Beneath The Alder Tree- Chapter 4: Hoping
Disclaimer: AtLA and all associated characters belong to Bryke, all plot contents and Nairn belong to me
Now that I think on it, I fear I have been rather negligent of the world around our lovers up to this point. I have been so caught up in their story I declined to include the matter of politics. As I have told you, the Water Clan and Fire Clan spent many years on the precipice of war. Fighting nearly broke out from disagreements among the people over some petty offense or another many times, and at each occurrence Iroh or Hakoda would calm their clan reminding them of past bloodshed and the treaty. But as tempers rose it became harder for them to keep the peace, and Ozai lurked, ever waiting for his opportune moment.
Zuko's father began to gather a following. The Fire Clan was splitting at the seams. His sister, Azula, unsurprisingly sided with Ozai. For he had made it quite evident who his favorite child was. As his following slowly grew, seemingly few men stayed loyal to Iroh and Lu Ten. People thought that all their neighbors wanted this change when in reality it was just that Ozai's faction was outspoken and "accidents" continued to lower the number of Iroh's supporters.
Through these happenings the Water Clan remained relatively stable. Hakoda knew his people well and listened to their needs. The only internal split of the clan was whether or not to raise arms against the Fire Clan. A line ran between warriors and the elders. The youth, who didn't remember battle, felt the angry ache in their bones calling them to pick up their weapons while the elders hearts ached at the memory of the last battles, not wanting to see my field blood red once again. But soon, there was no choice to be made. The scales tipped and called for war.
"No." The word escaped her lips in a rush of air.
"No, that can't be," she whispered once again, worry in her eyes.
Zuko looked at her. His eyes telling her he wished it wasn't true just as much as she did, but it was hardly something he could lie about.
"I wish it weren't, Katara," he sighed out, the pain evident in his voice.
"But… How?" She still couldn't understand.
"My dad, he finally gained the support he needed. I knew it was coming. I should have done something, but I didn't want to believe it," he scowled shaking his head, eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"Uncle and Lu Ten… Katara," his tears spilled over, "my family left."
The girl took the boy near man in her arms.
"They didn't leave you by choice, Zuko. They would have died if they stayed. I'm sure they're safe now," she assured him.
"You know what this means, right? Within the next week our clans will most likely be at war!" he pushed her back without relinquishing his hold, trying to catch her eyes.
She kept them down, an uneasy frown etched on her visage.
"Of course I know, Zuko," she sighed. Her head hung lower.
Zuko took a deep breath, his tears now dry. He needed to collect himself. He needed to be there for her.
"Katara, look at me," he said more softly, dipping his head in an attempt to get her to look at him.
She looked up at him with remorse. A deep sadness had settled over her. "Why is this happening?"
He pulled her close to him again, his jaw rested on her head.
"It's an old feud. You knew as well as I did that the peace wasn't going to hold, especially with my dad," he whispered.
"I was just hoping it would hold long enough for us to try to figure out how to be together," she replied in a hushed tone.
They stood silently holding each other. Sorrow and fear entwined with the love passing between them. I found myself once again wishing I could solve the problems of the human world. After what could have been only seconds or a small forever, they slowly broke apart, but before they parted ways Zuko leaned down and kissed her. His usual softness was not evident. Instead there was a need. He kissed her hard and Katara returned it with the same fervor.
After the first day Zuko relayed his terrible news to Katara he didn't speak of it again. His face hardened, his eyes dry, he went on, but his thinning body told Katara and myself that he was not as well as he wanted her to think. Katara tried to do what she could for him, but an ailment of the heart is never cured as easily as one of the body.
Despite his agitated state, Zuko still did something he had been planning, to my knowledge, for some time. He had kept the thing consistently in his pocket for weeks. A small, smooth, deep black river stone that he had etched a likeness of myself into with remarkable skill. Her face brightened when he gave the charm to her. She held it lovingly and pecked him on the cheek. It was a point of happiness in all the chaos quickly escalating around them.
Like Zuko, the earth held its breath in anticipation of what was surely to come, but that didn't stop the wind from whispering the secrets of the trees as it blew across the meadow. Oh, no certainly not. Lately, it carried more news of the happenings in the Fire Clan, its secrets more complicated than I ever expected.
As you know, Iroh was not one for conflict reveling in the simple pleasures of life, preferring a calming walk through the woods to battle. He had, in fact, walked my meadow many a summer evening and came dangerously close to discovering my young lovers on several occasions. Sometimes I think he may have known, but alas that is one thing this old tree has yet to discern. But I digress, the trees whispered of how he made off in the night with his son. Not a sound made. Where they were headed, I know not, but they were indeed safe.
The entirety of the forest noticed Ozai's rise to power. He was a fierce man who saw compassion as weakness and fighting as the only solution. Katara had been right, Iroh and his son most likely wouldn't have survived. Other men who have challenged Ozai have disappeared. The humans always say it was an accident, but we trees know acts committed in the forest better than any human. With Ozai it is never an accident, but always a man's jealousy.
All too soon, as Zuko predicted, the first fight broke out. It was a small skirmish that occurred at the edge of my meadow. I later learned both sides claimed they were patrolling. In my opinion, they seemed a little too well prepared and placed for patrols.
In light of these increasingly turbulent events I received a visit from the Fire Clan boy, or should I say man? He was at the age where he still had a boyish appearance about him, but his eyes told me otherwise. They held a knowing beyond their years. This visit was the first time he had come to me by himself in many, many seasons. Frustration radiated from his body as he walked toward me, the furrow in his brow deeper than ever. Something was troubling him and it appeared to be more than the typical spat with his father. Over the years I have pieced together that the furrow in his brow came from his father and sister—both looked down on him because he was "unworthy" to be a son of fire.
When he reached the edge of my shade he did not settle in his usual spot. Instead he looked up to my branches and surprised me by grabbing the lowest, climbing into my tangle of limbs. He situated himself where Katara used to sit and stared out at the forest. What surprised me even more was when my contemplative friend spoke.
"My father is about to start a full on war," he began, "with the Clan of the woman I love. So what am I to do?" His eyes seemed to be searching my branches for an answer. One I wish I could have given him. There were so many things I could have told him, yet nothing at the same time.
"Do I follow his steps and go into battle? He's barely looked at me over the years, but recently he calls me to his side, as if he needs and heir besides Azula. What if I disappoint him again? Look at what happened the last time. Is there even a choice? I either defy him and betray my family or kill Katara's people. And not even in a fair fight! He wants to raid them now, a surprise attack, raze their village to the ground." He leaned his head against my bark as if in defeat.
"And what even for, but an old feud. Why are our fathers, of all people, the chiefs? It gives us no choice and makes it so complicated. Why can't things be simple for just once?"
Now isn't that a question for all time. But as I have come to understand it is the simple things that are fleeting in human life, although they may bring pleasure, and it is the things that humans toil for that remains when they have long left this earth. But the young man had yet to learn that particular lesson.
He stayed longer that day than the setting of the sun. The shadows stretched about him sinking the earth into darkness, but he sat on. The moon rose high above the meadow and he remained, not leaving until dawn the next morning, not sleeping once. By the time he left he had conviction in his eyes. He made a decision that night, one that had repercussions for a long time to come.
Katara came to me soon after he left. Her fear, a human emotion I was becoming all too familiar with, did not voice itself as Zuko's had. Her fear was a quiet sadness, a small understanding of what was ahead and a longing for the past. She climbed my branches like she had when she was young, sitting in the exact spot Zuko had, and stayed with me for the afternoon. She pulled out the stone he had given her and sat staring at it while she sat in my branches. She left only when the sun hid behind the tree tops. She said not a word the entire time she stayed and there was no look of conviction in her eyes when she left, only one of loss.
This was the last time either visited me before it started. It has taken me many years to understand why they didn't continue to meet beneath my branches for they had never spoken of doing so. They just stopped coming as if they had both agreed they could no longer see each other. Maybe that was why they had sat in silence so long. They had been listening to the other's heart and simply knew.
Both of my humans stopped coming to me.
A war started.
My meadow was once again drenched red.
I began to see the horrors of war again: men killing each other in the vilest ways possible, limbs and bodies scattered the ground. It was as if pieces of the past were resurfacing, but there was a different piece to the puzzle this time, and that piece gave me hope.
"Zuko, are you stupid? You could have been caught! Do you know what my clan would have done if they captured the Fire chief's son?!" Katara was beside herself. She was dragging Zuko by his arm into the field, a not so pleasant look on her face.
"I'm sorry, Katara. I needed to see you. I saw you go down. I needed to make sure you were ok after, after…" with a sigh of resignation he bent his head. He couldn't complete his thought, but I knew what he was speaking of. After Zuko's last visit his father did indeed carry out an ambush on Katara's clan. Zuko never had the chance to tell her.
The trees murmured that the Water Clan had prepared for the attack, but not one of the magnitude the Fire Chief had in store for them. Sustaining great loss, the Water Clan barely held their home, charred as it was in the end, against the Fire Clan's warriors.
The Fire Chief did not relent though. The battles continued. The Water Clan was weakening and the last clash had been particularly gruesome. It took place in my meadow, and what I saw were two younglings constantly searching the dead on the field praying to not find what they were looking for.
Katara had been in a hand fight with a non-bending Fire Clan girl and was knocked unconscious before Sokka stepped in to finish it. Zuko saw her go down, but had been engaged with another Water Clan warrior and did not see her brother's rescue. He searched the field of bloated bodies where she had been after the battle before the fallen were retrieved. He didn't see her there, but that meant nothing and he needed to know, so through the glen and into the enemy forest he snuck.
Katara was standing with her arms crossed glaring the rival clan's next chief. The fierce look on her face softened and sorrow filled her eyes. She stepped up to Zuko, placing a hand on his good cheek to turn his face towards her. Their eyes met and held each other with a tenderness I had not seen for many moons.
"I'm here. I'm alive and you're alive. That's all that matters," she said softly reassuring him.
"But Katara, if anything happened to you. I, I wouldn't know what to do. It would be my fault. I need to protect you. I,"
"Never, I repeat, never put yourself in harm's way for me ever again" she cut him off and placed her hands on his shoulders turning him fully towards her. "That includes coming to try to find me, Zuko. I don't care if you think I am in mortal danger. You can't die simply because you wanted to see whether I was alive or not. You are the only hope that this fighting will end in the future. When your father dies you will become chief."
"He'll die no time soon. I've been trying in vain to persuade my father to come to a peace agreement, but he won't. It's not even about the old disputes anymore. His rage has convinced him that the only way the Fire Clan can have peace is to wipe the Water Clan from the earth, but I'm worried that my pushing just spurs him on. Katara, we have to stop this. Your people…"
"I know what is happening to my people, Zuko. I see their suffering every day. I agree we need to stop this fighting before it goes further, but there is no good solution," her sentence trailed off into silence and her face turned down, hands sliding from his shoulders.
"We must kill my father."
Her head snapped up.
"Katara, don't look at me like that. I know you've thought of it. The thought has haunted me for some time. But how can a reign of terror be ended and a new one of peace begun at the end of a blade with a son on one end and a father at the other? It would breed only more turmoil and chaos."
"How else will this end if your father is the driving force of the fighting?" She questioned him.
"He's not the only one. It's been so long people on both sides will want to continue even after he passes. It will be an uneasy peace" he sighed.
"But a peace it will still be, Zuko. One we can foster and build together. My father and brother are willing to work for peace. My people are dying, Zuko! Our fields have been burned. So many of our warriors are dead or wounded. We're barely holding on. We need the fighting to stop no matter how uneasy it is! My father has already made a proposition," her eyes clouded and she looked away crossing her arms once again.
"What is it?" He asked, concern present in his voice.
"He's asked help from the Earth and Air Clans," she uttered hesitantly.
"At what price?" Zuko knew well that no clan gives help freely. It was the reason they had not entered into the feud between the Fire and Water Clans yet.
"My brother and I's hands in marriage," she whispered back, looking into his eyes once again.
Zuko froze. Barely breathed. His eyes widened, then grew hard with understanding.
"Of course, what else would be a proper price for entering a war other than an alliance through marriage." It wasn't a question. It was knowledge. "I should have guessed once you mentioned your dad asked for their help."
"I'm sorry," she whispered hugging her arms closer to her body.
Zuko stepped forward and wrapped his own arms around her pulling her close. She tucked her head under his chin just as she always had, drinking in his scent.
"Don't be sorry, Katara. It's out of your control." His jaw was stiff and I could see the heartache run through his body, every nerve screaming in resistance at the thought of losing her, his closest friend, his love.
His lack of protest to her announcement puzzled me. When he was younger and heard news he disliked Zuko would not hesitate to retaliate. But now he stood there, jaw clenched, trying to comfort the girl he had hoped one day would be his. I have watched humans for so long, yet they still manage to surprise me.
"But is it, Zuko? We both know we could run into the woods and never return. We have choices, but neither of us are willing to make the ones that could hurt our families. I either support my clan by going into the marriage or I abandon them. I make that choice. No one else."
Her arms had wound themselves around him as she spoke. They stood there in silence rocking back and forth holding each other as the moonlight filtered through my leaves. They stayed like that for a time until Zuko broke the delicate silence.
"If I were able to convince my father to a marriage peace between our clans," he paused, "would you accept it?"
She stopped swaying and untwined her arms in order to look at him. Holding his hands she sighed, "I don't know. My father would have to accept it."
"But would you accept it, Katara?"
"I'm not sure, Zuko. Your father doesn't seem like he would be happy unless he had power over our clan and I think a marriage proposal would include more than a few stipulations. I don't want to be a pawn. I want to be able to live life without a collar around my neck."
"There would be no collar, Katara, only an uneasy peace. You said that we can't escape that. You know I love you and that I will do so until my last breath. I can't lie and tell you that there would be no political play, but we would be together. Can you imagine it? Growing old without the worries of war. Sitting under this tree without the fear of being found. We could be happy." His voice held a small fleeting hint of hope, the one thing that humans never seem to lose no matter how bleak their circumstances may be.
"But at what cost? Would it truly be any kind of peace, or simply a play where my father becomes a puppet and cannot look after his people? I want to be with you, Zuko. I want to grow old and have children with you. But would that be at the cost of my people living a shadow of a life?" She leaned her head against his chest.
"You would choose a loveless life and a heightened war over ending it and living with me?" His voice broke in disbelief.
"Giving into all of your father's demands that would come with marriage is no peace, Zuko. It's a death sentence. You can't mix politics with how I feel about you."
Her eyes were tearing. I had not seen this strong young woman cry for quite some time. Not even during her last visit to me when she was alone.
"When I ask if you will marry me and your reply is a resounding no because of my father how can I not mix your feelings with politics," Zuko replied sharply. "Katara, I am asking you to live with me and you just said you couldn't! I don't know how you've been feeling these past months, but I have been dying inside. I need you. Seeing you is my refuge, holding you is like heaven, and those were taken from me when this war began. Now you want me to live without even the hope of catching a glimpse of your face. You can't do that to me, Katara. You can't just leave me!"
She looked at him. His eyes were wide, pleading. She broke and her own tears started to fall.
"Zuko, I don't want to leave. Why can't you see that? I'm just as terrified as you are that we'll never see each other again, but my family's lives are on the line! I can't abandon them. They need me," she cried out.
"And I don't?" He countered.
"Not as much as they do right now. Can't you see this is tearing me apart. You both mean so much to me, but I can't do anything that will benefit both of you. I feel so helpless," she wept.
Her shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. They both seemed so small in the darkness like it would swallow them whole except for the patch of moonlight that shone over the meadow. Watching her tremble, Zuko finally seemed to come to an understanding. Sometimes fate has a different road for us, even when there is another one that looks much more inviting. He closed the gap between them.
"Ok, Katara, but I'm still going to suggest the marriage to my father. It could be the best solution if he considers it. It could also halt the onslaught for a few days to give your people rest," he said with conviction in his voice.
"I'm to marry an Air Clan member within two moons, Zuko. It's not something I can stop. No matter how much I wish I could," she sobbed out.
"Then I'll just have to stop this war before then, now won't I?" Zuko cupped Katara's cheek and wiped her tears away. His eyes held a longing in them. For what I could not guess because the options were countless. Her eyes echoed his yearning.
"We will have to end the war. Not just you," she replied.
"Yes, we," he said softly, but I could hear the hesitation in his voice.
At this he leaned down and in. She leaned in to meet him, their lips catching each other. The kiss started with the tenderness and softness I was used to, but then it deepened into a need. They responded to one another, one pulling the other closer, the other shifting to fit to their partner perfectly. Soon there was no room between them. Zuko held her against my trunk, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other at the curve of her lower back. Her own arms were wrapped about him pulling him as closely as possible.
I almost thought they would never separate, but soon both relaxed the hold they had on the other. Their slowly lips separated, eyes still closed, savoring the moment. Zuko tilted his forehead to meet hers, keeping his arms wrapped protectively around her.
"Will I be able to see you again?" he asked, his eyes searching hers. There was that nuisance hope again.
"I don't know, but I want to," she sighed leaning into him.
"Meet me here in a week. Same time," he uttered over her lips.
"Ok," she whispered.
And with that she gave him a soft kiss and they parted ways. Each glancing back in turn as they wandered back to their villages in the moonlight, a new seed of hope planted in both their hearts and mine. A hope that the war might end, that they would both live, that they might be together. But that's the sad thing about hope. It's a fragile wish that circumstance feeds and small events nurture only to have reality crush it in the end.
A/N: I know and I'm sorry, but school started and I'm a college senior juggling upper div classes, a grad class, and my thesis, plus clubs (I know this is no excuse for posting an entire month later, but I had to try...) Anyway! I hope that you guys all enjoyed the chapter! As you can see, the shit hath hitteth the fan... eth. (10 points and a taste of the next chapter if you can tell me what that quote is from). In other words, it's getting exciting! (I hope.)
Ok, so I loved all your answers to what you imagine Nairn's voice sounds like. I really liked all of them! But the way I here it is kind of an older Legolas. I think that's the best comparison I can make. Nairn's voice to me is still pretty smooth and is soothing, with a tiny bit of accent but not a lot. And I liked how you guys had both male and female options for it! To tell you the truth, I went looking for names for trees and Nairn is a Scottish boys name that means dwells by the alder tree. I had it in my head that Nairn was male, but I think with the way I write Nairnn, I wanted the tree left open for interpretation, so you get to chose whether Nairn is a boy or girl!
So, next question for you all: What would you do if you were in Zuko and Katara's shoes right now? Would you stay and fight? Split up? Book it? Let me know! And I am absolutely serious that if you review and/or tell me where I got the quote from I will send you a teaser from the next chapter! And if you have a constructive criticism for the story shoot it my way! I'm looking to improve here! (And I always reply with a thank you to reviews. If you have time to write to me, I have time to write back)
Here is where I usually say thank you and list everyone who reviewed for me. You guys out did yourselves on that front and I have more than my typical 5 or 6, so HUGE thank you to EVERYBODY for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following this story. Your support means the world! Special thanks to SoapDuck, peter pan's horcrux, and wannabewonderbender for beta reading and if you haven't checked out wannabe's story Gods & Monsters yet Go do it! (you won't regret it) And lastly I have a tumblr- harky2192- if you are interested in following my day to day shinanagins.
Remember to stay awesome! ~Harky