Chapter Text
She was silent as she floated across the river, the wind billowing around her robes and the breeze running through her hair. She kept her head low while she effortlessly made her way to the small village suspended in the middle of the lake. They were people who were suffering; that she had seen for herself. While years ago they were a people who were bountiful with the what the water had given them, now they suffered with hunger and sickness.
Katara couldn’t bear see them like that.
There was a legend of a Painted Lady who used to look after this small village. She was a source of inspiration and hope. And Katara couldn’t help but suspect that if she wasn’t a Spirit, she was probably a very powerful Water Bender.
Making sure that her companions were in no rush to leave, she fashioned her own Painted Lady garb. With a hat to cover her face and streaks of paint on her cheeks, she made herself a dress with torn garments. She knew that she needed not be perfect in her attire, for all she needed was to visit them in the cover of darkness and use her abilities to steam the water around her so that it appeared as a fog that kept her hidden.
When she destroyed the factory that polluted the water and the Painted Lady received the undulated praise of the former hungry, Katara couldn’t have been happier.
She didn’t know if there was truly a painted lady, but she hoped that if there was one, she was watching them from the Spirit World with an approving smile.
It was not until later that she saw the Spirit in the sky. Katara smiled to herself as she watched the Painted Lady fade into myth and legend.