Happy Zutara day! No particular reason for this story, I just had this brief idea and wanted to get it out. This borrows from Emletish's story Not Stalking Firelord Zuko, which is a great story and you should go read after you read this, because it's light and fluffy and you're probably going to want something light and fluffy after this. I might post A/Ns for each lifetime later, but not right now.
Some things change. Others never will.
Lifetimes and names change. Fate never will.
She climbs over the hill, furious, angry. Thumps down, leans against rock. She'll not stand down.
He grunts, pulls himself up, furious, angry. Thumps down, leans against rock. He'll not stand down.
Tears come to her eyes, as they do when she is angry, when she is upset, when she is frustrated. She begins to sob. Why can't something in her life go right?
He hears her, on the other side of the rock. Pulls himself up to lean over, tells her not to cry.
She looks up, plainly startled. Wipes her eyes. Tells him-everything. Why? Why is she telling this one boy, from the other village, from the other clan?
He listens, for all he feels awkward doing so, and tells her-everything. Why? Why does he tell this one girl, from the other village, from the other clan?
They sit, in silence for awhile. They go their separate ways, promising to meet again at the same spot tomorrow.
"Wait-What's your name?" He calls out as she leaves. "Mine's Shi."
The girl turns back; smiles. "Oma."
Count the stars and grains of sand,
They'll carry you to faraway lands,
Where our people are as many as
The stars above and sands below.
So count the stars and grains of sand,
They'll carry you to faraway lands.
The song is sung, but no call returns.
Out here in the desert, lad,
The sky is good, city lights don't make it bad.
The people from there, my lass,
They call us old and call us crass,
But they forgot to count the stars
And grains of sand.
They're not carried to faraway lands.
No answer, still. She runs, leaping from her home to the dunes, not bothering with the SandSail. Why bother, when you know already what you will find?
The oasis is empty tonight. Oasis means water, water means life, but there is no life there. There is only an empty shell, left by the wildmen.
When she returns, she agrees. She will do this one thing, if it means the man will stay in power, if the man will rid the country of wildmen. Everyone is surprised, her father is sad, for she will die.
She only smiles and begins her story. Tonight she will die. But she does not mind. "Long ago, in a place called Ba Sing Se, where the men bend solid stone instead of sand, there lived once a poor man who had a son who was called Aladdin..."
But then, she does not die. She grows old and wrinkled next to her husband, and watches her son take the throne after his father dies.
But Shahrazad does not grow happy.
For always, in the back of her mind, she cannot help but remember the man from Ba Sing Se called Aladdin, who did not marry his princess.
So she lets him in her stories.
There's a fine lady that comes down, sometimes, to the teashop. He doesn't know why, at first(not that he minds-she's a very fair lady.). But he sees the way she blushes around him, and can barely speak, and then he realises.
He wonders idly how she first saw him. Perhaps she came with a commoner friend, or pretending to be a peasant. She would not have come to the Lower Ring on her own.
And then, one day she's robbed after visiting him, and he feels so horrible, because it's his fault, if he wasn't a stupid, lowly peasant-
And then she hushes him with a kiss, and comes back dressed as a maid.
(They've no trouble being together after that.)
But she comes in one day, her shoulders slumped, her head hanging sadly. He knows something is wrong-usually she is so upbeat and cheerful. "I'm to marry a nobleman," she tells him. He always knew this day would come-she is a lady and he is a peasant. She has duties.
He has wished before that he was a nobleman, but never so fiercely. He has wished so that they would not have to keep this a secret, so that he would not have to work on his feet from sunrise to far past sunset to feed himself, but now he wishes even more.
"I'll visit you, after," she whispers. "I promise."
He nods. He can't bring himself to say goodbye. Wiping tears from her eyes, she goes.
He never sees her again.
She can't bend at all. He doesn't mind, but his family does. He's a nobleman, the son of a powerful general, and so he ought to marry a good bender, daughter of a powerful nobleman.
He met her on Ember Island, in the middle of the summer, when she didn't want to into the water. So he dragged her in, splashed her. She loved the water after that.
They'll never really be together, but neither one of them cares right now. She's like the water, and so is he-why think of the future? You never know what it will bring. Better to flow around and over life's obstacles, slip and slide down the rocky slope of time.
So of course, they find a rock too tall to flow over, too wide to slip around.
"They want me to marry Mei-Ming. I can't refuse-she's a powerful bender, and intelligent and beautiful besides. It would be like turning my nose up at the Avatar."
"I suppose...that this will have to end, then." She pauses, then: "Good...goodbye, Li."
He smiles slightly. "Goodbye, Tai."
She travels a great deal. She is an Air Nomad, after all. But by far, her favorite spot in the world is the Northern Water Tribe.
In the Northern Water Tribe, they do not like outsiders. They do not trade the way their Southern sisters do. The city is great, and huge, and beautiful, but mistrusting and isolated. She does not care for their furs or their meat, their ice sculptures are to gaudy for her taste, their pots not so fine as the ones in the South. She doesn't like the Northern Water Tribe for these.
No, she likes it for the people.
Well, person, really. His name is Kanik, and he's wonderful. (Far better than the Air Nomads she's met). He's quiet, and a good listener. She used to think that her people were right and she was wrong about anger, about passion. But then she met Kanik, and saw the way he hunts, and the way he bends, and she decides that sometimes passion is a good thing. That anger is only an emotion, just like happiness, that is meant to burst forth when it wants to. That it is worse to keep it bottled up. Anger, she decides, is like the air-water she and Kanik make. Bottle it up to long, the wrong way, and it will burst from pressure.
She wants to make it official; he doesn't. Official, of course, means different things to the both of them. He wants to, but not in the same way, and he can't. My people don't marry outside of the Tribe, he tells her sadly.
Why? She wants to ask him. Why bother with marriage at all? But she doesn't. She can't disrespect his culture like that.
She suggests moving to the South, where it is fine. But she is still an airbender, and airbenders don't marry.
But, she thinks, so soon after Avatar Kuruk's wife being stolen by Koh...why can't they have a happy ending?
She lives by his home, in the Western Air Temple. That is how they meet.
She is in the Fire Nation, selling the moon peaches the temple grows when she meets him. He is a lovely young man, for all he is Fire Nation, and a soldier at that. Peace is nice.
They bond over moon peaches and politics- The FireLord grows restless. Word is he's been sending people to colonize the Earth Kingdom. The young man can neither confirm nor deny these rumors.
For ages they go like this, he visiting her when he is nearby, she visiting him when he is stationed in the Earth Kingdom as a soldier. Her bison shows her the world from above, but he shows it to her from below.
Two years later, it happens and she tells him; he is thrilled, but rightfully worried-what if-what if it dies? If it is a firebender?
Then he will raise it. It can still know who its mother is, but it will not be raised by her. Air Nomads believe in free love. Love is love...nothing can stand in its way. This doesn't calm him as much as she'd hoped it would.
When it comes, her belly is round, the Avatar and the FireLord have not been getting along well, and he is away fighting. He will not be present for the birth.
It is a boy-she is somewhat disappointed. If it were a girl, she could raise her child, rather than send it to live at the Southern Temple once the baby is weaned.
She names him Aang.
It is twelve autumns later when the FireLord finally makes his move.
He has been sent to invade the Western Air Temple. It was not his choice-he would much rather invade the North, or the East-not the West, where his lover lives, nor the South, where his son is raised. But he cannot pick his orders.
When he finds her, her eyes are wide; with fright, with surprise, with confusion. What is happening? Will he kill her?
He raises his hands, closes his eyes-
And in his mind's eye he can see Aang; his little son, born twelve years ago. Wide grey eyes staring up at his father. His mother's eyes.
He lowers his hands. He cannot kill her.
Go. Leave-get out of here.
No. I'll not let you do something so foolish. Come with me.
I can't.
Their eyes meet, and they know what they're going to do.
Together?
Yes.
She lifts her hands, looking pained; her hands twitch.
He lifts his hands, feeling pained; His fists twitch.
It is with her last breath that she takes ahold of his hand.
She dies red, like his flame. He dies blue, like her sky.
Inside, she hates him. Inside, she regrets saying yes. Inside, she wishes for another choice. Inside, she wants to become an old spinster. Inside, she hates her grandfather for roping her into this. Inside, she is a storm.
Outside, she loves him. Outside, she is happy she said yes, because it will benefit her Tribe. Outside, she chose. Outside, she is about to wed. Outside, she is respectful to her grandfather as always. Outside, she is calm.
The man is a jerk; the man is an idiot; the man gives her no respect, so she gives none to him; he is incompetent; he leers at her; he can hardly be called a man.
Still, she holds her cup of water. Her face is as silent, as smooth, as still as the glass. Nothing can be read on it.
The vows are exchanged, for all they mean nothing; She will bear him no children, they will give each other no love, he will cheat on her behind her back.
She tells herself she doesn't care.
For long years they live like this. She shifts him like a puppet, hating who she has become. She ponders changing her name to Hama.
Through his hand she gives women rights; she legalizes interracial marriage in both Tribes; gives homosexuals rights. If she thought people would not kill her if she made their marriages legal, she would have. Their masquerade fools no one.
All know who holds the real power.
Under her reign-hers, not Han's. Under her reign-Avatar Aang marries Ty Lee; They have twins. She wishes she would have children. Under her reign boys learn healing; girls learn to defend themselves from boys. Under her reign she sends her best healers to Ba Sing Se as a show of friendship to the royal couple Kuei and Song to help heal the Joo Dees. Under her reign Beifong Toph becomes the first woman inducted into the White Lotus; Suki the second, and the first female nonbender.
Under her reign Sokka the Brave studies engineering in Caldera, eventually coming up with designs for the telegraph wire, the cotton mill and the printing press. Under her reign all is well.
But not under her roof.
After five years, the attempts slow down. Sokka and Suki both volunteered to protect her and her husband, but she declined. She can take care of herself.
She didn't mention Han.
Because seven years into their marriage, an attempt does succeed-not on her, but on her husband. She curses the fact that she is almost glad of it.
Despite being formally in mourning, she takes control of her country-no. She takes control of her countries. She spars in the morning, is free to finally do things for herself. Undoes some of the laws that he passed that she hates but could do nothing about when he placed them there.
She is a woman in her own right. She is powerful in her own right. She is strong in her own right.
She visits her friends.
It has been eight years since she was last in the Fire Nation, but she loves it here. It is winter back in the north, and here it rains. The monsoons come, and she loves it. She lets the rain soak into her skin, her hair, her clothes, her everything. She cries because she is finally, finally, finally at a place that she can call home.
When she arrives at Caldera Bay, the moon is full. She has timed it well. Yue is by her side.
For all it is winter and the monsoon rains storm, she remains dry. She stands on an ice dais she has sculpted herself, the moon behind her acting as a halo, as a crown. Above her ship there is a dome of rain, as though it streams down the sides of an invisible bowl. Her arms are extended, keeping them dry singlehandedly.
She descends the dais, walks across the ship and down the plank, across the dock elegantly. There she stops, looking at the wet path between her and her oldest – best – greatest – closest – friend. She lowers her arms, then extends one out in front of her; raises them, as if parting a curtain – and the path between her and the FireLord is dry.
She strides – walks – runs – rushes to her friend, and cannot help herself. She wraps him into a tight embrace.
It is a year later when they announce their engagement.
It is two years after that when the assassination attempts drop off enough for them to finally have their wedding.
The next morning, the white sheet is red.
Nobody is surprised.
Once they were lovers, destined to die. Now they are wed, destined to live.
Long live FireLady Katara; Long live Chieftan Zuko.
May the spirits shower happiness on you always.
One thousand years, one thousand lives,
Five hundred years, five hundred wives,
But in the end, Fate only makes
No mistake.
Aaaaand that's the end. Please review. Let me know what you think of it!