093. Scar
She doesn't think it's ever occurred to him that he's beautiful, but he is.
He has skin as fair as an angel's; his arms and hands are muscular and sturdy from his relentless practices. Wide shoulders accompanied with sharp collar bones and angles balance out his lean legs and stomach. Soft brown feathers of hair clothe his head, hanging over his forehead, casting shadows on his cheeks. He has eyes like liquid gold, melting, smoldering, soaked in experience. His left eye is literally covered in it.
Most people, she knows, take one glance at him and cringe from the ghastly red scar; it burns through his handsome face like a comet burns through the night sky. She remains the only one whom he has ever let touch it; she trails her fingers over the rough sandpaper skin, touching his eye and then hers, imagining the blistering pain rushing through her own skin, the blinding light scalding her own eye.
She feels her soft, whole cheekbone all the way through her eyebrow and then turns back to him, chewing the inside her cheek softly, stunned into near-silence as his lifelong struggle hits her like a punch in the gut. Tremendous, overwhelming, sickening, and impressive at the same time.
"Does it hurt?" she asks as she lifts her hands again to trace the outline of the gruesome spot; her fingers disappear into his soft hair for a moment before traveling down the bridge of his nose and across the irregularly shaped cheekbone that was once so striking and sharp, like his collar bone and shoulder blades. He does not blink as she does this. He doesn't smile, he doesn't frown. He doesn't move.
"Not anymore." Now he shifts, placing his palm over hers so that her hand cups his face. "But it did when it happened, and for weeks and weeks after that."
"Oh," she whispers, and that's all that is said as she strokes his scar lightly with her thumb.
Katara does not find Zuko beautiful because of the physical looks he possesses — though she imagines what a fine man he would have been if he where whole — but because of his inner beauty, which blossoms through him like a flower in bloom. He has struggled and fought, and it makes him strong. Katara finds this determination, this hidden strength, so beautiful it takes her breath away. He works so hard and she feels like he deserves much more attention for it, much more recognition, much more love. He's so beautiful and no one notices, no one but her.
And the scar, an unsightly, revolting symbol of such an unparalleled beauty that lies beneath, represents everything that she loves him for. It is the scar that she has to thank for bringing him to her; if he never got the scar he would never have been banished, if he was never banished he never would have found her.
She likes his scar and though she doesn't tell him this, she finds it just as beautiful as she finds the rest of him.
Author's Note: Here is some mutual attraction to get the ball rolling. R&R. Don't just favorite & run (: