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Hakoda won’t look at his children for a while.
It’s not because he doesn’t want to. It’s because he can’t.
On the eve of his wife’s murder, Katara feels like a fortune. She looks like one too, because she looks like her mother in both the strongest and subtlest of ways. She wears her mother’s face when she’s in focus, when she’s concentrating on her personal duties. She wears her mother’s mannerisms when she walks, when she talks, and when she’s in the midst of her fury. She is the spitting image of the most beautiful woman Hakoda has ever seen—a miniature form of the largest part of him. These girls own a majority of the space in his chest. That night, as he watches them, they are his greatest treasures.
The next night, when Kya is gone, he can’t bear to look at his daughter. When he looks at her, he sees nothing but her mother. He wants to reach out and touch her. He wants to hold her so that she won’t disappear. He wants to caress her cheek and tuck her hair behind her ear and listen to her tell stories about the day they fell in love. He wants so badly to hear Kya’s voice when Katara opens her mouth, but instead all he hears is “I miss mommy” and “What’s going to happen to us?” and “I want her to come back.”
Those are things that his mouth wants to say too, but he can’t let it.
It hurts so much to have Kya standing in front of him. It hurts because it feels like he’s being taunted.
It’s the same when he looks at his son too.
On the eve of his wife’s murder, Sokka feels like a fortune. He looks like one too, because he looks like his mother in both the strongest and subtlest of ways. He wears his mother’s face when he’s in focus, when he’s concentrating on his personal duties. He wears his mother’s mannerisms when he laughs, when he tells a story, and when he’s in the midst of a nap. He is the spitting image of the most beautiful woman Hakoda has ever seen—a miniature form of the largest part of him. This boy takes up the remaining space in his chest and makes him feel complete. That night, as he watches him, he is his greatest treasure.
But the next night, when Kya is gone, he can’t bear to look at his son. When he looks at him, he sees nothing but his mother. He wants to reach out and touch her. He wants to hold her so that she won’t disappear. He wants to caress her cheek and tuck her hair behind her ear and listen to her tell stories about the day they fell in love. He wants so badly to hear Kya’s voice when Sokka opens his mouth, but instead all he hears is “I want mom” and “Why did she die?” and “Was it my fault?”
Those are things that Hakoda’s mouth wants to say too, but he can’t let it.
It hurts so much to have Kya standing in front of him. It hurts because it feels like he’s being taunted.
For some time, these children are no longer treasures. For some time, these children are ghosts. They float around him like a memory, with their haunting cries and their cold fingers that are constantly reaching for his, jolting him awake at night and even in the daytime too, when he’s lost in his grief and forgetting where he is. Hakoda takes their hands like he’s programmed to and tries to whisper words of comfort to them in these terrifying moments. But like always, the words are empty, because the words mean nothing. A world without his Kya, a world without their mother, doesn’t have any meaning at all.
So, this is what life is like after she’s gone. It doesn’t feel much like a life. It feels more like a nightmare.
Hakoda carries on with his duties to the tribe and to his family, tending to his ghosts and trying not to make it obvious how horribly they frighten him. It’s not their fault their tiny hands and their tiny voices send shivers up his spine. Hakoda cannot forgive his wife for dying, but he can forgive his children for dying too. He’s the one that has killed them, after all. He’s the one that wakes in the middle of the night with a gasp, too afraid to see who is next to him. In a way, they are as dead as their mother, because these are three faces that feel impossible to look at, even if they are for different reasons.
Hakoda grieves for them all, even when two of them are in his lap. He grieves for them even when he warms their frigid hands in his. He grieves for them even when he wipes the tears from their faces and tells them to go back to sleep.
It takes longer than he wants to admit to be able to look his son in the eyes for more than two seconds. It takes longer than he wants to admit to be able to watch his daughter smile and to feel compelled to smile back. It takes longer than he wants to admit to be able to watch his children toss and turn beside him in their own nightmares and think these are not just her greatest treasures, they are his greatest treasures too.
They are Kya, in the best of ways, and in the most painful of ways.
They are everything he has ever known about love.
“You remind me so much of your mother,” he tells them, when Katara tucks her hair behind her ear and when Sokka rubs the sleep out of his face. In those moments, Hakoda wants to reach out and touch them. He wants to hold them so that they won’t disappear. He wants to caress their cheeks and tell them how sorry he is for feeling this way about them. The guilt is what kills him twice over. The ghost this whole time, he realizes, has truthfully been him.
Hakoda won’t stop looking at his children for a while.
It’s because he wants to. It’s because he can.