to wonder.
He's her enemy, and that is unlikely to change. But she's secretly glad he's okay all the same.
/ / / / /
Author's Note: Books 2 and 3 won't fly by so quickly, promise. Next up: a series of made-up scenes and a lot more interaction. Also, if someone could tell me what kind of language and depicted/mentioned events would warrant a T-rating? We're getting one at some point for sure, but maybe it should be sooner than what I initially thought... idk, the rating guidelines have me confused, anyone willing to point me in the right direction will be deeply appreciated :)