Push and Pull
First Night
Disclaimer: I own literally nothing.
Katara's POV
It seemed utterly wrong that everything should be happening in daylight. It had been nighttime in her dream, and it was nighttime back in the physical world, but Katara was on her knees in the Spirit World, and there was light all around her. Somehow that made it so much worse.
Nothing worked. I can't waterbend.
Katara put her hands on her thighs and squeezed her eyes shut, struggling to catch her breath. She could feel the warmth of the light that broke through the cover of clouds above her, and the coolness of the air against her wet skin and clothes. Her knees sunk into the mud at the bottom of the swamp, and the water pooled around her waist, rippling lightly with every heaving breath she took. The swamp was silent other than the sound of her breathing.
She didn't know why she was so exhausted when all she'd done in her panic were a few waterbending stances. Even with as little sleep and food as she'd had, she knew that she could handle much worse and not feel as bad as she did now. But she felt unusually lightheaded, and there was a hollow in the pit of her stomach that made her feel sick. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, and all she could hear was the rush of blood through her head.
"What do you mean your bending is gone?" Zuko's voice broke through the dizzying cloud that threatened to overwhelm her. She heard him step into the water beside her, and her eyes flew open as she fought the urge to flinch away.
Katara struggled to push the image of the firebending boy in her dream out of her mind. She could picture him clearly at the forefront of her mind, his angry face dotted with dry red wounds, and his golden eyes filled with a fire that threatened to burn her. She remembered the helplessness she'd felt coursing through her veins in that moment of weakness, and the feel of his fire licking at her skin.
She hadn't been able to save Aang. I lost him.
Katara gritted her teeth at the thought, and shakily pushed herself up to her feet. Her legs trembled and her waterlogged clothes dragged heavily against her skin, but she made herself stand.
She would not give up. She couldn't.
"Katara?"
"Give me a minute," she told him quietly, and inhaled deeply. Katara shifted into a basic waterbending stance, keeping her movements precise, slow and controlled. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Zuko crossing his arms over his chest with a noise of frustration, but he stayed clear of her moving body as she went through the motions. Somehow she knew he wouldn't interrupt her.
For a long time, Katara didn't think about anything other than her waterbending. It took longer for her to finish her forms this time; she'd only tried a few panicked stances in her initial attempt to waterbend, and this time she was careful not to miss any. Katara worked through every movement Master Pakku had taught her, any forms that she'd seen on the stolen waterbending scroll, and any tricks that she'd come up with when she'd been teaching herself to bend back in the South Pole. When she'd finished, her arms were burning from exhaustion, and her throat was aching from her effort to hold back her frustrated tears.
Nothing works.
"Will you tell me what's going on?" Zuko asked, turning to her as she stumbled back to sit heavily on the edge of the wooden platform. He'd stayed silent and unmoving as she'd tried to bend, and she'd had to work to ignore the feeling of his eyes on her.
Katara tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. "I can't waterbend."
"I can see that." He gestured impatiently to where she'd been going through her stances. "But why not?"
"I don't know."
"Did something happen before you lost it?" he demanded, and stepped closer to her. "I thought you were sleeping."
"I was." Katara stared down at the ripples he'd created on the swamp water as she told him about her dream. They crashed into her knees and swirled around her legs before flowing past her and fading away. "I was dreaming about us fighting at the Spirit Oasis. I was just watching us fight at first, from the outside. Like it was some kind of play and I was in the audience. But then in the middle of it—" Katara hesitated. She wasn't entirely sure what had happened herself. "I felt this... pull in the pit of my stomach and then I wasn't watching anymore, but actually fighting you again, except that time I couldn't bend. And then I woke up." She hardly knew that she was crying until the wetness in her eyes spilled over and crashed down into the water, sending it rippling.
Katara closed her eyes. The last waterbender in the entire Southern Water Tribe, and her bending was gone. She'd struggled to teach herself what little she could of the art back in the South Pole, had fought against an unwilling master in the North Pole , and had finally—finally—managed to learn how to waterbend, only for it to be taken away. How could this have happened?
"So you lost your bending because of a dream?" Zuko asked in disbelief when she'd finished speaking, but Katara noticed that his voice was softer, a little less harsh.
"No." Her voice cracked. "Maybe. I don't know." Katara exhaled in a rush and wiped her tears. "When I woke up, I just knew I couldn't bend."
He was silent for a moment as she collected herself. "Didn't the Avatar say he couldn't bend when he was in the Spirit World?"
Katara's head snapped up, her mind racing. I can't believe I forgot. Aang had been surprised that she and Zuko could still bend their elements when he couldn't. Maybe I was wrong about the body theory, and it doesn't matter whether you cross over with it or without it. Maybe you lose your bending no matter what. Then she frowned. "But I could waterbend a few hours ago."
"And I can still firebend," Zuko added, uncrossing his arms. A small burst of flame erupted from the palm of his hand, fiery and hot.
Katara couldn't help her reaction. She shot to her feet and lurched away from him without thinking, splashing through the swamp water. Her knees almost buckled under her from exhaustion but her horror was enough to keep her upright. Her dream came back to her in a rush, and Katara couldn't help seeing Zuko as the boy who'd burned her and taken Aang. Firebender.
Zuko extinguished the fire in his hand and his eyes flickered briefly to her legs before coming back to rest on her face. He looked at her quizzically with the blazing golden eyes that were so familiar to her. The eyes of the enemy. "What?"
Katara turned away, locking her knees under her. "Nothing."
She'd been wrong to be so nice to him before, no matter how much of a good idea it'd seemed at the time. What had she been thinking? He might seem like an ordinary teenage boy with his occasional awkwardness and the gray suit that was so unlike his usual armor, but he wasn't a normal boy. She couldn't let herself forget again: he was the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and he'd do anything to capture Aang. She had no doubt that if she'd really lost her bending back at the Spirit Oasis like in her dream, he would've burned her and taken Aang without a second thought.
"Anyway," Zuko continued from behind her, his attention back on her problem. "I don't see what else it could be unless something happened to the moon back in the physical world."
That startled her, shocking her out of her unhappy thoughts. Hadn't Aang said that the spirits were in trouble? Had he been too late?
"Either way, there's not much we can do about it," Zuko went on. "We'd better wait until the Avatar comes back and gets us out of here."
Katara scowled, her face stiff from dried tears, and turned back to face him. The weariness in her body wasn't getting any easier to handle, but her anger was making it easy to ignore. "Why do you call him that? His name is Aang, and don't pretend like you don't know it, because you obviously know mine."
This time he was the one who turned away, leaving her to stare at the tension in his neck and shoulders. "I don't have to explain myself to you."
"You're scared to call him by his name, aren't you?" Katara probed, stepping closer with her trembling legs, feeling a grim sort of satisfaction at the sight of him. "Because then you'll have to start thinking of him as a human being instead of as some prize that you can take home."
He whirled back on her angrily, his molten eyes scorching even from a few feet away. His hands were clenched into fists by his sides. "Shut up."
"Oh, no, that's right," she continued nastily. "You're the Fire Lord's son. Why would that bother you? Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I don't?" Katara repeated incredulously,and unthinkingly reached up to touch her mother's necklace laying at her throat. "You have no idea what the Fire Nation has done to the world. Do you have any idea what it's like for the people who have to live with this war?"
Zuko looked taken aback for an instant before rage distorted his features. "You're not the only ones fighting in the war," he spat, and stepped closer until Katara could feel the angry heat radiating off of his skin. She forced herself not to step back when he shoved his face down in front of hers. "Who do you think your people are fighting against? Fire nation soldiers have to live with this war too."
It was Katara's turn to be taken aback, though she recovered quickly. "And whose fault is that?" she hissed back at him.
Zuko glared down at her for a second before he leaned back and turned away from her. "I wouldn't expect a peasant like you to understand," he said, walking a few feet away, keeping his back to her. "The Fire Nation was trying to share its greatness with the rest of the world."
"Greatness? Is that what you call it?" she seethed. Katara could hardly believe what she was hearing. She felt a sudden rush of energy course through her body, but hardly noticed in her distress. "Why don't you try asking the men who are off fighting in this war what they think of your greatness? Or the people they have to leave behind?" Katara clamped her mouth shut with a click and gritted her teeth as her eyes welled up with tears. She was crying again.
Zuko glanced back over his shoulder at her, just as a low shout rang through the swamp and reached their ears. Katara spun around, stumbling on her feet, and stared out through the trees behind her. She couldn't see anyone.
"What in the—" Katara wiped her eyes and glanced back at Zuko, shocked. "That sounded... human."
Zuko was staring into the trees with an odd look on his face, his eyebrows furrowed. When another yell came through the trees again, his eyes widened and he started to move forward. "Stay here," he barked out to Katara as he ran past her, splashing water onto her clothes.
For an instant, Katara was frozen in surprise, but then she was chasing after him, following the sound through the trees. Katara was far slower than he was and was already falling behind as she struggled to lift her heavy legs. Part of her mourned the loss of her bending, knowing that they would be able to get there faster if she could just bend them through the water. They had barely gone past the first tree before Zuko came to a stop.
"What are you doing?" he demanded as he caught sight of her. "I told you to stay behind."
Katara glowered at him, her knees nearly buckling under her as she stopped. "I'm not going to stay here and do nothing when someone's in trouble."
He opened his mouth to say something and then appeared to think better of it. Instead he said, "You can't even bend."
Katara put her hands on her hips. It wasn't fair. Why did he still have his bending when she didn't? "So I'm useless without my bending, is that it?" He made a frustrated noise and opened his mouth, but Katara cut him off. "We're wasting time. Let's go."
She moved to resolutely march past him, but her legs shook and she stumbled. Zuko grabbed her arm and pulled her back. "You're going to slow me down."
Katara pulled her arm away. "I won't fall behind."
"You can barely stand." He glared.
He was right, but she didn't care. "I'm standing just fine!"
"Fine," he snapped. "Come. Though I don't know what good you think you can do."
He was such a jerk. Katara stomped her foot in frustration and almost burst into tears when the water around her foot suddenly burst nearly ten feet into the air, falling down in a heavy rain to soak them both. Zuko stepped back in surprise but Katara was too preoccupied to notice.
Her bending was back! Thank the spirits, her bending was back. Katara raised her heavy arms and moved to pull the water out of both of their clothes, becoming almost giddy with relief when the water responded and drifted out of fabric. She whirled the water around in between them, cherishing the push and pull of the water and the power of the moon in her body. Her arms burned with the effort, but she couldn't make herself stop waterbending, not after losing it for so long.
There was a moment of silence and then Katara heard Zuko's sharp exhale of breath. "You're still going to slow me down."
Katara couldn't help the wicked smile that stole across her face, and enjoyed the startled look on Zuko's face. "No, I'm not," she said and led the water down to swirl around in front of her feet. With a quick move, she froze it into a thick square of ice and stepped onto it.
"Don't fall behind," she told him, and stifled a laugh at his indignant look. Katara pushed at the water with her arms and the ice shot through the water, leading her to whoever was beyond the trees.
I'm so late with this chapter and I don't even know what to say because I wrote four other full versions before settling on this one and I still hate it xP bleh. not much happens in this one.
Did anyone figure out the exact moment Katara got her bending back? Or who the scream belonged too? Or which lines I directly quoted from the ATLA series? (hint: they're from Book 2)
Can't guarantee anything about how often I'm going to update, since I have work and school coming up soon, but thank you all for your patience and kind reviews!
Avatar Roxas: lol I took a break and then got writer's block for a week, so basically I should never take a break again. But the extra sleep was nice :) I'm so glad you liked the last chapter!
Flutterby Rose: Haha, you got it! It's the moon spirit but you'll see next chapter why she's so lethargic and stuff. It's easier for me to hear Katara's voice more than Zuko's for some reason... if only I was lucky enough to hear him like you do lol. I definitely do want to nudge Zuko into his Book 3 self eventually, but for now I'm proceeding with caution :P
DylPicklezz: It makes me unexplicably happy that you can imagine the story playing out! Honestly, that's such a relief, since I usually suck at that kind of stuff. Im so glad you think I'm doing Katara's character justice :3 And thanks for replying to my quesrion, I think I will change the rating on this story :P
Guest: Stay tuned! And you're right, but not exactly haha. Amazing guesses though!
Reviews are much appreciated!