Gelid

Forgiveness came in short.

Each one dealt with a last—hidden—knife, just waiting to twist in.

But a ghost knife, whispery and beautiful (and ugly—sometimes). A knife that hurt brutally. Froze over skin, glide over heart and soul and wrenched out all the magic in droplets.

Or the nonexistent mind, left to wander.

Forever.

-x-

"The Sugar Queen is also a Drama Queen, so you'll have to excuse her."

Still, Zuko didn't really take Toph's words to heart. But he remembered the skin stretched on Katara's knuckles, the skin flattened out white and milky across the bones, skin like ice and pain.

"Is she always this tense?"

"Pretty much."

-x-

Katara sat by herself most of the time now. Sat alone and pondered, thinking. Pretending to know what will come ahead, see the shadows foreshadow and lie—

Lie to herself that she's got everything all set up. In a matter of months (weeks) they'll be free. Manumission before fermentation in a forsaken place like this.

Like a cemetery, where all the monks came to die.

-x-

Summer was coming, coming fast.

And in honor of the (dreadful, dreaded) season, Katara made a feast.

"Zuko," she began, "I apologize for the things I've said to you before."

And finished, "If they can trust you, then so can I."

And what would have been so sanguine (cloying-horrid) was not when Toph came in (saw through her clenched teeth and deceits). And Katara dropped her hands in distress.

-x-

So all the wounds closed, so all the wounds healed.

So new ones can emerge, so new ones can become the new ideal.