it's a harmony, a miracle, being able to breathe and live at all

[Well, Sokka was his Avatar alternate again. That alone is enough to call for some alone time, but with the news he brought... she definitely needed some time to clear her head. Fortunately, there is a public service she can easily perform. If your house is still snowed in? There is a waterbender digging you out. For about half the day, she is her normal self.

...sometime around two, though, she starts feeling lightheaded. Realizing she'd unintentionally skipped lunch, she heads back towards the center of town. As she walks, she starts feeling heavier and heavier. Something's wrong. Katara reaches for her journal to call for help, but it's too little, too late. She falls face first into a snowbank, the journal falling opened beside her.

When she opens her eyes, her hair is blocking her vision. Longer and unbound... her clothes feel almost painfully tight across the chest and she gasps a little.]

What? Where am I? [A deep breath, and slightly louder, as if she's expecting a response:] Aang?

[Sitting up, she shakes her head, one hand going to her waterskin... and that's when she notices the wings. Her eyes go wide.]

Is this... I had dreams like this...

[Standing up, the picture shows her body at an angle. She's certainly grown. After glancing around a bit, she reaches down to pick up the journal.] I remember... this... feels too strange not to be real...

Hello? I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but... I'm Katara. I think I remember this place... and a girl with reddish hair and... what were they called? Not oranges... something else. And there was someone - a man - with white hair and he went "Oooh?" a lot... and I remember... cigarettes and cooking and... [So many, many more. Fragments of a dream - a man who stretched his face, a skeleton playing music, a reindeer that danced... an ice dragon... green hair and white hair in front of a classroom and... shadows, dreams, fragments of things... flying people and conversations over tea and a wolfgirl and so, so much that only made sense in dreams...] And -- I don't know. Does this make any sense?

[But even as she's talking she's starting to walk. These clothes are too small - it looks like she's on a path. Let's see where it takes her.]


((OOC: Katara is now in her early twenties and from a happy canon projection. Tags post-transformation from notatearbender. If you want to grab her before then, just indicate it in the tagline! XD))

[As if it wasn't bad enough that she'd been spending the day before doing one of her least favorite chores from back - dressing and tanning game - Luceti had decided to play a little trick on Katara and turn her wings blood red. And then the sun didn't rise - or when it did... solar eclipses weren't supposed to last this long. They'd planned their attack to be in a eight minute window! All throughout the day, Katara kept glancing up at the sun, waiting for the shadow to leave, but it never did.

And when the moon rose...

She was red as blood as well. It twisted something inside her to see the moon like this again - even if it wasn't truly her moon, Katara couldn't help but feel connected to it and - and everything was going so, so wrong now. She'd always known that this was bad, that this was really really bad, and that they were stuck in a place entirely out of their control, but there was nothing like the natural order of things breaking down in front of her to drive that point home.

She's scared. She's really scared, and she can't show it. But when she slips out that night, not going far from the house at all, for the her evening practice routine, she hesitates for a long moment. Routine. Routine is how they'll get through this. Focusing on the things that they can do in the face of what they can't.

...just like she can't quite bring herself to test and see if her bending is still there. The last time the moon went red like this...

So she delays the inevitable, because she knows she can't live with herself until she tries, and makes a voice entry.]

I spent most of yesterday dressing a deer - that's one good thing, anyway, we don't have to worry about running out of food with all the game in the forest and the river. At home, we learn how to use every part of an animal so that nothing goes to waste, in order to respect the life we took to sustain our own. It's messy and gross, and I haven't missed it at all, but if anyone wants to learn how, I'll be happy to teach you.

[A pause, and she glances up at the moon. She really doesn't want to face things just yet.]

...does anyone know any good stories? It seems like a good night for it.


[Feel free to wander by and remark on the waterbender who should be practicing, but isn't.]

[On her way back from slipping a fresh Thank You note underneath Allen Walker's door, Katara sees a shiny blue disk.

Ooooooo. Shiny.

She reaches out to touch it - and is whisked up and away! Her journal tumbles opened as she fights to control it, and she's soon laughing with pure joy. This is so fast! It's awesome!]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! [More laughter. Okay, phasing through things is kind of weird, so she's going to try to steer this manic thing out of the village and - oh no. Rock. ROCK! Why isn't it phasing!!

She tumbles out of the thing, head over heels into the river and starts laughing helplessly. She tries to get back to her feet and falls back in. The journal's landed open safely on the bank, and is recording her attempts to stand up straight.]

Oh man. [Splash.] Wow.

[Later, she throws up a small filter to Riku]

Hey - you doing OK?

[It's the second day of a heatwave, and it's amazing how little things like weather can drive man-eating butterflies, flying trees of burning pointy doom, and missing friends from a Southern Watertibe girl's mind. ...OK, maybe not that last one, but she's feeling this heat in her bones, man, and it's driven her to put on her Fire Nation outfit and just lounge around, trying not to think about the horrible things she's seen week... which of course makes her think about the horrible things she's seen everywhere.

But the best way to get rid of bad memories is to think about good ones... and when that fails, make them.

And so, Katara Has An Idea. She grabs her brother, he agrees, and they make their way to the center of the square and set up a table. It's laden with fruits and sugars and stacks of glasses.

A little bit of waterbending later? And that fountain is now completely iced over, meant to resemble one of their 'Great Wonders of the World', an ice oasis in the middle of the desert.

When they're all set up, Katara makes a voice entry.]

Hey, everyone! Come on to the fountain for free fruit slushies!


[Feel free to come upon them on any part of the process, stop by for a slushie, or take a look at the pretty ice-fountain! Either Sokka, Katara or (eventually, as I have to run out right now) both will answer!]

[Voice]
Hey, Hugo - if you have a chance, I'd like to talk to you about something.

[And then she shuts the book and moves to her evening practice session behind her house. Today is not about how much water she can move, but it is about control. When the wind blows her journal opened, anyone watching can see thin streams of water moving quick enough to cut intertwining with her arms and legs as she works through a form. The pattern of when she splits a stream, and when she adds more water seems random... until you glance above her head. Any time her concentration is broken by a flash of an image, she adds another and another until all the thought bubble reflects are the forms

If you want to interrupt her, give her a minute - messing up and slicing herself with one of those water streams would be painful. While she normally hates to have her practicing interrupted, tonight it's not quite keeping her mind off of things.]

[Sometime early this afternoon, Katara escapes from the house with no particular destination in mind. All she knows is that Zuko is finally well enough to be left alone, and even if he's not Roku - Roku - is around so he's not exactly unprotected.

But between Zuko, Roku, Jet... and the imminent battle with Aku... Katara desperately needs some time to clear her head. And just as importantly - this is her first spring. When they'd left the South Pole with Aang, the world was already in bloom. This is the first time she's actually gotten to see blossoms on trees or fields of budding flowers, and even though the Easter Egg hunt gave her some time to explore, she just can't get enough of it. It's a thousand new sounds and smells, and the thunderstorm has left the sky freshly washed and the blossoms are bright against the green.

She is not headed anywhere in particular, although she has a vague notion of checking in on Tanyuu, she's not sure where Ginko's friend has settled. So after wandering around the borders of the forest and any other place where there may be flowers, and lying down in a field and staring up at the clouds for a while, Katara will head back into town. Once there, she'll poke around the town square for a bit... and decide to explore some of the community houses, because she's only been in there once before and they seem to have mysteriously... grown.

And this is how she ends up on the roof of Community Building 4, leaning on the edge with her journal in her lap and a smile on her face.]

Tanyuu, if you'd like to meet somewhere for tea or something, I'd like to see how you're settling in.



[Feel free to have bumped into her at any point!]