disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to Emily. STOP DISTRACTING ME WITH TEEN WOLF, GOD.
notes: barfs. life's gotten pretty cray cray, guys, so this might be the last update for a month or so.
chapter title: looking for a star to chart
summary: Zuko, Katara, and life after the war. — Zuko/Katara, others.
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"Well," Katara said, "your lungs are okay, and your spine is—decent, considering. You'll be able to walk, and with a little luck, you should be able to fight again."
"Y'think that's something I'll need to do?" Jet laughed, lips pulled back over his teeth, grinning meanly at her. The pain had changed him, eaten his insides away; nowhere in his face was the boy fighting for the Earth Kingdom's freedom. He was a hollow thing, now, all the good inside him scooped out and buried away inside a mass grave under Lake Laogai.
Haru had told her the story of how he'd found Jet, one sun-drenched afternoon in the middle of the little garden she'd long claimed as her own, and even now Katara recoiled from it. The Dai Li were a cruelty, an ugly oozing sore on Ba Sing Se's vast underbelly. There was no need for them anymore, though there was no telling if they existed still. Most likely, they did. The world was never free of cruelty for long.
"I don't think you'll have to," Katara said steadily. "But I think you'll want to."
And she very carefully didn't talk about how much she'd wanted it, after the war; she didn't tell him how she'd wanted to rend and tear and shred, and how it was only now leaving. Slowly, slowly, she was finding the deep dark parts of her soul and putting herself back together.
Zuko helped, too, but Jet didn't need to know that, either.
"Maybe, babe," Jet said, and winced as he straightened. "Spirits take me, that hurts."
"At least now you can actually feel it," Katara retorted. "Look, Jet, about the Lake—"
"Katara, it's time to go," Mai's voice was a quiet murmur from the doorway. "The Avatar and the Earthbender are asking for you, and as far as I know, neither of them have any idea what you're doing here."
Katara hissed out air through her teeth. Aang and Toph could not know what she was doing in the Healer's Hall, because they'd both end up asking questions that she wouldn't have answers for. And neither of them would understand—not about Azula, anyway, and Azula was the one she was really worried about. Jet would walk again, but then, Jet hadn't lost his mind.
The Phoenix Princess was another story entirely.
"I'm coming," she said over her shoulder. Mai's nod was a solemn slow thing, a simple dip of the head, but she waited in the open door with her arms folded into the sleeves of her robes, and Katara knew without a doubt that she wasn't going anywhere alone.
Katara refocused her gaze on Jet. "Don't push it too hard, you'll just end up hurting yourself. Little exercises, little walks. Keep it simple, okay?"
He leered at her. "I can't do simple, gorgeous. I'm a complicated guy."
She rolled her eyes, and got up, grinning a little out of the corner of her mouth. "Whatever, Jet. I'll see you in a while."
"Don't leave me too long, sweetheart," he called after her. "I might not survive!"
Mai waited until Katara was through the door, and then she slammed it hard as she could.
"You could be a little nicer, you know," Katara said, eyebrow lifted in amusement.
"He," Mai said flatly, "is a parasite. And I don't trust him."
"Neither do I," Katara murmured. "But I can't leave him to die. I did that once. I won't do it again."
Mai didn't ask about the past, or what kind of relationship Katara had had with the man who's broken back was the only thing that kept him from chewing on grass and causing havoc around the world. She didn't need to—the past was the past, and they agreed that it was better not to speak of it. All she said, very simply, was "You are far too kind to those who do not deserve it."
"Everyone deserves kindness," Katara said.
But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.
"Not everyone," Mai replied, and Katara watched as Mai's hands clenched into fists. It only lasted a moment before the other girl's muscles relaxed, and she smoothed into blankness once again. "Azula doesn't."
"No, she doesn't. But you already know why I'm doing it; I'm not having that conversation again," Katara replied.
"I suppose not," Mai said, voice cool.
"Don't give me that look. You're making me feel bad!"
"That is the point. Have you even spoken to the Avatar?"
"No," Katara said, mouth twisting sourly. She picked idly at the neckline of her pale blue dress—it was a summer dress, and even so, it stuck to the back of her neck with the last lingering vestiges of the wet season. "He's avoiding me."
"I can't say I blame him," Mai said. "He's only here for the Earthbender."
"Her name is Toph," Katara reminded her, jabbing her elbow into Mai's ribs and grinning at the slight twitch of muscle in the other girl's jaw. She didn't deny it, thought—Mai was right. Aang had every reason to avoid her, but maybe really they had reason to avoid each other.
(Falling out of love was an ugly experience and a hard one, too. The fading that came first was the easiest part—it was the resent that came later that was the ugliest part of all. Katara didn't like that part. It made her feel dirty on the inside.)
"She's throwing herself a party," Mai said, lips thinning.
"Did you honestly expect anything less?" Katara asked, grinning crookedly. "Far as Toph is concerned, if she can't party and destroy things, there is no reason to be alive."
"No, I suppose not," the other girl sighed, and folded her hands into the sleeves of her robes. She stared straight ahead, and out of the corner of her eye, Katara caught sight of the sharp edges of the pins that kept her hair out of her face. Mai wore daggers in her hair the same way most people wore flowers.
Katara respected her so fiercely, suddenly, deep in her bones, that it almost hurt.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No reason. C'mon," Katara said. "We have a party to get to."
—
Toph, in all her fifteen-year-old-wisdom, had enlisted Uncle's help in the impromptu celebration.
Because apparently she was a princess and this was her life now, so she deserved a party.
(This was so Toph Bei Fong that Katara had to turn away and stuff her fist in her mouth to render her laughter mute.)
It was exactly as Katara had expected: it had all of Uncle's flair, tea cups and little trays of delicacies that floated around the room on nearly-invisible servants. It was glitter and gold but understated, somehow—this was the Fire Nation at its very greatest, what it had the capacity to be.
What it had been, and what it would be again.
Her family were scattered about the room, all content to live in their own little worlds. Suki and Sokka were entwined in the same chair; Toph alternatively chatting (betting, more like) with Uncle and hurting every time Sokka spoke; Ty Lee animatedly word-vomiting at an uneasy-looking Haru. Mai stayed at Katara's side, and Zuko—Zuko was speaking to grave-faced officials in blue, Lord Hahn's teeth a sharp glitter over his shoulder.
And Aang wasn't anywhere at all. Katara wasn't even surprised.
Mai looked at her out of the corner of her eye. "Are you going to save our esteemed Fire Lord?"
"You're the worst," Katara sighed. "Go keep Ty Lee from mentally scarring Haru forever?"
"Divide and conquer," Mai breathed, almost a hiccup, almost a laugh.
"You know it," Katara murmured in reply.
And with that, they split—Mai walked slow and graceful towards her old friend and said old friend's current victim, and Katara headed for Zuko and the Northern Water Tribe delegation, and Lord Hahn. She was not Mai, did not move like Mai; Katara walked fast and light on her feet, the beginnings of true ferocity pulsing in the bottom on her stomach. She curled her fingers in the whorls of her hair, put on her most vicious smile, and sauntered up to the group of men.
They all watched her, hungry-eyed—men were funny that way, Katara thought idly, because they always underestimated the rage that lived along her bones. She'd been gentle and kind and good once, and maybe she still was somewhere deep inside, but mostly she was angry and dangerous and poisonous.
Only Zuko looked at her with respect, but then, his gaze had always been different than anyone else's.
Katara went to stand beside him, close enough that the heat of his skin prickled along hers. She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. "Gentlemen, good evening."
"Lady Katara," one of the men inclined his head in her direction. Katara didn't remember his name, nor did she care to. "Your reputation precedes you."
"Does it?" she asked, lips pulling up into something fakely delighted and sugar-sweet.
"Lord Hahn has told us much about you," he said, blue eyes lingering on the betrothal pendant that still hung in the hollow of her throat. Worn by time and her own fingers, it was a stark relief against her skin, and it took all over her willpower not to reach up and cover it from his gaze. It wasn't his to see, but it wasn't hers to hide, either.
Katara hated whoever this man was, but casually, boredly. It wasn't the hot hatred that streaked down her spine at the thought of the War, at the thought of Yon Rah, at the thought of the armies sweeping across the world, at the thought of the genocides and the deaths and all the pain the world had been through. This was a cool hatred, more disgust than anything else.
She wasn't scared of this, at all.
"I'm sure he has," she replied. Her fingers tightened in the fabric of Zuko's sleeve, but her smile never wavered. "All of it good, I'm sure."
"You trained beneath Master Pakku," he said.
"I trained myself," she said. "And then I trained the Avatar. But, yes, I did train under GrandPakku, at the start. "
"Pardon?"
"Oh," Katara said, eyes wide and innocent. "Didn't you know? Master Pakku—GrandPakku—he's married to my grandmother. That's why he's in the South! Who would have thought that after all that time, he still loved her?"
She could feel Zuko's arms shaking beneath her grip as he tried to keep his face straight.
He still hadn't learned.
Silly Zuko.
Katara opened her mouth to expound on the importance of long-lasting love, and how forgetting was almost impossible, and how GrandPakku was much better now, Gran-Gran had beat some sense into him, and it was such a Northern Water Tribe had lost their esteemed Master to such a small settlement.
But Toph got there first.
Toph, in ornate green pants with gold wire wrapped around her wrists and her hair long and loose down her shoulders, walked up to them. Toph, who claimed blindness as the most opportune moments. Toph, who was now technically royalty.
Toph, who had no shame whatsoever.
She dumped one of Uncles lukewarm pots of tea all over the Northern Water Tribe delegation. There was a strangled roar from the delegation at large (and a particularly indignant squawk from Lord Hahn, who had taken the brunt of the water), furious over the gentle lull of conversation from the rest of the room.
Zuko made a tiny, pained sound in the back of his throat.
"Toph!" Katara said, too shocked to laugh.
Toph grinned. "That's Princess Toph, to you, Sweetness. Is this where I'm supposed to say oops?"
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tbc.
notes2: happy valentines, preciouses. I hope you all have love and kisses and cats, because that's what everyone deserves in their lives. /smooch