Katara walked aimlessly down the dirt road.
It was dark and noiseless, and she stared at her feet as she walked.
She made her way through several Earth Kingdom towns like that.
Walking without purpose.
Staring at her feet.
There were too many shrines of too many faces she knew-Aang, Toph, Suki, even Sokka on occasion.
She knew them when they lived, and she didn't need to see them frozen in time. When she thought about them, she liked to think of them as old men and women. She liked to think they would've decayed beautifully.
She had a hard time imagining it when she saw their faces set in stone with words about the divinity of dying young.
It just wasn't true.
So she stared at her feet.
There was nothing worth looking at in this place anyway. She walked in a straight line and turned only when the roads ended.
It wasn't until she was gathering water by a creek that she ran into him.
His black hair grown out and scar as blistering as ever.
She should've been angry at him.
She knew she should've felt something.
She should've raged and yelled and fought.
Didn't he hurt them? Didn't he betray them? Didn't he hunt them?
He meant something at one point, didn't he?
She couldn't remember the answer to those questions now.
He looked surprised to see her. He called her name. (She didn't know he knew it.)
That might've mattered once, but she could only muster indifference now.
"Where have you been?"
He asked as if they knew each other, as if they were old friends. She didn't answer.
She dunked her water skin in the creek to let it fill up.
"There are people looking for you." He said."Dangerous people."
She sighed but said nothing.
"They're close, you know. To finding you."
She turned to look at him then.
"Let them."
He reared back like she had hit him.
"I can help."
He was holding a straw hat at his side. That's funny, she thought, for no particular reason. He didn't strike her as a straw hat person.
"Why would you help me?" She started to fill another water skin, dunking it in the same way to fill it up.
He took a step closer.
"Things shouldn't have happened the way they did. I was...wrong. I couldn't help you then, but I can now."
His voice was gentle. Sincere.
It made her tired.
"It doesn't matter now." She said. He came even closer, nearly arm's length away.
"It does."
She turned to face him fully.
"You grew your hair out." She didn't know what possessed her to say it. It was said without inflection. She was stating a fact.
He furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Well, yeah."
"Why?"
"The shaved head was meant to shame me."
"And you're not ashamed anymore?"
He looked a little uncomfortable and shifted from foot to foot.
"Well, no."
She cocked her head at him, pinning him with a look that seared him straight to his core.
She approached him slowly, eyes nearly predatory, until she stood right in front of him. She reached one hand up to touch his hair. It was silky. She wasn't expecting that. He looked nervous but didn't move.
He wasn't sure if having her close was better or worse.
She reached one hand around his waist, feeling for the waistband of his pants. He startled in surprise, but she cupped his cheek, and he stilled, watching her with a trust he had no real reason to give.
She pulled out the knife he had tucked away in his belt. She took several steps back.
He watched her, entranced.
She gathered all her hair to the back of her head and with several painful hacks, cut it off in choppy clumps.
She held his knife out for him to take.
"Some of us are still ashamed," was all she said.
She started to walk away, not caring enough to spare a glance behind, when his voice stopped her again.
"Why didn't you bend the water?"
He gestured to her water skins.
She inhaled and exhaled deeply.
"I don't do that anymore."
She was gone.