tushanshu_logs | October Catch-All

Entry tags:

October Catch-All

Characters: Katara, Open
Date: October
Location: Wood Sector mostly
Situation: Katara's Balancing Act
Warnings/Rating:Lots and lots of hurt feels

Katara, as of late, is stuck in a very tentative balance between her own healing and doing her best to be the strength of those around her. She's starting to wear thin and is far too close to breaking, but she's determined not to let it interfere with her aiding the others.

Stresses/Situations include:

-Physically, Katara has yet to heal completely from Zuko's fire.
-The entire poisoned Zuko situation. Her efforts to heal him have been completely ineffective, for which she feels personally guilty. She's having to watch him fall apart and can do nothing to stop him. There's no way to help him carry his burden except to let him hurt her, which, unfortunately for her friends and brother, she's willing to do. She is also battling romantic feelings toward him as well: this level of dedication to someone's wellbeing definitely has an effect on the heart, and she is no exception. The fact that they arrived together out of a particularly desperate moment back home also doesn't help. (Or does it)
-Though her own turtle was spared, Katara is devastated over the murder of the babies, particularly Korra's.
-She's well aware that her bloodbending capability is emotionally scarring, and now she's having to watch over a hurt and very hesitant avatar. She's healing him in silence (after the Kedan's fail assassination attempt) when he allows her near enough, but the tension is wearing her down to the point of actual frustration, both toward him and herself.

She will, however, attempt to hide as many of these as she can from everyone including Aang, her brother, and Akito, lest she be even more of a burden on an already dark situation.

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"Complicated?" he offers when words seem to fail her.

Aang follows, airbending himself onto the ground next to her when she finally does settle.

"I understand. I felt the same way when I first got here and couldn't get out of bed. Then they wouldn't let me get out of bed." He pauses to grin at her. "So Toph bent the floor of my room through the roof of the building."

"Yeah. Complicated."

She watches as he settles in next to her, then looks out at the water again, stricken by the memories that come to her just from the location. It feels like ages ago when she and Zuko had sparred here, and the conversation now is almost reminiscent.

"Really?" she asks, actually able to smile a little. "That sounds like something she'd do."

"Yup. It was really nice too, until the screaming started. The nurses weren't really all that used to earthbending," he says sheepishly.

Those poor Kedan. They went into Aang's room to check on him and fund a column of solid rock instead. It was very confusing.

She didn't bother trying to stop the soft laugh. "I could imagine. I'm sure our bending's really stirred things up, huh?"

Hers certainly had, though she spoke without thinking first. The moment she realized it, she quieted a little more.

Aang agrees, and laughs right along with Katara...until the moment he realizes she's stopped. They both fall into silence, until finally Aang breaks it with a tentative question.

"Katara? What're you thinking about?"

Edited 2014-10-15 16:19 (UTC)

She's withdrawn for a moment, curling in her shoulders just enough for it to be noticeable, and can't seem to look him in the eye.

"It's...It's nothing," she sighs, knowing very well that he'll press it. Stalling at least will give her a few more moments to figure out just what it is that she needs to say.

As she retreats further Aang finds himself nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip.

"If it's hurting you so it's not nothing. Please tell me."

"It's just-- This whole thing is just..."

She breaks off and for a moment looks hopelessly upwards into the leaves above in frustration. She's helpless and can't stand it. She can't protect her friends, can't heal them, and just flat out doesn't understand what's going on. Her voice cracks when she speaks.

"I used bloodbending on Zuko because he was going to kill himself...!"

Edited 2014-10-15 16:59 (UTC)

While Katara looks up, Aang looks down. Down at his own hands which have been equally guilty of causing similar destruction under different circumstances.

"You did what you had to do to protect your friends."

"But I didn't protect him! I can't!"

She shakes her head as her head falls, her eyes shutting.

"Sure, he's not dead, but he's not any better--he's getting worse." A tear escapes, and she brushes it away before glaring off into the grass at her opposite side. "Nothing I've done has even made the slightest difference, and I've only added to the bad in it by making the wrong choice!"

She had seen their faces. She should have done something else--anything else. She was angry: angry at the situation, angry at what had caused this, angry at herself because she had absolutely no control over it.

Aang reaches out and takes her hand in his own.

"I understand."

Because he does. He really truly does.

"Why can't we just finish one war before we start another....?" she asks weakly.

Now would be a great time for one of his Past Lives to show up and grant him something along the lines of Wisdom, but...that's not going to happen, and he knows it.

"I don't know. I just don't know. But at least we can face it together."

Her hand still clasping his, she brings her knees up to her chest and sets her face in them, not quite crying hard, but trying her best to keep it together.

He wants to tell her it's going to be all right, but...maybe now isn't the time. Maybe here, in the place that she loves, it's just time to let her cry for as long as she needs to. To be there to hold her hand as long as she wants to.

Like she has for him so many times before, he just holds her without question or judgement.

If there's one thing she's too familiar with, it's emotion, and she's grateful Aang is there to help her reel it in when she does finally break to the stress. She leans into him, burying her face in her hands as the tears come.

This was too much to just face together.

--

When she's finally able to calm herself, she relaxes, the tears gone and her gaze again on the water. She's quiet and still, but it's obvious that she's still thinking about something. The way she looks at the water is an almost longing.

He can't help but feel the shift of her focus when it goes from inward to outward.

"Katara," he says her name carefully, as if she might break without such great care. "Did you want to practice?"

She tenses against him, until it all rushes away with a sigh.

"I haven't used my bending since I bloodbent Zuko..." she admits in a small voice, her eyes falling shut once more.

"Not at all?"

He's genuinely shocked by this. Waterbending for Katara was like airbending was for him: it was like breathing.

"Not at all," she confirms, slowly lifting herself to sit properly, her hands limp in her lap, palm up as she stares at them. "It...doesn't feel right...I know it's just water, but it feels like..."

There's no point in telling him. It feels too similar to the way Zuko's blood had felt under her control.

Now he looks away, off into the distance.

"Power you shouldn't have."

Yeah, he gets it.

She nods weakly, and takes a deep breath, looking back out over the water. Even though she's hesitant to use her bending, just being near the river is a comfort. The ocean, she's sure, would be better, but here she can be closer, safer.

"It happened after Ba Sing Sei... We met an old woman from my tribe-- a waterbender. I was so excited to find another bender from my tribe, too," she laments quietly, shaking her head. "She taught me how to draw water from almost anything: the air, plants..." Her gaze fell back to her hands. "We realized later that she had been terrorizing the village we were in... she was bloodbending people and keeping them prisoner every full moon, in revenge for being taken captive in one of the raids on our tribe. She wanted me to help her, and I refused, but then you and Sokka showed up and she turned you on each other... I had to stop her... and she got exactly what she wanted."

A bloodbender.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that. It...it sounds a lot like what I went through after I misused firebending. I made a promise that day, the day I hurt you, to never firebend again. Because I never wanted to hurt another person that way...or any way."

She remembers it well and shudders, not at the memory itself, but at the thought that being burned that time had been nothing compared to Zuko's fire. She wraps her arms around herself and sighs, shaking her head.

"I made that same promise about bloodbending...but I broke it..."

"You're a waterbender, Katara. Any promise you make that keeps you from being what you are is bound to be broken at some point. Just like I can't promise never to firebend again. No matter how I feel about it, I'm a firebender. I can't change that, I can only come to accept it as a part of me and move on from there."

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ugh, sorry for the drama

ALL THE TEARBENDING

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