Forsan et haec olim scripsisse iuvabit.

Thanks! I find it a little harder, when I'm writing a piece that dissects someone's thoughts, to keep it a 'fic and not an essay. In this one I did have to keep coming back to the words Katara was experimenting with -- the second paragraph more or less wrote itself once I came up with those four possible responses, but the third one spun its wheels for quite a while until the idea of her practicing comebacks in front of the mirror showed up, and I could go out and investigate Chinese love poetry. I think her own little speech, about the moon and the ocean, was the most difficult of all, because I wanted it to sound a bit awkward and maybe a little overdramatic (she's not a writer, after all :-), but not too silly. The version you see now is about five or six drafts along. It's not perfect, but it's as good as I can come up with for the moment.