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All was left behind Katara: celebration, lights, warmth, Sokka, and gaiety, all crushed unceremoniously under her now raw and bleeding feet. Anything remotely sharp grazed her skin with every step taken, but no longer did the water tribe girl care. Her hands enclosed tightly on the place over her heart, and she struggled to keep her momentum going. Contained within this tiny area of her anatomy was the only aspect of that night that she forced herself to carry with her: Toph and Aang, conjoined by the lips, moving to deepen that nauseatingly passionate moment. At times she actually welcomed the escalating pain in her soles, for the insistent jolts would momentarily help her regain her grip on reality, momentarily.

But after she ripped her limbs from the assaulters, her mind would slip back under into detachment; her muscles and joints were propelling her ever deeper into the intertwining foliage. If it was a possibility for a human being to be dangerously hollow, to cock one's head to the side and receive the feeling that it might float away, and yet to have your skin, bones, train of thought be caked with an unorthodox amount of gravity, then this waterbender was suffering from it. Staggering drastically, she fought to keep herself on some semblance of a path, but a path to where, and for what purpose?

'You outran your brother', a malicious voice cooed in her ears, 'but how do you expect to leave reality behind you?'
Something below her ribs throbbed irregularly, often throwing off the tempo for a beat, then regaining lost ground by thrashing against her chest.

'Where exactly are you going, anyway?'

Away.

'Away? Away from what?'

Everything.

A chortle, more like a bark, rattled her skull. 'Good luck.'
The waterbender was sent prostrated against the hard-packed earth. It was probable that she would sport more abrasions because of this, but Katara simply rolled herself to her back. Directly above her, branches and foliage clawed desperately at each other, and heavyset storm clouds puttered into view beyond the trees. "That's cruel," she coughed, blood speckling her lips. "Beaten, broken, and still I'm not allowed my element."

With this, the Katara-shell managed to raise herself back to her standing position, though an onlooker would have concluded her to be a newly born zombie due to her languid movement. The first drops of rain must have let loose from their swollen sires, for the entire forest started clattering under the contact of the raindrops.

'Maybe I should make it hail on the village,' Katara contemplated, carmine rivulets snaking down her front. 'No,' she shook her head gently, too afraid it might fly off her neck, 'Aang would....' Everything about her froze. Nothing made a noise, and this mute sat atop her brow.

'Run.'

Again she resumed her feverish flight, this time closing her eyes to anything that should present itself to her. Naturally, this caused the waterbender to bash into trees quite frequently, and yet more wounds erupted on her cocoa skin. The rain had penetrated through the woven wall of branches, but the contact she felt with her element was less of an embrace, and more of a beating.

A punishment.

'The gods must think you too much of an imbecile for this world.'

Water mixed with salt mixed with blood as Katara's eyes issued all of her clogged emotions in one swift release. Whether her dress was plastered to her contours by either the rain or her tears, it was unclear, but this new factor contributed to Katara tripping up even more often. For a while the girl simply carried on in this way: barreling through the unmerciful woods, alone, sobbing, gory, falling on her face, pulling herself up, and continuing this cycle. All the while Katara was ceaselessly playing that ruining moment over and over in her head. That kiss that tore her heart in two, and spat upon it like some unsavory character.

Each time the moment was touched upon, one more of Katara's joints paralyzed. It was soon at the point where her legs were the only things keeping her aloft, for the rest of the girl was bent and crooked. The numb coursed through her thighs. How long could she keep this up? Rain pounded against her head and shoulders, attempting to dig into her skin and scourge what little remained of her psyche.

Her legs gave way, and the waterbender went sprawling into the tangled grasses before her. Drained, she allowed her body to collapse fully into the ground, ignoring the twigs that punctured any unbroken skin.

'Good. Good. Rest.' Her mind gave the plunge into nothingness.

"My, what is a pretty girl doing all alone in the woods?" This voice snapped something in the waterbender, but in a good way. Those perpetual rivers spilling from her tear ducts dammed up, and she could feel a warmth course through her body, invigorating her, restoring her nerve endings. "Why, with such a commotion going on down at the village, shouldn't you be down there?"

Katara crawled to all fours, resting on her knees and elbows. "I don't belong there," she mumbled.

"No?" That voice again, rustling against the grass. "Why don't you belong there?"

"...Because," a choked laugh scraped against the blood in Katara's throat. She wondered for a moment how to finish out her response, the festival seemed fleeting in her memory. "I went out on a limb, and ended up plummeting to the ground." Shifting to her knees, Katara straightened out her torso, but her head still hung deeply.

"How so?" The ground to her right depressed under the weight of the voice.

"Let's just say that I like this guy, but he has someone else," Katara lamented. The veracity of this statement sealed her eyes with saltwater, and, to prevent the internal ocean from overflowing, the waterbender tilted her head to the side. "I guess you could say he was my first- -"

The worldly din silenced.

"Love?" Raven black hair poured over alabaster skin. The woman returning Katara's gaze was hunched over her form, serenity smoothing out her crow's feet into shallow grooves. Following the direction of the wrinkles, Katara's survey slipped into two golden coins, flat and static, yet somehow aqueous enough to drag the girl in. Her jaw drooped lower and lower, farther and farther from her skull. Those honey eyes greedily drank in the background colors, swelling with the pilfered hues until the entire space behind her seemed to fall in upon itself.

And then, as if in a testament to the detestability of this pigment genocide, the remaining features on the woman's face migrated southwest, drifting down her ivory skin until they seceded completely from her countenance, hanging loosely in space before Katara's disbelieving eyes.

Something was building up in Katara's throat; something like a scream, but tasting a bit like her own blood. "Uh- -"
That did it: those brilliant golden orbs of hers blanched out completely, until Katara felt that she was staring into the light that led one to the Other Side. She felt her heartbeat quicken, and the abrasions on her body tingled.

'Look away!'

She ripped her gaze from the milky pools, and instead stared at the dirt in front of the woman's knees. "Y-yes," she said, feeling as if the answer was taken from her forcefully. "It was love." She made a point to stress that it was then, not now. Now, she didn't want to love, didn't want to hurt.

"But not anymore."

"...No."

The grass wavered and quavered under the influence of a new noise...or noises. It made Katara turn her head again, only this time she was cautious of where she looked. Figuring that the woman's lips might be the safest bet, Katara flashed her gaze there, and discovered the strange sounds to be issuing from her lips. This revelation permitted the waterbender's mind to sift through that clamor, extracting each layer, until she was left with a pile of three. Three levels of the woman's laughter, ringing out as separate entities: amusement, disdain, and sorrow. Katara was mesmerized.

"Ah, yes," the woman's lips said. "Attraction is so easily created, and so gruesome when destroyed. It feels like you're full of rocks, yes?" Katara managed a nod, entranced by her words. "But, you know, I believe that, in any relationship," there was a pause, and the waterbender could feel the disarming heat of the woman's gaze on her head, "pain is unavoidable."
"Wha?" The shock of the declaration caused Katara to snap her head up, so that she could behold the speaker. Their eyes locked, cerulean dilating under the fierce gold-now pearl. 'LOOK DOWN!'

"Pain is unavoidable," she repeated. "It is simply the degree of the suffering that proves a relationship's caliber. Say, too much controversy: that eventually leads to a fall-out, naturally. But too little pain, well, that is simply an unrealistic idea. Certainly there are cases in which a couple is smooth sailing forever. But then, without trials and tribulations to allow each to test the boundaries, who knows how much strain such an unbelievable union can take."

"But," Katara fiddled with the end of her muslin dress, brow knitted, "love isn't supposed to be difficult or painful. When you find someone that's right for you, you shouldn't need to "test the boundaries"; just lean against each other equally and then your affection will do the rest. That's what love is."
"In a fairy tale, yes. But this isn't a land of dwarves and pixies. This is a world of harsh truth and grim rules. That nursery rhyme is long since exhausted. In this day and age, one grows, one develops, primarily at the hand of struggle and pain. This transcends all aspects of human life; your little sugar theory has also been through the gauntlet." Each of her chastisements pounded into Katara's bones, bowing her torso with a roguish force.

"But true love..." she muttered meekly.

"True love. 'True love' was also sculpted from fire, water, wind, and earth in turn. Nowadays, 'true love' barely ever makes it past a good raping or a blackmail-induced-marriage, or perhaps slavery." The diatribe stopped, and Katara could hear ragged breathing. Time elapsed in complete silence, the waterbender still breaking under the woman's ardent admonitions.

"But," the witch began again, this time in a soft tone, "I am not trying to dissuade you from believing in love, let alone seeking it. True love, though it is becoming a scarce commodity, does still exist. However, due mainly to this bloody era we are all unfortunate enough to live in, the type of love you are speaking of can only be maintained through sacrifice and controversy. Once the two of you have endured these tests, together or separate, it is only then that you can appreciate such a lasting bond. You must first know hate, must first know agony, before you can begin to fathom such a sweet ambrosia. It's harsh. But that's life."

"...So then I guess Aang must be crazy about me," Katara spat out, sarcasm lacing the words.

"Aang? This Aang is the one who 'has someone else'?" The woman acted ignorant to the waterbender's sarcasm. "Actually, in your case, there apparently was no connection to begin with, so no, there is no love." Pain enflamed in Katara's veins, singing through her bloodstream and shredding her up from the inside. Great boulder tears tumbled down Katara's nose and made craters in the dirt.

Biting her lip, she drove her knuckles into the ground. This action sobered the woman up. "I am sorry," the Wallflower Witch said after some time. "I didn't mean to go so far. Forgive my passionate hate as well. I was an unfortunate victim of this world's version of 'true love'."

"Is it all so hopeless?" Katara twisted her knuckles in the dirt. "Is there any point in trying to love someone, if all you have to look forward to is heartache?"

There was a pensive pause to their conversation, as the woman thought up an answer to Katara's borderline-hypothetical inquiry. Meanwhile, the waterbender was steeling herself away for whatever reply was coming; her tear flow had stemmed. "Do you want to find love? Mind you, there will be pain, but I trust you to understand that by now. And the pain does end once a love can be successfully established. So, do you still want it?"

Katara rested her forehead against the now moist ground, unsure of everything. "...Yes," she said finally, not permitting herself to mull over the words she was uttering, "but it's impossible. I've been all over the world, and no one outranks Aang. Impossible...."

"Hmm," the ground next to her compressed lightly, and Katara then noticed that the woman had scooted over next to her. "Actually, it's very possible." Her voice was reduced to a whisper. "I could actually help you there."

"...Y-you could?" The waterbender hauled her head off of the dirt, and she brushed the remnants off of her forehead with the back of her hand.

She felt, rather than saw, the woman's smile. "Yes." An unholy lightning ran Katara clean through, electrifying her nerves and senses, and she sprung forward, only to land roughly onto more rocks and sticks. Yet more searing torture dominated her being, tearing at her hair, pulling her skin taut, reopening her lacerations. Burning tears surged over her face, and strangled cries exploded from her lungs.

"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. To. Me?!" She screamed each word as she writhed against the stabbing sticks and bruising rocks.

"Helping you." It was nearly impossible for Katara to comprehend the woman's words, but a sudden lull in the torment gave her mind enough processing time. Then her shrieks reinitiated, with a staggering force. "This spell," it was necessary for the woman to shout now, so that she could be heard over Katara's anguish, "will help you find your 'true love', so you can prove me wrong."

"How the hell am I supposed to break this spell, damn it!?" Arching her back in her affliction, Katara's hands moved about wildly, straining for water to aid her in destroying something: herself, or her tormenter. Groundwater shot out of pores in the dirt, and suddenly the air around the contorted waterbender and the woman was filled with millions of ice needle, all poised to strike. As if this was enough of a threat, the agony that had claimed Katara receded all at once, and she was left panting in the grass; a shower of needles clattered against the ground. After a few soothing gulps of air, Katara flung a furious glare at the woman, who held her chin between her pointer finger and thumb in thought.

"Well," she began. Her body seemed to flicker then, almost as if she were falling, but then she was twenty meters further from Katara, and the process repeated. "I suppose." Lilting laughter shadowed the words, and her voice scattered easily. "I suppose that death is always a release." And then the woman, the Wallflower Witch, melted into her own wall of darkness.

"Come back here, damn you!" Katara screeched, scrambling to her feet, only to collapse under her own weight. "What the hell did you do to me?!"

'Hurry now,' a voice whispered urgently in her...heart? 'Your friends are in trouble.'

All traces of that sadistic little gap in the wilderness were forgotten, albeit reluctantly, as Katara dashed away in a blind effort to aid her companions. The environment around her was simplified into mere suggestions of form, dashes of color, snatches of din. More distance was covered in a suspiciously short time.

'What happened to me?' Fear flooded Katara's mind, numbing her body in flashes. Again she could feel those treacherous sobs threaten her eyes, but she transferred this action into one guttural wail. 'What is happening?!' Everything was pulverized beneath her feet, and now even those mutilating branches littering her path seemed much more docile than they were before.

'Hurry now,' the voice continued, preventing Katara's limbs from stopping their mad workings. 'Your friends are in terrible danger.'

'Why the hell should I listen you you?' Katara bared her teeth, almost as if she had fangs with which to appear menacing. 'You're that witch, right? Tell me what this "spell" is doing to me!'

'No time. Move faster.'

'WAIT!' But the witch's presence was gone, leaving the boiling waterbender to her sprinting. An archway zipped over Katara's head; she noticed it merely because it signaled the dramatic end to the suffocating foliage. As soon she crossed under the thing, Katara's limbs ceased moving as one unit, and she was sent tumbling into the ground. Groaning, the waterbender propped a scraped chin flat onto the rocks and dirt, so that she could view the village.

Since she was expecting dubious looks from drunken partygoers, Katara was stricken by what instead she observed:
Smoke, thick, onyx, serpentine smoke coiled upwards from establishments, all of them devoured by one massive holocaust of flame. Screams carried through the area with the same dint of a hurricane. The Midorians were in a full-fledged panic, dashing about pointlessly, first this way, then doubling back once their path was barred by scorching flames. Each citizen maintained the same expression: bulging eyes, gaping mouths, and thick lines creasing every face, children included, so that the whole city's inhabitants made up one uniform victim, one uniform reaction.

Columns of fire erupted randomly, sometimes directly on a fleeing bystander, sometimes an unoccupied area, and sometimes blasting a house to bits in its birth. Above the symphony of distress, Katara could distinguish the sickening sounds of mirth.

'Fire benders!'

Sure enough, soldiers traipsed all around the city, flicking flames casually from their wrists, their skeleton masks dancing in the twisted illumination. Dragging herself to her feet, Katara attempted to waterbend, but to no avail, for her waterskin was nowhere in sight, and the entire city was ablaze.

Crying out in frustration, the waterbender sufficed to simply ramming into Fire Nation soldiers she encountered, pleased at the surprised gasp that rattled out of their masks. After tumbling ten soldiers, Katara froze in her tracks.

"Avatar!" The voice was annoyingly familiar, and her stomach dropped. Whirling around, Katara found herself to be the newest witness to a battle, one that was growing old with each time it raged. She dove out of the way in time for Aang to come crashing into the ground, his glider crackling and sizzling under a blossom of fire. The monk threw the device from him, and pushed enough air before him to deflect a ball of pure heat.

Katara's throat muscles tightened, and she lifted her gaze from her comrade, letting it come to rest on Aang's attacker.
Zuko, the banished prince of the Fire Nation, his hand painted with swirling fire.