Aang swallowed the sea prunes hastily, trying to taste them as little as he could. If there was one thing he didn't enjoy about the Water Tribes, it was the food. He didn't mind meals based off seaweed, but anything with meat in it was off the table for the Air Nomad. His declining of Kanna's food wasn't unkind, yet he always felt bad about himself when he pushed away dishes of fish or seal and he saw the disappointed look on the old woman's face. After all the kindness Kanna's family had shown him during the past months, the least he could do was to try to eat the sea prunes, at least. He might grow to like them better in the future…
"Ah, eating the prunes today, are we?" asked Kanna, smiling as she looked upon the Avatar. "I'm glad you finally decided to give them a try."
"T-they're really good," said Aang, trying to grin at the elderly lady but showing her an awkward grimace instead.
"No need to lie about enjoying my stew, Avatar," said Kanna, still smiling at the young man. "You've been here long enough for me to know your taste in food, and to know it's not going to change overnight, or will it?"
Aang grinned and shook his head, stuffing his mouth with more sea prunes in hopes to finish his plate as quickly as possible. He had been staying over at the Chief's igloo ever since Katara had found him in the ice, taking up as little room as he could. The same couldn't be said for Appa, of course. The bison was so large they had no idea how to hide him, to prevent the men from the settlement from spotting him if they tried to spy the village from afar. The entire Southern Water Tribe had been warier of the Fire Nation soldiers ever since they had found the Avatar and his air bison, but, fortunately, there had been no suspicious movements in the settlement so far. It seemed they hadn't noticed the Avatar or his steed's presence yet.
Aang hadn't needed much time to adjust to life in the Tribe, since he had spent seven years in the South Pole already. But the differences between the Tribe he remembered and the one that existed a hundred years later filled him with a deep sense of loss. Nevertheless, he did his best to keep his sorrow well locked within his heart and mind. These people had suffered enough as they had for him to burden them with his own sadness as well.
Katara was still somewhat moody and grim, but she had cheered up considerably when he had begun teaching her the basic waterbending movements, the same ones he had learned upon his first arrival to the South Pole, over a hundred years earlier. Aang wasn't much of a teacher, growing easily distracted by anything, and also by trying to compliment Katara's performance even when she did things badly. That last thing irritated her to no end: she'd snap at him whenever he tried to encourage her upon her mistakes, but she'd apologize quickly afterwards. She knew Aang meant no ill, but her lack of patience often got the best of her.
Katara wanted to learn everything quickly, hoping secretly to confront the Fire Nation soon enough, but her waterbending training was taking more time than she wished it would. Luckily, the movements and stances she had developed over time had been quite helpful, and she had plenty of skill in handling water in all of its stages. Out of all of Aang's compliments, his praise of her natural talent was the truest of them all.
Katara's progress was quite impressive, in Aang's opinion. On the very previous day they had sparred with their waterbending, and Katara had managed to defeat him. Aang had praised her again, and told her she would be as good as him in no time. Her eyes had glowed at those words, because for once she actually could believe them. She had smiled happily at him again as she bid him good night when the day ended.
And just as he recalled the events of the day before, Katara passed through the curtain that led her from her private room into the living room. She smiled weakly at Aang before sitting down to have her own stew, still somewhat drowsy after a good night's sleep.
"Good morning, Katara," said Hakoda, who had been sitting quietly at the head of the table all along.
"Morning, dad," she replied, making him smile at his daughter. He could hardly remember the last time he had seen Katara as cheerful as she was nowadays.
"You seem to be in a good mood," he said, as Katara thanked her grandmother for the stew.
"Oh, my training is finally paying off, that's all," she told her father before digging into the meal.
"That's all?" repeated Hakoda, chuckling. "You're trying to make it sound as if it weren't something important."
"I'm just not that great yet," said Katara, laughing as well. "But I actually defeated Aang yesterday."
"That she did," said Aang, smiling as well. "She genuinely scared me back there. She got me with the octopus form."
"Oh, you know I wouldn't hurt you," said Katara. "Who would teach me the rest of the waterbending forms I need to know if I did anything bad to you?"
"Well, I guess I'm safe for now…" said Aang, chuckling before blinking and staring at Katara in dismay. "B-but then… I'll be in danger from you once I have nothing else to teach you?!"
"Of course not, silly," said Katara, shaking her head and gobbling down more prunes as she laughed at his response. "There's no chance I'm hurting you, or anyone in this village, with my bending. But as for the Fire Nation… oh, they'll never know what's coming for them."
"Katara…" muttered Aang, lowering his head at hearing her speak in such rash manner.
"What?" asked the waterbender, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, it's just… do you just want to learn to waterbend in order to fight?" he asked, looking at her from below. "There's more to bending than just combat…"
Katara stared at the Avatar in surprise. Those weren't words she had been expecting to hear.
"W-well, it's true, I guess," she said. "But we'll have to use it to fight eventually, whether you like to or not. I mean, we'll have to take out the settlement when we have a chance, and from there we'll have to go fight in the rest of the world to free it from the Fire Nation's influence…"
"What?" asked Aang, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? You're the Avatar! All the stories I heard as a child said that you have to preserve the balance in the world, and to do that you have to fight against the Fire Nation," said Katara, turning towards her grandmother and her father. "Right, Dad, Gran Gran?"
The frowns on their faces told Katara how wrong she had been upon assuming that they'd agree with her. Her own brow contracted as she stared at her family in confusion.
"Not quite, Katara" said Hakoda, sighing.
"What do you mean, not quite?" she asked, scandalized.
"We've had a few conversations with Aang about the situation in the world, Katara, and…" said the Southern Chief, making his daughter's eyes grow wide in surprise.
"You've talked to him about it without me? Why? When?"
"You have the tendency to sleep in, Katara…" said Kanna.
"Oh, so then you decided to go change our plans behind my back while I was sleeping?" she asked, frowning.
"Our plans?" asked Aang. "Whose plans, exactly?"
Katara froze at that.
No plans had ever been laid down regarding what they would do upon the Avatar's return. She had assumed he would help them defeat the men in the settlement, and then they would move on to fight through the world and rid them of the Fire Lord's tyranny… but judging by the look on Aang's face, he didn't agree with that idea. Which wasn't all that surprising, actually. She had never even asked him what he wanted to do now that he had woken again…
"The world's plans, I guess," she replied, lowering her gaze. "You are the Avatar. You're supposed to keep balance in the world, and the world is unbalanced right now. You have a responsibility to mend this, because if you don't do it, who will?"
"That's a lot of weight to drop on a young man's shoulders, Katara," asked Kanna, frowning.
"But it's his responsibility! He has to…!"
"Katara," said Hakoda, frowning. "We need to talk. Could you leave us for a moment, Aang?"
"But…" said the Avatar, blinking a few times.
"Please," said Hakoda, bowing his head down towards Aang.
The last airbender sighed and nodded, getting up and stepping out of the igloo. He was relieved to get away from the sea prunes but displeased over missing the conversation. Hakoda and Kanna had often told him he would have a home with them here in the South Pole so long as he wanted it, and he had told them there was nowhere he'd rather stay. If the world had changed as it had, there was no guarantee he would be welcome anywhere else. Even if the food was terrible and the cold was hard to bear at times, at least the South Pole was a safe place for him.
But Katara hadn't been a part of most of these conversations, and it was likely that Hakoda and Kanna had kept her out of them for a reason. The girl's hatred towards the Fire Nation was powerful, and Aang was her one-way ticket to destroying the oppression she had been fighting ever since she was a child. But fighting a war wasn't as easy as she had believed it was.
"What's the matter, dad?" Katara asked, frowning deeply. "What are you guys keeping from me?"
"Katara… your friend, the Avatar, may be powerful," said Kanna. "But he's only human. He has spent a hundred years encased in ice. His entire race has been vanquished, and he probably has no home to return to…"
"So?" asked Katara, frowning. "All the more reason for him to step up and fight against the Fire Nation!"
"To what avail, Katara?" grunted Hakoda. "What do you think this boy will gain from fighting a vindictive war against the Fire Nation by himself?"
"He wouldn't go alone," retorted Katara. "I'd be with him, every step of the way!"
"And you and the Avatar will be able to take down the entirety of the Fire Nation regime by yourselves?" asked Kanna, raising an eyebrow.
"There's a chance we could," said Katara. "There's only two of us, we could pass unnoticed if we just…"
"Unnoticed?" asked Hakoda, unable to give credit to his ears. "Katara, your complexion is an immediate give-away that you're from the Water Tribe. Do you honestly think nobody will take notice of your blue eyes? And let alone Aang's arrows! How would he conceal all of them effectively? And I'm certain you're betting on the bison to carry you into the Fire Nation. Do you honestly believe a sky bison can pass unnoticed when none have been sighted in ages?"
"I… I don't know, dad!" she squealed. "But we can't just stay here and do nothing!"
"You can stay here and train. Become the best waterbender you can be, and be ready to defend your home if it's necessary," said Hakoda, sighing. "Our family, our tribe, has lost too much to the war as it is."
"So that's it, then? We're just giving up?" asked Katara, in utter disbelief. "The Fire Nation won?"
"The Fire Nation defeated us a long time ago. I don't believe that means they won," said Kanna. "What have they gained from all the strife they've caused in the world…?"
"They gained everything they could take from the rest of us," retorted Katara. "And they still want more. If we give up, we're just letting them get away with what they've done! We have to make a stand, dad!"
"You sound like…" said Hakoda, smiling for a moment before his eyes were clouded with grief. "… Like your brother"
Katara felt her stomach churn at those words. Never before had she thought she would remind anyone of her brother. Had these years of leading the resistance turned her into Sokka without her awareness…?
"And what's so wrong with that?" she asked, frowning. "You… you loved Sokka."
"You know well enough that I did," said Hakoda, lowering his gaze.
"Then why shouldn't I be like him?" asked Katara, her hands shaking at the thought of Sokka. They hadn't spoken of him in such a long time…
"Because your brother's recklessness caused his… his demise," said Hakoda, gritting his teeth. "And if that were to happen to you… I wouldn't be able to bear it, Katara."
"So it's about not letting me get hurt, is it, Dad?" asked the waterbender, folding her arms over her chest. "Dad, the world has already suffered enough. If I'm to be sacrificed as well in order to make it a better place…"
"Can't you make it a better place while still being alive, Katara?" asked Hakoda. "Can't you do it through different means?"
"How?" she asked. "How are we supposed to make anything change, dad?! The Fire Nation has taken control of everything else! There's nothing we can do aside from waiting until they finally decide to come here and take over our home! And then, what? Will we become slaves and spend the rest of our lives serving the Fire Lord who murdered our people? Why should we do that?! We should be free to choose to fight or not to! And I want to fight! For my brother's sake, for my mother, and for everyone this wretched war has taken from us!"
"And that's the same reasoning I had, Katara," admitted Hakoda. "I wanted to make a difference, to find allies who would help us defeat the Fire Nation. The entirety of the Southern Water Tribe's fleet was with me. And even though we joined with Earth Kingdom forces and warriors from our sister tribe, nothing was accomplished. Many of my men died, Katara. What was the point of sacrificing them when we couldn't succeed? War is pointless, Katara. It doesn't matter how many sacrifices you have to make… there should be no sacrifices made in order to gain freedom. Once you have to sacrifice something to attain it, it's no longer true freedom. Fighting back against the Fire Nation won't resolve this matter…"
"And standing idly by won't help either," replied Katara. "What do you want me to do, dad? Do you want me to stay here, watching the snow fall and counting the days until the North Pole falls and the entirety of the Fire Nation navy comes to get us?"
"If that will keep you alive for the longest… then yes," said Hakoda, closing his eyes and dropping his head. "I already lost a son and a wife. I can't lose my daughter."
"You'll lose me anyways if we do nothing, Dad," grunted Katara.
"We can still fight for our territory, child," said Kanna. "That much we should be able to do…"
"In our pole we have the upper hand," said Hakoda, nodding. "And I suppose making a stand here shouldn't be that much of a risk. But leaving the pole and seeking to fight against the stronger forces of the Fire Nation army… that's completely reckless, and it will accomplish…"
"Nothing, I know," grunted Katara. "But what of Aang? He's the Avatar. Isn't his duty to keep balance in the world? The world is in absolute chaos. The Fire Nation is taking everything, and we've been powerless to stop them so far…"
"And you believe the Avatar can change everything?" asked Hakoda.
"Of course! He's the Avatar, Dad!" exclaimed Katara.
"He might be the Avatar, my daughter… but he is still one man," he stated. "A single man can make the difference in any battlefield. But you want him to face the Fire Nation on his own…"
"I said I'd be with him, he wouldn't be alone," grunted Katara.
"And that way you'll only get both of you killed once a truly powerful firebender stands before you," retorted Hakoda, losing his patience. "You think together you'll be able to defeat the Fire Lord?"
"Why not?" grunted Katara.
"Even if you caught the Fire Lord unawares and unguarded in the perfect moment, which I rather doubt, how would you change anything by slaying him?" asked Hakoda. "It's been a hundred years, Katara. One hundred years of the Fire Lords convincing their people that their war is justified for reasons we cannot even fathom, and the death of one Fire Lord will only bring a new one to office, who might turn out to be even more merciless than the one before. From what I heard while we were in the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Lord had banished his son in a fit of cruelty to teach him a lesson or so. The only lesson anyone could have learned from that was to hate, to loathe being powerless against someone else. There's a chance that boy could be a better leader than his father… but who is to say it won't be otherwise?"
"Nobody believed it could be worse than with Fire Lord Hizuo… and then came Fire Lord Azulon," sighed Kanna. "And Fire Lord Ozai has already outdone his father in regards of cruelty. Destroying the entire Earth Kingdom as he did was a gesture of evil I never even believed possible."
"So you think that the answer is to leave Fire Lord Ozai in charge because his son is bound to be worse than him?" asked Katara, skeptical. "Let the wretched man do as he will, because it could be much worse? That's such a pile of nonsense… if we don't act, nothing will change!"
"And if you act recklessly, everything will get worse!" declared Hakoda. "What will you accomplish by dying in battle? What would be the point of risking the life of the last of the airbenders in a suicide mission, Katara?! The Fire Nation is too strong now, and he's not even a fully realized Avatar yet! If he makes a stand against them right now, he might as well be asking for them to murder him in cold blood!"
"Then you're saying he'd stand a chance if he had mastered all elements?"
"Of course he wouldn't!" replied Hakoda. "And who would teach him anything else anyways? The earthbenders have been taken down by the Fire Nation, and no firebender who follows Fire Lord Ozai's laws would accept to teach anything to the Avatar."
"Well, then he'd just have to find someone who doesn't agree with the Fire Lord's ways! I'm sure they must be out there somewhere!"
"And how would you know they're not simply going to capture him and send him straight to the Fire Lord?" asked Hakoda. "Katara, you can't trust these people! They've wanted to find and murder the Avatar for over a century now!"
"I never said I trusted them! But I'm starting to think that you trust me even less than you trust them!" she bellowed, growing desperate.
"Don't, Katara," said Hakoda, sighing. "Don't you dare say I don't trust…"
"You just think that I'll mess up like Sokka did!" squealed Katara. "Well, I'm a bender and that's not going to happen to…!"
"You think being a bender is that great a benefit, Katara?" Hakoda yelled. "You really think that's going to make a difference? How many benders did they take from our Tribe during your grandmother's youth? How many did they kill?! All of them, Katara! All of them!"
"B-but that doesn't have to happen to me…" said the waterbender, grimacing.
"No, it doesn't. And the best way to keep it from happening would be for you to stay safely with your Tribe," responded Hakoda. "Katara, don't do this unless you know what you're doing. If… if you find an opening, an opportunity to sneak past the Fire Nation and accomplish your goal safely, then I'll support you completely. But until that moment, Katara… until then, I won't have you throwing your life away in a pointless mission that will only destroy the last hope we have."
"Aang truly is our last hope, Katara," said Kanna, sighing. "He is the Avatar. And he must bring balance to the world. All the more reason why we should want him to be safe and far from the Fire Nation until he can develop his skills properly and fight the Fire Lord when the time comes."
"And when will that be?" asked Katara, glaring at them. "When the Fire Lord has enslaved us all?"
"I don't know," said Kanna, her head dropping.
"But Aang's best chance is to remain hidden for now, Katara," said Hakoda. "As soon as word reaches the Fire Nation about the Avatar being alive, they'll try to murder or capture him. We'll keep him safe and alive for as long as possible…"
"It's as if you were taking for granted he won't survive this," Katara grunted.
"If you try to have him to murder the Fire Lord, as it seems you're trying to, then it's unlikely he will," said Hakoda.
"And you think there's another way to put an end to this war?" Katara asked. "How, by sitting down with the Fire Lord and reasoning with him so that he'll change his ways? That's completely ridiculous!"
"If it will keep you and the Avatar from dying… I'd be willing to try something like that," said Hakoda, sighing and closing his eyes, deep in thought.
Katara stared at him in disbelief before shaking her head and storming out of the igloo. Kanna stretched a hand to stop her, but her granddaughter walked past her too quickly.
The waterbender stomped through the fresh snow with a deep frown on her face. She hadn't been certain of what the future would bring, but as soon as she had realized that Aang was the Avatar, she thought he had a mission to accomplish. He had the brightest, most important destiny of all, and if he didn't fulfill it, the world as they knew it would end. There might be sacrifices to be made, but in order to save the world they should do everything they could do… Sokka would have done anything. He would have paid the price with his life if it meant to take down the Fire Nation! And he already had…
As she wandered through the village, hoping to work out her frustrations through her waterbending, she found that Aang was standing on the edge of the town, holding his staff in one hand while he tugged at his black hair. The weather down at the South Pole was quite harsh, and even more so if you were bald. Even when Aang's customs would have had him shaving his head, he hadn't sheared his hair again ever since he had come out of the ice, in order to keep his head warm. He had told Katara that they had found him with his head shaved because he was trying to return home, but in all the seven years he had been in the South Pole he hadn't shaved his head completely not even once, no matter if his Air Nomad traditions told him otherwise. It was simply a matter of common sense.
But even when the hair could conceal the tattoo on his head, and when the arrows on the rest of his body were well covered by the thick clothes he had donned, his forehead still revealed the tip of his largest arrow. Even when he hardly looked like the monk Katara had found frozen in ice… this was Aang. And he was the Avatar.
Katara clenched her fists tightly before walking up to him, wondering how to start this conversation. If Aang really didn't want to fulfill his destiny… then she would hear it directly from him, without her father or her grandmother's influence working to change the Avatar's mind.
"It's odd, having hair again," said Aang, when she stood right next to him. "I never even knew it was actually black until I came to the South Pole, you know?"
"You shaved every day?" asked Katara, willing to change the topic if only for now.
"Not every day, only when the new hair started to sprout out," said Aang. "But when it was short it was hard to see what color it might be… I didn't know if it was dark brown or black."
"I see," said Katara. "Well… I like the way it looks. It suits you."
"You think?" asked Aang, smiling weakly at her. "Thanks."
Katara smiled as well, but the grin vanished quickly as her mind returned to the pressing matters that still bothered her deeply. Aang saw her face darkening, and he dropped his gaze, readying himself for the questions he knew she'd have for him.
"Aang, I know there's a lot of pressure on you, and it's not fair of me to force you to kill a man or enter a war against a nation, but you're the Avatar…"
"And an Air Nomad too," said Aang. "And we value all life, Katara… even if the Fire Lord were the cruelest man of the world-"
"He is," retorted Katara instantly. "There's no questioning it."
"Well… even so, I can't kill him. You can't ask me to murder another person like this," said Aang, closing his eyes and sighing. "It's wrong, no matter the circumstances."
"Why, though? If it's the only way, Aang…!"
"If I were to kill him, what would make me any better than he is, Katara?" asked Aang, looking at her sideways. "This war… I know hardly anything about it, but it's wrong by all accounts. Enough blood has been shed for me to shed even more."
"But if you do nothing he'll keep destroying everything, Aang," said Katara, almost desperate by now. "The bloodshed won't stop. We can put an end to it…"
"Perhaps we can," said Aang, nodding. "But not like this. We have to save the world, Katara… but we have to save the Fire Nation too, from the horror they have become. Balance isn't only about keeping every nation in its place… yes, we should get the Earth Kingdom and the Air Nomads back somehow, and the Fire Nation should back off from the territories that don't belong to them. But this doesn't mean that we're going to tear apart the Fire Nation so we can help the other nations to rise as well."
"Why…? Why are you so willing to protect them, Aang?" asked Katara. "After all they've done, after all they did… they killed your people, and yet you're forgiving them for it?"
"I… I don't think I'm forgiving anyone," said Aang, sighing. "But there's no point in revenge, Katara. It won't bring my friends back to me. Giving in to revenge will only serve to destroy me on the inside. The Fire Nation isn't to blame for the crimes of Fire Lord Sozin and his sons…"
"But they are crimes that still harm everyone to this day. And they deserve to face justice for them!" exclaimed Katara.
"The last I knew, the Avatar wasn't out to deliver justice in the world," said Aang. "I was told my duty was to keep balance, not to punish those who have done terrible deeds."
"And what if keeping balance involved punishment? What would you do then?" asked Katara, frowning.
"Keeping balance involves punishment? Inflicting pain on someone else?" asked Aang, raising an eyebrow. "If that were the case… then maybe keeping balance isn't such a good thing after all."
"But… Aang," said Katara, looking at him in despair. "You're the Avatar…"
"I am," said Aang, nodding. "And I have a duty to this world, whether I like it or not. A duty I'll fulfill… but I can't fulfill it by discarding who I am, by losing sight of what's right and what's wrong. I know it's hard for you to understand, Katara, but this isn't the way to do it. This isn't the way to change the world into a better place."
"Then what is?" asked Katara, frowning.
"I don't know yet," said Aang, sighing. "I have no idea. But attacking the Fire Nation in an act of war will only result in more death for us and them. I won't kill soldiers or innocent people just to get to the Fire Lord… and I won't kill the Fire Lord either. There has to be another way."
"And what if there isn't?" asked Katara. "What if you find no way? What if the Fire Lord destroys the poles and kills us all before you have a chance to discover how to improve things, Aang?"
"If that were to happen… t-then I guess the Avatar would be reborn in the Water T-…"
"There will be no Water Tribes by then!" declared Katara. "The world will be in utter chaos…"
Aang lowered his head and sighed before looking at the waterbender again.
"And by attacking them directly, will I actually bring peace to the world? By going head-on against them, as you expect me to, will I avoid chaos?"
Katara blinked a few times at the question, confused over how to answer it.
"Well, t-there's a chance that you'll succeed and…"
"Succeeding at killing the Fire Lord will only throw the Fire Nation itself into chaos, and with it, the rest of the world," said Aang, making Katara cringe.
"But…"
Aang sighed and approached her, placing a hand on her shoulder softly. She looked up at his onyx eyes, almost begging him to give her an answer, to tell her that their lives weren't completely lost yet. That there was still something worth fighting for… and something he would be willing to fight for, too.
"I understand your anguish, Katara," said Aang, looking at her gently. "And I know just how hard this is for you. You want to keep your people safe, and to do that, the easiest thing to do would be to bring down the Fire Nation. But you are the leader of the Water Tribe's warriors now, aren't you? Who will defend this village if you leave to fight directly against the Fire Lord?"
"Well, my father isn't getting any younger, but I'm sure he could…"
"You love the Water Tribe, don't you?" asked Aang.
"Wha…? Of course I do! This is my home," said Katara. "I've been fighting for it for years."
"Then defend it," said Aang, smiling. "Keep it safe. Fight for those you love. Fight against the Fire Nation soldiers that who are trying to take what doesn't belong to them, and keep them far from the Water Tribe. Defend your home… in the way I was unable to defend my own."
Katara's eyes widened when she saw the grief in the airbender's eyes. His biggest regret wasn't having been frozen, or not having mastered all the elements quickly enough to face Fire Lord Sozin when he began his war. The true regret weighing on him was that he hadn't been able to save his people, his friends, his family, his entire race. And now, with his advice, he was trying to keep her from making a mistake that could destroy her people now.
"You want me to stay here… and fight against the men from the settlement," she whispered. "You think that's what has to be done for now."
"I hate to think of this entire matter as a war, but a war it is," said Aang. "And wars are won by small victories, one by one. You can save your own, Katara. You're strong enough, and if we keep training I'm sure you'll find the way to…"
"Crack the polar casket and send that settlement floating into the Earth Kingdom's coasts?" asked Katara, smiling. Aang laughed at her suggestion.
"That actually sounds like a good idea," he said, pleased.
"And you…? You have a destiny to fulfill, Aang. If I stay here, keeping my people safe… what of you?"
"My destiny is to keep balance between the four elements," said Aang. "And to serve as the bridge between the human and spirit worlds. The Avatar's destiny has never been to kill tyrants. There has to be another way, and I'll find one as soon as I can. An opportunity will come, and I'll use it to restore balance so that all nations will become equals once more. No nation will be able to impose itself over another one. I promise, Katara… I'll do it. I'll do my duties. Just be patient, alright?"
Katara smiled kindly and nodded at him.
"And in the mean time…" she muttered. "You'll stay here to help me protect the Water Tribe?"
"So long as you'll have me," said Aang, chuckling.
"Well, where else would you go?" asked Katara, raising an eyebrow.
"I guess there's nowhere else safer for me, but I could always go make a living with the penguins," he said, smiling innocently. "And speaking of which, you still haven't taken me to see them!"
It was Katara's turn to laugh at Aang's childishness. She shook her head and led Aang outside of town, bringing him with her to the farther plains of the Pole in search for the waddle of penguins she knew resided nearby. How many times had she come looking for them with her brother when they were children? The thought of Sokka made her chest ache, as it always did, but it faded away when Aang stretched a gloved hand towards her to pull her up to the ridge from where they could see the penguins clearly.
"I missed this," said Aang, beaming. "Toki would penguin-sled with me whenever I had mastered a new waterbending form…"
"It sounds like you had lots of fun with Toki," said Katara, smiling.
"He was a great friend," said Aang, nodding. "Much like you are."
Katara blushed faintly, somewhat pleased that Aang thought that way after all the things she had told him today. He was a very kind man. And by looking at him right now she realized that, just as she wanted to protect her village, she wanted to protect her friend from the Fire Nation too. The Fire Lords had hunted for the Avatar since the war had begun, and sending him straight to their lair surely couldn't end well. Now she could see that. In order to do the best for Aang, she'd give up her hopes to attack the Fire Nation for now. She only hoped that this decision wouldn't harm the rest of the world…
"So… ready to get them?" asked the Avatar, bringing her out of her thoughts again.
Katara smiled at the sight of Aang's goofy smile. The world was a mess: there was a war raging outside their pole, catastrophes waiting to happen. Two nations had been wiped out, and only two more remained: Aang's people had perished. A hundred years of tyranny had taken their toll on the world and on every single person living in it… yet this young man, who could have been growing the seeds of vengeance for the death of his people, was standing right next to her, smiling at her. He was a beacon of hope, like a gleam of light shining through a sky covered with grey clouds. For him to still find the strength to smile, the courage to make the right decision even if it was hard…
He gave her hope. The hope she had thought she would never regain. Hope that led her to believe that perhaps the world wasn't as dark and cruel as she had grown to think it was.
Katara's response to Aang's question was an enthusiastic nod.
A/N:
So here it is, chapter 47, unusually short in comparison to my usual updates…
In any case, we have breached 1000 reviews! Hurray! Thank you very much for all your support and your reviews! I never even dreamt of writing a fic that would garner a response of this magnitude. So many great stories hardly get any recognition, so it's astounding that my work is actually being read and cherished by so many people! From the bottom of my heart… thank you.
And these thanks are translated into our great spoiler fest! If you wish to ask anything, go straight to my tumblr blog (the link can be found in my profile) and send any questions you'd want me to answer regarding Gladiator ^^ I already posted the rules on the previous chapter, but there's nothing wrong with repeating a few of them: I'll be answering virtually anything you ask, save for 'when' questions, and you can ask as many questions as tumblr allows you. This is a good opportunity to look at future happenings in Gladiator, and it's the only way I've thought of to thank you all for taking time out of your lives to read this extremely long story. You're welcome to take part in it if you wish! If you'd rather be surprised and stay clear off spoilers, you're most welcome to do that too ^^
The 1000 reviews party will begin one day after this chapter has been uploaded, and it will be spanning out for two days so that I can give most of you a chance to ask your questions. I'll try to post the next chapter soon, sorry to all those who were a little desperate for an update but I had dental surgery on Monday and I was rendered unable to do anything for about two or three days. But since I feel better at last, I have the time, once again, to write more and to update this story
Thanks again for reading Gladiator, and I look forward to answering your questions! :D