Pretty sure this is the longest chapter so far, but a lot of it is dialogue. Sorry for writing such a Zutarian chapter, but this was the episode for it. I actually like Zutara, but I like Maiko, too. Hence staying canon and throwing crap like these chapters in. Review, please!
It seems like time bleeds by, for the sun rises and the sun sets, but for Zuko nothing seems quite real. He feels like he is walking underwater, in slow motion and steadily running out of oxygen. At first, not even the Avatar's progress in bending and growing confidence, nor the outright companionship of the others, save one testy waterbender, can color a world stained gray. Nothing breaks through until he awakes beneath the Air Temple's roof to find the world collapsing around them. Stone quakes and falls. Dust invades the air and blinds the wide eyes. Explosions sound somewhere in the distance, and Aang, trying to bend the air clear again, yells for everyone to evacuate. Zuko hears a scream a mere five feet away, and dives down to knock Katara out of the way of a falling boulder. He pins her beneath him painfully, and they both grimace.
"What are you doing?" she growls, her hair in her eyes and dust covering her rumpled clothes.
"Saving your life!" Zuko retorts loudly, unable to believe how insolent she is being, today and every other.
"Okay, I'm saved, you can get off of me now!" She shoves him away and runs off towards the place where she can hear Sokka calling her name, kicking up dust. He watches her go, half angry and half plain confused. Suddenly clammy hands clamp down on his arm, desperate to know others exist in the haze. Aang, who's bending is becoming close to futile as he puts the safety of his friends first. "Why is this happening?" he asks Zuko, squinting, as they hobble towards the silhouette of the bison. Then it hits Zuko, hard, and he suddenly wants nothing more to confront the reason for the demolition.
"I think I know," he replies darkly, and rips his arm away from Aang as he takes off for the balcony. Just as he suspected, he finds Azula standing triumphant on the canvas roof of a airship, smirk prominent.
"Hello, brother!"
"What are you doing here?" Zuko demands, his hair whipping around his scarred face in the wind.
"You mean you haven't guessed?" Azula jeers. "I'm about to celebrate becoming an only child!" An line of jagged electricity spirals from her fingertips and hits the ceiling above him; Zuko has to leap out of the way of the tumbling structure and through the air, clawing his way onto Azula's airship. Despite the fact that she is his little sister, she is the reason Mai is gone, and he can never forgive her for that. He wants her to get hurt.
Azula grins as if she can read his thoughts and jumps backward easily as a column of flame assaults her and dissolves into embers at her command. "Now, Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee's downfall is no one's fault but your own."
Is it just his imagination, or does she hesitate at the names, grow angrier at the memory? And what does Ty Lee have to do with anything? Did she betray Azula as well? Zuko recalls the remorseful look on the acrobat's face as she realized Zuko was going to fall to his death at the Boiling Rock.
Fueled by her fury, Azula swirls around and shoots scorching blue fire from every limb of her nimble body before her feet hit the ground again. Zuko meets it with a wall of fire of his own, and the cloudy sky burns white before the force of the impact sends them both tumbling backwards. Zuko's fingernails scratch at the canvas but it is of no use- he's falling helplessly through the foggy air, the rubble of Aang's civilization following his descent.
Then, like a miracle, fingernails dig into his wrist and he is yanked downward onto the safety of Appa's saddle. Katara, his rescuer, has nothing to say but "Now we're even, got it?" Zuko doesn't even dignify her angry words with a thank-you, just searches the wreckage of the sky for his sister. He finds her falling form dangerously near the cliff side, and suddenly he is snatched by an irrational fear.
"She's… she's not going to make it," he manages in a hushed voice. But why should he even care? She of all people deserves it, does she not? Suddenly he is overwhelmed by the memory of her as a mere infant, before she was severed into so many pieces by yearning for the impossible love of her father. "Zuzu!" she shrieks, snatching the two-year-old's fingers, and present-day Zuko can almost feel the warmth of her hand in his even now, yanking on his as she falls to her doom. She may be terrible and awful, but deep down, do they not share the same blood in their veins? Does she not possess a bit of resemblance to his beloved mother? Everyone in the saddle senses him tense up until Azula pulls out her dagger and digs it into the rock, suspending her fall. Her hair whips around her like a storm and she is once again composed, and every ounce of pity Zuko has for her is gone in that single instant. "Of course she did."
When the bison is far enough away from the ruined Air Temple, Zuko realizes the saddle is empty of five people. "Where's Hakoda?" he questions the others- Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka, and Suki. "Where's Haru, and Teo, and-"
"They escaped out the tunnel in the temple," Katara interrupts. "We came out on Appa to find you." Poison seeps through the syllables, but Zuko ignores it.
"So are we meeting up with them?"
Aang shakes his head, and answers somberly, "Eventually. But not anytime too soon."
"I'm sorry," Zuko apologizes. "I shouldn't have gone after her like that."
"No, it's okay." Sokka interjects, for he, after seeing Azula prepare to battle Mai, knows why he did it. "You gave the others the distraction they needed to get out unscathed. Us, too."
"Appa doesn't like underground tunnels, anyway," supplies Aang, and Zuko smiles slightly, the first time since the Boiling Rock.
"So where are we going?" he asks the Avatar.
"I thought we'd go camping in the woods," he says bitter sweetly. "For old time's sake."
"Who would of thought?" Sokka asks boisterously, his face glowing from the campfire Zuko had Aang start in their forest campsite. "After all he's done, who could predict that today he'd be our hero? Here's to Zuko!" He holds up a cup filled with nothing but lukewarm water.
"To Zuko!" the others cheer, all except Katara, who abstains rather noticeably.
"This is just like old times!" Sokka breathes, sprawling back in the lush green grass beneath the black abyss of night summer sky. Suki playfully pulls some blades of grass up and sprinkles them on his face.
Zuko, caught in the euphoria of survival and the toasting, offers jokingly, "If you really want it to feel like old times, I could, uh, I could run around and try to capture you." This causes Toph, Aang, Sokka, and Suki to burst into laughter, and the stars, to Zuko, shine a bit brighter.
"Oh yeah," Katara pipes up sarcastically, the dancing flames casting her face in a wicked shadow. "Ha ha." She stands up abruptly, excusing herself to venture into the thicket, which eventually leads out onto the shore.
"What's with her?" Sokka asks.
"I don't know," Zuko replies quietly, and stands up to follow her without another word.
"What's with him?" he hears Sokka inquire, exasperated, as he disappears into the trees, following the sound of the crashing waves to where Katara stands, solemn and beautiful and bathed in silver moonlight, as she gazes out at the water.
"What is it with you?" Zuko questions, coming up behind her. "Everyone else seems to trust me now!"
"Oh, everyone trusts you now?" There is utter fury in her voice a she spins around to face him, grasping at her mother's necklace. "I was the first one to trust you, back in Ba Sing Se, remember?"
Zuko remembers all too well. "How am I supposed to change your mind?"
"Gee, I don't know. How about you rebuild every village you burned down? How about you chase the Fire Nation out of the Impenetrable City? How about you stop this war your people started? How about you bring my mother back?" The necklace is rubbed between her fingers, which Zuko notices pointedly. Without giving him time for another response, she leaves him alone on the cliff overlooking the shore to contemplate the severity of her words. Instead, an idea hits him.
A few hours later, Zuko collapses onto a rock in front of Katara's silent tent after a rather embarrassing talk with a half-naked Sokka about their mother. He's concluded that, somehow, Katara has pinned the blame for her mother's death on Zuko, and he is determined to make it stop, even if it means staying outside her tent all night. The minutes bleed together and the blackness fades to the supple pink fingers of the dawn that stretch across the horizon's threshold, bringing Katara out as well. She emerges from the canvas flap just as the birds begin twittering and yawns prettily, stretching her arms over her head before noticing Zuko slumped on the boulder. She narrows her eyes.
"Have you been out here all night?"
"Yes."
She shakes her head, shrugs her shoulders. "And why?"
Zuko takes a breath, and stares her right in the eyes boldly. "I think I know who killed your mother. And I'm going to help you find him."
"I really don't think this is necessary," Aang tries to dissuade the two from going after the Southern Raiders, but it is no use. Katara is silent but determined, a strange expression stealing over her ever since Zuko said the words that morning.
Sokka stands back some feet, sulking ever since Katara wounded him with the words "You didn't love her like I did" when he agreed with Aang. His eyes find Zuko's pleadingly but don't even begin to change his mind.
"Listen, Aang," Zuko says to the boy, lowering his voice as Katara, clad in slimming black, climbs effortlessly onto the bison. "I really think this will be good for her."
"I disagree. The monks always used to tell me that violence was not the answer."
"But this isn't Air Nomad preschool," Zuko argues. "This is Katara confronting the man who took away a major aspect of her life. I, of all people, should know that."
"I know, Zuko, but this doesn't seem like closure. This seems like revenge. And I'm not sure that's okay, or even safe."
"We'll be fine. I won't let anything happen to her, I promise."
Aang nods, as if he needed to hear this, but then denies his agreement verbally. "I'm not worried about Katara. I'm worried about the man she's after."
Zuko smiles ruefully and glances surreptitiously up at the waterbender, quiet and lethal on the saddle. "I'm afraid you have reason to be." He starts to clamor up the bison, but Aang grabs the back of his shirt.
"Zuko?" he whispers anxiously.
"Yeah?"
"Don't let her turn into someone else."
"I think she's going to find herself, instead." And then, before Aang or Sokka can object, he sits on the bison's saddle and signals to Katara, who snaps, "Yip yip" in a tight voice. The bison takes off into the late amber afternoon sky, leaving the monk and his friends far behind them, as well as their voice of reason. The sea passes beneath them and the sun continues its dance across the sky, leaving them in the tired dusk, marking the passage of time.
Katara's hands are clenching the reins so hard her knuckles have turned white, white as the foam of the silver-crested waves beneath them. Her eyes are focused, straight ahead and piercing, and her lips are a thin trace of an ominous vow.
"Where did you say these guys would be located?" The question is a tense hiss.
Zuko gives her the location again, then inquires, "Are you okay?"
"What do you care?"
"I care about your well-being, Katara."
The girl scoffs, tossing a lock of hair from her face. "Yeah. Sure."
"I do."
"Then prove it."
"How?"
Katara looks back at him sharply, and he notices for the first time the bruise-like circles beneath her bloodshot eyes. "Help me kill this man, Zuko." The words chill him to the breaking bone, and he remembers just how dangerous the ultimate rawness of a human being can be, the limits a person a person will achieve to settle the voices screaming in their heads. And he has never seen a girl so raw, so powerful and beautiful and chilling, than the one that sits in front of him now, asking him to help her take the life of a man who ripped away part of her own.
"Katara, why don't you let me direct Appa for a while?" he offers gently, rising from his seat and walking slowly towards her, avoiding her demand.
"Promise me you'll help give this man what he deserves."
"Katara, just let me drive." He attempts to yank the reins from her palms, but she holds tight.
"Promise me."
Zuko stops dead and looks up at her curiously, something inside him curling up into a ball at her fierceness, absent of humanity. But he assures her anyway. "I'll do whatever you need me to, Katara." The second he finishes the words, the gleaming full moon slips out from behind the swirling clouds, a magnificent orb that will only strengthen Katara's power and the danger in her Zuko fears she is not aware of.
"Look," he whispers, pointing ahead to a bulking shape in the darkness. The watch tower that will tell them the location of the Southern Raiders. As soon as they come within a hundred yards, Katara releases Appa's reins and leaps inexplicably off the bison, bending the water to catch her as she plummets fearlessly into it. Zuko watches, stunned, as she disappears within the slick black water and erupts out of it again, perfectly dry, fingers of water swirling around her and suspending her at least five feet above the rest of the sea.
"Well come on!" she snaps at him.
Zuko makes a face, and, pinching his nose, jumps off the bison as well, legs flailing wildly. The cold water encompasses him as he drops like a stone, and for a moment he doesn't know which way is up, for each direction is a dark void of suffocating pressure. He eventually kicks his way to the surface however, gasping for air and just a little ticked off that Katara didn't help him with her bending; instead she is freezing the water beneath her in a slippery island. Zuko grips the ice between his fingers and hauls himself upward, dripping and sucking in oxygen.
"Thanks for that," he growls, but Katara doesn't reply, only moves the block of ice forward towards the fort stealthily, drawing up her black hood to conceal her stormy face that seeks revenge on this night. Zuko follows suit.
"Hey!" a voice yells from atop the stone wall rising above them, but before anyone can assist the startled guard Zuko has shot fire from his fists to force him backward, giving Katara room to bend the block of ice high enough for them to breach the tower's walls and slip through its hallway. They open the door at the hall's end sneakily and find a young woman at a desk, writing a letter intently. Katara, with a wicked smile, bends the ink all over the parchment, startling her into standing and leaving out the other door to retrieve another piece. Zuko hurriedly dashes down and finds the file for the Southern Raiders, snatching it and pin-pointing the location.
"There!" he says triumphantly. "They are patrolling the edge of Whale-Tail island."
The bobbing ship is silent, and it doesn't seem to know what hits it until the tidal wave sweeps up and knocks the patrolling guards off their feet. Katara and Zuko race by, heart pounding in their chests but still ignored completely.
They come across three other guards on their way down the red-carpeted hallways of the Southern Raiders' ship, but Katara deals with them single-handedly and easily, the full moon empowering her in a way that is almost terrifying. She bursts through the door that hides their leader with a deadly intention, and the man stares up at her, beautiful and frightening, startled and frozen like a deer in the headlights.
"Who are you?" he asks.
Then, to Zuko's horror, the man convulses violently and jerks to the right, slamming against the wall, and it takes a few seconds before Zuko realizes that the breathless Katara is the reason for it. She has literally bended a person, and the thought of having his body arrested and moved against is control makes him shudder. Katara, however, has her mind on other things.
"You're going to pay!" she howls wretchedly at the man.
"Please, spare me," he gasps. "I have done nothing!"
"You've done nothing?" Katara explodes, her fists clenched. "You call raiding my village of the Southern Water Tribe and killing my mother nothing?"
"I've never raided a Water Tribe village while I was in command, please, listen to me!" The man's face is twisted into a desperate plea.
"No! Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't remember! You're worthless and-" She suddenly stops dead and stumbles backward. The man sinks to the floor, back in control of himself but still unbearably weakened.
"Katara, what is it?" Zuko demands, reaching out to steady her.
"He's…he's not the man."
"What do you mean he's not?"
"I've seen the man who killed my mother, and this isn't him."
Zuko's jaw almost drops, but instead he turns to the man and shoves him against the wall again, slamming his fist almost in inch from his face for effect. "Who was the leader before you?"
"B-b-before me?" the man stutters. "That w-was Yon Rha. He retired four years ago."
"Where is he now?"
"Living with his m-mother on an island, not to f-far to the east of here."
Nodding curtly, Katara spins around and departs from the room. Zuko, confused, follows, to find Katara already on Appa and waiting for him with her jaw set, her hands twitching with the power the moon bestows. His thoughts turn again to her dreaded blood bending as the ship falls behind them.
"Do you want to tell me what that was back there?" he demands as Appa flies them off towards the nearest island, the home of a killer. The moon illuminates the pallor of his shocked face, drained of any blood for her to control.
Katara remains silent as the grave for a moment before replying soberly, "The human body is more than seventy percent water, Zuko."
Zuko cringes at the thought. "But to actually control someone… like, from the inside- it's not natural. I didn't even think it was possible."
Katara's hands scratch at a tear, there to almost prove her point, and Appa's reins fall to the floor of the saddle. "I wish it wasn't," she murmurs, and begins to cry softly, slumping to the ground, every ounce of darkness that possessed her before vanishing for the moment. "Am I a monster, Zuko?" The question and the crying astonishes him.
Zuko grimaces and moves toward her, patting her arm uncertainly. She withdraws from his touch like it burns, just as he expected, but he had to try. For her. "No, Katara. You do have power, and anger, and sadness, and strength, yes. But one thing separates them from you. You have a conscience. A heart, Katara, and as long as you keep sight of that you will never be like them."
She tries to stifle her tears, because Zuko is the last person she wants to see her cry, but it only makes it worse.
"It's okay," Zuko soothes, remembering the Crystal Catacombs and her offer to use her healing water on him. "We're going to heal your scars." The words are ironic and painful, but is exactly what the girl needs to hear, and she is able to stand again and take the reins, her tears dwindling and making room for that darkness once more.
"Why don't you let me do that?" Zuko asks, reaching for the reins.
However, she is too proud and unyielding to relinquish her hold on the thin, cracked rope, despite her tiredness being so visible and her emotions so close to the surface, barely tucked away beneath her determined mask. "I've got it."
"No, really-" "I said I've got it." Obstinate Katara is back; he wonders if he can blame her mood swings on the full moon or the blatant lack of rest. Or maybe it is the pressure of what looms ahead, the solemn swear for a life in trade for a life that eats away at her own. "Just get some rest or something. We'll be there by morning."
So, almost reluctantly, as if he'd rather she be in his place, Zuko lies down to sleep, the last thing he sees before blacking out being her slim, rigid figure, the dark hair flowing in the breeze, as she holds taut the ropes as if they are the only things that keep her from floating away or crashing down. All the same, she manages to keep her destiny on track, ever at the controls and refusing to be anywhere different, but Zuko is unsure whether he can sleep soundly because of this.
The silver rain falls from a dreary gray sky like dismal tears, but Katara presses on resiliently, stalking the limping figure of the aging Yon Rha like a lioness and its prey. Her fists are clenched, the sharp nails digging into her palms, and her eyes are narrowed almost to slits. Zuko has never seen her like this, and it scares him.
Yon Rha, it seems, suspects he is being followed. With a hand-woven basket in his arms, he peers behind him with a wrinkled face but finds no one, nothing except grass and sky and a tree.
"No one sneaks up on Yon Rha!" he shouts on impulse, throwing a burst of fire at the tree and sending it in flames.
Smirking slightly, Zuko darts forward and presses the man's shocked face into the mud, covering them both in the slop. "We weren't behind the tree."
"Please, take my money, take whatever you want, just don't hurt me." Yon Rha pleads, but Katara shakes her head, overcome by the need for vengeance that shows on her face and paints her heart black.
"You mean you don't recognize me?"
"No! I…I'm not sure!"
"Oh, you better think hard. Remember like your life depends on it."
Yon Rha studies her face, dripping with rain. "Yes," he whispers hoarsely. "Of course. You are the little Water Tribe girl. The daughter of the last waterbender in the South Pole."
"You killed my mother."
"I know, and I apologize." He almost brightens at a sudden thought. "Take my mother- that would be fair!"
Katara frowns and lifts her chin high as streaks of the sky run in rivulets down her tilted face. "I've always wondered what kind of person could do these things, and now I see. There's just nothing inside you; you are pathetic and sad, and a terrible person." She takes a breath, gasping for air in a world that's closing in. "My mother, Kya, lied to you. She was not the last waterbender. She was protecting her."
"What? Who is it?"
Zuko notices something pass over Katara's face- a war of conflicting emotions that refuse to coincide, tearing her apart in jagged bursts of energy like the lightning and the clouds. Her face twitches, and, all of a sudden, the rain around them stops, suspended in the air eerily, a magnificent display of bending. Zuko watches, both impressed and horrified, as Katara's turns it to sharp icicles and hurls them, these weapon of everything she is, at Yon Rha's defenseless form lying forlorn in the dirt. "It was me!"
But just before they hit their target, Katara stops them, and they float a centimeter from the old man's cringing face, a face that does not show remorse, just wonders if impending death will hurt. To Zuko's amazement, she releases her hold on the rain, and it sloshes downward immediately, sloppily drenching both her and Yon Rha even more than they already are.
"But no matter how much I hate you," she manages, "I can't do it."
As she takes off, sprinting for the shore, Zuko turns his face to Yon Rha and spits out, "You're lucky she is a real human being. Unlike you. You're lucky Kya wasn't my mother."
Then, possessed by the painful memory of Ursa's face, Zuko runs after his companion towards Appa, towards those with hearts that ache for those lost and pain that can compare.
They ride in silence to nearby Ember Island. Not talking, not thinking, just listening to each other breathe and wondering how Katara could've ever considered stopping another's breath for eternity. They wonder how on earth they could've outrun the storm over the course of the journey, a clashing of lightning and rain. They wonder why the world always seems to prove them wrong when their gazes meet and quickly part again.
When the familiar shores come into view, Zuko finally ventures the words.
"I'm proud of you, Katara."
"Please," she whispers, the words catching in her throat. "Don't say another word. Just drop me off at the dock and get the others. I need some time alone."
Zuko nods wordlessly as Katara slips off the bison, and he pretends not to notice the solitary teardrop on her cheek, pretends that he doesn't have the thought she is not weak because she cries. She is strong because she is not afraid to feel. He also manages to pretend something in him doesn't hurt as well when he leaves her alone on the dock, wondering what it would take to become invisible, how deep she would have to dive.
The journey back to the group is so quiet Zuko cannot even attempt to block out the memories, and it is almost a huge relief when the rest of the group finds places on the saddle.
"What happened?" Aang questions. His eyes shine with worry. "What happened with Katara?"
"She's waiting for us on Ember Island. It's about a half-hour flight from here." "No, I mean…." Aang trails off. "Did she…?"
"We found the man, if that's what you mean," Zuko replies delicately, and, looking away from Aang, searches Sokka's face, stunned and confused from across from him, half wanting the man to be gone but also wishing a part of Katara wouldn't be as well.
"Is he dead?" Zuko's friend asks flatly.
Zuko pauses a second before replying in a whoosh of tumbling breath. "No. He isn't. Katara was about to do it, but she couldn't." He gulps, presses on. "Once I might've considered that weak. But now I know that it is the strongest thing she could've done." Zuko notice that Suki and Toph pause to consider this, but Aang and Sokka are too busy beaming with a forbidden sort of pride, a pride that remains radiant all the way to the beaches of Ember Island, swamped with Zuko's memories, some good and others bad but every single one painful.
When Appa lands, Aang tumbles off and races to Katara, who is still sitting on the dock with her toes in the water. The choppy sea mirrors the broken reflection of her face.
"Katara!" Aang gushes as the others except Zuko head up to Zuko's old summer home and begin to unpack. "Zuko told me what you did. I'm glad you've chosen to forgive." "But I didn't forgive him. I'll never forgive him." She looks up at Zuko and smiles, a heartbroken smile full of shattered glass. "But I am ready to forgive you."
And then, against all odds and against all prior conversations, Katara throws her arms around his neck and hugs him, hard, knocking his breath from his chest. His fingers find her hair and he closes his eyes, trying to make a new memory to inhabit this place, now that the source of the old good ones, Mai, is gone. Then she lets go, heading up with the others.
"You were right about what she needed," Zuko tells Aang. "Violence wasn't the answer."
Aang shrugs. "It never is."
A terrible thought overwhelms Zuko, a thought full of fury and fire and the world's fragile fate. "No? Then what are you going to do when you face my father?"
It is ten minutes later and Zuko roams the halls of his old beach house, still wondering what Aang's answer is, as he gave none. It is the minute after that that Zuko finds himself pinned to the wall by a furious Sokka, a startled Suki standing back a few feet, just as surprised as Zuko.
"Why?" Sokka demands. "Why do you smell like her?"
Zuko looks at Katara's older brother curiously. "Because she hugged me."
And this, it seems, is the most impossible thing that's happened in weeks.