AUTHOR NOTES: This story is based on true events. Trauma is the common heavy topic that is involved throughout "Catharsis." If at any point you feel the need to take time away from reading, please do so, it is completely understandable.
STORY NOTES: Katara/Zuko slow burn ship! No canon ships! OOC!
- PROLOGUE -
Dusk lingered over Ba Sing Se.
Only the scattered lights of closing shops illuminated the city. Birds chirping and some small chatter here and there filled the air as the sun trailed the horizon. Most of those who had wandered the streets found themselves tucked away in their homes right before nightfall took over. Blue-hour hued the skies indigo and showered the rooftops alongside everything below, reflecting off even the smallest droplets of water succumbing under the feet of those finishing the last of their errands.
It had been five years since the new sovereign. Five years since the massacre. In just shy of a week of his coronation, none but a handful within the combined Water Tribes were spared, as Fire Lord Ozai believed their non-bending would give no opposition to the Fire Nation. He was just and merciful in that way. The soldiers who herded the tribes that night were too, a swift shot to the head is best if to avoid being attached to treachery — especially as a leader. Expectedly, it was not humane to any extent for those who were forced to witness the loss. No one was allowed to find solace in looking at anything besides what was in front of them. One by one, the population dwindled. And if by miracle, a water-bender sustained a bullet injury that failed, they were engulfed in flames. Luckily, a young woman claimed Katara as her own, since both pairs of parents perished, even non-bending swordsmen fell under the "rebellion" category for the Fire Lord when time unfolded.
Years later, Katara found herself and her adoptive parents in a far less robust area of Ba Sing Se in a clinic near by a more "active" community. Granted, they were not Katara's preferred patients, still, having a reputation of a criminal in the eyes of any group aside their own, seemed about the best case scenario for patients for a woman with her own secret expertise. The mobs from every strip of town, and even beyond at times, figured a way to Crystal Catacomb Clinic — most entering through a back alley that was shared by an underground city, the clinic's namesake.
Regardless of demeanor, ambling around the area with it being the time it was, harbored an abundance of danger enough so that the Fire Nation did not tend to the area much. The soldiers left petty crimes on the rise. However, that did not mean that the less desirable corner of Ba Sing Se was preserved of Fire Lord Ozai.