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“Stop calling me that! And correct your damned stance!” he snaps at Aang, and suddenly Katara is jarred by the reality that this boy and the menacing prince that used to chase them mercilessly around the world are one and the same.
She knew it, of course – but she knew it with her head, not her heart. Privately, the more she got to know him, the harder she found it to fit them into the same person. But now it’s like something clicked inside her, meshing the two of them together. Looking at him now, she can almost picture his old armor, the ponytail. The scowl is the same, she realizes.
But something more significant has changed. He’s smaller now, like he’s more contained in himself instead of constantly emanating that air of frustration, anger, hate. She wonders to what extent he still feels that way, and what happened between then and now.
More importantly, she wonders how much of that transformation happened within herself.