Chapter Text
The water always felt more mild during the summer months where the days were longer and nights just a wisp on the tail end of all that sun. Maybe Katara might have wondered if the water was actually warmer, or if it was just that the feel of the sun shining through gave the illusion of warmth. Maybe she could have just enjoyed the feeling regardless of its provenance. If she were not presently stewing.
It had been weeks since Sokka had gone with their father to help in the war effort, and she was left here, tail wound in loops on an icy outcropping just under the surface of the water, staring into the dancing shapes on the surface. Though it was more of a glare since the day of their departure.
It had always fascinated her how she could reach so close but still feel a world away from what awaited on the other side. Now, it chafed.
Of course, she had been to the surface, had taken on a human guise. They all had, as a precaution. Before the loss of her mother, such trips could even be considered frequent. Semiannual visits, to get used to the land under their feet, to spend enough time among their sister tribe to see for themselves the vestiges left behind from the war, the destruction caused by outsiders. That there were no other humans they could trust: none to trust not to gut them for profit or sport, and certainly none to save them. It was a tradition not of kinship but of warning.
Any slip-up, and we could become like them.
But now, Katara wasn’t thinking about any of that. Now, when she peered beyond the surface of the waves, she was just thinking that somewhere far beyond those shapes her brother and father were out there… alone… risking their lives and the livelihoods of their family and friends and for what? To sabotage some Fire Nation cruisers? In a war that, by their own reasoning, they shouldn’t even be a part of?
And they had left her behind.
Supposedly, they had left her behind under the assumption that her delicate sensibilities would beset her with an inconvenient sympathy for the humans and their plight. (Though, was that not the point of tending the last remaining strand of their dying relation to their landbound allies?) That she’d walk up on shore and immediately give herself away for her waterbending mastery surpassing what any human could reasonably achieve. That she might not be able to stop herself from helping…
Which was true. But then again, she never did understand why her people were so averse.
It was cowardly to stay back and do nothing while innocent people suffered so close to able bodies capable of helping them… and hypocritical to act like that would expose their collective secret any more than consistent underwater disturbances plaguing enemy shipping routes. For the love of Tui and La, there was only so far humans could spring their traps, it was a miracle the Fire Nation in their ignorance had never found something amiss by now. There were no Southern waterbenders anymore, after all.
No, they could peddle all the excuses they wanted, but Katara knew the truth. They left her behind because she was her father’s daughter and Sokka was not.
So now she seethed on the precipice above those swirling sunbathed shapes, glaring across the horizon as if it could reach them a world away, and squeezed rough scales into jagged ice until it pinched to anchor her against the searing urge she had to just swim after them.
She could do it, too. Get there before anyone even noticed she was gone… None of the benders in the Northern tribe could even match her-
But Katara froze, scales bristling in the chill of the wind.
There was something approaching from a distance, glinting against the dying sun. She dove back under the water.
Keeping low against the base of the ice formation, she waited and watched an ominous looming shadow drift across the ocean floor, signifying its passing. But not from a canoe, nor a sailboat. Not anything that belonged to the sea she knew. Something far larger, and far darker.
Well, this was new. A Fire Nation cruiser.
Fire Nation spies.
She grinned, unfurled her fins, and set off after it.
She learned several things tailing the ship that night.
For one, Fire Nation ships were unsettling in a way that others were not. They were tall, imposing, ugly metal beasts spitting foul smoke against the icy blue of the sky. It was unnatural. It was also a task to keep up with simply swimming alongside it, and she had to resort to bending the waves to meet her. Which of course gave her a sense of petty satisfaction, knowing that Sokka wasn’t a bender and would probably be complaining given the same undertaking right about now. And a twinge of annoyance because she could do it easily and they left her behind. Though, what was most frustrating was that she was often too far down to make out what the crew was ever talking about, nor the jovial-voiced older man that seemed to follow the vessel’s captain around like a personal shadow.
But there was always one voice she could make out clearly as it cut through the music of the winds and the waves. And it was because the owner of that voice always seemed to be shouting.
At first, it had disquieted her. It sounded like the command of a cruel, tyrannical man taking those beneath him to task at the slightest provocation. The kind of man she’d long imagined belonged to the Fire Nation: aggressive, domineering, enemy. But the longer she kept her vigil, the more she became sure that this was just the sea foam at the top of the waves. Distracting and garish, but just the first layer.
And the longer she stayed, the more details she discerned.
On the first day, she determined that his voice sounded young, older than her but nearer to her age than sounded the timbre of any of the rest of his crew. It became clear that he was a young man, and that his devoted right hand was his uncle.
When he wasn’t shouting, she found his voice also had somewhat of a raspy quality to it, which, if nothing else, was quite pleasant to listen to while she drifted along, whiling the time away. Until the next time his uncle suggested something of secondary importance, at which point he’d be off again.
In hindsight, the very notion that she might have found his petulance frightening was as amusing as it was ridiculous. She could hardly go a day without being witness to another of his magnificent tantrums. And one day, when she’d heard “I don’t need any calming tea!” carried down to her from the bow, she lost hold of the shell she’d been sharpening her claws on the ridge of to the depths below. It was fortuitous that seawater getting in her lungs was nonfatal to her kind, because the way she’d doubled over, choking on her laughter might have posed a health concern.
He also trained ceaselessly. If he wasn’t barking orders, he was blasting fire off the side of the gunwale. Which, one might think, would help relieve some of his anger, but from where she was floating it seemed only to frustrate him more.
From what she could gather, though, his near constant state of agitation seemed to stem from being veered off track from his goal. He was looking for something.
The Avatar.
She wasn’t sure what exactly that was, but he said the name enough times to make a game out of it: whenever she’d hear him mention it, she’d splash him with a whip of her tail under cover of the needlessly steep side of his ship. It was incredibly gratifying. Each and every time she’d hear a little indignant “Phuh!” followed by him storming off the deck.
She wondered how many times she could get away with it before he realized it was targeted at him every time…
But her amusement died quick as light in the abyss the moment the second ship arrived.
A battleship, over twice the size of the first, had anchored itself to the smaller vessel. And off it came a specter formed precise from the worst of her assumptive imaginings. Everything she’d initially feared about the first man, this man embodied. Though, the threat that he posed was not loud. It was deadly silent. She felt it most obviously in the way the demeanor of the first changed in his presence: he was not to be trusted. And in so realizing, didn’t notice that somewhere in the back of her mind, she must have already begun to lower her suspicions against the younger man.
For as long as the second ship remained, the more apparent this became.
Because in comparing the two, Katara soon found she’d grown an attachment to the boy-captain. It was far too easy once she recognized her people were in no real danger, by land or sea. In all, he seemed like a young person struggling with an expectation to come up short and needing passionately to prove himself and regain control over a situation in which everyone around was older and more in control than he. And this made her feel a kinship to him such that when he came out of a meeting with this older man clearly debased and scornful, she was already inclined to take his side. Because... well, maybe some part of her could relate.
She was always kept in place by fine lines and the chastising views of her elders, always helpless to the change of the winds and hardships that befell her family. And to her chagrin, many of his outbursts bore resemblance to her own, an anomaly among the coldblooded- and one she was never allowed to live down. And fine, maybe in the past she had been liberal, maybe even overzealous, with her tendency to bite. But it was as though there was no room for what was a core part of her personality. Like it was decided before her birth that she would grow to be too big to manage and pieces would need to be cut off for her to simply be. And with how he acted, she couldn’t help but feel it was the same for him.
She’d watched him heed the advice of his officers, rage and snap but still cede ground when he was wrong, and when they spoke leaning over the side of the ship, faces cast in shadow but backs limned in light, she could hear him set aside his goals for the safety of his crew. As though it cost him something. As though his goal he valued more than even his own life, but still not more than his crew’s.
In idle hours, she’d hear echoes of her father’s words repeated in her head. This was exactly what he had expected her to do, exactly the disappointment she represented. Hoping for- no, seeing- the humanity in an outsider. In an enemy. And caring. Everything that made her a liability, worthy of abandonment.
But at the end of the day there was no escaping who she was.
One morning, the other ship had departed some time in her sleep and all that was left were ghosts. For the hour that she waited, it seemed perhaps that they had abandoned ship. Now, she hadn’t seen the inner workings of a beast like this one, so any internal fault would be unbeknownst to her. But a deeper, clinging seed of compassion and… worry took root.
Maybe the ship’s boy-captain had been obstructed in some way- taken against his will. No sailor- no captain- would desert their vessel in the open sea willingly. He could be in danger.
But before she could entertain that spiral of possibilities, the threat of which genuinely had her considering chasing after the second ship, the worst of her fears were assuaged.
A young man had come to lean over the gunwale, looking out over the sea. She hadn’t seen him before, only heard, what with the rigidity of his routine keeping him away in later hours and the glare of the sun always obscuring him. But now, nearing evening, he came into view for the first time and she was sure it was him; his face bore what seemed to be a permanent scowl etched into the lines of his face. He looked even younger than he sounded, despite his sharp, angled features and billowing wartail.
Katara ducked into the water in the shadow of the looming hull. Only her eyes peeked above the lapping tides.
The boy glared across the ocean for a while before dropping his head on the railing, his chest deflating. Perhaps on a sigh. Nothing about him boasted the intimidating command he’d previously projected. Now, he just looked defeated. A lone, lost boy left to the emptiness.
Could one person even man a vessel of this size alone? Or would he be marooned out here by himself? Would his people really do that? And why? He seemed too young to have done anything so harsh as to deserve that kind of drastic punishment. And he hid it well, but to one who had nothing but time to observe as she had, he couldn’t fully suffocate the consideration that underpinned his commands. The conflict in his voice heeding his uncle’s advice as if he felt shame for not having considered it himself.
Bad men didn’t concern themselves with moral quandaries like that. That was something that’d make you “soft”. “Delicate sensibilities” they’d call it. She rolled her eyes, the memory alone grinding agitation in her gut, before her attentions settled back on him.
After a time, he lifted his forehead from the edge and instead hung it over the side, elbows planted to either side, looking directly down. A pained look crossed his face, teeth gritted on a grimace. And then he tore off his coat, threw it off the side, and stalked away.
Katara watched as it fluttered down in the wind and landed in the undulating waves. Shortly after, she heard blasts of fire accompanied by telltale cries of frustration. She flinched.
Perhaps for the first time consciously, she realized then that she felt a kind of… protectiveness. That she, at some point, had taken his side… and now wanted to help him. She couldn’t just leave him to his own devices, especially when he was helpless and she might be capable of providing help. It just wasn’t… honorable. And even just ruminating about it, she knew what her family would be thinking of her. What she was starting to think… That they were right about her.
She snaked out from under the boat’s side and snatched up the sinking cloth in her arms. Perhaps he’d want this back.
He spent the next stretch of sun training, if the fire and the grunting were anything to go by. She was a little disappointed she couldn’t watch, or better yet, spar. From where she was, she couldn’t tell if he was any good. From the bits she’d picked up, he was better than his men- though they paled in rank- yet was always pushing to learn more advanced sets from his uncle.
She found she had wandered far enough into her thoughts - What would it be like to fight? Stretch her fins- or perhaps even her legs? How might she even go about helping when she had no idea how? How could she possibly protect her cover if she just appeared out of the ocean? - that she didn’t notice when the air went still and silent. He’d gone inside.
Shortly after, there was a disturbing rumbling coming from the ship. She froze and narrowed her eyes against the descending sun. Then, a slam crashed through the wind and the smack of hurried boots hit the deck.
And then there was a blast. And a shout. And everything went gray as the ship pitched towards the blue.
All her senses could make out for a while was a piercing tone where she had shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, and when they opened, everything around her was obscured. She fumbled around, twisting frantically in the water to extricate herself from the smoke and residue enough to see, but there was debris sinking all around her and quick movements could make for bloodied fins. So, when at last there was distance between her and the scene, it was a relief how quickly she spotted him. Closer than she had ever seen before… and distinctly flesh and blood amidst the metal wreckage. Completely out of his element and vulnerable.
For a moment all she heard or felt was her own heartbeat in her throat. Because deep down she knew she’d already made up her mind about what she was going to do, and she was immovable.
To hell with the rules.
With sight restored, it took only one sweeping motion for her to reach him and wrap her scaled arms under his, claws sinking harmlessly into his chest. She reached deep in with her healing, mitigating damage she didn’t have time to assess just to force him to survive the short trip to the surface as her tail propelled them upward. When they breached, she flung an arm forward and froze a solid sheet of ice to serve as a new vessel and half dragged half shuffled him ponderously aboard as it ebbed and the weight of her tipped the whole thing dangerously askew. It was then that she finally managed to pull herself up- at least her top half- bodily beside him.
Katara bent his coat dry and pulled it around his shoulders, clasping it with fumbling claws and watching. Waiting.
He did not look right. He should be breathing. He should be shouting at trivialities. Katara squeezed the cloth tighter around him; a desperate whine peeled from the back of her throat.
There was a dread in her stomach that she did not want to address. Something she already knew the answer to but pretended she didn’t. And, as though her body had been listening, a violent shudder ran through her, and she crashed to the ice.
It was as though a whirlpool opened underneath them, or some immense wave was rolling underfoot, threatening to capsize their makeshift raft. Either way, there was a distinct lack of steadiness accompanied by some stomach-churning undertow that rattled her skull and tore agonizingly down her spine and through her skin. She was grasping uselessly at the smooth surface, but her claws would not sink in, only seemed to retract further into her fingers.
When the sensation subsided, she found oddly that her balance on the ice sheet was far less precarious. And she was in the clothes she last wore when she took human form.
Which was nothing new to her, but what was horrifying was that it would be happening now. Katara certainly had not morphed, and would not have chosen to morph. Not like this, in the middle of the ice with no method of building and retaining warmth. It didn’t take a genius to know what the shock of change might do to her, and it echoed through her now. Human skin was so very vulnerable, useless against environmental conditions. It rendered her utterly impuissant.
And the cold was biting, frigid in a way it was not before.
But no, this couldn't be- this was a fairy tale, a bedtime story, not real. So, she strained her limbs, dragged them wretched and freezing across the ice, ignoring the pins and needles and shooting, numbing pain, but her fins would not reemerge, her scales would not erupt from now useless flesh. There were stiff joints where she used to be fluid. Her tail was not her tail, but two foreign limbs, and she did not know what they would do now.
She really was stuck like this. And she was dying.
And she was in the middle of the ocean with a half-conscious man who was supposed to be her enemy, and she wouldn't be able to save him, and now she wouldn't even be able to save herself. This was what she'd die for. But she wasn't wrong. That's what she thought as she scrapped for each second she had left. She wasn't wrong for doing what was right.
May they never find her and call her a lesson.
The cold seeped into her bones, sapping the energy from her sagging limbs like blood from an opened vein. Pulling her down, down, down to that quiet, empty, dull space in her mind where all she could hear was a faint buzzing drone.
Her face was numb.
Looking over at the boy through bleary eyes, Katara thought his looked numb, too.
It nagged at her, just enough to resurface. This was all happening because she wanted to save him, and he was not saved. She couldn’t succumb, not yet. They had no right to strip her like this and think it gave them some kind of control over her- not the spirits, not her people, and not some cowardly curse weavers! Nobody! She would defy her very nature to do what she set out to do in the first place!
Katara shuffled what little way she could over to him. She gritted her teeth against the pain, but they wouldn't stop chattering. Curling over on her side, she reached for his arm, and it radiated heat through her thick layers. She crawled closer. Inched. Her stiff joints hardly wanted to move anymore, jarringly rickety as though permafrost encased her very bones.
But she had to see it through. She’d give at least him a fighting chance.
It tugged at her memory, things she knew from another life when she walked among them. Humans… The ocean inhabited his lungs. It was foreign to his kind. It should be expelled. Katara summoned her strength, what little she had in this sprawling carcass- not a shell of her former glory- and struck his chest. Again. Again. Until his strange yellow eyes opened and he coughed, spat up the water, and the sea gave up its claim.
It had taken all her strength. She collapsed next to him, woozy and giddy and feeling wonderfully light now while he sputtered beside.
Were humans always this warm?
Whatever the answer, it wouldn't stave off oblivion. Not for long. She was already falling, and soon, she would let the long sleep take her.