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Sokka gets his soulmate mark first, three years before she does. The writing curled around his bicep is in a girl’s soft yet sharp handwriting. Two fonts, one over the other, Earth Kingdom characters and the letters of the universal language. Sokka is half in love with her already and babbles about meeting her for the rest of the night.
Katara falls asleep wrapped in furs and listening to her brother's snoring, wondering what her soulmate will be like.
Katara gets her soulmate mark on the day she gets her first period, as many women do. Around the curve of her hip sharp and rushed characters appear. She’s never been to a country that isn’t a water tribe, she wonders how she’ll meet her soulmate.
As long as Katara can remember, they’ve been going to the Northern Water Tribe to visit her mother’s family. GranGran came from the North and left behind a vast tangle of aunts and uncles and cousins for them to visit. Hakoda goes with them, staying for a month or so before duty calls him back to the Southern Tribe. Katara misses him, but relishes in the hum of the bigger cities and gaggle of kids her age.
She’s seven when she meets Yue for the first time. She’s heard of her of course, the sickly princess who almost killed her mother. Most of what she hears is riff raff from people in the villages, people who are angry at the near death of their Chieftess or people who love Yue.
Whatever Katara thinks of Yue, it all changes when they meet.
Katara’s family lives in court, on the outskirts of the warriors and territorial lords, near the canals where the royal family launches their canoes. Katara plays with Sokka and her cousins when the new girl with white hair shows up. She looks unsure of herself in her purple parka with whorls of blue and turquoise. Her cousins recognize Yue and pay her no mind, letting her slip into the fold.
Katara marches up to her, her hands on her hip and demands, “Who are you?”
Yue blinks. Her face is rounder than Katara’s, her eyes kinder. “I’m Yue. You’re Katara.” She says it factually, but Katara is still surprised Yue knows her.
“You’re the princess,” Katara points out.
Yue shrugs. “I’m just a girl.”
Katara decides she likes Yue. Ever since then, Katara seeks out Yue in the months they spend up north.
Katara dreams in strange swirls of color and glittering lights one night. She shoots up when the lights start moving, whispering to her words she can’t quite make out. Her hands are braced against the cold floor of her room and her heart pounds so hard her vision swims.
Sokka sleeps resolutely in the cot next to her. He doesn’t notice her.
He snores abruptly and Katara remembers where she is, the Southern Water Tribe, who she is, Katara of the South, and that nothing is wrong.
Nothing is wrong, but that doesn’t feel true.
Katara is ten and she learns that Yue’s hair is white because of the sacrifice that the moon spirit made for her. A life for a life, a precarious balance.
“Don’t you worry,” Katara asks, as a servant rows the two of them down the waterways, “that Tui will take it back from you?”
Yue reaches over and runs her fingers through the water. Katara knows it must be frigid, that her fingers must tingle with the cold. “I think I’ve known for a long time.” She pauses and Katara waits. The water laps against their boat, a child laughs somewhere. “That I don’t have forever.”
Katara is not naive. She knows people and animals will die, she knows how to honor them when they pass. Perhaps though, she realizes the permanence of death in that moment. It’s an ice pick to her chest. She prays to the spirits every night before she falls asleep that Tui won’t reverse their blessing, that Yue won’t die.
That Yue won’t be taken from her.
Yue turns thirteen and gets a set of homing pigeon-jays.
She bounces on her toes at the harbor, their hands clasped together, Kya and Sokka already waiting for Katara on the ship. “Now you can write to me whenever you please,” she whispers. She stares at Katara so earnestly Katara starts drafting her letters in her mind. They’ve been relying on trade and travelers between the two tribes to send letters. “Whenever.”
Katara releases Yue’s hands and pulls her into a tight hug. “Of course, of course Yue.”
Kya calls for Katara, she’s holding up the whole boat. There’s something magnetic about Yue though, that Katara can’t bring herself to let go of. “You’re my best friend,” Katara says, right before she steps onto the boat, their fingertips just barely touching through their gloves as Katara steps onto ice stairs.
Katara asks for a set of homing pigeon-jays until she gets them. She cons a merchant into bringing some to Yue.
Kat,
I miss you. I see your cousins less and less now that my lessons and training is getting more intense. I think I only get time off when you visit because my mother wishes for us to form an alliance between our tribes.
Katara, I must ask. Have you gotten your soulmate mark yet? Well, you must have, I know you bleed, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about it.
For a while, my family was worried that I would never come of age -get my period or soulmate mark- because of Tui’s blessing. Last week though, I got both. The soulmate mark is much more exciting than another duty to attend to. It’s a water tribe name in messy handwriting just below my clavicle, Hahn to be exact. My father is talking about arranging a marriage, he comes from a good family.
Who is your soulmate? Where are they from? Where is your mark?
I miss you and Sokka and your mother. Your father too, I suppose. I hope you are well. How are your lessons coming? Are you thinking about becoming a master or a healer? I know you could be either in your tribe, I almost envy you. I don’t though, just miss you endlessly.
Yue
Yue,
I’ve never met my soulmate. They’re from the Fire Nation. It’s on my hip.
I don’t like talking about it. You’ve heard the rumors right? Of the Fire nation wanting to expand? Move in on the weakest nations until we’re all under them. I’ve never met anyone from the Fire Nation, but I don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if I want to love one, raise a family with one. I don’t even know how to pronounce the name there, even with the universal font.
Sokka got to leave home when he was sixteen to go to the Earth Kingdom and go to university and find his soulmate. And he did. He loves her and she loves him. They’ve made each other better. My parents haven’t even offered for me to start looking at schools and I’m fourteen. They think I couldn’t handle myself. Not that I’d want to go there anyway. I hate the heat and spicy food.
Yue, I wish we lived in the same tribe. I wish I could do my lessons by your side everyday. There are so few other girls in my tribe and none of them get me how you do. They’re all young or getting married or moving away to find their soulmates. You truly are my best friend.
Love,
Katara.
When they’re twelve they create a desert of flavored jellies preserved in the perfect state by their water bending.
When they’re fourteen they make animated snow balls that they don’t need their hands to control and pelt Katara’s cousins until supper time.
When they’re sixteen, Yue is no longer allowed to use her bending for anything besides healing.
(Katara sneaks into her rooms and teaches her the more advanced moves she knows.)
Katara breeds her homing pigeon-jays with incredible precision. They are the fastest and smartest pigeon-jays you’ll encounter. Every time they go to the north, Katara brings them along, ready to exchange a fresh set with Yue for the year to come.
Katara doesn’t always dream when she sleeps. When she does, they linger. She dreams of an expanse of skin that’s soft and smooth to the touch, a shade paler than Katara with a smattering of freckles across the shoulders, and a soulmate tattoo that doesn’t say her name.
Katara lies next to Yue. It should be simple, but something about it is not. Their hair is down from their usual styles, mixing in stark contrasts against the silk, lilac pillow cases. White, brown, purple.
They’re in just their slips and Katara can clearly see the blue and black ink curving around Yue’s collar bones. The room is almost too hot from fire and blankets and body heat; and when Katara reaches out and runs her finger against it, Yue’s skin is slick.
Yue inhales softly at her touch, but doesn’t tell her to stop. In explicit confusion, Katara knows exactly what she’s thinking about yet has no idea at the same time. Yue’s been playing with the ends of their hair that are merging together, braiding them into one then unwinding them. Her hand drifts down, resting on Katara’s thigh.
(Katara’s breathing doesn’t falter and she doesn’t think about the irony of falling in love with a person while showing them your soulmate mark.)
Katara lets Yue push the cotton of her slip up and push aside her underwear until she can see the full wrap of text across her hip, dipping towards the apex of her thighs. Her fingers run across the overlapping red and black gently, more the illusion of contact than not.
“They’re going to love this,” Yue murmurs, not quite looking at Katara, her fingers still on her skin. Yue presses down, making her presence undeniable.
Katara breathes deeply, focusing on quelling her heart rate, focusing her mind.
Yue sits up halfway, propping herself on her elbows and scoots down towards the foot of the bed. She presses a delicate kiss to the skin where Katara’s soulmate tattoo starts. She looks up at Katara through her eyelashes, her mouth hovering over the next path of skin. Katara nods and lets her head fall back, getting lost in the breathy feeling of Yue’s mouth.
Yue buries her head in Katara’s stomach when she’s done, her white hair splaying across Katara’s skin, and Katara has never been more sure in her entire life.
She is sixteen and she is in love with her best friend.
“She has to go north, it’s the only place she’ll be safe.”
“It’s not fair to ask her to leave her tribe, she could be Chieftess one day.”
“They’ll hunt her.”
“Let her decide.”
Katara is seventeen when the Fire Nation attacks. Bitter with their defeat at the Southern Air Temple, they set their sights on the small villages of the Southern Water Tribe.
The village sleeps as the black snow starts pouring down.
Yue,
The Fire Nation attacked. They killed my mother. They took every other bender.
She rips that piece of paper off the sheaf and sets it aside.
Yue,
Yue yue yue yue yue yue. I need you
That one gets ripped off as well.
Yue,
I’ll be coming to live in the Northern Water Tribe indefinitely. The Fire Nation attacked our village and captured and killed many. Our warriors have gone to consolidate the rest of the villages in case it wasn't isolated, and the elders have done the same with the rest of our civilians since not much is left here.
Only me (and the corpses).
Yue, I don’t believe in soulmates. Definitely not anymore. I can’t say if I ever did. It never made sense to me how I was destined to love someone who has nothing in common with me, who I don’t even know. I can never love one of them now. The thought makes me sick. They took my mother and my village and they might take my father and my cousins and you.
I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you too.
I’ll be there shortly after this letter. Wait for me.
Katara
She takes all the scraps of letters, seals them all together and sends them with one of Yue’s pigeons.
She stumbles out of her home first, before the others. She tries to construct a wall of ice around the village, to keep them out. It buckles against flaming arrows and shots of heat. She fails.
Her mother bleeds into her arms, her father paces behind them. She tries to heal her the best she can. She remembers every technique she can from her lessons up north, but nothing can save Kya.
Katara was always a better fighter.
Sokka sends her a letter trying to connect to her in her grief. She knows he’ll never understand.
She is twelve, wearing a parka in the traditional northern style, with more embroidery and beads on the hem, it’s Yue’s birthday, Yue makes a wish and looks straight at Katara as the shooting stars fill the sky.
Yue,
I’m nearly halfway to the Northern Tribe. I debated sending this letter at all, but I think it should be said before I get there.
I don’t know how to pronounce the name on my hip, it means nothing to me, I don’t know if it’s a man or woman, but I know two things for sure. I will never love a man, and I will never love my soulmate.
Katara
Katara steps foot in the Northern Water Tribe and feels… dry. She’s cried almost every tear she had, she feels distant from her bending. She misses her parents and her brother, she wants to meet her soon to be sister-in-law.
Yue is waiting on the docks when Katara’s boat pulls in. It’s too late for fanfare: there’s only Yue and her guards. Everyone looks tense.
Katara knots her skiff to the docks, taking care to make sure it won’t go careening into the watery unknown. She freezes steps across the gap and lets them melt behind her when she’s on firm land again. Yue catches her in her arms and lets her fall apart.
“Do you ever wish you could do more?” Katara whispers into the dark.
Yue hums. “That doesn’t sound good.” Her hands skim Katara’s hips, moving up and down gently.
“I can’t stay here.” It hurts to say, it hurts that it’s true. “I have to do something.”
“What are you thinking?”
Katara buries her head into the crook of Yue’s neck. She smells of icy air and night blooming violets. “We could go help. Heal the air benders, fight against the Fire Nation.”
“My parents would never allow it. There’s no other heir.”
Katara presses her face deeper into Yue’s skin. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re the moon, Yue, I draw my strength from you.”
“It’s a big ask.”
“Can I ask it anyway?”
Yue brings her hands to Katara’s hair and runs her fingers through the beginnings of tangles. “Yes,” she breathes out.
“Run away with me.”
They’re thirteen and dreaming or dreading marriage. Yue wants to get married in her mother’s dress, thick fur and silk with ice crystals and diamonds creating a glowing illusion. Katara never wants to lose her freedom. Yue wants to be happy, to lead and grow a family. Katara never wants to lose Yue.
Katara fills her bag with water canteens, with food rations, clothing, and healing supplies. Her fingers stumble across her mother’s betrothal necklace as she packs. She studies it in the candle light of early morning. Katara runs her hand over the treated leather, pausing where the dye has started to fade.
She clips it on her own neck, getting used to the feeling of it against her throat. She is her own woman, she doesn’t need a soulmate or fiancee to feel complete.
She’s young, still young enough to curl on her mother’s lap while Sokka drapes himself over them. Kya tells them the legends of their tribes and made up stories about brave generals and strong princesses.
The air benders are wary of them. Katara doesn't fault them. She still dreams of the scent of scorched flesh and black ash. She still feels the loss of her mother like a limb.
That is until Yue rids a child of infection. Before their eyes, the grey sheen leaves and energy floods the little body.
They spend the next weeks swamped in injury and infection, permanently drenched in sweat and on the verge of collapse. Katara feels useful for once in her life.
On their way to the fringes of the Earth Kingdom, where it's rumored that small fleets of Fire Nation soldiers will be laying siege, they come across a metal ship spewing inky black smoke. “Do you think we could take them?” Katara whispers to Yue against the wind. A storm is coming. Two water benders amongst an ocean aren’t worried.
Yue studies the boat. She looks different like this, like a warrior. Gone is her parka made for pomp and circumstance, replaced by a long sleeved leather and fur tunic with similar leggings and her hair in three long braids wrapped with cloth. She looks fierce and content, smiling against the wind, her hair glowing in the weak rays of the sun. “I think we could sink their ship easily.”
That’s now what Katara is thinking though. “We could ransack them. Leave them with nothing but the clothes on their back and an empty ship.”
It sounds cruel, but maybe all of her good parts total to leaving them alive, if almost certainly doomed. Drowning is a painful way to go, maybe as bad as being burned alive.
They use stairs of water to board the ship; they take their weapons, their food, their clothes, their blankets; they hold them down with whips of water and make them watch. They use the tides to take them away from the ransacked boat faster. They give the weapons to small villages and tribes they come across, they keep the food for themselves and keep going.
Katara sees her reflection in the flat water of the sea and sees her mother. She fumbles through her pack for a pocket knife and shears her hair until it hangs just below her chin.
Katara’s favorite food used to be stewed sea prunes, now dried cantaloupe-apples are a delicacy.
Katara’s favorite pastime used to be bending, now she yearns for the times she gets to snuggle up to Yue in their single cot and whisper as if there’s anyone to overhear them.
“Do you feel stronger when the moon is up?” Katara asks Yue. They’re eleven and sneaking onto the docks behind the palace is something they recently discovered they could do. No one is paying too much attention to Katara and Yue’s guards trail her without ratting her out.
Some people might say at night, in places where the sun rises and sets daily, but in the water tribes they get periods of sun and periods of moon. It’s easier to appreciate both when you only get one taste at a time.
Yue stares at the moon, the white light washing out her features. “Yes,” she says. “Just like you feel stronger during the full moon.”
Katara frowns. She feels stronger whenever she’s around Yue.
“Do you love him?” Katara asks. Her thumbs running back and forth over Yue’s tattoo, hands resting on her shoulders. They’re getting ready to make an inland run into the Earth Kingdom to heal in a village that the Fire Nation recently attacked. Katara doesn’t know if they’re making a difference, two girls against the world, but it feels as if it is.
Yue braids Katara’s short hair back, looking into her eyes as she does it. “No,” she whispers. It sounds like a confession. One not even Katara is supposed to hear. “But I don’t know him well.”
Katara rolls her eyes softly. “You don’t have to.”
Yue pauses, her fingers still deep in Katara’s hair. “We have soulmates.”
Yue’s always known what she’s saying, even when she doesn’t say it plainly. “That doesn’t mean anything if you don’t want it to.”
“The tribe…”
“Will have an excellent ruler. You are magnificent Yue, nothing will change that.”
Yue stumbles over her breath and Katara lets it go.
Waves lap over her body, every part of her is screaming. She pushes herself up, despite the pain. She invigorates herself, delving into the valve of her power. Yue is fighting something off.
Something…red, something….Fire Nation.
Katara forces herself to her feet, towards Yue. She promised Yue she would be okay, that nothing would happen to her. This is all her fault, if they had gone straight back to the Northern Tribe this wouldn’t have happened. Her head spins as she tried to follow that train of thought. Apparently, it wasn’t going to happen.
Yue lashes out with a water whip and it takes a soldier's wrist off. Katara’s never seen precision and focus like that. Katara staggers forward. She tunnels deep into the power, paying attention to the water beside her, the moon’s strength in Yue, sheer refusal to let Yue get hurt. “Yue!” she yells, loudly as she can.
Yue’s head snaps towards her for a half second and Katara sees everything they've been skirting around since they were fourteen on her face. It only ignites Katara more. She takes a deep breath and surrounds Yue in ice, holding it in place with one hand. With the other hand she knocks the soldiers back. One hits the ice wall with a blast of fire. Katara whacks him back again and focuses on patching the hole.
Before she can, the other soldier sends an arrow through the hole, into Yue’s stomach.
Katara forgets mercy, forgets sending unavoidable messages back to the Fire Nation. She submerges the soldiers, lets them fight against the current rushing them out to sea. Katara forces herself over to Yue, ignoring the way her body aches.
Yue, Yue, Yue, she’s repeating. Chanting her name as if that will keep her alive. She pulls the arrow out, fights against the way Yue’s scream wounds her soul. It’s a fairly difficult injury to fix, but she handles it quickly as her body fights unconsciousness. She won’t fail again. “Damn it Yue, damn it. Come on, come on, come on.”
She covers Yue’s whole body with water, funneling as much energy as she could muster into making it glow with healing energy. Yue’s eyes fly open and she splutters. Katara lets the water fall away.
She grabs Yue and pulls her close to her chest. She presses a kiss to Yue’s forehead, doing her best not to focus on how she feels dizzy to the point of nausea.
Katara wakes up back on the boat, weak and tired.
Yue sits a little ways away from the cot, staring out over the waves. The sun is rising and she glows against it. Yue senses her waking up and turns infinitesimally. “Do you remember what you said?” Her voice is rough, like she hasn’t spoken or drank anything in a while. “Before you collapsed.”
Katara manages to shake her head.
Yue turns back to the sunrise silently.
Yue,
I’ve tried to say these words a hundred times before but I could never get them right. You’re my best friend which means telling you everything comes easy. The anger after Mom died, my jealousy of Sokka, my wishes, my dreams, my disbelief in soulmates, my radical ideas. You would think that would make this easier, but it’s only harder. Which is why I’m writing you a letter when I can see your silhouette leaning against the mast.
You asked me if I remembered what I said. I don’t. But I can guess. I think I confessed my love to you. I think I said I love you, and you understood that I didn’t mean it platonically. I won’t cower away from it. I said it. I am hopelessly in love with you, mismatched soul marks and all. I am in love with you and it is helpless because you’re...well you. I love you, I love you, I love you.
If that’s not what I said, then take this as my confession. I’m in love with you and I will never stop being sorry for insisting on one more ransack before we got to the North Tribe. I will never forgive myself for putting you in mortal danger, I will never stop being sorry you got shot and almost died from blood loss.
Eternally yours,
Katara
Katara was never invited to meetings in the palace. She never went past Yue’s room or the dining room where parties and formal meals were held. The sparsely decorated walls of ice are imposing, as are the filled chairs all around the table. She spots Hahn and his family, the territorial lords, the councilmen, and other high ranking officials. Katara doesn’t belong here. Only three chairs are empty, and Katara can assume who will fill them.
Yue and her parents enter together, a wall of placid expressions and blue parkas. It’s startling to see her in formal wear after seeing her in only armor for so long. The sit, and silence reigns before Yue delicately clears her throat. “I have called you all here today because we need to make some changes.”
Her parents look between themselves, Katara can tell they’re surprised.
“I will not be marrying Hahn,” Yue announces and murmurs break out across the room.
Katara looks up from the table and meets Yue’s eyes. Yue nods imperceptibly but Katara’s been her best friend for so long she understands.
“I love another,” Yue interrupts. The chaos quells. She will be their Chieftess one day and they respect her. She takes a deep breath to gather herself. She crosses and uncrosses her wrists, a nervous tick. “I have fallen in love and I will be with them whether or not you will bless us with a marriage. I will love them and they will be my confidant and my general and my consort. Whether it pleases you or not.”
Katara has known her whole life that Yue would make a wonderful Chieftess, but it shines in that moment. She is regal and strong.
The Chief’s eyes fall on Katara, whose eyes are still locked on Yue’s. “It’s you.”
Katara spares one more glance at Yue before nodding sharply at the Chief.
When Katara was younger she told Sokka she was going to marry Yue; he never believed her.
Yue’s laugh is a drug to Katara, exacerbating the good, dulling the bad. Her lips taste like honey, her fingers are always cool, and she loves Katara.
Katara dreams of Yue, and this time, it does not fade to black or exclude certain parts of her body. Katara gets to touch her white hair and press kisses to the soulmate tattoo that does not say her name. It does not say her name but they love each other despite that.
When they first arrived at the Northern Water Tribe, Katara was still weak on her knees from the injuries she incurred at the last Fire Nation showdown. They made it to Yue’s room and sequestered themselves away. Yue pulled their clothes down and away until they were just in their underwear. Yue reached out and ran a solitary finger along Katara’s soulmate tattoo. “It does not say my name.”
“I don’t need it to.” Katara’s eyes don’t leave the place where Yue touches her.
“You love me.” Yue’s hand travels up, running along the sparse hair up her stomach, up her sternum, until her finger lifts Katara’s chin and they look at each other eye to eye.
“I love you. Yue, I love you.”
“General, huh?”
“Most trusted advisor.”
"Don't know what I know about ruling."
“I could not rule without you, Katara. And you are fierce with a water whip.”
“I won’t let danger anywhere near you.”
“War is coming.”
“Have I let you down before?”
“Never. And you never will.”
Yue’s finger is cool under Katara’s chin. Katara reaches out and presses her palm along the exposed soulmate mark, her finger dipping into the beginning of Yue’s cleavage. “Will it matter when you meet her?”
“I never plan on it. I will love you forever.”