disclaimer. ATLA is property of bryke, i write this for no financial gain and own nothing you recognize.
author's notes. holy crow.
thank you SO MUCH for all the love for the last chapter! going through your comments and seeing how much you guys are taking in/reflecting/analyzing is one of THE best feelings out there and one (of many) reason(s) i'm writing this! please, keep it up!
this chapter required several rewrites before i was even willing to put it up. i think i could have spent forever working on this. i'm still not happy with the finished product but figure this is as good as it's going to get, so eh.
a bit of an aside for the structure of the chapter - each previous chapter has been paired with a fragment of song that fits thematically (omg SO original. i know.../sarcasm). i've gone a little further this chapter and while i'm not hugely enthusiastic about songfics, the events of this chapter fit particularly well with the chosen song (particularly with the emphasis on healing and reconciliation), and thus, i've opted to include bits of it throughout.
anyway.
i give you...
southern lights.
chapter xiii. amends
pick it up, pick it all up
and start again
you've got a second chance, you could go home
escape it all
"medicine" / daughter
"We need," she says quietly, behind him, "to talk."
Zuko starts and looks at the mirror before him, not really sure what he'd been expecting.
The morning has been a blur – an emotional one. He had received a message from his Uncle some four or five days prior, almost immediately after he had sent off a lengthy letter of his own, describing the unusual attack by Jet and the mysterious assassin.
The message he got back was short and to the point, scrawled without regard for legibility or tidiness upon a scrap of parchment paper.
I'm on my way. Take great care.
Uncle.
He's been on edge ever since, waiting restlessly for his uncle to arrive. And early this morning, just past the crack of dawn, the Crown Prince and his retinue made their appearances at the army base.
He'd had precious little time to greet his uncle properly, exchange a few words over a cup of grassy tea, before they had been interrupted by General Shinu and the matter of camp discipline.
Uncle Iroh had asked Zuko to excuse himself then, promising to call him later after the chaos of his arrival had settled.
And so Zuko waits impatiently in his room, hunched over a scroll that his uncle had given him that morning. He's absorbing its contents intently when a girl's low voice from behind him interrupts his thoughts.
He looks up at the mirror on the wall before him. Standing behind him, her arms crossed and reflection scowling in the polished, burnished glass, is Mai.
Oh.
Once upon a time, Zuko's heart would have leapt up in the cavity of his chest at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice. Once upon a time, Zuko would have done just about anything to keep her happy.
But his heartbeat is calm and his hands are steady as he slowly furls up the parchment scroll and places it back down on his desk, before getting up and turning to face Mai.
"Okay," he says simply instead. "Let's talk."
Mai seems taken aback by the coolness in his voice. Usually, by this time, he's fed up of her cold, distant silences and just wants to reconcile. Usually, by this time, he's willing to let the past stay in the past.
But now, he is maintaining his own share of the space between them, and his eyes have lost the desperation in them, and there's a quiet resignation in them, a steely resolve that makes her want to question everything.
But this has been a long time coming and she knows better than to back down now.
"Okay," Mai takes the bait. "What's going on with you? I don't understand. Do you really care so little about your reputation around here?"
And here it is, Zuko thinks to himself, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. The part where she's mad at me for things she doesn't even try to understand.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he tells her, his voice slow and stilted.
He has an idea though.
Mai rolls her eyes and plants her hands on her hips.
"The waterbender, Zuko. Agni's sake, why on earth would you defend her when she attacked Chan like that?"
"Because Chan is an idiot who had it coming," Zuko retorts, unable to keep the scathing bite out of his voice. "Did you not hear all the awful things he said to her?"
"I wasn't there," Mai points out, "and that's not what's important, Zuko! Your own countryman, the son of an Admiral to boot – was just viciously attacked by a treasonous, unstable waterbender, and you go around defending her? Do you have any idea how that looks? Do you want to never see the throne in your life?"
"Who cares about the throne?" Zuko bursts out at her, finally losing some of the calm he'd clung to previously. "Every time we argue, you're always concerned about my status and my place in the succession. It's as though you're only with me because I'm a prince."
Mai looks like she's been slapped across the face.
"How dare you," she all but hisses at him. "How could you even accuse me of that? I care about you, Zuko! I want what's best for you! And your future! Can you no longer see that?" Her voice changes. "Has your obsession with that waterbender blinded you to everything else in the world?"
Now Zuko feels like he's the one who's been slapped.
"I'm not obsessed –" he begins to protest, but Mai cuts him off.
"And don't even bother denying it, Zuko. You're not a very convincing liar." A strange half-smile is on her lips as she continues, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder. "We get into an argument about her behavior and you don't talk to me for days. Chan insults her and you say she's justified in her attack that almost killed him. For the love of Agni, what is it about that girl that makes you hate your own kind so much?"
Zuko's heart is racing a mile a minute at being confronted in this manner. His fights with Mai are usually ugly, but they have never attacked each other so personally before. This time, it feels like she is shining a giant spotlight on him, exposing all his shortcomings for the world to see, and he squirms at the thought of having to defend himself to people who won't understand it.
"I don't hate my own kind," he says to her softly. "I want what's best for them too, believe me. We – just have a different idea of what that is."
"That's not possible," Mai fires back. "Either you're for us, or you're not. And so far, Zuko, you've been acting like a traitor and a colonial sympathizer, and that's going to get you into deep trouble back home! Here in the army, no one gives a damn, maybe, but back home, your actions say volumes."
"Enough," Zuko snaps, finally, and his irritation rears its head at her presumptuous words. "You don't have to educate me on what life at court is like, Mai. I know plenty well what it's all about. I don't need you guiding my every move like I'm a sort of puppet for you."
Mai shakes her head disbelievingly.
"I don't believe it," she says hoarsely, clapping a hand to her forehead. "I don't believe it. Do you even hear yourself? You are being so stubborn and – I –" she drops her hands to her sides as she looks at him helplessly, "I feel like I don't even know you anymore."
Zuko blinks at that. His mouth is suddenly very dry and it's as though the world has gone very quiet and very still.
"That's because," he says in his gravelly voice, "I don't think you ever knew me at all."
Mai turns her head away now, stung by his words. Her pale grey eyes are shiny now, shiny and welling with tears she'll never shed in front of him.
"No," she says quietly, at last, the emptiness in her voice somehow more painful for him to bear than her anger, "I suppose I didn't."
Zuko has never seen Mai look this defeated, and the sight of it distresses him to the core.
"Mai," he says, trying to help, trying to make it better, "I never meant to hurt you –"
"But you did, Zuko," Mai lashes back, dashing at her eyes with the back of her hand so that when she looks at him squarely in the eyes, there are no tears, just a hint of redness to suggest that they were ever there in the first place. "You did, and you were always going to, whether you meant to or not."
"I don't –"
"Please." Mai holds a hand up, silencing him. "Please don't make this worse."
"I," Zuko confesses, running a hand through his hair in agitation, "I don't know what to do, then."
"What else is there to do, Zuko? This is the first time you've ever been honest with me." Mai smiles at him mirthlessly. "Own it. You're a prince, after all."
Zuko realizes that perhaps she's right this time, and that by sparing her his honesty, he hasn't been fair to her. Because she has never had a chance to be anything more to him that what she is now.
Because…he doesn't think she can be. Whenever he drops his carefully cultivated façade around her, she hates it. She has never even tried to understand it or accept it.
And once the realization hits him, there is no taking it back.
"I…" he says, his voice faltering but carrying on regardless, because not saying it would be worse, not saying it would be unfair to Mai and damning for him, "I don't think we're right for each other, Mai."
The strange smile still lingers on her face, but it resembles more of a grimace as he continues doggedly.
"I respect you a lot and I think you're an incredible, strong woman. But I don't think I could make you happy. You – you want a man like my father, and I – I don't want to be like that. I couldn't make you happy without lying to myself. And that's not fair to me, and that's not fair to you. I –" and he pauses to collect himself, "I wish I could have done right by you. But I can't do anything more than be who I am. I'm sorry to have hurt you, Mai. I really am."
Mai takes a deep, shuddering breath, but when she speaks, her voice is perfectly steady.
"I suppose I expected this sooner or later," she comments flatly. "I can't say I'm thrilled but – well, at least now you're free to do what you want."
Free. The word is uncanny. Even though Mai was not an unpleasant person to be with, he feels lighter and freer than he has in the long months that they've been together.
"I'm sorry it has to end like this," he tells her awkwardly.
Mai lets out a little scoff.
"No, you're not," she corrects him.
"Yes. I am. I care about you, Mai," he tries to convince her, because he does mean it. He isn't sorry that he is not the person she wants him to be, but he is sorry to have caused her pain. "I'll always care about you, Mai. You – you are important to me, still."
Mai raises an eyebrow.
"And the waterbender?" she asks, her voice now without reservation or judgment. "Why is she so important to you?"
It's a weighted question, one that Zuko has been too scared to ask himself, for fear of having to answer it. He can hardly lie to Mai, but at the same time, telling her the truth is out of the question when he himself can scarcely bring himself to face it.
"She's just a girl who needs my help," he says quietly, unyielding in the face of her expectant eyes. "Who helped me when she didn't have to. It's just the right thing to do."
Mai shakes her head again.
"All the girls in the Empire and you had to go and pick that one?" she asks incredulously, the levity in her voice masking the intensity underneath, the hurt and the pain. "You really are a masochist, Zuko. She hates firebenders. She'll never think of you as anything more than the enemy. You're wasting your time and your honour and your reputation on that girl. Do you really think it's worth it?"
She's right, you know, the voice in his mind that echoes his father whispers to him. She'll never see you as anything more than the son of a monster. She said it herself.
"I didn't pick anything," Zuko says firmly. "I'm just doing what I think is right."
And maybe one day the impossible will happen and she'll change her mind.
"And that," he finishes, his voice barely above a whisper, "is always worth it."
Maybe one day she'll look at me the way she looks at Aang.
"You think this is right," Mai echoes slowly. She shrugs, before turning to leave for the door. "I don't understand."
"No," Zuko agrees sadly as she retreats out of his room and out of earshot. "I don't suppose you could."
Katara is allowed time for a bath and a quick meal before she is brought to the medical tent.
She spends a lot of time scrubbing herself, washing the filth of her solitary confinement off, brushing her hair until the long brown strands are lustrous and strong again. Wading out of the shallows and shrugging on the new linen robe – the only thing she owns that really fits her properly – she feels a thousand years younger.
The cool fall air crisp against her skin as she redoes her hair into its long, thick braid, she feels almost ready for the task ahead of her.
"So, they let you out, huh?"
Almost.
The sound of Toph's voice behind her reminds her of how much she has left to do, however.
Katara turns slowly. To her surprise, Toph and Aang are standing behind her, by the entrance to the building in which her room is housed.
Their faces are solemn and unreadable, and for a second, she remembers back to the last time she'd seen them.
You're fucked up, Sugar Queen. You're fucked up good.
Don't waste your time, Toph. I wish I hadn't.
"They did," Katara says cautiously, with a slow nod. It's all she can do to keep the hurt at bay, because as much as the firebenders' taunts stung, they pale in comparison to the censure of those she'd started to consider as friends.
"And?" Toph asks. Her arms are crossed and even though she appears at ease, Katara can see that the blind earthbender is racked with tension. "What're they doing to you?"
How are you going to prove that you're not as fucked up as you seem?
"General Iroh isn't punishing me, if that's what you're asking," Katara answers delicately, crossing her arms in front of her. "I offered to heal Chan of the injuries I caused him."
"You did?" This from Aang who, for the first time since she'd been hauled off into solitary confinement, is able to look at her face. His big grey eyes are wide with surprise. "You offered?"
"It only seemed fair." Katara shrugs, unsure of why the relief and pride mingling on Aang's face fills her with irritation instead of happiness. He's her friend, after all, she's supposed to be happy that he isn't cross with her for her shocking behaviour earlier. "Why do you sound so surprised?"
"I –" Aang hesitates, before turning to face Toph briefly. "I mean – Katara – you should have seen yourself, the way you beat up Chan like that. For a moment – I thought – we thought we never really knew you. We never thought you were capable of – of that."
"I see." Katara fights to keep her voice steady. "So – so it's okay if Chan and the others act appallingly to intimidate and threaten me, but not if I do the same to defend myself. Is that what you're saying?"
"No. No, it's not," Aang protests, alarm spreading across his face at the tone of Katara's voice. "Look – what Chan and his buddies were doing to you was clearly not okay, either! But – but what you did was – was really difficult to stand by, Katara."
"I heard." Katara's voice is wintry cold. "You said you wished you hadn't wasted your time on me, Aang. I'm sorry I was such a disappointment to you back there."
"That – that was wrong of me too," Aang says quickly, and to his credit, he does look ashamed. "I shouldn't have said that. But Katara – you have to understand, the way I was raised, was that violence is wrong. Period. What Chan did to you, and what the Fire Empire did to you, it was all wrong. But what you did to Chan was just as wrong! It was monstrous. I – we –" he shoots another uncertain glance at Toph, who remains still and silent, before continuing apprehensively, " – we thought you were doing so much better in getting over your anger recently, you were doing so well, with Zuko and – " his voice catches in his throat, and he pauses before looking back at Katara, " – it was just really shocking to us, to see you like that. I guess I was just upset with you, because I thought we were friends and I thought I knew you, and I know you're so much better than what you showed with Chan, and – well…"
Aang's words make sense to her, she supposes. His reasoning isn't unlike what her reflections in solitary have told her. But, for some reason, it still stings.
"You're right," she says softly. "Both of you. What I did with Chan was wrong, and I realize that. But –" and here her voice catches in her throat slightly because she remembers Iroh's story and she knows that she needs friends, she needs all the help she can get, but all the same, " – but it's not friendship if you can just pick and choose when I'm worth your time."
"Come again?"
"I meant," Katara repeats, and even though her ears seem to be ringing and her body is shaking, her voice is low and calm and steady, "if you can just decide that you don't want to be my friend whenever I do something you don't agree with, then you're not really my friend."
"That's not what I meant!" Aang protests. "I just mean that I was raised differently – by monks, if you remember. Violence is difficult for me –"
"So much so that you ran away to join the Fire Empire army," Katara points out. "You spend your days devising military tactics and training with one of the most oppressive armies on the planet. But yet, you can't stomach violence when it's me doing it."
"That's – that's not the same thing!" Aang argues. "It's not the same thing as beating someone up, almost killing them with your bending in cold blood!"
"Isn't it, though? What do you imagine the army is going to do with your contributions? When they decide to use the attacks you invented for them in order to quash a rebellion here or there, I guarantee you it won't be peaceful. People are going to die, and whether you strike the killing blow or not, it'll be because of you." Katara's hands are running along her braid, and her words are spilling out; hurt, angry words tumbling out of her mouth in an uncontrollable flow. "What do your monks have to say about that? Why is it okay for you to enable the army's violence, why is it only okay for you to accept the violence that the Fire Empire does to me and people like me, but not okay for me to fight back when it becomes too much? Have you ever thought about that?"
Her voice has gone shrill now.
"And then for you to stand there and tell me what I did was wrong – as if I don't know that? As if I'm some sort of barbarian who can't tell right from wrong? Aang, I know very well what I did when I attacked Chan and guess what? I did it anyway. Because I wanted to and because he deserved to be punished. And though I know that I went too far and I shouldn't have attacked him as badly as I did, I will not apologize for defending myself when he and his friends ganged up on me when I was all alone. Or have you forgotten who threw the first punch?"
"I – " Aang's face is stricken. "I can't argue with that, Katara. I suppose I have been unfair to you, and you're right – I have no idea what it's like for you, to go through this – and you certainly have the right to defend yourself, but –" and here he struggles, trying to put his own dilemma into words, " – but even though I agree with your motives, I can't agree with the methods you chose to pursue. Vengeance isn't justice."
"No. Justice is justice," Katara returns, crossing her hands over her chest. "It's funny, because after all this time, General Iroh had a better time understanding that than you, and you're supposed to be my friend."
"I am your friend, Katara!" Aang insists. "Look – so we disagree about what you did – but can't we move on? You've learned your lesson and I've learned mine and – you're healing Chan and so there's no lasting damage done, right?"
Katara stares at his earnest face, sizing him up.
He has no idea. Absolutely no idea.
And how could he? You and him come from such different worlds, how could he possibly understand?
"Sparky thinks that we were too hard on you," Toph speaks up suddenly, her voice brisk and matter-of-fact. "And that we should apologize for that."
Katara blinks at Toph's unexpected confession.
"And – and what do you think?" she asks, wondering how in all of this convoluted mess, her greatest advocates have apparently been Prince Zuko and Crown Prince Iroh.
Toph shrugs.
"Hey. You know I've always wanted to bash Chan's head in, but there's a difference between wishing violence upon someone, and actually inflicting it." She pauses. "But, Sparky reminded me that your upbringing was fucked up, so…it makes sense that you'd do something fucked up too. So, unlike Twinkletoes here, I don't have a problem, in hindsight. They beat you up, you beat them up, it's all fair, life goes on. If I was a shitty friend to you because I freaked out at how far you were taking it, I apologize."
Katara can't help but smile at Toph's nonchalant statements, and the growing unease spreading on Aang's face as a result of them.
"Thanks, Toph. I –" she pauses, looking at the two of them, wondering, because even though she doesn't think they get it, not just yet, they're still here, watching her with anxious eyes and they still care, and she needs all the help she can get, "I'll try to be better, and not resort to violence next time. But I can't promise anything if someone attacks me. I can't act in good faith if someone across the aisle won't do the same."
"That's fair," Toph agrees, holding out her hand. "I can live with that, I suppose."
"Aang?" Katara's voice is a little sharper as she meets the young monk's eyes with her own.
"There is so much about this that makes me uncomfortable," Aang admits, slightly crestfallen. "But for your sake, Katara, I'll try to work past it. Because my discomfort isn't what's important, compared to what the Fire Empire put you through."
He holds out his hand too.
Katara flashes the two of them a quick, hesitant smile.
"Thank you," she says gratefully, clasping their outstretched hands with her own and giving them a quick squeeze.
Because even if things are somewhat awkward and uncomfortable now, they won't always be. Even if they don't understand completely, even if they're not perfect, they're still willing to try, and right now, that's all that matters.
you've got a warm heart
you've got a beautiful brain
but it's disintegrating
He is sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor before the fireplace when his uncle finds him later that afternoon.
"What are you doing?" Uncle Iroh asks, bemused.
"Meditating," Zuko replies, eyes still closed and hands still pressed together in his lap.
"I can see that," his uncle replies, scratching his head in confusion, "but why? I've never known you to be the type to stay inside and brood on such a nice day!"
Zuko sighs. The confusion inside him is still fresh, and the noise inside his head clamours loudly. A bit of meditation helped keep it at bay, but now that Uncle Iroh is here, it comes back to him and –
"Mai and I broke up this morning," he says, his voice expressionless.
His uncle's face softens a little, and he walks over to where his nephew sits. He plants a hand on Zuko's shoulder.
"I am sorry to hear that," Uncle Iroh says gently. "You must be feeling very sad."
Zuko shakes his head.
"Not really. I feel more relieved than anything. If I'm sad, it's because I don't think I'm sad enough. Does…" he opens his eyes and looks up at his uncle, "does that make sense at all, Uncle?"
"Of course it does." Uncle Iroh lowers himself so that he is kneeling on the ground beside Zuko. "It means that you made the right decision, Prince Zuko. Even if it was difficult."
"I'll say." Mai's words are still echoing inside his head. The ones that had relieved him, the ones that had freed him, the ones that had filled him with despair…
"How was the trial?" he asks his uncle, trying to change the subject. "How…how is she?"
He can't bring himself to say her name, even.
Because Mai was right, after all, and he's deluding himself if he thinks she'll ever see him differently, no matter how hard he tries to do the right thing.
"The trial went well, I would say," Uncle Iroh says, his voice growing warmer as he launches into a brief retelling of his morning. "It did not surprise me that Admiral Chan was being difficult –"
"He would be," Zuko murmurs. "It was his son that was attacked."
"Of course, and it was to be expected," Uncle Iroh admits, stroking his pointed beard with a thoughtful hand. "But he came around, in the end."
"However did you manage that, Uncle? Did you promise him the waterbender's head, or just the hand that struck his son?" Zuko fights to keep the bitterness from his scathing voice.
"Neither." Uncle Iroh smiles at him. "After a very lengthy cross-examination, I was able to get him to agree to a formal apology. Him and his son – whenever young Chan recovers, that is."
"That doesn't seem likely," Zuko remarks. "The healers say he is unlikely to make it through the next week without some – miraculous – intervention."
The fresh scar on his chest tingles, as though in memory of the glowing water, the healing hands, that had pulled him from the brink of the abyss.
"Well," Uncle Iroh winks at him. "Luckily I was able to procure a miracle worker to work on Chan's injuries, then."
"Huh?"
"Sifu Katara," Uncle Iroh clarifies, casting a sidelong glance at his nephew's somber face, "She has healing abilities, and you didn't even tell me?"
Zuko's eyes widen and he turns to glance at his uncle sharply.
"Maybe you thought to protect her secret," Uncle Iroh muses. "Out of honour."
Zuko nods his head slowly, and turns his gaze to the floor.
"It wasn't my secret to tell," he says softly.
"I understand, Prince Zuko," his uncle acknowledges. "Nonetheless, Sifu Katara offered to heal Chan, of her own volition. It was truly remarkable. A happy ending, if I've ever seen one here before."
"Good," Zuko comments.
A happy ending. For everyone, but himself.
He should feel happy for her, he reminds himself. For all that she'd been put through, it's about time something went right for her.
He shouldn't be so selfish.
"Your friend is truly formidable," his uncle continues, clasping his hands together in his lap. "Very little escapes her."
"Yes," Zuko agrees, but then goes on to correct his uncle with a sigh. "But she's not my friend."
"Maybe not yet," Uncle Iroh says gently. "But there is no chasm that time cannot bridge. With time, maybe Sifu Katara will come to see you differently."
"I..." Zuko flounders, his uncle's words at odds with Mai's, and he struggles with which of the two he should believe. "I don't think I believe that's possible, anymore."
"And this upsets you?" Uncle Iroh's tone is mild enough, but Zuko can hear it, just below the surface of his voice.
"It would just make things easier," Zuko says heavily, with a shrug. "She – she saved my life, Uncle."
"Yes, she told me that," Uncle Iroh says solemnly, and his eyes are keen and thoughtful in his somber face.
"And she didn't have to." Zuko turns his head to meet his uncle's gaze with confused eyes. "Do you understand? She hates me, Uncle, and she still saved my life. She's –" the strongest person I know. So pure, and so broken, and so very lost, he finishes in his mind, unable to speak.
"I do not think she hates you, Prince Zuko," his uncle says gently at length.
"She just as good as told me that," Zuko insists, running his hands through his unruly hair. With her words and her anger and her actions…
And the uncertainty giving way to rage in her eyes, the day they'd fused their bending. Zuko is almost certain that, had she not been reeling from that unwelcome discovery, she wouldn't have been so quick to lash out at Chan.
She'd lost her old boyfriend to save him.
She'd let him in and hated it.
Mai was right. She was right all along…
He's hanging on to a fool's hope.
"Katara does have much hatred and anger in her heart," his uncle says quietly. "It is unlikely that she would have survived up until now without such things. It is not for you to decide when it is appropriate for her to let them go, for your sake. All you can do is show her another way."
"I know," Zuko admits, because he does, of course he does, "I'm trying, but –"
"Good." Uncle Iroh smiles at him warmly. "You are doing what you can, my nephew. It is the right thing to do. Will it be enough to change her mind? Who knows? Only she can decide for herself. That does not mean you give up."
"I haven't."
Uncle Iroh lays a gentle, reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"We will continue this conversation later. There is much that remains for me to do here. In the meantime, Prince Zuko, do not be too hard on yourself. Meditate, bathe, take some rest. Perhaps tomorrow, we will take a look at your training, start you on something more advanced. I think you are ready for it."
"That sounds good," Zuko hears himself agreeing, as his uncle gets to his feet with a smooth motion that belies his years. "I can't wait to show you what I've learned in these past months. I might even have already mastered some of the advanced techniques that you want to teach me."
"Oh really?" his uncle returns, a sly grin crossing his face as he turns to leave the room. "I am pleased to hear it. But I am sure that there is one thing that you'll still need an old man's help to learn."
"What would that be?"
Uncle Iroh winks at him from the doorway.
"Have you learned to control lightning yet?"
you could still be
what you want to be
what you said you were
when i met you
The shackles have been long removed from her wrists and ankles but she still feels the weight of them as she steps inside the tent, looking around expectantly, hesitantly.
You volunteered for this, she reminds herself as her heart begins to pound in her chest. You'll feel better afterward.
A girl dressed in red silk appears at a doorway to her left, as though to exit the premises. Her face is downturned as she walks, but she stops in her paces as she notices Katara standing there.
Katara's breath catches in her throat as Mai's gaze sweeps over her, coolly impassive as always. It is too late to pretend that she hasn't seen her, too late to look away and pray that an awkward encounter could be avoided. She's never had a problem with Mai, not personally, but the girl is cold, quiet and, of late, has been giving off a slightly judgmental air.
"So," Mai speaks first, her voice low and quiet as always. "They let you out."
Katara nods mutely, not really sure what to make of Mai's indifferent attention to her.
"I was just checking in on him," Mai continues baldly, nodding her head back in the direction from which she'd come. "You really did a number on him."
Her tone isn't exactly accusatory, but Katara is not stupid. As far as she knows, there is no love lost between Mai and Chan, but they are both Fire Nation through and through. As far as she's concerned, Katara may as well have attacked Mai herself.
"I didn't mean to –" she begins half-heartedly, but Mai cuts her off.
"Yes you did. You knew exactly what you were doing, and you did it anyway. I don't know why you bother with playing the victim around here, you've got a lot more fire in you than people would credit a girl from the Water Tribes."
Once upon a time, Katara would have fired back right away. Once upon a time, she would have been unable to hold back the tidal wave of anger unleashed by the firebenders and their ignorant words.
But General Iroh had asked her for time and General Iroh – prince of the Fire Empire and the man in charge of this entire operation – is on her side.
So Mai can go jump in a ditch for all she cares, but for now, Katara is content to leave justice in someone else's hands.
"I suppose you would think that, being Fire Nation and all," she says simply. "But if I were you, I wouldn't speak lightly of things you don't understand at all."
That doesn't mean Katara is going to let her off the hook so easily, though.
Mai raises an eyebrow. The sight of it unsettles Katara, because it's the most expression she's ever seen on the impassive girl's face.
"I understand more than you think," Mai points out. "It still doesn't give you the right –"
"As far as your precious empire is concerned, I have no rights," Katara counters, struggling to suppress the instinct to fight back, and instead, embrace the alien tactic of surrender and tranquility, and it all feels very wrong to her, but still, "and I'm sure you think you understand me. But the truth is, you haven't even tried. You don't know a thing about me. Why would you? You have it all – you're a nobleman's daughter, a prince's girlfriend, a high-ranking officer in the army – why on earth would you trouble yourself with understanding me when you could just make assumptions and go on with your comfortable life?"
There is a sad smile breaking out on Mai's face, and she is very quiet before she speaks again.
"You really can't do any wrong here, can you?" she says, her voice suggesting that she is not really asking a question at all. There is a thoughtful, almost wistful look in her pale grey eyes as she surveys Katara standing before her, and it makes the waterbender feel unusually uncomfortable.
"I did just spend a week in solitary," Katara points out, unsure of whether their discussion is antagonistic or amicable. "So…I don't think you're quite right there."
Mai is quiet again, and Katara can see the thoughts whirling in her mind, reflected in her eyes.
"General Iroh presided over your case, didn't he?" she asks at last.
Katara nods.
Mai sighs and shakes her head slowly.
"What did he say? There's no way you got out scot-free after what you did."
Mai's line of questioning unnerves her. But, it is preferable to her earlier accusations and so, Katara decides to engage.
"You're right," she says. "I'm out for a price. I – I'm healing Chan."
Mai gives her a blank look.
"Healing him?" she echoes.
Katara nods her head.
"How? What good will that do?" Mai blurts out, her confusion palpable to Katara's senses. "No offense, but – what could you possibly contribute that our best healers haven't already?"
Katara sighs.
There is still such a long way to go.
"To you, probably not much," is all she says, now tired of the conversation.
"You really can't do any wrong here," Mai sighs in exasperation. "It must be nice."
I've had enough.
"I should go," Katara says abruptly, gesturing to the hallway in front of her. Mai's tone-deaf ignorance is grating on her last nerve, and she wants nothing more to do with it.
"Me too," Mai says, with a curt nod.
But for a moment, she doesn't move and neither does Katara. They stand across from each other, frozen, caught in an awkward standstill, neither one willing to break its grip and return back to reality.
Then –
"You know," Mai says off-handedly, almost indifferently, but for the slight quaver in her voice that betrays her, "he really thinks highly of you."
Katara's brow furrows.
"Who?" she asks, baffled, her eyes following Mai as she walks past her and toward the doorway leading out of the tent. "General Iroh?"
Mai stops right at the doorway and turns to face her. Silhouetted against the afternoon sun, low in the sky, she really does cut an elegant, formidable figure.
"I'm not talking," she says very slowly in a low voice, slightly louder than a whisper, each word forceful and cold, as though Katara has wounded her to the core with her ignorance, "about General Iroh."
Katara's heart speeds up a mile a minute, even as the colour slowly drains from her face.
My nephew witnessed much of this incident…I trust his judgment…
Sparky thinks that we were too hard on you.
My nephew informs me that you are a force to be reckoned with.
Sparky reminded me that your upbringing was fucked up…
"Oh," is all she is able to say, as realization washes over her like the cold morning tide.
"For whatever reason that truly escapes me," Mai continues abruptly, and her voice is acerbic and her tone is like a knife thrust to the chest, and her face, shadowed in the light, is a tightly-held mask, "he really does, and he doesn't deserve your hatred. Whatever you think he did, he doesn't deserve that."
"I know," Katara says quietly. "And I'm -"
Mai's face breaks into a bitter smile and she lets out a laugh that is equal parts mirth and devastation.
"If that's an apology you're planning on making, don't waste it on me."
She takes one last look at Katara, before shaking her head again, as though in amused resignation, before she steps out of the tent and away, into the distance.
Katara has never disliked the girl, not really, but after this particularly uncomfortable encounter, she cannot say she is unhappy to see the back of her just about now.
"So you're the waterbender."
Katara snaps out of her little reverie and turns around.
Standing behind her is a grizzled old woman who looks tough as nails, dressed in a red healer's robe. Katara assumes she is the chief medic here as the old woman approaches her and surveys her impassively.
"I am," Katara replies, her voice a thread of sound escaping her throat.
"Hm," the old woman muses, with a slight sniff. "How I'm supposed to believe a skinny thing like you was able to put that boy in that condition is beyond me. But, my orders are not for me to question. You say you can heal him?"
"I can try," Katara says uncertainly, still not entirely sure what she's gotten herself into. "I don't really know what I'm dealing with though."
The old woman's eyes widen incredulously, before she schools herself to a neutral resting expression.
"I see," she comments bluntly. "Well, let's get a move on, then. Follow me."
The woman turns on her heel and makes her way briskly through a hallway of curtained doorways. Katara follows, lagging behind a few paces.
"Of course, I don't have to tell you that if you try to hurt that poor boy any more than you already have, it will be the last thing you do." The old woman's voice has not changed in tone at all, but Katara does not doubt the strength in her wiry old body.
"Of course," Katara says quietly, clasping her hands in front of her, even as a small part of her bristles at the threat. "I don't want to cause anymore trouble."
"I should think not," the old woman says, stopping in front of a doorway at the end of the hall. "My name is Jia. What is your name?"
"Katara."
The old woman, Jia, nods slowly.
"Follow me. But be careful not to disturb anything."
She pushes the curtain aside and walks inside. Katara, hesitating a little, follows her inside.
The room inside is small and dark. The curtains at the window are pulled tightly shut and the only light in the room comes from the brazier in the corner, glowing with smoking herbs on the red-hot coals. Katara smells the fragrances in the air, thick with healing vapours. Lavender, sage, allheal…
"We have been trying to keep him stable," Jia whispers. "But there is fluid in the lungs and his ribs are broken, so it is hard for him to draw breath. And where there is no breath, there is no life."
Katara's heart drops to her stomach as she spies the prone figure stretched out on the bed in the centre of the room. Chan's face looks waxy pale and his hair is out of its topknot, lying in lifeless strands around his sunken face, across the pillow. There are bandages around his jaw and nose, Katara sees, and a thick, warm blanket covers the rest of his body.
"Can I examine him?" Katara asks quietly, somehow forgetting how to breathe at the sight of Chan's deathly face.
Jia nods, her stern face softening a little.
Katara is grateful that the old woman doesn't hover, and instead, chooses to give her space. She steps up to the bedside and places a hand over Chan's head, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
Focus.
And it doesn't take much for her to tune in to all the water in his body. The water in his blood, tissues, muscles, even the water in his bones…she follows the path of it all, trying to assess the damage.
She senses the breaks in his jawbone and nose, and traces her hands in a path down the line of his airways, following the tears in his throat and lungs, to the water that should not have been in his lungs, to the fragments of his ribs floating in his chest cavity. To the pulse of his heart, flagging, with barely enough strength to alert her senses to its continuous beat.
I did this.
It takes all of her strength to keep going, keep assessing the extent of the damage. Mai and Jia had not been exaggerating when they said he was in bad shape. She is reassured by the flow of humours in his body, sluggish but present, but all the same…
"I need water," Katara says, forcing her voice to be steady and strong. "Clean water, preferably cool, if you have it."
It is a mark of the trust Jia has in her word that she doesn't protest at the notion of giving her water to wield in Chan's presence. Instead, she nods her head slowly and leaves, returning promptly with a bucket of clear spring water pumped from the well outside the tent.
Katara draws the water from the bucket and pulls it close to her hands, like strange, glowing, blue gloves. She presses her hands to Chan's chest, where he needs the most help. His jaw and nose will heal in time, but his lungs are a different story.
"Can you heal him?" Jia asks in a quiet voice, watching Katara at work.
She passes over his ribs, up and down, focusing on the bone, blood, pleura, water, all the pieces that she herself left behind in her anger, all the pieces she has to put back together before she can safely say that he's out of danger.
"You've done a good job at keeping him stable, Jia," she says, not looking up from the task ahead of her. "There's…a lot to do before he'll be okay. It'll take a lot of time. Days, weeks even. There's a lot of damage for me to fix."
Her voice weakens at the end.
So much damage to fix, and Chan is just the first step.
She sets her mouth, wishing the water could fix everything broken inside her, too.
But things are not so simple.
What lies before her, beyond the healing hut, beyond Chan, is the real challenge.
She doesn't know if she's ready.
"But I'll do my best and hopefully, that'll be enough."
She only knows that she has to try.
when you met me
when i met you
She doesn't know how she avoids bumping into the others as she traverses the length and breadth of the base camp after exiting the healing tents. The cross-training clearing, the practice arena, the mess hall, the armoury, the officer's quarters…
Her feet guide her from spot to spot without her really having to think, and it's probably for the best that she is letting her instincts run the show. If she allows her mind to take control, just for a second, she might get cold feet and shrink away, instead of doing what has been long overdue for her.
After all, if today is the day she slays her demons one by one, then she cannot put this off any longer.
She rounds the corner of the boys' sleeping quarters and spots the subject of her uncertain pursuit.
Prince Zuko is wading out of the shallows of a small pond, the one behind the building, the one the men use for their baths. His attention is squarely focused on the ground in front of him, as his hands do up the drawstring around the waist of his loose-fitting trousers, slung low against the protrusion of his hipbones. His hair is still wet and hangs in a shaggy curtain in front of his face, while gleaming droplets of water stream down the lines of his powerful shoulders, his arms, his bare, sculpted torso…
It is only when he stiffens, realizes that he's being watched, and raises his eyes to see her standing with her arms crossed by the back wall of the building, that she feels a trickle of doubt. Just a trickle. But as the confusion on his face wars with a slight flush on his face and a wary glance around, to see if anyone else is present, she summons what nerve she has left and speaks before he can even open his mouth to ask her what she's doing here.
"You didn't tell your uncle," she blurts out, not really paying attention to the words that come out of her mouth, only focusing on getting the first word in. "About my healing," she adds to clarify, as Zuko's brow creases and he tilts his head in confusion.
"Oh." Zuko looks uncomfortable to her, and shifts his weight from foot to foot slowly, weighing whether to take a step onto dry land, closer to where she stands in the shadows, or to remain with his feet immersed on the shore. "No. I suppose not."
"Why?"
Deep down, Katara knows the answer. But she wants to hear it, just to make sure, before pressing forward, because this is something she's never done before and even though it doesn't feel like a risk, not now, every inch of her remains on edge.
"Because," Zuko says politely, cautiously, as though afraid any word of his will incur her wrath, "you hid it for a reason and it wasn't my place to tell."
He looks down at himself, and then back up at her, and he appears somewhat discomfited. "Is this really the best time –"
"You told your uncle that Chan insulted me," Katara cuts across his tentative protest, feeling dizzy and short of breath, but holding course regardless, because this has to be done, "Why?"
Zuko's face is a little redder now, and he looks back down at himself, sighs, and takes a step out of the water. His feet are bare and caked with sand.
"It was the truth," he answers, with a small, helpless shrug. He presses his lips together, tightly, before hesitantly continuing. "If you're mad that I intervened –"
"No," Katara interrupts him, also taking a small step forward, and then another. "No, that's not it. I –"
Her arms drop to her sides, but her hands find each other and she's twisting her fingers together in indecision.
"I –"
Across from her, maybe a dozen footsteps away, Zuko is still, afraid to move lest she snap at him again, and the guilt is overwhelming and then –
"I can't be this person anymore," she says breathlessly, in a voice so quiet it is barely more than a whisper. But the ill-concealed surprise in Zuko's face and the abrupt stiffening of his posture tell her that he has no trouble hearing her, and she continues in somewhat of a rambling rush, "I can't, I just can't. I've tried holding on to it, you see, I thought that I would be betraying myself if I didn't, but – but – but I'm just so tired of it now, I'm exhausted and I want it to stop. I can't do it anymore, I can't."
The water in the pond crests and dashes over the shoreline in small, rushing waves. It froths and skims over the tops of Zuko's feet, washing the sand away, and recedes as quickly as it came. The sound is soothing to her. It grounds her, and reminds her of who she is and where she comes from and what they first taught her.
It reminds her of the person she wants to be.
"And you," she continues, her voice gaining a thread of intensity that hadn't been there before, "you –" she takes another step forward, " – you've always been on my side. You've always taken my side, you defend me, help me – even when I asked you not to, even when I was awful, you – you still did it, and – I – "
She swallows hard before looking him in the eye and bracing herself.
"I'm in your debt," she says to him, her voice quiet but firm. "I owe you, for what you did –"
"There is no debt," Zuko says flatly. His face is unreadable once again, the surprise and discomfort gone and replaced with something akin to resignation. But his hand reaches up to lightly touch the new scar on his chest, just above where his heart lies, prominent against the stark white skin. Katara can't help but stare at her handiwork, dimly remembering the feeling of her hands on his chest, the flagging pulse of his heart, the sticky warmth of his lifeblood. Her skills have not waned over the years, despite the Fire Empire's best efforts. "You saved my life that night. I owed you. Now we're even. Don't trouble yourself over trying to repay me. I don't want it."
He trudges out of the shallows, where the water laps at his ankles, and makes his way for dryer ground. Katara would have judged him distant and cold in this moment, as he walks past her, if it hadn't been for the twin spots of red flushing on his cheeks still.
"What I meant was," she tells him quietly, reaching out and placing a tentative hand on his shoulder to arrest his progress, "I think I owe you an apology. Or an explanation. If – if you want to hear it, that is. After – after everything, I'd understand if you didn't."
She almost thinks she'd prefer it if he chose to hold a grudge, the way she had. And then that way she could tell herself she tried, but he had rebuffed her attempts, and it was reasonable for him, and then they could go on as they were in peace.
"You don't need to explain anything," Zuko says heavily. "You were right to be angry with me. I thought I was trying to apologize to you, earlier, but I was making it all about me. You have the right to conduct yourself any way you want."
She can feel the pulse of his blood, beating quickly under the skin of his shoulder. He is warm to the touch, almost uncomfortably so, or maybe she is only imagining that her hand burns where it touches him.
"That doesn't mean –" she takes a deep breath and in her head she thinks, Just say it already, and her mouth opens and all of a sudden, "I'm tired of this, Zuko."
She feels his muscles under her palm go taut with the tension that floods his entire body. His heartbeat has skyrocketed and it pounds in her ears, against her fingertips, echoing somewhere inside of her. She slowly withdraws her shaking hand as he slowly, incredulously turns to face her.
"Tired of what?" he asks her. His eyes are wide, but one is smaller than the other, slitted in the scar on his face. It imbalances his otherwise striking, symmetrical, fair features.
"All of this," Katara confesses with a vague gesture of her hand that indicates the empty space between them. "I'm tired of being angry and I'm tired of holding a grudge, and I'm tired of trying to hate you for who you are and where you come from when, the truth is, I know better."
Zuko opens his mouth, and then closes it. Up close, she can feel the heat emanating from him in waves, and smell traces of the soap he'd used to wash himself. It smells like yuzu and star spice, like the glowing coals of a dying fire.
"I know that you're not the monster I thought you were, I know that you're better –" she swallows past her reservations and the part of her that's petrified by this admission, still, " – probably much better than I am, right now. I'm – I'm not proud of the way I've been behaving here, with what I did to Chan and how unfair I've been to you... and I don't suppose I have an excuse for that –"
"It's okay," Zuko says hoarsely, his low voice rasping against his throat.
"No! No, it's not!" Katara exclaims. "I was wrong about you, alright? I was so wrong. It's far from okay. But – but – I want to –"
She feels herself floundering, running out of words to say, and the worst part is, she isn't even sure what she's trying to tell him anymore. Has she said enough? Is there anything left to say?
Zuko is very quiet and very still. It would have unsettled her if she hadn't been so focused on the slurry of words caught in her throat, all threatening to come up at once in an incoherent babble of drivel.
"I get it," he says, cutting across the whirl of her thoughts. "I didn't at first, but now I do. You feel the way you do for your own reasons, and even though I don't have to like it, that's – just the way it is."
She stares at him, her confusion forgotten for an instant.
"If – if it's just easier this way for you, that's fine, I –" Zuko runs a hand awkwardly through his hair, "I'm used to it, I suppose, but – you really don't owe me anything, Katara. Thanks for trying, though."
He makes as if to turn away.
It strikes Katara out of the blue, the realization that's he's bitter about her resentment and her quick anger and her words. And she can't blame him.
Guilt pools in her chest, lending her voice strength.
"What makes you think I'm doing this for you?" Katara demands abruptly, suddenly finding her voice in the fear of losing this opportunity to make it right. "I'm doing this for me, okay? This is – this is what I want."
Zuko's face twists into a frown.
"Are you sure?" he asks her carefully. "Because you – you look like you just want to turn around and run the other way right now."
"I'm not going to lie, that's exactly how I feel," Katara replies, her face heating up. "And I've never done this before and maybe that's why this is all new to me – but –"
She takes a deep breath.
"I'm tired. Okay? I'm tired of carrying all this hatred around inside me," she says, and her voice is finally clear and even and steady, the way she wants it to be, "and if I want to be okay again, I have to start somewhere. I – I can't stop hating the people who hurt me, or the people who continue to hurt me, or the ones who put me down for who I am and where I come from, those guys can all burn on a pyre for all I care – but –"
She lifts her gaze to meet his golden eyes, which have the strangest look in them, she's grateful she can't read its meaning.
"But you've never hurt me, and you've never put me down, and you've always respected my wishes, even when you didn't like them, and I –"
She takes a step toward him and crosses her arms across her chest.
"I'm think I'm ready now."
Zuko wears a puzzled look on his face, and it takes a few moments before he is able to form words.
"What are you saying?"
There is a fleeting collage of emotions, almost imperceptible, dancing in his eyes. Confusion, shock, dismay, hope…
"I'm saying," Katara clarifies, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, "that I don't want to hate you anymore, Zuko. I don't want to be angry. And I'm sorry for the way I treated you. You didn't deserve it. And," she swallows again before she starts stuttering all over the place, "and even though it might be a while before I can be comfortable with the idea of trusting you or – or being friends with you, I – you should know that I want to try."
Zuko is rigidly still now, and he is quiet for so long Katara is worried that she's gone and offended him.
"Really?" Zuko whispers and the intensity in his voice makes her jump a little. "You mean it?"
Katara nods slowly.
"I think so." A thought comes to her, terrifying in its reality. "Unless you'd rather not."
But then she looks at him again and realizes that she's speaking nonsense.
The most curious change has swept across his face. He looks…happy.
It's only when she notices the slight quirk playing around the corners of his mouth that she realizes that she's never seen him smile. Not properly.
But his eyes give him away. They're lit up with a brightness she's never seen in them before, and there's a bit of a crinkle in the corners that reminds her of General Iroh's eyes when he smiles, that softens the striking harshness of his face and makes her want to hide.
"No," Zuko shakes his head at her. "I'd – I just didn't think you ever–"
"Me neither." Katara feels a thousand pounds lighter, as she vehemently adds, "I didn't think I could."
"Well." Zuko regards her somberly, the fleeting half-smile gone as quickly as it'd arrived. "Thank you for changing your mind."
"I didn't do it for you," Katara retorts.
"I know." Zuko nods. "But thank you anyway."
He turns away from her again, as though to leave, and something inside her forces her to call out after him.
"I know you're your father's son and all…but after I thought about it, you remind me more of your uncle."
The smile in his eyes hitches, but only briefly.
"You've been so patient and considerate and – well – selfless," Katara continues, and she isn't sure why she's saying this, only that it feels right and with each word, she feels lighter still. "Your uncle seems like a good man, and well –"
"He is," Zuko says, his voice oddly flat and restrained. He takes a couple of steps back, away from her. "But I'm not as selfless as you think I am."
Katara stares at him quizzically, even as he retreats from her slowly, the space between them widening with each step he takes.
"What do you mean?"
In the distance, she sees him run a hand through his hair in frustration, before he shakes his head and disappears into the building behind them.
That was strange.
The cool autumn breeze whistles through the skeletal tree branches around her, whispers across the surface of the pond behind her, rustling the warm linen draped around her body.
Now where do we go from here?
Though she feels like a great burden has been lifted from her chest, it is still strangely difficult to breathe.
Her hand is still warm.
author's note. ... :)
so that just happened.
about time, too.
love it? hate it? want more? let me know!