As Katara lay in the wide feather bed with Zuko that night, her body may have been resting, but her mind was racing, still unsatisfied with Zuko's hesitation and upset with Aang. As is wont to happen, Katara's dreams were the stage upon which her inner conflicts resolved themselves.
She walked down a moonlit path, her feet passing unscathed among the brambles and stones. She came upon a clearing, where Zuko waited for her. A figure stepped from behind him, and she recognized Aang, though older than she had last seen him, of a height with Zuko and with the shade of a beard along his more chiseled jaw.
Katara stepped into the clearing, and her two men retreated to opposite sides of the trees. She caught herself staring, though neither man seemed to bother. Aang had grown into quite a figure, tall and tight, though Zuko was shorter by half a head and compensated for it with more bulging muscles. The crown of the Fire Lord rested on Zuko's nicely combed hair, the signet that was usually etched in clay now alive with burning life, yet his hair remained unsinged. Above Aang's bald head circled four halos, interweaving and rotating, made of the four elements. They regarded her passively with dulled eyes, two grey, one golden, and one scarred.
She stepped forward again, knowing what must happen, and calm filled her. When she was between the two Aang's shade pressed his heel to the ground, and spires of rock erupted around her. Her wrists were clenched and held apart, as were her ankles. Aang's hands lifted, as did her body, until she was lying above the cold ground, splayed for her introspection, unafraid of what she might find. Some deep part of her wondered if she had ever been afraid to find out at all.
The men approached her, and even though her eyes faced only Aang, she could feel their tension, taste their eagerness, and her primal hunger started again. Aang's tattooed hands lay calmly on her shoulders as he gently pressed his lips to her mouth, and, though her motion was limited, her head tilted and rose as it had before. At the same time, she felt Zuko's hands rest lightly on her wide hips, calmly waiting with simmering attention.
Katara thought Aang tasted different than he had before, though in a dream she couldn't be sure. He felt… old. As she worked her tongue around his, she felt his years, the century he had lived in his own mind, the years of training to kill a single man. That kill, that effort to take another life, left him weak on the outside, like his flesh was spongy to her nibbling teeth, but inside he was pure, his soul still rock hard despite the abuse and horrible thing he had been forced to do.
Zuko was another case entirely. Although his shade was no more forceful than Aang's, when the two switched places his lips seemed to delve into Katara's skin, like a wildfire eating through dry brush. Even his hands left points of tingly sensation on the sides of her face, like he was bleeding life, and love, and hunger into her, and her body was soaking it up effortlessly. The kiss felt no better or worse than Aang's, but it was different, not pure strength within, but not damaged outside. He felt – whole.
With the certainty only a dreamer can have, she knew this would end soon. As all dreamers are, she was correct. The two men she loved kissed her quickly once more, first Aang and then Zuko. Aang's mouth was cold, saltier than seawater, yet burning acridly against her lips. Purging some voice told her. Indeed his essence was too strong, too pure, tearing away at the insides of her cheeks until it had eaten holes into her face and wafted away, suddenly gaseous, to rejoin whatever perfect hell it had fallen from. When Zuko kissed her, however, her body pressed up into him despite herself. While Aang's kiss had eaten through her and departed for higher realms, Zuko's lifeforce wormed its way within her, finding holes and passageways unused for eons, infusing her body, her soul, with a darkness that she craved.
She found herself turned about, eyes to a stormy heaven as her two lovers bent over her. While Aang's forehead was creased in mild dissatisfaction, there was hunger, and triumph, in Zuko's eyes. His scar glistened with a light that had no source. Zuko raised balled fists, and streams of flame erupted from them. He drew them across her taut skin, carefully, almost lovingly, and she split like a roast whalepig. She screamed, but heard no sound, realizing she had only thought the scream. Across her thighs were two clean cuts. From the wounds seeped thick black goo, and she knew, again with a dreamer's certainty, that this was what Zuko's essence had looked like.
Now Aang bent further, and glowing waters coated his hands like gloves. When he laid them on her steaming wounds, she really did scream. The purifying healing was so strong she felt her eyes water, somewhere that was called real world, and she felt some other pair of arms she did not have tighten around a steamy warm torso. When Aang withdrew, her skin was repaired, dark pulsating bruises the only hint at what lay beneath the surface.
Zuko raised his fists once more, and this time the parting of her skin was akin to the parting of her lips, the sweet dark juice that bubbled up steaming to the surface like water in a hotspring. Again Aang responded, closing up the wounds. She tried to keep her face passive, like his, but failed, a single tear of the black liquid running slowly down the left side of her face. When Zuko stepped up again, she saw the black tear in the creases of his scar.
That was when she knew this dark balm for what it was: her soul. And Zuko bled the same as her. This time, when his caressing flames opened her from shoulder to shoulder, and Aang began to bend, she spoke for the first time, the last time. "No."
Aang's shade looked startled to see her speak, but then a smile split his caring face and he nodded, once, before fading into mist. The stony spires slowly receded into the ground, leaving her on the cold floor. The wound – no, exit – in her chest still steamed, and slowly the bubbling black soul spread, her olive skin splitting as she burst her shell, until a façade lay forgotten amidst the stones and brambles, skin thin yet heavy as steel, and Katara stood.
Her Zuko stood, smiling, and he reached up to remove the hair pin. His thick hair tumbled down, longer than was possible anywhere but a dream. From behind the curtain of hair peaked fingers, dark, like hers were now dark, yet pulsing red. Her own skin, or was it a soul, wavered in shades of blue, any stroke of color ready to swallow its neighbor and force it to bend to its tide. She had half a mind to subdue this fiery Zuko similarly.
As their shadow selves stepped closer, she held his cheek in a slender, flowing hand, their touching skin burning purple, fizzing like lightning. Sparks filled the air as her hand fell, making the shadow Zuko moan. The moan did not cease as she pressed her glowing lips to his. She felt her insides crackle with purple, no stomach or lungs in the way of Zuko's invasive tongue. He filled every inch of her, and she desperately wrapped her limbs about him until they were an amalgam of purple, lightning shooting off in all directions as their skin rubbed together. Katara felt her insides boiling under the intense passion that rolled off Zuko, but even that could not compare to when he bit her lip. Like when her soul had bubbled out of her skin, she again felt the pressure to explode, only now across her entire form, and this time there was no skin to split.
As Katara held tighter and tighter to Zuko's pulsing body, his hands began to roam, until they fell to the ground. At once the hard stone split around them, geysers of lava erupting into the suddenly steamy air as their passion grew. As Katara's legs tightened around Zuko's burning soulflesh, waves crashed through the trees, sizzling into steam as they reached the flames. With a primal scream that came from both throats and none at all, the barrier between Katara and Zuko dissipated, and the waves burned while the lava evaporated.
Katara awoke with beaded sweat on her forehead – Zuko was a furnace. As her eyes wandered she noticed a splotch of dry bedding surrounded by drenched sheets; she had waterbent many of the containers of water onto them in her sleep, it would seem, and Zuko's heat had kept them dry. Katara realized their legs were entwined, keeping them within inches. She untangled herself and withdrew hastily, not wanting Zuko to get the wrong idea. Katara knew how stupid that sounded as she thought it. How much had they kissed last night? How far had their fingers roamed? And a little proximity would give the wrong idea?
As her hand pulled back, though, she heard his scratchy voice, "I'm sorry, Katara… I just, I just want it to be right." Her heart sunk. She had felt the same way the night Aang approached her, just before they flew for the heart of the Fire Nation. But she had had to console him. That was who she was. No, who she had been. This time, at least for Zuko's sake, she would wait.
So she slipped her hand back around his tight abs, resting her fingers on his warm skin. In a whispery voice, she replied "It will be."