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Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
Whether dreaming or awake, it’s always the same. The same low voice, the same lilting melody. Day and night, night and day. Sunrise, waxing into noontide, sunset, waning into twilight. It is a voice she has never heard, or perhaps a voice she has only heard once, yet a voice she swears she recognizes—a siren song she knows, knows like she knows herself.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
For weeks now, she has been travelling with Song across the Fire Nation, a journey undertaken to study traditional—many and mostly local—healing techniques, from burning mugwort (to strengthen blood) to consuming sanghuang (to treat stomachaches). They move from town to town, village to village. Their travels have been slow, a combination of their meticulous documentation and Song’s pregnancy, though Katara has no doubt they will still return to the Earth Kingdom in time for the baby’s birth.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
Katara bites back a sigh, opening her eyes to see the thatched roof that rises high, itself the ceiling of the small bedroom in which she currently rests for the night. To the left of her in the sturdy bed lies Song, still sleeping soundly.
As Katara so often does when she wakes in the middle of the night—more and more common these days, more and more common the longer, the farther they travel in the Fire Nation—she exhales slowly, then reaches over to rest a gentle hand on the swollen curve of Song’s bare stomach. A smile flits at her lips as she feels the familiar kicks of the growing child against her palm, and soon Song’s eyes are fluttering open with a yawn as she places her own hand atop Katara’s.
“Can’t sleep?” Song murmurs, and Katara tilts her head.
“Not can’t. Just… always waking up.”
“Mm.” Song intertwines her fingers with Katara’s. “You heard the voice again?”
Katara sighs, running her free hand through her hair. “I’ve never stopped.”
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
Song lifts Katara’s hand to press a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “Well, I still think you’re making the right decision by not following it. You know as well as I how malicious spirits seek to lure mortals to their deaths.”
And Katara does know. Perhaps better than Song. She never encountered Koh herself, but she heard from Aang the quiet horror of staring into the face—the faces—of lives stolen in laughter, in love, in languishing, unable to react but for the mere opening and closing of one’s eyes. She did meet Wan Shi Tong, and she felt the vastness, the enormity of his wrath as he sought to sink centuries—millennia—of knowledge in rightful response to such a grievous wrong.
She knows.
And yet…
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
“I’ve decided on a name,” Song says, her voice soft, and Katara draws her attention back to the mortal realm. Back to the woman that still lies beside her, despite everything.
“I thought you’d already chosen a name,” Katara says. “Yeong-su?”
“Yeong-su was just until I knew. And now I do.” Song releases Katara’s hand to rest her own palm atop her stomach. “I’m having a little girl. Her name will be Iina.”
“Iina,” Katara repeats, the name falling from her tongue with almost otherworldly ease, and Song smiles.
“See? It sounds right, doesn’t it?”
Katara chuckles. “Yes. It does.”
Song reaches out to brush loose hairs from Katara’s face. “Try to go back to sleep. We won’t be staying in Shu Jing much longer.”
Katara nods, sighing. “I know.” She presses a kiss to Song’s forehead. “You’re right, as always.”
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
Despite the warm comfort of Song’s presence, despite the gentle hum of Song’s breathing, sleep does not come for Katara.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
She knows better than to follow. Song was right, yet again, to warn her against it.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
But Katara has never been very good at listening to what others insist she not do.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…
When she steps outside, the night sky is a sea of stars. An ocean of fog swirls around her.
Katara…
She stops.
Katara…
She turns.
Katara…
She runs.
Katara…
She follows.
Katara…
She knows.
Katara…
She knows.
Katara…
Stumbling over cypress roots, hair catching in the slender branches of chinquapins, Katara manages to stay upright as she chases after the whisper of her own name. Her feet begin to sink more and more into the soil, the dirt beneath her bare soles growing softer, damper the farther she travels, and eventually she finds herself on the bank of a rushing river.
The fog is even thicker in this place where the sky sinks, obscuring what she believes must be settlements near the edges of the water but that she cannot be certain of because she knows better than to trust her own vision here and now. She knows better than to fall for the familiarity of this riverbank, water once murky that now glitters in gray, the silver light of the full moon reflected in its shimmering center.
Katara…
Katara…
Katara…!
She knows what she must do.
Katara dives headfirst into the river, not even a splash echoing as she bends the water to first remain undisturbed and then to propel her forth. Onward, on and on and on she swims, heading to a shore she cannot see, a shore that may not exist, but an end that must come. The water is cold in its commanding embrace, compelling her further across the inky depths, further and further and—
The shore comes no nearer.
Katara is no airbender, no Avatar. Her chest aches for breath.
Yet she must continue.
She must.
For she has no choice.
Katara… Lighten your load.
Katara can see nothing. There are only the dark waters—as above, so below. Her arms reach forward, invisible. Her hands are empty, for she could bring only herself.
What—who—has she left behind?
Nothing.
Everything.
Katara… Release your burdens.
Within, she burns. Soot, smoke, ash fills her lungs, a tearful goodbye never given. A beautiful baby not yet born. An immortal love forever lost. What of Song, Aang, Sokka? Is to continue to never look back? Is to go to never return?
She can’t breathe. There is nothing to breathe. Only water, water, everywhere, pulling her down and down and down, sinking her like a stone.
Yet she must continue.
She must.
For that is her choice.
Katara…
She inhales.
Katara…
She exhales.
Katara…
The river spits her onto the shore, and not a drop of water falls from her body as she lands with both feet on the muddy riverbank. There is fog here, too, white and cold, but no stars in the sky—only the same shining full moon, the watchful eye of Yue ever witnessing from above.
Katara does not have to look to know who she now stands before.
She does not have to look. But she does.
And she sees.
Scarlet paint that curves over her pale skin like blood on the water. Thick, dark hair that falls down her back like an aching oil spill. White mist that cloaks her body like rainclouds about to burst.
“Katara,” the Painted Lady murmurs. “You crossed the river.”
Katara steps forward and reaches outward, her fingers curling around the wrist of the ghostly but solid—real, so real, always real—figure before her. “I did, my lady.”
The Painted Lady smiles. “You came.”
And Katara, too, smiles. “You called.”