Archive of Our Own

As Katara bent the water off her forehead to keep it from streaming into her eyes, she noticed Aang was no longer smiling at her newfound ineptitude. Gingerly, she rose to her feet, feeling the slow-rolling waves gently nudging the backs of her legs, soaking just the fringes of her white wrappings. This was the fourth time Aang had managed to knock her down tonight. Usually he managed no more than two hits per sparring session. This last time, it hadn't even been creative. She'd sent a jet of water at him and he'd easily caught it, split it in two, and returned the newly formed streams at her with merely acceptable gusto. But instead of turning his offense into hers as a master waterbender should, her arms had seemed to suddenly turn into earth. The jets had slammed into her right shoulder and left knee, depositing her facedown into the ocean.

"Need me to give you some pointers, sifu?" Aang taunted. He had plastered a smile back onto his face, but not quickly enough. She'd noticed his concern, the way his gray eyes seemed to change from cloud to smoke.

"Show respect to your master, pupil, or I'll tell Toph to give you two hundred boulder-presses instead of fifty," she retorted, but even this felt weak. She couldn't even threaten him by herself anymore. She had to invoke the name of his tyrannical earthbending teacher, who viewed sparring sessions as an excuse to abuse her student in the name of stopping the Fire Lord.

Aang laughed charitably, but even this was a ruse. Already his body was whirling into action again, summoning a wave to push her under the surf. Sloppy—this, she could handle. Katara spun, trailing her hands slightly behind her torso to swirl the water around her and back at Aang. He set his jaw, widened his stance, and actually managed to slip in a wink before reaching out, palm open, elbow locked. The water jet burst outward against his hand and fell back into the sea with all the ferocity of an afternoon rain shower.

Katara stood still. She had never seen him pull a move like that. In fact, the only time she'd seen anyone do anything like that was—no—the memories, the feelings she'd spent the past few days trying to avoid came surging back like high tide. The full moon hanging harsh, white, and bulbous in the summer sky, her joints and muscles seizing and screaming under the merciless grip, and the witch, through it all, grinning her rictus grin and laughing, laughing, laughing.

The witch's spine stretching like a bowstring, Katara's own hands lowering as she bent her into submission, the awful cracking sound of ligaments and tendons as the witch went to her knees. No, as Katara forced her to her knees. And worst of all, "Congratulations, Katara. You're a bloodbender…"

"Congratulations, Katara…"

"Katara!" Aang's voice snapped her out of her nightmare. He had run over to her, noticing her apparent paralysis. "What's wrong?"

"Aang…" She couldn't talk to him about this. She didn't want to be a burden, first and foremost, but, deep down, a voice that sounded a lot like Hama's needled her. He'll never understand. You have the power, just like me. Nobody will ever see us as any different from each other. "It's nothing. Let's get back to it. We have more to practice."

"It's clearly not nothing," he smiled wanly. "You should be kicking my butt, sifu. That's just the way things go."

"You want your butt kicked, go wake Toph," Katara replied shortly. "I'm sure she'd be more than happy to indulge you." She started to wade further out into the ocean so they could resume their sparring from an adequate distance, but he grabbed her hand. It was cool and smooth, covered in a thin glaze of seawater. "Talk to me," he asked. "I don't want to see you like this." He grimaced. Even in the dark, she could see his cheeks grow redder. "I mean—none of us do. You aren't acting like yourself. What's going on?"

Katara laughed bitterly. "But that's just it, isn't it? This is myself now."

Aang raised a dark eyebrow. "What?"

"You wouldn't understand," Katara muttered. "The only person who would is locked up under a mountain."

"Locked up under a mountain?" His eyes widened. "Oh."

"Oh," Katara laughed humorlessly again, and pulled her hand from his grip, pushing past him in the other direction, towards shore. She supposed that their training was over for the night. He wouldn't let this go. At another time, with another issue, she'd appreciate that. Katara knew to some extent that he harbored feelings for her beyond just friendship. And she told herself that the jury was still out on whether she returned those feelings, but the reality was with each passing day she grew more sure that friendship wasn't going to cut it for her either. Predictably, Aang sidled up beside her, visibly considering his next words. It wouldn't matter. Nothing he could say would help her vanquish the darkness festering in her blood.

She spoke first, hoping to nip whatever he had to say in the bud before his savior complex could grow too strong to keep at bay for the night. "Aang, thanks for thinking of me, but really, I'll be fine. Hama is gone, she'll never bother me or anyone else again." Well, she mentally slapped herself, that wasn't going to cut it. Even she didn't believe her own words.

"A minute ago you were completely frozen up, your bending his been weak all night when the moon is almost full, and a few days ago we went through one of the scariest experiences we've ever had. You don't have to keep whatever you're feeling to yourself," Aang pressed. Why did he have to be so incessantly kind?

She weighed her options quickly. She could be vulnerable with him, possibly ruining his opinion of her, or she could continue to shut him out and let him bring his concerns to Sokka, who would demand she burden the whole group with his struggles.

"When I…controlled…Hama," Katara started, surprised at how quickly tears made their presence known in her eyes. "I felt power like I've never felt before. Not like any other full moon, not like when I've done some waterbending technique right for the first time. I felt invincible."

"And you hate that feeling," Aang finished for her.

"I hate that I have that power. I hate that she—she was right! I've bloodbent. I'm a bloodbender. I know what it's like to have complete control over somebody, and when the full moon comes again, I'll have the ability to use that power over anyone. The feeling…" she didn't know how to finish the sentence without completely shattering any respect he had for her. "I—I wanted more. Even after the villagers put her in chains, I…wanted someone else to give me a reason to control them too." Aang was silent. Katara shivered as the cool sea breeze loomed over her skin. "The feeling was exhilarating," she continued. "I could've killed her with a twist of my hand. And maybe she would've deserved it. But I don't want to be able to do that. At all."

Aang grimaced, putting a hand firmly on her bare shoulder so she stopped and turned to face him. "You're afraid of what you might do if you allowed yourself to use that power." The tears that had been looming over the edge of Katara's eyelids finally decided to fall, and Aang bent them off her cheek, casting them into the gentle surf.

"You're not Hama," Aang said. "You're good. You may be able to use that power, but you are not a bloodbender."

"I'm not good," Katara cried. "I am a bloodbender. You saw it."

"You saved my life, and Sokka's. You saved dozens of people in that village." Aang paused for a moment, affixing her with a mild glare. "Never compare yourself to Hama."

Katara sighed. "I appreciate the words, Aang. But I was right. You don't understand." She started walking again. Aang caught up with her, again. She rolled her eyes and looked at him, not stopping her march to shore. "You're wrong," Aang said. "I do understand. How do you think I feel knowing any time I get angry I could kill someone, and I most likely wouldn't even realize I was doing it? How do you think it feels to have a thousand past lives telling me to glow it up every time we run into a Fire Nation patrol?" Aang lazily bent a thin stream of seawater, threading it around and between their bodies again and again. "I might not know what it's like to bloodbend, but I know how it feels to be afraid of yourself." With this, they reached shore, and sat down on the black sand, their upper arms resting lightly against one another.

"I didn't know you still thought about that," Katara admitted.

"Well, you do now," he chuckled sadly. "Being good isn't about not having darkness within you, it's about whether you choose to let darkness control you."

"You didn't just make that up, did you?"

"No," he said seriously. "Monk Gyatso said it to me right after I found out I was the Avatar."

"He seems like a great man," Katara said.

"He was," Aang confirmed. "The best I've ever known. By the time I ran away from the temple, he was the only one left who still saw me as Aang, not just the Avatar." At this, Katara was at a loss for words. So, instead of talking, she leaned her head into the crook of his neck. She breathed him in, as she always did when they embraced. A bit of salt and sweat tainted his normal scent—clean, fresh mountain air. He always smelled good, which she chalked up to an airbender perk.

Aang put his arm around her. "Just don't assume you're alone, okay?"

"Okay," Katara whispered. They stared at the moon, a waning gibbous. It didn't grant her the power of a full moon, but she still felt energized, keenly aware of the ebb and flow of the waves, the ripples in the tidepools, even the water coursing through the tree trunks. But, in the last few days, Katara had hated the strength she felt at night. It reminded her of Hama. She saw the moon as one of Hama's silver eyes, constantly watching her, needling her, whispering promises of limitless power and swift justice for all the atrocities committed by the Fire Nation if only Katara were to use it. "Aang," Katara said, lifting her head from his shoulder. She noticed him frown slightly. I see Aang has none of my qualms about enjoying this…closeness. "Yeah?" he asked, betraying no disappointment in his voice.

"This'll sound crazy," she said. But then she remembered what happened the last time she called a thought of hers crazy. Nope, she thought. Not the time to dwell on that. "But I kind of…hate the moon now?"

"You hate the moon?" Katara gave Aang a lot of credit for keeping a measurable level of compassion in his tone, but he was clearly confused. Well, she was in it this far.

"It reminds me of her. Bloodbending can only be done at the full moon. So I associate the moon with Hama, rather than my own ability to waterbend to my fullest potential."

"I get that," Aang said immediately. Katara raised her eyebrows. Aang looked at her. "I do! But ever since the North Pole, I've just seen the moon as Yue. She and Roku saved my life when I ran away from our Fire Nation ship after Ba Sing Se."

"That was a colossally stupid idea. What were you, going to take on the whole Fire Nation by yourself?"

"I know, I know," Aang laughed. "But maybe you should think of Yue when you look at the moon. Think of what she did for all of us at the North Pole."

"Maybe I'll just think of you," Katara said. And she placed a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek gently. The corners of his lips jumped upward before he could rein them in, and she snickered, barely audible. Now he was just sitting there, dumfounded, as if he was in the most un-tranquil, ungraceful meditative trance ever. The opportunity was too good to pass up. She stood up quickly, before he could react, and summoned a wave of water, freezing him to the ground upon contact.

"I did say we had more to practice, pupil," Katara teased. Aang melted the ice and jumped to his feet, assuming a waterbending stance and grinning ear to ear. Deluges of water glinted silver in the moonlight. By the time the moon bid them farewell, and the bruised, happy combatants walked back to their camp, the witch's specter had stopped haunting Katara's mind, forever.