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They follow the faint sound of running water through the trees. Katara can feel the pull of the stream as it gets nearer. They reach the edge of a small pool and she feels Aang go still beside her.
“Katara, we need to get out of here.” Aang says, voice low.
The voice is distant. A hand pulls at her, but she bats it away stepping closer to where she can just barely hear the sound of a lullaby. It weaves slowly between snatches of voices talking of waterbending.
“Mom?” she whispers.
What would you trade? The water asks.
“What?”
If she looks closely, she can see a faint shimmer beneath the murky waters of the stagnant creek. It looks like the Southern Lights or a faint echo of spirit magic. Katara reaches out, pulling some of the water towards her.
Suddenly, the pull reverses, as if the water is yanking her forward instead. She can’t let go of the water she’d bent. In a moment, before she can blink or breathe, she falls and vanishes below the still water.
Aang stares at the shallow creekbed. He reaches out with waterbending, earthbending, panicking.
But the creek remains unbent and unbothered.
Katara vanishes between one breath and the next into the opaque water that should have been far too shallow and narrow for a person to fall in.
She sinks.
When she opens her eyes, it’s like viewing everything from a great distance. The faint sounds of a half-remembered lullaby reach her ears again and Katara turns, her movements sluggish in the water. It doesn’t respond to her touch, lacks the pull she’s always felt, exclusive to her and her element. Her gaze slips sideways to see an image- waterbenders in Southern Tribe garb, walking through sets. She reaches out and the image dissolves before her slow fingers can reach.
I can give you this, what you so desire, in exchange for something of equal value. The voice slips oddly around her ears, echoing.
“I don’t understand.”
An invisible pull turns her gaze to a person behind her. A man, dressed in bright robes with blue arrows on his skin, is reaching out towards her with a desperate look on his face. It’s almost as if he’s struggling against some barrier trying to reach her. He seems important for reasons she can’t articulate. Every time she nearly grasps it, the thought slips away from her.
She frowns. The man is a stranger.
And yet.
I can give you this- the soft almost words of a lullaby in her mother’s voice, the knowledge of old waterbenders from the south just barely out of clear hearing- in exchange for him. The voice of the spirit is smooth and calming, warm, easy to sink into, to just-
“I can’t.” Katara says, surprising herself.
Why not? The voice is abruptly cold.
“I…” She stops, confused. She doesn’t know this man. But something in her recoils at the idea. “I just can’t. I won’t. You should let him go.”
Before the voice can speak again, she is aware of an arm around her. She is yanked backwards, suddenly emerging from a pool of water, sputtering and coughing. They land heavily on the ground.
“Katara! Are you alright?”
She blinks, pushing hair out of her eyes. Aang leans over her, worry creasing his face.
“Fine, I’m fine… what… what happened?”
“I couldn’t grab you before you went into the water.”
“Why would I just fall into a random pool in the woods?”
“The spiritual energy around here is… strange. Tangled up. I think the water, or a spirit in it, seems to make promises of your strongest desires to entice people in.”
“Before what?”
“Drowning them, if I had to guess.”
They both grimace. Katara reaches out and grips his hand.
“I didn’t remember you.” she says, horror stricken. “I could see you trying to reach me, but it was like looking at a stranger.”
Aang makes a pained face.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Katara nods in agreement, hastily bending the water from their clothes and her hair back into the pool. They make their way back to camp quietly. Katara still feels shaken and Aang seems lost in thought.
They silently pack up the small camp site and Aang glides them to a location farther away from the mysterious pool. The tension eases as the distance grows and they both let out a sigh of relief when they lands in a new clearing. Aang bends them an earth tent while Katara sets up the firepit and they settle in around the fire as the sun sets behind the trees.
“I could… There was a voice talking to me. Making impossible promises.” Katara says finally. Aang nods, brow pinching.
“I heard it too.”
“I thought I could hear my mother.” She whispers, drawing up her knees to rest her chin on them. “She was singing and there were other waterbenders from the South talking behind her.”
Aang looks at the fire.
“I could hear the chants from the temples. The voices of the monks doing the final set for the evening before bed. I used to fall asleep to it as a kid.” She leans into him comfortingly and he rests his head on her hair. “That’s how I knew what it was doing. That it wasn’t real.”
Katara reaches out and takes his hand. He turns it and laces their fingers together.
They sit quietly together, watching as the fire crumbles down into coals and ash, the burning life there and then gone.
The next morning they follow the trail of the creek at a careful distance, making their way through thick forest in the search for the headwaters. It takes several hours of walking alongside the sickly green water before they find it. A barren strip of the side of a cliff looms over them, the thin trickle of a waterfall’s remains winding down a deep crevice in the rock.
Aang leaps up to the top of where the waterfall should be while Katara inspects the small pool gathered at the base.
Along the edge a tree had fallen, years, if not decades ago, Aang guesses as he inspects it. It was an old tree, tumbled over in a storm or maybe when part of the cliff fell from under it’s roots, nearly as thick around as Aang is tall. Over time it’s been hollowed out as part of a path. The great curves of the sides rising up around the path beaten into the ground by many feet over the years. It effectively blocks the waterflow, a small lake evident when he peers over the other side of the felled tree. Aang hastily throws himself into the sky, doing a large loop as he scans the banks of the lake. He turns back after completing the circuit, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the swoop in his stomach as he tumbles over the side of the cliff towards the ground, landing lightly and wearing a large grin. Katara glances over and smiles at him.
“Find anything?”
“Yeah, the block is a big tree at the top. Catch the water when I shift it?”
She nods and Aang springs back up to the top of the cliff. He carefully earthbends the tree-bridge up from where it is settled in the ground, just enough to let the water flow again. When he’s sure that the pathway is safely settled in it’s new location, he jumps down to help Katara.
Together they help settle the burst of water into the creek without flooding the surrounding area, so long over grown. Aang carefully tracks back along the creekbed, grabbing a fallen branch to carefully poke the narrow sections free of debris. Katara follows a few steps behind, steadily controlling the release of the new-again waterfall back into it’s resting place. It takes twice as long to make it back to the clearing from the day before. Both of them tense slightly as they approach it again.
“It’s okay.” Aang says calmly, dragging his borrowed branch along to clear the last small path for the fresh water to break through the stagnant.
Katara releases the last of the water to it’s natural flow, but stays poised to fight.
They watched as the brackish water slowly clears, the cloudy green giving way to clear, peaceful waters.
For a moment, there is nothing.
Then a low booming sounds from the small pool, a bright light flashing as wind whips wildly past them into the forest beyond.
Aang grabs Katara’s hand to hold them steady.
Thank you, he hears whispered lowly as the last breezes pass them.
The clearing settles back down. The water now burbles cheerfully past them, the whole area suddenly lighter and gentler. Just a calm clearing in the forest.
Katara squeezes his hand and Aang looks at her. They smile and, without breaking the peaceful silence, turn as one to head home together.