Chapter Text
`flash·point
[flaSH-point] noun
- the temperature at which a particular organic compound gives off sufficient vapor to ignite in air.
- a place, event, or time at which trouble, such as violence or anger, flares up.
91 Days until the summit.
Sweat rolled down Katara’s back, soaking into her dress as she dashed through the streets of the Caldera toward the palace. She was absolutely not going to show up late to the last meeting before summer recess. Her clothes were practically glued to her skin and had more than one mysterious stain from her morning shift at one of the clinics in Harbor City. Lord Soku was going to have kittens when he saw the state of her but after today the steward wouldn’t have to put up with Katara’s blatant disregard for propriety for the rest of the summer.
In her haste, she nearly collided with a merchant cart that came to a screeching halt to avoid her. She shouted apologies over her shoulder as the man wailed about the loss of a few displaced cabbages, now rolling across the cobblestone street. Katara kept running even as her lungs screamed for air; she refused to be late. If she had to endure more misogynistic drivel from Talrok about her ‘delicate feminine nature’ and her inability to keep time, the man was going to be singing soprano when she was done with him.
She fumed as she ran, thinking back to the conversation at breakfast with the ambassador from her sister tribe where he, once again, said that if she wanted to work in those ‘wretched Fire Nation clinics,’ she might as well be a good Water Tribe girl and just return home where she belonged and work in the healing huts. That way she could also find a husband before her looks go and the Southern Water Tribe could send a more appropriate (meaning male) ambassador. It would be a win-win for everyone!
To which Katara responded with her usual lecture on respect and gender equality, which was, also as usual, dismissed by Talrok as hysterics no matter how calmly she stated her case. And spirits, was she calm. It took every drop of her patience, but thus far she managed to remain even-keeled and sensible every time he spouted his nonsense. The two ambassadors rehashed the same argument with alarming regularity as of late, to the discomfort or amusement (depending on the spectator) of anyone in the nearby vicinity.
During her tenure as ambassador, Katara received more than one letter from home requesting she tone it down after Talrok complained about her behavior to Arnook…who then complained to Hakoda. Of course no one reprimanded Talrok for being a misogynistic ass. Her father argued that the tribes needed to present a united front on the international stage, and she could advocate for women’s rights whenever she was home...for three months out of the year. Those letters went politely ignored.
Fishing her ambassador’s sigil out of her bag, she flashed it to the guards as they let her into the palace grounds. Katara saw one of the regulars roll their eyes at her good-naturedly, but she didn’t stop to make small talk.
As she dashed through the gardens a voice called out from her left, “Whoa slow down there girl, where you going in such a hurry? There’s still time afore the meeting, no need to rush.”
Hearing the familiar drawl, she skidded to a halt, turning to see Rue, a lithe middle-aged woman with stick straight brown hair and dark blue eyes who served as the Foggy Swamp ambassador. Relieved, Katara doubled over, hands on her knees, panting. She managed to spit out the reason for her sprint to which Rue only laughed, “That man ain’t ever gonna learn. Hopefully Chief Arnook will send someone else afore one of these feisty Fire Nation ladies separates him from his family jewels.”
Katara wheezed between deep breaths, “They’ll have to get in line. If I ever see that man again, it will be too soon.”
“Well, I suppose I can blindfold ya, he’s sure to be in the meeting.” Katara let out a decidedly unladylike snort as Rue grinned and appraised the younger woman’s hunched figure. “You gonna show up lookin’ like that? Whatever will the Fire Lord think?” Katara ignored the teasing eyebrow waggle aimed in her general direction.
She let out one last huff and stood up straight, rolling her eyes, “Zuko has seen me looking far worse, besides, despite what Ambassador Talrok thinks, I’m not here to look pretty.” Her days of just sitting pretty were long over. Still, she quickly bent her sweat away and into a nearby flower bed, hoping to make herself at least fractionally more presentable as the pair fell in line with the other officials.
…
The normally spacious meeting hall was filled with people—sweaty, frustrated, hot-tempered people who were packed into the room like finely dressed sardines. General assemblies were a rare occurrence and ambassadors as well as everyone who was anyone in the Fire Nation government were all trying to squeeze the last word in on their chosen crusades before adjourning for the summer.
The discussions dragged on for the better part of the afternoon, the oppressive heat only making tempers shorter, and the biggest point of contention was the Harmony Restoration Movement. It was the plan crafted in the initial months after the war made to systematically remove the Fire Nation from the Earth Kingdom colonies. Sokka, Aang, and Zuko were the primary architects but Kuei and his council of five also weighed in. The subject had been a matter of some debate (and several immature shouting matches) over the past few months as the relocation of soldiers and civilians out of the colonies was moving at a glacial pace.
After a minister, Katara thought it was one of the dozens from Shuhon, ended up throwing a shoe at some stuffy woman from Ember Island, the Fire Lord finally called the meeting to a close, marking the official start of summer recess. As everyone slowly trickled out, Katara intended to try and talk with Zuko, but she barely made it out of her seat before he was immediately surrounded by officials still vying for his attention. She studiously ignored the disappointment swirling in her stomach; it wasn’t like she needed to talk to him anyway.
The ambassador had grown used to snagging the Fire Lord for a few minutes after their meetings adjourned, but Katara was learning that, when everyone was in for a general assembly, she had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a moment of his time. She did manage to catch his eye and gave him an amused (if slightly pitying) smile. He flashed her a look of pure suffering in response before turning to answer one of the many questions being lobbed his way.
Rue chuckled, and linked her arm with Katara, “Come on, you can talk to Fire Lord Hot Stuff later, let’s get outta here, I can hardly breathe in this stuffy room.”
The younger woman chuckled and whispered, “You better not let Lord Soku hear you calling him that, the man would drop into a dead faint.”
As the pair made their way through the palace gardens, the one voice Katara absolutely did not want to hear rang out, “Ah, Miss Katara, good to see you. I hope you have sufficiently recovered from the stress of the morning.” She begrudgingly turned to see Talrok, a thin, stooped man in his mid-50s with pale blue eyes. He didn’t even acknowledge the Foggy Swamp woman at all, though Rue told Katara many a time that she considered it to be a good thing that the man pretended she didn’t exist.
Katara frowned, noting that he also, once again, did not use her title. United front, we are trying to put on a united front, she reminded herself sternly. Katara gave a curt nod in his direction, “Ambassador Talrok.”
Apparently clocking her displeasure he admonished, “Oh come now, you’re not still upset about this morning, are you? There’s no need to be so sensitive about such minor disagreements. You should be smiling, after all, you’ll be back home where you belong soon enough!” Katara held her tongue and tried to remain composed while Rue not-so-subtly rolled her eyes. “This is exactly why the Southern Water Tribe should send someone else; I hate to see your feelings hurt over such small arguments. I do implore you to consider my advice and ask your father to send another ambassador in the fall who is better equipped to balance family and duty—”
Equipped with a penis, you mean, she seethed silently.
“—It's cruel of him to ask a young woman like you to be so far away all the time.”
She clenched her teeth and managed to grind out, “Thank you for your concern but I’m managing to balance the two just fine and am very much enjoying my time as Ambassador. I won’t be quitting anytime soon but I so look forward to working with you in the fall.” She tried to pair the lie with a polite smile, but it was probably closer to a sneer.
Katara turned to leave, Rue in tow, but Talrok wasn’t finished, and he hurried after them, grabbing her upper arm to stop her. “You must see reason, what happens when you get married? You’ll leave the other ambassadors in a lurch—be responsible!” Katara stiffened as his hand clamped over her arm, instincts screaming at her to reach for the water in the nearby garden pond and pull. But they were gathering an audience as the man’s volume increased. There was nothing politicians and nobles loved more than good gossip, and the Water Tribe ambassadors getting into a fight amongst the begonias in broad daylight definitely qualified. So, although her temper was starting to fray at the edges, she forced herself to breathe through the surge of anger roiling underneath her skin and wrenched her arm away from the man.
But she was getting so incredibly tired of holding her tongue.
Talrok’s ridiculous excuses and insistence on her giving up the ambassadorship were infrequent and annoying at first but lately they couldn’t have a single conversation without him bringing it up. Now he seemed to have dispensed with formalities and small talk altogether to try and convince her of his point before she left the Fire Nation.
Katara silently prayed to every spirit she could think of, asking them to help her be diplomatic and mature and not revert to the angry teenager who once challenged a master to a duel. During her tenure as ambassador, she received a few very hard lessons on diplomacy, one of which was that losing her temper, no matter how righteous the point, rarely did her a favor. Striving for an even tone she told him curtly, “Ambassador Talrok, I have no plans to get married anytime soon and have no intentions of giving up my position even if I were to find someone. I really must be going; may Yue guide your path home—”
Talrok cut her off sounding aghast, “You cannot be serious! No respectable Water Tribe man would stand for you to remain here!”
“Ambassador Talrok, my love life really isn’t an appropriate topic of conversation between the two of us.” Spirits, was her voice getting shrill? She hated sounding shrill.
The northerner rolled his eyes, “There you go again being all sensitive. I am simply concerned for your wellbeing! You cannot abandon your husband and children to run around playing ambassador!” She decided it would be pointless to remind him that said husband and children were entirely fictitious and of his own creation.
Katara turned and began briskly walking away again, while biting out, “I would hardly call the past eleven months of my life ‘playing’. I have been involved in rebuilding efforts and mutual aid projects across the globe, not to mention the reparations and trade agreements between the Southern Water Tribe and—”
Talrok interrupted, waving a hand dismissively, “Yes, yes, you may have managed to finagle more advantageous trade agreements for the Southern Water Tribe, but the Fire Lord and Earth King aren’t going to be swayed by a pretty face forever!” Katara stopped walking, spine ramrod straight. Were Talrok a man with any sense of self-preservation, he would have spotted the painfully obvious warning signs in her body language and ceased his blathering.
Talrok was not, however, a man with a good sense of self-preservation.
“Eventually your looks will fade, and you won’t be able to dress like that and have them fall at your feet. Your father—”
The spirits, it seemed, were not inclined to answer her prayers for self-control and diplomacy; the last thread holding Katara’s temper in check snapped. She rounded on the older man, stalking back towards him, as the frustration she bottled up for months began pouring out, “You pompous old windbag! I am so sick of your misogynistic bullshit!” The turtleducks in the nearby pond quickly paddled to shore as the temperature of the water became uncomfortably cold. “You’ve got your head stuck so far up your own ass that you can see daylight out the other end! You know damn well the reason we got better reparation terms is because we were decimated by the war—"
The nearby onlookers weren’t even trying to hide their eavesdropping at this point as Katara tore into the man. General Za Jei, Zuko’s Councilor of the Military, was watching the scene unfold, arms crossed with a rare grin on her face…the grin did not make the woman less terrifying. The Fire Lord’s steward, Lord Soku, looked as if he might faint from shock. Jee, one of the officers on Zuko’s old ship, now a councilman, covered his mouth trying to stifle his laughter and hide a smile. A few nobles and ministers tittered and looked on in mock outrage at the scene, while secretly reveling in the drama.
“The siege—"
“One siege doesn’t compare to a century of attacks!”
“I know you can’t fully understand the horrors of such a battle but—"
“Oh, can it!” She was shouting at the top of her lungs now and no longer cared who heard. “I know more of the horrors of war than you ever could! I left home at fourteen to stop the Fire Nation! I spent seven years of my life fighting while you spent your days safe behind the walls and hid till you were a wrinkled, sour old man!”
The temperature dropped several degrees as the water in the humid air crystallized and frost spiderwebbed across the now unnaturally still surface of the pond. Maybe she let her power bleed out in a half-hearted attempt to diffuse her anger…or maybe it was because Katara knew how much she would revel in seeing the fear on the man’s face once he realized what she could do to him.
Talrok tried to interrupt again but Katara was on a roll and drowned him out as she yelled, “I found the Avatar! I mastered my element in less than a year! I fought armies, while you were happy to let the rest of the world burn! And now you have the audacity to pretend like it’s my face that got those agreements?! I don’t give a shit if you’re a weak old man, I will freeze you into a solid block of ice and shove you into the ocean to float home if you don’t shut up!”
Katara wouldn’t actually hurt him…probably. But clearly, Talrok didn’t know that, and he took a step back, turning pale as his condescension finally gave way to fear. She reveled in it for a moment allowing the corners of her mouth to twist into a wicked grin before the chorus of muted gasps and poorly concealed laughter from her audience reminded her just how public this little tiff was. She turned her head, hearing clapping from behind her as Rue’s voice echoed loudly, “Whoo-wee! You tell ‘em, girl!”
Off to the side, she saw Jee lean towards Za Jei with a wry grin, whispering something to her. Katara groaned internally, So much for a united front.
With one last withering look towards Talrok, she turned on her heel, pulse still hammering, and began marching towards the exit of the garden. Rue fell into step beside her and let out a low whistle. “Whew. That was somethin’ else. You alright?”
Katara nodded with a sharp jerk of her head and a tight smile. She’d wanted to put Talrok in his place, to finally shut him up, but now a sickly mixture of embarrassment and regret was starting to creep in as the whispers of their audience followed her down the path.
She hadn’t lost control of her bending, that wasn’t something that happened often anymore. No, instead she let her power bleed out on purpose, to intimidate him. That might be worse than just losing control. She was supposed to be better than that.
Katara blinked rapidly, trying to suppress the sudden and extremely inconvenient urge to cry. She would not cry over a man like Talrok. Katara felt Rue link their arms together, and she turned her head to see the older woman wink at her, “Come on girlie, I’ve got just the thing to make you feel better.”