One Last Moment with Katara
By Pat Squared
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The old man knew that he would soon be judged by Yuanlao for his many dark deeds.
The old man had witnessed ninety-eight summers and knew that he would not live to see a ninety-ninth.
Outside this room, the world was waiting to see who would succeed the great unifier. Once he would have gotten off his death bed and force the people to return back to their peaceful lives. Now he weakly chuckled as the young healer gave him another damned cup of medicinal tea.
The healer was a young dark skin girl that reminded him of her.
Katara...that name had not left his lips since she died nearly seventy years ago.
Eighty four years ago was his greatest victory. Eighty four years ago was his greatest defeat. Eighty four years ago he chose the path of his damnation.
He had survived the fever of his transformation and started living his own life. When the Dai Li and his sister captured him, he was imprisoned with Katara alone in the old underground city.
Fire benders are a cursed breed.
Love sometimes came slowly. Other times, it would come like the fever.
Alone with Katara, the fever took him.
He was never good with women. He was not good enough for her, but she was tender with him. Just as he summoned up his courage to take the final step and confess his love to her...he had to interfere. Uncle and the Avatar found the pair. Uncle hugged him and Aang hugged Katara. Zuko saw the glint of hate in the Avatar's eyes. It was the moment that his life was truly over.
It was the moment that the Avatar had become his personal enemy.
Katara looked back at him as Aang led her away. She slipped into the shadows leaving him behind.
He knew then that he lost her forever. There was nothing to live for anymore. There was only one final enemy to defeat. The hunt for the Avatar was no longer a mission thus upon him by a mad sire. The hunt for the Avatar became personal.
It was the day he truly became a monster.
Despite helping Azula conquer Ba Sing Se, his father still would not allow him to return without the avatar. Once more he became the Blue Spirit. He found the Avatar dying from the wounds Azula gave him in the battle under Ba Sing Se. In the middle of the night, he kidnapped the Avatar one last time and return home in time for the Day of the Black Sun.
With the Earth Kingdom shattered, the Water Tribes were decimated, but victory came at a price. The Fire Lord fell and his sister was killed. Katara was forced to become his unwilling mistress to prevent him from killing the Avatar. The once banished prince was now de facto the ruler of the known world. He was crowned Fire Lord and spent the next twenty years on the back of a war rhino or the deck of a ship consolidating his control and putting down rebellions.
He had built cities, roads, ports, canals, monorail transport systems. He had unified weights and measures. He had the walls built up from a century of war torn down. He had built a society where skill and hard work meant more than what element one bended. The world used his coins even if some cursed his name in the shadows.
For the past fifty years the world had only known his peace.
He had married Mai and Ty Lee. He had taken the strongest female warriors from the other lands and made them his concubines. Each one he grew to love in his own way...as they grew to hate him more. Toph Bei Fong of the Earth Kingdom, Song of the Earth Kingdom, Suki of Kyoshii Island, and Katara of the Water Tribes were all forced to bear and raise his brats.
Fifty six children, over three hundred grandchildren, and over a thousand great-grandchildren all carrying some measure of my monstrous blood.
Each child was another mark of defeat and another measure of control enacted upon the local rulers. One did not rebel against the Emperor when one's daughter is the Emperor's concubine and one's grandchildren stood a chance of inheriting the throne.
His brats, he carefully trained before banishing them to wander the world so they too would learn the lessons that he had learned. They had learned to seek knowledge from all sources. Not only in bending, but in arts and scholarship...the youth of today was much more cosmopolitan then the uncouth bigots of his youth.
His sons continued the tradition, making each generation prove themselves fit before they were allowed any position of power.
His wives and concubines had already moved unto the next world. Katara was the first to die given birth to her fourth child. Mai had died forty years ago from the wasting disease. Ty Lee died nine years ago from old age. She was the last of his lovers to past on to the next stage of existance. Many of his children were dead and some of his grandchildren move on before him.
All his old enemies were dead. The avatar never awoke and soon died. Sokka, Katara's brother perished in the day of the Black Sun. The Earth King died in exile seventy-six years ago. Those within the old Fire Nation that opposed his modernization policies were dealt with in a series of Agni Kai. In the end, he outlived them all and left his mark on the world.
However, this was of scant comfort to the dying man.
"What is your name, child?" the dying man asked the healer.
His memory was slipping. He remembered things that happened eighty years ago clearly, but could not remember most of the names of the ministers that ran his empire.
"I am Katara, your great-granddaughter."
The old man then remembered the woman as a young child who would ambush him and hug her grosspa. This little loved him in the way her name-sake great-grandmother would never love him. The love in his great-granddaughter's eyes hurt him as much as the hate in her great-grandmother's eyes as he lay with her.
"Katara, you were named after your great-grandmother. She was a great healer. Thank you for being with me on my last day. Do you want to play a game?"
This Katara smiled as he sipped his tea.
She had soundly defeated him as she had done since she was twelve.
"Thank you for the game. I am tired, Katara. It's time."
Zuko the first ruler of a unified world gave his last smile to Katara and closed his eyes for the final time.