Day Four: Rue (based on Rebecca)
It's not because of the housekeeper.
She's not locked in her chambers with the curtains drawn and her face pressed into the pillow because of that women and her deceitfully kind eyes and words laced with venom.
If Katara repeats it to herself enough times, it might just become true. If she can just numb herself to what has happened tonight- to the hush that fell over the ballroom when she entered, to the confusion in half the eyes that looked upon her and the cold indignation in the other half, to the way Zuko turned puce and dropped his drink to the floor, to the way he had rushed her out of the room amid a roar of whispers, to the way he shook with a rage she wouldn't understand until later- if she can make herself forget it all, maybe she can make it through this with her dignity intact.
She pulls her head from the pillow when she needs to come up for air. The satin pillowcase is soaking wet with tear stains and running makeup. Her face must be a complete mess by now. She goes to the mirror and wipes away what's left of the paint. Some spots are more difficult than others, and she rubs her skin raw to clean it. She just needs to get it all off.
There comes a knock on the door, and then it opens a crack.
"Can I come in?" asks Zuko.
Katara doesn't speak, but gives a tiny nod of her head, and Zuko accepts it. He closes the door behind him, and Katara hopes those aren't more whispers she hears from the maids out in the hall.
"Are you all right?"
Katara wishes he hadn't asked her that. There is nothing one can say to such a question except that yes, they are all right. Even if they don't really mean it. It's just what everyone wants to hear and what everyone wants to believe.
"I'm fine," Katara obliges him, and she even throws in a phony smile for good measure.
"No, you're not," Zuko says, because he's so honest these days that he doesn't know how to do this right. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"
She turns away when he tries to touch her arm, and instantly feels bad for it. She doesn't want to be cold to him, especially not now.
"You know what happened," she says.
"Not everything," Zuko says, stepping closer. "I know you didn't find that dress on your own, what I don't know is where you got it from."
"Ask your housekeeper," Katara says bitterly, turning towards the window and the while sliver of moonlight that peeks through.
When she thinks about it now, she should've known better than to trust that woman. Because she was old and small and her back wasn't good, Katara had taken everything she said with good humor, even when it became uncomfortable. She had chalked up the woman's obsession with the former lady of the palace as mere senility. Surely, had she been in her right mind, she wouldn't laud the former princess the way she did.
"Princess Azula used to walk these very halls with such grace and beauty."
"Princess Azula had such a way about her that commanded attention."
"Princess Azula was a beacon to this nation, a light that I pray will never die even if she is no longer here with us."
On and on she would talk about Azula, while cleaning the rooms that used to be hers and had now been remodeled and redecorated to suit Katara's tastes. At first, Katara ignored it, the woman spoke mostly to herself anyway. It was easy to assume she was reminiscing about better times before all the madness, when Zuko and Azula were just a brother and a sister. She had been there since before they were born. She would remember.
Then, she started asking questions. Simple things about Katara's life at home and what she hoped for in the future. Katara answered politely as her mother always taught her, and the woman had listened, or seemed to. Now, Katara had to wonder at every communication they ever had. How many times had the woman really cared what Katara was saying, and how many times was she sneering on the inside, comparing Katara to an ideal that no sane person would ever want to meet.
She feels a lessening of Zuko's presence at her back. He walks away from her, and the loss of him is acute. Katara has never realized before how much she relies on him in times like this. She's more often than not the calmer of the two, the rock that Zuko clings to when he needs to control his anger. Sometimes, the roles are reversed. This is one of those times.
"You know," Zuko says, "when I had Azula's things removed from the palace, I noticed that this dress wasn't listed in the inventory."
With his foot, he nudges the bunched up pile of red and gold silk Katara abandoned in the farthest corner of the room. Little bits of cloth that were ripped in Katara's frenzy are littered around it. That housekeeper would probably keel over if she saw the state the dress was in. No royal would ever be caught dead in it now.
"She gave it to me," Katara says, wrapping her arms around herself. "She didn't tell me who it used to belong to, just that she thought I'd look beautiful in it. Like a true Fire Lady. Those were her exact words."
She wants to tell Zuko the other thing the woman said, as she was walking out of the room to finish her chores and let Katara finish getting ready for the banquet. At the time, Katara had paid it no mind, thought perhaps she had misheard in her anxiety, maybe even imagined it completely. Now, she knows better.
"Of course, you'll never be a true Fire Lady, will you?"
"I'm sorry I made such a big mess of things," she says, hating herself for how weak she sounds.
Zuko looks at her, his expression unreadable. After a moment, he steps over the dress and takes two long strides to where she is. He pulls her into his arms. He feels so warm and strong against her, and Katara is overcome with just how much she's come to love him in their time together. Whatever she had felt for Aang as a young and naive teenager, it doesn't hold a candle to this.
"You don't have to apologize," he murmurs in her ear. "This was not your fault. You couldn't have known."
Katara leans forward, touching her forehead to his shoulder. "I think she wanted to humiliate me. Make me regret coming here."
"She's the one who's going to feel regret now," Zuko says in a low voice he reserves for difficult council meetings and people who have insulted her to his face. "You don't have to worry about her anymore. I don't think she realizes how easily replaceable she is."
Katara looks up and gives him a smile. He returns it, and then he hugs her tighter, pressing her face into his undershirt. It smells just like him, spicy and warm. Little declarations of love pass between them, and eventually, they find there way to the bed, where they rest under the heavy quilts in the golden light of a dying fire. Long after Zuko has fallen asleep, Katara stays up to watch him. She plays with his hair and caresses his face. She keeps her eyes on him and away from the window, where if she looks too closely for too much time, a wispy letter 'A' forms in the shadows and winks in and out of existence.