Chapter Text
Why did she run forward?
She thought about it often.
If she had just stayed hidden, out of Azula’s line of sight, then maybe Zuko would have been able to bend the lightning in his favor, right? He’d been goading his sister to strike. Zuko had such a preoccupation with his father and sister being able to bend lightning.
Katara had seen it hit Aang — it had killed Aang.
So, she thought it might kill Zuko and she didn’t have spirit water and she needed to be as close as possible.
It cost them both.
Katara thought of it in three steps:
1. Heal Zuko
2. Defeat Azula so she could heal Zuko
3. Heal Zuko
She was on top of him as soon as she chained Azula down with a knot taught to her by her father. Zuko said thank you and she said some thanks?
Zuko was not okay. He was dead.
Healing with Waterbending was intimate. No one told her that before. Why would the healers of the Northern Tribe tell her? They healed like they cleaned their homes and sewed and bore babies, raised warriors — all of it important but nothing worth mentioning.
Healing with Waterbending was intimate but this wouldn’t work.
The water fell away from her hands and his chest and Katara let out a sob. His skin was still hot to the touch. No, this could not happen. She wouldn’t let it, she couldn’t, no no no.
No!
The choice is not yours. The power exists. And it's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out ...
The comet still burned the sky bright red and the sun was high above them, and the heat was sweltering. She could still feel Azula’s fire, her skin was red and aching where it had touched her. Everything was working against her but she could try and she refused to fail.
Katara exhaled. She did not draw water from an outside source again. She inhaled.
“He’s dead, HE’S DEAD. I KILLED HIM,” Azula screamed and it wasn’t a proud pronouncement. It wasn’t gloating. It was the wail of someone truly devastated. Katara could hear Azula’s tears hitting the water under the metal grate she was chained to. An inconsistent drip of salt and fluid. She could hear her own sweat falling down the tip of her nose and onto the top of her hands.
My bending is more powerful than yours, Hama. Your technique is useless on me.
No, she didn’t hear, she felt.
She could feel Zuko’s blood. It was still and beginning to settle with gravity.
Katara clenched her hands, fingertips scraping through burnt flesh, and she could feel it under her nails, and she pressed down with enough force to break his ribs.
Later, later she could heal that with water like the women of the Northern Tribe did. She’d apologize. But now, she was Southern Water Tribe – she was a forgotten result of the violence of war and she would bring this boy back from the fucking dead.
And she pushed.
There, she introduced herself to his body, his chi, hello, boy, prince, enemy, my friend, there you are—
Push. Pull. Everything was paths and winding trails and she got lost for a moment.
Your heart, I know your heart.
There. She held and pulled meanly, cruelly, with a snap because this jerk had gotten a thank you in and died.
And again, and again and then—
Then his heart was beating. Katara gasped. She drew away from him, backed away on hands and knees like he’d burned her. She could see his chest moving up and down. Slowly, and she could feel the sluggish pace of his blood, reawakened and moving through him.
She felt dizzy and weak, but she’d done it.
“Alive! He’s alive!” Katara snarled over her shoulder where Azula had collapsed against the grate, still weeping.
She’d never tell anyone how she did it. When she repeated the story, and she was asked to repeat it a lot, she told them Zuko must have redirected the lightning enough to stave off most of the damage. All it required was a quick healing on her part. Like she had done with Aang and the Spirit Water.
All lies. She had done the same with Aang, in a way. It had been easier with Aang, though. Perhaps it was the Spirit Water, perhaps it had been the Avatar State he’d been in when the lightning struck that made it so easy, but overall it was certainly bloodbending. Katara just hadn’t known it at the time.
Bloodbending was a thing of desperation.
Katara hadn’t had to focus as much as she had with Zuko. Katara hadn’t gotten lost in Aang’s veins and hadn’t had to find her way, hadn’t wrapped herself around his heart.
There were consequences for wielding that kind of power.
When the Fire Sages and healers tried to take him away from Katara, she went after them all teeth and ice because they were taking something that belonged to her and bloodbending brought out a side of her she couldn’t describe, a mix of possessiveness and feral.
She would always feel that way about Zuko’s heart. She would always feel his heart.
Katara didn’t tell anyone that, either.
—
Sometimes Zuko would wake up while he was recovering and he wouldn’t be wet with just sweat. He would be wet with clean, tepid water. Drenched.
Katara would be curled — well, draped, really — on top of him. Her cheek resting against his stomach and rib cage. One palm flat against his chest, over his heart, the other curled under her chin. She’d be rising and falling with his breathing.
Amidst the pain and fever, he’d marveled at how she looked like she’d positioned herself that way, like she was perfectly comfortable but he knew she must have simply collapsed from exhaustion.
So Zuko kept breathing and Katara kept rising and falling — at home with the rhythm of his body.
—
Zuko saw blue light behind his eyelids. He saw blue light and ribbons and carved shell, brown skin, pink lips and tongue whispering all good things in his dreams.
—
“The others? Is there news?” he managed to ask in a moment of clarity.
“They’re on their way.”
“My father?”
“Defeated, but alive.”
Zuko laughed and it was painful and bitter.
—
Zuko told her he hadn’t even had to consider who he wanted to be by his side at the end. It was always her. He told her that if he’d died, it would have been worth it if it had been for her, with her.
But she was too tired and he was too delirious. The words rose and drifted above them like the summer heat.
—
“Thank you,” he rasped.
“You already said that.”
She raised her hand to touch his face, his scar. Other than Mai, Katara was the only person that touched him there. Katara touched him a lot in general, though, didn’t she? The nerves were dead, burnt away, but he felt the pressure of her fingertips. Mai glanced the scar when they kissed but Katara pressed enough that he could register the pressure against muscle and bone.
“I did the best I could,” she said, sounding aggrieved. “But I have to go.”
Katara stepped up on tip toes and pressed her lips there, right against the mark of his shame and his breath caught. The kiss was featherlight but somehow he felt it more than even her fingers.
He already missed her.
“Thank you.”
She laughed, “You’re welcome.”
Then she was gone, on the back of a sky bison.
Zuko watched until he couldn’t see them anymore. He sighed.
He got to work.
_
Months after, even with Mai in his arms, Zuko would occasionally wake up gasping, afraid, searching. When Mai asked him what he was looking for, he told her he didn’t know. He could never remember.
—
In those early days, after he was crowned, Zuko would have been completely lost if not for the presence of Mai and his Uncle.
During the summer of his return to the Fire Nation after the… Ba Sing Se incident, Zuko had no concept of the political and societal expectations he was now absolutely beholden to.
After the war ended, he still had no idea what he was doing. He’d been banished for years and he fought a war, how the fuck was he going to do this?
Iroh had wisdom and advice in spades. Mai taught him decorum, how to bite his tongue, how to school his reactions.
“My best advice,” she said while smoothing his robes and lifting up her fingers under his chin so he looked head on and not at her. “Feel nothing, know you’re better. Stand straight. Look forward.”
He opened his mouth and she closed it shut. “I know. That’s not where your heart is. You want– you want so much,” she said, stuttered. Mai never stuttered. “Just for now.”
”For how long?”
Mai didn’t answer. She kissed him and he forgot the question.
Zuko and Mai taught each other a lot of things as time and their relationship progressed.
The day after Zuko lost his virginity, he told Uncle that he felt very lucky to have found his true love at such a young age.
The Dragon of the West said, “Ah.”
To which Zuko did not respond, because that could have meant anything or nothing or everything. Still, a part of him was slightly miffed that his declaration did not merit at least some poetically ambiguous stated bit of nonsense. Uncle didn’t even take a knowing sip of his tea.
Ah.
Well, Zuko didn’t care. His mind was filled with images of smooth, pale skin and a long willowy body, black hair, golden eyes, soft moans and demands.
It had all happened so quickly.
He had told Mai, from the literal corner she backed him into that he was an honorable sort of man and that maybe it was best they waited until they were wed t-to engage–
That was as far as Zuko got.
Because this was Mai. She didn’t care for what was expected of her, and when he was with her, he forgot all the expectations, too.
He liked sex, he decided. No, he loved it. Sex was sweat, heavy breathing, and a back and forth mantra of control and release and then it started at his toes and ended somewhere in his heart a slow burning, burning and then exhale.
It was like Firebending, and like his bending, he constantly strove to know it better, to discover all the intricacies.
He loved Mai. The physical intimacy in addition to her support made the first year being Fire Lord bearable.
If anyone asked Mai later, she would take full responsibility for the deterioration of her relationship with Zuko, though that really wasn’t the case and Zuko would admit that to himself later.
He was trying to compartmentalize his relationship from his role as Fire Lord. The future that was laid before them. Mai could counsel Zuko, she could love him, but ultimately she realized that despite her breeding, her knowledge — she would never desire or want the position of Fire Lady. Zuko sensed that and it was why he began to push her away, why he began to keep secrets.
Mai didn’t understand the secret keeping and how tight lipped he was — there was an implied lack of trust and confidence. In the beginning, his uncle didn’t either and was surprised more than hurt.
When he got around to thinking about it after their break-up (and he thought a lot about it) Zuko started to understand some things about himself.
Iroh had been in a dungeon when Zuko confronted his father, and claimed his destiny.
Uncle and Mai hadn’t been there when he bumbled and fucked up trying to convince the collective fate of the whole world he was good — a bunch of dirty teenagers trying to strategize a war and the only hope was putting forward the 13 year old manifestation of god to land the final blow.
When Zuko had danced with the Avatar and the last living dragons — they’d been surrounded and circled by life-giving fire that didn’t destroy. How could Zuko really explain that? Well, yes, Uncle had mentioned it,
(it felt like water, even Aang said so later)
Mai was there for the prison break when he helped the some of the most important people in Sokka’s life— Sokka the master strategist of the fucking war at the age of 16 – escape, and yeah. Yeah. Mai saved them all. She still didn’t get it, though.
She’d been so angry but then, he couldn’t muster up the energy to feel bad about it because he’d watched Sokka melt into his father’s arms. He watched Hakoda let tears run down his face. Zuko still had been of the opinion that grief and love were things he had to be able to control or he was weak weak weak.
He was so jealous.
His journeys with Aang and Zuko had been so important. Regain power together, save people together. Easy. It helped him know what it meant to be good, to understand their perspective.
But Katara
They weren’t there when he saw a girl contort a body with a sickening crunch and fold of muscle and bone with a Waterbending stance that was familiar but twisted and vicious. When she stopped the rain, when she created sharp, jagged ice and aimed to kill a coward— and pulled back, held her element inches from that stupid fucking fool’s throat.
Zuko wondered if his father could have stopped his fire during the Agni Kai, if he’d wanted to. Perhaps paused it mid-strike and let it hover in the air to grant mercy.
No, he couldn’t.
After she threw herself at him and held him and for a moment he felt some modicum of pride.
But Katara.
She’d let him give her revenge, anger, and perhaps some closure. Katara hadn’t asked him to do better, be better.
But I didn’t forgive him. I’ll never forgive him. But I forgive you.
Katara was his greatest reward.
She literally brought him back to life.
Mai didn’t and couldn’t understand the ways he’d changed because of all those experiences and, the restlessness and eagerness, the resounding lack of peace he felt despite winning a war. They loved each other but they weren’t suited. Not anymore. But he would never leave her.
He was stubborn, he was afraid even in the face of every hardship and horror he’d conquered, even with the love of his life by his side.
Zuko felt so lonely sometimes he couldn’t breathe.
Mai knew. So she left him, and it was the cruelest and kindest thing she’d ever done or would do for him.
She broke his heart.
He’d been heartbroken before but this was a physical thing in his chest that was strewn across everything else wrong. Eventually, he consulted healers.
They found nothing wrong, he was in peak condition.
“Would you like another opinion? You’re not well,” his uncle asked with genuine concern.
It infuriated Zuko. His uncle damn well knew it didn’t fucking matter. He wasn’t dying and he had a job to do and this… this pain, this event was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
(blue light, soft voice, firm touch, sweet demands, live zuko, i’ll kill you if you die, your heart is so strong)
He held back tears and stood straight, angled his chin up.
“No.”
And he got to work. Day after day after day after day…
—
Master Pakku spoke very highly of Master Surna. Surna was currently the most lauded Waterbender of the Northern Water Tribe and earlier that morning, he and Zuko met together for a friendly sparring match as a show of goodwill and acceptance between two peoples. Ambassadors belong to both nations sat to spectate and overall, the atmosphere was good.
Truthfully, Zuko had been looking forward to it. It’d been a few months since Mai left him and he’d been feeling restless and desolate. Uncle always told him fighting against ones opposite element was truly an experience, whether they were trying to kill each other or not.
He knew this to be true. Zuko hadn’t engaged a Waterbender since sparring with Katara on Ember Island and there had never been anything comparable. The exhilaration, the decisions he had to make in less than half a second, the problem-solving…
(how she arched her back to avoid his flames, the way her spine curved, brown skin glistening wet under hot fire nation sun)
“You seem disappointed, nephew. I found the match to be quite invigorating, even… steamy!” Uncle cackled.
Zuko cringed. Azula stared at the pond.
They were sitting down for lunch in the usual spot, Zuko’s favorite courtyard. Zuko was sore and his skin was ice-burned in some areas, but otherwise he was fine. Surna had indeed been an extremely worthy opponent and the match had ended in a draw (which really was excellent for diplomatic reasons).
But…
Zuko was angry. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence but he wasn’t sure why he was angry. It was as if he had been slighted in some way. Despite his aching muscles he felt… restless and dissatisfied.
“The young Master Surna is considered a prodigy. Master Pakku’s best student in a decade—” Uncle was saying.
“That’s a lie,” Zuko snarled.
Uncle blinked, tea paused halfway to his lips.
Azula’s head turned slowly and the perpetual fog she seemed to be under cleared. Her eyes were pinned on him now with rare focus.
Zuko knew he’d fucked up. In front of the worst people, too. His fucking family.
“It was fine. He was good, Master Surna— I just—”
He just what?
“I thought,” Zuko cleared his throat. “It would be more exciting to spar with a Waterbender. Like you said before, Uncle–”
Azula smirked. Some part of Zuko rejoiced that she was lucid, but most of him did not because of the cost to him and inwardly he braced himself.
“Zu-Zu, did you think you’d feel the same rush you felt when fighting the peasant girl?”
Zuko’s face went hot.
Oh. Oh.
Was that… why?
(flash of white teeth, something between a grin and a sneer, taunting, bright eyes bluer than the ocean around them narrowed, daring, beckoning)
“Uncle always said sparring with benders of the opposite element felt different.”
“That’s true to an extent—” Uncle began.
“She set the bar for us, didn’t she?” his sister asked. And they both knew the question was rhetorical because she was right. Because of course she was.
“Shall I write that in my next letter to her, Azula?” Zuko snapped.
“Go ahead. I’d enjoy a rematch.”
Uncle set his teacup down with a bit more force than usual. “It is true, there is nothing quite like taking on an opponent of the opposite element and it sounds like you both were blessed to go head to head with a true Master. The best Waterbenders are — imaginative. The element demands it. Perhaps the Northern Water Tribe benders lack a little of this imagination due to—”
“What Uncle is saying is the the North is composed of stubborn, stupid men and you and I got a taste of something better, brother. You didn’t realize?”
“Indeed, Princess Azula,” Uncle said. “I am told Master Katara is without parallel.”
(come on, zuko, you can do better than that, and she summoned waves that towered above them both, and the droplets around them sparkled in the sunlight and against his element)
Now Azula was staring at the pond again.
And Uncle was staring at Zuko with an expression that never boded well.
“What?”
“Drink your tea. You’ll enjoy this blend.”
Then they said nothing more.
—
He wished his friends were able to write to him more.
At first Aang’s letters were in Katara’s handwriting and were perfunctory, an impersonal recitation of present and future endeavors. Then eventually he received hurried letters atrociously written. Zuko would get a quick glimpse, a moment from Aang. Something he’d seen or done that wasn't important in the least from a diplomatic perspective but Zuko enjoyed them.
Toph sent him letters, brief, clearly dictated but she’d add her own flourish – a smudgy fingerprint on a scroll, a sachet with pieces of metal and rock bent into little sculptures of flowers and shapes and animals, occasionally actual piles of dirt, sand, gravel.
Katara’s letters said very little but she always asked after him in earnest and they were more of a reply to him, and she always signed them off as “Yours, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe”
Sokka’s letters were his favorite. They were the longest and most detailed. Sokka tended to ramble and he wrote exactly as he was in person — arrogant, panicked, and occasionally rife with observations and wisdom that took Zuko off guard.
It’s cold in the South Pole. You remember? Yeah, you do. You and your dumb hair and ragged ship. I miss the Fire Nation sometimes. For the heat.
You know that makes me think of Black Sun. I was underground trying to find your dad’s stupid bunker. Katara was above ground. She was weird when I asked about how it felt. Dad, everyone, said it got colder. She said it got warmer because the sun was at her back.
I think sometimes we should have done a test, to see what Waterbending was like, if we had more time – but all we had was Katara. I wonder if she could have taken out Azula then… because she did in the end, didn’t she?
But then again, she had you — like she had the sun at her back, like Katara eclipsed you. HA. That’s good. Did you know I crashed a poetry class in Ba Sing Se—
—
When delegates of the Southern Water Tribe visited the Fire Nation Capital more than a year after their departure, Zuko was more than prepared to receive them, even if he was screaming inside.
However, the screaming stopped when he saw a grinning (taller, broader, the worst beginnings of a beard) Sokka. It stopped when he saw a beaming Katara (who looked… different but he’d think about that later). The siblings ran to him and engulfed him in hugs and laughter while his court officials looked on in slight horror as their Lord acted his age.
He hadn’t seen his friends in a year and he was happy. Sort of.
When conferences were over and tours were finished and politicians were satisfied (as much as they could be), Zuko invited the Southern Water Tribespeople to let loose and relax under his care and gold coin for a few days. The Fire Lord learned very quickly that the people of the Moon knew how to enjoy themselves.
Immensely, and with lots and lots of damn liquor.
Sokka cheered as Zuko knocked back another shot of something that only “real men” could handle.
He was drunk, very drunk, more drunk than he’d ever been in his life and Sokka was drunker. They were lounging on the Fire Lord’s dais behind all that fire because Sokka wanted to “know what it was like” and Zuko knew his forefathers were somewhere cursing him from the Spirit realm, but he was far beyond caring.
“I’m carving an engagement necklace for Suki,” Sokka slurred after his next shot. “And I keep messing up and starting over.”
“Tha–“
“And it’s not even because I really mess up. It’s because I’m afraid to finish.”
Zuko waited.
“Kyoshi Warriors don’t marry,” And Sokka grinned because that’s what Sokka did. “And I’m...”
He paused.
“The fortune teller said my life would be full of despair and anguish. Self-inflicted. But, hey. I don’t believe in that crap.”
“Good.”
“But I’m carving this necklace and I’m probably going to ask her and she’s so good and she believes in her way of life and I’ll be putting her in this position where she has to choose, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, me too. I know this and I know it’s not fair, I know these things, because I’m not stupid, man. I’m kinda smart with all the planning and strategy and I know these things sometimes but I go through it anyway.
“Sokka–“
“I love her.”
The pair fell quiet, and Sokka shook his head quickly, rubbed his forehead, swiping away sweat and serious things. He stood on wobbly legs and… immediately fell, right through the fire wall, and onto the marble floor below the pedestal.
Zuko parted the fire and stumbled and kinda did a hop jump thing and landed next to his friend
“Sokka!”
And Sokka rolled onto his back and sat up.
“Am I on fire?”
Zuko checked. “No.”
“You’re wrong. I am so on fire.”
—
Later, but not much later, after Zuko dropped Sokka into a bed, he wandered through the palace, head spinning from the alcohol. Sleep was probably a good idea but his drunken mind was focused on heartbreak and such. He found his way back to the throne room.
Zuko was quickly coming to the conclusion that being so in love was inevitably a disastrous thing and he wished he had told Sokka that he too felt doomed by his actions and the things beyond his control. Zuko felt that there was no escaping Mai’s hold over him and he would forever be troubled by his desire for the girl. He was a ruined man.
Zuko watched the wall of fire as he stood before his throne.
The rest of his life, where he was meant to be. His throat felt tight, his eyes welled up and burned—
“Zuko.”
He whirled around and there she was.
“Hey, Katara.”
He turned his back on his throne and moved toward her. The flickering shadows here did fascinating things to her features. Katara said nothing for a moment. She was watching him as if considering something.
“Zuko,” she whispered. “Why are you so sad?”
He halted mid-step and swallowed. He hadn’t spoken about this with anyone, hadn’t wanted to. But—
“Mai– we’re not together anymore, she didn’t want this life and I— I love her and I’m…”
He didn’t know what to say but it didn’t matter, it never did as far as Katara was concerned. She made a humming noise, a little sound that said it all.
She held out her hand to him. He took it without hesitation. Katara’s hands were even more calloused than his, somehow, and they were always cold. He knew these hands well, knew what they could do. He remembered fleetingly the way she slept against him, and he'd never felt safer. For a moment, he wanted her to hold him. His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist and there she was impossibly soft and warm.
What the fuck – stop, Zuko.
She put her other hand on his chest. Katara let out a breathy sigh. “Oh, Zuko. I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t sure what just happened then, but it felt like his heart skipped a beat, then two and he felt warm and suffused with a sort of languidness that he thought only existed in dreams and hallucinations.
“I’m really drunk,” he blurted.
Katara smiled softly. “Then let's get you to bed.”
She tugged him forward and he followed.
— The following day, while he, Sokka, and Hakoda nursed hangovers during a meeting with his council and several other ambassadors, Katara took the helm.
Hakoda was a well-spoken man but he was brash, equipped for war. Sokka had excellent ideas but communicating them tumbled out of his mouth as word vomit and twitchy movements, which was hilarious while being somewhat alarming in the manic delivery.
But Katara — she was all bright smiles, hands moving, seemingly bending the words that left her mouth. Katara was gentle, firm and managed to wheel and deal a fair trade agreement while her father, brother, and the literal fucking leader of the empire they sat in looked at her like she was the best thing that had ever happened.
Later they lounged in the courtyard and she idly drew water from the pond and made it snow on him until he whined at her to stop while patting down his robes.
She giggled and the sound was so sweet, he almost told her she could bury him in snow.
Ridiculous.
“Katara… you did well today. In the meeting.”
“Mm? I was just talking.”
“You’re never just talking.”
Katara huffed a laugh and sat up on the grass. “What does that mean?”
Zuko looked away from her and felt a blush blossoming on his face unbidden. “Your words have weight.”
She sighed. “With my father and brother at my side, or, well… when I’m at their side, my words carry more weight, they look like leaders. But I’m better…”
Katara stroked the grass. “It’s frustrating.”
“Would you consider taking up the role as an official ambassador for m– for your Tribe and the Fire Nation?”
Well, he wasn’t exactly sure where that came from but he was immediately pleased with the idea. She would be so good.
Her eyes widened.
He spoke at a rapid pace. “There would be some, er, education. You would have to make your home here for a majority of the year—and well, I’m not sure Aang would—”
“Where is this coming from?” (Zuko sighed inwardly) ”I’m only sixteen, I can’t—”
He scoffed. “And I’m only eighteen and Aang is only fourteen—”
“We’re too young for this, you know that, don’t you?”
“We weren’t given a choice,” Zuko said.
“Your council won’t want me, not as the Southern Tribe is now and well, not as who I am now…” Suddenly she looked so defeated.
She wasn’t wrong and he inwardly winced but he was Fire Lord, wasn’t he? He could decide.
“But, perhaps in the future. I have work to do, and Sokka needs support… but I want to. I really want to. I’ve been feeling — well never mind. So, ask me again in a year or two? Assuming you still want me then. You’ll be a full fledged Fire Lord, you’re already doing so well.”
“Deal,” he said, aiming for nonchalant but inwardly he was screaming and now it had nothing to do with Mai or despair.
Later, when he was in his bed and the full moon shown through and lapped at his skin, bright enough that whenever he closed his eyes, he could see the light, it would occur to him that Katara was unsure and aimless. And what a shame, what a fucking tragedy that she would ever feel that way when she was meant to take things in her hands and mold, bend, shape and thrust them forward. Uncle said water was passive, a response, and Katara was all of that but her response was also a great wave with claws of foam and force.
—
As their ship sailed away, Zuko hated seeing them go. She’d be back, though. He’d never been more certain of anything.
—
Mai had gifted her cousin post break-up. She wrote in a letter that he would provide Zuko all sorts of advice and came with an impressive pedigree.
Mai wasn’t wrong about her cousin, but he wasn’t a gift. He was abject punishment.
What’s your name?
Xi.
Xi?
Yeah, Xi. Here is the scroll with my credentials. I am here to serve. Mai said I’d be helpful.
Why?
Because I know more than you. And why not?
I–
Mai had the way of it, but she didn’t want to be Fire Lady. She sent me to you because apparently you require a lot of poking, you need someone who understands you. I don’t understand you.
Then…
But I know this world. The one you lost out on being banished. I can help. The understanding will come later.
Fine.
—
Zuko, his uncle, and procession traveled to Omashu for the third anniversary of the defeat of his father.
Xi, who had never traveled outside the Fire Nation or had even ventured to the colonies, was insufferably excited. Uncle reveled in it and they were both terrible. If Xi said “Are we there yet!” one more fucking time...
Zuko was also excited but he was keeping it together. Barely. They’d all be reunited here for the first time since the war ended. It’d been a year since he’d seen Sokka and Katara, a few months since he’d seen Toph and Aang. Suki was a frequent feature in his life since the Kyoshi Warriors became his bodyguards and would rotate out with the other warriors every other month or so. The assassination attempts were less frequent, which was nice, to say the least.
Sokka still hadn’t proposed to her. Zuko didn’t know what that meant and he was too afraid to ask.
Incidentally, Zuko was told Emperor Bumi wanted to “go all out” and Uncle appeared nervous, which was saying something.
—
When they exited the air balloon, there was Katara along with a few Earth Nation delegates. and she was different. Again. More… different…ish, anyway. Fuck. She threw herself on him and the curves, the angles, the fucking feel of her was even better, too much. He was absolutely flustered.
Zuko introduced her to Xi and she smiled at him and the idiot went such a bright fucking red, Zuko felt better about his response. Sort of. Not really.
Katara was…
Are all Southern Water Tribe girls like that… do they look like that?
Shut up, Xi.
No, seriously. Because I—
Shut the fuck up, Xi.
Katara was Katara.
—
It was a hedonistic shit show of epic proportions. Bumi was fucking insane. He knew that, in theory, but he’d never borne witness to it.
No one was safe and once again, Zuko found himself absolutely obliterated with Sokka. Except this time an equally drunk Toph was laid out next to them. They were all resting on their backs on a grassy knoll in one of the up high terraces of Bumi’s palace, stargazing, enjoying each other.
“Are Aang and Katara… not together?” Zuko blurted out of fucking nowhere.
But it wasn’t out of nowhere. He’d just assumed they were together because, well, wasn’t that how it was supposed to go? Aang made his affections no secret. Aang and Katata: meant to be.
Seeing them today, though, they gave no indication that they were involved romantically. They were friendly. Zuko hadn’t sensed any tension.
Toph hummed. Her hands were crossed behind her head and her eyes were closed but Zuko imagined she did her own stargazing. He liked to think that she could feel stars colliding from millions of miles away.
“Why do you ask, Sparky?”
“Just curious.”
“Not a lie, not a truth.”
Oh.
Before he could formulate a response, Sokka turned on his side and peered at Zuko.
“Katara didn’t feel the way Aang felt about her,” he said. “I think she did, maybe, or she could have? But something changed. Broke Aang but he’ll be fine.”
Zuko wasn’t quite sure how he felt about this news.
“Oh— no one mentioned—”
Sokka plopped back on his back. “Love is fucked.”
“Sokka—” Zuko began
“Don’t want to talk about it!” Sokka sang. “La la la!”
Toph moved an arm through the grass and punched Sokka’s shoulder and then patted him — her ultimate form of reassurance for something she didn’t quite understand.
It worked. The warrior sighed gustily and echoed the words of his sister, “We’re all too young.”
“I’m never getting married,” Toph announced. “I think I’d like falling in love, though. Just to see what it’s like. Maybe a kid or two, to see what that’s like, too.”
Zuko snorted. “Just for the experience, huh?”
“Yup!”
A comfortable silence and then, “It’ll be okay, guys,” Toph said quietly.
Zuko believed her.
— Zuko dumped Sokka and Toph in their respective beds.
There should probably be some serious discussion about drunkenness and the perils of alcohol if every get-together was going to be like this. It was never a bad time, though.
He meandered along and tried to remember the last time he slept well.
(she was draped over him and water water everywhere)
Zuko came across a cackling Bumi with his arm slung over Uncle’s shoulders. They were both flushed and swaying.
“Zuko!” Uncle crowed. “So good to see you!”
“An auspicious occasion, young man!” Bumi croaked.
“What.” Zuko said.
“I think you’ll find the east terrace quite nice,” Iroh said.
“An excellent water feature, a waterfall, greenery, GREEN. Earth. Flopsie loves it. I commissioned it for Flopsie, you know. ”
“Agreed, excellent waterfall.”
“…Okay?”
They stumbled past him and Zuko felt a bit of stone push up agains his heel and pushed him forward.
—
She told them after dinner that she was going to retire for the night. Sokka teased her for not being able to handle her liquor well and she stuck her tongue out at him, grabbed a bottle of rice wine from the table, and left.
But she wasn’t in bed.
Katara was stripped down to her sarashi, wading in the middle of the aforementioned “water feature.”
He’d been witness to both Northern and Southern Tribe variants of Waterbending and combat. Zuko took his Uncle’s words to heart about understanding every style, every element.
As a weapon.
Zuko shut his eyes.
Iroh had known, of course. His nephew was inherently tactile, his nature was curious and gentle. Zuko ran fingertips over tall blades of grass, through black sand, against his mother’s sleeves while he trailed after her.
Fire was an element not meant to be touched.
He opened his eyes.
Katara was dancing to a song he couldn’t hear. Her element wrapped ribbons around her and she fucking touched. She was gyrating, undulating. There was enough moonlight that he could see fingertips surrounded by water starting at her naval. She traced them up and wet the white binding covering her breasts and it became transparent – he could see outline of areolas and peaked nipples and he needed to look away and this wasn’t fucking fair.
Waterbending is a suggestion, not a demand. The bender guides their opponent and uses their momentum against them. If they can capitalize on this, that’s when they strike. The best Waterbenders always make the most sly suggestion. Are you listening, Fire Prince?
Her fingers were to her collarbones now, her neck, jaw. She slid the backs of her hands over the sides of her face, past her temples and she stretched her arms into the air, toward her Tui, Yuei, moon and the water rose up and up. Katara moved achingly slow, and while they were simply stargazing earlier, she was touching with eager hands where stardust and wishes disappeared.
Katara moved like…
It was like sex.
Then she started over again.
Zuko had known, hadn’t he? He’d always known that Katara was beautiful. But before beautiful, she was enemy. And then, she was comrade, friend, master bender, the Avatar’s sifu and love interest, compassionate, powerful, bitter, the first person to touch his scar since his uncle grazed it with his thumb after it was newly healed, savior, giver, sister.
Not in that order.
She was these things and more and the adjectives created a wall and it simply never occurred to him to let these things fall away and see something more visceral.
Here it was.
He needed to go. Zuko could blame this on alcohol later.
She spun, and dipped even lower and rose, arching her back, and she turned her head and spotted him.
He stood still and he expected her to scream and haul all the water at him and freeze him against a pillar like before and he would have welcomed the ice because he felt so hot.
But none of that happened.
Zuko felt a soreness in his chest that he thought long gone.
“Hey,” she said. The water she was bending dropped like silk, quiet and soft.
“Hey,” he replied.
She was smiling and tilting her head. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
It was strange how she stepped out of the water. It was sort of like she was ascending — she was submerged and then she wasn’t while water rippled and lapped at her ankles. Then she was in front of him.
“A bit. How are you?”
She reached out. She always did that. He caught her wrist and she looked confused because he always let Katara touch him
“Look–”
Katara broke away from his grip and threw her arms around his torso, pressing him close.
“Every time I see you, you’re sad,” she murmured against his chest.
He— he held her. She leaned back and looked at him, searching.
“Katara…”
Then she pinched the lobe of his good ear and laughed when he winced, she leaned forward again and kissed the place right underneath his bad eye, right against his scar with pressure he could feel. She spun away from his arms.
“Come play with me!” she yelled, splashing into the water.
He shouldn’t.
“Zuko!”
A tendril of water caught him and Zuko fell in.
—
He was fine. Everything was fine.
Zuko hugged everyone goodbye. No, he did not linger with Katara, no matter what Xi said.
—
Zuko wanted.
He had to admit it. Just – once. A little.
Agni, he fucking wanted.
He’d go to his knees for her. Press his mouth against her naval and she would let him. She’d run her hands through his hair. She’d clutch and he’d press. Zuko wanted to leave bruises — a part of him railed against it, the idea of hurting her, but most of him wanted to mark her.
“Katara.”
Zuko needed.
“Katara, please.”
She flipped them over, so strong. She rose above him, had him on his back. Had his cock nestled between her legs, sliding against her cunt, lips wet and he didn’t deserve to be inside —
Zuko sat up, cupped her throat, brushed fingers against her jaw, splayed his other hand through her curls and gripped hard. “Is this what you want?”
She mewled.
“Come play with me.”
Zuko woke up.
—
Fuck.
—