Chapter 1: Wake Up in Another World

The day began like this.

The sun was stirring, and Prince Zuko stirred with it. He hadn't felt this comfortable and restful in weeks, so for once, he was going to bury further into his bed and sleep in. He shifted the arm around his pillow...

Which groaned. A very sleepy, feminine groan. And the pillow, Zuko noticed as his sleep-fogged mind snapped to alertness, did not feel like the lumpy cotton of his rusted ship. It felt like fur, and coarse hair, and smooth bare skin.

The pillow groaned softly again, rumbling under his touch and nudging closer. This made Zuko realize with perfect, lightning-like clarity that all—and he meant all—of his skin was also bare.

With a sharp yelp, Zuko leapt out of the bed—or tried to.

It was dark but in the lamplight nothing was red and black but blue and white, and the covers were sewed to the bed. The only thing he succeeded in was violently jolting the entire bed and now she was moving and WAKING UP he was still behind her—

Brown hair, a dark cheek—

It was the Avatar's waterbender, and she was turning to face him—

This was not the time to fail.

Desperate, he scrambled, crawling out of the top opening of this fur-lined bed-sack. He was immediately assaulted by freezing cold air, but better outside than anywhere near—

"Wha?" A soft voice mumbled, and in his low crouch he froze. Then what was he doing, his neck craning to watch her with dread out of the corner of his good eye, the bitterly cool air reminding him that his body was still completely exposed. "What's going..."

She trailed off as her eyes settled on him. They swiftly grew so wide he could see the whites all around.

The same time as he dove for the nearest piece of fabric, she clapped hands to her mouth and made a muffled scream.

"Who are you!" she shrieked. "What are you—How did you—" Suddenly she stopped, finding his scar, and whispered, "...Zuko?"

For a long moment, they stared at each other in silence and disbelief. Then she looked down at herself, her bare brown arms and shoulders peeking out from the—fur-lined sleeping bag, that was what it was—and gingerly, cringingly, peered inside.

He thought it was impossible for eyes to get any wider, but when she looked up at him, those blue eyes most definitely were.

This time, nothing could have possibly muffled her scream.

...

Katara had gone to bed in Zuko's house in Ember Island, and woken up to the poles in Zuko's bed.

Which was not his, but more of hers, because this bed was definitely from the South Pole. After all, it had leopard-wolf fur at the lip and Gran-Gran's embroidery all around.

So she had woken up with Zuko in her bed. Was that more comforting, or disturbed?

Forget it. She was dreaming, right? She knew Sokka and Suki had been getting to her. Her dreams must have decided to run wild after ogling Zuko while he practiced firebending shirtless.

Returning her thoughts to the present, she observed that Dream Zuko was indeed shirtless, but like she had never seen before. Instead of red trousers, he had a hastily wrapped shawl around his waist and sealskin socks on his feet. It was such a bizarre dream she was having to create a version of Zuko she wouldn't easily recognize. His hair was longer and flatter, shoulders broader than ever, and—there was a scar, another scar, starburst and looking awfully like it came from lightning, spreading from the middle of Zuko's torso outward with the same pink branches that spiralled from Aang's back.

In that moment, there was a yell of "KATARA!" and a familiar yellow and orange blur came flying through the curtain. But when it came to a halt, rooted and poised to attack, Aang was not quite so familiar. His determined eyes seemed smaller, his set jaw sharper. There was no other way to put it: Aang looked older. Katara could probably dream up a Zuko with longer hair and a new scar, but she didn't think she was capable of dreaming up this.

...Maybe, just maybe, she had woken up in the future. That was what happened to Aang with the iceberg, wasn't it? After a hundred years?

"Um," the object of her musings said. Aang was crouched like he was expecting adversary, but the only things he battled were stares. He straightened comically. Katara didn't know what was more reeling: the deepness of his voice or the spurt of height.

"I'll just, see myself out... then?" Aang pivoted on tiptoe and made an awkward, lanky step for the curtained door, whispering a dragged out, still deep, "Sorry!"

He didn't get to finish they "eee" sound. In that second, Zuko shouted "AVATAR!" and tackled him to the rug-covered ground.

They were wrestling, and kicking, and noisy, and irritating. Between nearly-nude-Zuko's shawl flutters and older-Aang's incessant apologetic cries, something inside Katara snapped.

"Out." She commanded, drawing herself up. "OUT. Everyone. GET! OUT!"

Zuko went from grabbing after Aang—who, in the moment of distraction, leapt from under Zuko's slackened hold to zoom back through the curtain—to gaping at her. "But—!"

"I said OUT!"

"I— You can't—" Flared nostrils smoked. "I need clothes!"

No sooner had he said that than a red shirt smacked Zuko's equally red face. Katara followed the projectile up with a toss of two layers of red and navy pants she had found crumpled up next to the sleeping bag—she was very determinedly not thinking about the implications—and both pants hit Zuko with a satisfying flop. Next flew the bigger of two tidily folded parkas, which he, while hopping the navy pants on, dodged.

"FASTER," she barked. He was still barrelling his head into the parka when he disappeared through the curtained door.

The curtain swished. There was a grunt and Aang's low shout and running. The footsteps quieted, and suddenly she was jarringly, wrong-footedly alone.

Katara numbly went through the motions of dressing herself. Splashed herself with half-frozen water from the basin, donned fresh clothing from the clean basket. Even this routine was strange, because her body was traitorously different. A scar here, wider attributes there, and was her mind playing tricks? She was taller! At least her mother's necklace had never left her collarbone. Then, after doing her epically tangled hair with the whalebone comb and beads, she went around the room, numbly tossing clothing from the ground into the laundry.

It's like picking up after Sokka, she told herself as she held up the shawl, a sarashi, and the red undershorts in a corner, the latter shocking in all the white and brown and blue. I'm picking up after that lazy brother of mine. Like always, she insisted, to keep herself sane.

She pointedly did not look at the bed, which she had realized, was made for two.

All too soon, the room was tidy. There were boots by the door. She stuffed her feet into them and found a perfect fit. Finally, she took a deep breath and stepped through the curtain.

Her dad stood there, tall and cutting in the whiteness.

"Everything alright?" he said, concern in his blue eyes. Familiar blue eyes. Her dad's face was completely unchanged, from the shape of his beard to the lines on his forehead. The relief ramming into her was so palpable she could cry. A wave in rose in response, longing to release everything turbulently swirling in her mind.

Then her dad spoke, and she knew it was him that spoke even when the words couldn't be his because his mouth and his voice were in sync. "I've never seen you turn out Zuko like that," Dad said, like it was perfectly normal for a boy she had hardly begun to be friends with to, in every sense of the phrase, share her bed. Fatherly brown brows pinched together. "Is something the matter?"

All the anxious words Katara had been about to unload unto her dad jammed in her throat.

Nothing escaped except a single "nope." She winced. "Everything's fine. Perfectly fine." And hoped it sounded convincing.

Dad searched her face, so she tried for a reassuring smile. At last, he stopped and drew her into a hug. "La knows I needed someone to talk to whenever Kya and I had a falling out. Are you sure?"

"Yes," she squeaked against his shoulder. Her heart pounded like a landslide in her ears, and a distant corner of her brain that hadn't exploded marveled that she really did get taller.

"Okay," he said, clearly not believing her but stepping back to give her space. "I'll be at the bay if you need me. Or your Gran-gran, she's at the cooking fire."

"Okay, Dad," she said, and congratulated herself for not passing out.

Her knees nearly give way as her dad let go. His figure disappeared through an open doorway to the right—she didn't realize there was a doorway—and later, all noises of his presence faded, too. She stood there in the silence for who knew how long, clutching her mother's necklace with bone white knuckles. In her mind, the events of today and the last month played on repeat. She was torn between wanting to laugh or cry or die.

She shook her head and took a deep breath to collect herself. The strangeness all around her itched. Itched, until it wasn't just itching but grating, grinding at her core and filling her with the need for someone, someone normal.

Gran-gran was a good idea. Gran-gran was early at the cooking fire, as ever, and would set Katara to chores, as usual. Gran-gran wouldn't pry or waste words on frivolities. She was untouchable, calm, and safe.

Katara just had to find her.

Katara retraced the steps her dad took and guessed her way through the rest of the home of ice walls—had Master Pakku's rebuilding team made them a house? It was huge!—and stepped outside.

She immediately went back in, tripping over her favorite worn polarbear-dog rug in the process, and—for the nth time since waking up in this crazy world—screamed.

...

Elsewhere, Sokka's head lolled. "No potty breaks," he mumbled, and blissfully snored on.

Author's Note:

I've been stalking here and on AO3 for years, and a week ago I finally decided to finish writing what I want to read and post it. This will be my first fleshed-out fanfic, so please drop a review!

You can find me and this story on AO3 as well. It's more author-friendly, so I publish updates faster there.