A/N: Bergdis is an old Norse name for spirit protection. This was inspired by and written in the middle of evacuation during wildfires.
Bergdis
The ashes are the worst.
They come as a lurid, horrid surprise and engulfing, devours animals and houses by the whole, from the inside fluttering to the out. They leave guts and throats parched and raw, the never-ever-ending feeling of dread. Lungs are depleted dry and powdery, the people cry. And there is no stopping them.
And so, the people flee. The children are strapped, bundled, held tight to their mothers. And they whimper (as do their mothers). But no one hears because everyone's lamentations and soot and sweat are churned together into one big accumulation. And like that, they all fall down.
Their city is burning, up, up it goes—up, up in flames. The Fire Lord is weak. The Fire Lord is to blame.
(Which one? Koh chuckles.)
. . .
Three hundred miles away, Zuko laughs too.
It is irony, he thinks. That Ozai is rearing his ugly head with a deathly wrath in mind.
It is irony, he thinks. That he is now Fire Lord.
The title mocks him from behind.
. . .
If Bergdis is queen,
The fires are calm,
Not like now.
No one burns,
No one dies.
If Bergdis is queen,
She has no pride
No skeletons to hide.
Not like you,
Not like through—
Here comes hell.
Better be prepared,
Fire Lord.
. . .
"The Fire Nation is ablaze," the emissary begs.
Katara turns, and Sokka shrugs. They are undisturbed by the messenger's news. Because mortality does not faze them now, and whatever Zuko must contend with is an ocean away. Because on Kyoshi, time stands still.
"There is nothing we can do about that," Katara replies.
"Please, come and help."
"Help?" she smiles. "No one can help you now."
And the diplomat shivers because she is right (spiteful bitch). No one can help them now, not like this. His heart is filled with smoke and his skin is scorched with the marks of retribution.
They must suffer.
. . .
Far and away, Onji hears the gusts.
She prays to this god and that goddess that it'll-be-all-over-soon. But no one listens to them, as the deities compliment and applaud themselves. (Where are our offerings, girl?)
Onji runs to the door, to escape, to live. Her hand is burnt bad and her face is next. (Where are our offerings, girl?)
Instead, they take her breath. It is a fair reprisal, they explain.
Flicker, goes the light. Onji screams. And Onji falls.
. . .
Fire burns as long as there are things left to consume, and when everything is gone, there is only the putrid smell of corpses and timber.
Zuko inspects the damages. He can still feel the heat, the intensity, the need to overwhelm, the need to kill. And all that he decides is what makes up: The Aftermath.
"It'll take a decade to rebuild," this minister declares to that one.
They act like it had been a battle of glory and honor.
"Then get started, gentleman," Zuko states.
Yeah, The Aftermath.
. . .
Sokka reaches up for Katara's shoulder, touches her skin light and gentle. She is so easily upset. The years drag them on without cease. "We should help them," he says.
And Katara mumbles back, "I know."
But it's not a matter of should or not. It is a matter of impossibilities, and unfeasible things have a way of twisting the knife back in.
And for the moment, ruthless sounds so indescribably good. Absurdlygood.
. . .
"I am willing to make you a deal," the man says.
Katara stares back, perplexed and suspicious, and she does not trust his cordial tone. The Fire Lord's vows are vacant and deceiving. What they mean and what they say produce two entirely different things. She cannot bring herself to trust him—again.
"What sort of deal?"
"You help my people and I'll let you live."
She laughs. It is a perverse, sardonic joke between them. He snaps, and she bites. "I'll need something better than that."
"Ten cases of gold."
"Only?"
"Fifteen."
"No."
"Then what?"
"Goodbye, Lord Lee. May your palaces survive."
. . .
Katara fills up her water pouches. It is a long way to their capital. And there are no streams or rivers left unharmed.
. . .
"Why do you go?"
"I help the innocents, not the beasts."
"Either way, you'll never win."
The scale tips, and Katara sways just a little, tiny bit less. She allows herself to crumble and blow away with the other ashes.
. . .
It is past dusk, and Song is arranging the plates and her nerves. She has heard of the Fire Nation's misfortunes, but she is safe in the Earth Kingdom. No fire can spread here, not in a desert wasteland. Not when there has been stability for two years.
The pot boils, threatening to erupt in a sea of froth. Song retreats to the cool confines of her kitchen. There, the dumplings are ready.
Katara sits outside in her host's garden, waits for the sun to be blanketed by its own sweltering hands. There are two goldfish darting in the pond. She watches them carefully, as they hide and seek among the thin reeds. One is black, and the other white, both speckled with gold. Their scales shimmer, incandescence from within—Katara is sure.
And suddenly, one sinks to the bottom of their home, becomes nothing as the water ripples and the pebbles dance.
. . .
"One of your fish died today."
"Oh?" Song asks, "Which one?"
"The black one."
"War."
"Excuse me?"
"His name was War, and the other is called Reparation. They are from someone I knew long ago. From someone who called himself Lee."
"I'm sorry he died."
Song pauses for a moment and wonders which he Katara meant.
. . .
On the outskirts of the Southern Air Temple, where misery and loss and despondency roll into one, Aang sits with Momo and Appa and tells them stories. And his tales always begin with "once upon a time".
"Did you like it?"
He imagines that they respond: They say yes and thank you, just one more please?
The days teeter by, without notice, without distinction, because here the spirits and the mortals emerge together. They link up arms and go hand-in-hand and does not renege on ancient oaths. Here, Aang finds peace. Here, he is not The Avatar, The Great, The Hero, The Little Boy. Here, he is just Aang, a monk.
"Maybe just one more," he agrees happily, smiles large and wide like a child (before being thrust into frost, out the window and over cloud nine).
"This one is about how the Fire Nation set itself to fire, set itself to destruction. And one day, they sent a man here to ask The Avatar for assistance. But The Avatar couldn't go, because there was nothing he could do."
And Momo and Appa nod like they really understand what he tells them.
. . .
Ba Sing Se does not forget its unique splendor. The walls gleam and pale and gleam again, and reiterates the past triumphs and genius of its ancestors. The roads carve and wind, but they all join at the center, at the market, at the place where the end begins. And just west of the market in a modest house lives Jin.
She blends in and out, like a chameleon lady, like a marvel escaping the fetters of marriage. Jin is always free. Her neighbors look at her strangely and speculate on her mannerism and think that she is almostforeign. But Jin smiles at them, to their dismay. She eternally smiles. Because that is what you do when hope has finally died.
It is still wet and dewy in the morning when Jin opens her teashop for the first customer of the day. A woman weary-worn and old (in that she's seen too and anguish and heard too and languish) and has lost all her beauty to the war. Because she was beautiful, once upon a time. Much like Jin. And so, Jin finds sympathy and compassion for the visitor from deep within her caked, clever heart.
"How about some jasmine tea?" Jin offers. The best of the best, the last of the last.
The woman cranes her neck and gives a half grimace of a smile. It has been an endless trip, and she is fatigued from optimism. "That would be great. Thank you."
Jin pours the tea into her finest porcelain cup, the one painted blue and white and gold, all the way from the old King's personal ware. "You are not from around here."
"No, I'm not. How did you know?"
"Simple. Your eyes. No one has eyes like those anymore. They've all been snuffed out."
The woman laughs. "Yes, I suppose that is true. This is fantastic tea, by the way. Jasmine?"
Now, it becomes Jin's right to laugh. (She still fade in and out, just like that, inconspicuous and horrifying, like a dragon taking flight.) "Yes. It was a gift from someone I knew long ago."
"Really? You don't say."
"Oh yes, it is odd. He sent it in cherry-pink silk and signed it 'Lee.'"
The woman sips her tea in solitude while Jin listens to her history. And all that remains unsaid was a name.
. . .
Katara walks when it is day and flies when it is night. She opens her arms, spreads them toward the sky, high up above and zealously, religiously waits for the perfect lie.
Take me by the knees and pleas
And maybe from your decrees and debris
I will forgive.
. . .
This is how it begins and this is how it ends:
June lives what she likes to call in-the-moment, but really is the haphazard mark between now and then—or so her father once said. And maybe, a small part of her believes as well. And what June believes, no one dares to challenge. She is apprehensive and jumpy, and every insignificant, misplaced detail can set her off. But still, no one questions June.
Therefore, when she finds three medium-sized caskets of silver and opals waiting by her bed, there is rage and there is amusement. Someone is bold and stupid enough to do this, admirable too. Because the person left her with a letter: My debt is paid in full—From Lee.
And June searches through the luster and memories and recalls that she doesn't remember Lee. But none of that matters now because apparently she's been compensated, and there's another client waiting.
. . .
"What's a girl like you asking for someone like me?"
Katara closes her eyes and waits for her headache to pass. "I need help, obviously."
"With?" June prompts. The art of her trade requires a scythe's cutting edge, dipped in vinegar for corrosivity.
"Arson."
And that is as painless as that.
. . .
It is two weeks later when Katara sets foot into the Fire Nation's precious heart, or brain, or liver, or spine—the city where squalor and wealth originate.
It is two weeks later when Katara meets Zuko again after nearly five years. They greet each other with mundane questions concerning her family (of what is left of it) and his reign (of what is established). And they answer with equally trite nods and words. It is etiquette, she has been informed.
"I am grateful that you have come," he declares in the high-and-mighty voice of all monarchs and magistrates.
And Katara stifles a laugh. (Now, what had Azula called him? Oh yeah, Zu-Zu.) "No need to thank me. I apologize for not being able to eliminate the fire. I would have come sooner if I had the ability."
Formality, she has memorized. It is the most efficient way, unproblematic too. No unwanted troubles can result from formality.
"It is good to see you again, Fire Lord."
Katara bows.
. . .
Her obligation unfurls the next morning, and it is the first time in years that she uncoils her hair. It falls in pools around her spindly neck, thin and wispy as her breaths.
Katara spends all her hours healing the scarred, the charred, and the empty. She fills them with water, with will, with life. But some continue to stare back drained and bare, hung loose like cotton dresses in spring. Still, Katara always wipes away the tears and tells them to have faith, to dream again, to begin anew. From this point on, at least they're alive. From this point on, she can play and care as the mother, the wife, the forever selfless blood.
Like that, she subsists on their residue at the bottom of a liquor glass.
. . .
Today, a woman requests for more medicine, for her infant, her baby boy barely one-year-old and waning. (Consumption, Katara notes and writes.)
But she smiles outwardly and gives the woman more herbs and asks her to bring her son here so he can be healed, complete and at last. The woman's leathery creases curl up to laughter and gratitude. And her face is regenerated, made young, made once more.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" Katara halts, because the old lady is no ancient mother anymore, and out of her paper-bone body and skin is a young girl.
"No, I don't think so."
"Oh."
"Thank you for the medicine and your kindness. Bo-Bo, is all I have left. My daughter, Onji, and my husband have all passed on."
The woman leaves, her steps are brusque and heavy and awkward. There is uncertainty riding along her rustling dress.
Her parcel is clutched tightly in her hands, like she is afraid they'll vanish and never appear again.
. . .
It is not surrendering she fears, it is domination. Domination by disease, by injustice, by others contorting her against her strength and resolve. And most especially, when the other is a former enemy.
Because enmities never really die. They linger in purgatory for the moment to strike—snarl and fight—and then, she will really be facing defeat.
She thinks of crumbling the letter, the order, and pricking it with ice, for good measure. But stops and thinks, twice: It is better to surrender than be forced.
"A dress then, madam?"
Katara shakes with indignation as she selects out sashes and shoes.
. . .
At dinner that evening, she sits next to the Fire Lord, prim and proper and pristine. Her hair is smoothed and glossed back and set in place with glass petals and rubies (borrowed from the royal treasury). Her dress is red, as is expected, and she is glad that it is not chiffon. Because chiffon itched. Because she would have much preferred the simplicity of peasants and peasant wear.
The food is beautiful and just that. It is too much to bear. There are people starving, she wants to say, but instead, leans over and whispers to the Fire Lord that she wishes he could see what vengeance is.
He merely smirks brutally and tells her that that is treason.
"You won't cut my head off."
Katara resumes picking at her meal.
. . .
Mai comes from time to time. Her face is morose and bored, like Katara remembers. Katara calls out a greeting and is countered with silence and an arched brow. She should know better by now.
But they have reached an agreement and rapport. Neither one goes backwards. And both will be happy.
It is a smart arrangement, Katara knows. Mai is always thoughtful.
. . .
June stops for rest at a remote village in the northern provinces, famous for their iron ore and beautiful girls (and tragedies).
She opens the doors to a tavern and orders a strong drink, so June can take and have her head be soothed and cleared. Tomorrow, she'll resume the chase. But for now, she's willing to rest and think of the politest way to demand more money.
. . .
"This is called the Queen's Garden because that's where all former queens have come to hang themselves," Zuko explains.
Katara gasps for air and recomposes herself within a minute. It is an acquired talent: him learning to move stealthy and noiseless while keeping her back rigid. "Is that so?"
"Yes, and the tradition was broken by my mother. She drowned in a river beyond the mountains to the north. Some village no one visits. She died in peace."
"I am sorry she died."
Over the wilted flowers and knotted trees, the skies darken and rain comes pouring down. Suddenly, her pity turns to mockery.
. . .
No one meets with Toph halfway up the beaten path, scattered with decomposing leaves and saturated with mist—spiritualmist. Toph chuckles. See, she is still as funny as ever.
And up the road, gravel and ache and all, is Aang. Where he waits for her with his childlike grin.
"I'm here, Twinkle-Toes," she announces. "And I've come to stay."
Because they share a secret truth that escapes the others. That some things should be left alone. And eventually, Katara and the rest of the world will come to realize it too.
Eventually.
. . .
June is an expert and she traps the culprit, the maniac, the whatever he is, without any nuisance or difficulty. He even seems to be resigned, like he is anticipating her arrival and his finish.
She doesn't care and ties him up, and nearly pities him when she sees his wounded face and white hair. But she wants the money even more and sends Nyla tearing down the path.
. . .
"I have good reasons for what I did. Just hear me out, lady."
"Shut up," June mutters.
. . .
Every year, when the floods return, the rains and the lands recommence their hostilities. They march like horses into the front line, brave and head-strong they do not falter. Neither one will ever relent. But this year, it's different, and the people are rejoicing as the rivers overflow and submerge their fields in mercy. The villagers raise their hands and arms and sing praise. And water gains newfound respect.
So does Katara, but she gains trust too as she helps the last of the victims. Soon, it'll be time for her to leave.
She is content with that.
. . .
"Here is your guy. I want my cash," June barks out.
Her entrance into the city is unexpected but appreciated. With June came the man responsible for their tribulations, and an execution is always entertaining.
She slides down from the shirshu and unceremoniously tosses someone down. She shifts her stance, then orders for the money due and leaves again. All this is done before the day is half over. That's what she is. More than competent, June is excellent.
The criminal is removed from the courtyard and placed (temporarily) in a cell (where General Iroh was once held captive as the rumors rumble). The man doesn't beg or pray or weep. Instead, he sits there peaceful and passive and laughs. His future is grim, but he knew that already when he first set the kindles on fire.
Way back there, way back prior to panic taking grasp.
"For Ursa," he chokes out.
Ursa, Ursa, Ursa, the air chants back.
. . .
Before Zuko was Fire Lord, before he was the Crowned Prince, he was just the first son of the second son of the then-current sovereign. And he was taught by his older cousin, the first son of the then-current Crowned Prince, how to slither his way throughout the palace undetected. For that, Zuko will always be thankful and relieved.
Because now, he can speak to prisoners without guards, without protection, without a way to escape. Just him and the man who started the whole catastrophe (on whose part?).
"Why did you do it?" Zuko snarls.
The man turns and meets Zuko's eye and shakes his head ruefully. "I have my reasons."
(The conversation is beginning to sound like the one he had with that girl, that June.)
"Are you insane? Do you know how many people you have murdered, how many homes devastated?"
"Yes, and I am not sorry at all."
Zuko suppresses the urge to kill. He is not a teenage boy anymore.
"Why?"
The haunting grin the man gives is enough to make Zuko's bones fracture. (Do I know you?) "When you die, go ask your father. He will have all the answers waiting. Just for you."
And Zuko immediately understands what was said. It is all Ozai's fault, like everything else.
. . .
The man dies with grace. He is still laughing even as the blade drops.
Hidden in the northern mountains, a house erupts in flames, and a ghost woman is heard laughing alongside him.
. . .
The rain grows progressively worse, comes more frequently and stops less and less. But no one is complaining yet.
One night, weeks after the execution, Katara sits outside with the Fire Lord's head resting in her lap. She brushes back strands of his hair and remarks mildly, "I could have healed that," and touches his scar.
"I know," is all he says.
. . .
Katara coughs and coughs and coughs and coughs. Her ribcage feels fragile like a bird's underneath its feathers. It's about to shatter and disperse and waft away in a million shards. She wonders why roles have been reversed. What happened now?And that curiosity slowly evolves to worry.
The Fire Lord is concerned that her sickness is fatal, and the doctors are anxious also because the Fire Lord is unpredictable and might decide to cut off their heads and—
She recovers, slowly and slightly. But she recovers.
Finally, everyone can exhale once again.
. . .
"I'm leaving," Katara announces one night.
"Fine," Zuko retorts, with more ferocity than necessary.
"Good."
He'll never see her again, is the implicit promise.
. . .
His country prospers and her people thrive. Rarely do they ever meet. He is married now, to a pretty girl with a sensible head (for a senseless man). Katara rotates and revolves her life around the Southern Temple and the Southern Tribe (and sometimes, the Northern ones as well).
She was there on his wedding day, concealed by the crowds—and veiled. Zuko never saw her smile, but she did just that.
After all, it was his wedding day.
…If Bergdis is queen…
A/N: Should I continue?