Katara knew that she was spoiled. Spoiled by her husband's energy as it radiated out around him every night in the form of sweet, lucrative, heat. She would huddle at his front and they would embrace, swathed in their furs and entangled in each other and they would never freeze, not even in the darkest of winters.
If Katara loved Arlek for nothing else, it was that he was a firebender and thus, the was warm.
In the southern water tribe, firebending children were rare but possible. Soldiers that had come years ago to take all the waterbenders away had naturally, brutally raped many women, introducing their genes into the community. Arlek was the second of his kind in his family and though there was no one to teach him, he was quite a prodigy. Katara noticed him from a young age, noticed the way that the other kids singled him out for his gift. They were the only benders in their tribe and because of that, they were similar.
When her mom died he held her in his arms for hours in her hut with her family and she screamed for him not to leave when Gran Gran was shooing him out. He was older than her of course, a year Sokka's senior, and nine to her small six. They were friends all through childhood and young adulthood, always looking out for each other, always being there. Though Arlek was stoic and strong, she knew he was there for her. And in the end, in the harsh conditions of the South, that was all that mattered. Safety, Security.
Warmth.
When she was fifteen he asked for her hand. Well, he asked her father who agreed grudgingly and not without bribery to allow the union and her father expected that she was in agreement. No matter how good a man Arlek was to her, he would always be a Water Tribe man to the core, set in his beliefs and practices, set as the iceberg fated to forever float the sea.
Hakkoda had been opposed to their marriage, arguing that any kids they have would likely be firebenders and what they needed were pure waterbending kids.
Katara didn't care. Arlek understood what nobody else could. Arlek understood being alone.
So that winter they were married and for the few days, when they had to sleep in a tent on the outskirts of town, she learned the meaning of cold.
It was a honeymoon of sorts, a time to go off and get pregnant but Katara wasn't ready and he knew and respected that, and he'd wait till she was. He'd wait forever if he had to.
So the nights in the hut weren't spent in throes of passion, but in a shivering pile of furs on the icy ground where no fire he could light could melt the cold away.