A/N: Someday, I will get tired of Angsty!Zutara. Today is not that day.
He should be happy. He should be so fucking happy.
Because he has everything he wanted, now. A heavy golden flame in his topknot. A father who isn't ashamed to call him his son. A sister who, at the very least, is no longer actively trying to kill him. A pretty fiancée who looks past his disfigurement. An honorable position as Crown Prince.
But he cannot forget that his sudden good fortune was paid for with blood whenever he recalls luminous crystals.
Katara's blood.
The insolent peasant had gotten what she deserved, he reasons. Anyone who chose to ally themselves with the avatar heaped the consequences upon their own heads. Did the fool actually think that a ten-minute conversation would override a lifetime of loyalty to his nation?
{She'd put calloused palms onto his scar, offered to use her valuable water to heal it. There was fury flashing across her face after he fired his first shot, but also a sort of disappointed hurt, almost like she'd expected better. When she'd clutched the avatar's charred corpse in her arms, sickly green gemamite illuminating the entire warped scene, she'd stared directly ahead with hollow, deadened eyes-}
In his weakest moments, he wonders if she will forgive him.
In his weakest moments, he wonders if he will forgive himself.