Story [Avatar: The Last Airbender] Walk in a Plum Blossom Forest (Haru/Katara Spring Bingo 2025 Vignette)

Title: Walk in a Plum Blossom Forest

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Avatar-The Last Airbender

Characters: Katara; Haru.

Genre: Drama; Romance; Friendship.

Summary: After Aang's death, Katara and Haru walk in a plum blossom forest together.

Notes: This story was written for the 2025 Spring Bingo Challenge hosted by the fabulous @Chyntuck. The Bingo board words I used were: Stream+Forest+Journey+Fish+Fruit. Huge thanks to @Chyntuck for the prompts and the inspiration

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Walk in a Plum Blossom Forest

Katara seeks out Haru in the Earth Kingdom after Aang’s death. After Haru’s light tan skin has wrinkled after a lifetime’s toil in the family store he inherited from his parents. After his once branch-brown hair has been bleached white as salt by the relentless march of age. After her own bones are so weak and weary that a short walk along a forest path in spring feels like the proverbial journey of a thousand li.

The larks trill in the trees as they stroll at a leisurely pace beneath the leaves green as Haru’s still undimmed eyes.

As they pass beneath a plum tree, Haru pauses. Reaches up to pluck a piece of fruit. Offers it to her with a slow, careful bow.

With a murmur of thanks, she takes it. Bites into it. Feels its firm flesh yielding beneath her teeth. Sweet juice flooding her mouth as she chews. The bitter aftertaste that follows predictable. Inevitable. The duality of life–sweet and bitter–that at her old age she knows she cannot escape.

“Plum blossoms are symbols of resilience and perseverance in the Earth Kingdom,” Haru remarks as she munches on her purple fruit. She wonders if this is his way of commenting on Aang’s death. Her loss and grief. “They are the harbingers of spring. Symbolizing hope and renewal because they bloom before other flowers after the winter chill.”

She finishes the fruit. Trying to absorb the hope–the resilience and the perseverance–of the plum into herself.

They come to a clear, burbling forest brook. They perch, side by side, on a rock overhanging the water.

“You never married after the war,” she observes, watching the silver carp swim below them. Scales sparkling in the sunlight. “Never had children.”

“I was waiting for you to return to me.” He grins crookedly at her.

She wonders if he is teasing her. Hopes he is. It would, she muses, be sad otherwise.

“There were other fish in the stream.” She bends a silver carp out of the water. Thinking that she will gut it. Fry it with spices for their lunch. “Fish you could have caught in your net with your handsomeness. Your spring green eyes.”

“Not for me.” He shakes his head. Gazes at her intensely as the carp wriggles in her hand. Desperate to fly from her grasp. To dive back into the water. “You were always the only fish in my stream. The only fish I was interested in catching.”

“It must have been lonely.” She lowers her eyes. Melancholy creeping over her as the fish continues its wild dance for freedom. Her voice is soft. Barely audible, she is sure, over the water rippling over the pearl rocks in the stream flowing by her. “Waiting all these years for me.”

“Not lonely.” His forest eyes gleam and glitter at her. “Not with the music of my babbling woodland streams to keep me company, and my plum blossoms to perk up my spirits in the spring after every long winter.”

 

@Chyntuck Thank you so much for reading and for the kind words This story was definitely a very bittersweet one for me to write and that bittersweetness is indeed very evocative of the flavor of Katara's plum as you so wisely note! Haru is absolutely a gentleman here as you say, taking Katara on this walk through the plum bloom forest to help her cope with the loss of Aang after decades of loving marriage and raising multiple children together, and the reveal that he would come to the same spot to find peace with the fact that the woman he loved didn't reciprocate his affection in a romantic way was a very poignant one for me to write. I wanted to write a Haru that respected Katara and her right to choose and who was not unhappy because he had such gorgeous nature around him and someone who also understood that it was his own decision to not pursue anyone else romantically after it was clear that Katara's heart belonged to Aang. That's why he can still grin at Katara and have that glitter in his eyes when he looks at her and why he can be a true gentleman earth bender who knows that he is never alone as long as he is surrounded by the deep bounty of the Earth. A deep bounty of the Earth that he can remind Katara of when she is enmeshed in her grief. And that is in some ways the truest form of love. Helping another out of grief as he does. Being a sort of spiritual guide to her in her time of vulnerability and loss.

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you so much for reading and commenting! Haru finding love in the plum blossom forest with the woodland streams is a perfect way of putting it, and, yes, because of the beauty all around him, he was not lonely all those years that she was with Aang, and now he can be with her in this beautiful space and help her heal.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so happy to hear that you found the setting gorgeous and that you appreciated how sweet Haru is in terms of wanting to bring comfort to Katara in her grief I think he is very honest about loving her all those years, but that he found a way not to be lonely or sad by respecting her decision and embracing the beauty of the natural world around him and its power to fill him with peace. So when he reveals his love for her it comes of as a statement of fact. A truth that he has accepted but also not something that has made him bitter or resentful of her choice to marry Aang. You are also so right about the parallel of the plum being a contrast of tastes just like this fic was meant to be a contrast of moods!