Should've been me || Katara x OC

seven || recognise me?

          'Katara...' I whisper. We're sat on the balcony again, her, me and Sokka. Aang and Teo are in the office, doing whatever will happen next. 'Katara, what's going to happen?'

          'Aang will do the right thing,' she says, but her eyes are clouded.

          I can't tell her that I'm worried for another reason, if the fire nation arrives, I could risk having my identity revealed a lot sooner than I was planning. I can see it in my head. When Aang, Katara and Sokka find out, they'll want nothing to do with me. Aang will give me those big eyes where I can feel his betrayal and anger. He'll hate me for what I've done to his people. Sokka will tear away any feelings he had at all for me, any friendship or sympathy, anything. I'll be another enemy to him. And Katara will hate me, she'll hate the way I lied and the way I've hurt her. I can see their faces in my mind. Which is why it can't happen. Not now at least. I need to find a way to let them down on my own terms.

          'Aang!' Katara shouts as he runs towards us, Teo next to him. 'Aang what happened?'

          'It's the fire Nation, they're going to destroy the temple because we denied them their supplies!' Teo says.

          'This is bad, very bad!' Sokka says.

          'Aang, what are we going to do?' Katara asks, looking worried. 'how can we possibly keep them all away?'

          'I'll tell you how,' Aang says. 'We have something they don't; airpower! We control the sky. We can win!'

          'I want to help,' Teo's dad says, appearing from the side.

          'Good, we'll need it,' Aang says, smiling. This kid forgives much easier than I would.

          They lead us to the office, where the strongest and most agile are gathered. It's smaller than I thought it would be and there's less people here too.

          'We finally got the hot air balloon working, thanks to Sokka, this boy's a genius!' Teo's Dad says.

          'You're a genius!' Sokka says, bashfully. Katara has a fed up look on her face which matches mine. Sokka pulls out a mini air balloon and starts to explain his inventions. I get lost between his words. All I can wonder is who will be here. Zhao? I wouldn't put it past him to burn my face off. Or Azula even? Another certain death situation. Death would be pity, what I'll face would make me wish I was dead. It sends shivers running across my spine.

          '... got four kind of bombs. Smoke, slime, fire and-'

          'Stink!' Teo's dad finishes off Sokka's sentence. 'Never underestimate the power of stink!'

          Everyone gathers on the balcony within minutes. The air chills and my fingers turn pink and stiff. Ironic seeing as the fire nation is closing in on us.

          'They're here!' A girl cries.

         'Everyone ready?' Aang asks. His face is confident. He's not scared. I wonder how many times he's done this before? Enough, it seems.

          'Yes, but where's Sokka with the war ballon?' Katara says.

          'We'll have to start without it.'

          The plan is simple. All I have to do is follow it. Can't be that hard, right?

          The gliders take off, soaring through the sky and down through the cloud cover. 'Arya,' Katara says, pulling me from my thoughts. 'You're with me.' We climb on Appa with all the bombs. The gliders throw bombs at the fire nation soldiers and we hold them up for the gliders to sweep them out of our hands.