According to the methodical, calm words of the wisest person Hanuel knew, soulmates were a distraction.

Mira had said the words, of course. Forever a beacon of practicality, she believed that the pursuits of the heart and of fate were best kept far, far away from any professional matters. She never discussed if she had found her soulmate, who they were, if she had one. She, in a strong effort to practice what she preached, detached herself from fate and applied herself fully to her work.

Naturally, she expected her ward and the most important pupil she’d ever teach to do the same.

“Destiny is a fickle thing, for most of us.” Mira had said to Hanuel. “It’s hard to predict, harder to control. There are many of us whom fate does not pay any mind- simple pawns in the great game of the universe. You are not like these people, Hanuel. You are not a pawn. You, my young Avatar, are a player.”

Then, Hanuel had listened. She listened to everything Mira said, just like she was supposed to.

“They say that soulmates are a way of evening the playing field.” Mira had continued, matter-of-factly. “The spirits gave us the gift of love to make up for the lack of any greater destiny they hold. In a sense, their very destiny is to love, and nothing more. You are different from these fateless masses, Hanuel. You are the Avatar. You have a destiny greater than the colors in your eye, and therefore should pay them no mind.

Mira, of course, was wrong. She was wrong about a lot of things- some Hanuel was only just finding out. But this- she had known this from the start. Because Mira thought she had already met her soulmate. Mira thought it was Koto- the gentle, soft-spoken airbender girl Hanuel had grown up with. The girl who had been her first love and who’s leaving had caused her the most heartache. It had to be Koto, because no one else could’ve broken the Avatar’s heart like that but her soulmate. Mira thought that the colors had already come into her life and left with Koto as she flew into the horizon.

But they hadn’t. There was no color in Hanuel’s eyes. Koto- despite how much Hanuel wished, at least at the time- did not belong in her heart. She had left for the skies, to find her true lover. Koto was sure she had one.

Koto was lucky. Koto was what Mira would describe as a pawn in the game of the universe, one out of the fateless masses. Hanuel could only wish she was the same.

A few days out from the Fire Nation, after hearing of distress calls from the Southern Water Tribe, Hanuel approached the one person she trusted enough to speak on the matter with.

“Hey, Jitsuko?” Hanuel asked her firebender friend, no doubt interrupting some sort of important reading the girl was doing. “You’re smart, right?”

Jitsuko glanced up at her. “That’s why you keep me around, isn’t it?”

Hanuel frowned. Most of the time, she could tolerate Jitsuko’s sarcasm, but her nerves got the better of her.

“Sure. Yes. I’m smart.” Jitsuko closed the large book she was reading and gestured to the chair on the opposite side of the table, wanting Hanuel to sit in it. She obliged.

“What did you want to ask me about?” Jitsuko asked as soon as Hanuel was settled, or at least as settled as she could be. For an earthbender like Hanuel, sea travel was sickening. Avatar or not, she still required firm, steady land in order to get any semblance of balance. Her nerves didn’t help.

Hanuel brushed a lock of her hair out of her face, then sighed when it fell right back as their boat swayed to the side. “Does the Avatar have a soulmate?”

Jitsuko didn’t reply at first. She sighed. “Is this about Koto?”

“No! Of course it isn’t!” Despite how adamantly Hanuel defended herself, she had to admit that her old friend’s presence had stirred thoughts of the matter. “Koto’s found her soulmate already, anyways. It’s not me, it never was me. But I have one, right?”

Jitsuko paused once again, in thought rather than hesitation this time. She idly tapped her book. “Well, it’s been heavily documented that certain Avatars had soulmates. Aang did with Katara, as well as your direct predecessor, Korra, whose soulmate was Asami Sato, of course. And Kyoshi’s soulmate was Rangi of Clan Sei’naka.”

The simple words- words Hanuel already knew- brought comfort. Jitsuko’s next did not.

“Of course, there have also been records of Avatars who never had soulmates.”

There it was- what she was dreading. Hanuel knew it was coming. The terrible, terrifying knowledge she would spend her entire life in a gray, colorless world, completely alone. That she would be forced to resign her entire being to her work and duties. Hanuel admired Mira, of course, but she did not want to imitate her lifestyle.

Jitsuko did not wait for Hanuel to finish processing her words. Evidently, her history lesson was more important. “Avatar Szeto- the Fire Avatar directly preceding Yangchen- was famous for his lack of a soulmate. The court rumors said he lived his entire life seeing color, as he needed only his own life to give it to him. Yangchen’s direct successor, Kuruk, was the opposite. According to his own journals, he had innumerable soulmates, each one bringing their own color into his life and taking it as they left it.”

Hanuel nodded. She knew all of this- she had read the same books as Jitsuko, studied the same tratisies and terminology. She knew better than Jitsuko how complicated the relationship was between Avatars and soulmates, and that only time could tell how her story would end. That didn’t stop her next words from spilling out of her mouth.

“What if I never find my soulmate? What if I don’t have one? What if I never see color, what-”

“Stop.” Jitsuko said simply, calmly, confidently. She took on both the maternity and authority of her older sister. “You’re going to send yourself into a nervous fit, if you aren’t already in one. Why don’t you go wash your face and drink some water. It’ll calm you down.”

Hanuel nodded, and with no real intention of following the request, stood up to leave.

If spending the day on a moving ship was egregious, the night was somehow worse.

It wasn’t that the condition’s Hanuel was staying in was bad- they had outfitted her in one of the ship’s most luxurious rooms, a grandiose suite swathed in what Hanuel was told was the traditional blood-red of Fire Nation decor. Her linen sheets had threads of gold woven into them. Her pillows were stuffed with the feathers of pure-bred swan lions. Despite the wretched winter cold of the night outside the ship’s walls, her room was kept at a soothing, warm temperature. Logistically speaking, she should’ve been asleep before her body hit the mattress.

Hanuel only wished that were the case.

After restlessly tossing and turning about her bed, Hanuel sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get any sleep, at least while she was travelling by sea. She stood up, donned slippers and a light robe, and set off to find an old friend.

To Hanuel’s relief, Koto’s room was only a few doors down from hers. Even luckier was the fact that she, too, wasn’t asleep- Koto had left her door cracked open, letting in the chilled night air and letting out a faint glimmer of lamplight.

As she approached the door of her past lover, Hanuel hesitated. In the crack between Koto’s door and the wall, she could just see the girl, sitting on her bed as she read. She looked serene and peaceful- more at ease than how Hanuel had seen her lately. It took only a moment for Koto to notice Hanuel watching her.

“Wait- you can stay!” Koto called out as Hanuel bolted back to her room.

The words caught Hanuel off-guard. She almost fell over. “Really?”

Koto nodded, turning back into her room. “Yeah. Come inside- it’s warmer in here.

Despite her common sense, Hanuel followed. Koto sat her down on the bed and soon followed, but the stiff awkwardness of the moment reminded both of them that their past romance wasn’t going to be rekindled anytime soon.

“So.” Koto put her hands in her lap. “You can’t sleep either.”

Hanuel shook her head. “No. You know how I am with boats. I hate them.”

“I know someone who shares the opinion. You two would get along, at least about that.” Koto chuckled. “She’s actually in the Southern Water Tribe right now- maybe we’ll cross paths.”

Hanuel stiffened at the mention of Koto’s other friends- the strange individuals she had left her for, the people who remained faceless and nameless in Hanuel’s mind. Koto spoke of them only enough that Hanuel constantly remembered their presence.

She didn’t speak of her soulmate as often, but Hanuel didn’t need the reminder for that piece of information.

“So.” Hanuel said, desperately trying to make the words sound natural. “I heard you found your soulmate.”

Koto froze. “I did. Only a few months ago, but it’s like they say. When you see them, you know.”

“What’s she like?”

“Her name is Hang- she’s a waterbender. One of the friends I was telling you about, not the one who hates boats though. Being a waterbender and hating sea travel seems like a bleak existence.”

Hanuel didn’t laugh at the attempt at a joke, even though it technically applied to her, as a (future) waterbender who despised sea travel and whose life could be accurately described as bleak and miserable.

Koto didn’t say any more. Apparently, there were things she wished to keep private. Hanuel didn’t blame her- their conversation would’ve been tense even if it wasn’t about love.

“How are the colors?” Hanuel found herself asking.

“They’re amazing.” Koto sighed. “It’s honestly hard to describe.”

“Do you have a favorite hue?”

Koto paused in contemplation. “Cyan. Dark cyan.”

Hanuel, naturally, didn’t know what the word meant. “And… Do you love her?”

Once again, Koto paused. She nodded. “Yes. I think I do.”

They reached the ports of the Southern Water Tribe’s Harbor City by dawn the next day. Even if Hanuel could see colors, she was sure she would’ve seen the same blinding whites and dull grays that greeted her upon exiting the ship. It seemed as if her other senses overcompensated for her partial sight- Hanuel had never felt a more biting cold.

The only welcome sensation was that of steady ground beneath her feet. Even the slick iciness of the sleet-covered dock was leagues better than the ship had been.

They were greeted personally, by a small party from the tribe’s capital. Among them was Chief Saila, who greeted Hanuel with a warm gentle smile, and some of her ministers. Saila’s family was there- both her husband and children, and her own mother and brother, Asami and Hayata. A small group stood apart from the rest, looking extremely out of place. Based on the way Koto rushed to their side, Hanuel had to assume they were her friends- the ones she kept mentioning. The group itself consisted mostly of teenagers- a sturdy, built person with curly dark hair and determined eyes, a shorter teen boy with sunglasses and a leather jacket, a tall, lanky girl who wore her hair braided and greeted Koto with an affectionate embrace- she had to be Hang, Hanuel thought- who stood next to an older woman with similar features and a warm, gentle smile. A pair of teens- siblings, Hanuel assumed from the one glance she had taken of them- each with sturdy builds and square faces. There was a boy- he seemed younger by a few years, and the girl. Her face was square, her brow heavy. Her bangs fell right before her eyes and curled around her cheeks. A lock of her hair brushed her lip as she stood, frozen, staring at Hanuel. Why was she-

Oh.

Hanuel realized it only when she met the girl’s eyes. Her beautiful, wonderful, colorful eyes. She had found her.

The girl- Hanuel cursed the fact she didn’t know her name- realized it at the same moment she did. Her lips moved- the utterance of a silent curse and the only warning she gave before bolting back in the direction she came.

Hanuel had no choice but to follow.

“Wait- wait up.” Hanuel panted. Her lungs ached from running in the cold. The girl- her soulmate- had led her all the way to the indoor lobbies of the Southern Water Tribe immigration center. The indoors was warm, and bright. Spirits- were the ice walls supposed to be the same color as the sky? Were the candlelights in the chandeliers supposed to be the color of- she didn’t even know what they were the color of.

The girl sat on a bench, huddled as far as she could physically be from the door and anyone who might enter it. She hadn’t removed her coat like Hanuel had, and seemed to be actually burrowing deeper inside it. She was whispering to herself- muttering what had to be curses in a language Hanuel didn’t understand. As she got closer, Hanuel noticed something. The girl’s cheeks were changing color- to the same color Hanuel saw on the accents of her Fire Nation-issued parka. Red, then. She was blushing- from the cold or the circumstance, Hanuel didn’t know.

“Hi.” Hanuel sat down next to the girl. “I’m Hanuel.”

The girl spared her a glance. “Haruko.”

“Nice to meet you?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Sure.” Haruko ran her hands through her choppy hair. “Spirits- this is fucked up. Of all people, it had to be-” She stopped herself. “No. No. No. I didn’t- fuck. You’re- you’re Hanuel Beifong. The Hanuel Beifong. Oh, spirits.”

There was obviously something that Hanuel wasn’t getting. “Are you alright?”

Haruko nodded. “Yeah. Hey, uh. We’re soulmates, huh?”

Hanuel nodded. “Yeah. We are. Are you… ok with that?”

Haruko buried her face in her hands and repeated a few of the same curses, before replying in the language Hanuel knew. “I’m not sure.”

Hanuel closed her eyes. It wasn’t the dream she had been hoping for, or the curse Mira had said it would be. “I’m not sure either.”