The boy looks like Katara.
It's an unsettling similarity—the war paint, the bared teeth, the club and the cropped hair paired with blue eyes, brown skin, rounded face, wood-thick hair—but it doesn't prevent Zuko from kicking him face first into the snow. The kick is precise, controlled, but fueled by more force than necessary; Zuko is not feeling gentle. Actually, Zuko is trying very, very hard not to feel anything.
He finishes walking down the platform. The tribe watches him with fear in their blue eyes. Dimly, Zuko notes that they're women and children, no men, no warriors, and steels his mind against caring; he will not offer reassurance to placate their dread. His uncle would, he knows, but Iroh remains behind in the ship at Zuko's request.
Because facing these people is something Zuko must do alone. The decision to return has been living in him, mute, for over two months, surfacing only when they finally began (again) to sail south. Two months is enough to heal broken ribs. Two months is enough to repair a storm-damaged ship. But it's nowhere near close enough to kill the taste of blood and salt in his mouth or the memory of her laughter.
Two months, Zuko thinks, surveying the blue-eyed women and the dark-skinned children, is not enough for this.
No matter. He is here. He has a mission.
"I'm looking for the Avatar." Blank gazes peer at him. A wrinkled woman, the oldest in the crowd, is the only one to openly meet his glare; her eyes are inscrutable. "If you have any information on his whereabouts, past or present, talk. The sooner you do so, the sooner we leave."
Unsurprisingly, it is the hag who answers. "There is nothing for you here, Firebender. Leave now."
He wants to. Oh, how he wants to. He wants to get back aboard his ship and flee the barren tundra and its unforgiving wind, its suffocating ice, the long planes of sheer damn freezing nothing. He wants to go away and never think about this place again, never see it on a map, never have to remember the life-leeching suck of the artic air or hear a casual mention of its existence in the world. He hates every snowflake in sight.
Because there is nothing for him here except that which he must do: Zuko must pressure and demand, yell and blaze, until they lay their stories at his feet. He must become the warning, the nightmare in armor, a copy of what Katara feared and loathed, a monster. This is his current role, the ugly method by which he may reclaim his life, and it is all there is. The knowledge simmers to a boil inside him, spilling over and out in a gush of fire. Children shriek, their mothers pulling them close, huddling. One of them, a gap toothed girl with coiled braids on either side of her head, trips running away and bursts into tears. She stares at Zuko with wet, frightened eyes the color of diluted ink.
The fire vanishes; Zuko digs his nails out of his palms (the pain is insignificant) and starts to turn around. Enough is enough.
Behind him, he hears a yell, and reflex overrides sorrow to shift Zuko gracefully out of harm's way. The boy again, Zuko thinks. Moron. A hard kick sends the brat flying, but the peasant rolls to his feet with surprising, if unimpressive, speed and pulls out a boomerang to throw; Zuko tilts his neck a paltry fraction to the side and the crude weapon spins uselessly past. Clumsy backwater peasant couldn't even aim proper—hey!
Helmet askew, and ears ringing from the unexpected blow, Zuko feels the last fragile tethers over his temper (and all it covers) snap with a savage, irrational surge of heat. Zuko raises a closed fist towards the boy and thinks of fire.
A snowball hits Zuko's cheek.
Seething, he wipes the stinging slush out of his eye (his bad eye) and spins around, vaguely noticing the new wave of fear crashing through the peasant boy's face. Yet the fear is not directed at Zuko but at…
…at…
…oh, spirits above and below…
Zuko doesn't believe in miracles. Katara did. Throughout the course of their childhood, she was constantly ferreting impossible happenings, reading and memorizing every tale of wonder, magic, or supernatural description that floated within reach. Zuko was never sure where she got them all or, worse, why she insisted on sharing them with him despite his stolid refusal to acknowledge any interest in the nonsense. They're not real, he'd explain with elaborate, but quickly dwindling, patience. It's all just tricks and ignorance. Things like that don't happen, he told her; she remained unfazed.
Just because you've never seen something, she'd spit back, doesn't mean it can't, or won't, ever happen. Wait and see. One day something absolutely totally amazing will happen right in front of you, Prince Zuko, and you'll believe. You will.
He does.
Because here he is, sixteen and cynical and cold and exhausted and more amazed than he's ever been in his life, and there she is, fourteen and blue-eyed and surprised and alive. Alive. She's alive.
"Katara?" It comes out in a whisper, squeezing out between hope and disbelief.
She nods, unsmiling. Bewildered, Zuko starts to take a step forward to—what? Reach for her? Touch her? Make sure this is real and not another dream readying to become a nightmare?
"Katara!" The boy. "Get away from him! Don't come near her, you Fire Nation bastard. I'll kill you if you touch her!"
Zuko considers how hard, and far, he'll have to punt the fool to silence him. And why the peasant's snarls make Katara flinch. But she doesn't glance in the idiot's direction when she says, "Shut up, Sokka."
She says to Zuko, "He's not here."
Who? "Who?"
"The Avatar. He's not here."
…right. The Avatar. Zuko forces himself to remember the shape of the world around them, the mission, the soldiers at his side and the tribe at her back, the ship. The vertigo of the moment increases when Katara leans around him and waves a gloved hand at the Firebenders. One of them shakily waves back.
Maybe this isn't a dream, after all. Maybe he's simply gone mad.
But then she closes the distance between them, puts a snow-dusted hand on his arm (he remembers the snowball), and asks, "Zuko?" and he doesn't care about being mad or asleep or anything outside of this moment.
"You were right," he says. "About miracles."
Something in her eyes softens, almost sad, but before he can catch its meaning, Katara turns away.
"Give me a moment to say goodbye," she tells him.
He waits. It doesn't take long. The old woman from before clasps Katara's face between her crooked hands, pulling the girl close to kiss both cheeks. In return, Katara hugs her tightly, face momentarily lost in the furry collar of the elder's parka. Others also crowd around the girl, each bestowing a loving touch. The little girl with the tooth gap begins to cry again. Katara kneels, removing her gloves, and smoothes the child's tears away with naked hands. Zuko watches it all without shying.
They love her. Of course. How could they not? She is one of them, one of their blue-eyed, dusky-skinned own, and she is Katara. The last part especially makes her absurdly maddeningly easy to love; two months is enough for the densest fool to realize this.
The boy, Sokka, does not bid goodbye with a soft touch or kiss. He shouts, waving his arms and glares murder at Zuko. Outwardly, Zuko does not respond. Inside, he wonders at the strength of the boy's reaction, the nature and cause of its motivation, and how many punches it would take to pound the barbarian's head three feet deep into the snow. Katara buries her face in the boy's shoulder, and Zuko sees the youth's anger crumble into helplessness. They wrap their arms around each other, a matching pair, sharing whispers too soft to overhear. Zuko tastes a thread of salt in his mouth and realizes he is biting his cheek.
"Take care of Aang," he hears Katara say as she finally separates from the tribesman. "Be careful."
"You too. Don't—" Another sidelong glare at Zuko. "Don't try anything dangerous, Katara."
She shakes her head. "I'll be fine, Sokka. Trust me."
When she returns to Zuko's side, Katara simply says, "Let's go."
He nods and leads them back into the ship. The position prevents him from knowing whether she does or does not look back.