The Warrior's Gambit (Zutara)

XXIV

"The town thanks me? What about the Painted Lady?" Katara snapped, horrified at once that she was arguing with a goddess who could smite her to dust. At the small smile on the face of the spirit, as though the spirit was humored by this human in front of her, Katara felt like she had to continue. "Why is it that I had to come and save them when they've been praying to their goddess for years? Doesn't she care at all?" Katara asked, shaking hard.

"The people prayed to their goddess and she delivered," the spirit said simply.

"No. I arrived and saw that something needed to be done so I did it. That wasn't..." She frowned, unsure why the spirit did not understand. "It feels as though the Painted Lady has forsaken her people."

"The people prayed and you came. You always come back," the spirit said, "Even if you do not remember."

Katara frowned, her brain frantically trying to process what the spirit meant. Katara looked down and saw her reflection; her paint-stained face rippled. Then, just for a moment, in its place was the face of a woman with no paint on her face but the same markings, but she was wearing Katara's clothes.

Katara startled and this time there was a splash in the water. Katara heaved, unable to catch her breath, snapping her head up. "I don't...I do not understand..."

The spirit began to fade into the mist. Katara leaped forward, her limbs not working quite right, as she noisily splashed through the water. "Where are you going?"

"Do you not want to know?" the woman asked.

Katara followed.

As far as they went within the water, Katara never went under. Her clothes and hair were not wet. She walked through the river as though she were walking on the path.

The spirit led Katara to the town.

It was cast in shadows, and the lines weren't quite meeting up. It was a reflection of reality, this one paused. As they walked, Katara knew no townspeople would notice them at all.

"You do not recall. I suppose I should not have been surprised. I had wondered when you donned that...it felt like kismet, I believe?"

Katara nodded uneasily, recalling how it had fit her soul when she'd first slipped this costume on. It had felt more than just a costume, it had felt like an identity.

The woman led her to where the shrine for the Painted Lady had been, but it was not here now. Katara walked to it, confused.

There was a bloodstain on the wooden planks.

Katara looked back, but the spirit just floated in the mist, face unreadable.

Katara knelt down, reaching out to touch the space.

She was bombarded with memories. They weren't her own, but it felt as though they were. She was having a hard time separating them from her mind, as though she was recalling in vivid detail something that has never happened.

She gasped, and her skin burned with agony. She stretched out her arms to see claw marks scarring up and down them.

And her head! It hurt like...like...spirits, she felt so woozy. She couldn't even think. She slumped forward onto the wood, her head lying right where the bloodstain was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pool of blood creep from beneath her head. She reached back to touch it, and as she raised her fingers to the pale light of the moon, she saw the sticky wetness of blood on her fingers.

Someone was standing over her. It was not the spirit. It was a man, wearing Fire Nation clothes, but they looked ancient, like the paintings she'd seen in the study from hundreds of years ago.