Pacing outside Zuko's cabin this late was a poor idea. Though there had been no argument to initiate it this time, Katara already experienced her day and a half of tumbling emotions because of an awkward, foolish man, so now she was hungry to do it right. To make things right and demand answers. Had she misread him? Forced him too far? That strange unreadable emotion in his eyes that in her wilting embarrassment she jumped to the conclusion that he found her distasteful? There could be other explanations, like he was worried about his mother and half-sister, or even the state of Caldera City in his absence.
Unbeknownst to her, Lieutenant Lee observed the frantic pacing and announced himself through a strait-laced clearing of the throat. She went stone-still, regarded him to be as important as a sleeping turtleduck in this exact moment, and resumed her walk with a little more vigor.
Lieutenant Lee looked at the floor as though expecting scorch marks, concern for its state apparent on his face. "Do you, ah, wish to speak with him?"
She wished to apologize and throttle him. Not necessarily in that order.
She imagined directly demanding answers; what was that? Why did you touch me like that and then look like you wanted nothing to do with me? She imagined digging crescents into the back of his neck and stringing him forward to meet his lips to her.
The doubt set in.
She was good at reading people; she knew Suki and Sokka were sneaking into each other's tents before the others did. She had an inkling early on that Aang liked her hence her asking him to kiss in that secret tunnel (nevermind the airbender's initial foot-in-mouth I definitely wouldn't want to kiss you reaction).
She came to a stop in front of the door. The urge to move transferred into her foot, which began tapping. "Is he always so painfully awkward?"
Lieutenant Lee's expression of dutiful neutrality remained admirably still.
"You can answer honestly," she added.
"I am a faithful soldier. I am not at liberty to intervene in a domestic."
Her foot halted mid-air. "It's not a domestic!"
The door peeled open.
Adorned in gold-hemmed obsidian robes held together with a crimson sash, Zuko opened his mouth to inevitably chastise whoever was disrupting his meager hours of rest. When he recognized her, the lethargy fled from his face and the door moved to close again, and then open, and finally he swung it out wider. There was the answer to her question to Lieutenant Lee: yes, when Zuko could no longer be an angry enemy, what remained was the personality equivalent of a waddling turtle-duck in personal matters. Endearing in most cases, utterly discombobulating to make sense of in others.
With an expression of tight curiosity like he didn't know what to make of her that Katara found disturbingly addictive, Zuko shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The sash sashayed.
"Lady Katara. Lieutenant Lee."
"Fire Lord Zuko."
"Zuko."
Zuko transfixed his eyes somewhere between them. "Is there something that demands my attention?"
"Yes," said Lieutenant Lee.
"No," said Katara.
The competitors for Zuko's attention exchanged a glance.
"No," Lieutenant Lee amended.
"Sort of," she tried again.
"In that case Lady Katara can—"
"Actually—"
They stopped. Lieutenant Lee looked to be desiring a casual dip in a volcano at this time.
"You go ahead, Lady Katara."
With a panic she realized he was gesturing to the door. Making an entering motion. Into Zuko's room.
Zuko arched his one dark eyebrow. "Is there an emergency?" The sash swayed again.
"No, my Lord."
"Then it can wait." The weight of his gaze landing on her made her question every decision in the last twenty four hours. "Kata—"
"I'll be taking my leave." That was formal enough. Katara held her hands up, belatedly realized the wrong hand was fisted, and hoped the deep formality unsettled the others enough to forget about the faux pas. "Lord Zuko."
She swiveled before she fully straightened and the haste cost her stability. She tumbled into Lieutenant Lee. One of her arm wraps caught in the soldier's vambraces and an inept dance of extrication took place on the fine premises outside Zuko's room. The wraps tore and dangled to the floor; the lieutenant progressively flushed and another jostle of armor nicked a short line down her forearm.
Slender, familiar fingers plucked her out of Lieutenant Lee's hold, thrusting her through the doorway.
"What—"
The door shut with a soft click behind her.
Her eyes adjusted to the moderately well-lit room as Zuko retreated a respectable two paces away.
The room was a bijou replica of his room in the palace. A quaint four poster bed. A compact desk tucked in one corner, swords in another, and in the third a wardrobe she assumed was used to host his narrow spectrum of clothing: black ninja outfit for secret nighttime activities; formal regalia; accursed armor; and whatever this…casual, silken set that supposedly was meant to be loungewear but screamed I am about to bed you .
Katara's meticulous inspection returned to the bed. Eventually she tore her eyes away to him.
Zuko sighed, a touch exasperated. "It's nearly midnight."
"The moon was my friend, I know what time it is." She visually scoured the room again and this time noticed a few books on calligraphy on his desk next to a cup of tea. "I'm here for your notes. The ones we took of the interrogations."
"Sure," he said, because it was a logical thing that she was here at this hour in his room, personally seeking him out for those documents that simply could not wait for the morning.
Some of the candle flames dimmed.
Rosemary shampoo, dragon bush tea, smoking wood.
Her foot tapped once.
"Zuko?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm not here for the notes."
In the growing darkness his eyes were slivers of a citrine-cast moon the night before the new moon.
"Did you need something?" He asked a second time. His hands were stilled over the desk, the ridges of his scar casting thin shadows towards his chin.
She was here to apologize. She could have messed everything up: their friendship, the stability of their lands, his mental state at a precarious time, all because she was beginning to want more than he probably envisioned giving. After her breakup with Aang, as amicable as it was, she had been in no headspace to consider another relationship. He had just broken up with Mai, and he was a sovereign of a troubled nation. What need did he possibly have of her beyond her bending and status as an ambassador? What exactly was she to do with this barely nascent realization she wanted Something, big S, from him. With him.
What was she thinking to proposition the Fire Lord? Risking an irreversible dent in the hard-set dynamic of their group, or worse, the actual stability of the world?
Stupid. Risking everything for a taste—
A hundred excuses and apologies waited on her tongue, poised to spill out. None succeeded.
"Katara, I'm not sure what you want from me."
"I—"
"But please be comfortable telling me. It's a sensitive time right now and I'm already struggling with—"
"—was wondering what your mouth felt like."
"—everyone's...expectations..." his voice died.
So did her soul, because it evaporated on the spot.
He was right, of course. It was a sensitive time. Her mouth was being commandeered by an evil spirit who wished to send her to an early grave. But then her soul abruptly returned to her body and she thought she might actually prefer sudden death.
The cup of tea tipped over. Its contents streamed onto the floor. Wordlessly she coalesced the tea back into glob but bits of debris remained in it, too fine to sieve out in the dark, so she sent it towards the bin.
Please say something.
Every silent second that passed represented diminishing chances of her ever recovering. Actually, you heard wrong. It was a prank. Toph put me up to it, but now she's missing and—
"You're bleeding."
Katara looked down. Oh. She was. Her tendons tensed as her water turned glowy and her vendetta against Fire Nation armor became second only to her vendetta against big licking animals.
"Let me." Because Zuko was a ridiculous man, with a single sparking fingertip he burned a line to rip off one end of his sash and began encircling it around her bare forearm.
And all she managed to utter, her eyes fixated on the swathe of red fabric, was, "I'm sorry about your tea."
He clasped her wrist tenderly, forming a ring with his middle finger and thumb, and lifted it. The gold in his eyes were thin rings around dilated pupils.
In the liminal space between one breath and her next, he pressed his lips to the underside of her wrist, and for a single stilled moment she thought she might find herself to be a firebender, scorching coals between her ribs seizing her body with solar flares. In her veins pulsed not blood but lightness. Fire required discipline like no other; once unleashed it never surrendered.
"That's okay." He breathed across her palm as he let go, "I've already tasted some."
She pulled away.
She was scared she might never stop wanting.
Her choice of reply never came to fruition because an impatient knock yanked her to reality—a guileless Lieutenant Lee with semi-urgent news—and she slipped away.
In the airship's gondola, the lowest portion of the blimp, Katara sought out the oceans under. Her arms, one in blue cotton wraps and another in red silk, moved in practiced arches, pushing and pulling, thrumming and abating. Air Nomads with their monasticism were a spiritual people; their entire way of life was as ethereal as the element they bent. The Fire Nation enjoyed state priesthood, and the element of fire was so partial to consuming the outward that it necessitated meditation to control it. The Earth Kingdom, she was not experienced enough to know definitively if calling upon badger-moles required calling on inner immaterial qualities, but it carried the hardiest element.
Water was neither incorporeal nor sturdy. It was not air or fire where it moved as it pleased; water's nature was to move where gravity pulled it, which was usually down until the moon called it to return.
But it could never quite reach it, forever to remain moving, adapting, yearning. There was a metaphor there somewhere, and with a last release Katara watched her gentle torpedo fall apart.
Dozens of times she had kissed and been kissed and not a single one did she recall stirring something in her soul.
She imagined what Sokka would say. A crush on Zuko? Where is this coming from? To which she would say, in hindsight, it was a long time coming.
Whole volumes could be written about why it was a terrible idea to do anything except sit with it. But she set her shoulders. Like the river she would carry whatever was given to her.
This, too, would pass.
If fire didn't reach her first.
To the extent possible given the Something, Katara and Zuko greeted the day as normal. She was perfectly affable at breakfast, respectfully followed an entire conversation between Lieutenant Lee and General Shen anxious mutters about Lieutenant Jee's departure during the night for Caldera to secure reinforcements, and kindly comforted a weary Aang. Remember when those bounty hunters kidnapped Toph and the girl had found her way back to Ba Sing Se?
Never mind that Katara was the one needing to be taken care of just yesterday. Now, she was going to focus on taking care of others so much that it would smother the little infatuation nestled in her heart. She was going to be so perfectly polite that no one one would know any better.
Somehow, the return to matching cotton sarashi wraps felt wrong.
She imagined what Toph would say. Boo-hoo, sweetness, people like each other all the time. Now you can be gross as everyone else.
At lunch they visited the town square again, Zuko a gentleman and her a courteous lady. Because of the curfew, trade had slowed and impacted an already weak economy. Zuko ordered a temporary suspension on taxes and soldiers distributed provisions to the locals most in need.
"I will help the sick," Katara informed him after eyeing a sign pointing to the hospital. Cordial.
Equally stately, Zuko gave her a half-cocked head tilt of acknowledgement.
"The Fire Nation thanks you, Lady Katara." Gracious.
"My help comes freely." Polite. "If you leave this quarter, please send some to inform me." Indeed, there were metalbenders still at large.
"Of course." Genteel.
Glad to put an end to the conversation and her frolic through a thesaurus, Katara padded into the hospital.
People at varying degrees of ailment crowded the front room. A young girl dressed in muted pinks regulated passage into the back room where the healers worked. The girl's attention immediately snapped to newcomer as she was noticeably the peak of physical (perhaps not emotional) health and informed her they were still caring for those harmed by the protests and minor conditions could not be accommodated at this time.
"My name's Katara. I'm a waterbending healer." She braced herself for protest. There were more waterbenders in the Earth Kingdom than in the Fire Nation, and any waterbenders people had seen here were usually in the context of combat. Caldera City had just become familiar with her healing due to Healer Joru and her own efforts. That too after a year of persistence and terse threats to leave people's bones broken if they kept disparaging Water Tribe healing as trickery.
The girl took in her oceanic eyes and blue getup. A friendly smile broke through her harried appearance.
"Oh, thank you, thank you! My name is Song. Come in."
Katara followed Song to the back and took a quick inventory of the medications, salves, and potions available, and the division of the room between the critically ill and the moderate. Without further conversation she beelined for the critical side towards a man with a gaping hole in his abdomen and a small comatose child, hands covered in water. They remained submerged for the better part of the hour. After the two patients were discharged, word began to spread and a crowd grew in the waiting room, with issues small (a burnt finger blamed on a creative cooking attempt) and large (a hand torn half-off during a fight with a boar-q-pine). Song made herself a dutiful helper, fetching more water from the well and keeping meticulous written patient. records.
A few left giving simple nods. Others thanked her profusely. The elderly woman with the burnt finger returned to give her a tray of finished rose-infused dorayaki, sweet pattie confections.
"There's red bean paste inside," the woman winked. "In Hira'a a woman never tries for kids before sharing three dorayaki with her beloved." She patted Katara's belly and whispered a short prayer containing a suspicious number of invocations to Agni and mentions of fertility.
The tips of Katara's ears grew scarlet. Once the woman waddled outside and the crowd thinned, Katara set about to clean.
Song crooned over the dorayaki as she stacked them into an easy-to-carry tin.
"Are you married?"
Katara removed bodily fluids from bed rolls into a bin. "Oh, no."
"You're so beautiful. There must be someone."
"Not really—" except there was in the eyes of the public (and inside too?). The situation of fakery confused with the blurry growth of a crush (t hat's all it is ) wasn't one she felt inclined to explain to a stranger. But that advisor had taken their side after hearing about her supposed betrothal to the Fire Lord, and Toph said to sell it, and people needed to be convinced that there was a Something between them enough to believe that Zuko was poised to make a formal announcement and fight his country's archaic laws for them, so she picked at the threads of a sheet and sighed. "I suppose I'm sort of engaged."
"Sort of engaged? Is that different from actually engaged?"
"There hasn't been a formal announcement."
"Ohh, he's a noble." If only Song knew. "He must be quite a man to have you sighing like that." Song handed her the doriyaki with an earnest smile. "I remember those early days. Everything is so carefree and new and unknown that he was all I could think about."
Witnessing genuine love never failed to make Katara feel gooey inside. "You must love him very much."
"I do." Song's sigh was very different from hers. It encapsulated a swoony type of infatuation. Katara had neither time nor room to…to— swoon . "My mom didn't approve of him at first. The Fire Nation captured my dad when I was young and she didn't want me moving so far away, but he owned a restaurant and couldn't leave it." Bangs fell into the girl's eyes but so ensconced in her tale she was that she barely moved. "That's all over now but my mom's opposition did make me a little more inclined to rebel."
Katara assessed Song's face, churning the words over in her head to reach the obvious conclusion. Song was from the Earth Kingdom and her husband from one of the colonies. Those with Fire Nation spouses had been allowed to migrate with them.
"Is your husband a colonial?"
"His grandparents were. He didn't know his parents but he thinks he has some Earth Kingdom in him too." Song leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "If you ask me I'm just glad he has those Fire Nation gold eyes. They mind me of honey."
They did, actually.
Song giggled. "The men are so possessive too."
Katara felt a type of trepidation; something deep in her belly tightened and she knew her ears were red as that sash, half of which sat neatly folded in her bag...
She dipped to grab a basket from under a table. "That makes sense."
"Of course it does! Dragons covet beauty and treasure, no? They…"
Katara was deaf to the remainder of the sentence; her mental faculties were occupied by the hysterical imagery of Zuko bursting into flames, emerging as a roaring dragon and carrying her off into the sun.
She shoved three knuckles in her mouth to stifle a laugh.
They chatted some more, Katara finding the woman gentle and nurturing in her mannerisms. Had life unfolded differently, she imagined herself taking on a similar role: working at a hospital, speaking to and healing people, even opening her own clinic. Despite her initial misgivings of healing due to it being looked down upon as a woman's art, she felt it a fitting side to herself that she wished she could explore further during peacetime. Most of her healing was usually done in high-stress settings, such as when an Avatar was shot with lightning or in the midst of an Agni Kai, also after lightning (come to think of it, two incidents of lightening-induced death or near-death was two too many).
Now, it helped keep her mind off of her missing friend and provided an opportunity to fine-tune her skills. She and Healer Joru worked to be effective so he rarely took kindly to her more creative ideas (that, and he was a statistical snob). Song however was happy to consider some of her outlandish theories on where fevers were localized and why water was sometimes absorbed during the process but not at others.
It must have been late afternoon when Ty Lum stopped by. "How are you holding up, Lady Katara?"
Katara smiled weakly. The last patient had bruised his shoulder after a tumble down the stairs and healing him had siphoned the last of her energy for time being.
"Your sister's been missing for longer. I should be asking you that."
"Your worry for me is too kind."
Her interactions with the Kyoshi Warrior had taken an aloof air since the drunken antics. She was not so arrogant to think it was due to any personal misgivings alone; all of the airship's occupants recently adopted a gloomy air reminiscent of Mai, but she was already without one friend. She couldn't afford losing another.
Ty Lum used her fan to motion to the exit. "Shall we? Fire Lord Zuko wishes to return to the airship."
Katara hugged Song goodbye, promising to return when time allowed.
Aang—and On Ji, for whom neither her job nor fiancé posed a problem for accompanying him on Appa on his search all morning—returned at last with some clue for them to pursue.
Well-aware that he deserved a week-long break after this was all over, Aang stabbed a finger near the edge of the map unfolded across the table. It was in the southeastern most part of the barricaded south near some mountains aptly termed Charcoal Cliffs.
"We saw a large caravan full of food heading towards a cave there. If they have an entrance to this underground lair, it's probably there."
Katara perked up. Maybe Toph was with the hostages.
"You couldn't get there underground?" asked General Shen.
Aang gave him a nonverbal look of you try burrowing a tunnel like a beaver-groundhog across a city . "They have metalbenders. Even if I did, I would've met a metal blockade."
Aang, sweet Aang, a man deserving of every praise possible at the moment yet a part of Katara bemoaned the fact that the Avatar was not a metalbender.
"Then we go on ground," said Lieutenant Lee.
General Shen engaged in severe table-thumping. "That's an extremely dangerous trek! Half a day with the fastest dragon-moose."
"We could get a few people there tonight with Appa," Zuko suggested, shifting on his stool.
The general shook his head. "If we're ambushed again we'll be unprepared. Lieutenant Jee will be back at the earliest at dawn but more likely later in the morning."
Another lieutenant Katara was not familiar with had returned with estimates that there were at least two hundred Metal Militia members prowling the south. Fifty were stationed at the tall walls they erected.
Zuko brought one hundred soldiers. Personally, Katara thought they had faced worse odds—six children and two animals against an entire Fire Nation fleet, a despot, and his daughter—but she understood the hesitation. If they substantially questioned their ability to swiftly purge the south, countless civilian lives would be at risk. As much as she wished General Shen was wrong, she remembered the formidableness of the Dai Li. Earthbenders were already difficult to deal; in droves, they were near impossible to quell without a large army. Even with Hira'a's help, a substantial regiment was needed to protect the other neighborhoods.
Zuko came to the same conclusion. "Evacuate the city."
"Fire Lord Zuko!"
"That is an order."
"My Lord, please. We suggest waiting until reinforcements arrive to plan an invasion. We simply don't have the ability to fight earthbenders in swathes, and the danger that fighting metal with fire poses I—"
"Are you a coward, General Shen?"
The table stilled at the accusation of dishonor. General Shen's mouth parted in shock.
Zuko continued. "The Metal Militia kidnapped kids . We can wait until tomorrow but we don't have time to delay any further than that." An expression grew on his face that did not bode well. Katara would have started a round of footsies had they not slipped into a routine of being thoroughly punctilious with one another.
"Actually," she cut in mildly, "What if Aang, myself and Fire Lord Zuko" —well-mannered— "depart now for the cave on Appa? We can get as many hostages out as possible and attack tomorrow."
General Shen and Lieutenant Lee objected viciously.
Unbridled annoyance began in her gut. She didn't remember negotiating plans with Team Avatar to have been so bone-achingly time-wasting. "The three of us defeated Ozai and Azula. What could possibly be worse than that?" Albeit less violently than the general, she thumped the table. "I'm tired of waiting around. Toph…Zuko's family. They could be anywhere. We have to try ." Pinpricks sparked in her eyes.
Zuko uncrossed his arms. His right hand fell to his side.
And settled on her thigh.
"Us and some of the warriors can go via Appa for a surprise aerial assault while your unit can meet us there. If you depart now we can meet there before dawn." Zuko didn't look at her, instead maintaining narrowed eyes trained at General Shen. But his barely palpable squeeze kept her frustration and fear at bay.
In half a candlelight flicker she weighed the pros and cons of swatting his hand away and concluded it was certainly not polite to do so.
"I agree that it's a good plan." If her voice sounded a bit airy then that was the draft in the cramped room.
They refused. Aang slumped over. More table-abuse followed. General Shen lost one of his two chin hairs after Zuko's fist singed it alongside one-quarter of the map.
If there was one area where Zuko would not press his power, it was with the military. The military was yet to recover from its tenuous relationship with the government after the war. No matter how much power Zuko held, Katara wondered if something else kept him from actively and openly spurning them. Just what exactly made it harder for him to issue commands like he did with the council and feudal lords?
Ah, regardless. She tried.
She knew before Zuko adjourned the meeting that the Painted Lady would be making a return tonight.
Katara borrowed a pot of red paint from Ty Lum. The warrior handed it to her with a moderately pleasant smile.
Still, Katara felt she owed her an apology. "I'm sorry."
Ty Lum flinched. "For what?"
"Since the cafeteria…I mean, what I said. We're friends, right?"
Bits of dried paint dotting her face, Ty Lum settled onto her bunkbed. "Yeah, I mean. Aren't we?"
"I hope so. I felt some distance recently and I wasn't sure if it's because of Ty Lee or something else."
"Uh, yeah. I just…I realized that you're going to be Fire Lady and I'd acted inappropriately. Drinking is no excuse for that."
"Toph's made it her life's mission to annoy me into a heart attack, me becoming Fire Lady or no."
In the days since Piandao had executed this plan, though it was in a roundabout way, it was the first time Katara called herself Fire Lady. Three years ago when Zuko sauntered into her village could she have imagined saying such a thing?
Three days ago?
"Toph's not Fire Nation. For me you would be my queen." Ty Lum shifted so that her side was angled away from her, her face hidden in the shadows. "Our training taught us to put duty first at all costs. You're a good friend. I just don't know if I feel comfortable being as casual as we were before."
"Does Ty Lee feel the same way about Zuko?"
"They grew up together and she's a bit," Ty Lum circled a finger in the air and Katara laughed because it meant they could joke together, "so she can get away with more."
She swirled the small pot of paint and thought about Suki and Sokka, how they must balance different duties and responsibilities. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It felt so rushed, everything happened so quickly," —literally within an hour— "and uh, for obvious reasons, we couldn't make it public without, ah, proper procedure and rituals. And the Fire Nation has plenty of them."
Whether there were rituals involved in the engagement process she wasn't certain, but what was certain was this nation had rituals for everything. It was simple in the Southern Water Tribe traditionally: women looking to get married let down their hair, and men speared a blubber whale as an offering to her and the sirits. His mother then used blubber wax to make new beads as a gift of welcome for the bride, and her family in turn would sew a quilt for their marital bed. Even after adopting the North's tradition of betrothal necklaces, the Water Tribes scorned this type of unspoken tap dancing around one another and prolonged engagements.
Thankfully, Ty Lum nodded. "Quickly is right. Ty Lee told me Mai broke up with Zuko two weeks ago."
Premature panic constricted her throat. "Right. Um," what had Toph told them again? He was devoted to Mai but always liked her? Or something about yearning? It all felt wrong to repeat it and cast Zuko in a dishonorable light. Or maybe not, maybe the Fire Nation was a sucker for romantic stories—and she guessed they were, reading reviews of their most popular plays—and the idea of sudden true love wasn't far out of the realm of possibility.
Had Zuko been accosted with similar questions? She suddenly envied being surrounded by drab military men and women all day.
Ty Lum raised an eyebrow, waiting.
Katara's hands felt clammy. "I didn't…realize how I felt until recently."
It was true. In a way. Ty Lum could do the busy work of assuming it meant love.
Finding her concise reply acceptable, began to strip out of her clothes. That was the another thing—women here slept with little on.
Acceptable, given the heat.
Mortifying, remembering Zuko's little misunderstanding.
Left in only her underclothes, Ty Lum tucked her gear under the bed. "I felt the same way about my boyfriend."
"Felt?"
"Feel," the warrior amended. "He's a nonbender. My family doesn't approve of him."
She was too stamp down her jolt of surprise.
Ty Lum shrugged. "Sometimes the way we feel isn't enough to make it work. I just pray that you and Fire Lord Zuko do. It gives the rest of us hope."
Her response died in her throat. Piandao mentioned announcing a broken engagement after Yu Dao, and Zuko didn't voice the slightest worry about what it would do to his reputation, or if it would make anything difficult, whether his personal life or the political scene, afterwards.
Maybe they had failed to think it through carefully. To give those in Ty Lum's situation just to snatch it was cruel.
"I kindly request that you leave a little bit for me." Ty Lum eyeballed the pot of paint.
"Not to worry. It's for a one time thing. Thank you."
In the bomb bay Appa pawed at a partially eaten bunch of hay. Katara shifted her veil, prepared to see a slumbering Aang on the airbison's tail and improvise whatever objection he put up.
Instead, the sole human occupant sheathed his swords.
"What are you doing here?" Her question was not very politely asked. Her excuse was that she expected this man to be cloistered in his room wearing silk loungewear, not lurking like a criminal mask dangling from his hand.
The yellow-orange candlelight gave the bay a languorous touch. It made Zuko's movements look soft though he worked frantically to prepare Appa's saddle, though he slowed momentarily at her arrival.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Zuko—this is ridiculous. You can't possibly think this is a good idea." She stomped close enough to see his gritting teeth and honey orbs flash.
At this his gaze swept over her and he stopped.
He gulped, narrowed his eyes, and swallowed again. "Seems like I wasn't the only one with a ridiculous plan."
"I meant you! Going by yourself!"
"First it was the Kyoshi warriors and now Toph. They're gone because of me."
"You're also the commander of this ship. Did you think you could waltz in alone and rescue everyone?"
Clearly, he did. He resumed tightening Appa's saddle."My nation isn't bigger than one person."
"Of course it isn't, and that person is you. What do you think is going to happen if you get hit with metal? Or suffocated? Would Azula be Firelord?"
"My uncle's named regent in the Fire Sage's book of succession. I'm not an idiot."
Oh, he wasn't?
"Did you even have a plan? You could have told me. We had an agreement!"
Zuko finally lost his composure. "Do you have a plan? Were you going to sneak your way in by yourself?"
This argument felt familiar. That's because it was, and damn it because Katara had been on the other side of it last time.
She deflated, looking away. "I'm sorry. I got carried away. I'm so—I've been anxious all day and helping the hospital distracted me but Toph is a child. She doesn't have close family members to worry about her."
Warily, he rounded the bison to set a hand on her shoulder. "I won't lie, I was thinking the same. But she's a survivor. So is my mom and everyone else."
"But you don't think the military is right to wait."
"No," he confirmed.
"Did you at least tell anyone? If not me," she added, because she would remind him of that small omission for the foreseeable future every chance she had.
He grimaced. It could have been the low lighting but his cheeks took on a pinker orange hue. "They know I'm not to be disturbed for the night. I was hoping to get back before Lieutenant Jee."
"Then no time to waste. Let's go."
"You're coming with?"
"I'm abandoning you to fight them alone, you blockheaded jerk." She hoped Sokka would be impressed with this plight of sarcasm.
"I expected the Painted Lady to be nicer."
The implication was Katara was mean, which she could be. Had been. Sometimes she cringed at her teenage hood ripostes, like when Zuko had lost his firebending and she openly lamented him not losing it earlier.
He deserved it at the time. He also deserved it now.
She shifted her skirts and hiked onto the saddle. When no sound of someone joining her followed, she peered down over her shoulder and spotted Zuko's dark silhouette. In his eyes was that inscrutable expression. The orange disappeared fully from his cheeks, leaving only pink.
"Aren't you coming?" She braced herself for a rejection, or worse, him requesting that she leave. If the dork did that she would throttle him - no, strangle - cordiality was an ill-fated goal anyway.
He hitched a leg up, then the other, and slipped.
Katara rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to look where you're going."
She plopped onto the hard leather saddle (Aang had been horrified to learn that the Air Nomad ways of making non-animal leather had been lost to time and all giant saddles on the market were made of hippo-cow skin) and held out a hand to help Zuko up. The motion seemed to wind him. His staggered breathing abated just as Katara finished sending a lash of water to pull the hatch open and called out in a strong voice, "Yip yip!"
No sooner than Appa's six legs extended in order to take flight did a rush of wind, one not from the outside, greet them.
Sitting atop an air scooter, Aang dangled above their heads.
The airbender's face darkened with fury.
"Out for another joyride? A bit of sneak-a-roo, taking advantage of my trust for another field trip? "
Adults Katara and Zuko experienced the humiliation of unruly teenagers caught in flagrante delicto. To make it worse, nothing of the flagrantly delectable sort was happening. Just a situation of two failed sneaks trying to take the Avatar's airbison out gallivanting again.
Appa roared happily at his familiar.
While shooting Zuko a look that promised fraternal retribution, Aang opened his mouth. Three controlled puffs of air smacked them silly.
"You. Could. Have. Asked !"
"Would you have said yes?" asked Zuko dryly.
Aang's resounding holler was sure to wake the cabins. Katara winced.
"Toph could have been captured," she said.
Another livid puff. "Take. The. Dragon-moose !"
Katara harkened back to those few minutes of Zuko's chest sliding against her back and wondered if Zuko was thinking the same.
As she tended to do when shy or embarrassed, her pitch escalated. "They're too loud and I don't think stealing them would make you look good to On Ji. "
"What does that mean?"
Zuko turned to her. "Yeah, what does that mean, Katara?"
A beat. "You both are insufferable."
"I'm insufferable?" Aang slid into the saddle. "All I hear about is Fire Lord Zuko this and Lady Katara that, going on romantic dragon-moose rides together! Take me to court for trying to find better friends!"
Katana quieted. Their private conversation on Appa after the ambush in front of Governor Eruzu's home had been nice, but she remained mindful of his initial testiness and Toph's warning. Aang truly hated Piandao's plan.
"I'm sorry." Her chin lowered to her chest. "I really am."
Zuko gave a slight cough. "No, Aang, it was my idea. I took Appa out a few times alone before that too and I shouldn't have."
Their apologies softened Aang a fraction. He made a small moue with his lips. Whatever he was been doing before had returned color to his skin and rejuvenated his energy.
Finally he released a resigned sigh. "I forgive you. But now I'm wondering why Zuko was doing that when people are trying to kill him."
Katana looked at Zuko askance. "Yeah, what's that about?"
He maintained the blank face of a mildly bored Counicilor. "You don't want to know."
"I do," said Katara.
"C'mon Zuko, tell us."
"It's…a state secret."
"I'm the Avatar."
A three-way battle of the wills ensued.
"So…"
"Yeah…"
"Why don't I get a masked persona?"
"You already have one, Avatar." Zuko said Avatar as if he was about to capture him.
"It's not masked." Aang pouted.
"When you cover your arrows you're Kuzon," reasoned Katara.
Their shoulders hunched in staggered rates after Appa confronted them with a vital decision by stomping a foot in the direction of the open hatch.
"Team Avatar trip?" Aang wagered.
Katara smiled. Zuko dragged a hand over his face.
"I'll be back with some snacks." Aang vaulted onto the ramp before either of his companions had a chance to object. Which the urge to do so made little logical sense after tallying the pros of having the Avatar join them on a secret nighttime activity.
Left alone with Zuko, and no longer needing to bicker, Katara felt the full weight of the Something and it was terribly awkward.
She could return to being stuffily polite, but spirits that had been awful. But without a squabble to busy herself with she didn't know how to act anymore. Every nerve was acutely aware of his existence and vibrating at different frequencies. She summoned every memory she had of talking to him to review how to talk to him. Normally.
Was she scowling too hard? Was her stomach turning itself inside out? Could he see her guts?
Oblivious to the typhoon thrashing in her chest, Zuko bent his leg and rested a cheek on his knee. "I don't want to risk you guys coming. Aang and General Shen are second-in-command if something happens, but—"
"You're allowed to die when we say you are. I can't believe you. Are we friends or not?"
The lack of immediate response insulted her more than she cared to admit.
"Zuko!"
"You're my closest friends. Why do you think I wanted to do this on my own?"
"Because your honor is bigger than your common sense!"
"I would hope so!"
"Fine!"
" Fine! "
They breathed heavily as they slipped into another lull. Where in the spirit world was Aang? Katara prayed he brought some of that chai. With the provision distributions and all-around dampening mood, the galley had been churning out progressively simpler food. The chai Katara had taken an unexpected likening too was the highlight of her meals.
"Are you sure they won't break this airship apart if they notice you missing?"
Zuko was quite literally the highest authority on the chain of command on a military expedition. This was not the palace.
He tugged his fukumen up to his nose and slid onto Appa's head.
"I told General Shen not to disturb me and Lieutenant Lee asked if I was spending the evening with you...I didn't know what to say and they went along assuming it."
Her face grew hot remembering the debacle outside his cabin last night.
"That makes it sound like we…"
She was thinking about her wrist again. She was not supposed to be thinking about her wrist.
Zuko jerked backwards. "Agni, no. They wouldn't, they know I—that's dishonorable."
In the Water Tribes, cold climate meant an incentive for body warmth and fewer long-strung traditions regarding the marital bed. Once engaged it was acceptable for couples to even live with one another.
He mistook her pause of recollection for a pause of doubt. "Because of—lineage and heirship they wouldn't actually assume something unsavory."
She wasn't sure unsavory was the right word.
She masked her shyness with the Painted Lady's persona and pitched her voice lower, sliding into the velvety tone the real spirit had thanked her with.
"Are you sure? I've heard rumors that the Fire Lord is a philanderer—"
He jerked again.
"Has a harem. With concubines."
" No ."
"Graces the cover of those tabloids."
His neck creaked as he turned. "Who told you?"
She shrugged. "I guessed. Mai hated them."
He fully turned his body to face her. "Why are you talking like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like that."
She smoothed her veil's two panels with each hand. "I'm the Painted Lady, Fire Lord Zuko."
His eyes expanded into dark pools. They did the motion of meeting hers and then flickering lower and back. Just as quickly did she catch the motion did he shift to thread his fingers through the reins.
Her voice resumed to normal, only in a winded sort of cadence. "You're adorable when you're awkward."
Perhaps thinking her sarcastic, he grunted. "I'm always awkward."
A logician's response would be, then you're always adorable. Katara was not a logician, and Aang returned with a bag of nuts, candied fruit, leftover egg custard slices, and thankfully a flask of chai.
Aang's addition to the secret nighttime activity was welcome, if nothing but to cushion the frightfully unspeakable phenomenon that was her push and pull with Zuko.
The sole problem was disproportionate mentions of On Ji.
"On Ji was so nice yesterday. She showed me how to pack to maximize baggage weight on dragon-moose and we tried the same with Appa. And today she joined me twice, saying it would be helpful for another pair of eyes to scan the area. I'm thinking about teaching her how to navigate Appa…"
Zuko caught on the third time Aang mentioned On Ji. On the fifth, he began sharing furtive grimaces with Katara, confirming that their relationship, whatever detour it may have taken, could return to a familiar rapport.
Bile stuck to her throat.
At one point, the thought of Toph and Aang becoming a couple had crossed her mind. It was quickly crushed into powder when they last visited Toph's academy and the earthbender bullied him, convinced that tough love would jostle metalbending talent in him, and in retaliation he suspended her in a vortex a meter off the ground for an hour. Some couples had that thin-line-between-hate-and-love energy, but their dynamic was reminiscent of siblings more than anything else. And as an ex-girlfriend, who was better than Katara to evaluate the potentiality of a relationship with Aang?
That said, that didn't mean she would voluntarily seek Aang's romantic life as a viable topic for conversation. Which was how she started to understand why Aang was so fed up with the gossip. He must have been supremely uncomfortable to hear about his ex-girlfriend and best friend, fake or not.
"Aang," Zuko interrupted a detailed retelling of how On Ji was uniquely good at feeding Appa apples, "do you want to date this girl?"
Torn between inwardly giggling and screeching, Katara hunched her shoulders. To make matters worse Aang shared a commiserating look with her, both unwilling to open this conversation with Zuko .
Aang bit into a candied slice of mango. "Uh. She's nice."
Zuko jostled Appa's reins to dodge under a thick fog. "It's a yes or no question."
"Shehasaprettynoseandlikesmeditating," said Aang in one breath.
"...what?"
"She's engaged."
Zuko whistled.
"Good luck, buddy."
"Her fiancé is a jerk," Katara was compelled to add.
The men winced and she figured they had—understandably, for different reasons—forgotten she was here.
"You don't know that," Aang pointed out. "Zuko changed and Zuko was a bigger jerk."
Zuko looked insulted that he surpassed someone he didn't even know in a jerk contest. Katara snorted.
"Zuko was an enemy but he wasn't a bully."
"He tied you to a tree."
Zuko aggressively flew Appa higher. "Technically…" and then he trailed off because there were no technicalities to make the action of tying a girl to a tree less tying-to-a-tree-like.
She ignored him. "On Ji's boyfriend bent fire at you in school and tattled."
"He didn't firebend a village into ash or break into the Spirit Oasis. Sorry Zuko, love you, no offense."
Zuko appeared mildly offended.
Katara threw her hands up. "Are you defending the guy who's your competition?"
"It's not a competition!"
"It is if you like her."
Aang scratched his bald head above the midway point of his arrow. "I like her, but I don't like like her."
"It's okay to like her," said Zuko.
She felt a shift in an energy to something more reminiscent of the past: her and Zuko the level-headed oldest children of a ragtag team, watching with parental fondness over the rest.
She leaned forward to clasp a hand around Aang's. "I would tell her how I feel. She shouldn't be left with what ifs and neither should you."
Zaki nodded. "Even if you think it's impossible. Life's too short for that."
Unlike Zuko who flushed from neck up, color stained Aang's nose first and from there drifted to his cheeks.
"This is weird. I'm going to go glide around for a bit to make sure I didn't miss anything earlier." He jumped and hung below his glider, maintaining roughly the same distance ahead for a few minutes.
Katara cautiously peeked over the saddle. The trees were growing thicker and darker and the mountain peaks sharper. Suddenly they were swallowed in a shadow of a looming wall, not unlike the one around Ba Sing Se. Aang bent the clouds around them to camouflage them as they proceeded past the wall.
"Did we push him too much?" she asked Zuko.
"He's a teenager. He's not someone who needs to talk through everything. Give him some space."
Zuko understood Aang in ways she struggled to. When Aang had run off before the final battle with Ozai, it was Zuko who stopped her from chasing him.
More than making her envious it made her curious: was it a male thing? But shopping and talking things through helped Sokka. Though Sokka was a unique specimen of his own.
Likely, it was because of Aang and Zuko's shared burden to lead the world into an era of peace that afforded them unique insight into the other's psyche. If her interaction with Ty Lum had been a lesson, then it was one in which she was starting to see how leadership could be not only burdensome but isolating from loved ones.
She watched Zuko deftly swoop Appa below a thick layer of fog and pat the bison in compliments. One day he would be a good father.
Three heads popped in cartoonish succession over a giant banana tree leaf. Appa was safely sequestered in a grotto a five minute walk off a trail so rocky she doubted had been used as a walkway before the Metal Militia takeover. Faint pulsing lights in the distance broke through the gaps in the shrubbery.
The cave, she assumed.
The mountain air was thin and crisp, leaving a biting chill on her skin. They inched towards the cave's shadowy entrance, the rugged terrain unforgiving under their careful footsteps. Katara kept a hand on the waterskin hidden in the folds of her ao dai, and Zuko, Blue Spirit mask secured over his face, hands glowed just enough for them to distinguish from their surroundings. Each step they took was careful and measured.
The moon cast a pale light across the landscape, illuminating the craggy rocks and the gnarled trees that surrounded them. The wind howled through the mountain pass, and the trio slowed their breathing.
Crunch!
Katara dodged, water elongating from her waterskin.
"Just a leaf," muttered Zuko.
They proceeded to a towering tree providing ample foliage to hide in and close enough to view the ominous innards of this cave. True to tale, a wagon lingered near the entrance though it looked empty now. A lone figure patrolled the grounds.
Katara shifted to get a better glimpse.
Crack!
"Sorry," whispered Aang. "Twig."
The patrol's head snapped up and his eyes swung across the expanse of trees they stood in.
They held their breaths.
A tense few moments stretched into minutes. The patrol eventually resumed pacing across the entrance.
Fwoop !
"Can you guys please be quie—"
A sharp whistling noise drowned Katara's plea.
Flurries of movements ricocheted from the surrounding rocks. Two silhouettes appeared next to the patrol and the three descended on them in unison.
Aang immediately called forth columns, shooting them upwards in an earthy dance. The trees groaned, several ripped apart from the force. One column hit an assailant in a mid-bending form. The others dodged and flipped over the rumble.
Combining moisture from the fog lingering above and the water at her hip, her hands moved in a single fluid motion. A glittering wall of water sheared the ground as it turned to ice, freezing the second attacker in place.
It began to melt.
"What—"
"Firebender!" Flames shot out of Zuko's fingertips. The blaze igniting the night with color. The attacker unfroze himself from Katara's tundra and their flaming whips sliced the air.
She skidded backwards. Zuko and the firebender met in a dazzling display that could have been beautiful if not for the smoke and ash thickening around them. Aang conjured heavy gusts to deflect the infernos hurled their way.
Elemental fury echoed off the mountainside in a cacophony of nature's wrath. The combatants moved like a storm, their power snapping in a violent ballet of destruction. She wet her lip and tried to aid by slipping both her hands into parallel sweeps around and out. Half her water soaked the firebending assailant's next attack while the other half fizzled into steam. Aang jumped to launch an aerial wind assault.
This person was strong, mildly stronger than the usual stock of firebenders she dealt with but it was three on one. She swung her arms to yank any water on the brink of turning into steam back into cool sloshing liquid and prepared to aim it again.
Wait. Three on one?
No sooner than had the thought crossed her mind did a rustling sound erupt from behind her. The sound of liquid, but heavier, sharp and clanging.
"It's the metalbender!" she cried. Her hands moved frantically to finish her bending form.
"A couple of stragglers…" said a tinny, facetiously jovial voice. "And…the Avatar. The Fire Lord has you doing his bidding, eh? Expected nothing less from the coward."
As her water dagger materialized, Katara dodged. Moonlight shone from the elongating viscous silver, oscillating between liquid and solid form.
"We know who you are, Lee Wang!" Aang turned his attention from where Zuko dodged a billowing fire. "Where did you take my friends?"
His question was met with rancorous laughter.
Dangerously low on water, Katara prepared another attack in the form of ice shards. Just as her shoulders rose, a pained roar resonated from her left.
Her heart fell out of her chest. She pivoted to change the direction of her attack, nearly finished replanting her feet, and then—
Her flesh burned, silver goo crawling up her fingers, deadening them in a thick, hard casing.
"Katara!" Aang made a run for her. The earthbender they thought had been knocked out thrust a slab of rock at him. A massive boulder tore between them. Aang's shouts dissolved behind the sound of flesh meeting rock.
"Aang!" shouted Zuko. "Katara, no—"
" Look out! "
Fire and earth headed for Zuko at once. He spun to send a dense flare to send the firebender's attack into the wagon. It exploded in a rain of charred wood. But the earth became rock and it kept moving but Zuko was still swinging another arm out to avoid a second fireball. Her pulse ratcheted to a buzz.
Before Katara had known she was running she was already slamming into Zuko. They toppled into the ground and a sharp whip from his feet burnt the rock into oblivion. Zuko attempted to roll her over to shield her from the fallout.
It was too late. A stray chunk hit her in the spot above her right ear, where he had so gently placed a hand yesterday, where blood bubbled to the surface and all she could think was she didn't know her heart as well as she thought if she was still discovering new parts of it. She thought of flirtation under beautiful sakura trees and a man getting hit by lightning and Toph.
The sounds and explosions dimmed to a world far away. Zuko was yelling something at her, and then at Aang, and the metalbender tore the ground asunder, and the ground below split apart and they fell deep into the chasm below.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
Everything was swimming.
Zuko's scar went in and out of focus before it lifted completely off his face and turned into a butterfly.
"Twelve," Katara mumbled.
"You hit your head. Can you hear me alright?"
"Where...where are we?"
"Underground. I told Aang to go back to get the others but if he stayed to fight—" he hissed when she tried to move. "Don't move your hands. I'm going to try and pry it off."
Katara tried to do a simple bending from her place sprawled somewhere on hard ground. As it was, bending while laying down was a hazard. Gradually she also noted the minor problem of having metal stumps for appendages. It seemed her hands were out of commission for time being.
She groaned. "Are you going to hold my hands?"
"Just for a little bit, sorry." Nails clawed at her stumps. A ringing sound and a bellow of frustration later, Zuko erupted in a thread of bad words her mom would have disapproved of.
She tried to giggle. Everything was funny. "Why do you touch me so much?"
More scratching ensued in lieu of an answer.
Finally he said, "I'm sorry, I won't after this. Yes, keep them like that. Okay. This might hurt."
She felt a warm pulse writhe down her thumb. "Are you holding my hands?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to stay?"
"Yes."
"And you won't blast fire at me like you did in Ba Sing Se?"
"Uh, I am blasting fire, but to help you. If I can soften it down enough for you to wiggle your fingers—"
Something burned in the not pleasant way. She whimpered.
The sound of sparks rebounding off metal stopped abruptly. "Fuck. Did I hurt you?"
"You could never hurt me." She hiccuped. "Do I hurt you?"
"When you do stupid things like catching metal with your bare hands, yeah."
"I didn't want to hurt you. Sorry."
His voice softened. The sound of rustling. "I didn't mean it like that."
A grunt and an exasperated sigh of defeat. "These fuckers." Another pause. "I'll get us out of here, I promise. Just stay awake for me, yeah?"
Something jostled (not that Something, but something) and then scratchy fabric was being tucked under her head. She tried to wriggle her toes, her hips, and finally her shoulders. Zuko muttered a string of apologies as his arm wound under her waist and lifted her enough to smooth out whatever he had placed under her. The scratchiness didn't leave but it was an upgrade from lying on gravel.
If she squinted hard enough she could outline a band of turtle-ducks walking across her vision. "I would save you again even if it hurt you."
"Agni, Katara. I owe you my life. You defeat Azula and saved me so many times that I've lost count. Hurt me a hundred times if you want. A thousand. There will always be a piece of me that's yours to do with as you please."
A staccato beat unspooled through her body. "Your scar is so pretty."
"My scar?" His voice was far. Like she was hearing him through a tank of water.
"The one on your face is a butterfly. And the one on your chest," she lifted her stumpy hands above her, squinting to force the lumpy metal to unveil its secrets, "is like a star."
A hammer pounded away at her temples. Her eyes felt heavy.
"No, no, keep talking. Stay awake. You're concussed, I can't see a way out but Aang—"
"And your tattoo. It's nice."
"Thank you."
"I want to trace it with my fingers." She rolled the words around in her mouth. "Color it in with my tongue."
A heavy unreadable silence occupied the gaps. When he spoke, his voice was a caress away.
"That's nice, Katara."
He sounded like he was out of air. That was no good. She moved to sit up so she could bend water around his chest and ultimately realized that would end in failure.
"I sorry," she mumbled. "I'm a metalbender."
"Katara." His voice was pleading. "Don't do this. Katara...Katara...!"
"I miss home," she lolled over. Candle smoke, charred wood, herbs. Dragon bush tea.
Katara looked at the mouth she met dozens of times and the grey eyes that used to be the moons in her dreams. In a choice between work and love, she would always choose love.
The tragedy was she didn't love him the way she wanted. Nothing was familiar anymore: the rapidly changing Southern Water Tribe, her brother's increasing ambitions and commitment to Suki that made him too busy to worry with her over their tribe's loss of culture and traditions, and even her own father setting off to the North every chance he got. And now she has travelled so far and wide that in her mental notes of every city and village, none were home.
Aang pleaded with her. He moved quickly through the stages of grief, a minute for denial, then anger at himself, and hours later eyes full of tears, emerging from the Southern Air Temple in changed clothes. He came to implore her one last time, and she wasn't sure what else she could say, or what there was to say.
"Can you honestly say I am yours?" she asked. "That you look at me and you see the other half of your soul?"
"Does love have to be like that?" And that meant their's wasn't.
"Don't you want it to be?"
He swallowed. "You were my forever girl." And though she had started the conversation, his use of the past tense wounded her. Smiles had stopped lighting his eyes for so long. She could not look at him anymore without remembering what it was like to be someone's everything and slowly realize their world grew bigger than you could ever hold. " I'll take you back to the Southern Water Tribe."
She shook her head and held out a letter with a broken red wax seal. An official letter from the Fire Nation stating the terms of her ambassadorship. Zuko was taking official steps to disband the colonies, and in a private letter had expressed excruciating stress in wading into new proverbial waters. 'It would be nice to have a familiar face around,' he wrote. 'And you would be the most competent person in the room.' 'Including you?' she had written back teasingly, but she would not admit how she poured over the word familiar in her rereads, feeling a strange pull that perhaps what she needed was duty. Order. A place to root herself, if at least through a two-year term.
"Two months there four times a year, one month out of session in between." She chewed her lip. "I already accepted."
"I'll love you forever. I hope you find everything that you're looking for. Someone that takes care of you when you forget to."
"I don't need that," she replied, but she wished him well too, and told him they had been pretty great together despite it all, and he laughed.
And then she spent the most awkward trip on Appa in her entire life because he insisted on depositing her in the Fire Nation himself, but she knew everything would be okay when his tears subsided and he asked, ask they neared the port, " Was it the baldness?" and she scoffed as he added an additional prayer hoping she found someone with glorious hair and half his sense of humor.