The Ties That Bind

Author/Artist: MuffyTaj
Pairing: Zuko/Katara
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Theme: #5. Ano Sa (Hey, You Know…)
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, or the series.

The sun and the moon danced together in the sky, mirroring the lethal steps of their children underneath. The unearthly darkness of night and day lent an unreal air to Zuko and Katara's fight. Fire flared out with all the power of the risen sun, while water smothered it with all the majesty of a full moon.

Blood flew across the field as Zuko scorched the flesh of his eternal opponent. Bones groaned as Katara sent blocks of ice to crush her unrelenting enemy. They stepped stately through their routines, unaware of the script the sky had written out for them. There was only equality, both of power and emotion.

All souls are re-born, and all souls are forever bound to their own paths. The red string of fate ties them down, and as the Avatar must rise as master all every lifetime, so too must his two continual companions fulfill their destinies. Their struggles, their tears, their tiny tragedies, all of these things were but a drop in the ocean of their collective lives, forever doomed to be overshadowed by the Avatar's shining hope.

And just as his guardians must always exist, so too must his enemy be born; to drive him in ways friendship never will, and to give the Avatar a lethal edge. Sometimes the foe is from within, sometimes it is the times themselves that fight against the Avatar, or sometimes it is a physical being to be faced and crushed. Sometimes the enemy was killed within the first battle, if the Avatar or his companions had known a harsh life; sometimes he was slowly converted over to their side if the enemy had too many morals and had been loved too little. Sometimes the enemy caught one of the bodyguards and pulled him or her under the trees and kissed them until right and wrong were jumbled up together, and the Avatar of that generation was forgotten.

But each time they were reborn, and had to start anew. A hundred years had passed as the enemy and the bodyguards drifted, cut loose with no Avatar to focus them. Not even the stars could say how such a long time of nothingness would affect the souls. So, as Katara and Zuko weaved their way around each other the sun and moon mirrored them, watching and waiting to see which way fate would turn.

And maybe, just maybe, this time they would break the threads, and begin their paths anew.