Life had suddenly ceased to mean anything to him without him even noticing it – without him allowing it to. He should be happy. He should be dazzlingly thrilled and joyful, but he was just devastated.
He had been happy, only hours ago. He'd been with Mai. They'd been laughing – her quiet, smoky laughter.
But soon he was wandering alone through the gardens of Ba Sing Se, bumping into the waterbender Katara, his long time friend.
His heart had sung when he saw her, and they had walked the grounds together. They talked about him and Mai, and how Katara and Aang had recently very peacefully broken up. They were still very close friends, but they had grown apart, which had surprised all of the gaang, maybe most of all Sokka.
Zuko's heart had acted without any reason, but it suddenly, within a heartbeat, threw his arms around Katara and pressed his mouth to hers.
Her breath filled his mind, her arms almost instantly wrapping around him, pulling herself closer, deepening the kiss. But then, suddenly, she pulled back, shaking her head seriously.
He heard her words much too clearly.
"This is wrong, Zuko. A weak moment. We both need some sleep." He remembered the little, glistening tear he'd spotted in her eyes.
She was right. In everything. It had been wrong. It had been a weak moment. And he definitely needed sleep.
But she'd left out the most important part.
No matter how wrong it was, the truth was that he loved her. Deep down, he'd loved her for a long time. He wasn't sure exactly when it started.
And he knew she loved him back. He could see it in her deep, oceanblue eyes, and in the tear that she didn't dare shed in front of him. Did she lay somewhere now, crying?
But it was still wrong for them to love each other.
Even if Aang was no longer to be counted of, there was Mai. And he loved Mai, he always had. And she loved him. She would be hurt so deeply if she heard of this. Especially after he promised not to hurt her again. And furthermore, Katara was watertribe, and he was from the Fire Nation. Moon and sun. They were too different.
The sadness burning deep in his soul made tears sting in his eyes, but he grabbed the bottle in front of him; it had been standing there, untouched, for long enough.
The whisky burned down his throat, and for a short second, he forgot. For a short, sweet, miraculous second, he forgot it all.
So he drank again.
And when he remembered once more, the bottle returned to his mouth without him even having to make the decision. No other solution occurred to him.
He tried not to show Mai. He tried not to show his friends. He tried not to show Katara.
But every night, he would try to forget. And each night, it got a little bit closer. He forgot more and more, and each intake seemed like a little bite of paradise.
And every time Mai pointed it out, every time he saw the sorrow surrounding him, every time he saw her face …
It was a black hole, growing inside of him, grief biting at him with every breath. But the whisky filled that hole and made him complete. Things were simple then.
One night, he sat with the whisky bottle and staring at a painting on the wall with him and the gaang. Katara's face shone to him, like the sun she wasn't supposed to be to him.
Scrambling around, he found a paper and a pen and wrote down a few, simple words.
Then he drank the whisky and forgot.
Everything was blurry.
Forgotten.
He put his face down in the pillow.
-
The wind blew silently, only the rocking of the tree giving away that the world was still moving.
They were all dressed in white to give off the illusion of snow. They didn't need that. They could have been standing in fiery red clothing, and the world would still be as ice.
They had been standing there for a long time. Toph sniffed by his side, the first to start the world again.
Aang looked at her with a mourning glance. He put an arm around her shoulder, and she hid her face in her hands.
That was when the first sob whimpered through Mai's lips.
"Why?" she whispered.
The word was rhetorical, but they all thought about it.
Aang looked at her back, and then to the grave under the willow. He'd finally escaped what he'd tried so long to run from.
Love. Love that had been divided so crucially that his heart had been ripped apart. Only the liquor had been able to sow it back together. But as soon as he was at least halfway sober, they had been able to see it; the remorse.
If the definition of death was the loss of life, Zuko had been dead for a long time.
He looked shortly at Katara, his former love. What did she feel this very moment?
They all knew that Zuko had died because he couldn't have her. Even Mai, and it was killing her. Zuko had loved Katara so deeply. If they had lived in another time and space, maybe it would have been possible. But not in this time and space. In this time and space, Zuko was dead, and two women was left, both devastated.
Mai's one word still lingered in the air. Then she stepped forward, touched her hand lightly to the tombstone, mouthed "I forgive you" and left without another sound. Ty Lee followed.
Sokka and Suki were the next to leave.
Toph still had her face hidden in her hands, even though she could not see. Aang wasn't sure if she was trying to hide her tears, or just needed the comfort of her hands there.
He tugged her closer to him and reached for Katara with his other hand. When he touched her shoulder, she winced away.
"Are you okay?" he asked her.
Katara nodded.
"We'll leave you alone," he murmured and pulled Toph along.
When they were far enough away, Toph whispered: "She's lying."
"I know," Aang whispered back.
"Why?" The repeating of Mai's words sounded strange in her mouth.
"I don't know, Toph."
Whether it was a lie or not, neither of them knew.
-
No matter how much clothes she put on, she was always cold. There was no warming the ice inside her. No one could help her. They had all tried. Toph and Sokka with their cheering up, Suki with her understanding conversations – more monologues, Katara didn't participate much in them – and Aang's quiet, but loving, visits. He still loved her, but in another way. They weren't like sister and brother, but nor like lovers, either. They were Aang and Katara; everybody knew what that meant.
But not even Aang could help her.
She was too lost.
They all knew she blamed herself. They all talked about it. She knew it. But none of them could even begin guessing at how very much she blamed herself.
Not only was she the fault of Zuko's death, but also of Fire Lady Mai's deep grief. She was happy that Mai had been pregnant and was now raising Zuko's son. If not, Mai might have done something likewise.
And she was grateful for Ty Lee, who was always there by Mai's side.
But it didn't change fact.
Katara killed Zuko. Her heart ached at the very thought. No, she didn't kill him. She murdered him. Azula's lightning should have hit her. She'd deserved that.
Her throat was hoarse from the tears that she didn't let break through. Life had ceased to mean anything to her, knowing that she was the reason the one that she had loved the most was dead.
She went back inside and found the bottle. She put it on the table and sat down. It would help.
She drank the first bit, and her head swirled and burned. She'd never drunk much of this.
Memories were erased for the shortest of times, and she drank again. The tear in the corner of her eye broke free and danced down her chocolate cheeks.
They all knew. Even if she tried to hide her breath, they could see it in her eyes. They could see the same as with Zuko.
"Katara," they said, but she didn't hear them, and she shrugged away their hands.
She drank a little more each night, pulling the pain away a little at a time.
Until the night she pulled the bottle to her head and pulled the trigger. She finally drank away his memory, and her head seemed to have forgotten what she was trying to forget. But she knew this was good. So she kept on drinking.
She found herself with a painting of him in her arms, her head in the pillow. The last tears fell, and she closed her eyes to let herself fall into the endless dream.
-
The grave was too much to bear. It was impossible to think about it, so instead she thought about the older grave. Zuko's.
The willow sang for them, a strange lullaby.
Sokka laid over her grave, crying out for his sister, strange vibrations shaking through the ground.
Toph stood with Aang's hand in hers. He seemed as stone, and she didn't know if she should put her arms around him.
Mai stood by the end of the grave and Suki with her arms around Sokka, crying herself.
"We can come back later. Right now, we should go somewhere else," she told him. After a little time, she finally got him convinced, and they both stumbled away. Ty Lee followed them. Toph wanted to know the expressions of the others, but she couldn't.
Then it was just the three of them: Mai, Aang and Toph.
The remorse hanging in the air was thick enough for even Toph to feel it.
"They loved each other so much," Mai whispered, and her voice was so thick that Toph guessed she was crying.
"They died for each other," Aang whispered, and Toph put her hand to his cheek to feel the tears. She patted his cheek awkwardly, now feeling her own eyes sting.
"Why?" Mai whispered.
The words were too familiar.
"Life is short, but this time it was bigger," Toph whispered, as if the words came to her.
Mai coughed, as if to stifle a cry.
"This wasn't how things should have turned out," she whispered.
"We know," Aang murmured. His tears were still falling.
"There's something I want you to do for me, Aang."
"Yes?" Aang asked.
"I let her lay here because it's the right thing. But something's missing."
"What?"
"I found a sheet of paper with Zuko, when …" There was a short break. "It says: I love her till I die. I want that to be on his grave."
"I understand."
Aang pulled Toph with him to the tomb, and he put his hand against the stone, smoothly using his earth bending.
"Thank you," Mai whispered.
"You should get back to your son," Aang suggested.
Mai didn't respond, so Toph guessed she shook her head.
"Come," Aang whispered and pulled the blind earth bender along. "Let's leave her alone."
They hadn't walked long before a mourning sound followed behind them.
Mai's voice was carried by the wind for the two who had died because of their love, and there was a never-ending sorrow around the willow.
The whisky lullaby followed them even after they couldn't hear it anymore.
-
Very sad story, I know. I was on the edge of crying whilst writing it. I'm very proud of this work, actually, for several reasons.
It was based on the "Whisky lullaby", and you can find the video that inspired this by searching:
Zutara's lullaby, user: 123june123 and listen to it while reading this.