CW: This story is rated M for implied sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, alcoholism, child abuse, implied pedophilia, self-harm, and mentions of death. Please proceed at your own discretion.

Hello! I'd like to thank each and every one of you for giving my story a chance. This is my first ever fanfic, and I'm so excited to share all the things I've planned!

I just wanted to say that this book will be more focused on character analysis rather than romance, which doesn't start until later in the series. So when I say it's slow burn, I mean it's slow burn. But don't let this discourage you from reading it—I give you my word, the payoff will be well worth the wait in the end :)

Also, I would like to thank Ilya_Boltagon on AO3 from the bottom of my heart for agreeing to beta this fic and their tremendous help throughout the story outside of betaing.

I do not own ATLA or any of the characters, locations, or plotlines in the show.

Ocean of Flames

Book 1: Immolation

This was a nightmare. It had to be. A nightmare, or she was dead, and this was hell.

Katara's pulse was beating in her ears, blocking out all other sounds, her vision cloudy with tears. She felt sick, weak, useless as she stared blankly at the lifeless boy in her arms—felt as though a knife had lodged into her heart, sinking deeper with every shaky breath she took. It twisted and ripped her to shreds with every tear she shed.

Smoke and the stench of burnt flesh wafted from Aang's petite frame. His clothes were ruined from the lightning he'd just taken to his back, and he simply laid there on her lap, completely still and with his eyes closed, head lolled back, serenity cast upon his features—much like the moment he'd come out of the ice all those months ago.

The intervals between Katara's heartbeats got longer and longer as one second stretched out into a million, and she was helpless to do anything but kneel there on the wet, rocky ground and stare down at her friend.

"Aang," she whimpered, her voice so weak and quiet she almost didn't hear herself. "Aang, please wake up. Please."

The sliver of hope that he'd actually open his joyful, grey eyes and assure her that he was okay slowly faded away as seconds, minutes, hours passed and he kept lying still.

But Katara didn't get to weep for her friend, didn't get to cry her heart out for what had been done to him, as a large object whooshed right past her head and crashed into the stone wall behind her, pulling her out of her misery and back to reality—back to the crystal catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se.

She let out a yelp and reflexively bent over Aang's body to shield him from the debris, then lifted her head up, her sight still misted with tears, to see bright lights flickering ahead of her, appearing and disappearing rapidly, and more large rocks flying in the air toward her—yet was everything still a flurry of images to her grief-stricken brain.

Her senses eventually began sharpening, though, and her mind started giving way to more than just woe and suffering. Her vision cleared of its fog and her surroundings gradually gained detail. She spotted an old man in green robes fighting off the Dai Li in front of her. He was shouting something. Was he shouting at her? Who was he? Why was he defending them? How long had she been kneeling here?

Katara's eyes darted to the people in the back, who were simply standing there, watching the whole thing go down. And that was when she saw him, glancing back and forth between her, Aang, and the old man, his eyes wide with worry and mouth agape.

That bastard. All of this was his fault, yet he had the audacity to look concerned?!

Then, as her gaze shifted to his sister standing beside him, staring at Aang with a smug smile dancing on her lips, Katara's world suddenly got engulfed in red. Her mournful eyes narrowed, the sorrow in her heart turned into fury, and her mouth parched with thirst for revenge.

'Azula,' a voice inside her head hissed. 'She did this. She killed Aang.'

Rage churning within her body and soul, Katara carefully laid her lifeless friend down and set her palms against the water that had pooled on the ground. She closed her eyes and felt the moon's power course through her veins, felt the push and pull of the water all around her—beneath her fingers, in the canals on her either side, the waterfall behind her...

Her eyes shot open and as quick as the lightning that had taken Aang from her, she bolted to her feet, circled her hands above her head, and extended her right arm forward in a straight line. The scream of rage and grief that escaped her lips nearly deafened her.

Every single drop of water in the catacombs suddenly rose high up in the air, forming a giant stream of water that encircled everybody in the catacombs. The water hovered above them briefly before descending upon them at lightspeed, turning into sharp ice daggers mid-air. The skirmish in front of her between the old man and the Dai Li came to an abrupt halt as everyone's attention diverted to her first and then to the barrage of ice daggers forging at them from all sides. The earthbenders immediately lifted up walls of earth from the ground for themselves while the firebenders created shields of orange and blue flames to melt the daggers.

For a moment, the whole place was silent—the only sound was coming from the waterfall behind her regaining its speed. Then two Dai Li agents that were not fast enough to guard themselves against her attack collapsed to the ground. They clutched their necks, chests, stomachs, and blood gushed from the holes in their clothes her daggers had created, turning their dark green uniforms black. They quivered in a growing pool of their own blood, gasping desperately for air, and Katara could do naught but stare at them.

Just like that, her anger receded as quickly as it'd come. Tui and La… What had she just done.

"Go!" she heard someone yell. It was the old man in front of her. "You've got to get out of here! I'll hold them off as long as I can!"

He was right, she did need to get out of here. Hooking one of Aang's arms over her shoulders, Katara rushed over to the waterfall and lifted him and herself up with her bending. Fighting ensued below and more rocks nearly struck her, but she kept her gaze locked on the little flicker of light coming from the end of the tunnel leading them above. She couldn't think about the atrocities she'd just committed, not when she was still surrounded by enemies. She had to focus on what was most important right now—Getting Aang and herself to safety.

-o-

Once they'd streamed past the mouth of the tunnel and were above ground again, Katara dropped Aang onto the stone pavement, careful that he didn't hit his head, and flopped down on her hands and knees beside him, out of breath. All the bending she'd done to get up here, not to mention all the other things that had happened in the past couple of minutes, had taken its toll.

'You don't have time to rest, Katara,' the voice from before spoke up. 'The Dai Li are on your tail. Get out of here!'

As much as she hated that voice, the waterbender had to admit it was right. Begrudgingly, she picked up her friend from the ground, then froze her remaining water that had seeped between the cracks of the cobblestones into an ice slide and hopped on to it, holding her lifeless friend close with one hand, bending the slide forward with the other. She made sure to take sharp turns and never slid down a single road for too long.

Before long, the unkempt houses and the lights of the street lanterns began to flash in her peripheral vision as she sped up to a degree that whenever she'd take a turn, she'd nearly lose her grip on Aang and drift off of the slide herself. But she didn't slow down—couldn't, for her friend's sake. If anything, she only gained more speed with each passing second.

The people on the streets she glided past were mostly drunk, joking around with each other and swaying as they walked. They did briefly glance at her—at the young girl with torn robes and disheveled hair, carrying an unconscious, blue-tattooed boy and riding an ice slide at break-neck speed—but didn't seem to care much, if the way they laughed it off and continued with their drinking was any indication.

With all the bending she'd been doing, as well as the smell of filth all around her filling her senses, Katara's head was starting to clear up. The most urgent thing right now was healing Aang. She wanted him to come back because he was her best friend, yes, but he was also the Avatar—he was far too important to die.

'You can't heal a dead person, Katara.'

No. She refused to think of Aang as dead. He was only… temporarily gone. She could still bring him back. She still had the spirit water Pakku had given her, didn't she? He'd said it had unique abilities—it could work.

In order for her to heal Aang, though, she first needed to find a place where no one would disturb them. There, she'd heal him and they'd figure out a way to get out of this city together. The plan was far from ideal, but it was better than nothing.

Going as fast as she was, it was difficult for her to look for a good hideout. She slowed down a bit and began scanning the environment. The single-story houses in shreds around her, the stench of filth in the streets, and the drunk men in worn-out clothes wandering about, not even bothering to step aside to avoid the waterbender surging at them on an ice slide, left no doubt that she was in the Lower Ring.

A small house at the far end of the street caught her attention. It had no lights coming from under its door, but even if anyone was inside, Katara would just freeze them to the wall and proceed with her plan. The only thing that mattered now was Aang, and she'd do anything to protect him. She'd already killed for him, hadn't she? What was freezing someone to a wall compared to murdering them.

'Come on, Katara, you can't think about this right now. Focus.'

Right. Katara agreed with the voice this time.

Coming to a halt before the door of the tiny building, she melted her slide and burst open the door with the water. It was a one-room house with some sleeping mats on the floor, a small chest to the right, and some firewood next to the wooden window to the left. She peeked her head inside to check if there was anyone, and to her delight, there was not a single soul. She quickly carried Aang inside and laid him face-down on one of the mats, then went and shut the door, and froze the water on the floor behind it, creating a sturdy barricade so that no one could walk in on them. Then, she went back to her friend and kneeled beside him. She took out the vial containing the spirit water from its place around her neck and bent the liquid outside, spinning it in circles above her palm.

The water began glowing and illuminated the dark room, finally allowing her a glimpse of the horror plastered on her friend's back—A deep, scarlet, star-shaped scar smearing across his back. Katara's heart dropped at the sight. It looked like someone had carved his flesh out with a burning knife. She'd never worked with an injury this bad before. Could she really do this? Could she really heal him?

Yes, she could. She was going to heal him and he was going to wake up. He was going to be okay.

Holding back the tears beginning to burn her eyes once more, she placed the water above her palm against the horrid scar and prayed, "Please work. Tui and La, please wake him up. Please bring him back to me."

When the glowing water disappeared into the scar, she gathered more water from the ice barricade, gloved it around her hands, and moved them back and forth on his back.

Looking down at Aang's scar, everything came crashing down on the waterbender. Her vision was flooded with their memories together, all of them now tinted with melancholy—He was lying on Appa's head smiling at her dreamily, they were splashing Sokka with freezing water and laughing at how he growled to himself, he was blushing after she'd dressed up as an Earth Kingdom noble, she was healing a bruise he'd gotten while sparring with Toph, he was crying because everyone expected so much from him even though he was just a kid.

And he was just a kid. But now that kid was dead.

Aang was dead.

Her best friend was dead.

The built-up sorrow in her heart washed over Katara like a wave, drowning her in absolute despair. Hot tears poured from her eyes like rain in a raging storm and her whole body shook with her sobs.

-o-

Katara could literally feel her energy draining. That was the thing about healing—It required the healer to transfer their own energy to the patient. Normally, all it'd cause was a weird feeling in her bones or a mild headache at worst. But she'd been trying to bring Aang back for the past half an hour now and sobbing throughout it had weakened her already exhausted body.

First, her legs had become numb, so she'd pulled herself a mat and switched to sitting cross-legged rather than kneeling. Next, standing straight had begun straining her back, so she'd slouched her shoulders. Then, her arms had become too heavy to lift, so she'd stopped moving them and instead just set them down on the scar and continued healing her friend like that. And now a throb behind her temples was threatening to make her head explode, but this she didn't have a remedy for. She wasn't sure how long she could go on like this, it was getting harder just to keep her eyes open.

'Alright, Katara, enough complaining. You have to get out of here. Think. What are your options?'

Well, they'd entered the city by train, hadn't they? If any were going out the Inner Wall at this hour, she could—

'Are you crazy? The Dai Li are after you. You can't use public transportation!'

So, what? What was she going to do? Earthbend the walls down?

'Think of another way.'

There was no other way. You either earthbent yourself out or used the trains. Without them, there was no exit from this spirits-forsaken place. Oh, how she wished Toph was here right now. It would've taken her approximately one second to get them out of here. Katara wished Sokka was here too, he would've known what to do.

'Stop thinking about them—you'll get yourself killed doing that. Come on, you don't have time.'

Okay okay okay… Hmm… What would Sokka do? He'd say something like, "If you can't go through a wall, then you go around it," and then praise himself for being a genius for the rest of the day.

'No use—Both the Inner Wall and the Outer Wall are circular. You can't go around them. You can only go through, under, or over them.'

At that, Katara's eyes widened. She could go over them.

Aang had told her just before the fight that he'd picked up Sokka and Toph on his way here. They were in Ba Sing Se! They were here! They were all here! She only needed to call Appa to where she and Aang were, and they'd come here and rescue them!

Her tears stopped instantly and her heart filled with hope. Maybe, despite all the odds, they still had a chance to make it out of this place in one piece.

While keeping healing Aang with one hand, she searched his pockets, pulled out Appa's whistle, and blew the whistle as hard as her lungs would allow her.

Katara blew the whistle a few times, dreaming of her brother and Toph coming here on Appa and leaving this city together never to come back again, but paused when a bizarre tug in her blood took her out of the small moment she'd been having. It was the same tug she'd get while approaching a large body of water—only this time, the body of water was approaching her. She highly doubted a moving lake would suddenly appear in the middle of a city. No, this tug could only mean the number of people outside was increasing. There was no reason for such an increase at this hour of the night.

It was the Dai Li. They were combing through the streets in search of Aang and Katara.

They had to get out of there. Now.

Katara stopped healing her friend and tried to rise from her place, but her numbed legs gave out from under her and she fell onto her mat. Cursing under her breath, she got up and wobbled over to the closed wooden window. She opened it and looked at the sky. The crescent moon was shining bright in the night sky, contrasting beautifully against the starry backdrop, but there was no sign of her big, furry friend.

Damn it! She couldn't escape on her own! Escaping on an ice slide would mean she'd have to use the streets since she'd need a flat surface to ride on—but if she did that, the Dai Li would spot them so easily she might as well light herself on fire and shout that Aang was here in this house with her. Without her ice slide, however, she simply couldn't carry Aang and run simultaneously.

This left her with only two choices—She could either flee with Aang and face the enemy head-on, or leave him behind and save herself. The latter option she wouldn't even take into consideration. If she were to fight the Dai Li on her own, though, she'd most definitely lose and they'd kill Aang… for real this time.

So she couldn't leave him behind, but she also couldn't take him with her?

Wait. What if… What if she did get caught, but Aang wasn't with her when that happened? If the Dai Li spotted her on the opposite side of the city, their attention would be driven there—away from Aang. And while they'd be preoccupied with questioning her, Sokka and Toph would swoop in and rescue him. This way he'd be safe.

This was the only way he'd be safe.

And if it meant that Katara would have to rot in prison for the rest of her life for him to be safe, so be it—it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. Her mother hadn't thought twice before sacrificing herself to save Katara, neither would she. She had to do this for her best friend, for the last hope for peace this world had left.

So it was decided, then—Katara would leave Aang here, get as far away from him as possible, and then get caught. Yeah… This was the new plan.

The waterbender went back to her friend and kneeled beside him. She gently brushed his forehead with her fingers, his skin cold and pale under her touch.

"I won't let them get you, Aang," she promised him, "I promise I won't let them hurt you again."

She took the whistle she'd placed on the mat beside him and blew it once more before laying it in her friend's palm, then folded his fingers over it with her own. She placed a soft kiss on his shut fingers and then another one on the arrow on his head.

Succumbing to the pain in her heart, Katara pulled her best friend into a bone-crushing hug, her tears soaking his ruined, orange shirt.

"Don't worry about me, okay?" she whispered in his ear, her voice strained with the bitter reality of her situation. "And tell Sokka and Toph I love them."

Knowing every second she wasted here put Aang in more danger, she laid him back on the mat, leaving a piece of her heart with him. She sniffled and wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve, then got up and walked over to the small chest by the wall on her right. She shuffled through the clothes inside and took out a large, black shirt. Although it was too big for her, it'd make it easier for her to conceal herself in the darkness of the night. When she put the shirt on, it reached almost all the way down to her knees—just long enough to cover most of her blue robes but short enough that it wouldn't get in her way as she ran. She then took out two sashes. With one, she tied the large shirt around her waist to tuck in the excess fabric of her, and with the other, she tied her hair in a low ponytail.

She was ready.

Katara went to the window once again and glanced back at her friend one last time. This might very well have been the last time she'd ever see him again. This house might very well have been his grave.

No. Aang was going to be okay. Sokka and Toph were going to save him. He was going to live. He was going to be okay.

She turned to the window, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath.

He was going to be okay.

When she opened her eyes again, the determination in them was as clear as day.

He was going to be okay.

With that, she jumped out the window, melted some of the ice behind the door, and made a new, smalled barricade behind the window before closing it shut from the outside. Now, it was now impossible for a non-bender to go inside—against earthbenders, however, there was nothing else she could do. Now, all she could do for Aang was running away from him.

-o-

When Katara jumped from one roof to another, nobody saw anything. When she came across a house taller than the one she was on, nobody noticed a girl scaling up the side of a building. And if she ever made a sound, she was long gone by the time anyone could check out what it was.

She made her way across a considerable portion of the Lower Ring like this, almost halfway across the city, in fact, dashing from one roof to another without stopping even for a moment to breathe. She'd seen a few Dai Li agents patrolling the streets in pairs, but thankfully none of them had noticed her. But now, as every fiber of her body burned and her limbs shook with exertion, it was only a matter of time before her legs would stop operating altogether.

Jumping from the roof she was onto another one ahead of her, Katara finally came to a stop on top of a two-story building, located on a corner of an intersection. And before she'd even stopped completely, she collapsed out of exhaustion, managing just barely to rotate onto her back before she hit the chilly tiles beneath her. As she laid there, panting heavily through her mouth, she gazed down the slope of the roof to examine the streets below.

A group of drunk men wobbling around with their drinks in their hands, singing their lungs out to an out-of-tune folk song and leaning on each other for support, broke the quiet of the night. But other than them, the roads were completely empty. The intersection wasn't big, but the buildings to the front and the right of the waterbender were still too far away for her to jump to, and she didn't want to risk turning left—she had to keep going straight, she had to get away from Aang. Up until now, she'd managed to avoid crossing wide roads. Now, it seemed she had no other choice.

Lucikly for her—perhaps the only good thing to come out of tonight—the building to her left had one less story than the one she was on. She could jump onto it, climb down, walk across the street, then climb one of the buildings on the other side and continue on from there.

Katara nodded to herself. That sounded like a solid plan.

Her lungs still felt as if they were on fire, but she paid no attention to them as she got on all fours and then up to her feet, struggling on the way. The muscles in her legs and abdomen pleaded with her to keep laying down, but she turned a blind eye to them as well.

The waterbender ran and jumped onto the other building, grabbed the edges of the roof, and dangled in the air before dropping into the dark alley between the two buildings. She waited for the loud group to pass, then darted across the street and entered another dark alley. Her eyes scanned the place. A big, what seemed to be a grain storage bin stood on the left, and the eaves of the building it was propped against looked climbable enough. She could get on the bin, climb the rest of the way, and resume running.

As she thought of these, two hand-shaped rocks materialized out the shadows of the right building, forging at her at light-speed. Katara gasped and lept to the side just in time to avoid her head getting bashed in by the rocks. Then, a Dai Li agent dropped down in front of her from the same place the rocks had come, and the waterbender immediately got into a defensive stance while the agent did the same.

The two eyed each other, the tension between them almost tangible. Then, Katara circled a hand above her head, drawing water from the humid air above her, and froze it into small ice daggers before sending them flying toward the agent. Her goal wasn't to actually kill the man—she'd never do that again—but to distract him long enough to escape, and it worked. Once the daggers gained enough momentum of their own, she spun around and sprinted back the way she'd come. Unfortunately for her, though, being as exhausted as she was, she could only run at a fraction of her usual speed. As she ran in the middle of the street, she peeked behind over her shoulder to see the agent running after her.

The agent stopped abruptly and punched his fists upward, and Katara heard the sound of earth moving ahead of her. She whipped her head around and saw a huge wall of earth emerging out of the ground and blocking the entire street. Her eyes widened and she tried to stop, but tripped over her own feet instead and toppled over onto the ground, scraping her palms and knees in the process.

She tried to get up and run away again, but the stone pavement beneath her wrapped around her hands and feet, binding her to the ground. The agent walked up to Katara and loomed over her, his hands clasped behind his back, chin lifted high.

"Where is the Avatar?" he demanded, his voice as cold as his eyes.

Katara glared at the man, then spit on his shoes with all the energy she had left in her body. "Screw you."

Next thing she knew, the man's fist had collided with her temple and her world had gone dark.

-o-

In a dimly lit room of an almost empty house in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, silence reigned but for the steady drip of melting ice in the doorway and window, and the faint, barely audible rasp of a weak breath.

A/N

As I'm sure you can tell already, this story will be a tad darker than the show. You can expect to see a lot of character study and witness the darkest corners of the characters' minds as we go along.

Also, another little warning, I will be staying as close to canon as I possibly can while integrating the events of this story into it, so there will be some Maiko in the future. But don't worry, there won't be too much of it, and I'll make sure that what little snippets we do get will not be portrayed in a way that might drive you away.

Other than that, if you have any constructive criticisms, suggestions, or just wanna chat, feel free to leave a review or PM!