A/N: Hello my darlings! I'm back a bit earlier than the full week I had scheduled between updates because the last chapter was a little bit short. I'm so thrilled so many of you are enjoying my take on Zutara and this fandom. It's a lot of fun to write. This chapter's a bit of a whopper clocking in at 9k+ words, so I hope you enjoy it. Much love and many thanks to all of you for taking the time to read and review! xx-Kitten.
Brightest Nights or Darkest Days
By Kittenshift17
CHAPTER FIVE
Katara paced the length of the room she and Zuko had used for sleeping the previous evening. She felt full of energy after so long spent resting – after finally catching up on the hours of sleep she'd been missing whilst waking at every noise when she'd travelled alone. She needed to do something, but it was just so cold that she didn't dare leave the room. Were she still at the South Pole, with her tribe, she'd be used to the cold and would go about her day as though it were any other. Blizzards were commonplace and so she was used to enduring them.
But she hadn't been home in more than a year now, and she wasn't dressed for blizzard conditions, even in the garments she'd stolen after being separated from Aang and Sokka. She missed them, she realised. In this type of weather both boys would've been making their own fun and likely would've started a snowball fight or something similar. She'd have happily joined in, using her bending to wicked effect. But she didn't think that Zuko would appreciate the art of a good snowball fight.
He was a surly, moody, annoying sod of a person. Katara was torn between the urge to smack him to tell him to stop being such a snipe and the urge to simply leave him be, lest his foul temper land her in the flames. Literally. She didn't doubt that he would not take kindly to being bossed about by anyone, let alone by her. Pacing back and forth across the room, Katara tossed up the idea of having a snack, but she wasn't really hungry.
She needed to do something. It was too cold to even think about leaving the safe-haven the house provided. Beyond the walls of the small building, the blizzard winds howled. She could hear the sounds of anything not tied down being tossed about wildly upon the wind. She imagined, in a storm like this, that even many things that were tied down would likely be tested at their moorings.
She was still pacing restlessly when Zuko returned, fully dressed, to the room they'd shared while they slept. He looked no less angry than he'd done when she'd left him in the bathroom and Katara suspected he was annoyed that she'd healed the scars on his back. She wondered how long it might take before he would consider asking her to heal the one on his face, too.
Katara wondered if she'd even be able to heal it. It wasn't exactly a normal scar. It had been given to him during an Agni Kai and from the angry way it still stood so starkly red despite the number of years since he'd been given it, she knew the damage to the area must go deep into the dermal layers of his flesh.
She watched, still pacing, as he moved over to his bag and fished out a strip of the same jerky he'd been eating last night before sitting down and chewing it slowly. He didn't appear to pay her any notice, but as she paced Katara got the distinct feeling that he was watching her. It itched between her shoulder blades just the same way it did whenever she'd been hunting seal at the South Pole and a pod of whales were nearby.
She wasn't hungry enough to join him in his meal and her restlessness seemed to grow as the sound of the blizzard raging outside grew louder. The wind was howling out there now, buffeting the house and making the wood and the earthen walls of it groan under the strain.
"You should eat," Zuko spoke quietly. "You're going to need your strength."
Katara stopped, turning slowly toward him for the ominous tone in his voice.
"Oh?" she asked. "It's not like we can leave the house in this weather. Even if we could – and I could bend the snow away from us to travel if we had to – there would be little point. Aang and Sokka won't be travelling in conditions like this. Neither will your Uncle."
"I have no intention of leaving." Zuko said, tilting his head slightly so that he met her gaze out the eye that bore the scar.
"Then what do I need my strength for?" Katara demanded.
His smile was cold and cruel as he slowly rose back to his full height and stalked on silent feet across the distance between the two of them. Katara flinched when he suddenly pulled a pair of daggers and lunged at her. Reacting on pure instinct, Katara leapt backward out of the way. Zuko followed her.
"Don't bend at me," he warned. "If I'm going to let you tag along with me until we find my Uncle, you're going to need to prove that you can fight without giving either of us away as Benders."
Katara dodged him when he tried to slash at her again. She got the feeling he wasn't like Sokka or Aang, who would purposely avoid hitting her with the sharp edge blade should they land a blow. Zuko would cut her if he got the chance.
"I don't have a blade," Katara protested. "If I can't bend, it's hardly a fair fight."
"Then you better find a way to defend yourself, hadn't you?" Zuko sneered.
Katara narrowed her eyes on him, dodging another lunge from him and countering it with a high kick to his exposed ribs. He grunted at the impact and Katara squealed in pain when his free hand brought a dagger up and slashed at the back of her right thigh, cutting through the thick fabric on her clothing but not quite managing to penetrate all the layers to reach the flesh beneath.
"Stop, Zuko!" Katara commanded sternly. She withdrew across the far side of the room and held her hands up in surrender. "I don't know how to fight hand-to-hand. I can use a knife to skin and butcher meat, but I don't know how to fight with one. I don't even carry one because Sokka always handled whatever needing cutting if I couldn't use my bending to do it."
She spoke quickly, blurting the words out as Zuko backed her into the wall of the room until she was pressed up against it.
"Then what use are you as a travelling companion?" he demanded when he was a hairsbreadth from her face, his nose almost brushing hers. One blade pressed against her throat in warning while the other dug into her stomach, poking a hole in her clothes and threatening to disembowel her.
"I'm a water bender," she reminded him. "And it's snowing. You think that I'll really be of no use whatsoever?"
"I think you'll slow me down," Zuko replied.
"Well, I won't. Travelling is actually much easier when you do it with someone who can bend the snow from the roads," she said. Her breath came in short gasps as she held his golden-eyed gaze, fearing he might murder her just for spite.
"Maybe it is," he conceded the point after a moment of thought. "But you're too easy to recognise as a Water Bender. Maybe you didn't notice, Katara, but you and I are both wanted by the Fire Nation."
"So?" Katara asked. "I'm only wanted for being the travelling companion of the Avatar. Unlike you, Prince Zuko. Or should I call you The Blue Spirit?"
The tip of his dagger pierced the delicate flesh at her neck and Katara whimpered at the sting.
"What do you know about that?" he asked in a low, dangerous tone that suggested he would literally kill her for lying.
"I know you're the Blue Spirit." Katara shrugged her shoulders. "And I know you've been working against the Fire Nation, often, during your travels through the Earth Kingdom. I've known for more than a week. I'm not exactly going to rat you out, Zuko."
Zuko narrowed his eyes on her hatefully.
"Which brings us back to you holding me at knife-point," Katara said, filling the silence when he didn't speak or move. "I don't know how to fight with knives and I know that you're a weapons master with swords, so this is hardly a fair fight. Especially since I'm unarmed. If you're so worried about the idea of me being a liability because I don't know how to fight without Water Bending, then teach me, genius."
"And give you a skill that you'll turn against me the minute we find your friends?" Zuko scoffed, suddenly drawing back from her and sheathing his blades.
"Do you imagine that I'm as heartless as you, Zuko?" Katara demanded. She raised one eyebrow in silent challenge. "I'm not really the type of person who would turn on someone, even a prior enemy, once I've declared them useful to my cause."
Zuko glared at her.
"What do I get in exchange for teaching you to fight?" he asked. Katara could tell he was pondering the idea carefully, looking for some kind of trick. She wondered just how cruel the world had been to him and how rotten his childhood had been that he was so suspicious of everything.
"What do you want in exchange for it?" she asked rather than offering an answer. She couldn't actually think of anything she had that she would be willing to offer him. She could Water Bend and she was a decent cook, but that was really the extent of her skills – at least those that Zuko might consider useful.
He looked stumped by her question, his eyes travelling over her slowly. Katara squirmed under his intense gaze, suddenly recalling the image he'd made shirtless in the washroom and the feel of every masculine inch of him pressed so sinfully against her body in the bed-roll that morning. For a terrible moment, she wondered if he was going to suggest she repay the favour of him teaching her to fight by sharing her body with him. For an even more wretched second, she wondered what she would say if he did.
"I'll think about it," he replied. "Until then, if I teach you to fight, you owe me a debt, Water Bender."
"Are you going to keep calling me that?" Katara sighed. "I have a name, you know?"
"If I use it, you might get the false impression that you and I could one day be friends," he answered dismissively.
Katara rolled her eyes to herself as she watched him shrug out of his coat and toss it on his bed-roll. He followed by putting all of his knives down. She found herself alarmed by the fact that he'd somehow been carrying eight of them on his person.
"Take that off," he pointed at the coat he'd poked holes in.
"You put holes in it," she scowled at him.
"Shut up. Take it off and prepare to fight, Katara."
"You want to fight now?" she demanded.
Zuko actually looked up at her, his only eyebrow lifting in a way that made her think he doubted her intelligence.
"Did you have some other pass-time in mind until this blizzard lets up enough to move on?"
Narrowing her eyes on him, Katara pulled her coat off and tossed it with his things.
"We should do this downstairs," he decided. "There's more room and less chance of you stumbling over our belongings."
He stalked out the door and way down the steps to the lower portion of the house without another word. Katara followed him, muttering to herself about the sarcastic, biting tone he had so mastered. And about the idea that he thought her so clumsy and inept that she would trip over their stuff. She wondered if his sarcasm was something he'd picked up, or something bred into him just because he was royalty. Maybe being an arrogant, pompous jerk was genetic.
When she joined him on the lower level, he stood with his arms loose, his eyes fixed upon her and calculating every detail.
"I don't know how to fight," she warned him. "Not without bending."
"Put the water pouch down," he commanded, eyeing the canteen strapped to her hip like it were a live snake.
"That's hardly fair. You can still bend at me."
He smirked. He also didn't say anything else. He simply waited for her to obey. Katara pouted. She didn't like the idea of putting down her canteen. Even with all the snow outside the window readily available, she always felt naked with the canteen on her hip.
"I have the control not to bend when I lose my temper," he said finally when Katara had unfastened her only weapon and laid it on one of the steps. "You, on the other hand…"
He trailed off but his judgemental expression really said it all. Feeling her temper flare at the criticism, Katara narrowed her eyes on him before lunging right at him.
He was expecting it.
Katara squawked when he parried the blow she aimed for his head, catching her wrist and twisting her arm until she was trapped, her back to him and her arm jerked uncomfortably behind her. If he pulled it up too high, she was sure her shoulder would break.
"Hey!" Katara protested. She squirmed when his free hand lifted to collar her throat threateningly, the touch making the small cut he'd left with his dagger sting.
"You're very predictable," he warned. "You should work on that. And you should be grateful I didn't let you land the hit. You'd have broken your thumb."
"What? Why?" Katara asked twisting her head to meet his gaze over her shoulder.
His eyes narrowed for a minute before he released her arm and her throat. He waited for her to straighten her arms but stopped her when she tried to step away from him. Instead, he manipulated her body backward until she was pressed with her back to his front. Her breath caught in her throat despite having spent all of her sleep hours in almost this exact position with him. When he caught both of her wrists, he lifted her hands up in front of her face to eye-level.
He didn't seem to notice or care that he was pressed to intimately against her. Or if he did, he certainly didn't let on that it bothered him. Katara, on the other hand was becoming aware that with his clothes and his body freshly washed – even with the sweet smelling soap in the bathroom – his own personal scent was intoxicating. The heat of his body in the cold of the downstairs rooms – one of which sported a broken window – made her want to melt back against him and absorb his warmth rather than continuing to fight. She was beginning to think she might be losing her mind.
"Make a fist," he said.
Katara did as she was told, putting all other thoughts out of her mind and trying to focus on the lesson.
"That's why you would've broken your thumb. Never tuck you thumb inside your fingers when you make a fist." Zuko fished her thumb from inside each fist, tucking them outside her curled fingers.
Katara watched carefully as he gripped the back of her hand and guided it in a slow motion punch forward, pausing to straighten her wrist.
"Keep your wrist aligned and locked in place," he said, "Like this.
He released he hands and punched one fist against the open palm of his other hand. It made a smacking sound. Katara mimicked him, frowning when her wrist seemed to twist sideways slightly on impact, making the joint twinge.
"I told you to lock it in place," he said. "If you do it like that when you punch something solid, you'll snap your wrist. Hand-to hand fighting isn't like your limp-wristed water bending."
"I always fight this way," Katara protested. She stepped away from him until her back no longer pressed to his chest and peered up at him.
"You mean when you bend?" he frowned. "That's the problem. When you bend, it's about being fluid and smooth, like your element. You need to bend like a Fire Bender would. Or an Earth Bender. You have to be sure and concise in your movement. Watch."
He demonstrated the way he did his bending. Shooting fireballs from each fist, he rapidly punched the air in front of himself, his fists clenched, his wrists locked. His arms fully extended every time he made the motion before darting back to his side, ready to protect his core or to punch again.
Each fireball hissed and sizzled as it landed in the snow that had piled up through a hole in the window where he'd mentioned a sign had blown through it during the night.
Katara mimicked the movement carefully, slowing it down until she was sure she'd mastered the art. Zuko nodded almost imperceptibly, watching her like a hawk. Katara smiled, realising that was the extent of the praise she was likely to get from the surly prince.
The entire evening was spent that way. First he showed her each move he wanted her to learn, and when he thought she had it, he moved on to the next one. Katara was panting and sweating by the time he told her that it was time they put what she'd learned into practice. Despite the cold, the exertion had seen him strip down to only his sleeveless tunic and pants. Katara herself had stripped to her sarashi wraps.
She squared off against Zuko, looking for a weakness she could exploit. She knew she would lose this fight, even if it was only a training match. He was far bigger, far stronger and far more experienced at fighting hand-to-hand. That, and he was ruthless. Narrowing her eyes on him, Katara wondered if she couldn't use her smaller stature to her advantage. He lunged at her without warning and Katara parried the blow, immediately shifting into the fluid movement of her water bending forms.
She might not be able to defeat him with brute strength, but if she could avoid enough of his blows, eventually he would tire. He smirked wickedly at her when she evaded several hits in a row before attempting to return fire. She landed on punch on his arm, quite hard. Katara hissed and danced back from him immediately, her wrist throbbing.
"Told you to keep it locked," he sneered before lunging at her again.
Katara grunted when he knocked the wind out of her with a kick to the stomach. She cuffed him around the head and he bared his teeth at her in annoyance for the blow before tripping her and following her to the floor. They scuffled for several minutes, each trying to get the upper hand.
As she'd known would happen, she ended up on the bottom, his fist poised to pummel her while he pinned her by the throat.
"To be fair, you've been doing this for years," she told him when he paused, waiting to see if she was going to keep fighting.
"So have most of the people you'll have to fight," he replied with a condescending sneer. He was barely even panting and Katara had a stitch in her side.
"Want to have a Bending battle?" she asked when he lowered his fist to the floor and released her throat. He still loomed over her, his lower half pinning her legs to the floor while he held his upper body off her.
"As though that won't get noticed?" he asked.
"Do you really think the soldiers will be wandering about in this weather?" Katara asked sceptically as the icy wind kissed across her bare arms and midriff.
Zuko glanced toward the broken window. It had grown dark once more, the storm raging on.
"We'll never find Uncle in this," he muttered. Fire seemed to dance in his eyes when he looked back at her.
"Fine. Bending match. But no hard feelings when I best you. Again," he smirked before levering himself off of her.
Katara scrambled to her feet and dodged the fireball he shot in her direction. It hit the wall and Katara winced.
"Maybe no bending," Zuko said, also cringing as he pulled the fire back from the wall, leaving a large scorch mark behind.
"Not inside, anyway," Katara sighed. Even as she said so, she used her bending to lob a snowball right at Zuko's face. The wet smack of the missile connecting with his cheek made her giggle.
"We just agreed…" Zuko began before Katara lobbed another snowball at him. He narrowed his eyes on her.
"Don't get angry. You're as capable of throwing them as I am," she insisted, putting aside her bending to build a snowball with her own hands before hurling it at him.
Zuko did not look impressed.
"I'm supposed to believe you'd fight fair, even if you didn't use bending to hurl the snowballs?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Are you saying you don't think I'd fight fair, Zuko? Or are you just scared that you'll lose, even if I do?"
"I wouldn't fight fair," he muttered before diving through the hole in the window and gathering up some snow of his own. Katara followed him, shivering at the temperature difference outside the house and in the middle of the storm.
Zuko threw a snowball at her but the wind carried it away before it could hit her. When she tried throwing one back, the same thing happened. Narrowing her eyes, Katara settled for good old fashioned wrestling. She raced across the small patch of snow separating the two of them and tackled him, surprising Zuko, who was squinting against the driving wind and snow as he tried to make another snowball.
He yowled in surprised when she knocked him off his feet and into the snow. Katara smirked as she pinned him to the ground, feeling smug to have managed to knock him off his feet. He flipped her easily and Katara shrieked at the feel of the ice and snow against her bare skin.
"What's wrong, Water Bender? Can't take the cold?" he challenged from above her.
Katara struggled beneath him, shoving him off of her and laughing when he landed next to her in the snow once more. He cursed foully at the temperature and at the idea that she'd managed to throw him off. She squawked in surprise when he lunged at her again. Katara got the feeling that Zuko wasn't used to games.
He didn't seem to know how to play-fight. He was only used to sparring or fighting for real with the intention of winning by defeating his opponent. She was thinking she was going to have to change his attitude toward fun. Zuko make a noise of protest when she rolled them both with his momentum until he was pinned on his back. She straddled his thighs and pinned his wrists by his head.
"Now who doesn't like the snow?" she laughed before scooping up a handful of it and smushing it in his face.
It was a mistake. Zuko bucked violently beneath her, obviously not liking to have his face touched. Katara suddenly found herself on her back in the snow once more, both of his hands wrapped around her neck and attempting to squeeze the life out of her.
Her eyes widened at the hatred glittering in his face.
"Zuko!" she wheezed, clawing at his hands and trying to fight him off. He squeezed tighter still and Katara panicked. Summoning her bending, she gathered the snow and used it to hurl him off of her.
He landed a few feet away in the snow and Katara panted heavily as she was granted oxygen once more. She sat up slowly. Part of her wanted to be angry with him for what he'd done, but it occurred to her that having anyone touch his face or throw anything at it was probably a trigger of some kind. The last time anyone had done so, his face had been badly burned.
He was cursing foully to himself, fire racing across his flesh in his rage as he burst free of the snow she'd encased him in. Katara watched him glare at her for a moment, obviously livid to the point of speechlessness. He turned his back on her and walked a few paces away when Katara tried to convey her contrition.
"I'm sorry, Zuko," she blurted, the wind snatching her words before they could reach him. "I didn't realise you would react like that. I was just trying to have fun with you."
He didn't react to her words. Katara doubted he even heard her speak them and she pulled herself to her feet. She was beginning to shiver now, the cold of being wet, only wearing her sarashi wraps and being out in such a terrible blizzard rapidly lowering her body temperature. They both needed to get inside, but she doubted he was going to cooperate on that. The stubborn fool would likely stand out here until he froze to death.
Her teeth were already beginning to chatter as she did the only thing she could think of to mend the damage she'd caused. She acted the way she would have had it been Aang or Sokka who was angry at her; closing the distance between herself and Zuko before encircling his waist with her arms and pressing herself against his back.
"Get. Off. Me!" he growled, stiffening immediately.
"I'm sorry," Katara apologised. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to upset you."
Rather than having the effect of an apology the way it would work on Sokka or Aang, Zuko stiffened even further. Even with her mind warning her away, Katara squeezed him tighter, cuddling him even closer. She pressed her cold body against his and she almost sighed with relief when she felt his chi brush along the length of hers.
He didn't seem like he was going to move, even though she could feel that he'd begun to shiver as well. Sighing against the back of his shirt, Katara flicked her wrist to erect a wall of ice around them, cutting off the wind.
"Get off me, Water Bender," Zuko said quietly.
"No. You're being stubborn. I didn't think, alright? I'm sorry for upsetting you. I forgot that you might not deal well with having anyone force a foreign object against your face. I'm sorry," Katara felt like she was beginning to babble. "And I now you're angry and that an apology probably won't cut it with you, but we need to get back inside before we both freeze to death. We're not exactly dressed for a snowball fight in a blizzard."
"How am I supposed to do that with you clinging to me?" he demanded.
Katara rolled her eyes, unwinding her arms from around his lean waist and tugging on his arm to drag him toward the house. He shook his arm immediately, trying to dislodge her hold, but Katara just latched on tighter. When he wrenched violently on the appendage to try and get free of her, Katara suddenly found herself very much inside his personal space once more, her chest colliding with his.
He glared down into her face when she glanced up at him guiltily.
"Are you always this clingy?" he asked coolly.
"Don't be a jerk," Katara rolled her eyes.
"Don't touch me," he replied.
She shook her head, refusing to release him even as she made for the house once more. Indeed, she didn't let go of him until she was sure he was inside the house and not likely to freeze to death in the snow. As soon as they were both inside, Katara used her bending to pull the water from their clothing and their skin before she reached for the clothing she'd been discarding since they began sparring, pulling it all back on hurriedly until she was fully dressed once more.
Zuko did the same thing, following her up the stairs and away from the cold draught blowing through the hole in the window. Katara could feel his anger radiating off him from across the room when she sat down on her bed-roll and wrapped the fabric around herself, trying to warm up. She reached for her snack,s watching Zuko pace for a few minutes before he followed suit.
He sat on his bed-roll, fished out his tea-pot and the two cups before silently handing her the tea-pot. Katara smiled to herself. It seemed they were going to develop a ritual, no matter how angry he might currently be with her or how tense things felt between the two of them in general.
She filled the pot and returned it, watching him boil it while she began gnawing on the fruit and nuts she kept on hand. She offered him some of them when he passed her a steaming cup of tea and a strip of jerky. He accepted, as he'd done the previous evening.
"Are you going to talk to me for the rest of the evening, or are you still upset with me?" Katara asked when their meal was mostly finished.
Zuko glared at her.
"Only, it would make sense to discuss travel plans. It seems clear to me that Sokka and Aang aren't here, and neither is Iroh. There is also the fact that those soldiers might recognise us after that stunt yesterday. We need to move on."
Zuko curled his lip at her.
"We need supplies," he argued, eyeing the meagre pile that remained of their food supplies when Katara pulled hers out and he did the same.
"We aren't going to be able to buy them without being noticed in this village," she said seriously, frowning slightly. "If any of those soldiers from yesterday spot us, they'll probably try to arrest us. And any of them getting close enough to you to see your scar will recognise you, what with the wanted posters for you and Iroh up all over the place.
Zuko nodded.
"Steal supplies, it is, then," he muttered. "As soon as the storm dies off enough to leave the house, we'll have to steal more."
Katara nodded in agreement. She nibbled her bottom lip as she finished her meal before summoning her bending power to rinse the cup she'd used. She rinsed Zuko's too when she noticed it was empty and watch him fuss around pulling off a few layers before he climbed into his bed-roll.
He looked over at her as she started to do the same thing.
"Are you going to shiver all night again?" he asked seriously.
Katara paused, looking over at him. The truth was that as awkward as sharing a sleeping roll with him was, it beat shivering in her sleeping bag by herself.
"I didn't think you…" she trailed off, not wanting to anger him again by suggesting that she didn't think he'd care if she suffered while he was annoyed with her.
Zuko glared at her just the same before sighing as though she were the most annoying thing he'd ever encountered. He peeled open his sleeping bag enough to make room for her and stared at her expectantly. Katara almost giggled as she crawled hesitantly across the space until she slotted herself in next to him. Using her sleeping bag as an extra blanket, she arranged it over the two of them carefully.
She tried not to let herself melt against the warmth he always seemed to radiate, but her toes were still numb from being outside and Katara found herself burrowing into him. The feel of his chi enveloping hers was a welcome one as he doused the light, plunging them both into darkness.
She didn't know how long they both laid there, tense and stiff against one another without speaking. She suspected he was still angry with her and she was uncomfortably aware of all the places their bodies touched under the blankets.
"Do you always go to bed this early?" she found herself asking when she couldn't get comfortable or turn her mind off long enough to think about sleep.
"No," he answered. Even that one word was clipped with anger.
"If your Uncle was here, what would the two of you do instead of going to bed after dinner?" Katara asked quietly. "Aang, Sokka and I take turns telling stories of the things we did. Aang's are all from before the war, while Sokka and I tell stories from what we did before we found him in the ice."
Zuko was quiet for so long, she wasn't sure he was going to answer.
"When we were on the ship with the crew," he began, "Uncle would arrange nights to keep them all entertained. Tea nights. Music nights. Story nights. Things to build moral and make friends, he called them. Most of the time he just wanted someone to drink with and a reason to play his Tsungi horn."
Katara smiled.
"You Uncle isn't like the rest of the Fire nation, is he?" she said softly, twisting slightly until she was facing him. She couldn't see him through the dark, but there was something about knowing he was right there that felt comforting. The very idea terrified her. Nothing about Zuko should make her feel comfortable. Yet the feel of his chi curled around hers and the feel of him, so warm and so close, made her feel better than she'd done since being separated from Sokka and Aang.
"No, he's not," Zuko said. "He… My uncle looks for the good in others; he finds the good in any situation and stays positive even when there is no call for it. He'd rather get to know someone than pick a fight with them. There were whispers, when I was young, before I was banished, that he used to be like my Grandfather and my father. A respected son of the Fire Nation in line for the throne. He was the only person to ever come close to taking Ba Sing Se from the outside."
"What changed?" Katara whispered.
"In the middle of the take-over he received word that my cousin – his son, Lu Ten - had been killed in battle," Zuko said. "I don't know the full story, I never dared to ask him. But he lost his will to fight, to conquer, even to live – for a while – after Lu Ten was killed."
"That's awful," Katara said, her heart squeezing inside her chest.
"All Uncle ever said to me about it was that he would never again be responsible for causing pain to anyone's mother or father by taking their child's life. That he could not bear the thought of inflicting such a thing on another when he knew, firsthand, how much it hurt to lose his son."
Katara felt her eyes fill.
"Were you close to him?" she asked. "Your cousin."
Zuko shrugged.
"When we were young, I suppose. He was several years older than me. By the time I was of any use to play with, he was old enough to be heading off to war. Whenever he was home, he made time for me. He was the one who taught me how to punch, actually." His voice seemed devoid of any emotion, but pressed so close to him, she could feel the slight tremble that went through him.
Thinking that was all she was likely to get out of him for the evening, given than he didn't trust her or like her, Katara changed the subject.
"When we get bored while we're flying, Sokka, Aang and I play a game. It's called, "If there wasn't a War, I would…" Do you want to play?" she asked him brightly, "I'll go first, if you want? If there wasn't a war, I would want to try riding the cargo carts at Omashu again. Without being afraid of capture or being concerned about what would happen if we were caught."
"You what?" Zuko asked, sounding startled.
"Oh. In Omashu, the Earth Benders move their cargo around the city by using their bending. They have these stone carts that slide and use gravity to push and pull everything to where it needs to go through a collection of tubes and shoots. Aang told me that when he was a boy and he went there, he and King Boomi – before he was King – used to ride in the carts. He said it was terrifying, but really fun unless the cart loses control and goes off the track."
"And if it does go off the track?" Zuko asked.
"I don't know, try and use bending to correct it and hope I wouldn't die," Katara shrugged. "We tried it when we went there the first time but it went badly because it was the middle of the morning when all the deliveries were being made. Sokka was nearly impaled on some spears and Aang used air bending to haul us out of that shoot and into another one."
"And you want to do it again? You're crazy," Zuko said.
Katara laughed.
"Well, what would you do then?" she challenged.
Zuko was silent.
"I don't know," he admitted finally. He twitched slightly in their shared sleeping bag, shifting his arm to rest it across her waist before tugging her closer to him. "If there wasn't a war, my Father would never have been Fire Lord. He'd never have invited me to a war meeting and I'd never have spoken out of turn."
"That's not how the game works," Katara told him when another tremble went through Zuko. She shifted her arm across his waist, burrowing her hand under the hem of his shirt and smoothing her fingers up his back without thinking. "If we were playing "What would it be like without the war", then you could say those things. If we were playing that, I'd say that my Mother would never have been killed by the fire Nation. I'd say that she wouldn't have had to die to protect the last Water Bender in the Southern Water Tribe. But we're playing "If there wasn't a war, I would…" that means you have to say something you'd do if there was no war. Something silly, like eating a different cuisine across the Four Nations."
"I've already done that," Zuko told her.
"Well, don't brag about it. What's something you'd like to do if there was no war and we could all travel wherever we liked without fear?" Katara laughed.
"I don't know. I always wanted to swim with the giant Elephant Koi at Kyoshi Island," Zuko admitted.
"Aang did that. He nearly got eaten by the unagi."
"Serves him right," Zuko muttered.
Katara smacked him lightly.
"If there wasn't a war, I would travel to the air temples. Aang told me the monks used to make the most delicious cakes in the four nations. I'd love to have tasted one."
"You really play this game with your friends?" Zuko asked sceptically. "How do you think of things you want to try?"
Katara blinked.
"I don't know. We just do. Sokka's tend to revolve around food. Aang tends to list things he already tried, or things he'd like to have tried before the Air Nomads were destroyed. I've been making a list, actually, of all the things the three of us want to do. One day, when the war is over, we'll do them all – the ones we can do, anyway."
"If there wasn't a war, I would probably be married by now," Zuko muttered. "Which makes me kind of glad there's a war."
Katara pulled back slightly.
"You're betrothed to someone?" she asked, frowning at him through the dark. She still couldn't see his face.
"I… was," Zuko nodded. "When I was banished, the betrothal was broken."
"Did you know the girl?" Katara asked nosily before realising how rude that was.
"I… yeah. Her name was Mai. The daughter of one of my father's governors. She used to play with my sister and another girl, Ty Lee, in the palace gardens when we were young."
"Is she your age?" Katara asked curiously. "What's she like?"
"She's seventeen now. She's… gloomy. She sighs a lot and very rarely finds joy or interest in anything at all."
"She sounds like a sociopath," Katara blurted before she could think better of it.
Zuko surprised her when he actually laughed, just a little.
"She was just raised very strictly. Be seen and not heard. Smile, but not too widely. Her father's political position often hinged on her ability to be prim, perfect and proper at all times because if she messed up, the betrothal contract would've been thrown out and her father would've been demoted," Zuko explained. "I don't know what your life was like, growing up with peasants, but in the Fire Nation, image and honour are very important. If Mai had ever put a toe out of line, she'd have been in trouble."
"Did she ever put a toe out of line?" Katara wondered.
She couldn't see Zuko's smile, but she felt it when he managed to tug her body even closer to his.
"Only with me," he admitted.
"You… loved her?" she asked, her eyebrows rising. "Oh dear, she's not going to try and come after me for kissing her boyfriend, is she?"
Zuko actually laughed at her words, but it was a cold laugh.
"I doubt I'm capable of love, Water Bender. And if Mai loved me, she had a funny way of showing it. But we didn't have to be so proper when it was just the two of us. I was banished when I was thirteen, but she was technically my girlfriend by the time I left."
"So I kissed her boyfriend?" Katara asked, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach over the idea of betraying the girl's trust, even when she'd never met her.
"She's not my girlfriend anymore," Zuko said. "And what do you have to worry about? I kissed the Avatar's girlfriend. Mai's not even a bender. At most she could probably throw a few shurikens at you."
"What? Aang's not my boyfriend," Katara blurted, jerking back from him further to stare through the darkness. Her cheeks flamed pinked at the very idea.
"You left your tribe to follow him across the bloody world. He's your boyfriend."
"He's not. If that was the only requirement for it, Sokka would be his boyfriend too."
"Who said Sokka's not?" Zuko asked and Katara swatted him.
"First of all, my brother likes girls, so I doubt it. Secondly, Aang is twelve. Avatar or not, I'm not a cradle-snatcher."
"The other bloke you travel with is your brother?" Zuko confirmed.
"Yes."
"So, you don't have a boyfriend? Didn't leave anyone behind at the South Pole?"
"The only boys close to my age were Sokka and a bunch of kids younger than Aang," Katara told him.
"So no one is going to try and take my head off for yesterday?" Zuko asked.
"Jet would likely take issue with the idea, but he's not my boyfriend either, and he's a monster."
"Jet?" Zuko asked, a hard edge coming into his voice. "Let me guess. About my height, not a bender. Carries a pair of fighting hooks and always has a stick of grass hanging out of his mouth."
"You've met him?" Katara blinked in surprise.
"Ran into him when Uncle and I were travelling over the border into the Earth Kingdom chasing the Avatar," Zuko said. "We had to part ways when he realised that Uncle and I are fire benders."
"Yeah, Jet hates the Fire Nation and any Fire Bender is fair game in his opinion. He tried to get me, Sokka and Aang to help him and his Freedom Fighters to destroy an entire village of innocent people just because there were Fire Nation soldiers occupying it. They blasted a dam wall and flooded the village. Sokka barely got everyone out of there alive."
"Funny that you think he'd have a problem with you kissing someone," Zuko said. Katara could feel his curiosity about what her relationship to Jet had been.
"Yeah, well. Took me a while to realise he was a deranged monster bent on nothing but revenge and looking for it in all the wrong places," Katara muttered.
"Bet the Avatar loved that," Zuko laughed coldly.
"What? Why would Aang care what I did with Jet?" Katara frowned.
"What did you do with Jet?" Zuko asked nosily rather than answering her question.
"That's none of your business," Katara said.
"Well, if you hadn't been with a guy before him, based on the way you kissed me, I'd say you did a bit more than kissing him," Zuko needled. Katara's cheeks grew hot.
"I can feel you blushing, Water Bender," he laughed. Katara walloped him. "Ouch! Don't get violent with me just because you made the stupid mistake of spreading your legs for a nutcase."
"I…. Zuko!" Katara protested, her cheeks crimson.
"That's wasn't a denial," he said when Katara buried her head under the blankets. She pinched him. "Yeah, the Avatar was probably jealous as hell. He's in love with you, you know?"
"How would you know?" she asked, her voice muffled by the blankets.
"You mean other than that I stalked the three of you across the world?" he asked sarcastically. "I thought you were his girlfriend because every time I see him, he's making eyes at you."
"He's twelve!" Katara protested.
"He's male," Zuko said.
"Why are we even talking about this?" Katara demanded, walloping him again and pressing her cold feet to his legs in punishment. She didn't know what it was about the dark and the feel of their chi so intertwined, but the constraints of distance and daylight seemed to melt away.
With his hands under her shirt, it didn't matter that he was the enemy who'd chased her and her friends across the world. It didn't matter that he'd hunted them and made their lives hell. It didn't even matter that he was Fire Nation. Right then, it felt almost like being with a friend. Albeit a prickly, moody, angry friend who might set her on fire if she annoyed him, but a friend just the same.
"You asked me if I was dating anyone," he reminded her. "If I was betrothed, to be exact. I assume you're not? I thought that necklace you wear means you are?"
"How do you know about Northern Water Tribe customs?" she asked, stilling against him and tipping her chin up towards the direction his voice came from.
"I stalked you across the world," he deadpanned.
"You're weird."
"As though you aren't? Are you betrothed or not, Water Bender?" he demanded.
"What do you care?" Katara challenged.
"I want to know how much I'll be upsetting someone if we continue the charade of being a couple to make travelling and hiding easier," Zuko told her.
"What?" Katara rolled her eyes. "As though you care if someone would be upset about anything?"
"Of course I care," Zuko said. "If I can upset someone by kissing you, Water Bender, you better get used to being kissed."
"You're a horrible person."
"You're just realising this now?"
Katara suspected she might be losing her mind when a bubble of laughter escaped her at his words. She hadn't actually believed Zuko capable of playing with anyone. She couldn't help but giggle at the very idea. It just seemed absurd. He was angry; driven; determined to reclaim his honour by capturing Aang. He was sullen and moody and always angry. She'd never imagined that under that constantly bubbling layer of fury and hatred for everything, he might have a sense of humour.
"I'm not promised to anyone. I might've been, if not for the war. The necklace I wear belonged to my grandmother. It was given to her by a water bender from the North Pole before she ran away."
"That's a shame," Zuko said. "I'd have enjoyed knowing I was antagonising someone every time I touch you."
"I hardly need a boyfriend for that to be a reality," Katara needled in return. "If Sokka spotted us right now, he'd probably murder you and lecture me for the rest of my life just for trusting you enough to share warmth."
"You're sharing more than warmth," Zuko muttered.
Katara narrowed her eyes on him.
"I can hardly be expected to trust you without sharing stories and secrets, Zuko," she said. She wasn't sure if he meant personal information or if he was referring to the way their chi brushed together. She didn't want to mention it, in case he couldn't feel it to.
In all honesty, she didn't want to mention it, even if he did feel it. It was strange and unheard of and alarmingly intimate. She didn't want to acknowledge such a thing with Prince Zuko.
"It's your turn," he told her after several long beats of silence where Katara's mind tried to wander toward recalling how it had felt to kiss him.
"My turn?" she asked.
"If there wasn't a war, you would…"he began the sentence for her.
Katara smiled. It seemed out of character that he wanted to continue playing. Indeed, it seemed strange that he wanted to talk to her at all. Maybe he'd been just as lonely without anyone to talk to and no friendly faces around him as she'd been without Sokka and Aang.
"I'd travel the coastlines of the entire Four Nations," Katara said. "I love my homeland, but sometimes it's nice to feel sand under my feet instead of needing to wear shoes to avoid losing my toes to the cold."
"Where would you start?" Zuko asked quietly.
"The Fire Nation," Katara answered immediately.
"Really?"
She nodded against his chest, burrowing into his warmth once more when a cold draught blew under the door to kiss her skin.
"Why?" Zuko wanted to know. Katara found her fingers tracing absent-minded patterns across his back.
"I don't know," she admitted. "I've just heard that it's beautiful. Is it true that the Fire Nation is taught that the war is a means for sharing your ways with the rest of the world?"
"Yes," Zuko whispered. "I didn't know until I was banished that the rest of the Nations hate us. All of us are taught that ours is the greatest and most advanced culture in the world and that we wage war to share our knowledge. We're taught that the other Nations are no better than savages. Your people are held up, most often, as the most primitive because of the way you live in your tiny villages in the South Pole."
"We didn't always," Katara said quietly. "Before the war… Before the Fire Nation captured all of the Water Benders from the Southern Water Tribe, we were once almost as prolific in our community as the Northern Water Tribes. But every year the war waged on, there were less Water Benders born to our tribe. Any who were born were captured or killed by the Fire Nation. I'm the last one. There hasn't been a Water Bender born to my tribe in sixteen years."
Zuko was silent after that, seeming to drink in the magnitude of her admittance. His arm over her hip tensed and relaxed several time, as though he were clenching and unclenching his fists. When he slid her body impossibly closer to his own in the narrow sleeping bag, Katara found herself once again moulded to every inch of him.
"Can I ask you something?" Zuko whispered when she'd almost drifted off after what felt like hours later.
"Hmmm?" she hummed softly. Her mind felt fuzzy with the warmth of his touch and the relative safety of his hold.
"Do you think, if the war ever ends, that your people – that all of the other Nations – would… Do you think there's any way forward? Any way to repair the damage? If all the fighting stopped and the occupation within the other Nations ended, do you think there would ever be a way that the other Nations would forgive the Fire Nation?"
Katara blinked slowly.
"The Air Nomads might have a little trouble," she murmured. "What with there only being one left."
Zuko seemed to deflate against her.
"No, then?"
"I don't know, Zuko. I know that there are lots of people who are angry at the Fire Nation for all they have done and all they continue to do. For my people to forgive yours, any prisoner The Fire Nation holds would have to be released and your people would have to go a long way to make amends for what they have done. The other nations would need the assurance that whoever took over as Fire Lord after your father was a person they could trust. Someone who would do everything in his power to ensure peace – possibly even executing Fire Nation soldiers who have committed terrible war crimes."
Zuko's chin brushed the top of Katara's head as he nodded thoughtfully. Katara nuzzled her nose into his chest until she could press the tip to his warm skin. She sighed contentedly when she felt him trailing his fingers through her loose long hair.
"Goodnight, Zuko," she whispered against his collarbone.
She would swear as he returned the bid that he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.