Zutara Week- Shattered

The diamond-sharp points of the ice faced the terrified man. Death is plastered all over his body, trembling like a baby bird. Zuko realised, his whole life being a victim to karma; killing a waterbender's mother, only for her daughter to come right back at him. If the situation wasn't so grim, he would've had a laugh about it with Sokka. The man peaks out of his arms, shielding his face, to find Katara's icicles inches away from his face, poised to attack.

That's it! He thought. She's going to avenge her mother and rip this man's rotten soul out of his body just as he ripped Katara's mother away from her life! But her eyes betrayed her. It was a pool of emotions: anger, bitterness, regret, pain and a monstrous fire so much like a Fire Bender's, draining away. In its place is now a stagnant sea of sadness, so easy to drown in. Zuko unclenched fists he never knew were balled up.

She isn't going to do it.

She collapsed unto the mud, followed by the liquid weapons, shattering just like her heart. He understood what she felt, two conscious beings in her herself battling with their emotions. The now filthy man saw her change and took the opportunity to bargain for his life, with another one's life.

"I did a bad thing! I know I did, and you deserve revenge, so why don't you take my mother? That would be fair!" The man cried out. His voice had as much genuineness as Azula telling him his father loved him. That sick man even attempted to smile! How dare he try to comfort her by letting her slay his mother? He's just trying to save his own skin, that sick bastard! He feels no regret, only the will to live another day! He fumed silently. But a small thought lingered at the back of his mind, but you wouldn't kill him either, would you?

He shoved it back as he listened to Katara repeat the thoughts in his head aloud.

"I always wondered what kind of person would do such a thing, but now that I see you, I think I understand. There's just nothing inside you, nothing at all. You're pathetic and sad and empty." The man, Yon Rha (he hated saying that, he doesn't deserve the honour to have a name, a symbol of humanity, which this man had very little of) clasped his hands together and grovelled at her feet.

"Please, spare me!" He looked more pathetic by the minute, his wrinkled eyes shedding crocodile tears. But Zuko's feet were rooted to the spot.

Don't intervene.

This Katara's choice, a battle of morale she has to face alone.

"But as much as I hate you…" He could hear the man's heart beat wildly.

"I just can't do it." She had chosen. Mercy had won.

Aang was right, but wrong at the same time. Katara's enduring hate for this man would never allow her to leave this man alone, but her mercy would prevail. She had to see how pathetic and weak this man really was for her to understand how meaningless this hatred was… just like how Zuko needed to see how the Earth Kingdom's villages were suffering before he could believe how much of a tyrant his own father was.

So ,when he felt a part of Katara's heart break, shatter, he knew exactly what was happening.

But as her anger against this man shattered, a new friendship was being knitted together, one that would save her life and lead to so much more.

…

WOO! I tried my VERY best to write as angsty as I could, without busting out complicated words! I'm still shying away from smut, because I'm too soft for that, so sorry if you don't like my clean Zutara, I won't be writing smut until I put my big girl pants on, which I won't be putting on until I feel ready.

I don't feel ready.