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The sea and sky, two entities as old as time itself. In some ways, as contrasting as the night and day, and in others, perfect reflections of one another.
The sea has always been below the sky, left to gaze upon the brilliance of the celestial bodies embedded in it for all eternity and reflecting the light of the bright stars beyond.
The sky has always been above the sea, forever peering down into its depths for the miracles and mysteries hidden beneath, and guiding its steady waves as they crash upon the shores of the Earth.
The sea is the reason the azure sky is adorned with feathery white wisps floating high above the ground, and the sky, in turn, fills the oceans and floods the rivers with the very liquid that makes survival possible.
The sea fosters life beneath its steady, undulating surface. It holds flora and fauna of all shapes, colors, and sizes, and it was a point of fascination for the sky. The sky, in all its glory, could not sustain anything for long. Even the birds that rode over its swift breezes had to eventually land somewhere below. And yet, the sky was free, a vast expanse of space that extended beyond what the sea could ever imagine to be possible. It wasn’t shackled by the chains of the planet, and the sea almost envied it.
In the days of old, when sailors ruled the seas, the ocean and her gentle waves would push them across great stretches of nothingness, while the sky and his stars would aid in guiding them on their journeys. Without the sky, those explorers would be lost at sea, and without the sea, their ambitions would remain sky-high with their dreams of traveling the world doomed to remain just that- dreams.
The sea and the sky have always been connected. Together, they make a thriving world possible. And so it follows that those so closely bonded to their elements, Aang and Katara, would be similarly linked by the fabric of space and time.
Though he was the Avatar, Aang’s native element was that of air. He preferred to soar on his glider high above the clouds, and gravity was a laughable concept to him. True to his airbending disposition, Aang’s natural inclinations were to evade conflict and obstacles in order to move forward, like a leaf on the wind.
Katara was born in the Southern Water Tribe, surrounded by ice, glaciers, and the frigid seas of the South Pole. She wielded the element of water, adapting and accepting things as they came since water was the element of change. She would experience swells of emotion similar to the waves, but she always came down into a steady balance, an ebb and flow just like tides.
Aang and Katara were not each other’s antithesis, far from it actually, but rather each other’s complements. Had they been such stark opposites, their relationship would’ve been much more turbulent, having the highest of highs but also the lowest of lows. They needed not a sharp contrast but rather a soft blend to allow them to communicate with and learn from one another. It was this that allowed them to work so well.
When Katara was firm and unyielding like a tsunami approaching the shore, Aang accepted her stance and often strengthened it. Consequently, if the airbender was flighty and indecisive, Katara would be there to ground him and guide him to something he felt confident in.
Katara was Aang’s earthly tether. When his head drifted up into the clouds, she pulled him back to the real world and allowed him to guide the four nations into an era of peace and prosperity. On the other hand, Aang showed Katara true freedom and what being unrestrained felt like. He brought her up with him on his glider and taught her to defy nature’s laws, to not be afraid to take exhilarating risks, and to keep her ambitions sky-high.
Their worlds collided like the brilliance of colors created as the sun set over the horizon, gradually leaving the realm of the sky and sinking into the sea. Some of their traits reflected each other like the sun’s rays on the sparkling surface of the water, and the others melded together well to make the glorious gradient that streaked the sky as night fell. Together, Aang and Katara created a rich harmony filled with overtones that mirrored the depth of their connection.
When they first met, that instant link, the bond that tied them together, was remarkably evident to all those around them. It was absolutely undeniable.
Though Sokka had mostly been joking when he had called Aang Katara’s boyfriend, there were still some astute observations lying under his exaggerated comment. Sokka knew his sister. She didn’t take to people too well, he had noticed over the years. Katara was protective, almost overly so, of the people she loved, and it was hard for her to let people in.
And yet here was Aang, a boy whom she had quite literally taken into her open arms without so much as a blink of hesitation, a boy whom she was ready to leave her tribe, everything and everyone she had ever known, and travel across the world for. It seemed so out of character. Katara didn’t usually make sense to her brother, but this was something different, something special.
Even Gran Gran had taken notice of the unique energy between them. “Aang is the Avatar,” she had told the Water Tribe siblings. “He is the world's only chance. You both found him for a reason. Now your destinies are intertwined with his,” and she was right.
That day, Aang and Katara had forged a connection that wouldn’t, that couldn’t, ever be severed. Breaking him out of the iceberg had been the catalyst for the rest of their lives together. Their adventures following only served to deepen and strengthen that link, allowing them to fall wholly and completely for one another and experience a love they didn’t know was possible.
Visiting Aunt Wu was the first time Katara had really stopped to consider how far their bond went and the strength of her feelings for Aang. She knew they had something unique, something exceptional, but she hadn’t ever thought it could run that deep. “The man you’re going to marry… I can see that he is a very powerful bender.” It made sense, didn’t it? The boy who had changed her life for the better would grow to be the man that she would spend the rest of her life with.
Their kiss in the Cave of the Lovers only further cemented the idea in her head, and a part of her began to believe that their meeting was fate, just like the tale of Oma and Shu. Aang, while still reeling from embarrassment at some of his words (“I’m saying I’d rather kiss you than die, that’s a compliment!”), also began to have similar thoughts, thinking that maybe they too had parallels to the starcrossed lovers and that the love that they shared would one day too be immortalized in legend.
The battle in the catacombs underneath Ba Sing Se seemed like an all too abrupt end to their story. It simply didn’t feel real. How could their link just have been cut off like that? No, Katara wasn’t ready to accept it. She couldn’t accept it. It went against the laws of the universe, it wasn’t possible.
She was going to do whatever it took to keep him there with her, and she did. She brought Aang back from the spirit world through the purest of love, light, and determination, and she made it her duty to never let such a thing happen again.
It was what allowed them to fulfill their roles as the Avatar and his waterbending master at Sozin’s Comet and have their kiss afterward, the early buddings of a relationship that would last a lifetime. Years later, they would go on to pronounce that love to all their friends and family, but, for now, they were more than just their fates.
Just as Aang was able to manipulate water along with his primary element of air, the heavens held clouds in its vast expanse of sky, connecting it to the sea. The sea sent water up in the form of vapor to create those fluffy masses above, and the sky releases the water that the clouds hold in torrents of rain back down to the ground, tying the two together in an endless cycle.
Similarly, waterbending was one of the many things that bound Aang and Katara. It was the reason they had met, the reason Katara was able to break Aang out of that iceberg, and it was the reason they embarked on their epic journey to the North Pole- to learn from the masters and even become ones themselves.
Waterbending linked them as sifu and pupil, strengthening their bond. Without waterbending, Aang may have never realized that fateful day of her adjusting his form of the effect she had on him, the full intensity of the pull, the attraction she held in his eyes.
Waterbending had made Katara especially attuned to the rhythm of the waves rising and falling, and it didn’t long for her to notice how her and Aang’s dynamic reflected it, ebbing and flowing in a delicate yet harmonious balance.
Their meeting had been fate, an event necessary for the survival of the world itself, but that did not define them. With each other, they were not their destinies. They were not the Avatar and his waterbending master, nor were they the beacon of hope for the future of the Air Nation.
No, they were Aang and Katara, two people who had defied all odds, overcome all obstacles, and quite literally gone to the Spirit World and back all in the name of love. They were not the heroes who had saved the world, but soulmates, fated just as the sky and the sea were to meet at their own horizon. They were two people irreversibly linked to each other then, now, and till the end of time itself.