A/N: I originally intended this to be a long one-shot, but then decided to split it up a bit, to make a multi-chaptered thingymabob. It's based off the Season Finale, so beware of abundant spoilers. It takes place in the post-war era, too, so you know. And it's also my first attempt at writing actual Zutara-centric stuff rather than just Zutara-subplot stuff for quite a while.
Disclaimer: Well, given that this is fanfiction and I am using the characters and setting from an animated television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, is it right to say that I own none of the literary, artistic, and dramatic genius (and resulting creations) of Mike DiMartino and Bryan Koneitzko? …I thought so.
Imprisonment
Part One:
Pacing, Traveling
The cell is small, about five paces in length and four in width; its walls are a dark black impenetrable metal, too durable to simply be melted away with fire. The only thing that connects the interior of the room and, conjunctively, its prisoner to the outside world, is the door. A door of the same metal as the walls, hinges on the outsides so that it might not be broken down, with a barred window the size of the prisoner's head. It is large enough so that he might glance down the hallway some distance if he ever hears footsteps ringing in the corridor outside his cell; but even against the door, his field of vision isn't that much.
From what he can see through the window, and from the thick, lingering silence he hears in the place, he is led to believe that there is no one imprisoned close to him. He wonders if he is the only one to be jailed in this place; but surely his sister has been locked up and put behind bars as well. Or maybe she's just being held somewhere else with more security, because she's more of a threat to the world. Perhaps he is just so insignificant that his jailers decided to lock him up in an abandoned prison and let him starve, leaving his body to rot throughout the ages.
He's not quite sure where is, but he doesn't really care about his exact location, either. All he knows is that he has enemies, and they have triumphed over him. He has failed for the last time. His life is lost; his existence is without purpose. All he can remember is something about the final battle: the solar eclipse and the comet arriving at once, so that the Firebenders are at their most powerful and their weakest; the death of his father; the wrath of the Avatar State gone crazed; the slaughter caused by Azula; her capture as the power of the comet faded; Uncle, beloved Uncle, as he was lost from Zuko's sight in the fighting; a thud on the back of his neck and then the recollection of nothing afterwards.
He is unsure how long he has been unconscious, or what has happened exactly besides his obvious removal from the battlefield and his imprisonment. No one has spoken to him; no one but guards have come to his cell, and he refuses to eat the food that has been brought. He is alone, alone, alone, more alone than when he betrayed Iroh, more alone than when he left Azula, more alone than when the Avatar rejected him completely, vowing to kill him if he tried to come in contact with his small posse.
Empty, lost, without purpose, without emotion, utterly abandoned and alone, the broken Prince of the Fire Nation sits in his cell and stares vacantly at the metal walls that surround him. And, even as his heart tells him to have hope, he waits for death to snatch him up in its greedy grasp.
--
She is so consumed with sorrow that she has run out of tears; her losses are great, her grief greater, and her strength greatest. Refusing to cry ceaselessly in public, she shows almost no feeling. Her reputation and position is highly regarded and respected. People and soldiers who fought in the final battle (and lived) offer her their greatest condolences. The Earth King and the Council of Five are kind to her, gifting to her a separate, private apartment with lavish décor and enough space to house a family of six. They spend vast amounts of money on the funerals and memorial services of all those close to her, and not just the Avatar. Each of the deceased is honored with the most traditional, most revered way.
Toph, the blind Bei Fong girl, perhaps the greatest Earthbender to have ever walked the earth, is preserved with the finest balms and adorned in the clothing of a Queen. She is buried alongside the Earth Kings, confirming her forever as a near, if not total, goddess (1).
Sokka, the warrior youth of the Southern Tribe, her brother, son of Chief Hakoda, is dealt with in the proper, most formal way as well. His body is preserved like Toph's. The corpse is placed in a richly decorated Earth Kingdom gondola and is set out to sea from the northernmost tip of Kyoshi Island.
Hakoda, Chief of the Southern Tribe, her father, is blessed and revered the same way his son is. His body is preserved and is placed in a gondola alongside his son's. The father and son duo sail away on one last trip, one more sea expedition. Except this time, the destination is a far more surreal place, and they won't be coming back: the Spirit World calls.
Appa and Momo, the loyal pets and animal guides of the Avatar, are written about in many epic poems; murals painted on the walls of the Earth Palace and all along the inner walls of Ba Sing Se insure that the two will always be remembered, as long as the Impenetrable City stands. The two animals are cremated and their ashes are distributed around a garden stretching along the wall that contains the Upper Ring; the flowers that bloom there are spread across the Eastern and Southern Air Temples. The petals of the flowers that bloom will be tossed into the wind from atop the highest spire of each of the Temples, scattering them across the encompassing mountain ranges.
Aang, the Avatar and the last Airbender to live, is dealt with in the most formal way of all. Earthbenders raise a rock at the site of his death in the Fire Nation capital as well as the center of Ba Sing Se. The two giant rock formations bear half of an epic yet simple epitaph on them. On the Eastern memorial in the Fire Nation, the characters read: Avatar Aang, the last Airbender, ended a terrible war and died at this very site. On the Western Memorial in Ba Sing Se, the characters read: Monk Aang, the only remnant of the Air Nomad peoples, gave the world hope and will be remembered forever in our hearts. His body is blessed and preserved, and then cremated in traditional Fire Nation ceremony. His ashes are let loose in the wind, where they fly off to the mountaintops and down to the ocean and away to the most far reaches of the world, soaring freely in the great expanse of sky.
Their funerals and celebrations-of-life ceremonies are grouped closely together; they take place all within a month of each other's occurrence. They are tiring to her body and wearying to her soul; for so many have died, and the never-ending condolences only serve as a constant reminder of their deaths. Katara has run out of tears to cry, run out of grief to sow, run out of the endless remorse she thought she had. She has run out of a lot of things within the past month, and tears and grief are but minor losses in comparison to the other essential things now missing from her soul.
She feels as though she has no one left, for there is no family left whom she's been familiar with for the better part of a year. Her friends made along her journey before the last battle are kind, but they have their own sorrow to partake in, their own problems to fret over. Her mind wanders and wanders for a solution; she knows of one who is still yet alive, one who, for a brief time she had trusted, for a brief time, might have been a close friend.
But the past is the past, and that cannot be changed. She only has the future to change. And, though the past may be the past, potential is still potential. She had seen the goodness in his heart, thought he had changed, and was stricken with sadness when he betrayed his own goodness, his own heart.
The past is the past, and the past is in the past. This is here, now, when a war does not separate them and a best friend does not try to stop her rash decisions. Her heart yearns for someone to share her hollowed days with; and so she turns to the only one she has left: Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, Heir to the Throne, who lies broken and alone in a cold, long forgotten prison.
--
It is difficult to locate exactly where the Prince is. She knows vaguely that he had been imprisoned in a nondescript place in the Earth Kingdom after the final battle, separated from his sister and taken out of his homeland, the Fire Nation. Using her respected position and personal favors from the Earth King and, additionally, the Council of Five, someone finally tells her where she might find who she seeks. He is being held just out of Ba Sing Se in a small prison that hasn't been used for many, many years, guarded by an undersized group of Earthbenders, and paid absolutely no attention. She hopes he is being fed, but the thought escapes her as the train she is riding in pulls through the outer wall of Ba Sing Se; she experiences an instant relief, a sort of escape from the haunting walls of the Impenetrable City.
The train takes her only so far; it stops at a wharf that opens up to a bay sealed off by the Serpent's Pass. She does not ride the ferries present, instead choosing to ride an ostrich-horse out for privacy, to avoid the curious glances she had pretended not to notice on the train. The ostrich-horse has a defiant personality, often stopping to snatch up a shrub here or there, or take a long draft out of a puddle to slake its thirst. Katara does not mind about the animal's disobedient antics, for she feels that she is, in a way, not prepared for the encounter that is to follow after her arrival, and she will take any excuse to prolong the time before she sees him.
It is nightfall and a light drizzle has started when the enormous metal structure appears in front of her on the horizon. She would bend the water out of her clothing, but really, she doesn't mind the rain. She finds it calm and tranquil and soothing, a sort of consistent lullaby from a childhood long past that can still serenade her to peace of mind, even after she has grown up. The drizzle continues as her leisurely journey seems to stretch on forever and ever; just as she imagines the silence will, in her encounter with the one she seeks to share her final days with.
1: Earth Kings are considered demi-gods by their subjects. According to the Nick website, "Earth Kings traditionally renounce any personal name, thereafter referred to only by their title or 'Your Majesty,' and are considered by their subjects as almost god-like in stature."