My Shameless Zutara Fanfic:
Whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face.
Lightning never strikes the same place twice, just as some flames can never be rekindled. Another cliché says that only the lucky find love. How beautiful is fiction, then, that we can rewrite it?
The breaking boulder was all that was needed to break a moment pregnant with nuance, but a central division remained intact. Matchmaking for spectacle doesn't make the best matches. What if the trap had held its captives seconds longer?
"This is water from the spirit oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important. I don't know if it would work, but-"
Forgiveness. At last Zuko's downcast eyes and waiting scar bore the gentle submission of trust.
And what if she could heal that mark of exclusion and shame that had haunted his life since his innocence was stolen, ruthlessly, by that demon of the throne?
Katara reached out, afraid of fire but curious to feel its burn. She had not taken the water from its container—she first had to measure his intentions. It could be a cleverly disguised ruse planned to lure her open heart toward a flaming hatred that she was unsure had died. She had to know if she could touch him, cool him—her reasons were her own, and not her own mind knew the answer. Though Katara's ancestors bent blood, she could not force her own to travel between heart and head.
At her touch, he flinched. Her hand was ice on molten metal; sweet like fruit during the heat of summer, but shocking like electricity. Zuko surprised even himself at his vulnerability. He shrank inwardly, icily hardening his residual prejudice. Katara was a waterbender—a member of a savage group of mountainfolk. He was royalty…but then, he had been dethroned.
Zuko's inner monologue paralleled his reaction to her cold touch—by now, he'd realized it wasn't cold, but impressively warm—at first, the shock of cultural prejudice hit like an iceberg on stormy seas, but, simultaneously, her hand melted the ice that it created in his mind. Her feminine softness coupled with a tradesman's pressure and skill wooed him into a transitory fog. He hated this as well. Females were so troubling to Zuko…
Yet, as she felt the jagged inlets of his face, Katara closed her eyes. Zuko assumed her silence and focus to be a sort of mapping process to aid her in healing his burned skin, like a blind earthbender feeling the ground, but Katara's mind wandered into terrain as riddled with pitfalls as the scarred flesh she sought to heal.
A young girl of reproductive age, Katara yearned for male attention. Zuko was dangerous. She hated that; hated him for hunting her savior. But Aang was not yet a man.
Katara's breath caught in her chest as Zuko shed a single tear. She couldn't understand the ravage she wrought on his motherless soul. Zuko knew he was a man in pieces, and didn't know how to love a woman. These emotions were pitted in the deepest recesses of the young benders' hearts, and they did not understand them.
Zuko turned away quickly, unable to bear her touch any longer. But Katara longed to quench the starving desert that lingered in his face.
"Zuko," she said.
He didn't answer, but sniffed slightly. His arms were folded about his chest as if to protect his heart from the seductive love penetrating its core.
"Zuko."
And she turned him to face her—neither could bear the pressure welling in their loins as they shared love's first ardent gaze. Katara pulled Zuko to her, cradling his head between her soft, skilled hands. Zuko closed his eyes, breathing the scent of this beautiful waterbender who dared wreak such havoc on his fragile body, and he brushed his lips across her slightly parted ones.
Again, they said nothing and stared. Zuko's eyes were wide, but Katara's were slanted. She wore a half-smile, and she knew she was lost; beguiled by the pulling nature of adolescence.
So they were trapped together; two stars in the night dancing freely through the mist of their own minds. They were unsure the time of day, the hour or minute; their hearts beat too fast and the adrenaline raged too loudly in their ears to know the time or place which they inhabited. Everything was them and they were everything.
As he broke from her, now holding her waist tightly, Zuko raggedly asked, "If they were coming, would you care?"
Katara replied, a bit cheekily, "Would you be seen with me?"
"In a past life, I doubt I would have, waterbender."
Katara pulled away from Zuko's grasp, taking her brain with her. "We're still in the same life."
Zuko paused, realizing he had opened a door which neither of them wanted to enter. He sneered vaguely, "I'm sorry. Shouldn't have asked."
"I hate you."
"Was it really that bad?"
"No."
"Well then."
"You cruel prince, you've taken advantage of my friendship!"
"I'd say we past that point maybe…thirty minutes ago."
"Were you keeping track?"
"…no." Zuko laughed in spite of himself, "I meant that—you know what I meant."
"Fine. You've broken my trust. Again."
"'Broken your trust?' You are much too self-righteous, Katara. You really should step down from that high place you're living in."
Katara surveyed Zuko. She hovered around him, eyes focused on his. She stood with a smart smile, tapping her foot. Zuko stopped leaning smugly on a large protruding piece of genimite and crossed his arms, standing with the poise of a soldier. This time Katara laughed—giggled, really—at the formality of his serious gesture.
"Who cares?" Zuko unfolded his arms, sighing passively. His head drooped toward the floor, and he sat hugging his knees. His swift change in mood amused Katara even more. "Stop laughing. Really." Zuko frowned deeply, as he often did.
Katara sat next to him, delicately folding her legs behind her and resting gingerly on her hand. "You look so ugly when you do that." She placed a hand on his face, this time covering the untarnished side and looking directly into his eye that forever squinted. "I could fix this, you know." Katara spoke gently, easing her other hand to the cork of her bottle.
"Stop," Zuko pleaded. His voice came out so weak and tender that he felt effeminate and turned away again. Katara rested her head gently on his shoulder, reacting as only women can to the needs of a man.
She couldn't tell if this had helped or merely served to further upset him. Then he leaned his head toward hers, searching the floor for her hand. He took it and told her something he'd never uttered in his life, something he was sure he never would again: "I don't know how to love a woman. It's not you. You're beautiful. I have long been instilled with prejudices I know now are wrong," at this he tenderly brushed her cheek with the side of his hand, "You are beautiful and courageous and everything a woman should be, but I don't know-"
"I don't either," Katara murmured, grasping Zuko's neck and twisting the hair at its nape, "We could find out."
So they began the tangled dance of fire and ice, both feeling the melting point come dangerously near. In the midst of passionate interplay between tongue and lips and face—of arms, hands, and waist—Katara pried free the cork of her bottle of magic and unleashed the flood into her waiting hands. She sculpted in air a magnificent display which she rained upon herself, becoming as much water as human. The tingle of the water's power titillated her open pores as she cooled to a human ice block. Moving deftly through the stiff ice as if it were still water, Katara pressed herself into Zuko, first focusing the chill in her lips, then her tongue, and finally her hands.
Zuko steamed. He cared not for the wasted magic, for this was hardly a waste of such a precious substance. Releasing intense heat, he breathed fire into Katara's soul. She melted onto the floor, collapsing and twisting in a heap of sexual energy.
He pursued her writhing form, matching her movements. Propped on his knees, he let his hands explore the temporarily sedate waterbender. She gasped as her most sensitive skin burned underneath the intense heat of his hands. It left no mark but the tingling sensation flooded her, as if it penetrated her skin to her core, where it absorbed into pure energy.
Suddenly, she sat up on her arms. Slowly and hesitantly she removed his robe, leaving only a scant wrapping around his private parts. He hissed and smoke whistled out his nostrils. He chomped at the bit this lovely girl presented him. Her frocks were barriers which he must unravel—he would burn them from her in a second were it not for the delicate stare she fixed on his muscular chest. She was a flower; he a deadly inferno in her meadow.
Her hands once again iced, Katara drew a line down Zuko's chest, down his abdomen, and withdrawing at the clothing he yet wore. He gazed at her tenderly, admiring her virginal reticence. He did not want her to fear him, but the fire welling in his gut had that exact intention.
Katara tried again, and this time she let her hand rest on his center of heat thickly resonating underneath the cloth. She couldn't move.
As Zuko stared at her, his fantasy growing and temperature rising, he realized he could bear this torture no longer. He roared as would a trapped bear, spitting fire into the dark recesses of the cave's ceiling. He tore in half, in quarters, and as soon as he had released his angry cry, he pounced, taking Katara as his victim. The animal inside broke loose, and his conscience knew no more.
"Katara…"
His voice begged permission, but his eyes did not. He removed her shirt, boots, underclothes.
It was all going so fast, and Katara's head spun madly. She breathed heavily, conveying her fear of becoming prey. How he loved the sound.
She looked afraid. It was good. She should be afraid of him and of his might! He was the Prince of the Fire Nation and all would fear him.
Removing the last of his clothes, Zuko viewed himself and Katara's reaction. She was agape. He was filled with pride.
Gently he massaged her breasts, and lapped at the lean sides of her stomach. He surveyed his catch, and bent low over her.
"I…we…" Katara panted, tired from fear.
"Shh. Don't speak." Zuko kissed her then with all the ferocity that his innards possessed. He dragged her to him, clutching her thick, toned thighs, and jolted into her, striking her like lightning.
Katara screamed. She whimpered and closed her eyes, shielding her face from the intruder.
Zuko laughed malevolently, and in the neon glow of the genimite, his face shone like that of some banished poltergeist come to the world to instill fear in the hearts of women. He struck once, twice, three times and more, maintaining a grueling rhythm. His shoulders caved and reared like a bucking bull. He grasped at her arms, throwing them to the floor, and, slowing his fervent pace, he kissed her as gently as a mad dog.
Katara gave in to her desire. The fear which Zuko had inspired in her swarmed like angry locusts around the pit of her stomach, and she shook violently. Pent up and exhausted from retaining such internal pressure, she gave a gut-wrenching cry. She faced Zuko, curling up her lips at their corners.
"So, you won't fear me?" He glared deploringly while retaining a broad smile.
"Shut up, you ass."
She did not fear his wrath, and it did not come. He kissed her all the more passionately, loving every ounce of her womanly power. She could have the best of him this one night.
Caressing her leg, he lifted it onto his shoulder, kissing the sole of her foot as he did. Katara wrapped her leg behind his sinewy, while delicate, neck, curving the other leg around his. The key turned in the lock, the deed done in glowing caverns never to be forgotten.
Reaching powerful climax, Zuko strained on his haunches. He released his essence, lighting Katara on fire. She diffused the flames into steam, letting loose a flood of her own. When the steam had reached boiling point at the tip of her tongue, she blew it onto his face, searing the permanent scar once again.
The skin had so deadened since the attack that Zuko did not feel pain. He stared down into the eyes of this creature, this waterbending genius whom he failed to understand and adequately respect. He rolled to one side, propping up his knee and facing her limp form.
She punched him. Katara flipped herself onto his lap and laughed. It wasn't cruel, but it wasn't innocent. The kiss she bent to place on his forehead right at the spot she had smashed with her hard fist resonated across his dumb-stricken body.
Zuko was angry, he was furious! He was in love.
The two spent the night wrapped together, asleep in silent prayer that they would meet again.