Disclaimer: I don't own ATLA or the characters.
Pairing: Zutara
Summary: Koh preys on grief. Zutara.
[posterity]
Zuko and Katara wed in autumn, this most beautiful of seasons.
Their wedding is all pomp and pageantry, a celebration of individuals blown beyond its proportions. They kiss before the populace amidst the beat of drums and the clash of cymbals as a fiery dragon circles a golden phoenix in the twilit sky.
No one sees Koh and the shadow he casts as he watches from the hole between the worlds, cackling to himself as he lays out plans, shuffling the cards in his ancient, rotting hands. Fire Lord and Fire Lady, he thinks to himself, I don't have these yet.
:::
There is a face in Koh's collection with dark brows and cherry-red lips and bronzed skin.
"I remember you," Koh says as he looks at the face. Walk like silk and eyes like gems, whose betrothed was too fiery and too arrogant for his station in life.
And then he smiles, for she is still trying to fight her way out of the caverns of his domain, though she is faceless and her beauty is now his.
:::
Koh marvels at how fast the tapestry unravels.
It starts in summer, when Katara finds herself pushing away a perfectly tasty dish of sea prunes to Sokka's great disbelief (but he gulps it all down before anyone has a chance to say anything anyway, just because).
"She's pregnant," Suki says, in the silence that follows. "Has to be."
The royal physician confirms this, and there are hugs all around. In the shadows, Koh waits, watches, and sneers.
It speeds up in autumn when Katara wakes to find blood streaming down her thigh. She grasps water, for healing, for stemming, for stopping, but it's too late.
The young royal couple hold each other tight that night, swaddled in grief ten miles deep. Koh waits, watches, and licks his yellow teeth.
It ends in winter when Katara drapes a rope from the ceiling and Zuko walks into the royal bedchamber to find his Fire Lady swaying above the bed, her face purple and bloated through the conflation of pain and endless misery.
:::
Koh stretches through time, shuffling through his collection, thinking of what was and what might be.
So many have come to him; some in hope, some in fear; some in ignorance, some in misery. And he helps them all; he swallows them whole and relieves them of the burden of life. And then he takes their faces to remember them by, to give them the gift of posterity.
:::
Katara wanders the spirit world and comes to the swamp near Koh's dwelling.
Koh greets her with a face procured from a baby long, long ago.
She screams – and now her face is gone.
But Koh lets her go. Sometimes he shows mercy.
:::
When Zuko finally comes to the spirit world, he can't find Katara.
There is one – a woman, hair dark and skin bronzed – who looks like his beloved, but he has only ever seen her back. When he draws near, she flees, and all he can see is her dark curls dancing behind her as she disappears into thickets or beyond corners.
Koh watches, and smiles, and decides not to show mercy this time around.
A/N: Please forgive any mistakes - I haven't written anything for the ATLA fandom in over 2 years.
The woman in the second paragraph, by the way, is Avatar Kuruk's fiancee, in case you didn't manage to pick that up.
Thanks for reading; reviews would be appreciated! (: