The Warrior's Gambit (Zutara)

II

"Wait, what? Prince Zuko proposed to you and you said no? Please, oh please, describe his face."

"What part of 'sworn to secrecy' do you not understand, Toph?" Katara asked, throwing a handful of grass at her. "And that's just mean. Heartbroken, as you can imagine." Even thinking of it now caused a lump to grow inside Katara's chest. She'd replayed that moment in her head a million times. And, in at least half of those times, she'd said yes. She had jumped up and down with joy, thrown her arms around Zuko and accepted. In the other half, it had gone the same way, Katara turning him down. And, if anything, those moments were winning by sheer logic of the situation at hand.

Oh, if things were so simple that she could have just said yes.

But they weren't.

"I understand it perfectly. It means don't go gabbing to Avizeh - who we all know is a nasty gossip - about it," Toph said, throwing a whole chunk of earth back at Katara.

"I think it also means not yelling it to high heavens," Suki added dryly. "Because, you know, I think with that tone, Katara's family in the South may have heard you."

"Ach, you two take away the fun. Besides, I would have found out eventually," Toph said with a wicked glint to her milky eyes. "I know everything."

"Which is why I thought I'd tell you first, get any mix ups out of the way," Katara said. Also, frankly, she'd needed to tell someone. Well, she'd told Aiga - of course she'd told Aiga - but Katara wanted to tell her other friends too. She wished she could tell Eva, but she didn't feel comfortable writing it in a message to Eva, along with her other messages. She'd written Eva five times since the announcement and Eva's leaving eight days ago, wanting to make good on her promise that she was going to continue being Eva's friend.

Last she heard, Eva had mentioned that they were going to try to go to the Moon Spirit Pool to see if the holy water could regain her sight, although Yue - who also had been informed - seemed less than optimistic about it.

"The water can't do everything," Yue had said. "It has limits, you know."

'It saved your life,' Katara had wanted to argue back, and saving a life seemed like the biggest 'everything' there was. Katara would be royally miffed if the reason Yue's life was saved but Eva's sight could not be was because Yue was a Princess, but Katara also admitted that the spirits may have saved Yue for reasons beyond any of their control or knowledge, that Yue may be a piece on a larger board they didn't have the height to see.

Katara got the feeling of late that there were a lot of Pai Sho pieces in motion that she was not privy to, of a larger game brewing on the horizon. That the Equalist attack was just the first move of a long, long game. It frustrated Katara.

However, that also meant that the time she had with the girls here was fleeting, and a part of Katara wanted to retain the simplicity of the reason they'd all come; to win Zuko's heart. This was just another reason why Katara felt obliged to share what had happened with Suki and Toph.

"If things were different," Suki said slowly, and although there was no question in her exact words, Katara understood her imploring and slightly pitying gaze. Katara would have been offended that Suki felt sorry for her, but Katara felt sorry for herself. She swallowed hard, and waited. After a couple moments, Suki dropped her look, perhaps thinking Katara wouldn't answer. In reality, Katara was just trying not to be sad all over again.

"I wanted to," Katara said after a second. She was twirling a grass blade between her forefinger and thumb, focusing hard on it, like it held all the answers she was looking for. "I really, truly wanted to."

There was a silence that followed, as though Suki and Toph didn't know how to respond.

"Well, I'm glad you didn't," Toph said flopping back on the ground with a wide grin.