"So what's tonight's story about?"
The little girl sat up in bed, her covers thrown off the mattress. The sitter had just stepped out of the bathroom, the boy running past her legs having cleaned himself up for bed. After a long and eventful day spent watching the pro- benders train and having a large and filling family dinner, she had thought that the kids would be too worn out to ask for a repeat performance from last night. Playing storyteller once had been bad enough without the ever-pressing thought of having to do it again gnawing at her.
She should just say no or make an excuse. Say she was too tired or she had something important to do tomorrow that required a good night's sleep, and maybe even promise to tell them a story another night, far in the future when they'd likely have found something else to hold their attention.
It was those eyes that stopped her. Those big, quivering eyes and that sweet baby face. It was so unfair. Her brother may have been a pest, but this girl had a face that could get away with murder.
"I don't want to hear another dumb princess story," said the boy as he stood in wait at the foot of his bed.
After the requisite round of tongue sticking was complete, the sitter dropped the boy into his bed and slid the covers over him. Aside from the occasional quip, he'd been a lot better behaved today. This probably had a lot to do with his sitter kicking his butt today during his bending practice, but it wasn't like she was complaining. Anything that humbled the kid was good enough for her (especially if she was the one doing it).
"Then why do you come up with something?" she asked.
The boy perked up, but only just. A big, tough man like him didn't get excited over silly stories or anything that didn't involve doing battle.
"Tell a wolfman story," he said shortly.
"No way!" cried the sister. "Wolfman is scary."
"He is not, you big baby," said the brother.
The sitter went to the girl and took her hand, with a warm smile to calm her.
"I promise I won't make this story scary, okay? I'll make it so you both enjoy it, and it'll definitely have a happy ending."
The little girl didn't look so sure, and the welling of her eyes continued for a long time after the fact, but still she nodded, and rested her head on the pillow to listen.
"Just don't pull anything like you did last night," said the boy with a hard look in his eye. "I've listened to every episode of the Adventures of Wolfman, and I'll know if you're just telling one of those."
The sitter thought she felt a vein pop up in her forehead, but still she forced a grin and a thumb up at the boy.
"Okay," she said. "I promise I will not take any inspiration at all from the Adventures of Wolfman radio show. Happy?"
The boy mumbled a response that the sitter didn't care to decipher.
"Okay, so this is the story of a wolfman-"
"Named Zuko!"
The brother rolled his eyes, and the sitter stifled a laugh.
"Right, a wolfman named Zuko…"
He had wandered farther away from his homeland tonight than he should have, but Zuko hadn't done it for the sake of it. He had a mission, a purpose for being here on this night, so close to the full moon that he could feel the beast within him scratching at the surface, snarling and biting and aching for freedom. Zuko had long since tamed his wild side, like all of them did after a while, but there were times just like now when he could feel it overwhelming him; this carnal need that wasn't just for a sumptuous dinner.
She was sitting in the clearing near a tree, shadowed and solitary, and so very still. She could pass for part of the landscape if one didn't look carefully. She was watching the town down below, as she had on many other nights. Whoever she was waiting for had to be important, or else she just enjoyed watching the humans. He could understand that.
This was not the first time he had watched her. He always told himself that tonight would be the night he got up the courage to talk to her, but he was held back by something he couldn't explain, except that it might have been part of why his sister though him unfit to lead the pack. He knew from the girl's scent that she wasn't like him. In many ways, she was the farthest possible thing from him, but as his mother used to say, you can't always chose who you give your heart to.
He crept out of the tree that had been his hiding place, with well-timed steps to keep his feet light and his body invisible. She never saw him coming, not until he was well below ten feet away, and then her ears pricked up and she whirled around.
"Who's there?" she called out.
Zuko took a breath and stepped forth, his hands raised in surrender.
"I mean you no harm," he said to her.
She stared. "A werewolf? So far out here?"
Zuko smiled, laughing at himself and his own foolishness.
Of course Katara would know right away what he was; he should have known that would happen. It was a shame, then. He would've liked having the element of surprise. He could have met her without the weight of a bias over them, and he could have gradually eased her into his being part wolf. She might have been scared, and she might have run, or she might have lashed out. She might still do that now, and he'll just have to wait and find out which it'll be, hoping and praying that she was as accepting and as even tempered as his senses told him she was.
He explained to her that he had been wandering on this night as the moon filled out, getting away for a while and exploring to satisfy his wanderlust, which wasn't entirely untrue. It had been what he was doing straying away from home, before he had first laid eyes on her all those days ago and fell under a spell she didn't know she cast.
He kept secret how entranced he was by her, but now he could see up close just how beautiful she was. The night truly did wonders for her; she was as bright as the moon and as lovely as all the stars in the sky, if he dared be so poetic (or cheesy, as some would say).
He could never say what it was in that first real conversation of theirs that endeared him to her (Agni knows he'd been too nervous to string more than two sentences together), but they spent hours together, talking and sharing stories about their lives and their families. They shared a meal when they were hungry and played hide and seek when they were bored. They walked for miles, deeper and deeper into the forest, into a place Zuko recognized. His acute sense of hearing detected the howls of his brothers and sisters, as their shadows danced across his vision, reflected on a tree by the firelight. Any closer and they themselves would be heard, and he couldn't have that when Katara was with him.
"It's okay," she told him when he expressed his concerns, and he could tell by her eyes and by her scent that she really meant it. "I'm not afraid of your kind. I've always wanted to see a werewolf pack for myself."
So they went on, and Zuko tried not to fear for Katara, to remember that she was well capable of dealing with wolves if things got out of hand, and over time he started to believe it.
Eventually the sounds grew unbearable to his ears. One look at Katara told him she was no better. The wolves were really letting loose this time. Parties on the night before the full moon were not uncommon. They happened whenever a new wolf was initiated, and they happened in celebration of a pack member's completion of another life cycle, and they happened just so that everyone could dance and be joyful. No one ever needed a reason for that.
At least twenty of them were dancing when Zuko and Katara entered the clearing. Those on the sidelines clapped and cheered them on. One newly mated couple was making a great show of their spins and high kicks. Their faces were sweaty and red, but full of laughter. They waved when Zuko appeared, heedless of the woman next to him and her obvious lack of lycan features.
In fact, as the night wore on, no one said a word about Katara. She seemed to fit right in, joining in the dance like she had never not been a part of it. Though dancing had never been Zuko's cup of tea, Katara dragged him into it. She was not one to take no for an answer. After a while with her in his arms, moving her around the circle to the spirited beat of a drum, Zuko couldn't say he minded much.
The party went on for hours, and the dances came intermediately. Her body against his was ice cold, but alive with passion. He held her flush to him, wanting to never let this moment die, and to have her like this for the rest of his days. Just the two of them, together.
Of course, all good times must come to an end, and this end came with the arrival of a young woman Zuko had hoped he wouldn't see tonight. She could be called a beauty in her own right, but Zuko had never seen her as more than a nuisance, from the time she first emerged into the world and his mother held her infant form in her arms for all to see. Since then, they hadn't quite grown as close as their dearly departed mother had wanted. If anything, what they felt for each other was pure scorn and mutual distrust. Zuko didn't think he and his sister would ever share something that could be defined as love. It was especially true when she was like this, looking down on the rest of the pack like she was twenty feet tall, or like she was the leader of the pack instead of him. His sister commanded attention, and in that regard, she would've made a good leader, he'd give her that. It was just that in every other way, she was woefully unfit for the job. She was cold, she was inflexible, she was easily pushed to violence, and most of all she was merciless. That was why Zuko would never let her challenge him for leadership. He'd dissolve the pack himself first.
He couldn't just throw her out either. Her many flaws aside, she was his sister, and his mother never would've approved. So he dealt with her in times like this, when she lorded over the place and treated him like the dirt under her shoe. Were she to do the same to Katara, however, Zuko couldn't say he'd be quite so lenient.
"What is this doing here?" Azula sneered her way. "Are you bringing home strays now, brother? I thought you had a little more class than to associate with her kind."
Zuko ignored her words and led his friend in one final dance. Though Azula still jeered, they shut her words out and had eyes and ears only for each other. At the final beat of the drum, the night neared its end, and Zuko bade his jubilant pack farewell, and left to see Katara off.
They kept to the path from whence they came, but Katara was once more growing hungry and wanted to look for something to eat. Zuko distracted her with stories of his awakening as a werewolf, how he used to trip over his four legs and wake up naked in public places thanks to pranks by his packmates. She laughed uproariously at all his stories, and where they used to mortify him, Zuko could almost appreciate the humor in them now, with the gift of hindsight and the presence of Katara at his side.
They made it back to the edge of town, and Katara stopped.
"What is it?" Zuko asked.
Katara raised a hand, and then her head. She sniffed the air, her eyes going wide with an unspeakable need. She walked into the town like a woman possessed, Zuko close behind. A young man was what had caught her attention. He had an attractive face that had likely enticed many a woman. Zuko had a mighty need to go and beat that face into the back of the man's skull, but that would just deny Katara what she needed.
She walked with purpose down the hill and into the street, trailing behind the man at a distance of several feet until they were in a deserted part of the street where the streetlights had dimmed to cinders. Then she called out to him. He turned and smiled at the pretty woman approaching him. That smile faded when Katara lifted a finger and ran it slowly across his eyes, lulling him into a trance. Her fangs glistened in the moonlight as she sunk them deep into the man's neck, drank her fill, and then left him to awaken, weakened and disoriented, but no worse for the ware. It was a long-standing rule among the vampires to be careful with their food source. Barring animals, only the most immoral of the undead actually killed a human.
Zuko offered her a napkin to wipe the excess blood off her mouth, and Katara graciously accepted. It might have made Zuko sound a little too goofy in love, but she looked pretty adorable when she struggled to remove a stubborn stain from the top of her lip. Zuko had to turn away to hide his smile.
"Walk me home?" Katara asked when she was done, holding out a hand that Zuko was only too happy to accept.
And the creatures of the night faded into the darkness that called out to them in a clear, strong voice.
The boy's lips were pursed as his sitter declared the story over. She didn't really care if he liked it or not, so long as he and his sister would go to sleep and left her off the hook for the night. Seriously, she'd been so busy practicing and helping train the kids all day long, it was a wonder she hadn't konked out halfway through the story.
"That was a good one," said the girl with a wide grin. "You were right, I wasn't scared one bit!"
Bless that child and her innocent validation of everything her sitter did.
"See? What'd I tell you?"
The little girl shrieked as the sitter began tickling under her arms. She flailed about and almost lost her beloved turtleduck before the sitter freed her. The boy had not moved in the meantime, except to pull the covers up to his chin toss and turn a little.
"I guess it was okay," he said with so much unaffectedness in his tone that even a deaf person could hear how fake it was. "At least you kept your promise about not copying a Wolfman episode."
That was the best she was bound to get, so the sitter took the compliment and blew out the candles to darken the room and let them sleep, all the while thinking how lucky she was that the boy hadn't heard about that official Adventures of Wolfman theatre troupe yet.