Midsummer Madness Chapter 11: The Moerae, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

Title: Midsummer Madness

Author: BurningIce

Rating: PG-13 . . . or maybe M . . . is there a rating in between there? Like . . . PG-13 ½?

Summary: Katara learns that there are both advantages and drawbacks to being a female water bending master, and pays back a favor to an old friend.

Pairing: Zutara, Taang

…

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. If I did it would have been considerably less awesome, but Katara and Zuko would have totally gotten together, so I guess it's a toss up.

Chapter 11: The Moerae

…

Katara let out a long breath and flopped down on the boat's seat. It was a simple move to propel the boat, but after hours of repeating it, her arms were worn out. She rested her head on the bow, and closed her eyes. The air was heavy and humid, and she had soaked through her cloths, and finally peeled them off, bending in her wrappings. Zuko kept his shirt on, even though he was drenched in sweat, complaining that it was the only thing that was stopping the bugs from draining him drop by drop.

"The sun is setting."

Katara looked around in the hazy half light, "How can you tell?"

"Well, I can feel the sun, remember? Also the dusk blooming choke vines, see, there's one, the blossoms are opening." He pointed, "There's one, and another up ahead," Zuko paused, "Wait, 'Tara, take us in closer to that one."

"No way!" Katara gave him a look like he was crazy, "They'll grab us and drown us!"

"They're too slow and too weak, and if somehow one does get a hold on you, slice it off with your dagger, it'll leave you alone."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it?"

"Katara, My uncle has always dabbled in horticulture, mostly to power his tea making hobby, and he used to talk about it for hours, I know what I am doing," Zuko pulled on the rudder, "Just trust me."

Katara stood up again and steered the boat into the tree, then halting the craft. Zuko reached out and unwrapped the vine and studied it. Katara peered over his shoulder, though she hadn't the faintest idea what she was looking at, it all looked like leaves to her.

"It's been pruned," Zuko indicated a point on the vine that didn't look particularly different than the rest of the vine, "This was planted here deliberately and tended to. Ouch!!" He smacked a bug, "They're not biting you? Not at all!?"

Katara shook her head, even though the plants were homicidal, their blossoms were very pretty, though they didn't really look like a conventional flower. They were orange and gold and stuck up at an angle, all the flowers pointed in one direction.

She looked downriver, and there was another plant, the orange petals standing out against the grey green of its surroundings. All the flowers on that one pointed the same way as the first.

"Follow the vines."

"What?" Zuko was rewrapping the tendril around the tree he had peeled it from.

"Nothing," Katara stood up, "I'm getting a second wind, let's keep going." She started propelling the boat again, this time following the forks that the flowers indicated, weaving through the tall grass and stubby, miserable looking trees. When they ran out of light, Zuko juggled the rudder and a fire ball, lighting the water, and unfortunately attracting every bug in the marsh to him.

"You smell smoke?" he asked.

"You're fire bending." Katara teased.

"I mean, wood smoke, fire bending smoke smells different."

Katara sniffed, then shrugged, "Smoke is smoke, you can smell the difference?"

"I think that the settlement is nearby."

Just then a huge swamp monster with a wooden mask rose out of the water down river of them. Zuko leapt up, getting into stance.

"What in the spirit realm is that Katara?!"

"Zuko, sit down and don't throw anything at him!" She ordered quickly, feeling the boat violently rock as the fire lord stood up. The monster charged, but Katara bent it's vines back, "Hue!! It's me Katara!! The Avatar's companion!! We're friends of the swamp!!"

The monster stopped it's advance, and the slowly fell away, leaving a topless fat man clad in leather and leaves waist deep in the bog. His hair was a spiky gray and he had a trimmed beard.

"Well lookie here what the catgators dragged in!! Katara! You've grown up a lot!" he waded over, "Lemi take a good look at 'ya." He peered up, "Ya'll changed your hair, lookin' taller too, musta shot up four more inches! how longs it been anyway?"

"A year since I visited the swamp, and several months since the invasion. I'm sorry about getting you thrown in jail."

"Oh don't even mention it!" Hue smiled, "We all gladly did everything we could to help!! Them fire nation needed to be taught one fore they dragged the whole world to hell with 'em. 'oo's the boy? He wasn't with you when you visited, nor at the day of the Black Sun neither."

"He is Fi-"

"Lee, My name is Lee." Zuko shot in, giving Katara a look that made it clear he wanted to keep a low profile.

"Hue, can you show me the way to your settlement? I need to talk to some water benders."

"Oh! 'o course, Due and Tho will be pleased ta see you again! Y'all wanna learn more Swamp Tribe technique?" Hue hopped into their boat, and took over the bending, "I see ya practiced with bending the plants, I could show ya more. Left up here boy."

"Actually," Katara sat down, "I was hoping I could talk to your women water benders, I've been having some . . . issues, and I thought they might be able to explain."

Hue stared at her, his arms dropping back to his sides.

Katara remembered the traditions of her tribe, and then stammered, "I mean, you do have women water benders, right?"

"Oh, Aye, we got them, just, not too many people come a LOOKIN for 'em, strange lot they are, the Moerae they calls themselves. Theys a bit particular bout who they let join their ranks, but I doubt they would turn away the warrior princess of the Southern Water Tribe!"

"I just have some questions, I'm not looking to join." Katara shifted uncomfortably, "And I'm not a princess."

"Swamp potato, swamp potato, No need to fret over titles, I'll take y'all back to the village and see if one of em'll take ya over to the temple."

"Thank you." Katara smiled.

Zuko swore and swatted another bug.

…

"Why couldn't we have taken a boat?!" Toph complained, gripping the edge of the table. The airship was having technical difficulties and was flying slowly, and liable to lurch unexpectedly in the air, dropping a few feet every couple of seconds when the pressure changed.

Therefore every couple of seconds, Toph prepared to die.

It was very emotionally draining.

"Don't worry, its just a bit of turbulence, it should go away." Aang grinned, patting her shoulder. He was very happy to be up in the air again, but he felt bad for his teacher, her knuckles were white, and he could tell her nerves were wearing thin.

"Turbulence?!" Toph capsized the table, knocking their drinks over the railing as the ship dropped several feet, groaning ominously. She scrambled over to one of the support beams and hugged it, hands shaking.

"Toph!!" Aang walked over, "You have to relax!!" he plopped down in front of her.

"Easy for you to say!! You're an air bender!! You can just glide away if we crash"

"I promise, I will catch you if the airship crashes, I swear I wont let you fall."

Toph relaxed her grip a little, some of the panic draining from her features, "Cross your heart?!"

"Yes, yes." Aang promised.

Toph sighed, then squealed as the airship lurched again and pressed her cheek into the support beam.

"Toph you need to relax!" Aang touched her knee, "You're going to give yourself a heart attack!"

"No! This AIRSHIP is going to give me a heart attack!!" The metal of the support beam twisted under her fingers as she involuntarily bent it.

Aang rubbed her shin, "Toph!! Stop it! You're going to break the ship!"

Toph mumbled something under her breath, clutching the metal shaft.

Aang pulled one of her feet into his lap, he remembered she loved to clean her toes, and that usually relaxed her. He pressed his thumbs into the ball of her foot and made slow circles.

"Just try to think about something else Toph, think about how much fun it was to play in the sand on Ember Island."

Toph relaxed her grip on the beam, nobody had ever touched her feet before, it was very nice. Very very VERY nice. Almost too nice.

"Aang, what are you doing?" She used his real name to show she was serious.

"Giving you a foot rub," Aang paused, "You don't like getting your feet touched?"

"I never said that," Nobody had really touched her feet at all before, she didn't know whether she liked it or not.

"Okay, then" Aang went back to work, "So, remember how Sokka made that sand statue of Suki?"

"Yea, sand statue . . ."

Slowly, the lurching of the airship became less and less important, and the delicious sensations Aang was creating on the soles of her feet were taking up more and more attention. In fact, Toph didn't notice when the lurching contraption stopped jerking altogether until Aang stopped and shifted his weight.

"I think were out of the low pressure pocket," he cracked his knuckles, "You going to be okay now?"

"What?" Toph snapped to attention.

"I said, are you going to be okay now?" Aang repeated, but didn't halt his massage.

"Oh . . . yea, I'm good, I just . . . hate flying." Toph grumbled, pressing her cheek against the support beam.

…

"Katara, what's this?"

"It's a steamed swamp fly, just eat it." Katara pulled one of it's legs and popped it in her mouth for emphasis, crunching on the shell and then giving him an 'I dare you' grin.

Zuko looked a little green.

"It's a BUG!" he complained.

"So?"

"So, it's a BUG!"

"You're going to offend the Tribe if you refuse their food! Just eat it already! Stop being a spoiled brat." she elbowed him and then went back to peeling the exoskeleton off of her's.

"I know more about etiquette than you do!!" Zuko glared and then yanked off another leg and shoved it in his mouth, it didn't taste horrible, but the thought that he was eating a huge fly made his stomach turn over.

"This has got to be one of the worst things I have put in my mouth in my entire life, and I am doing it for you." Zuko broke off another leg, "You owe me big time." He then muttered something about having vowed never to eat another bug again after he and Iroh reached Ba Sing Se.

Hue was ambling back, and with him there was a woman, she was tall and lanky with snake tattoos on her arms, a crescent moon tattoo on her forehead, and graying black hair with curious swamp flowers braided into it. Like most people in the area, her clothing was a combination of leaves and leather, though her 'leather' looked like a crocodile fox's skin, it had the scaly texture. She had several necklaces of beads strewn around her neck, and her top was more made for support than for modesty.

Katara was never a particularly modest girl, being raised in a village of women and children for several years had taken away those instincts. There was nobody to be modest from. But the dress of the woman made even her cringe a bit. Then she felt jealous, even her under bindings were too hot in the sticky swamp, even though the leather looked hotter, it covered less, and the woven fabric seemed to absorb the moisture in the air, and never seemed to be completely dry, it was starting to irritate her skin.

Strangely enough, she looked Fire Nation, with their slanted eyes, light skin, and black hair. Not the person you would expect to be the high priestess of a cult to a water god.

"'Ere are the two, the gal is Master Water Bender Princess Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, and the boy is her bodyguard Lee."

Zuko and Katara stood and bowed to the woman. Zuko squashed a bug.

"Katara, this 'ere is the High Priestess Fae o' the Moerae. She was very excited to hear that you were visiting."

The woman hugged Katara in greeting, kissing her on both cheeks, then settled herself beside the campfire.

"I have heard the stories, I was hoping I would meet you before I retire, Hue told me y'all had questions, I 'ave a few for ya myself." The priestess settled herself against the rotting log. Katara could have sworn she had seen those snake tattoos somewhere before.

Katara glanced over at Hue and Zuko, "Maybe we could talk in private?"

Hue got the message, "Oi, Lee, Let me show you the Grubworm bloom, you rub it on your skin and the bugs don' bother ya no more." He started off, motioning for the Fire Lord to follow.

"Well, Sister?"

Katara swallowed and then plunged right in, "Why do I lose my bending on the new moon? Why does my bending spike?"

"Well now, lil sister, all life once crawled out o' tha muddy bottom o this very swamp, from the smallest 'squito to the most fearsome dragon. The ocean water is the cradle o' all life 's we know it, just as you yerself have the capacity to create life, the ocean is the womb o the world, and when the moon tugs on it, you will feel it. We all do." The priestess patted her own stomach with a smile, "In this way, the moon both blesses and curses us, we share her cycle, and when she faces away, we lose her support, our aura loses it's density, and our chi gets blocked up, luckily, it usually only lasts 'bout a day. Depends on the woman."

"It happens to everyone?"

The priestess nodded, "The stronger the bender, the stronger 'n longer the effect. The moon and ocean like 'ta keep things in balance, I've only met one female water bender from the northern tribe, and she was so untrained 'n everythin but healing, her bending was only weakened. She told me tha' this very power loop 's the reason that women were barred from learning water bending hundreds of years ago. Started that they were unreliable warriors, then it 'ecame frowned upon for women to join the army, then forbidden, then slowly, they were no longer taught no fighting, then finally banned from the technique all teget'er. We all get three power spikes too for every cycle, it's the rule of three, though we all will get em at different times, only our losses synchronize."

Katara stared into the fire, thinking about what she had just been told, "What about mind reading with water bending, is it possible? Not just seeing what you're healing?"

Fae looked intrigued, "Yer a healer and a reader as well as a warrior?"

Katara nodded.

"Yes, it is technically possible, Water is the element of life, it is very diverse in its uses. I 'sume you want to extract something from a person who is resisting? It is impractical, like y'all tryin to find a needle in a haystack, one thought among millions and millions."

"So you can teach me?!" Katara looked excited. Finally! Finally they were getting somewhere!

Fae nodded, "No' me, but, one o' my sisters is a reader, she can teach ya, but I want a favor in return."

Katara looked dubious "What kind of favor?"

"I want you to teach my pupils the Water Tribe bending style. Y'all taught the Avatar, yer the best of the best. 'f I were ten years younger, I'dve sought out a Water Tribe master to move here when the war ended. I'll even teach you some swamp techniques while you're here."

"How long will this take?" Katara didn't think that Zuko would want to hang around the swamp for long.

"No need ta extend yer visit, just teach however long it takes for y'all to master the mind bending that you wanna learn." Fae smiled, "Do we have a deal?"

"I'll have to ask Lee, he is in a hurry."

"I thought he was your bodyguard? Ya need his approval?" Fae asked, amused, and Katara had the feeling that the woman knew exactly who 'Lee' was.

"He is, its just he is also-"

"Yer lover?"

"No . . ." Katara looked glum, "He isn't interested."

"Things are not always as they appear, sister, and the swamp has a way of revealing to us our hidden desires, showing us what is, and what could be. The moon will be full the day after tomorrow, and I feel the threads of fate unraveling, things are in motion, things are goin to change."

"How do you know?" Katara asked.

Fae shrugged, "The river whispers it to me, if y'all listen closely, y'all'll be surprised what you can hear."

…

"Hey! Due, Tho!!" Hue padded across the dirt, "Y'all got any grubworm blooms? This here city boy is getting eaten alive."

Due, the tall skinny one looked at Tho, "I dunno, we gots some Tho?"

"Yea," the shorter fatter one replied, heading for his leafy tent, "'ts a lil bit old, but I'll brin' it out."

Something hissed at Zuko's feet, and he looked down to see an enormous catgator sniffing at him. He jumped away.

"Oi!" Due called, "Bad Slim! You don't go snapping at our guests, ya hear?"

"You think there is anything in this swamp big enough to hurt an Emu Horse?"

"Why, Lee, Y'all take them in?"

"Yea, we left them though, the mud got too deep."

"Oi Due," Hue punched the other man softly in the arm, "Lee here went and forgot his emu horses, left them in the North swamp, ocean side, think you could go track em down?"

Due grinned, "If thur's a critter born that I can't track, he ain't not been born yet so I can track him down. I'll take the barge, should be able to hold a couple critters that big."

Tho came out of his shack just then, grinding something in a mortar and pestle, "Oi city boy, yer cloths are as good as dead, n' they'll just rub the grub off anyways, why doncha borrow some cloths from us, I just killed me a great big mammoth swamp python the o'er day, got me a lot o unused snakeskin."

Zuko looked at the vestiges of his muddy shirt, "Why not? When in Si Wong."

"We ain't in Si Wong, pretty boy, we's in the swamp! How can y'all not remember where you is? Don't even look like no Si Wong, too much water!"

Zuko rolled his eyes, but followed Tho back into his hut without complaint.

…

Katara was still talking to Fae when Zuko ambled back to the camp. Both women took one look at him and choked on their words.

"Y'all have one hell of a body, yer covered with scars! You 'rastle a porcupine armadillo?!" Fae exclaimed, tilting her head for a better look.

"What happened to your cloths?!" Katara giggled, then scrambled to her feet for a closer look, "You look like . . . a vegetable."

"Ha Ha, very funny." Zuko flopped down, "It's actually a lot more comfortable in this humidity." His tone was aloof.

"Anyways, when we get to the Moon Temple, you'll be expected to wear the uniform of the priestesses."

Katara stopped giggling, "Uniform?"

"Yes."

"As in . . . the same thing as you're wearing right now."

"Yes."

It was Zuko's turn to snicker.

After a soft chuckle at Katara's expense, he turned to Fae, "I have seen those tattoos before, I don't remember where though, what does it mean?"

"They mark us as Priestesses of the Swamp Spirit, he comes in the form of a giant snake with anywhere from one to nine heads." She explained, "Only women may join the sect, and bear his markings. Sometimes our daughters find that the swamp is not the place for them and they leave. You must have met one in your travels."

"Then how do Due and Hue and Tho know water bending?" Katara asked curiously.

"Oh, we isn't the Northern Ice Tribe, the temple will teach any water bender willin to learn, 'gardless o their anatomy, but only women can join the Moerae and be priestesses o the moon. Though, even tha' we'll teach all who wanna learn, Sometimes I wish that ol' Hue had been born a woman, 'e woulda made a fine priestess."

…

They all sat in silence as Fae guided the wide swamp barge. It fit both emu horses, who were now considerably muddier, their packs, and thy themselves with room to spare. Zuko had pulled his leaf hat over his face and appeared to be taking a nap, Katara was pawing through her saddlebags, not really looking for anything in particular. The heat was stifling.

Zuko looked pretty damn comfortable in his loincloth.

Among other things.

"How can anyone bend in this climate?" Katara fanned herself with one of her scrolls, wrenching her eyes away from the sexy, scantily clad, ex-prince.

"Y'all get used to it soon enough." the priestess told her, "Wake up yer boy, we're nearly there."

Katara made a face, but scooted over to where the Fire Lord lay pillowed against his mount.

"Hey, Lee, wake up." She poked him in the chest.

He swatted at her hand, but yawned and woke up from his siesta.

"Katara, I'll need yer help to lower the barge over the waterfall." The priestess gestured to the falls ahead, and Katara stood, trying to follow the older woman's movements, swamp style was distinctly different from the pole styles. True to the order and her tattoos, the woman's arms moved like snakes, and her torso, hips, stomach, and head moved isolated from each other.

She wouldn't stop moving her wrists in slow circles, and kept adding embellishments that turned the bending into a dance, rather than a martial art. Katara wondered just how combat centric swamp style was.

As the two women worked, Zuko looked over the falls at the temple. It was unnervingly similar the one the Sun Warriors had built, only instead of gold stone, the blocks were a slate grey and pearly white. He stood up, interested now, wondering where they had gotten the stones from, and how they did not sink into the mud..

"This place is ancient!" he shielded his eyes from the sun, deciding to share with Katara "It's the same design as the ones that Aang and I saw when we went to the Sun Warriors ruins."

"Really?" Katara looked over her shoulder at him.

"Yes, same architecture."

"That's because we are it's sister temple." Fae explained, "They all have their temple to the Sun Spirit and we have ours to the Moon Spirit."

"How did you know?" Zuko asked.

"Y'all wonder why I look Fire Nation?" She asked, "Sister temples, my mam was from the Swamp, father from the Sun Warriors, met the last time the two temples came together, lil over eighty years ago. We were s'posed ta have a ceremony during the eclipse, celebrating the joining o the moon and sun spirits, but we decided it was just too dangerous, we worked the craft all night instead, n' the moon granted her protection to the men from our shores that were fightin in the Sun Spirit's lands."

"That's amazing, I didn't know that your cults could have any sort of interaction, you're so far away from each other, and you actually intermarry?" Zuko seemed to be making a mental note, he was always interested in things that concerned his people.

"I wonldn' go as far as sayin 'intermarry', I ne'er knew my pa, and I 'spect he never learned I was born, but our bloods are definitely mixed, if y'all get my meaning, Luckily I took after her, I wouldn'a been able to become a priestess o' the Moon had I been a Fire Bender, I beat the odds, usually its opposites."

"Opposites?" Katara asked as they set the raft down in the waterfall basin, she hadn't quite understood the priestess's last statement

"Well sure! Thought you of all people would know, when a fire bender and a water bender have kids, as far as bendin goes, the gals usually take after their papa, and the boyos usually take after their mam, y'all should remember that, I know a betrothal necklace when I see one." She winked at Katara, who blushed.

"I'm not betrothed, it was my mother's, I'm probably going to get arranged into a marriage for peace in a few months." Katara grumbled making a disgusted face, "Apparently my father has been asking around."

"Well, I bet 'e has his eyes on the Earth King and the Fire Lord," Fae said, a twinkle in her eyes, "They're the most eligible bachelor floatin round the pool right now."

Zuko muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'tell me about it'.

Katara's blush darkened, "It wont be the Earth King, I'm going to marry a powerful bender, a fortune teller told me that, plus he has a fiancé now, and I'd NEVER marry the Fire Lord!" she bit out, frustration with him making her words more cutting then she meant, "I would rather marry a vulture toad! I would rather marry nobody and become a priestess of the swamp!"

"Really?" Fae looked enthused.

"Really?" Zuko looked hurt.

"Oh, don' be silly, our vows don' include a vow o' chastity, or even cloistering, y'all could do both, marry 'n moerae. Anyways, y'all say that now, but once the moon rises, yer goin'ta be singin a different tune."

Katara turned her backs to them, sitting on the edge of the raft, not quite brave enough to dangle her feet into the murky obscure water. She watched as the temple drew near, and she saw people scurrying back and forth. The ground seemed one of the few parts of the swamp that qualified as 'dry land' most of it was hard packed and covered with moss. There were both men and women carrying about their business, though only the women bore the tattoos of the snakes, and she only spotted one with a moon tattoo.

As Fae guided the craft in, two swamp men waded into the water and steadied it.

"Alright y'all, hop off," Fae talked to a third swamp man, "Please take their things to an empty cell, and you boys take care of the Emu Horses, they need a good brushing, they look like enormous mud sparrows."

"Yes, High Priestess."

Katara looked over to where two girls were working, one was grinding bugs on a stone and dumping the dust into a bowel the other was stirring, it made a thick red paste. She saw others laughing and weaving dry stalks together to make mats, and others burning bunches of herbs so that they smoked, and walking around the area, muttering something that Katara could not hear.

"Ma'am?" One of the men tapped her shoulder, "I can show you to your room now."

The cell was small, and it reminded Katara of the Kyoshi dorms she had seen. Her room consisted of a cot, a chair, a trunk, and a table. She also had a window that overlooked the waterfall they had descended earlier. She poked at the wall, it was a strange, baked like clay, a few inches thick, but silver like the rest of the buildings. She also had three doorways, one led to Zuko's cell, right next to her's, one to the empty room on the opposite side, and one out into the complex's hallway. The doors were made of woven mats of grass that one needed to lift to walk around.

There was a knock on her main door, or more likely, the wall right next to it, and she pulled the mat back, there was a girl standing there, looking about Katara's age. She too wore the uniform and tattoos, though her's were green, and her hair was cropped short, perhaps to beat the heat. She was juggling a handful of leaves and leather, a jug of water, a bowl of paste, and a bag of something was slung over her shoulder.

"'igh Preistess told me ta get ya'll washed up 'n dressed nice, y'all follow me t' tha riverbed?" She asked, her accent somehow thicker than most of the others.

The Riverbed happened to be about a hundred yards from the sleeping complex, it was fed by a series of small waterfalls that left the water surprisingly clear and algie free, at least by swamp standards. Several of the pupils were splashing around naked in the water, and others were standing on the shore braiding flowers and beads into hair. Others were practicing bending, knee deep in the water, passing the water back and forth, it made Katara miss Aang.

The girl dropped her things, "Name's Yeo. 'n 'm a third year 'prentice."

"Katara." Katara replied, and the girl gave her the same hug and cheek kisses that Fae had. She assumed it must be the standard feminine greeting in the area.

Yeo turned out to be surprisingly good at getting swamp slime out of a girl's hair, even though she had almost none of her own. She was helping Katara lace up her leather bandeau bra when there were cries from the river, and most everyone including Yeo dropped what they were doing and took off, Katara tied the laces, straightened her loincloth, and followed.

Nearly everyone in the temple was crowded around the main shore of the lake, and then Katara saw why, there was a mammoth swamp python with five heads. Its length was indeterminable, though Katara could tell if there were two of her hugging their arms around it's body, their fingers would not touch. Its body was covered with white scales that shone iridescently in the light, reflecting every color of the rainbow.

The Swamp Spirit Katara's heart skipped, and she felt a shudder run through her, that thing could easily swallow a human whole. Surprisingly, the creature put it's heads down among the priestesses, and allowed the scales of it's noses to be rubbed. None of the men touched the incarnation.

"Come on Katara, it's good luck, touching the swamp god will grant you clarity of vision and peace of mind in the moon phases to come." Yeo grabbed her wrist and placed it against the cheek of the nearest head. Katara wanted to yank her hand away, feeling like it was sacrilegious to touch a spirit, even if it was only it's physical form.

She didn't feel any different, and the gods certainly did not strike her dead on the spot, so she pet the beast, it was wet, but not slimy like she had expected.

Welcome Katara, It was the same voice she had heard earlier, the one that had told her to follow the vines, but somehow louder, or closer sounding, May the currents of destiny carry you far. Travel lightly.

Katara guessed it was some sort of swamp blessing, and she pulled her hand away, muttering a polite 'thank you'. She was not particularly keen on snakes.

…

Zuko sat in the water of what the men had told him was the 'riverbed' where the water was the clearest and best for washing. He had found that there were several pools, each cascading down into the one below it like a long chain. The second to the bottom one was for the men's bathing, the women's was the one above, and he could hear them laughing and splashing. He wondered if Katara was up there naked, maybe splashing another naked girl . . . his fantasy cut off as the men started to scurry off, claiming that the swamp god had surfaced.

He dunked his head, intending to finish quickly and join them, but when he looked up, the baths were deserted, except for one person standing on the opposite shore, skulking in the shadows, watching him.

"Hello?" He waded over, getting a closer look. He was a little tentative about meeting new people in the swamp, enough men had introduced themselves, hugged him and kissed him in the last few hours to make even the most open man feel out of place.

The figure fled, and he gave chase. Wishing he had thought to grab his boots from his pile of cloths. Luckily the ground was soft, and soon gave way to mud. He stopped, casting around for footprints, but there were none. He turned to go back to the riverbed, and came face to face with himself.

But not himself.

The man looking back had no scars, his face and his chest were flawless, and his hair was as long as it had been years before. The doppelganger smiled warmly at him, Zuko did not return it. The vision of himself as an eighteen year old Prince of the Fire Nation shook him, he understood he was looking at the man he would be if he had never been banished, the Zuko that was forever lost in the threads of fate the moment he opened his mouth in the war meeting room.

The figure turned and looked off through the trees, and Zuko followed it's gaze. When he looked back the illusion was gone. He ran blindly through the mud, searching for it for what must have been an hour. Finally he gave up, falling onto his knees in the sludge and trying to think of what to do next. He could follow his tracks back to the settlement if he hurried.

He looked around, it felt like someone was watching him.

The swamp was empty.

Zuko stood up and turned around to follow his trail again, and again the Prince stood in his way. This time it was closer to his own appearance, the ghost had a scarred face, but smooth chest, and it smiled at him, and held out something, a small vial of water, it was full.

He tried to push the apparition, but his fingers passed right through.

"I must be going crazy!!" he looked at himself, "You're not real! You died a long time ago in the caves beneath Ba Sing Se!"

I did. The figure agreed.

"Why are you following me?" Zuko asked, backing away, then directing his voice at the whole swamp "I have nothing for you!! What do you want from me?!"

No answer.

"Well!! Answer me!!" Zuko yelled, twirling around, "I'm here!! You have my attention!! What do you want?"

Katara . . .

The apparition smiled a private, loving smile, and wrapped it's arms around it's chest, as though it's heart would burst. The word echoed throughout the stillness, getting louder and louder as they echoed, and the vines began to twitch on their own accord. The muddy ground beneath him began to tremble.

The apparition reached up and touched Zuko's scar. It was as though he was about to die, his life flashed before his eyes, only, it was not his past, but his future, one that never happened. Escaping with the avatar, never losing Katara's respect, never dating Mai, becoming closer and closer with the water bender, Azula never receiving word that he and Sokka visited the boiling rock, Katara straddling him and pulling off his shirt, defeating Azula, Katara healing him, kissing him, crying for him, ending the war, claming his throne, proposing to her . . .

Zuko did not wait around to see what would happen next, he bolted, running blindly back in the direction he had come.

It was well past midnight by the time he staggered into his room, he had gotten lost twice, he could have sworn the swamp was shifting on purpose. He peeled the leaves off of his arms and legs, then tried to wipe the mud off his feet. Thoroughly shaken in his vision of what could have been. He always knew that choosing Azula was the worst mistake of his life, but he had never thought of how it had forever changed his relationship with anyone besides Iroh, his father, and Aang. He remembered the apparition's contented smile, how in love it had been. He hadn't even thought of what else he could have potentially sacrificed to try to redeem his honor.

Truly, the worst mistake of his life.

He staggered over to his bed, only to find Katara was sitting in it, her head supported in the corner of the wall, she must have been waiting to scold him and passed out in the heat. Zuko weighed his options, he could wake her, take the scolding, and sleep in his bed, he could sleep on the floor and miss the scolding but have a sore back in the morning, or he could carefully carefully risk moving her to her room and then get into bed and hopefully miss the scolding and not have a sore back.

Katara's eyes clicked open.

Aw, crap. Zuko thought, bracing himself for a lecture.

"Where have you been?! I've been worried sick! I thought you got eaten by a mammoth swamp python or a swarm of salamander mantis'" She jumped up, and threw her arms around him, her momentum taking them both back into the wall. Zuko blushed, there was too much skin to skin contact.

"I got lost in the swamp." Zuko started to explain, "Then I saw . . . er . . . a . . ." he didn't really want to admit to having seen ghosts of himself, that sounded a little insane.

Katara released him enough so that she could look up at him, but didn't let him go. "I tried to find your trail but there were no footprints or anything!!"

"Well, there was a . . . thing." Zuko was getting turned on from being pinned to the wall by the pretty water bender, and it was making coming up with a plausible white lie difficult, "and it . . . umm."

"You saw someone, didn't you?" Katara rose onto her tiptoes so she could see his face better, "The swamp gave you a vision!"

"Yea," Zuko looked to the side, "It did."

Katara let him go, "I saw my mom," She touched her necklace, "It was an illusion though, what did you see?"

"Myself."

Katara gave him a look, raising one eyebrow, "Are you sure?"

Zuko shot it right back, "I think I know my own face."

"Okay okay," Katara sat down on his bed, leaning back onto her palms, "So what did it tell you? Did you learn anything?"

That I am an idiot, nothing that I didn't know already.

"No."

Katara crossed her legs, showing more thigh than she was probably aware of. They stood in silence for a few minutes, Katara gazing out the window, and Zuko leaning against the wall where she had left him.

"I didn't mean what I said." Katara apologized, "I wouldn't rather marry a vulture toad than you."

Zuko crossed the small room and sat down next to her, "I figured you might have exaggerated a tiny bit, for dramatic effect."

"Just a tiny bit."

"I'm sorry about . . . you know, what happened after the scar thing." The fire bender stammered out

"It's alright, it was nothing," Katara fumbled for an excuse, she had not thought to prepare one, "It was just an 'I'm sorry, cheer up' kiss between friends."

"Well then . . ." The visions of his lost future still fresh in his mind, he leaned in and kissed her chastely, brushing his lips over her's exactly as she had done to him the night before, barely a peck, "I'm sorry." He pulled back.

Katara stared back, her mouth parting in surprise, then a blush heated her face, and she adopted an impatient scowl, "and what about that crazy tea you fed me?!"

Again, the Fire Lord leaned in and kissed her, more deeply this time but still innocently, his hand moving to caress her side, "I'm sorry about that too."

"And . . . and knocking me into the river?"

This time he said nothing, simply gave her another kiss, and definitely not an 'I'm sorry' one at that. Katara whined and wrapped her arms around the Master Fire Bender's neck, he definitely lived up to the title, the way he was making the heat inside her rise. His tongue darted between her lips, trying to entice her to part them, suggesting the strange and wonderful sensations that would follow, but she pulled away, resting her forehead to his. She kept her eyes closed, trying to maintain some ounce of focus.

"And, what about the ti-"

Zuko pressed her down into the cot, pinning her there with his own weight, his mouth pressing searingly against her's. He was making her feel feverish, as though he was pouring all his frustration, and aggression, and unrequited passions into the embrace, and she moaned, taking all his fervor and begging for more.

She arched herself up into him, her finger's finding his hair and fisting in it, and she opened her mouth to him. The strange temple, the Spirits, and the very swamp fell away as their tongues collided, there was nothing but the fire bender, the bed, and the humid air.

She whined in protest as he pulled away, but a moment later his finger's brushed her necklace up and his mouth clamped down on the sensitive skin of her neck. She hissed through her teeth as he began sucking, her legs wrapping around his waist reflexively. He bit down and she bucked, her finger's tightening their grip in his hair to what must have been a painful hold. The Fire Lord did not seem to notice, he had moved and was nuzzling her earlobe, his tongue running over her jaw. His already hot fingertips felt scorching as they slid across her stomach, and then up across her chest. His thumbs rubbed circles in the leather, teasing her pierced nipples through the top.

The room was hotter than it had been, though if it was because she was aroused, or Zuko had inadvertently bended it hotter, she couldn't guess. She was vaguely aware of her chest heaving in small pants of pleasure, and the man on top of her growling in his throat as his tongue traced around the shell of her ear.

There was a knock at his door.

Zuko collapsed on top of her, with a grunt of annoyance, than pulled himself up, running his fingers through his hair, trying to straighten it.

"Yes?" He pulled back the woven reed mat door.

"Oh! Lee!" it was one of the priestess, "So you got back!"

Katara had straightened her cloths, trying to mask what they had just been doing, though no amount of smoothing could hide her swollen lips and the hickey on her neck.

"Yes, he got back, I'm sorry, I should have notified someone, you can call off the search."

"That's good, everyone was going to knock off for the night anyways, the moon's gone behind the clouds, and there just isn't enough light to search." The girl gave Katara a knowing smile and turned to go, "I'll go tell the high priestess, you can just get back to whatever you were doing."

Zuko let the mat fall back into place and then leaned back against the wall.

Katara inadvertently took a step back, the fire in his eyes that she so often saw whilst fighting him over the Avatar had returned, and she had a brief glimpse of the old Zuko, the Zuko that chased, the Zuko that captured.

"I should . . . I should go back to my room." She stammered, "It's late, it's very late."

…

Mai sat on her chair, watching her servants unpack her things. She toyed with one of the hilts of her daggers through the fabric of her sleeve. She didn't want to stay in the palace, but she knew she should. Endless hours of her mother and her governess's teachings told her that she should wait patently for her lord to return home, and then beg his forgiveness for her hasty words spoken in anger, and actions committed in passion. The lessons also told her that she should turn a blind eye to any indiscressions that he had taken during her absence as it was probably her own fault for driving him into the arms of another.

She was so unbelievably sick of her mother's lessons.

Giving the hilt another pull, she accidentally tore it through the fabric of her sleeve and it clattered to the floor. She stared at it.

Maybe the Fire Lord was not the person she should be begging for forgiveness for her hasty words and actions.

She bent to pick it up.

Maybe she had miscalculated.

She needed to set things right.

"Ready a palanquin." She spoke directing it at her servants, "I want to visit an old friend."

…

Zuko crossed his arms still leaning against the wall, and Katara was reminded of the night she had threatened him in the Western Air Temple, months ago. Their posture was the same, only reversed.

"Bed? I thought water benders rose with the moon?"

"I thought fire benders slept during the night!" She shot back.

Zuko looked at her in amusement, then walked over to her, crossing the small room in a few steps and leaned into her and kissed her softly before pulling back the mats that separated their two rooms.

"Goodnight." He said politely, in an infuriating way that suggested that he knew something that she didn't.

"And what was THAT an apology for?" she asked slipping through the doorway and then turning and peering back at him.

Zuko sobered, and then looked down, "Azula."

…

Okay Chapter 11, mission complete.

Hope you enjoyed it!!

Okay, since I keep getting asked, I am a girl, just thought I would clear that up.

That is all.

EEK!! Dante Basco is so hot in Take The Lead! He can Tango ME any day!! Yeea, Take The Lead was on TV and I got distracted while I was writing . . . What can I say?! It's Dante Basco, Love triangles become him.

Man Adridere, you are like the Picasso to my Braque, no telling whose Ideas are whose anymore, do you want to be Braque or Picasso? I want to be Braque.

Yea, it was a painting major joke.

R&R, questions, comments, suggestions, scoldings, hissy fits, plot predictions. Sorry it's late, I usually update when I get 15 to 20 reviews, though have been known to bump that sooner when bribed.