A/N: Written for Wavesinger for Fandom Stocking 2015.

Katara is not lonely.

Her mother may be gone, and her father long left for war, but she has Gran-Gran, and she has her brother, and there are the aunties who invite her to the sewing circles and the children who know she is still young enough to play with them.

Katara is not lonely, but she still wishes she had someone to talk with. Another waterbender, someone who could listen and respond in kind – a person who knows what it is to live with this power, perhaps a teacher who could show her how to use it better.

The children laugh to see her tricks and beg her for more of them. The aunties smile and give her encouraging words. Her dad used to tell her things, that she was a hope for their tribe, that she was blessed by the spirits, that he was so proud of her. Sokka rolls his eyes at her magic and, lately, increasingly turns towards his own hunting and fighting skills instead. Gran-Gran smiles at her but often has a look on her face that Katara cannot interpret – sadness, perhaps.

But none of them understand, not really. They do not know what it means to wander off for hours and stand at the edge of the ocean, creating floating globes and slowly pulling feathers from wave to shore. They do not know what it is to try for weeks to do the simplest thing – to tug and beg with all her mind and still to have ice melt from the air or simple forms to splash back into the snow. They do not know the longing she has, so sharp it invades her dreams, to be able to use her waterbending instead of having to flail about with no guidance. The power is there, she knows this, she can feel it, but she does not know how to bring it out properly and there are days that this brings her to a rage.

At least Sokka knows better than to tease her on those days, when she comes back half-soaked with a little driftwood for the fire, storming enough to leave melting footprints in the hard-packed snow.

When she sews she daydreams of drifting over the ocean without a boat – stepping over the surface like a skipping rock. When the conversation at dinner dies and she wishes for Dad to be home again, she tells herself that next time she goes out to the water alone she will figure out whatever little skill she is working on, so that she will be that much closer to finding her mastery.

And when she cannot sleep at night, worrying over every little creak in the ice, she closes her eyes and thinks of the day when the Avatar will return. Because then the war will end, Dad will come home, and she will go to find a teacher.