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The present.
On the first day of Katara's Trials, the glacier their village sits on is absolutely packed with people—most in blue, but there are groups in greens, browns, and even red, clumped to the sides or on dark metal boats. Blue flags wave from every igloo and great ships bob in the water, the air almost warm with the excited chatter of so many people.
She imagines that the waterline is higher, as if the sheer weight of people has caused the glacier to sink even though she knows the ice is far too large for that to be possible.
A Grandmaster’s Trials are often well-attended, Pakku tells her. In the North, a crowd of a hundred is common, even excluding the panel of Waterbending teachers and the Trial-taker's family.
But this—this is a far cry from anything he could have prepared her for. From here, she can see at least half a dozen entirely new camps at the edges of their village, hundreds of people, maybe even a thousand, milling about near the water’s edge as they wait for the first day of the Trial to begin.
This is orders of magnitude beyond her wildest expectations, and it’s not even because of her status as a war hero or a diplomat or companion of the Avatar.
This is the culmination of grueling research. Of training that bloomed bruises across her body and aches in her muscles that lingered for weeks. Of endless searching through the archives of the North Pole, of the Swampbenders, and even the jealously guarded libraries of the Earth and Fire royals, after she had cowed their shrewd librarians into submission.
This will be the first time in nearly seventy years that the Grandmaster’s Trials will be performed in the Southern Water Tribe, and in the Southern Waterbending style.
Because while she has been teaching Waterbending in the South Pole for nearly a year by now and has taken on many students in their travels across the globe, these were fleeting and informal mentorships. Everything she taught them followed the techniques she learned from Pakku and perfected with Aang.
But not now. After four years of exhausting work, traveling between the Tribes and everywhere in between that needed them, she has finally reconstructed enough of the traditional Southern Waterbending style for her first formal lessons. This Trial, a test set for her by the Bending masters of her discipline, is a three-day demonstration of her pedagogy, proof of what she's learned, and her technique both as a Waterbender and a Master, to test if she is fit to pass on these teachings.
The glaciers themselves seem to wait with bated breath, both the cracking of the ice and the murmurs of the crowd growing silent in anticipation.
The weight of expectation wars with her excitement like two violent ocean currents. Despite the pressure, she is not immune to the energy thrumming in the air, the hope of her people—all borne on her shoulders.
But not alone.
She's camped out a small distance away from the crowd, where only family and friends are permitted. Hakoda and Yagoda are with her, braiding up her hair and winding leathers around her arms before they have to go join the table of the Elders as observers. Her father murmurs encouragement to her while Yagoda runs through the sequence of the tests one last time. Nearby, Sokka scribbles his drafts and calculations—needless, redundant worrying. She knows their preparations for her demonstrations, the sequence of the skills, are airtight.
And weaving through the throngs of blue, a calming presence amidst the chaos, is the sole figure clad in orange, smiling softly as he sees the same color tied around her waist.
ΔΔΔ
The night before.
Katara can't sleep. Deeper in the tent, Sokka and Hakoda snore in harmony, mocking her with the ease of their rest.
In the South, each family had their own tent, spanning multiple generations if constructed well. Whenever Aang visited, she insisted that he share theirs. While he always had a standing offer of a room on Zuko's ship, with its fancy coal heaters and metal walls, Katara would settle for nothing less. Aang was family and would be treated as such; anyone who thought otherwise could say so to her octopus whip.
The fact that Aang's presence is soothing and helps her sleep is merely a bonus—which is why she curses him now.
The moon is nearly full outside and she can feel its energy amplifying her anxiety, leaving her restless. Katara can only hope she doesn't fall asleep when she has to perform more complex bending tomorrow or, Spirits forbid, fall off her kayak. Here she is, restless and awake before her big day, and the person she specifically invited to help cuddle her to sleep is not doing his job.
If Aang is still outside, he’s probably rubbing warming oils over Appa's calluses. Or maybe he’s “drinking” with Toph, which just meant him watching Toph get louder and drunker while he stayed stone-cold sober in deference to his monastic vows.
The terrifying thing about drinking with Aang was that he never actually stopped them from getting in trouble—he only did enough to make sure they didn't get caught, or talk them out of worse consequences if they already had. He was always happiest in the mornings after, with his too-loud voice and shit-eating grin, full of stories while the rest of them nursed their hangovers and wounded pride. But the gang (or The Gaang, as Sokka called them, to Aang's eternal chagrin) counted themselves lucky; without him, none of them would remain internationally respected figures for very much longer.
But the idea of a drink is appealing. And if that doesn't work, a spar with Toph, verbal or otherwise, might make Katara tired enough to finally settle down.
So Katara slips into her mother's sealskin parka, already laid out for tomorrow, and her chosen outfit at the symbolic rebirth of their Tribe. It's not the warmest, slightly brittle from years of disuse, but she doesn’t expect to be out long.
She has a vague idea of where to look for Aang first—probably the animal stalls—but when she parts the furs at the flap of their tent, Aang is right there at the entrance, with a distinct lack of either sleepy bison, grumpy Earthbender, or fire-warmed alcohol.
Aang doesn’t see her, though. He sits by the last few embers of that night’s fire, his back facing the tent.
The long blue arrow along his head and spine disappears under his robes, but she can imagine it forming a perfect crescent, curling over where his hands rest on his thighs. The image is so serene she’s distracted for a moment, before she remembers why she’s pissed at him. And he’s not even doing anything productive—instead, it looks like he’s out here brooding.
Katara stalks forward silently, compressing the snow with a wave of her hand to prevent it from making noise. He can't sense her on the ice, not without earth to carry the vibrations. She grins madly when she comes up right behind him and he hasn't even moved his head.
"Can’t sleep, Avatar?" she says into his ear.
“Kyoshi’s ti—” She didn’t even realize he had something in his hands. Aang startles so badly that he nearly tosses the thing into the dying campfire, but he launches himself after it, landing so hard on the ice (and dangerously close to the fire) that she winces. But he does get up seemingly without pain and tucks the little bundle to his side, away from view. She can’t help but laugh as he clicks his jaw shut in embarrassment, the sound so loud it makes her teeth ache sympathetically.
"What's that?" she asks. It would be so easy to reach over him for it, to start a playful wrestling match in the snow.
But then she notices the slight nervousness in his gaze that precludes any playfighting. So instead Katara sits close, letting his body heat seep into her side through her mother's furs. She often finds herself wishing Aang had gotten to meet her mother, but tonight the thought is gentle and doesn't hurt at all.
Aang peers at her from the side of his eye. He doesn't turn to face her, looking down to take the hem of her sleeve and study the small beads of rock and bone stitched into her mother’s parka. Most of the lines have gaps where the threads have snapped off or the beads eroded, but the dyes and patterns are well cared for despite their age—she made sure of that.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
Katara sees more than hears Aang's question as his breath steams and curls in the air, his voice so quiet. She pulls her sleeve out of his grasp pointedly, raising one dark brow to let him know she knows he’s just avoiding her question. He has the decency to smile at her, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
"Well, how is the Grandmaster candidate supposed to do that without anyone cuddling her to sleep? And the night before my Trial nonetheless—this is a serious diplomatic slight to the Southern Water Tribe. As the Avatar, you need to make it up to me," she says, reaching for the mysterious little bundle again.
Aang only laughs and holds it further away with his stupidly long arms, but he does reach up to stroke her hair, and Katara will take her wins where she can.
"An esteemed Waterbending Master should have enough self-discipline to sleep early, no?" he teases, all cheek, but never stops the soothing movements of his hands.
She lets herself take comfort in it. It has been months since he was last at the South Pole, and the handful of hours snatched between meetings in Ba Sing Se are far from enough.
The moon is so bright it casts him in silver. Even his bright robes are grey under its light, only bursting with color where the campfire illuminates the edges.
Aang hums a tune she recognizes from their travels together; one of the many Air Nomad flight songs, sung on the backs of their bison to pass the time. This is one of the slower ones, almost a lullaby.
It's familiar enough that she knows the order of the syllables and hum along, but not enough to recognize discrete words. Aang had been teaching her, before they went separate ways; him, on a search for his people, and she, reviving her Tribe’s traditions. Regretfully, she finds she’s forgotten a lot of the song in the year between.
"How are you feeling?" he asks after he lets the last note fade away. “Nervous?"
"I'm not nervous," she scoffs, and it's a partial truth.
Aang makes a sympathetic cluck with his tongue and squeezes her shoulder gently, but the well-intentioned coddling irritates her.
"I mean it—I'm not. Or… not nervous for myself, I think," she admits, looking up at the moon.
Aang stays quiet, sensing that she needs time to untangle her thoughts. She bends up a perfect sphere of snow with the flick of a finger, floating it above her hand, shifting it from ice to liquid to vapor and back. Her thinking ball, Aang likes to call it.
It is quiet for what feels like a long time.
"What was it like, when you flew in a few days ago?" she asks eventually, still facing the moon. He can't place the emotion in her voice, but it doesn't seem to be anything bad.
"Well, Appa and I had a weird time trying to land," he answers, unsure. "Because of all the new camps, there are actually thermals in the air now—small ones. But none of them were really strong enough to lift us far, just unexpected."
Katara tilts her head, though not in confusion. He's talked about currents and air columns enough that she understands the picture he's trying to paint.
"And what did it look like?"
"It reminded me of Agna Qel'a, a little?" he says, gaze shifting from her dear, familiar profile to the landscape around them, trying to fit the vastness of it into a single, coherent thought. "I know I helped construct a few of the buildings and waterways, but there are so many now that I got lost. Appa and I almost couldn't find your tent."
They both go quiet again. After some time Aang pulls his gaze back to Katara. She's looking out at the igloos and buildings scattered across the tundra. Some, like theirs, still have small fires burning, with tiny sleepless figures moving about.
"It is different, isn't it?" she muses aloud. “Even when we were building all those new igloos for the refugees who came back, or the workers from the North moving here, I don’t think the Southern Water Tribe has ever looked like this, with all these tents, these lights. At least, not in my memory. Maybe not even Gran-Gran’s.”
When she turns away from the landscape to look back at Aang, her eyes are bright and fierce and shining with the reflected flames.
“Ever since the first spectators started arriving, this is the view I’ve seen every night,” she says. Her face is serious and determined, though to do what, he doesn't know. “This is the first time I've looked at our tundra and not felt sad about it. Before you came along, even the happiest days had that—that bit of grief, I guess. And I used to be so desperate to get out of this place, not just to find a Waterbending teacher, but because I knew I couldn’t stay—that there was nothing waiting for me here. It scared me. And I was so ashamed that it did.”
Her voice grows thick with emotion, but he recognizes now that the undercurrent is pride. She’s smiling, so wide and earnest, and he loves her. She shakes her hands out to release some of the intensity, and Aang reaches out to hold them once she's done, warming her knuckles with calloused thumbs.
“Back then, Gran-Gran's stories of huge glacier-cities sounded impossible. Now, though? It's real. We're building them every day. And all I can think of is that kids can grow up here. The South is alive. They have a future here, and that’s—that’s all I ever wanted for myself. This is what the children of my Tribe get to have now.
“So it’s still my Trial, and Pakku said there’s really no way to fail it, but—it still feels like it’s a test for all of us. All of these people, all the Masters from up North, I know they’re not here for me,” she says without bitterness; merely a statement of fact. “But tomorrow, I’ll be the one proving our strength, our resilience to the rest of the world. I know I can, I’m not nervous about that, but it’s just—it’s a lot.”
Aang seems to melt at her words, a familiar sappy smile softening his face even more.
“It is a lot different from when we first met. But it’s not the same as before either, you know?” Aang continues. Katara’s eyes widen with curiosity. “I only visited once, so I don’t remember a lot, but it wasn't like this. I think… this isn’t something your Gran-Gran, or even her elders, could have dreamed of.” He tucks her hair behind her ear—not that anything had fallen in front of her face, but the gesture feels like a transition, and Katara pays attention.
“Because you brought it back, but you’ve also built something new. And when I say ‘you’ I mean none of this would have been possible without you, specifically,” he says earnestly. “Not just because you’re the last Waterbender or the first Southern Master again but because you're Katara.
“It took everyone to make it happen, but you stepped up to lead, to fight for them. And they all know that. I’m pretty sure a lot of the Tribespeople out there right now are here for you—not just whoever happened to be the Trial-taker.”
Katara’s gaze grows blurry. Aang wipes at her cheeks with the pads of his fingers, rough from years of hard work but gentle on her skin. He surges up to hug her, too tight, but it’s just what she needs. The pressure steadies her shaky breaths, and he presses his cheek to hers, her overwhelmed tears smearing across his own face.
"And I’m so proud of you, Grandmaster Katara," he says, pulling away slightly to beam at her. It's almost embarrassing to be looked at with such open adoration, from one of the best people she knows. It should feel shamefully arrogant, should make her feel flayed open and undeserving, but—because it’s Aang, it feels like it must be true. Like something she can believe in.
His mouth slants higher on one side, looking so fond and so full of love that it's entirely his fault, really, that Katara has to bite his shoulder to release some of her embarrassment. She gets a mouthful of his ridiculous wool robe—how is he not getting frostbite, she's scolded him so many times about his refusal to wear animal pelts in a polar climate—and he yelps.
There is no way that actually hurt, the robes are too thick for him to have even felt her teeth, so she bites him again for his dramatics.
"I’m not a Grandmaster yet. Don't jinx me, Avatar," she breathes, feeling him shiver at the exhale, so close to a steadily reddening earlobe. She’s so close that she can actually see his pulse speed up along his neck, and the sight is unfairly endearing. All these years together, and he’s still so easily flustered. She takes pity on him and puts some space between them, breathing in deeply as other sentiments come bubbling up to the surface.
"None of this would've happened without you either," she says roughly, pressing her forehead to his shoulder.
He hears her unspoken 'I couldn't have done this without you' and shakes his head. Katara tightens her grip, as if she can make this stubborn, beautiful boy accept her gratitude through brute force.
It has been four years since the war. The first three were a frantic haze of rebuilding and constant peace talks. Through all those long days, Aang had been by her side more often than not, helping her and Sokka reestablish the Southern Water Tribe, ferrying scrolls and artifacts across the Poles, clearing out the last of the rusted warships alongside her, negotiating alliances and funding. She remembers many sleepless nights with him out on the frigid waters and ports across the Earth Kingdom, facilitating the return of the refugees—most of the tents dotting the landscape now are those of returning Tribesmen. And he repeated this entire process tirelessly (and often thanklessly) for Ba Sing Se, Agna Qel'a, and even the farthest border towns of the Earth Kingdom.
And once the world was a little more stable, a little less likely to collapse at the slightest provocation, Aang announced his intent to search for surviving Airbenders. Katara remembers far too many meetings where they’d both had to fight for support and resources. Far too many nights of having to convince Aang that it wasn't actually selfish or deluded of him to let other people solve their own petty problems while he tried to find the remnants of his people and single-handedly revive his culture.
Since then, he's been traveling the world again—except this time, he's alone. He does what he can to visit, but Katara can't join him on Appa as often, busy with her training and her studies and her own rebuilding. Even after the Trial, she will remain here for a few years more, establishing the very first school of Southern-style Waterbending in decades.
Aang would never begrudge her that; if anything, it makes him happy to watch her lead, to see how her people respect her despite her age. He would never force a choice between their relationship and her Tribe.
But that does mean she misses him—has missed him, this past year.
So to have him here for a whole glorious month, for her, not as a mediator or some diplomatic requirement, soothes an ache in her heart she hadn't even registered was there.
Aang lets her cling to his arm, smoothing his fingers over her hair. She leans into him for a second longer before purposefully toppling across his lap, digging her elbow in his stomach to keep his long arms away while she reaches for the little bundle he’s been so secretive about. Her hand meets soft cloth, and she pulls it close to her chest, out of Aang’s reach.
"Wait, Katara—"
"You didn't think I was going to let this go, did you?" She grins, smiling wide to distract from how vulnerable she still feels, how salt still lines her cheeks. She doesn't unwrap it to look, though. Aang doesn't seem truly upset, but he's giving her that foxdeer-caught-in-a-trap look. "Now will you tell me what this thing is? You're not usually this suspicious."
Aang swallows. Instead of answering, he makes a helpless little 'go on' gesture at the thing in her hands. Katara raises one brow and unfolds it.
It's a wool parka, dyed a rich blue, embroidered with intricately carved wooden beads.
Her heartbeat roars in her ears. She thinks she hears her own voice calling it beautiful, but if she did she barely registers the words coming out of her own mouth.
"It's—is it yours?"
She trails her fingers over the beads, uncomprehending. Is this his coat? But he never wears anything other than his monastic robes, and if he was hiding it from her, that can only mean—
Aang shakes his head, cheeks darkening and oh-so-shy.
"It’s for you. I really did my best to finish it for your Trial, but then I saw you planning to wear your mom’s parka instead, so I, um. I was just going to give it to you some other time, like after?”
Katara goes still. Does Aang know the significance of a gift like this, or is this just him being his usual sweet self?
She frowns at the thought of the latter. It’s a lovely gift regardless, but if it is only that, without intent—
"What is this for, Aang?" She needs to be sure. She wants this to be what she thinks it is.
Aang swallows. "I made it for you," he repeats, as though that answers anything.
"But you—do you know what this means?"
Aang scratches the back of his head, eyes flitting away until he finds the courage to meet her gaze.
"Remember when we were in Agna Qel'a last spring? And your dad took me on that hunting trip with Sokka where all I did was scare the foxdeer away and pray over their kills—” Katara laughs at the memory while Aang turns bright red and soldiers on through the story, barely stopping to breathe. “W-well while we were there, Hakoda told me that, uh, betrothal necklaces were more of a Northerner thing? That in the South, you gave your—you made parkas out of the pelts of your hunts to prove your dedication. He—he wasn’t very subtle. But I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since," he says, voice growing surer and steadier. Determined. Her heart gives a squeeze when she realizes it sounds like the beginning of a promise.
"I know you and tradition don’t always mix." He smiles fondly at this, as if remembering her disastrous first meeting with Pakku, and all the times her bullheadedness has gotten them into trouble since. "But I know your culture is important to you. It makes you who you are, and I love you, and I just—I wanted to show you how much I do, in a way that means something more to you.
“And I… I haven’t been around lately,” he says softly, almost apologetically. “But this is something I can give you—that you can hold onto. To remind you that I chose you, I’m choosing you, no matter what anyone else says about us or our responsibilities.”
He makes a little aborted gesture, his hand almost to hers before it wavers hesitantly in the air. Katara grabs it tight, holding it as her eyes sting with emotion again. She bites her lip and turns down to look at the parka in her lap, now unimaginably precious.
"I can't wear this tomorrow," she says. Aang nods like he expected that answer. It’s not even sad, his face resigned and accepting, as though he'd never question that he came second to her family, and that—that just won't do. Here he is, a vision in the snow, offering her everything without a single expectation, without knowing she'd do the same in a heartbeat.
She strips off her mother's sealskin parka to tug his on.
"Hey! Wait, wait, wait—it's freezing—"
"I can't wear this because it's not waterproof," she wails as she yanks it over her head. "And you put wooden beads on it, it's not even going to last the first skill test!" Her voice is flustered and loud, too loud for the night around them, even as she melts into the soft lining of the hood, feels the loving weight of the beads along her throat and shoulders.
She snuggles into the wool as it scratches over her tunic. It's rougher than hide, but much softer. She can already tell that it's not warm enough to wear alone, not without a proper outer layer, but it's enough for tonight as they sit by the fire.
She hears Aang's breath hitch when he sees her in it, even though her hair must look like seaweed in a storm. It's the sound he makes when he's overwhelmed and she almost doesn't want to look at him, for the same reasons children are told not to look at the sun.
But Katara has never been good at doing what she's told.
So she looks; Aang's eyes are shining and besotted and so openly adoring it makes her squirm. The orange light of the fire and the silver cast of the moon chase each other around his face, but he is so transfixed (on her, always on her) that he doesn't even blink. Her cheeks burn under the attention, and she grabs his hand again to fidget with his fingers, the thin skin around his knuckles.
"And you! You weren't even going to give this to me—you were going to make me wait until after the three days!" She shakes the blue-arrowed hand still in her grip, his fingers flopping around limply.
"I told you, I wasn't going to compete with your mom—"
"You’re not—you’re not competing with anyone. I want you here, and so do Sokka and Dad and—I know Mom would.” Her voice cracks as her throat goes thick, but the words feel true. "And I would wear this proudly, it's just—it's not real skin! I know you have a vow of nonviolence but if your robes are already bad enough with seawater, this has no chance!” Aang’s grin becomes wider as she continues her flustered rambling. “If you want something to last longer than two boat rides it has to be proper hide or it'll never survive," she huffs at him, making him giggle.
The sound falls sideways, becoming pitchy. Now he's the unsteady one, and Katara realizes his hand has been trembling in hers for a while now. She draws him into a hug.
"You have to know you're already family," she says gently, admiring how the sleeves fold and fall along the embroidered lines while he hides his face in her neck. It’s not the most traditional weaving pattern, but the construction is thoughtful and beautiful. "There is no world where I wouldn't accept this, where I wouldn't choose you back. Where I don't love you."
Aang sniffs.
"I know. I know that, but I just missed you. A lot. And I know it's been hard for you too, I just—" He burrows even deeper into her embrace, face entirely hidden now. "It's been a year since I started, and I still haven't found anything. Sometimes I even asked Yangchen if she was messing with me. Can you imagine? Me, talking to an Elder like that? Yutso—” he gives a choked-off sound that is only mostly a laugh. “Sister Yutso would've tossed me off the mountain for the insult. But I can’t—still can’t stop doubting her. Doubting myself. What if all I’m doing is hurting you, us, for a—a wild hogmonkey chase?”
Katara scowls. She remembers that exact phrase, and the sneering face of the Earth Kingdom counselor who said it. Even starting a diplomatic incident and making him grovel for forgiveness in the hall outside was not enough to appease her anger.
“We knew it was going to be hard when you left, Aang,” she says, forcing herself to be gentle as the memory of her anger resurfaces. “But this is important work. Just as important as you helping me rebuild the Southern Water Tribe, or chasing down those renegade Fire nationalists. Just because other people are too—” she cuts herself off with a frustrated huff. “They don’t matter. There are so many more people on your side.”
But even as she says that, she sees the truth of his loneliness in his eyes. Aang was never a creature made for solitude. He has supporters, yes, but none of them are in Appa’s saddle beside him. She isn’t there beside him, and even though he’s never demanded her to be, a pang of guilt strikes her.
She cups one hand around his cheek, but Aang shakes his head.
“It’s okay, I know. I know. Yangchen knows that story too, and she—she really does help. She gives good advice, sometimes.” He takes in a deep, steadying breath and gives her a small smile.
“What I wanted to say was that making this, for you, weaving bison wool, carving blessing tiles again… I used to do that all the time while we were flying with Gyatso and MianMian, when Appa was big enough to keep up with her. So making this for you kept me company. It was almost like being home. And I… I liked traveling while knowing I could come back to you.” He gives her a boyish grin that makes her heart flip, heat flooding her face. “So thank you."
He’s ridiculous. Of course, Aang would thank her for receiving a gift he made. Utterly ridiculous. She loves him.
And now she knows she's only seeing the surface how much of this burden weighs on him. To be searching for Airbenders for so long without anything to show for it—and all of this on top of his other duties as the Avatar, with everyone demanding pieces of him, as though entitled to their pound of flesh.
It bruises her heart to think that Aang has been doing this alone. That he thinks he has to do this—the search, the weaving, the remembrance—all alone.
He doesn't know that creating winter coats like this is usually a family affair, with everyone pitching in to help tan, cut, and dye the skin as a way to pass the time together during long winters.
When Hakoda told him about this tradition last year, she has no doubts that he did so with the intent to offer Aang his help, get some early father-son bonding time. Her heart aches to realize that, instead, Aang took it as his task alone. That he only had himself, Appa, and a dogged determination to give her a promise she can hold—not because she needed one, but because it is his nature to anchor himself in the love he can give to others.
"Of course you do," she says, holding him tighter, willing her presence to be a promise. It's not the same and she knows that, but she hopes this is enough, in its own way. "You always have a home here."
You always have a home in me.
ΔΔΔ
Later, when they're out of the cold and huddled together in the tent, she traces her fingers over the carved ridges and spirals of the embroidered beads.
"What do these mean?" she asks in the dark. Thankfully, the rest of her family has stopped snoring, and the night is tranquil. "These symbols. They look weirdly familiar."
"You’ve probably seen some, they're everywhere at the Temples,” he explains patiently. “They're blessings in Rlung. Love, protection, safe returns, fidelity, joy, good fortune, health." Aang lists them off on his fingers, so melodically it almost lulls Katara to sleep. His accent grows more pronounced as he recalls them, as if he's about to burst out singing the traditional prayers. "I never learned how to make the more complicated stuff, but little prayer tiles like that, even kids could do. We used to give them out on the road, for weddings and stuff."
Katara burrows deeper into the parka, feeling oddly fragile and like she might cry again.
"And the rest of it is Appa's wool. Knitting is fun, actually, but collecting all his shedding took forever," he continues, sensing the shift in her mood and graciously distracting her with some doubtlessly embellished story. "He shed so much Bumi thought it was snow when we flew over Omashu and…"
He chatters on about how he made it, from spinning the fur into threads to his disastrous attempts at making dye, turning Appa half-blue for a week. Katara lets his warm voice wash over her while her thoughts turn inward.
For one, it's terribly romantic. The child in her who loved stories of heroes and true loves and forever girls is swooning. It makes her feel weightless, giddy with it, to be adorned with so much love.
But at the same time, she realizes that she's the first person to wear these symbols in nearly a century. It is a rare honor, but the way Aang talked about these tiles—they’re trinkets. They shouldn’t be rare. Hell, there should be knockoffs being sold along every major road. Young couples in the Earth Kingdoms should have them hanging on the walls for good luck, Water Tribesmen should be wearing them on leather cords during long hunts, and there should be wandering monks tossing them out among wedding processions, with crowds gathering around them for their blessings.
But now they are relics. All of her Tribesmen will understand the gesture Aang has made in giving her the coat, but no one will understand the beads. Almost like a secret language between her and Aang alone, except—
She doesn't speak it, does she? If she hadn't asked, Aang would have probably forgotten to tell her. The prayer tiles are thoughtful but so painfully mundane and normal to him that he wouldn't find them worth mentioning, and their message would go unnoticed even as they begged to be heard in broad daylight.
"Teach me how to read them," she asks, cutting Aang off in the middle of his story. "The blessings are in Rlung, right? I want to know what they say."
It's too dark to see inside the tent, but she feels him smiling, a slight shift and pull of the furs near his face.
"After your trials," he says indulgently, oblivious to her urgency. "It was already late when you went outside to get me. You need to sleep, sweetie."
"One last thing," she says, suddenly gripped by a different, greedy kind of fervor. She reaches for the cloth of his belt sash, feeling for it with her hands. "Give me this."
"You want to—right now?" Aang squeaks, trying to strangle his voice into something quieter. He blocks her hands where they've already landed on his waist, his stomach trembling under her palms. "Are you—your dad is right there—"
"No—no!" Tui save her. "Spirits, not that. I want to wear it tomorrow. I can't wear your gift but I still—I'm still going to have something of yours on me," she says stubbornly.
He tries to wriggle helpfully and it’s enough that she can pull the belt off, sitting up to wrap it around herself in the dark. It's too dark to see, but she feels him listening to the fabric rustling, all his attention on her like a familiar weight.
Sokka will nag her insufferably about propriety in the morning, but right now her chest is filled with smug contentment. This, finally, is what soothes her restlessness. Her exhaustion catches up with her and she slumps heavily into the fur of the bedding.
The beads may profess love in a language that only Aang can speak, but everyone will know what it means when Katara walks out of the tent tomorrow wearing orange.
She almost falls asleep, but she feels Aang staring at her.
"You don't have to," he whispers. "Tomorrow is your day.
“I knew what I was doing, making a parka for you, but the Air Nomads don't really have anything like—like formal engagements, or marriage," he continues. The furs rustle, where she thinks he might be twisting his fingers into the blankets. "I just wanted to give it to you. I don't need an answer right now, or ever."
Katara forces herself awake for just a moment more; this is something Aang deserves to hear while she's properly responsive, not incoherent with sleep.
It’s hypocritical, the way he’s so determined to give her a chance to back out, when he has openly declared that he means it a proposal. Like he’s content to be tied to her, bound to her, without the promise of reciprocal obligation. It makes her burn with indignation and affection in equal measure.
“I'm not wearing this because you're making me,” she scoffs, only satisfied when she hears Aang huff in agreement a second later. As if anyone could make Katara do anything, something he’s learned well over the years of knowing her. “If you don't want me to wear this, I won't," she reassures him. "But I have a token from everyone in my family out there tomorrow. Mom's parka, the kayak Dad and Sokka made me, Gran-Gran's necklace. It's only fair that I have one from you, too.
“And I told you before—there's no world where I don't choose you right back," she says fiercely. "You're mine and I'm yours. Your people are my people, and I—it's about time I start showing it. And if I can start with just this, I'd be honored to."
Is it selfish of her, to ask for even more from him? To ask him to adorn her in more of his culture, even though she hasn't even made half the effort he has to learn about hers?
But the image is painted in her mind already, of their complementary colors weaving through each other, the swirling symbol of Air finding its place among the full moon and waves of Water.
Of belonging. That no matter what he does or doesn't find, he still has people he can claim, someone who claims him.
She wants Aang to not need a translator when he talks to Gran-Gran anymore, to teach him how to navigate by boat instead of by bison. She wants to make him his own Water Tribe coat, even if she'll have to settle for woven fur instead of pelt. She wants to sing along to his traveling songs and understand the words, to be able to read what's on the pillars and arches at the Air Temples next time they visit, to learn how to create her own orange and yellow dyes.
The next time he stands before throngs of people, she wants him to be able to look out and see his people’s colors.
She knows how many people profess to love the Avatar, the war hero, the last Airbender—but none of them love Aang, the last airball player, the last baker of Gyatso's fruit pies, the last carver of roadside blessings.
But Katara does. She hungers for it. Anyone who dares lay claim on Aang should be prepared to shoulder the remembrance of the Air Nomads with him—should be honored beyond belief for the privilege of doing so.
And let it never be said that Katara has ever shied away from a challenge.
But that is future work to look forward to. For now, Aang acquiesces with a nod. He hugs her close, and she finally, finally allows sleep to wash over her.
She barely hears Aang give a last sigh, wishing her good night before her eyelids drift shut.
ΔΔΔ
The present.
Aang seems to drift through crowds of blue. The pale polar sun clings to his orange robes like honey, loose and billowing without his belt sash.
Hakoda looks up from where he's tying on Katara’s armbands, a greeting on his lips, but his eyes dart to her, then Aang, then down to her clothes, then back to her, and Katara can see the dots connecting in his head. He pouts at her when he realizes Aang already completed the parka without him, stung by the unintended rejection of more awkwardly endearing father-son bonding time, but Katara merely shakes her head, silently promising the whole story later.
Hakoda is still a little sulky, but he gives Aang a warm clap on the shoulder as he approaches, excusing himself with some last minute check on the kayak.
And then they are alone.
Aang hasn’t seen her whole outfit yet, having woken up long before her to meditate and dry out some algae for Appa, and Katara had napped under the furs for a few more minutes before getting up for her own preparations.
He stares at the fine strip of orange linen for what feels like an eternity.
“See something you like?” She cocks one hip, letting him look, and is gratified when she sees him swallow.
Then, almost unbearably slowly, he drags calloused fingers across her waist, along the belt—his belt—over the parka he made for her. Everyone in her village had stared when she walked out of her tent that morning, and the whispers were already rippling through the settlement. The knowledge that everyone knew gave her a heady feeling.
“Not fair,” he murmurs, voice so low that if she hadn't been hyper aware of him she'd have missed it. “Everything looks better on you.” Her brain is scrambled by the rough sound and the barely-there press against her waist.
Katara practically purrs when Aang looks up to meet her eyes, his own grey eyes dazed. This is decidedly not the kind of reaction that monk’s clothing is supposed to elicit, a thought that shoots a thrill through her but is also jarring enough that it makes her snort, breaking the mood.
A good thing, too, because she was mere seconds away from pouncing on him, Trial be damned.
His demeanor changes in an instant as he pouts at her.
“What, too corny?” he whines but his eyes are laughing. He pulls his hands away from her waist (with apparent difficulty) to wrap her into a loose hug.
She snickers at him. “No, just the fact that a Nun outfit apparently does it for you.”
“That’s—that's not why—!” Aang splutters, his whole face blooming red all the way up to his arrow, making Katara laugh harder.
Aang swallows down his mortification; dignity is a small sacrifice to hear her laugh like that. And when it dies down she tiptoes up to kiss him, pulling him down to her while his arms go around her waist, and it feels like a last puzzle piece clicking into place, her nerves evaporating as he holds her close.
It's not heated. It could easily become so, if she pushed, but she doesn't, content to just have him near before her Trial begins. Eventually she pulls back and rests their foreheads together, a bubble of calm against the murmuring of the crowd out on the tundra.
Aang pulls back, just far enough to look down at her. He grew even taller this past year—the angle she needs to crane her neck is just slightly off from what she's used to. He gives her a smaller, quieter smile. “I’d wish you luck, but as the Avatar’s sifu I wouldn’t want to insult you.”
Katara can’t help but grin up at him.
“Your well-wishes are appreciated, my pupil,” she says, letting the familiar banter steady her. “But I have all the luck I need already. A rogue monk gave me his blessings, see?”
She raises a single bead on the parka he wove for her, the one he said was the prayer for good fortune. She will remove the parka once her trial actually begins, but she’s determined to wear it until the last minute. Aang’s entire face glows pink with happiness and she laughs again, unable to help herself from stealing a kiss on his cheek.
“If the Trial-taker could stop canoodling with the Avatar before we lose the right tidal window, that would be great!!”
It speaks volumes of her good mood today that she doesn’t bend snow into Sokka’s shoes, though she does stick her tongue out at him. He’s not wrong, but he doesn’t have to be so annoying about it.
Aang laughs, far more gracious than either of them.
“Go, go. It’s almost time.” He bites his lip, indecision marching briefly across his face. Then—he leans in close to her ear, murmuring something not in any of their shared languages, but familiar all the same. That same lilting, sing-song sound of Rlung.
Her eyes widen.
“What does that mean?” Her chest burns with curiosity as she turns her arms to look at the beads, the characters written on them. “Which one of these was that?”
Aang only laughs.
“I’ll tell you when you come back, Grandmaster,” he says cheekily, but his eyes are so soft as he looks at her that Katara can't find it in her to be mad. “I’ll see you out there, sweetie. I know you can do it.”
He gives her a last kiss for good luck as he takes his place among the observers.
She watches him as he walks away. Sokka gives her a look when she turns back to him but says nothing about it, simply falling back into her role as her strategist for the day.
She exhales, releasing her nerves in a cloud of vapor. She presses her fingers hard into the indents of the beads until they leave imprints on her skin, wanting to keep the lovingly carved prayers on her skin for as long as she can.
It's only when she hears Pakku’s voice ringing out across the ice, amplified by some clever Airbending, that she finally puts on her mother's coat and steps onto her own kayak.
And her Trial begins.
ΔΔΔ