It's too late to turn back.
Overhead, the sky hardens without warning, dense with the menace, but they are too far out and neither the ship nor its occupants have any choice except enduring. The thickening air smells tart, yet vaguely sweet, and it is glaringly, bitterly cold. Orders are barked and obeyed. As the swells build, every man's hand is busy with preparing the ship for danger. They ready for the worst.
They get it.
The sea which carried them obediently before is now a beast eager to devour. Dark waters paw the ship and gales scour the deck, everything thrown violently off-kilter into chaos. The temptation to panic is inevitable. Zuko braces himself as another onslaught of rain and wind bludgeons him, unafraid. Just cold and very, very wet.
A flicker of color, too bright to belong to any sensible crewmember, catches his eye and suddenly there is room for fear among the cold and wet, after all.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he shouts at Katara when he reaches her. "Get down below! Now!"
She stares at him, not backing down. Hair plastered to her skull, skin glistening, clothes dark with water, Katara looks small and fierce. But he can't help noting the peonies embroidered on her jacket.
"I can help," she shouts back, the storm around them forbidding anything resembling polite speaking volume.
"I'm ordering you to--"
The shout goes unfinished; a wave crashes down and drags Zuko across deck, almost to the edge. Mouth full of salt (blood or brine, it's hard to tell) he spends a moment laying flat, spreading his weight, in order be a harder target to snag, then starts to stand. Halfway to his feet, Zuko sees a second column of water rise. There is no time to run, nothing to grab or brace against, and his fire will not be enough to stop it. Above the chaos of the storm, and the waterlogged din in his ears, Zuko thinks he hears his uncle cry warning. He thinks, dimly, that he hears another voice shout as well.
The wave begins to fall.
But not on him. Instead, the liquid pillar bucks and sways, bends, throwing its deadly weight against the hull rather than across deck. When Zuko remembers to breathe, he stands and turns to see Katara in a classic half-stance, one knee bent forward and one leg stretched back, arms extended forward with both palms raised. Behind her, Iroh and two crewmembers stare with stunned wonder. But there is no time for shock or gratitude; the ship shudders and Katara falls to her knees. Zuko hauls her up.
"I'm not leaving," she starts.
"We need to reach the ice; it's dangerous but it will buffer the gale." He doesn't release the hold on her arms, steadying her when another jolt threatens to pitch the girl off her feet. "I need you to ward off the waves, at least a little bit. Can you do it?"
Eyes wide, she nods. "I can try. Most of them are too big but I can maybe lessen the impact or steer them away enough to prevent toppling us completely." Her shoulders pull back, resolute. "I can do it, Prince Zuko."
With the noise and blast around them, Zuko has to lean in close to be heard. Too close. When he speaks, the heat of his mouth reaches her and even now, among the overwhelming turmoil and danger, Zuko is distinctly aware of being felt.
"I don't want you here," he says. It is not an insult.
Katara smiles. The warmth of it is as incongruous and insane as the yellow flowers on her sleeve. "Trust me."
What choice does he have?
Because she has absorbed the same lessons on the importance of being "rooted" as he, Katara's mission requires balance; because the ship has no stability to spare, Zuko becomes her anchor. He stays close while the waves leap, alert for any blow that may hurl her overboard. Absorbed in her task, Katara is blind to how close and how often she comes to the edge; Zuko keeps himself ready to pull her back. Several times, he does this, closing hard fingers around her wrist or, in one particularly brutal quake, looping an arm around her waist and dragging. Every time he touches her, Zuko feels the tremors running between Katara's muscles and skin. She is not ready for this; the meager amount of practice Katara's managed secretively in the past two years combines with the scant amount of instruction from years before to create a weak supply of ability. Ironically, she has spent almost as much effort concealing her abilities, as Zuko has spent training his. A wall of brine pummels them and Zuko decides things will change. The secret's out, the crew will learn to deal even if he has to fricassee hides to make it happen, and it's going to be different. Starting tomorrow, he swears, we'll train every day. Together. She'll learn to move ships by the end of the month.
Out loud he says, "Steady." Katara doesn't nod, doesn't look at him, but raises her arms with determination and a swell of seawater staggers backward. Another replaces it. And another. And another.
Time turns to water. There are no waves—just one wave, always one wave, one unvarying obstacle to overcome. There can only be one wave because to acknowledge the existence of more will mean succumbing to them. Nothing exists outside this moment. Only he and her and water.
Hours of eternity later, they reach the ice, giants of white shining against the murderous horizon. The helmsman shouts "land", Iroh shouts orders, Katara's arms fall. Exhausted, drained to the last, she slumps against Zuko, mouthing something he can't hear. He puts a hand on her shoulder and she looks up. A bedraggled lock of hair lies like a bandage across her forehead. Zuko raises his hand to brush it away.
Iroh shouts.
There is a brief infinite instant when all Zuko sees is the horror reflecting in Katara's eyes and then she shoves. Small brown hands, fatigued and familiar, push against his chest and send him stumbling away. (He knows she's stronger than she looks.) From his new position, Zuko has an excellent view of the icy avalanche cascading down on them—no.
Katara.
Rushing forward, back to where he should be, where he promised to be, back to her, Zuko knows he won't reach her in time. Zuko runs anyway. For one desperate, frozen moment, he almost believes he'll make it. He almost does.
The last thing he sees is the hopelessness in her eyes.
All is quiet when he wakes up.
Zuko lies still, breathing and staring at patterns of shadows dance on the ceiling. There is an unclear, hard ache in his right side, a vaguely familiar discomfort. The ice must've damaged a rib, he realizes numbly. Maybe it's broken. Maybe it's not. Zuko doesn't care.
Turning his head, he sees his uncle sitting by the bed. A kettle and cup rest on a small table beside the man. The cup has a blue pattern of bamboo trees on it; he recognizes it. A mad, fierce hope leaps up in Zuko, squeezing his heart like hot iron. He opens his mouth to say her name.
A flicker of color (too bright) catches his eye.
The yellow peonies are as ridiculously cheerful as ever, seeming to grow more so each time Zuko sees them. The torn patch of material looks bright and pathetic in Iroh's lap. His uncle turns towards him, sorrow and sympathy brimming in his gaze, and Zuko turns away, not bothering to spare his injured side.
It hurts.
It's the little things that hurt the most.
The scent of lemon in the sheets, its faint presence of comfort and care lessening. Red thread on a black sleeve ("I ran out of black, can you believe it?) A slim brush found tucked into a history scroll ("Because I like to remember which era I left off at.") Patches of silk tape on the map ("Just keeping track of where's the what.") The aftertaste of saffron ("Don't be so picky; it's good for you".)
"It will pass," Uncle Iroh tells him.
Zuko doesn't look up from the teacup in his hands. There's nothing truly unusual about the object, aside from the odd color of the bamboo shoots painted on it. It used to have a matching twin, equally blue and odd, but it broke two years ago. The cup in front of him now was brought in after he threw the first against the wall, angry, hurt, and wanting her to run. Instead, she'd shouted back, warning him not to break the second because it was her favorite. In the end, no matter how strongly he raged, Katara had not left him.
"When will it pass?" Zuko asks Iroh. Another week? Month? Seven years?
The elder shifts creakily, a silent reference to old bones and cold nights. And the fact that now there is no gentle brown hand to help ward off the growing chill with hot tonics or leafy brews.
"She would not wish to see you this way, Prince Zuko."
No, Zuko agrees, she wouldn't. She would frown and joke, and cajole, and finish stitching fish on the collar, and raise her voice to sing or scold, and bite her lip, and quirk her brows, and tap her brush against her cheek, and win two games out of three, and say tomorrow was on its way so, come on, Zuko, let's go. Trust me.
But Katara is gone and a thousand things remain unsaid.
Author's Note: Here ends Arc II, "drowning the moon" …my career of disappointing off whatever fans this 'fic had, however, undoubtedlyreaches the pinnacle of discontent. Tell you what, though: set my cat on fire after you read Arc III, all right? All right. Next: Arc III, "a drop in the ocean"