A/N: Hello everyone! I'm very excited to finally get this first chapter out, and many are soon to follow. This story is going to be an unconventional take on the Zutara/Kataang shipping. BUT: This is going to be a slow burn; I want to characters and relationships to build naturally, so to get to the good stuff (*wink wink*) you're going to have be in for the long haul! But I'll keep it exciting along the way, I promise. This chapter falls on the short side as well. I gave this an 'M' rating for future smutty goodness and possible (probable) future violence.
I do not own anything involving the incredible Avatar: The Last Airbender, but Bryke told me this story is pretty much canon. ;);)
Three Will Make the Perfect Pair
Wrapped in Yellow, Pretend it's Gold
76.
The number sneaked itself into Katara's daydreams, and once it presented itself, she was fixated. 76 days since the end of the 100-year war. She didn't necessarily like that she was keeping count, but there has yet to be a day when the mental tick hasn't popped into her head.
Trying to force her mind into wondering, she fluttered her eyes over the array of flowers that engulfed her. The garden was like a living fire pit, hundreds of flowers shimmering in an ombre of blood reds, to ripe oranges, to orchids that could have been mended out of gold. Katara wondered if she ever appreciated the garden before as anything more then the Fire Nations' plot for flowers.
The water bender leaned against a tree, exhausted.
"I'm slipping," she sighed heavily to herself. Thinking back through the previous 76 days, she tried to piece together all the details from every meeting in every nation. She held her head in her hands as her mind grew heavy, overwhelmed by the different narratives.
Some villages seek punishment, some need money, and some hardly have a town to speak of. So many requests, demands, needs, all running together in an indistinguishable slur. Overwhelmed, she closed her eyes, and behind the black drapes of her eyelids, she imagined snow blocks and people dressed in fur.
At least Gran-Gran has Sokka now, Katara reminded herself. She only spent three days with her grandmother before being whisked away to another crisis. She thought back to the brief time before after the war ended, when everyone was in one place, living together. She realized now how naive it was of her to believe it would stay that way.
Katara glanced at the palace in front of her, the gold and red paint dancing in the sun. Her whole life she feared and hated this very palace but now, it's the closest thing she has to a permanent residence. She and Aang even have their own suite, since their visits have become so frequent.
Katara sighed deeply remembering the room they have yet to share together. He left so quickly, hardly giving her a chance to say good-bye.
The chords of a soft, deep whistle slowly came around the distant bend, and Katara stood up straighter and smiled with pure delight. As her lips grew, a small but steady stream of guilt pressed on in her mind. But as the whistling man got closer, her negative warnings were flooded over by her present excitement.
"Oh, could my eyes be deceiving me? No, this cannot be, this honor is too great!" Katara sarcastically flung her arms over her head as she spun around to face her friend. Zuko gave a half smirk as he sauntered towards her. His lack of amusement had her crack-up and the Fire Lord's smile grew genuine.
"Was that entrance really necessary?" Zuko tried to mumble to upkeep his Fire Lord facade, but his soft chuckle betrayed him. Once again, he could feel the aches of responsibility and authority melt away, and what was left was just, Zuko. She always brings me back.
Now relaxed, Zuko caught up to her before they continued walking through the Palace's flower garden. "Was it necessary to schedule five ambassador meetings in one day?" Katara crossed her tan arms, "I highly doubt it. I think you can put up with a little bit of my 'dramatizations'." Katara glared over at the fire bender, but grew distracted by the tall bush dusted in plain yellow flowers behind him. The most beautiful ones, the ones that glittered and danced amongst the stale leaves, were the closest to his eyes; as if his golden slivers whispered the secretes of how to be so damningly piercing...
"They're pretty, I guess," his voice cut through her thoughts and she shook her head to regain focus. "Assuming that's what you where staring at..." Zuko held his chin and smiled, purposely appearing egotistical.
"Could you be any more vain?" Katara nudged the fire bender out of his pose and giggled as the mighty Fire Lord struggled to regain his balance.
"Well, as I was saying before you so rudely decided to space off," he paused to hear the chime of Katara's laugh, "I was explaining that I got up two hours before you, and will most likely go to sleep two hours later then you." The stone bench ahead appeared ever more enticing, and the waterbender quickly followed his lead and sat down. "And this kind of work requires long days and sleepless nights... this is a permanent schedule. My permanent schedule. I'll never get any real time away from it all... not that I'm complaining!" Zuko rushed, realizing he probably came off as whiny, and quickly covered his tracks. "This is my destiny, this is who I am... I need this. It's just," he paused and glanced at the water bender, draped in orange and yellow and her blue eyes staring kindly at him. Seeing him... too much of him.
"At least you'll be relieved of your duties soon!" His voice snapped as he looked down at his feet.
"You didn't have to take the job, you could quit any time-" Katara quickly regretted not speaking in thicker sarcasm, but her brother's gift for the banter hasn't quite rubbed off on her.
"Now you and I both know why that's not true," Zuko scoffed as he starred at his shoes, twisting his thumb as his face grew red. "You honestly think this was something I could turn down? It's not like this position has a lot of candidates, and you know that." His damn temper seeped out again, and when he faced Katara, her small smile was strained against her cheeks. Her eyes began to subtly fill, and she glanced away, pretending to admire the trees across the path.
Zuko was brought back to a ghostly memory of the similar strong, silent pain his own mother would display when she had to pretend to be content around him. And with the parallels, so clearly set in his mind's eye, the waterbender resembled a beauty he thought has long abandoned him.
With a cautious approach, he set his hand on her shoulder. Katara shuttered, slightly startled by his touch.
"I know its been a hard transition for you," Zuko tired to comfort her. And for a moment, she was. "But I hope you feel better knowing it's only temporary." Katara kept eye contact with him, although her smile faded. "Honestly, sometimes I wish I could take your place,"
"Why?" Katara abruptly stood up, letting Zuko's hand fall to the stone seat. "You honestly believe that being an ambassador for abolished air nomads is such an easy task?" Kataras' eyebrows forged together in piercing rage. "Well, probably for you oh Great and Powerful Firelord Zuk-"
"I'm not saying it's easy," the firebender mumbled looking down at his feet, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm simply saying," his voice grew louder in octaves of anger, "that compared to being the ruler of a nation everyone hates and distrusts for the rest of my life, a month as an ambassador doesn't sound that bad!" Katara slapped him with enough force to leave his cheek as red as the scar above it.
For a moment, only Katara's heavy, angry breathing encapsulated him, blurring his senses. He starred into her fierce eyes, unapologetic for her actions. It was moments like these, when she was livid with righteous anger, that all resemblance of a young girl vanished, and what was left was beautiful, despite being annoyingly virtuous. The sting of her slap began to soften and he could convince himself it was the remaining prickles of her lips or her bite.
The silence broke when her voice strained. "At least you know the best interest for your own people! At least, you know their culture! Their own history!" Zuko stood silently. Droplets formed in her eyes as her body trembled. "I am not an air bender! I have no right to be making such... important decisions! I- I don't know what I'm doing," It's a rare sight, Zuko thought carefully, to be a witness when she's so frightened.
"Then you shouldn't have to." Zuko's bluntness pushed Katara's eyebrows together and her body regained stillness.
"Of course I have to! Aang asked me, no, pleaded with me..."
"Well maybe Aang's wrong." Zuko and Katara stood in silence, both suddenly warm, with locked jaws. The water bender realized she was in a fighting stance, and crossed her arms back in front of her, but turned slightly away from Zuko.
"Aang's not wrong." Her tone was scolding, like the death threats she use to give. But now he's not begging for her approval, or looking for a fight.
"You believe that, because he's the Avatar-" Katara quickly spinned around to face him.
"Don't you dare play that card Zuko!"
"Or maybe it's because he's your boyfriend! I don't -"
"So you don't think I can't make decisions for myself?" Katara stepped forward. Her fingertips could feel the water pulsating throughout the foliage.
"No!" Zuko's eyes bulged as he threw his hands forward. "That's the thing, I know you can! Aang's my greatest ally, not to mention my closest friend. I know the kind of… influence he can have on someone."
"Ha!" Katara shrieked as her arms flew above her. "These are sky bison Zuko! Do you not realize what this means?" Katara knew she was beginning to sound hysterical, but she continued, creeping closer to the firebender. "If the rumor is true, and there really are sky bison, who's to say there aren't more air benders? And you would drop everything too if you found out there were a colony of dragons!"
"Unless I had other, more important, world-building projects to do!" Zuko inched forward, the two were only a handshake apart. "And if I had someone who was smart, and capable, and who I trusted enough to let them be the ambassador of my own nation, I think... I think I could let them go off on their own and confirm if there are in fact any sky bison."
Katara's eyes suddenly welled with tears again, and her palms she shoved the firebender away from her.
"What are you trying to say Zuko?" Katara heaved staggered breaths as water automatically started forming around her hands.
"AANG MADE THE WRONG CALL!" Zuko strode up to her face, with furious eyes. Her hands lifted higher towards him, ready to dual. Fire coursed through his veins, fighting her was engraved into his muscles, he's become so familiar with this scene. But the warm energy pulsating through him began to trickle down below his belly button, tinkering with his dormant organ. His fighting strategy was bombarded with the phantom sensation of her fingers gripping his hair, biting his cheekbone-
Zuko sighed heavily, softening his stance, trying to clear his head. He wasn't going to let this stupid fantasy distract him from the issue at hand. But the warmth surging below his belt was concerning.
"I've heard you've been struggling to make the right decision, or just any decisions during the ambassador meetings. You're trying to rebuild a world and you're not even sure what's it's suppose to look like. I get it Katara," her face was still hardened in anger, as well as her raised fists gloved in water. Zuko grabbed her hands and the liquid splashed onto their feet. Slowly, he brought her hands closer to his jaw.
"So I don't know why the one guy who knows everything about this, who could really be needed, has left you here to make all the decisions," her fingers were now curled under his chin. She stared at him coldly, but the smooth spot under his jaw was distracting. "I don't think it's right Katara."
The firebender slowly slipped her index finger in between his thin lips. He noticed her own lips part and her eyes fixated on his mouth. He softened his grip, and her finger stayed put in him. Hesitantly, she inched her digit farther past the brims of his lips, scathing against his teeth and into the depths of his cavity. Her fingertip, moist and filled with foreign electricity, pressed its fingernail into his tongue, though in return it would smack her salty digit away with wet shoves . His lower member hardened as his eyes focused on her own blue orbs, then the silky tan skin that curved down her neck until it's hidden under her robes, that fluctuated from her breasts' staggered breathing. His tongue then flicked about the tip of her finger, and wrapped itself around her index in wet circles. Katara's mouth dropped and her chest seized up as she regretted every flicker of warmth that was building between her thighs.
The breathless gasp he drew out of her fostered the forgotten memory of his giggling tattooed friend waving good-bye only a week before. Despite his better, or rather, idiotic judgment, Zuko dragged her tanned skin out of his mouth and placed the pad of her finger on his lower lip. The pain and relief in her eyes was suffocating.
"I'm sorry," he let go of her and turned away from the mute waterbender. They stood in a silence that lacked the previous energy. "I'm sorry. I wish I could... save you, from the hardship-"
A metal whip slashed his arm, and Zuko plummeted to the ground. Katara and a large stream of floating water towered above him.
"I don't need you to save me. In fact, I don't want you to." Katara let the water crash down as she began to walk away with heavy strides.
"He won't be back for at least a month," Zuko shouted at her as he struggled to pull himself off the ground. "It's not going to get any easier!" Katara stopped walking but refused to turn around. "I know I'm not him, but my door is always open. If you need help," He mumbled to himself as he began to rise from the ground, "Help with the meetings, of course." Katara listened as the disgruntled firebender walked away, and waited until the sound of his footsteps vanished. She stood against the hallow breeze, trying to undo the connections Zuko has wired for her.
She once again passed the tall bush with the plain yellow flowers. They truly couldn't shine on their own.
Katara's hands flung up in front of her and her fingertips bent the moisture out of the yellow petals. The flowers hung, cracked and dried, and Katara swung her heal with brute force on the bush. The plant now stood bare and limp, and Katara starred at the withered petals on the soil. She shook her head, and continued her path to the palace.