Prologue
Prologue
It was morning in the Western Air Temple the Gaang were preparing for their toughest battle to date their final stand to the Fire Lord.
Katara sat at the temple fountain bending water into her water skins when Zuko came up behind her.
"Katara?" he asked cautiously.
Katara had accepted Zuko into the group after finally admitting that he had changed.
"Yes Zuko?" she replied sweetly.
"We fight today Katara I am almost positive about this. I'm going to die today. I know it,"
"How can you say that?" Katara demanded turning to look at Zuko's calm face.
"I don't know how I know I just know that I will," he replied quietly. Katara scowled at his response.
He was right of course just as he always was. Ready to fight ready to do anything for those he loved especially if it meant that he lost his own life to protect the person that deserved his undying loyalty.
I cannot stand myself right now. How could I be the cause of his abrupt and untimely death if I had been more careful he would probably still be here with me here now not lying cold on the marble floor of the Fire Lord's throne room. I sit beside his dead body crying softly to myself. This should never have happened.
I touch the area where his heart would normally have been beating but now it lay still dead gone forever never to beat again.
Flashback
"Waterbenders need to learn their place in the world.." sneered Ozai his face contorted in furious rage, "dead!" he roared. I saw it coming. I saw the lightning racing towards me but I never felt its electrifying power. Zuko was in front of me in a heart beat. One arm outreached into the lightning as his body was bathed in the electric blue light. It passes through his lean body and out through his right arm and straight to the heart of it's creator, the Fire Lord Ozai who was unprepared for Zuko's speed and sacrifice.
To put it in short Ozai fell that day and we won I rejoiced for a matter of seconds until I was brought to reality by a violet fit of coughing on Zuko's behalf. He dropped to the marble floor before I could even register what was happening. He clutched his pale chest his eyes watering in the horrific pain. I quickly drop to the ground beside him. He looks at me with his beautiful golden eyes. I drunk him in then and there I finally no longer saw him as the hurt boy who betrayed me but the amazing and beautiful young man that was dying for me. I leaned down to him my brown fell around us like a curtain, he moved slowly forwards up towards me. We kissed, it was to put it frankly it was amazingly electric. I don't know if it was the lightning that still pulsed around his body or my feelings for him which I had just discovered as he lay before me. I knew that I would remember him forever as the boy that betrayed me, hurt me but loved me enough to jump in front of a lightning bolt to save me.
He beckoned me closer, "Katara?" he muttered.
"Yes?" I manage to choke out.
"Thank you for forgiving me. I probably didn't deserve it, I hurt you too much. But I'm glad now that I have proved myself to you. Tell my uncle that I am stupid to have forgotten my most important lesson but tell him I died for something that I found worth dying for," he looked at me with his molten gold eyes and I cried.
"Don't," he whispered. He drew himself up towards me for the last time it was his last display of his strength and determination. He kissed me deeply and more passionately than before. I felt a tremendous heat wave pass over me. He drew away from me and whispered his final words into my ear, "I told you so," proud, defiant, arrogant and loving to the end. He fell limp into my unsuspecting arms.
Present
"You idiot!" I roar at his dead body. I punched at his chest. He was so cold it was all wrong he should be burning hot, his eyes should be opened and seething in anger at me calling him an idiot but it didn't happen. He was dead, he died for me. It was hopeless everything was. He should have become Fire Lord, bring peace to his nation and live to be a happy and withered old man. Not to die a banished prince with no home, no family, so young and so beautiful. He should have died in his sleep not by a mistake that I caused. I drew my dagger from my belt prepared to kill myself so I could join him when I felt a warmth enveloping me and stopping me from harming myself.
"What are you doing?" asked a familiar voice it was coated in rage and anger at my attempt at suicide. I turned to the eerie voice and found the spirit of Zuko beside me. His golden eyes burning with anger and love. His scar was gone and he was bathed in a heavenly golden glow. I dropped the knife and as soon as it hit the floor I felt a loving warm embrace cover me.
"Katara.." he began his voice soft and loving different to his harsh tone I had heard five minutes ago, " I didn't die today for you only to kill yourself out of pity. I died today for something I believe was worth dying for. Katara I love you please do not insult me by killing yourself you will only give me more heart brake. You are going to die old, happy and withered with Aang, Toph, Suki, and your idiot brother Sokka by your side. I told you I would die today. Did I not?" he asked with a peculiar ghostly smile.
I chocked, "But I won't die with all the people I love," I said stupidly.
He looked at me with his intense golden eyes.
"Katara, I will NEVER EVER leave you. Get that through your thick head I love you with all my heart and I promise that I will always be watching over you and I will never stop loving you I promise you that. And you and I both know that I never ive up and I never break my promises. I never have and I NEVER will," I felt his familiar warmth cover me again. He kissed me again it was simply magical. It was his last kiss he gave me except for in my dreams. He left me alone with his body.
"I love you," I said finally to his body.
"And I you," replied Zuko's rough voice.
"Katara! Azula's down and by the looks of it so is Ozai," said Aang rushing into the throne room with Sokka, Toph and Suki hit on his heels his glowing grin dropped as soon as he saw Zuko's dead body.
"He died Aang," I state simply and calmly. Aang hugged me warmly. It was not the same as with Zuko but I accepted Aang's try at comforting me. I could just imagine Zuko smiling at me with his mother, cousin and his grandfather Roku on either side of him.
Future
I lat now on my death bed with all of those I love beside me. Aang, Sokka, Toph, Suki and my adopted Fire Nation daughter they were all there with me as I made my last adventure this time to the spirit world. I spy a young fire nation man leaning on the door frame smiling at me.
"I told you. I NEVER break my promises," he said extending his pale hand to grab my tan one. His golden eyes swum with happiness as he took me in then and there just as I had seventy years prior to him. I look behind me and see my dead body lying on the floor oddly I did not regret leaving it behind. I catch myself in the mirror. I gasped I was sixteen the age Zuko was when he died. It had been two years after Zuko's death. I wore my hair out the way he had always liked my hair. I wore his mothers necklace apparently in the Fire Nation a necklace is the symbol of engagement as well as it was in the Water Tribe. Iroh had given it to me on my sixteenth birthday he had told me Zuko planned to give it to me himself to show that he loved her apparently he had loved her since they had re met in Ba Sing Sei. I never took I off. He looked at me with his molten gold. We kissed again the electric shock was so large it shook me entire body.
"I love you," I said.
He drew me into my new home of the spirit world as we set foot into the spirit world he replied finally, "And I you."
The End