chapter: avenoir - n. the desire that memory could flow backward
setting: six years after the end of the war.
disclaimer: I own nothing.
author's notes: I'm a rising senior in college now, guys! I can't believe that time has moved so quickly. Please do review, as always, I love hearing from you!
They were stiff. That was the best adjective she could come up with as she stared at the Fire Lord, the tension palpable, the deep sadness in his eyes a question that she longed to answer. Silently, he inclined his head to her once, the action smooth. With that same heaviness in his face, he turned, and swept away with a sinewy way to his walk that made her chest ache. There was a long moment of quiet then, a quiet that seated itself in her bones, and all of a sudden she hated that he was walking away from her.
He should walk away, she quipped to herself, he should run, far from her. She was a dangerous, ticking time bomb, and if she got much closer to him, he'd find out all of the flaws that made her so undesirable.
But she also wanted him to stay- needed him to stay.
When would she get another chance like this, alone with the Fire Lord? Alone with Zuko? The fierceness in him had melted a little, just now, revealing a little of the vulnerable tenderness that had once defined his every move around her. She could remember the depth of his gaze, the feral need to protect, the absolute loyalty.
She could remember the fierceness of their friendship and the emptiness she'd felt when she'd lived without it. She'd felt the force of those lonely nights when the only soul in the world she could tell about her suffering was Aang- and after he'd gone, too, she was alone in her struggle.
It had taken her this long to realize that her own stubbornness was sometimes her own undoing.
As her face turned to the exit of the garden, the hemmed ends of his cloak disappeared through the doorway. The hallway was long and abandoned; she'd catch him there. Four steps to the door, two into the hall, and her old friend was nearly halfway down it by now. She could fix this. She could still make it right.
She gathered a lungful of air and a moments worth of primal strength, steeling herself as she called his name as loudly as she dared.
She was a warrior. She could do anything.
"Zuko!" She hadn't uttered the name in years, it felt, like she was dusting it off and tasting the fire of the syllables for the first time again. For a moment, she thought he hadn't heard her. Or perhaps he was ignoring her. She deserved it right now, that was for certain. But all of a sudden, he froze mid-step, his back to her. Katara swallowed at the dry lump in her throat.
His shoulders rolled forward a little, then, and he turned his head a little to the side, just enough so one golden eye could pierce her soul.
"Lady Katara." He said the name softly, a mere whisper compared to her clumsy shout, but each letter was treated with a care that almost no one else bothered with. She shivered. In that moment, she forgot how angry she was at him; at the world. Her hatred of those that had hurt her so deeply in the past years of her life faded to a dull roar instead of the maddening pulse that normally raged within her.
They were just Zuko and Katara again for that second, a boy and a girl whose families had been ripped from them. They weren't government officials, they weren't jaded by the abandonment of their significant others. They were just a pair of unlikely friends patchworked together between the lines of Nations, between the lines of their elements.
When he turned full circle to face her, his lips were parted. Everything about him resembled the boy from her past now, from the tense of his jaw to the gentle sweep of his gaze. His hands hung loosely at his sides; she could remember how it felt to have the calloused fingertips graze her cheekbones.
The ridges of his scar were the same, a little more white and puckered around the edges, perhaps, but just as defining as before. But he seemed to bear the curse of it more like a battle scar, a prideful thing, versus something that marked him negatively. There was a confidence in the way he held himself now.
In so many ways was he a man; and yet, still, she knew he was so much of a boy.
"There is much to talk about, I think." He was the first to speak in the endless silence between them, ending the buzzing in her head and the wildness of her thoughts.
"I saw the way you used to look at him, Katara. I know. We all knew. You think I'm stupid and naive, but really, I see everything."
Aang's eyes, hurt, wide, appeared in her mind for a moment, hovering in the space between her and the man she'd stared at with no inhibitions for so long. Clearing her throat to keep herself from choking on her memories, the girl's hands tightened in the material of her dress. The silk was already slippery with sweat from her clammy palms.
"Much." The word was split in half by a crack in her voice, making her flush with shame. How could she be showing such weakness in front of him? Zuko bowed his head then, strands of the raven black hair she had once tangled her fingers in slipping from his top knot into his eyes. His shoulders slumped a little, dropping their rigid stance, and he drew in a long, crackling breath that echoed.
"It's odd of me to ask, but would you do me the favor of having dinner with me tonight? It would be nice to get to know you again, Lady Katara." His voice was awkward and formal, much like it had been when they'd began to mend their friendship the first time. A smile teased the corners of her lips as she remembered how he'd camped out in front of her tent all night once just to apologize to her in the morning.
What a stubborn soul he was. So she reached, ignoring her own pig-headedness, letting the smile form on her mouth and her hands fall from her skirts. She reached to him with all she had left, the remains of her icy heart and caged soul, her long-forgotten emotions and a tenderness she had shown to no one but her family in years.
"Katara. Just Katara." The waterbender murmured.
Zuko's face lifted, and his exhausted, bruised eyes were lit in a way she hadn't seen in years. The corners of his lips twinged once, twice, before sinking into an effortless smile that made his molten gold eyes melt into her gaze again.
Maybe he wouldn't think her foul and tainted. It was Zuko, the only soul in the world who had stared down her most twisted flaws and listened to her most hateful words and still gathered her into his arms and told her it would be alright.
She quieted the noise in her head as she stared at him, feeling a warmth in her belly that hadn't been there before.
She paced the floor of her room with growing impatience as the minutes groaned by. The long sleeves of her robes trailed on the ground as she moved, and she sighed, restless, eyeing the clock for the hundredth time before wrinkling her nose in frustration. Dinner with Zuko wasn't something she could just forget about. She'd waited for an eternity to give him a piece of her mind and to figure out what those long, painful years of silence had been for.
"You're not worth the attention of a husband. You're only good enough for a concubine."
Katara didn't like being left alone for too long with her thoughts. They tormented her ruthlessly, gnashing at what small peace she could find in the solace of her room. Iroh had ordered some blue and white drapes to be hung on the walls to replace the somewhat angry, crimson tapestries, a welcome change for the waterbender. But even the color didn't ease her aching memory.
"Katara, I promise, we'll try again."
"Aang, you don't understand. We're not married in the eyes of the tribe. We're barely an official couple. I'm soiled now, as it is, for having any sort of... relations with you."
"Is that all this is to you? A relation? It's supposed to be special."
"It is, but you have to recognize that it's also going against all of my core beliefs, Aang."
"You know how important rebuilding my Nation is to me, Katara. We have to start sooner rather than later, and honestly, it's going to take forever to gain the approval of your tribe. What does it matter? We're seen as a true couple in the eyes of the Spirits and of the other Nations. We've been together years now. It's time."
"It matters to me. It matters that mere months after we started sleeping together I was pregnant, and a scattering of weeks after that I lost my first child. Does that mean nothing to you? Because it hurts me in a way you'll never understand. Worst of all, I can't even tell my family about it. I have to keep this burden to myself."
"Of course it means something to me. I don't want you to hurt. And you can always talk to me about it, 'Tara, you know that. I'm all you should need."
Katara remembered those nights with Aang. She remembered how he'd coaxed her into it, how he'd cajoled her every step of the way while tears dewed in the corners of her eyes and she tried to send her confused mind to another place to ease the pain.
Aang was a child. He didn't yet know how to care for others, didn't yet know how to court a woman without trying to force her into his bed. She shuddered to think of the first time they'd engaged each other in an intimate way, remembering how he'd come to her late at night as she was bathing.
He hadn't been forceful.
But he had been convincing.
Two years and three secret miscarriages later, plans for a wedding were being spoken of between her father and the other heads of the tribe. Aang had officially been accepted as a man of the tribe, much to Sokka's pride- he'd coached the boy himself through the trials of learning to hunt, to provide for the village, and how to respect the the news of her nupitals was brought to the tanned woman-warrior, her father smiled, thinking she'd be pleased- but in reality, she felt sick, knowing she was facing a marriage without love. Aang hadn't mistreated her or harmed her, he was only a boy with misconceptions of what a relationship was meant to be.
Three children lost. She spent nights with her hands resting on her empty womb, dry eyed, bitterly glad that Aang had stopped sleeping beside her at night. He knew it only brought her pain. So he'd come to her in the mornings, bringing flowers and empty words of love, staring up at her with wide, boyish eyes that reflected the depth of her suffering right back at her.
Katara smoothed her hand over the silk bedsheets she sat on, staring out the window, her eyes raking over the bloody sunset that lay before her. How fitting, she mused to herself, a red sunset for a Nation of fire.
"Lady Katara?" It was the voice of her chambermaid at her door, peeking in, her brown eyes wide and youthful and somewhat fearful. Katara smiled at the teenage girl, inviting her in with a wave of her hand. She was built with a petite, fragile frame, with a heart-shaped face and a small mouth that she kept pursed, as if she were disapproving of something. Her pale face was smattered with freckles.
Freckles; now that would be a sight to see in the royal court. Katara smirked a little, thinking of all the powdered and made up faces of the ladies she'd so graciously met at dinner the other night.
"Come, what is it?" Her voice was a crackling whisper, and she realized she hadn't spoken aloud in hours. She'd been focused on her thoughts so intensely that the minutes had flown; and now it was nearly time for dinner.
"I'm here to dress you, my lady, for dinner. The Fire Lord requested that you wear this gown-" She gestured to a cloth garment bag that she'd hung over the end of the bed. "And he also insisted that you come hungry. He's had the chef prepare some meals of your custom." Bowing low, the maid avoided the eyes of the waterbender.
A rush of gratefulness accompanied the girl's words. Katara warmed to think that Zuko had been that thoughtful. Maybe there would be stewed sea prunes tonight, and she'd definitely get a kick out of watching him eat them.
"There's no need to be so frightened. What's your name? I won't hurt you." Katara stood slowly, approaching the girl as if she were a small, trembling animal, one hand outstretched a little.
"They told me you were a bending master and that you are to be the Fire Lady, miss. Who I am is of no importance to a great woman like yourself." The maid's voice quavered, and she kept her eyes low, as if looking at the bender would bring about a war.
Her stomach still churned at the sound of the title- Fire Lady. How unusual and unexpected it still was, how it throbbed through her like a wound to know that she would never get the chance to rule over her tribe with thick furs and a strong spear like her father.
Instead, she would sit upon a gilded throne beside a man she hardly dared to say she knew any more. But she swallowed her fears for the moment, stubbornly refusing them to bubble up in a time like this.
"It is of great importance to me, since we are to be friends." Katara smiled in hopes that the familiar word would spark a reaction from the girl.
"Friend? My lady should hardly waste time with a lowly-"
"I insist."
"Since my lady presses so, my name is Akina. And I'm here to dress you." She remained firmly silent after that, no matter Katara's lamentations. With a pale, skillful hand, she helped Katara out of her day dress. The gown Zuko had ordered for her was made of the lightest golden silk, embroidered carefully with red thread in designs of fire-lilies. Katara swept her hand over the material, a low gasp in her mouth. It was the most beautiful thing she'd seen in her life, and by far the most delicate.
"My lady is most deserving of such a beautiful gown." Akina murmured, unable to stop herself from commenting on the artful dress. Once Katara stepped into it and Akina was lacing the back, she noticed all at once that the golden tones were warm enough to complement her tanned skin and fierce cerulean eyes.
Her hair was braided into two plaits and arranged on the back of her skull in a neat, careful updo, and Akina dusted Katara's lips with a bit of color before stepping back.
"You look like the royalty that you truly are, my lady." With that, she swept another low curtsy and exited the room, fleeing like a frightened fieldmouse. Katara chuckled to herself about the timid girl, thinking how much she preferred her to the barking old lady that had previously thrown her gowns at her with a wrinkled scowl.
But now it was time to arm herself, all amusements aside. She stared at herself for a great length of time in the mirror, clipping her bracelets on, taking a long, deep breath in through her nose to cleanse her thoughts. It didn't matter if she felt like she could trust Zuko, she argued to herself, people in general couldn't be trusted. For all she knew, this was some enormous trick and she would once again be at the center of a spiraling cycle of humiliation.
Her heart, however, dared to hope that Zuko would be as warm and inviting to her as he had once been, as soft and as gentle as a turtleduck. It was her heart that fluttered as she walked down the hall, her head high, her jaw clenched and her hands at her sides. The guards that spotted her all at once straightened as she passed; a new adjustment, a welcome one at that. There weren't many civilians in the halls at this time of day, but those that saw her lowered their gazes respectfully.
She was a warrior-princess heading to battle, and they saw it in her eyes, in the roiling of the sea. They saw it in the regality of her stride, in the poise of her posture. Her high cheekbones were accentuated because her heavy, dark hair was up, and her bracelets clattered against each other in an intimidating manner, bringing her to the attention of all that came near her.
As Katara swept into the dining hall, she brought the strength of the ocean with her. Zuko stood alone by the head of the table, and to her surprise, only two places had been set; one for her, and one for him. But she didn't stumble once as she approached him. A low sigh slipped from between his parted lips as she neared- or did she imagine it?- and he gestured eloquently for her to sit.
"You look beautiful, my lady." He took her hand in his- those familiar, calloused fingers grazing hers ever so slightly- and passed his mouth over her hand in a greeting.
"What did I tell you about calling me that?" Her voice rattled a little from the contact, but she joked, teasing her friend just enough so that a smile cracked his stoic expression.
"I'm just proud you wore a dress that I gave you." He quipped back, unraveling his utensils from the heavy cloth napkin and setting them by his plate so the napkin could sit in his lap. She copied him, hoping her manners weren't embarrassingly out of practice.
"Well, I liked this one. I decided I'd concede to wearing it." Katara wrinkled her nose at him, feeling herself relax in his steady presence. The waves in her eyes calmed, quieting, letting the girl eat the first course in peace.
At first, they talked of politics. Katara's tribe had gained little ground in the past four years, Zuko's Nation hadn't yet begun to embrace other cultures. But where her tribe struggled to make ends meet, the Fire Nation was a thriving place; Zuko had done well with the repairs to their failing economical system and had even struck some bargains with the Earth Kingdom's trading posts. Fishing villages had sprung back up along the harbors, people had taken back to their duties and left the fires of war in the past. The factories had been shut down and the army had been reduced to a few hundred men that were tasked to keeping radicals at bay.
Katara listened intently to her old friend speak on such matters, and for the first time, saw the deep bags under his eyes. He worked hard and excelled, but at the cost of his own comfort and health. She knew this about him already; his passion sometimes backfired on him.
But as the second course arrived- stewed sea prunes for her, some form of spicy meat over rice for him- the facade had begun to fade. Katara teased him with a forkful of sea prunes, he made a show of being disgusted by the smell and teased her back.
As she started to eat, Zuko's eyebrows pulled together and he asked the question she knew he'd been burning to ask all night.
"I don't mean to pry, Katara, but you said on our first meeting that Aang-"
"Left me, yes, I did say that. I spoke rather quickly." Katara toyed with the food on her plate, pushing it about with her fork and feeling the weight of the silver in her palm. Zuko remained silent. In the aching quiet that followed, Katara took a long, deep breath, trying to sum up the years of pain into a few short phrases that didn't give too much of her away.
She didn't trust him yet. There wasn't a way to put softly the brokenness of her body and soul, no single phrase that could bring about her imperfections in a good manner.
"He was displeased with our customs, at first. He wanted to rush things, to be intimate, to recreate the Kingdom of Air Nomads that he so often pictured in his mind. I wanted different things. I wanted to travel, to see the world in a less war-stricken light." She paused, eyeing her friend as he stared at her with quiet curiosity in his eyes.
"After some time, I realized how much of a child he actually was. At three years younger than I when it came down to it, he was chasing penguins by day and trying hopelessly to seduce me into his bed by night. I learned quickly that I didn't find him attractive."
Katara stopped for a moment, amused by her own statement. Aang had been anything but attractive to her; in fact, he'd been the opposite. Zuko smiled a little, too, as if acknowledging for a moment the awkwardness that must have been there for the girl.
When she didn't speak for another long second, Zuko reached across the table- stiffly- and touched her hand with his for half a second before his face darkened and he looked away.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." His words were half understanding and half bitter; she knew he wanted to have their friendship repaired all at once, to start where they left off. But she couldn't- and wouldn't- let that happen. Her trust had been broken far too many times for something like that.
"I'll get into the rest of the story another time, but to make short of it, he decided I wasn't what he wanted any more. One morning, after a few weeks of silence, my father told me he'd left." Katara shrugged, trying to make light of it, desperately trying to cover the emotion that was stirring up the waves of her soul and sending her back into tumult. Zuko took a long drink of his water before saying another word. He looked pensive, taking another bite of his dinner and smoothing a hand across the mahogany of the table. A heavy breath expelled from his lungs, then, and she noticed a little puff of flame appear just beyond his lips.
He was frustrated.
"I know that's not the whole story, Katara. I also know you don't trust me any more." Each word was pointed, and she couldn't tell if he was angry or just stating facts. She raised an eyebrow, peering at the older man suspiciously. Since he had aged so well, he was twice as intimidating as before. Although she still couldn't take his massive shoulder pads seriously.
"Why should I trust you, Zuko? You broke our friendship for the sake of a girl you didn't even like all that much." The words tumbled from her clumsy lips before she could stop them, and all at once, the girl wanted to steal them all back. Zuko's already clouded face closed up, and he bristled, fire in his eyes.
"I liked her quite a lot, actually, not that you would care about a thing like that. All you wanted was some kind of fairytale ending with your picture perfect boyfriend." Zuko snapped, pushing his plate away.
"I just wanted my friend back!" Katara shoved hers away from her, as well, feeling her face heat with fury.
"She represented the politics of my reign, Katara. The nobles wouldn't get behind me unless I married one of them, and my advisors noted that Mai had always harbored some form of affection for me."
"So you ignored your best friend for her?" She was spitting fire back at him, now, just as they used to, heat sparking through the air like fireworks. He shoved himself away from the table then, a growl resounding in his throat.
"It was you or the throne." Zuko hissed lowly, letting his fist fall on the table with a heavy thump and an shower of sparks. Stricken, Katara remained seated, her eyes wide with hurt. He'd chosen the throne over their friendship.
An obvious and logical choice, of course, but that didn't stop the sting of it from inking into her heart.
"Don't you understand? After Aang left, I was basically thrown from my village and cast out into a house on the outskirts of our territory. People called me tainted. They called me a whore. They threw things at me, Zuko, insults and dead fish and curses. They spat on me as I walked by. My own family couldn't be seen with me sometimes."
Katara felt a lump growing in her throat as she spoke the words, her fists clenching, hating the fact that she was showing such weakness but not knowing another way to get him to listen to her.
"I was completely alone for a long time, and in that time, all I wanted was a friend." She ended her reverie there; not admitting to him how much she'd missed his company, not admitting her feelings, and certainly, not admitting her flaws.
Zuko didn't face her. Instead, he turned to leave, his back tensed and his frame harsh with anger.
"Well, Katara, you won't have to worry about Mai any longer," His voice was curt.
"She died a few months after you left."
merry christmas to all of you, and I hope you guys leave me a review as a present!
as always, I apologize for the long wait!
much love xx,
nightfall26