Katara: A Private Life of the Bloodbender

Chapter VI.

The power of the night, the press of the storm, the post of the foe.

Where there stand, the Arch Fear in a visible form, yet the strong heart must go.

- Robert Browning: Prospice (edited)

"We need to find the Fire Navy communication tower." was Zuko explaining his plan to Katara while they were flying over the ocean. "All the navy's movements are coordinated by messenger hawk. And every tower has to be up to date on where everyone is deployed."

Katara was sitting forward, holding the reins, listening to Zuko and watching the horizon. In the darkness of the night it wasn't easy to see the tower. She knew approximately where to fly, she was used to recognize the constellations on the sky, which was partially cloudy, but relatively bright. Just a few clouds were floating across the firmament, but a look up was clear, the full moon light was enveloping the sea horizon and there were thousands and thousands of stars shining across the sky, including the colourful shape of Milky Way.

"So once we find the communication tower, we bust in and take the information we need?" asked Katara.

"Not exactly." answered Zuko. "We need to be stealthy and make sure no one spots us, otherwise they'll warn the Southern Raiders long before we reach them."

Soon, a tall lighthouse-like building appeared in front of them, situated on a high rocky cliff. Appa landed behind the cliff carefully because his white fur could reveal them. The teammates jumped down his back quickly and ran to place from where it was possible to pass the canal and climb up the tower, as quietly as two shadows. For an ordinary man, it seems impossible to reach the tower like this, but for a waterbender, it's just a joke. Katara made an ice floe on the water surface and this way they sailed the canal quickly. As the waves were crashing the cliff, the water power brought them high up on a rock, so they entered the tower inconspicuously.

They were crouched in a corner, watching two guards walk out a door. After the guards have passed, they stealthily ran through the open door. In the cabin, there was a female guard sitting at a writing desk. The duo peered at her from overhead gratings but were unable to continue through her. Luckily, Katara imagined the bowl of ink right in front of her. Sha just made one single wrist movement to waterbend an ink onto the guard's hands. She rose from the desk and walked away to wash it. Katara and Zuko used the time to comb through the files stored in the drawers.

"Okay, Southern Raiders..." was whispering Zuko during the search. In a few seconds, he grabbed the map and put it on a desk. "Bam!" he exulted and pointed to a location on the map. „On patrol near Whaletail Island."

Katara's eyes fired. "Whaletail Island, here we come!"

They left the communication tower as stealthy as they entered it, and continued their great journey. They defined the right direction they need to follow. It was quite late at night, Zuko was getting tired, but Katara was too excited to have a rest. She told Zuko to go to sleep while she will stay awake to control the way. Zuko agreed only after making sure he will later replace her so she could rest as well. He fell asleep soon. Katara suddenly felt the silence surrounding her, the sounds of quietly hissing sea and a soft breeze in her face. The clouds on the sky stopped moving. While she was just sitting and watching the horizon, it looked all the same, her mad head made her to think again and was reviving the saddest memories in her mind.

She felt enormously homesick. She dearly missed her homeland, her grandmother, her father... but the most, she missed her mum. And this type of melancholy was the worst to her because she knew that in case of her mother, she'll never meet her again. She's dead. And the more she was thinking about her, the sadder she was. That disheartening feeling of loneliness and isolation was destroying her and crushing her poor heart. It's impossible to get used to something like this and it also can never be fixed. It's very hard to get used to a loneliness, it's hard to be alone. When Katara felt that she's alone in almost everything she's doing, that Aang and her friends simply let her suffer, and her family is so far away, that moments, her whole heart was dying in her poor, children chest.