Underwater
Zuko feels like he's drowning. The courtiers, the haggling over trade deals, the numerous assassination attempts. Funny how the only thing that lets him catch a breath nowadays is being with the girl that embodies the water.
It had been nine hours. Nine hours of haggling, shouting, refusals and empty pleasantries that led nowhere. He was trying to pay attention, trying to be reasonable and calm as a good ruler should in this situation, but it has come to the point where locking the doors behind all of them and setting the room on fire would probably produce better progress toward an actual trade agreement then if all this arguing and grandstanding continued until the sun burned out. Zi Hong, his steward, looked almost as exhausted as Zuko felt, and the bodyguards, two behind him at two stationed at the door; Uncle had insisted upon after the latest string of assassination attempts, looked bored out of their minds. Enough was enough.
When he gave Zi Hong the signal, the man could barely conceal his relief. The shrill two-fingered whistle he gave, originally used to signal the sailors on Zuko's echoing rustbucket of a ship, effectively stopped all conversation. Zi Hong smiled a bright, brittle smile.
"Thank you. The hour is late and as we are having trouble finding a suitable agreement, the Fire Lord insists that we all retire for the evening so we may continue this-" Zi paused so briefly Zuko was pretty sure that everyone but he and the guards had missed it.
"...Debate bright and early tomorrow morning. Thank you all for your time."
They both high tailed it out of there before the argument could begin anew.
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Somehow, Zuko still wasn't entirely sure how his tired body dragged him past the door of the royal suite to land in front of one carved with a profusion of flowers and a pair of phoenix pheasants directly adjacent to it. His knock was answered by a shuffling of feet before the door creaked open to reveal the small, round face of Xiulan.
"Good evening your grace," She said, bobbing a quick curtsy.
"What brings you here at this hour?"
Zuko chose to ignore the hint of reproach in her voice. He was too damn tired to worry about proprietary right now.
"Evening Xiulan, is Katara here?" The lack of title was another breach of etiquette, but Zuko had never understood why he would have to be formal about asking after one of his best friends just because she was a woman.
"Lady Katara is not in right now. She's practicing her bending in the garden."
Again, Zuko opted to ignore the passive aggressive emphasis on the title.
"Thank you Xiulan. You've been a great help."
As he was walking away, he could have sworn he heard an exasperated huff and the door shutting a little louder then completely necessary. Zuko smiled. Some might say that Katara and her slight lady-in-waiting had almost nothing in common, but Zuko had always seen a deep resemblance between the two, personality wise. At the very least, they were both incredibly fun to wind up.
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Katara was indeed in the garden, stripped down to her top wraps and a pair of loose fire nation pants, weaving a long snake of water through the air in a slow, liquid motion. Her body flowed with it, blue eyes closed and face relaxed as she felt the rhythmic push and pull of her element.
Not wanting to disturb her, Zuko sat cross-legged on the grass, taking a deep breath of the warm, wet, late spring air. The rainy season had started again and already some of the smaller creeks and ponds were beginning to overflow their banks and suffuse the air with moisture. As he watched, Katara wrang a bunch of water droplets out of the nearby air and added it to the fat coil of water above her head. Then in one leisurely motion, she mimed pouring a giant jug of water and the water construct smoothly funneled itself back into the turtle-duck pond, the returning water lapping and slightly sloshing over its masonry edges. She took a deep breath, watching the water settle as the ripples bounced off the brick edge.
"Rough day?" She asked, back still turned to him. Zuko startled.
"How did you..?"
"Your heartbeat. I was practicing using bending to see, like Toph does, and it's as terrifying as it is amazing." Katara replied, stooping to pick up her shed Sabai and rewrapping the deep blue silk around her upper torso. She flopped down beside him in the grass, exhaling a tired breath.
"Every living thing has water in it. EVERYTHING. And it's constantly moving, all the time, even in plants. I could 'see' the entire garden at once and if it's anything like what Toph sees with her earthbending it's amazing she hasn't gone insane. All that information, all the time. CONSTANTLY. I can't even imagine what it would be like to walk down a busy street like that. Just sorting out one thing from another was exhausting!"
"Wow. Remind me not to cross either of you."
She shoved his knee with her foot.
"Obviously. You should know that by now. But seriously Zuko, what's wrong?"
"Who said anything was wrong?"
"Your blood pressure, when you first walked in here."
"How did you- right, waterbending, nevermind."
"You're avoiding the question Zuko." She said sitting up and meeting his eyes with her blue ones.
"I didn't heal your heart just to watch you blow an artery from stress. What's wrong?"
"Well to be fair, you could probably heal that too," Zuko says but her unimpressed look prompts him to continue, "It's the Wuxi-Chandigarh Steel Agreement. Neither side has given an inch and it's been two days. I'm seriously considering setting them all on fire until they agree to be reasonable."
"Normally I would argue against wholesale destruction, but if your day was anything like mine I can see why you'd want to."
"I thought you liked working at the hospital?"
"No, no that was fine. Most of the amputees are making great progress. The hydrotherapy really seems to help, especially for those who are re-learning how to walk. Unfortunately, I was reminded there are still assholes everywhere."
Zuko's brow furrowed, and he felt his own foul mood bubbling back up to the surface. "How so?"
She sighed deeply, flicking a piece of greenery off her shoulder. "I was chatting with Dr. Lỳ about some more possible improvements to the therapy programs. I saw an interesting herbal mixture involving dried chilies and the juice of some kind of desert plant when I was traveling in the Earth Kingdom that people rubbed on sore joints and muscles and I thought it might help relieve-"
"Kat. Your stalling."
She glares at him, but there's no fire in it. Mostly she just looks tired. She sighs heavily.
"Someone threw a overripe papaya at my head. And said something about whoring myself out to the Fire Lord and crawling back to my ice-flow to chew on baby bones."
There is silence, save for the deafening roar of anger within his own head.
"Where was this." his voice has dropped to a deadly soft growl, her mysterious assailant's nose crunching under the blow of his phantom fist.
"Outside the supply house but Zuko-"
"I'm tripling the security guards."
"Zuko-"
"And rebuilding the exterior wall."
"Zuko."
"And imposing a new round of security checks."
"Zuko!"
"Maybe the Blue Spirit should-"
"ZUKO!"
Katara's shout brings him back down to earth. "What?"
She pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation, the muscles in her shoulders tight. "You can't do that! How am I going to win anyone's respect as a leader here if people think I go running to the Fire Lord crying whenever someone says something nasty?!"
"You shouldn't have to!" His shout surprises both of them, but the anger is back now, boiling over the edge like lava in a volcano. He jumps to his feet and begins pacing, clenching and unclenching his hands as the fury overwhelms him.
"You're a War Hero Katara! The Avatars Waterbending Master, Daughter of the Chieftain of the Southern Watertribe. You're a prodigy, one of the greatest benders of our generation. You faced down my sister, boosted by the power of Sozin's Comet and WON! You saved my life!" He places his hand over the starburst-shaped scar on his stomach and just for a moment feels the agonizing heat of the lightning searing his flesh.
"You shouldn't HAVE to prove yourself to anyone! They should be down on their knees, thanking you, not undermining your intentions and challenging you like… Like…" Words fail him. He stands stalk-still under the shade of the tree, glaring at the ground, breathing small jets of fire and steam. A soft brown hand touches the left side of his face, fingers brushing gently against the warped and rough ridges of his scar.
"Zuko…"
The flames calm, his fists unclench. Her touch is like sinking into a warm bath, soothing and comfortable. He surfaces.
"It's not fair." Her grouses, hating how much he sounds like a petulant child. Her soft laugh washes over him like a cool breeze.
"No, it not. It sucks." Her hand slides down and grasps his. There is silence, save for the humming of cicadas in the trees.
"I could say the same things about you, you know." She says quietly giving his palm a gentle squeeze.
He looks up. Her own eyes are trained at the ground, seemingly embarrassed, by his praise or her admission he isn't quite sure. Nonetheless, he gives a raspy laugh.
"I find that highly unlikely."
"I'm serious Zuko!" she insists, dropping his hand to give him a gentle swat on the arm, her eyes; those blue, blue eyes, the ones that never lied to him, even when they were enemies, locked on the opposite sides of a war, filled with a gentle warmth.
"All those things you were saying about me? That goes double for you. Your one of the kindest people I know. Not to mention brave and stubborn to a fault." She laughs at the last part. He tries to scowl and fails. Miserably.
"Somehow I doubt it," he says, but he has to bite the inside of his cheek to repress the smile in response to her praise. She just rolls her eyes and slides her hand into his once more.
"You're dumb." She says, and those words should not make him feel as loved as they do.
"I know."
A pause.
"You know that I am going to do all that stuff I said anyway right?"
"Let's just limit it to extra security checks for now. It would be helpful, some of the nurses are complaining about stolen medicine."
"Plus an exterior wall and a visit from the Blue Spirit?"
"We'll look into the exterior wall but no Blue Spirit."
"Not even if-"
"No, Zuko."
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Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Breath is Life.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Breath is Fire.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Fire is Life.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Scorched bodies on a factory floor.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Bodies and bloodstains smashed on the street below.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Some were already burning when they fell.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
187 funeral pyres. 187 urns in family tombs, some empty. They never found 27 of the bodies.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Most of them were women and children, scraping together extra hours to put food on the table. The youngest was twelve years old. The minimum age for employment was sixteen.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
TWELVE years old. Just like Aang. Like Lee. Like Theo and The Duke and all the rest of them, burning to death as her mother tried to shield her from the flames.
Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4. Breathe in, 1-2-3-4, Breathe out, 1-2-3-4.
Dying choking on smoke, crushed under collapsing timbers, leaping out into thin air because dying with the wind in your face was better than being burned alive.
He screams.
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When Katara finds him, he's curled in to a ball in the midst of the smoke and ash of the now destroyed training ground. He's crying.
"TWELVE years old Kat."
"I know."
"A CHILD Kat!"
"I know."
"I thought ending the war would…"
"I know."
"Why them? Why do they have to make up for all our ancestor's mistakes? Why…"
He chokes on his own tears.
"Why is it OUR responsibility?! They're the Agni-damned adults!"
"I know, I know. It's not fair."
"I hate this!"
"I know. I do too."
After that, she just holds him close as he falls apart.
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The next morning she delivers the rough draft for a Factory Safety Initiative they've been working on along with the latest details on the legal proceedings against the factory owners. They are accompanied by a long list of names and a note in her large, swooping hand. I'm going to pay my respects to the family's next week. Join me?
She doesn't have to ask twice.
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"I'm going to kill you."
He winces as the healing water prods the sensitive flesh of the stab wound.
"Hate to break it to you Kat, but you might need to get in line."
If looks could kill, the glare she gives him would be enough to slaughter a pack of hyena-vipers. He gulps.
"You think this is funny?!"
He winces. Yep, definitely mad.
"Not really, but it's either laughing or crawl into a hole and never come out and I have a meeting with the Souhama delegation tomorrow. Or," He says as he squints at the setting moon.
"Today, apparently."
Her blue eyes burn like the embers of a star. "If you think I'm letting you within thirty feet of those buzzard-wasps you have another thing coming, Mister! You are staying in this bed to recover and that is final!"
A part of him wants to point out that he's the spirits-damned Fire Lord and he can't exactly play hooky from a meeting he himself called, but another part of him, the part of him that just got paralyzed and nearly stabbed to death, winces as her healing knitted the fibers of his muscles back together and remembers the look of terror on her face when she saw the two assassins standing over him, relents.
"They aren't going to like it. They already think I don't respect them."
She snorts. "That's because you don't, Zuko."
"Not the point. Point is I'm the head of the Fire Nation and they have some of the richest mines iron and copper mines in the whole Earth Kingdom, so I'm going to have to negotiate with them. Even if they are greedy, exploitive petty gasbags puffed up on their own egos."
She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She's still mad at him after all.
"Xiulan and I can handle them. And before you get any cute ideas I already made Zi Hong clear your schedule and the Dragon Guard promise me not to let anyone in or out except approved staff members and me. That includes you, Mr. Fire Lord. You are staying in this room till I decide you're rested enough to leave it. I already told Jun you'll be taking your meals in bed today."
Damn bossy waterbender. Damn smart, pretty, bossy waterbender who already runs the palace like she owns it. Damn people who LET her run it like she owns it, himself included.
He gives up. "I assume you've already read the dossier?"
She just smiles. She knows she's won. He really should stop letting her do that, except for the fact that she's almost always right.
Damn waterbenders.
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Sometimes, Zuko dreams he's under the ice in the Northern Watertribe again.
It's not a nightmare, not really. Zuko knows nightmares, they've been his constant companions since he was ten years old since the sleep-deprived child he once was watched his mother walk out of his bedroom and out of his life. His nightmares involve the smell of burning flesh and hair, Azula's unhinged laughter, Uncles disgusted face. A pair of ocean blue-eyes staring sightlessly up at a burning red sky.
It always is the same. He's swimming in the seal tunnels underneath the ice, in a darkness made up of wavering blue and green lights. There is ice above him and ice below him and he can hear it creak and groan as it moves. Far above him, the battle is raging, but all he can hear is the muffled boom of cannons and the distant tromping of ice-elk boots somewhere far, far away from these saltwater filled crevices. Somewhere, in the depths of his skull, he knows he has to breathe soon, but that too seems far away. He's numb all over, the only reason he knows he's still swimming is that he can feel the drag of his boots when he kicks and sees his own pale, blue-tinted fingers pushing the water away from his face.
The tunnel doesn't seem to have an end, and even though logic dictates that there MUST be one, it seems so far away that it barely matters. He should be panicking, he WAS panicking, back in the real world, back in reality, back when he felt the burn in his lungs and felt his conscious dwindling as the icy water swallowed up everything, but he doesn't. He stops swimming.
And then he is nowhere, floating in a blue twilight without beginning or end. He's much deeper then he remembers being, so deep that the twilight blue is beginning to fade to black below him.
It's nice here, underneath the ice. It's silent too, save for the creaking of the ice far above and the slow, steady thump of his own heart in the cavern of his skull. The water is even getting warm, or maybe that's just the hypothermia setting in, but it's not scary. It's more peaceful than anything else, because all the sudden nothing really matters anymore, because it's no Zuko's problem. He's not even sure, as he starts to sink if there even IS such a person as Zuko anymore. The person he may or may not be closes their eyes.
And then he wakes up.
The first time he told Katara she was horrified, and that was the first time it really occurred to him that for most people a dream of sinking beneath an impenetrable wall of ice is probably one of the worst-case scenarios.
Why didn't you tell me sooner?!
It's not scary Kat. It's more peaceful than anything else.
But even so that nightmare-
Isn't a nightmare. Trust me Katara, I know nightmares and this dream isn't one. If I'm being honest it's on those nights I get the most sleep.
He blue eyes are impossibly huge, and she almost looks like she's going to cry. He HATES seeing her cry.
Shit, Kat, I'm sorry, I'm okay really I swear-
Sorry? Why are you sorry?
Then her arms are around him and he can smell the lilac and peony in her hair. She tightens her grip around him.
I'm sorry.
She whispers.
I'm so, so sorry Zuko.
And somehow, even though he wants to protest and argue and question, all fight leaves his limbs as he buries his face in her soft brown hair.
It's okay. I know. Thank you.
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Sometimes being with Katara is like being in that dream, though he'd never tell her that.
It would be rude and more importantly, it would probably make her cry and, as stated before, he hates seeing her cry.
She also probably wouldn't get what he was trying to say either. She might think that he meant being with her is like drowning but that's not what he means at all. Being with Katara is the exact opposite of drowning. She makes him feel like he can breathe.
But that peace. That peace he finds floating in the depths of that endless blue waste. The warmth of it, the ability to forget, if only for a few precious seconds, that he is Fire Lord Zuko, Son of Agni, Commander of the Nine Army's, The Dragonborn and all those other lofty titles that seem to be as useless and temporary as lines scratched on the sand of a beach.
The peace he only finds in her bright smiles, the nimble tread of brown fingers, in soft curls the color of mahogany.
In eyes blue as the space between the ice and the midnight depths.
Maybe he is drowning, lungs filling with delighted laughter and sarcastic eye rolls, angry tirades and thoughtful words shared over tea, the twirl of her body as she bends and the soft, warm breaths of sleep when he finds her passed out, curled around law scrolls or hunched over the blueprint for a new school.
He might be in love.
And between the two options, he's absolutely certain the latter is much more terrifying.
