Zutara Week Day Two: Jubilant
Deep breath and…
Here is Part 1 of my installment for Zutara Week. This is my very very first ever attempt at fan fiction.
Be gentle.
Girl of Walls and Secrets, Part 1
(Look for Part 2 on 7/17 and Part 3 on 7/19)
At least some things had survived the war.
The Earth Kingdom palace looked exactly as it had five years ago, and because of that, Katara could breathe again. She really shouldn’t have expected it to be different—the Earth Kingdom, especially Ba Sing Se, had escaped the war relatively unscathed (at least in comparison to her home, which was even now picking through rubble and ashes and scars and oh, who was she kidding—Ba Sing Se was just as damaged, only far, far better at hiding it). But a knot of dread had twisted in her gut the moment she had heard about the party, and every step up into the palace had only yanked it tighter until here she stood, in the grand dining room, looking at a sight that made her feel fourteen again.
The dining table stretched on and on, impossibly long and stacked high with steaming platters. Dozens (perhaps hundreds, because really now, who hadn’t been invited) of people sat near the table or mingled around the edges, chatting above the clinking of goblets and the gentle whining of instruments from the far right corner. Gold trim shot in sharp rectangles around panels of green on the walls, creating a theme that carried throughout the hall. Green and gold, olive and sunshine, emerald and yellow—the colors chased each other around the room, perfectly crisp lines that always stayed just beside one another, never intermixing, never touching more than necessary.
The last time Katara had been here, she and Toph had snuck in to confront the Earth King, trying, yet again, to stop the Fire Lord from burning the world.
The last time Katara had been here, life had been so much simpler.
And at this point, she achingly needed simplicity in her life again.
She forced herself to take enough steps into the dining room that she stood unobstructed and visible by all. Not hiding in the shadows, not ducking stray eyes in the doorway—she walked into this celebration as she had the last one. Confident, strong, if not a little stupidly obstinate that the evening would pass without incident. And why shouldn’t it? This was a night for celebration. It had been five years since the war’s end—everyone in all four nations deserved this night.
Katara winced, tying her arms across her chest. Everyone else in the world deserved this night. Everyone else deserved to celebrate the peace. And she might have, too, if not for the past seven months and how painfully, inescapably aware she was of every single day that distinguished her from the guests who weren’t more terrified than jubilant to be here.
Which was why she felt the exact, wrenching moment he saw her.
