Title: Midsummer Madness
Author: Burning_Ice
Rating: R
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.
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Disclaimer: You know what I own? Nothing. Good guess!
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Chapter 27: The Confession
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"Aang, it's five o'clock in the morning!" Ty Lee trudged behind him, still clad in her pajamas, "I literally went to bed forty minutes ago!!"
"Did you?" Aang asked, a small plume of fire in his hands, lighting the way, his aura was yellow with excitement, "Sorry. What were you doing up so late?"
"Oh, you know, eating fruit tarts and gossiping about dresses with Katara and Suki. Then I helped a servant back to her quarters and the ungrateful crab gave me a smack," Ty Lee pointed to her still red cheek and then yawned widely, "And Suki is going to want to train in four hours . . . So why the early morning house call?" She hadn't even moved to the hangover stage, she was still tipsy.
Aang had banged on her door with such excitement that she had thought that they were somehow under attack and sprung into action. When she flung the door open, ready to jab any marauding zombies or insane princesses, instead she was grabbed by the tiny monk and hauled off down the corridor.
"I was sleeping." Aang told her, "Then I woke up, the winds were perfect, I thought that maybe we could give the air bending a try, have you been practicing the breathing I showed you last time?"
"Yea." No.
Honestly, she had been PLANNING to, she just never seemed to have the time between doing Suki's drills, being Sokka and Zuko's life coach, and making sure Katara's sex schedule ran smoothly. Ran being the operative word.
Following him out into the courtyard, she squinted in the hazy light the sliver of moon provided. Aang transferred the flame from his palm to one of the lamps that circled the area, and sat down, his legs crossed.
Ty Lee followed suit, quite sure she would fall asleep mid meditation.
"It helps to imagine the winds as lines." Aang launched into his lecture without preamble, "Or threads. You can string them to one another and wrap them around you like your winding yarn around your hand. It's constantly moving and changing, so we too must always be moving and changing . . ."
Ty Lee felt her head rocking forward, and strained her eyes open even more to compensate. Aangs words drifted in one ear and out the other, and she found herself beginning to snooze.
"Ty Lee?"
Her name jarred her back to wakefulness.
"What was that last thing again?" She muttered quickly, looking attentive.
"Are you ready to try?"
"Oh, umm. Yes!"
"Ok, so, any amount of air you can move is a start." Aang sat back, smiling.
Ty Lee looked around, still having no clue how to do it, "Umm . . ."
"Start with your breath, it's the most basic, intuitive form of air bending." Aang advised.
So Ty Lee inhaled deeply, then exhaled again, her lips fluttering as the air passed them. She reached out, looking for threads, or yarn, or whatever Aang had been talking about, but the air felt the same as it always did.
"No no, you're not going to actually feel it," Aang was a lot more patient with her than Suki or her Academy teachers had been. Perhaps a year of studying with Toph and Zuko had made him a lot more sensitive to what a student went through.
"So then why did you tell me to look for it?" Ty Lee couldn't help the sleep deprived frustration in her voice.
"It's a metaphor." Aang told her, "Just imagine it, like, when you jump, how do you jump so far? Think back to when you started."
Ty Lee rocked back on her hips, chewing on her lower lip, "Well, we had this elective, at the Royal Academy for girls, it was called Affirmations, Projecting, and Meditation, the Power of Mind Over Matter. I remember my professor said that if we will things to happen, that they have a greater chance of happening if we don't."
Aang nodded.
"Then my Professor of Physics was talking about something, I don't remember, something about bird's wings creating low pressure pockets because air took longer to get over them than under them. So, I started thinking like, this void would open up in the air in front of me would separate, and the void would suck me in, and the air would woosh around me and close behind me and push me forward even more . . ." Ty Lee scratched her cheek, "It helped too, I started tripling my jump distances . . . Are you saying that was air bending?"
"Well, I guess a primitive form of it," Aang looked thoughtful, "So, maybe we should start with what you're familiar with, creating pressure instead of creating breezes."
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"'Tara, it's nearly dawn. You should wake up," In her half sleep, she felt him lean over her and press his lips to her ear as he spoke, "I'm going to go now, okay?"
That rocketed her awake, "Stay a little longer!" She laced her fingers into the rumpled sleeve of the robe he had been wearing the previous night, and pulled hard enough to overbalance him and make him fall onto the bed next to her. Good naturedly, he got comfortable on the bed next to her, but to her dismay, not too comfortable. The lamps were burning, but the hint of the false dawn was starting to appear, hazy in the fog across the ocean. Katara figured she had gotten about two delicious hours of sleep curled against her lover.
Spirits she missed the swamp.
"You have to get up and get ready. Aang will probably want to leave soon." He reminded her, but slipped his free hand below the covers and ran his fingertips across her exposed stomach, gently drawing teasing circles with his nails until she got goose bumps.
"You're not exactly making getting out of bed look appealing." She informed him dryly, sitting up and stretching, "Don't you have a walk of shame to take?"
Zuko watched her bare torso twist and lengthen as she raised her arms up above her head, yawning.
"Maybe I could stay a little longer." He muttered after finding his voice again, his hand reaching up to caress the underside of her breast.
Katara smiled and drew him in for a leisurely kiss. Her lips still felt positively bruised from the previous night's . . . well, technically morning's . . . activities. He sighed softly into her mouth, and whimpered when she slid her legs out from under the covers.
Smiling mischievously, she sauntered across the room, swaying her bare hips back and forth. She paused at the doorframe of the wash room and twisted back around, curling her finger into a 'come hither' motion, and then disappeared through the doorframe. Zuko was quick to oblige, he scrambled off the bed, slightly less than graceful than usual in his haste, and trotted across the room after her.
The lamps remained unlit in the separate room, but with a flick of his wrist, he ignited them and sent light dancing into all the corners of the small gold room.
Katara had already bent the water from the basin, and the water caught the firelight, flickering back gold and red. It writhed around her body like a snake, coiling across her skin as it moistened it. His breath caught in his throat as he stood mesmerized. He had never thought watching her bathe could be so erotic, but something about her in her own element, whisking away the sweat that they had worked up together made his blood start to boil.
"Come on Zuko," She called, her back turned, the water snaking around her, "What are you waiting for? I need someone to heat up my water, and I think you might be able to help . . ."
What was he waiting for? That was a good question.
Hastily, he tugged at his belt and pulled his robes open, sliding them off his shoulders and letting them pool on the floor around his feet. Next, he grabbed for the loose fitting silk pants, undid their drawstring, and stepped out of both them and his boots at once.
Katara watched him disrobe, a faint smile tugging at her mouth as she let her eyes wander over his figure. They lingered on his chest, his scar in particular, seeing it always made her feel a twinge of guilt. She always had held herself the entire cause and there fore partially responsible for it.
The Fire Lord hardly seemed concerned with it, his mouth clamped down on the long since memorized sensitive areas of her neck, and Katara had to struggle to keep her hold on the water she was bending. Tilting her chin up, she sighed his name softly, and heard him answer, his voice muffled against her rapidly heating skin. The light caresses of his mouth were encouraging the familiar knot of warmth to once again start coiling in her lower abdomen.
Firm, calloused hands crept up her stomach to rub teasing circles across her breasts, and Katara arced her back, pressing her ribcage forward into his palms. Gently with his fingertips he guided her a step this way and that, but it wasn't until her shoulders met the smooth tile of the wall behind her that she noticed that she was being maneuvered.
The problem was, Katara realized, that she could either keep holding her water or touch him back, but not both simultaneously. Without regret she loosened her will on the liquid, and it pattered to the decorated floor in a soft rain. Hands liberated from their obligations, Katara's fingers were free to explore.
Her quiet mewling and the whispered repetition of his name were driving Zuko crazy. He was quite convinced that when it came to his body and his attention, she was insatiable, and that made him feel proud beyond words. He still wasn't used to it though, so accustomed to rejection, he always felt nervous that she would touch his scar and flinch or suddenly, inexplicably become distant. It was as though he was riding on a pendulum and had suddenly swung from one extreme to the other, and was now scared of swinging back again. He tried to make it up to her though, to remind her of all the pleasure he could inspire and all he had to offer.
He pressed his body flush to her's, letting her feel every inch of him, telling her wordlessly how much he wanted her. She rose to meet him, pressing back and pulling his head down to within reach of her lips. He ground against her, his hips bucking almost on their own accord.
Seeing Aang kiss her had shaken him, but it hadn't taken him long to see that he had things to offer the water bender that the young Avatar did not. He had a welcoming bed, (Not that he didn't think that the monk would grow up into being a fine lover . . . some day . . . with someone who was NOT Katara) he never judged her, he accepted her flaws and loved her because of them, not in spite of them.
Vaguely, through a haze of lust, he felt his name muttered again against his lips followed by a string of nonsensical begging. Reaching down to cup her, his fingers parted her folds and leisurely teased her. The room heated as he did, and it wasn't long before they here both sweating in the artificial humidity of the steaming water.
"Zuko . . . please . . . Ah!. . . please . . . more"
Lifting one of her knees up over his elbow, he planted his palm firmly against the wall and thrust into her. She whined, and dug her nails into his back, partly in delirium, partly to steady herself in the new, strange balance between them. Finding their rhythm together had always been second nature, and it wasn't long before they both moved to their own shared tempo. Although she was no Ty Lee, Katara surprised him with her flexibility. She startled him thoroughly when unexpectedly after one of his harsher thrusts, she threw back her head and screamed.
"'Tara, are you-"
"Don't stop! Right there!! Again, right there!" Her arms flew up, and her fingers groped uselessly across the tile above her head for something to give her leverage. Finding none, she pressed one of her wrists to her mouth and bit down, stifling her own cries. Holding her steadily, Zuko shifted and resumed their earlier pace, following her vague orders to the best of his ability, it was not easy with her writhing around so alluringly.
At last, to gain more control over her, he wound her legs around his waist and used his sheer muscle strength to keep her back pressed into the wall. He was taken aback that she let him so easily, that she trusted him to hold her up. It was by far the most physically demanding feat he had tried to perform since he had taken the bolt for her, but he hardly felt hindered, the sexual energy building up between them giving his muscles a stamina he thought they no longer possessed.
Finally, after a crescendo of fluttering muscles and not entirely unpleasant electrical shocks, the two collapsed slowly to the floor in a tangle of limbs, gasping for breath.
Brushing his sweat plastered bangs from his forehead, Katara leaned in to nuzzle the Fire Bender's scar, her hand stroking across his chest affectionately. She smiled at him from where she propped her head on her palm, and he returned it before letting his eyes sink closed, focusing only on her hand on his chest. After a moment, he felt her lower her head to his shoulder where she stayed for several minutes as they recovered together.
"Do you love me?"
Katara was taken aback by the question, it was not that it was ungrounded, they had just made love for the better part of the night after all. It was, however, completely unexpected, and the water bender was not sure she had an answer.
"I don't know . . ." Katara chewed her lower lip, "I'm not sure . . . I really like you . . ."
Zuko smiled and gave a soft snort as though it made him think of a private joke, his eyes still closed.
"I really like you too." He replied, "and I don't want to have to keep it a secret anymore."
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It was nice to be on Appa again, the wind blowing through her hair and the gulls crying as they struggled to get out of his way. Katara rested her head on the huge pommel of the saddle and napped, Momo curled up on her stomach, fast asleep as well. Soon after the Fire Lord had left through a convenient secret passage, no less, her exhaustion had caught up with her, as did the twinges in her lower abdomen that painfully reminded her of the imminent new moon.
Before she had left, she had made Toph promise to beat up anyone that tried to flirt with the Fire Lord, especially anyone who was earth kingdom. The blind bandit was only happy to oblige, she didn't even ask why. She probably didn't care, a pounding was a pounding.
The clouds were filling out and darkening, and she could smell rain on the wind. She was going to have to tell Aang. She had promised to drop the charade.
Momo nuzzled her, and she wondered if she was being selfish protecting him, or if it would be more selfish to relieve her guilt by hurting him. Aang had always seemed to advocate the truth and to be invested in forgiveness. Love, however, has a way of making all of ones high and mighty moral values fly out the window. She knew she had to tell him, but the old instincts to protect him did not die easily, and she began to lose her nerve.
"Aang?" Turning over and yawning, Katara crossed her arms over the pommel of the saddle and studied him.
"Yea Katara?" Aang turned and grinned, "Isn't this great? Just like old times!!"
"It's really great," Katara said without enthusiasm, then pressed on, "Can we talk?"
"This is the way to Hama's Village, right?" Aang leaned over and looked at the sprawling Aegean, "I think it's the way . . ."
"It is, Aang, we need to talk!!" It was hard to yell over the rushing wind.
"What was that?" Aang was playing dumb, she could tell, "You need a break?"
"No! Come on, stop fooling around!"
Aang nodded and slowed Appa's speed so that they didn't have to yell over the whipping wind. With a twirl and a leap, he helicoptered himself into the air, only to land a few feet from her on the saddle.
"What do you want to talk about?" Aang pivoted on his butt so he sat facing her. So he had heard her after all.
"I wanted to talk about Zuko." Katara looked off to the side, this was not easy.
"Yea? What about him?" Aang asked his eyes becoming both suspicious and nervous. He looked so very small sitting up there, and Katara felt her resolve crumbling. Of course he was apprehensive, he had been on edge ever since hearing about their kiss under the mountain, it wasn't like he had any reason to be though . . . she wasn't cheating on him. How could you cheat on someone you weren't dating?
He was fooling himself if he thought they were going to get back together after 'she worked out some private problems'. He was deluding himself if he thought that she still loved him.
Maybe she never had.
The new emotions were confusing and hard to read, lust, love, friendship, hate, loyalty, they seemed to bleed into each other like the colors on one of Sokka's less successful ink paintings. It was hard to pick out where one ended and another began, and Katara wondered if this was do to her inexperience and immaturity.
"Well . . . you know . . . I . . ."
"I know you guys are friends now, it's great! Remember when you hated him so much?" Aang looked pleased, but his eyes were still uncertain.
Katara dug her fingers into her hair, better just to spit it out, "We're . . . we're . . . together now Aang."
For an instant, he froze, his eyes swelling up with tears, then she was alone on Appa before she had time to even blink. Momo jumped from her stomach to her head, then to the rim of the saddle where he chattered angrily at her before jumping off, following his friend. Katara rushed to the edge, seeing the silhouette of a glider spiraling off several hundred feet below. Appa groaned and started to follow Aang as well.
"AAAAANG!!" Katara yelled, worried, "AANG COME BACK!! Ugh!! Why does he always run away?!"
After checking the boy's course to make sure he was not Avatar Stateing it back to the palace to bring down divine retribution on the unsuspecting Fire Lord, Katara crawled up onto the bison's head and took hold of the reigns, steering him back to his original course.
"Aang will come back in an hour or two after he's cooled off," She reassured the beast, "It's better if we're where he knows to look for us instead of trying to chase him all over the Fire Nation."
She had to stay glued to his horns, as every moment she relaxed the tension, the bison tried to turn in the air. Katara was starting to fear that he would get mad and throw her off to chase his master if she kept forcing him the way she was, but Aang had put so much distance between them by then that the creature would get himself lost looking for the boy.
"Aang knows we're going to Hama's inn, he won't leave me to face Hama alone." Katara crossed her fingers and hoped blindly to the spirits it was true. A fairy moon would be rising that night, and as it rose, so would she plunge.
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"Oh great, not another odd beastie." One of the stable hands grumbled as he took Appa's reigns from Katara. She paid him no mind other than to tuck a coin into his palm for his trouble. The place was eerily memorable, and reminded her too much of the traumatizing blood bending lesson for her to want to stay long. She quickly made her way inside, looking around for the innkeeper or someone who could help her.
"Oh, hello there young mistress, what can I help you with?" The man behind the bar smiled warmly as he dried mugs with an old rag.
"Yes," Katara shrugged it off, "I'm looking for Hama. Is she in the town jail still?"
"No Master Water bender, we haven't seen Hama for . . . hmm, long time. She broke out the next full moon after we caught her, but, we haven't seen her since. I hear tell she is livin' in the mountains, or she was . . . some locals heard screamin so they went to check the caves, there was a bunch of blood everywhere, and . . . fingernails. They found this spiral snake scrawled on the wall in blood, none o' us knew what it meant though. Prolly just something an insane old lady does." The innkeeper scratched his chin his fingers dislodging crumbs of bread in his stubble and Katara tried not to make a face. "You know, you're the second person in two days to ask about her."
"Really?" The waterbender handed him several coins to lubricate the conversation, "So, you think she has gone far?"
"No, she is right over there . . . in fact, right next to that June girl the one arm wrestling that man, see em there by the fire?" The innkeeper gestured at the two women.
"Oh, no, I meant Hama, has Hama gone . . . . ." Katara trailed off, as she spoke, June had caught sight of her, let go of her opponent's fist, and patted her companion on the arm.
The young water bender knew her instantly, the woman's face burned into her mind from when she read Ozai's. Her hair was streaked with white, her face was lightly wrinkled and sad, and she was a bit thinner than she had been. She wore no makeup or crown, her hair was shorter, and her cloths were dull and worn. Nevertheless, there was no question.
Her purse and water skins fell from her fingertips as she stared dumbly at the Fire Lady.
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Ursa blinked and then leaned into her companion, "June, why is that strange girl staring at me?"
"That . . . " June told her smugly, her voice oozing satisfaction, "Would be you're son's girlfriend, the Master Water Bender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe."
"Oh." Ursa seemed at a complete loss for words, "She's . . . She's taller than I thought she would be."
The innkeeper had stooped and began picking up Katara's things, muttering about how she should be more careful, that she could lose her possessions if she dropped them too often.
"Oi! Katara!" June waved her over, from across the room "Come here! I got someone for you to meet!!!"
"Don't call her over!! I don't want to meet her!" Ursa hissed, "What's she doing here?!" She was pleased in a way, to get a look at the girl, but this wasn't exactly the way she had planned it. She had planned to be on her throne and Katara pleading for her blessing and permission to woo her son . . . something more along those lines.
The water bender's traitorous feet seemed to understand June's words before her brain, and she numbly shuffled across the dining room to the hearth, never taking her eyes off Ursa. She was half afraid the woman would vanish like the morning mist if she blinked.
"Lady Ursa, this is Katara, Hey Katara, it's been a while since the end of the world, four months, right? How's your boyfriend?" June grinned and gestured with her lips for her to sit.
"Five, actually. And he's not my . . . er . . . he's good, he's been busy." Katara finally found her voice and sank down in the offered seat, "You're . . . you're Zuko's mother! We have been looking everywhere for you!!"
"Shh, keep it down about that. There might be Ozai supporters in the crowd." Ursa told her, "And you . . . you're Princess Katara, I have heard a lot about you."
Katara ignored her and plowed forward in her excitement and relief, "We interrogated your husband, we got captured, we got lost in caves, we ran all over the Earth Kingdom, where were you?! What are you doing here?"
"We're leaving, we're heading to the coast." Ursa replied vaguely and studied her nails, "What are you doing here?"
"I was trying to find Hama, but I guess she isn't around anymore." Katara saw June's perplexed expression and continued, "She is one of my water bending Sifus."
"She's been missing a while, how'd you know she wanted to see you?" The bounty hunter took a drag from her drink.
"Oh . . ." Katara dug in her pack, "I got this. . ." she held out the blood scrawled symbol to the two ladies, "I got it from a woman who said she was a 'Siren'. I think it's from Hama. It couldn't be from anyone else . . ." The water bender was careful not to mention that she knew Ursa was a member of the order too, it just seemed like the kind of information that could get a stupid girl in trouble, and Katara was not a stupid girl.
"See!" June elbowed Ursa smugly, "All that fretting and she is as clean as a bone, at least for now. I'm surprised they're recruiting so young, she's just a child after all."
"I'm fifteen!" Katara argued.
"Begging your pardon ladies, your steeds are all tacked up and ready to go." The stable boy bowed, "Er, bounty hunter, You're shirshu's venom . . ."
"It'll wear off in an hour or two." June waved her hand in a dismissing way.
"I'm sorry we could not get better acquainted, Princess Katara, but, I'm afraid I am on urgent business." Ursa stood and smoothed the wrinkles out of her worn dress regally.
"No, wait, no, you can't go so soon!! When will you be back? Where are you going? Why haven't you contacted Zuko? Why did you leave the night that you m- said goodbye to Zuko?" Katara followed the woman, ignoring June's amused laughter.
Ursa ignored the questions. The girl had every right to ask them, but she wasn't about to fill her in on all the sordid details of her life. The girl looked pretty bright, she might find a loophole and tell Zuko even if she commanded her not to. Nothing was foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
On the other hand, Katara had already subdued her daughter once without hurting her. She could do it again. That would make everything a lot easier. Ursa swallowed her initial dislike and made a fast decision.
"Look." Ursa turned on the girl when they reached the courtyard, "I can't talk about it now, but, you may join me if you like, I'm riding for Pyre on the Water. I'll answer your questions on the way."
"We are," June corrected.
Two boys held their mounts, the one holding Nyla kept having to dodge her tongue. The shirshu seemed amused by the newly invented game of catch the stable boy.
"No." Ursa said firmly, and drew a pouch of money out of her sleeve, tossing it to the bounty hunter, "I am. You will ride for the Palace like we discussed, remember? Do you have a mount Katara?"
"No . . . but . . . " Katara looked back and forth, not quite understanding what was going on between the two women. There was tension between them like there was between her and Toph, but they genuinely seemed friendly with each other. They also obviously were hiding something from her.
Ursa swung up on her ostrich horse and offered her her hand.
"Climb on. But what?" Again, Katara stared at the Fire Lady, but obediently took her hand, compelled by her voice, it was actually damn frightening in person. Ursa's talent seemed so convenient to her until she actually had to suffer it.
"But I'm sort of waiting for someone here." Katara confessed, "I'm waiting for Aang. I came here on his bison and he was going to catch up later . . . I hope."
"You, little boy!" Ursa pulled her reigns from the stable boy's grasp, "Inform the innkeeper that when Avatar Aang arrives, he is to tell him to follow us to Pyre on the Water. Don't forget."
"So, why are we going to this place anyway?" Katara asked, trying to find a place to hold on to the Fire Lady that didn't actually involve touching her.
"You'll See, Master Waterbender."
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Ok, so, it's really hard to type erotica with your uncle's cat sitting on the couch next to you . . . watching you . . . purring. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he ships Zutara.
Freakin Cats.
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Ok, so, I have started posting up the chapters on DA. Even if you have already read my fic, you might find it worth checking out as DA allows you to put up images with it . . .
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So, Read and Review. I love Reviews