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Princess Yue is now of marrying age.
The guards accompanying Katara don’t comment on her tripping on the carpet while walking past the Princess's rooms. They merely escort her to where she’ll be staying, one door over from the Princess. They bid Katara good night and leave her uncertain, exploring the door frame with a hesitant fingertip. She feels like she’s standing on a melting ice floe, cracks forming right underneath the soles of her feet, waiting, restlessly, for the ocean water to seep into her very bones.
～
Katara bows before settling down at the table beside the princess. She’s still hesitant to eat among so many empty seats, even though they’d been reassured it would’ve been rude not to. Besides, it gives her the opportunity to strike up a conversation with her, the only girl her age she could spend a substantial amount of time around since she was a child. Anticipation ruffles through Katara like a warm breeze from the Earth Kingdom, filling her up from her booted toes to her tingling scalp.
“How come you’re sitting alone?” Katara asks. She inhales the stewing smell of the familiar yet foreign food in front of her. It is strangeㅡone dish might taste like home, yet another coats her tongue with unfamiliar tastes and textures. It makes her heart ache with homesickness. She swallows a bittersweet mouthful and grounds herself, squaring her shoulders.
“My father deals with official business early in the mornings, so we rarely ever eat breakfast together. The center table is reserved for members of the royal family and most esteemed guests, so I’ve taken to eating by myself.”
Her kind eyes wander from Katara’s face to the dish in front of her, her mouth in a well-practiced upward curve, but Katara sees the princess’ eyebrow twitch nevertheless. It’s like looking into a mirrorㅡthe placating of ease and hiding behind it. Katara knows it well, the unraveling hidden for the benefit of others. The mask is imperfect, it doesn’t fit around the edges. After a moment of contemplation, she decides to leave it be.
“Well, if you always wake this early, I don’t think my friends will join us either. Especially Sokka.” She rolls her eyes but smiles as she goes on. “If we let him sleep for as long as he wants, he’d never wake up.”
The apples of the princess’ cheeks blossom with a faint pink. Katara crooks her head but leaves her observations stuck in her throat, already multiple teasing remarks on the tip of her tongue carved by years of having Sokka as a sibling. She might tease him about his particularly un smooth behavior regarding Princess Yue and his obvious crush, but the girl in question still was a blank slate to Katara.
“But surely The Avatar will join us soon. Master Paku does not take kindly to tardiness.”
Katara smiles at the thought of Aang’s energetic morning spirit, her voice comes out knowing and sure, “I’m sure he will wake up in time and well rested. Sometimes it feels like the sun merely disappears at night to gift its energy to Aang and charge him up.”
The princess turns her head to meet Katara’s eyes. In the mere seconds of contact, something passes between them, Katara parts her lips but only warm breath leaves them.
Her eyes flicker from Katara's face to the door.
“It looks like you’re right, he's on his way to join us shortly.”
Katara turns in time to see Aang bounce through the doorway past the guards and float atop the platform their table is standing on.
“Am I late?” he asks and sits down, not even slightly out of breath. Katara can feel the excitement ooze off of him while he shovels anything and everything vegetarian onto his plate, which is admittedly not much.
“Not at all,” Katara replies. He might have arrived even a bit early for her taste.
～
Katara is not intent on following her sister tribe’s traditions. Well, not the stupid ones at least. She is not going to give up on her goal to learn fighting from a real waterbending master let Paku win.
When she protests, she means every word. The rational part of her brain, the one that isn’t preoccupied with screaming that’s not fair, I’m gonna change it, is very much aware of the gasps her outburst receives. The way Princess Yue covers her mouth and Paku narrows his eyes might foretell trouble for the waterbender in the future. But Katara doesn’t care, she can’t. Not if that would mean putting her rightful rage on lock and key. Not when she can raise her arms and show this misguided old man what a girl is capable of. Not when she thinks about the many girls before her that never got the chance to.
Every one of her senses is focused on winning, even once the fight stops and Paku picks up her necklace. Katara doesn’t notice and doesn’t care for the reaction of bystanders.
She doesn’t notice the princess’ sudden absence for the rest of the day either.
～
Katara assesses the embroidered mirror in front of her while she brushes the tangles out of her hair. With every stroke of the brush, she feels as if the tension from her head is leaking out through her scalp, flows through the strands, and glides away along some stray hairs.
It has always been a ritual, to put her hair into the styles her mother had taught Katara, who learned them from her mother and then the mother before. She used to redo it every time Katara messed her hair up while playing in the snow. She smoothed out each tangle with a brush every night and placed a warm kiss on the crown of her head that could cure any pain, any sorrow of a child. She made Katara love her hair and whenever she puts it up as her mother used to now, she feels a little closer to her. Katara can have one more little part of her mother with her anywhere she goes like she hasn’t lost everything of her.
When she now looks in the mirror, her reflection is void of anything distinctly her mother except for the necklace. She averts her gaze unwillingly and blows out the candles by her desk.
The bell outside Katara’s room rings, it takes a moment for her to realize she is supposed to receive the guest. Katara paces over to open the thick curtain shielding the entrance and startles when she sees the Princess standing there, in merely a warm blue dress without her signature jewelry or hairstyle. But she could never be mistaken for anyone else, her moon-kissed hair was something special, even for a Princess.
“Excuse the late visit, I hope I’m not intruding.” She lowers her gaze before looking straight at Katara, the most a Princess would do, and waits for a reply to a question she didn’t ask.
“Of course not. Please, come in,” Katara is too surprised to worry about what could’ve prompted this. Yet she still picks up on the profound sadness in Princess Yue’s eyesㅡthe weariness that doesn’t stem from one tiring day but from a never-ending string of them, spun from the wool of loneliness.
She waits for Katara to close the curtain. It slides back in place and separates them from the lanterns in the hallway and casts them into near-blackness. Katara refuses to think of it as symbolic. The lone candle on her nightstand serves as the only source of light, casting flickering shadows on the walls.
Katara is not sure how she’s supposed to behave in this scenario; what would be the customary thing to do? There seem to be so many unspoken rules, especially regarding royalty, that she’s bound to offend somehow.
But Katara has broken so many customs today, what is one more?
She settles onto her bed, crossing her legs and gesturing for the princess to sit with her. Her eyes seem to glaze over in the candlelight but before Katara registers it fully, it’s already gone.
“If I may ask, is there a reason for us meeting this late?” The carefully selected words are foreign on Katara’s tongue, a mixture of struggling to conform to what is expected of her, to what will make Princess Yue comfortable, and her growing desire to learn what is causing the princess to fiddle with the hem of her robe. Her every move always radiates purposefulness and grace, a prick of jealousy at the effortlessness of it allㅡpleasant smiles and effective wordsㅡtook Katara by surprise a few times before while observing Princess Yue.
And while there was still something regal about the way she held herself, the way she seemed so still apart from her fiddling hands, there was also a restlessness in the way her eyes scanned the room. A room that was luxurious by Katara’s standards but must be nothing noteworthy to her visitor.
“How did you find the courage to do what you did today?” she finally asks. A wrinkle appears between Katara’s eyebrows. A beat later, it clicks. The princess wants to talk about how Katara challenged Master Paku today. And though she didn’t sound like she disapproves of what transpired between them inherently, Katara is still cautious of angering the princess with her words. Falling out of her favor is not something she and her friends can afford. Still, the wording is not something Katara would have chosen herself.
“Well, I’m not sure courage is exactly what motivated me.” A small smile creeps on Katara’s face, she hides it by biting her lip.
“And I don’t think Master Paku would call it courage either.”
Princess Yue chuckles.
“It certainly looked courageous to me. He can be one intimidating person. And he looked like he was going to do something terrible to you, or at least like he wanted to.” Katara shrugs while looking out the window at the sea, she can see a strip of inky black liquid reflecting the cool moonlight past the top of the wall.
“You were the only one I’ve seen to challenge him like that. The first girl for sure.”
Katara resists the urge to roll her eyes. What is it always with the stark difference they drew between boys and girls? Sokka seems to not be alone in his assumption that he is somehow superior because of his ability to grow three hairs on his chin.
“That explains why Paku needed someone to dare to so badly.”
The princess huffs a laugh, her next words are punctuated by a lightness Katara has not seen from her so far.
“Seems like it, if someone was the right person for the job it was certainly you, Katara.”
Katara is not entirely sure it’s meant as a compliment but she takes it as such, a quiet pride settling in her lungs next to the satisfaction she gained merely from holding her own against a Master waterbender. It was a good fight, she had tasted blood and craved more of the challenge. She can’t wait for tomorrow.
A quiet falls over them, neither awkward nor comfortable, exactly. It is more like a treaty, a white flag if you will. The neutral territory she never seems to get to with the people from here that would clutch their customs in their limb hands even with their last breath, no matter if it harms someone in the process—especially if that someone is a girl.
“Is there something else you wanted to talk about, Princess Yue?”
“Please just call me Yue, no titles necessary. Though I might call you Master one day,” she says, without an ounce of irony. Katara’s face heats at the thought, but she doesn’t get the time to indulge in it since the princess Yue shifts on the bed, pulling her legs closer, and clears her throat quickly, drawing Katara’s attention back to the present.
“But I did want to ask you something more,” she begins, “How did you decide it was the right thing to go against the tradition in that case? How did you know it would be worth it to fight with no promise of a good outcome?”
Katara breathes in deeply, steeling herself. Yue is asking questions Katara has no good answers to, and she will have to break that to her very soon. But maybe not quite yet.
“Yue,” Katara states purposefully. “What is the function of traditions in your opinion, what is the reason we have them?”
Yue contemplates Katara with wide eyes and replies slowly, probably picking her words carefully just as Katara did. “They connect us, with our community but also with our ancestors. They help us decide what to do and what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Katara nods along. Something like that had been told to her too, when she asked why Gran-Gran always got the first serving of something, or why they celebrated certain phases of the moon here in the North and not in the South. It was comforting, something she’d grown up with, and helped her make decisions just like for Yue.
“But sometimes traditions can hurt people. Like when a girl wants to waterbend and isn’t allowed to. Is that right just because it’s always been done that way?” Yue’s face tightens.
Katara continues. “I agree. I love our traditionsㅡcoming together for celebrations and the hairstyles that connect me to my tribe. But that doesn’t mean they’re always right. We have to make our own way too, and if that happens to break some tradition that makes people unhappy, then I don’t see a problem with that. Traditions are meant to bring us together, not apart.”
Katara studies Yue closely, who sits so still she might be mistaken for a statue. For a long while, there is silence and Katara sinks into it. No matter how secure in her words Katara may have sounded, she isn’t sure how to draw the line, when it’s the right thing to go her own way and when she’s betraying her ancestors. But that’s something she can still figure out along the way, and for what it’s worth; she still thinks whatever or whoever dictates she can not learn fighting has to be wrong.
“I’ve noticed before but it’s even clearer now. It’s admirable how well you speak your mind. You’re very inspiring, Katara.”
Katara breathes out shallowly. She keeps her hands from moving restlessly by pressing them together in her lap. Yue saying this means more than she’d care to acknowledge at this moment for fear of her voice jumping several octaves.
A simple thank you isn’t enough but staying in silence seems no longer an option either, so Katara asks what she assumes is her final question of the night.
“Is there anything else, Yue?”
While waiting for a reply Katara gives Yue’s appearance more consideration, only now noticing the delicate embroidery of her midnight blue dress, the purple patterns so close in color to the outer layer of her dress, they seem to melt into each other. Katara’s eyes follow the pattern up to Yue’s high collar, where it curls into breaking waves. It looks like Yue’s being drowned by her own embroidery.
“If you don’t mind… yes, actually,” Yue says.
Princess Yue shuffles again, her head turning while her eyes dart from one corner to the next, seemingly more out of a need to do something than to observe her surroundings. When she tips her head up slightly, something light blue beneath the collar of her dress reflects in the candlelight, Katara’s fingers wander to the necklace around her neck.
“You’re engaged,” Katara states, not quite a question but still hoping to be wrong.
Yue freezes, and she moves to hide the necklace behind warm cloth again after rubbing her knuckles against the smooth stone.
“I am.”
Never has Katara heard Yue’s melodic voice so raspy, so devoid of melody.
Katara shifts closer, unsure if a friendly touch would be welcome or not, after a moment of contemplation settling on taking Yue’s hands in hers. Yue inspects her limp fingers in Katara’s warm hands and tightens her grip slightly.
Neither of them looks into the other's eyes, but somehow, this moment feels more personal than talking about their views on their tribes’ traditions, views that could get them reprimanded harshly if overheard by the wrong person.
“Do you have to be?” Katara attempts, not daring to assume one way or the other.
Yue lets out a humorless laugh, so unlike herself. “That’s the problem,” she says, “I think I do but…” She trails off, but Katara hears what’s left unsaid regardless, hears what Yue may still be too afraid to merely think.
“You don’t want to be, do you.” Yet again another half statement, half question. Yue shakes her head, a tear drops onto their joined hands and disappears between their knotted fingers. “No,” Yue mouths, so quiet Katara strains to hear her.
Katara studies Yue’s face, wrinkles of pain obscuring the fear prevalent in her cold, shivering hands. It hits Katara that Yue is a mere two years older than her, yet she has to worry about things Katara can’t even truly think about in earnest. If her Gran-Gran had stayed in their sister tribe, would Katara have had to face a similar fate to Yue?
Deep sorrow for the girl in front of her rattles Katara. The effort Yue puts into not sobbing outright doesn’t help either of them with burying their emotions for no one to see. Katara closes the distance between them and places her palms on Yue’s face, taking great care to keep her expression caring and grounded at the same timeㅡnot dissimilar to how she used to console a child that fell and hurt themselves. Only this time, a few strokes through ruffled hair and some reassuring words wouldn’t be enough to ease the pain.
Taking someone’s mind off of their pain only helped when it wasn’t perpetuated by the people around them. It only worked if their wounds could be mended, if it wasn’t a bruise left unseen and uncared for deliberately for months, or even years. It only lasted if Katara could promise that it was going to be okay, knowing in her heart she spoke the truth.
So the only option left was to stumble through clumsy attempts at finding a bearable path. One she knew would’ve been taken if it existed.
Katara followed the curve of Yue’s hands to her elbows, gaze dragging up to her drawn shoulders—struggling through barely concealed tremors.
Maybe it was time to make that path themselves.
“It’s okay to go against customs if they make you unhappy, you know? Your life counts too, not only what’s good for your tribe.”
Yue’s lip wobbles as she slowly slumps into Katara’s shoulder, her body tensing and relaxing in quick succession under Katara’s hands. They hold onto each other tightly, like they’re each other's lifelines—as if they could share the burden if only they got physically close enough to each other's hearts, the place all that sorrow collects and hardens until it bursts out of you.
But something else entirely happens, Katara does not feel heavier, or like bursting, not as if she’s taking on the load of Yue’s hurt. More so, it feels like the tight knot inside Katara’s chest dissipates, a ball of yarn slowly unfurling and spinning out of their embraced bodies through the crips air out into the night sky.
Yue breathes out deeply, her shoulders sink, the tension eases at last. After a few more steady, warm breaths against Katara’s neck, she peels herself off, the back of her hand rubs over her nose, she sniffles. Katara offers her a tissue from the nightstand. Yue takes it sheepishly, a thank you muttered under her breath.
“You know,” Yue speaks after clearing her voice, it’s steadier than Katara would have expected. She’s glad Yue sounds and looks more like herself again, seeing her like that is nothing short of shattering. “I really thought I had no more tears to spill but it seems I was wrong.” A small smile graces her lips, though her eyes still shimmer.
“It seems so,” Katara concurs. The unnerving and distracting uncertainty of how Katara is to approach Yue, of what to say to make her feel better takes a backseat. She feels more sure in herself now, reminding herself that this is far from the first time she consoled someone, not even the first time she did it for a near-stranger.
Though Yue doesn’t feel like a near-stranger anymore. She doesn’t feel like the unreachable princess, the serene girl that never falters and has the ability to make any room quiet with just a look.
“Who gave you the necklace?”
“He is a soldier called Hahn. He comes from an important family, one we need on our side in these troubling times. Or so my father says, he picked Hahn a long time ago. Our families agreed on our marriage when we were just children, now I’m officially engaged to him.” Yue brings her fingertips to the necklace around her neck, as soon as skin meets stone she flinches back as if burned. She continues as if nothing happened, her flat voice revealing her composure as fragile as a butterfly’s wings. “We’re to marry once he proves his courage in battle.”
“Have you talked to your father about this? He seems like your happiness is important to him, maybe he’d understand.” Maybe this was wishful thinking, but Katara wasn’t going to convince Yue that she should just accept her fate. If nothing else, Katara had proven that she wasn’t afraid of standing up to the customs she disagreed with, elders be damned.
Yue shakes her head. “There is not really a point, it’s all been decided a long time ago. Besides, it’s what’s expected of me. It’s not only my father who I’d have to convince; it is important to my tribe, it’s how it has always been.”
“But Yue…” Yue waves her hand dismissively, Katara trails off, eyeing Yue fighting her inner battle—disclosure or avoidance? Katara’s mouth is dry, she doesn’t reach for the glass of water on her nightstand.
“They told me you grow to love each other. Maybe that will happen to me too.” Yue works her lower lip between her teeth before she continues. “Right now I’m just… confused because of Sokka. Once he leaves it will be okay, it has to be.”
Katara blinks slowly. Sokka, as in her brother, Sokka? No, how had he been able to get to Yue’s heart that much? He was fumbling to get a conversation started just mere days ago!
But then again, he had been disappearing and not telling her where he went when she asked, her’s and Aang’s teasing only dragging out puffs and weak rebuttals. Still, thinking of Sokka as someone Yue would be seriously interested in, is out of Katara’s pool of abilities. To Katara, it’s easier to imagine Sokka spontaneously developing waterbending abilities before she’d see him as a potential match for a girl.
But she is focusing on the wrong thing. She goes through what Yue said in her mind. It doesn’t sit right with her. Hoping for some distant future, praying for feelings to arise rather than finding someone she liked to begin with, irked Katara. But this was what Yue knew, what she had seen modeled to her all her life. Maybe Katara would be of a different opinion had she grown up like her, maybe she would’ve persuaded Yue to accept her situation as it is.
But Katara didn’t grow up in the North. And Yue didn’t seek out Katara in hopes of getting a perspective she could get from any northern girl.
She visited Katara because she wanted her to speak as herself, not as someone who might have been.
“That may very well be true,” Katara starts diplomatically, “but do you really want to risk that it won’t turn out that way? Maybe it’s your turn to decide your own future.”
“It’s not that simple. It’s not only my future I’ve got to think about.”
“But your happiness is your responsibility too. Is it worth suffering through this if you could at least try and change it?”
Yue sighs, the weight of it reminds Katara of her grandmother—someone that has seen a myriad of things, good but mostly bad, and has nothing left but to tell her story. “I don’t know if I have the strength to.”
Katara opens her mouth and closes it again. She doesn’t like the implications of that at all. But what could she possibly reply to that? Yue has to make the decision herself, has to discern if it’s a decision at all. Katara can’t do that for her just like she can’t break off the engagement or banish Hahn. Maybe giving Yue hope is the wrong thing after all, maybe the custom that has worked for her sister tribe for centuries will work for Yue too.
“Customs like these are not necessarily a bad thing,” Katara says, “but they don’t have to be the only way. If you choose to go through with this engagement it should be exactly that. A choice.”
Yue crooks her head. “You shouldn’t feel this huge burden on your shoulders. The future of the whole northern watertribe doesn’t solely depend on who you marry, or at least it shouldn’t. If you look into your heart and it tells you that you really don’t want this, we’ll find another way. I promise to do anything in my power to honor that.” Katara locks eyes with Yue, making sure her words don’t just scratch the icy surface but melt the protective layer reinforced by suffering in silence—her words are to permeate. “I can’t promise you more than that but just know that you’re not alone in this. It’s ultimately your choice and I’ll support you no matter what.”
Yue bites her lip, eyes wandering to the ceiling. A line between her eyebrows appears. Katara lets the silence stretch between them, not unsettled by it in the slightest. She stands by what she said. And though she may prefer one choice over the other, she won’t tell Yue that. It’s neither her place nor is it the point.
Yue will find her way, just like Katara will. Katara just hopes she will get to stay long enough to walk along for a while, long enough that she can keep her promise properly.
“Thank you, Katara. I have lots to think about but my head feels much… lighter.” The corner of Yue’s mouth turns up. “Sorry for keeping you up, maybe we can see each other again at some other time, preferably when the sun is still up?” At this very moment, the candle fizzles out and the night wraps around them like silk, white dots dance before Katara’s eyes. Yue probably can’t see it, she can only hear the smile in Katara’s voice. “I’d like that.”
Yue dips her head slightly before gracefully sliding from the bed and moving toward the curtain, grabbing hold of the fabric but hesitating. “You’re a good friend, Katara. Sleep well.”
She slips out before Katara can reply, who’s left lying in her bed with the word friend playing over and over in her head. Yes, Katara made a friend today. One she ached for, one she needed. One that needed her.
They didn’t solve anything today, didn’t come any closer to ending Yue’s engagement or making their peace with it. But they did find each other. And that was enough for Katara.