I don't own the Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters.
Zutara 25 Drabbles Challenge
By Last Butterfly alias MrJensen~
4. Scarred
Most of his life had been shaped by the mark on his face. But Zuko had to realize that his father caused other, different and invisible scars too. And as those did not belong to him, he would have never even imagined how much suffering they caused if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.
For the first time when kindness was shown to him by a herbalist girl – whose ostrich-horse he had 'borrowed' for quite some time, – he could see how the Fire Lord's soldiers hurt people physically.
But when he stood at the edge of a forest, while the Southern Tribe's last waterbender overcame the full power of a rainstorm, he could truly see what his nation had unleashed.
Grief, sadness and sorrow: that was what pained her, just as it did with him.
Had Katara decided to smite the man, he wouldn't have stopped her. But a part of him knew that in the end she would show mercy. And when she did and later cried against his chest, it showed him her deepest wound: the loss of her mother.
That was how both of them had been scarred by Fire Lord Ozai.
A/N: Just a reminder:
Katara: "The Fire Nation took my mother away from me!"
Zuko: "I'm sorry... That's something we have in common."