ZW 2014 Day 1: Melancholy
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Like Dust in the Wind
Katara discovers it's possible to feel a deep sense of loss despite being deliriously happy.
She knows the talk is serious because he's not quite looking her in the eye. "Zuko, just say it."
A cold hand grips her heart as she braces herself for him to call off the engagement, tell her he doesn't love her anymore, ask her to go back to the South Pole.
"My family is insane."
She blinks. "Okay?"
"My father is a power-hungry, self-absorbed maniac. My sister is in an institution. They both wanted to kill me. My great-grandfather tried to conquer the world and passed the madness down to his children."
Katara sucks in a breath. "Zuko, I'm not trying to be insensitive, but this isn't exactly news."
He glares at her. "My point is, I don't want that to keep happening."
"It won't, Zuko. The Fire Nation is changing for the better. You've changed the school curriculum, the people are adjusting-"
"That's not what I mean."
She waits, focusing on the wild breaths trying to escape her lungs.
"I don't want to have children," he says, avoiding her eyes, and it hits her like a bolt of lightning.
"Okay," she whispers.
"I understand if you don't want to go through with the wedding."
Her head is spinning. It's not fair that he'd change his mind when she can't imagine life without him, when she's put down roots in his country and settled into the rest of her life. It's not fair, but she's not going to tell him that.
"I'd rather have you," and she focuses on making the smile reach her eyes as her plans turn to dust and blow away.
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The wedding goes as smoothly as weddings go, and for the most part she's made peace with the occasional gnawing in her heart. Men in the crowd lifting their toddlers on their shoulders only prick at her eyes a little, the women bouncing babies only make her turn away for a half of a moment. Grandmothers herding their three or four or five charges make her smile. It probably isn't healthy, pushing the feelings deep down inside her and hoping they never bubble up, but if she's deliriously happy for six days out of seven, twenty-three hours out of twenty-four, what good would it do to throw that away for a life that was never guaranteed anyway?
The short answer is that it does no good. Katara is happy, and if she's learned anything from fighting a war and losing many of the people she's loved, it's that she shouldn't try to squeeze too much out of life.
Life squeezes plenty out of her over the years. The holidays are so quiet in the palace, with the servants gone home and the parades echoing in the distance, muffled by thick walls and the scratch of Zuko's pen-Sokka's latest invention. Sometimes he takes her to a festival when neither of them is overrun with petitions and colony demands, and it's nice. The warmth of contentment settles inside her as she loops her arm through his, and their steps match as they wander through the booths.
"Are you happy?" He asks her one night, through his ridiculous, feathered mask.
She giggles, and swallows the bite of fried food she'd pulled off the wooden skewer. "Of course, Zuko." And she's not lying.
That doesn't mean she doesn't notice how quiet the palace is when they return, or how no one celebrates with her when she puts up decorations for Water Tribe holidays in their bedroom (Zuko comments, of course, and he's patiently listened to the old stories more than once, but it's not the same, and more than once she's begged Sokka to come and celebrate the Winter Solstice with her).
It's mostly those special days when she feels it. The rest of the year is peaceful, and she and Zuko feed the turtleducks and wander the gardens, reveling in each other's company. When the rainy season descends upon them, they build mountains of blankets in front of a low fire, sipping their tea, entwined. When she goes to bed, wrapped in her husband's arms, she knows she couldn't give up this perfect bliss for anything in the world. But when she wakes in the morning with the distant memory of a dream, perfect gold eyes set in a lightly tanned face looking up at her and cooing, or a slew of grandchildren running through the palace, she clutches Zuko's arm tighter around her and lets the hot tears run silently down her face. She mourns, alone, for all the people she'll never lose (but never have, either).
