Tribal Dances
Even though snow fell in heavy frozen flakes outside, blanketing the world in white, the inside of the Great House was quite warm. Several fires raged, cups of spiced wine and arctic brandy were passed among the many revelers. Three drums beat steady like a beating heart, so loud that you practically had to shout in someone's ear in order for them to hear you. A chanted song and the high, tinkling note of feminine laughter undercut by the deep baritone that often blended with the drums completed the orchestra that created the masterpiece.
Zuko leaned back against the wall, watching the dancers, alternating male and female, as they moved in time to the thumping drum. Hands moved from side to side as if rowing a canoe, feet punching against the ground, softly at first, but then with more ferocity as someone added bells to the music. The beat of the drum stayed steady as the bells rung faster, a jingling sound that didn't have to compete to be heard. The women took three light steps forward, hopping from foot to foot, then moved back into their circle.
"Here," Katara said, thrusting his parka at him. "I want to show you something."
Zuko started to protest. He was enjoying the dance, watching it become more complicated through a slight haze of alcohol, his eyes half closed, but there was something about the way Katara's skin glowed in the firelight that called to him like the drums called to the dancers. He accepted the coat, and followed her out into the cold.
The cold helped to sober him up just a bit, and Zuko followed Katara down the now familiar streets, moving from the Great House to her family's own house, where she led him to her room. Without having to be told, he lit a fire in the fireplace, and began removing his coat. Even this far away, the rumble of the drums still reached them, still provided that steady heartbeat rhythm, only now it felt like a pulse, like something that was coming from within. Zuko sat on the bed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. He'd never felt a communal feeling quite like this.
"There is an old story," Katara said from across the room, "that the women of my tribe used to tell, and an old dance they used to dance."
Her voice was soft, and she was removing her hair from its bun. Zuko watched the way it spilled down her back, snapping from side to side as she shook her head. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Katara was swaying her hips from side to side, her movements smooth like liquid. She tugged at the edges of her shirt, pulling them up, and Zuko smiled to himself. Yes, he was sure there was a dance the women of her tribe used to do.
Gently, she draped her shirt over the back of a chair, her hips never having stopped. When she turned to him, she stood only in her pants and her top wrappings, her eyes closed and her face serene. Keeping in time with the beat of the drums, her movements became more exaggerated, the sway of her hips growing larger, now moving in a figure eight, her arms bent at the elbow, her fingers drumming some unknown beat against her stomach. Zuko watched that sway intently, licking his lips as those fingers moved across the band of her pants.
Then she turned away from him, and Zuko felt irrationally jealous. Her movements took on the liquid style of Southern waterbending, repeating the canoe paddling and the hopping movements he'd seen the women do in the Great Hall, though her hips never stopped moving, and that circular motion drew his eyes, captivated him.
"What's this dance for?" Zuko asked, feeling like he should say something.
"It's a story," Katara replied, her voice heavy, deeper, sultry. "A love story about a woman who went to sea to find her lover."
She whipped around to face him, her hair flying out behind her, and her hands were on her stomach again, clutching it.
"She was carrying his child."
She rubbed the heel of her hand in a circular motion, stepping closer to him. She took his hands and pulled him to his feet. Zuko let her lead him to the middle of the room, found himself swaying with her, eager for delicious friction, when she backed against him. She took his hands and repeated that rubbing motion on her stomach before guiding his hands up to her breasts. She gasped and arched into him.
"He was a strong warrior."
Here, Katara guided his hands into a fluid slashing motion, the drum beat entering their bodies through their feet, their movements connecting them and making them one. They moved from side to side, one arm slashing, then the next.
"But the tides are also strong."
Zuko grunted as she guided his hips into an alternate sway from hers. While she swayed left, he swayed right, and for a brief moment, they aligned, and every time they did so, Katara threw her head back against his shoulder.
"She could not find him among the waters. And so she turned to the spirits for help."
As if the drums were playing only for Katara's story, they stopped, and she stopped moving against him. She slipped out of his grasp when Zuko tried to bring her back. They were both breathing heavily. Katara licked her lips, and Zuko imagined taking them between his teeth, running his tongue over them, pressing his own against them.
"They asked for something in return." The corner of Katara's mouth curled up as the drums started again, faster now so that it was almost one long beat that reverberated through the village turned city.
"What did she give them?" Zuko asked, hoarse and anxious.
Katara breathed in deeply, releasing a shuddering breath, and the air went cold around them, though the fire blazed brightly still. When she began moving again, it was as he'd never seen her move before.
She was as the violent seas, twisting and turning, a mix between dance and bending, her hair wild and her eyes half closed. She moved around him, her body undulating, and Zuko felt himself responding, stealing touches any time she came close, searching for bare skin. He didn't notice her taking away the belt that held his shirt closed, because she was rolling her hips against his, pressing harder with each revolution, and he shuddered.
"They demanded a sacrifice of the flesh."
Katara ran her hands hungrily over his bare chest, and he couldn't tell if she was the woman or the hungry spirit or if it even mattered anymore, because she pushed him down in the chair and straddled him.
"She was beautiful," Katara whispered against his throat, "and the spirits stole her lover so that they might have her."
She continued rolling against him like the waves, each time she flicked her hips against his, a deeper note sounded in the drums. Zuko panted, wanting more, to feel her against him. He was that hungry spirit, and he demanded his sacrifice.
"Did...did they have her?"
Abruptly, Katara stood, backing away, and Zuko let out a huff of disapproval. She threw her head back as she undid her breast wraps, and made a show of taking off her pants, turning her back and slowly sliding them off her hips.
"They did not know that her lover was a spirit himself, and as she was willing to deny those others this most desired sacrifice, he appeared to them."
Zuko came to her, and she left a trail of kisses from his stomach to the top of his pants. The fire flared behind them.
"She would know him anywhere, and said she would only give her sacrifice of the flesh to this spirit."
Too slowly, she removed his pants, and he eagerly followed her direction as she guided him to the bed.
"She said to her spirit lover, 'I would know your heart anywhere,' and she mounted him, and she loved him."
Zuko swallowed hard. He could feel the beat of the drum as it reverberated through the floors, through Katara's hips, through his pulse. Again, Katara mimed rowing the canoe, rising and falling against him, her body the tide.
"She told her spirit lover of her leaving the village in a canoe."
Katara roamed her lips over his neck, occasionally stopping to kiss, to lick.
"She told her spirit lover of searching the seas."
Katara threw her arms around his neck, moving faster, rising and falling faster, and Zuko threw his head back, concentrated on his breathing, his whole body alive and shuddering at her touch, the very tips of his fingers alive and tingling. Her voice was a soft mewl, and her lips found his as that final shudder went through them both.
"She told her spirit lover of the child growing in her womb."
Gently, her forehead pressed against his, Katara brought Zuko's hands again to her stomach, and held them there.
"Her spirit lover was pleased?" Zuko asked, smiling, his lips pressed against her neck as he lay them back on the bed.
Katara nodded, running her hand over his scar. "He gave up his spirit life to live with her and his child on the mortal plane."
Zuko leaned down and kissed Katara's stomach as the drums finally slowed, returning to three distinct rhythms.
"Good thing I don't have a spirit life to give up."
A/N: Yay! Smut and fluff! Written for the prompt "music" for Zutarotica week on LJ. Ended up becoming far more sensual than sexual, but I'm so very happy with it. Written in about an hour.