The little fishing boat bobbed on the waves as it made its slow way past the Gates of Azulon and veered south to one of the larger islands in the archipelago. It was a sailing craft, crewed by a few last-minute hires off the docks whose only instructions had been to go slowly and not disturb the passengers.
They of course all knew who the passengers were. Nobody had a scar like that except the Prince. And the Water Princess was too distinct to mistake for any other Water Tribe girl. What they were doing down in the bunk room was a topic of much speculation - all of it chortled in undertones into the wind, because the Prince kept coming up on deck. The tension never left his stiff back and grim face, so it was generally agreed that nothing too interesting was being accomplished down there.
At least, no proud victories to honor the Fire Nation. Perhaps the Water Princess was a deft hand at damping the Fire Prince's ardor. It was a more entertaining prospect than the notion that she was just sleeping all day.
Although, whatever they were up to on this little ferry ride, it was clearly not above board. Men who loitered about the docks looking for last minute work knew a thing or two about sketchy behavior. And this was it.
Zuko watched their destination grow from a spot in the distance to a looming jut of jungle and tried not to think about the last sailing craft he had felt creak and sway beneath his feet. It felt surprisingly good to be back at sea. The wind blew through him, clearing away the fog of his long weeks in the capital. Standing at the prow of a ship on its way to a destination he craved filled him with promise and pride and resolve.
He had been unable to sleep, though not for lack of trying. The morning had been tiring and the coming night was sure to be long and demanding. But every time he went below and tried to settle in, he could not stop stealing glances at Katara where she curled up in a hammock with her face so soft in exhausted slumber. She'd pulled the tie from her hair so her dark waves curled around her cheeks and ears, occasionally tickling her lips and nose so they scrunched up until she finally raised a leaden hand to rub them away.
Zuko only barely thought of brushing her hair back himself with the lightest touch of his fingertips. He dismissed the notion immediately because it would be deeply inappropriate to touch her while she was sleeping, even innocently. Much more inappropriate than simply letting his eyes slit open so he could watch her instead of sleeping himself.
It filled him with a tremendous sense of rightness, the sight of her sleeping. As if he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do, with the ally he was supposed to be with. And that certainty was so invigorating, he kept having to go back above and breathe the whipping wind for a while.
They steered into the harbor as the sun was beginning to set behind that skyfull of clouds and, apparently roused by the changing rhythm of the seas, Katara emerged. Her eyes were bright and her wolftail was freshly tied. She came to stand beside him as the crew was tying off. As if her presence had been much-anticipated, the rain began again, a drizzle easily blocked by a hood. Zuko pulled his up, but Katara only turned her face up to it, letting it speckle her until her skin looked like velvet.
He looked away before she could open her eyes and catch him staring. "It's a short hike to the estate but we need to take the woods to avoid any witnesses."
"Didn't we come here with a ship full of witnesses?"
"They can talk about us all they want," Zuko said, lowering his voice still more. "We're obvious insurrectionists. It's our allies we have to protect. There are dozens of estates on this island. It will be difficult for anyone tracking us to figure out exactly where we were going."
"Good," Katara said, wiping a hand down her face and pulling all the tiny droplets away in a twirl. Her eyes, when she opened them, were shockingly blue. "Let's hurry up and go there."
Zuko led the way down the gangplank and then straight past the village into the woods. The climb was arduous and circuitous and they ended up making the last ascent to the Hito estate in full darkness. The thick cloud cover blocked out the light of the moon, but the rain stopped for a while at least. Zuko spotted the lantern that was his signal and crept into the stables, Katara on his heels.
A grizzled man with one eye waited there with a giant eel-hound already saddled and standing more patiently than the attendant. He nearly jumped out of his skin when they materialized before him.
"Ag-ni love ya," he choked, hurriedly bowing and mumbling apologies.
"There were supposed to be two mounts," Zuko said.
"The gelding tore a dewclaw this morning, sir. He's laid up." The attendant scratched the saddled beast behind the ear - which twisted forward in a seemingly pleased way. "Cudi can carry two, though. She's strong."
"I've never actually ridden one of these anyway," Katara said quietly as she reached out to pat the scaly hide of the creature's shoulder. "It's probably better we ride together."
That wasn't the point. There had been an agreement and a plan and, even if Katara couldn't have ridden solo, it would have been helpful to have a second mount so they could switch and stay fresh... but there wasn't time for any of that now.
Zuko huffed and gave the attendant a parting annoyed look before taking the reins to lead the eel-hound out. He mounted in front, helped haul Katara up behind him, lit a flicker of fire to reference his compass, and they were off.
.
.
"Pretty good guy?"
Sokka hadn't seen Aang get this angry over anything before. The kid was scowling in fury, little eddies of wind gusting off him to whip sparks from the fire. Iroh, unnoticed, altered his breathing and the hot flying cinders cooled before they could settle and scorch.
"When I met Zuko," Aang shouted, "he had captured Katara on Kyoshi Island and tied her up! His soldiers started fires in the village! She told him she was the Avatar to protect me, and then he chased her all the way to Gao Ling, not because he had some cute crush, but because he was hunting me."
Aang flung an arm through the air. Everyone's clothes fluttered.
"At the Eastern Air Temple, nothing had changed! He helped Azula capture us, kept us imprisoned on the ship, and handed us all over to the Fire Lord! Sokka, he gave you that stupid-looking haircut and put you in so much danger at the Boiling Rock! You were starving when we rescued you! Most of all, and I don't know why I need to repeat this, Katara is his slave! I don't understand at all how you guys can rationalize this and joke about him and act like he's this pretty good guy after all the evil stuff he's done!"
Sokka winced. He had already put in his 'defending Zuko' time for the week... month... year...
But at the same time... he had insisted that today was the day to face facts. And that meant he had to face a few, too.
"All totally true," he said, heaving a tense sigh, "but you're just looking at one side of the iceberg, here-"
"Oh yeah, Sokka? What's the other side of the Katara-is-a-slave iceberg?" Aang threw his arms up. Behind him, the curtain of rain did a wild shimmy. "Let me guess! Is it that he wants to let her go and just can't? That's not an excuse! It doesn't make it better!"
"No, on that one, I'm completely with you. Until Katara is free, there's nothing Zuko could do or say or experience in his childhood that would make me be his friend. I'm not budging on that, and telling his mom-" He tipped his head meaningfully toward the worn woman who was obviously having a pretty rough life and whose thin shoulders were presently slightly hunched as if enduring an unseen onslaught. "-about the less-horrible things he's done isn't a signal that I'm suddenly ready to see past that. So do me a favor and dial it back down to an eleven, wouldja?"
Aang frowned at him, but he followed Sokka's gesture to Ursa and, very slowly, his fists at his sides unclenched. The stormy look on his face lost its thunder.
"Now I can't speak to most of the stuff you talked about being as I wasn't there..."
"If I may," Iroh volunteered genially, "perhaps I might offer some insight."
Sokka gave him a 'by all means, sir' sort of a wave.
"It really kind of was the crush." The old man shrugged, round-eyed up at Aang. "I tried more than once to point out what a weird coincidence it was that an air nomad would suddenly reappear at the same time as the Avatar. It was pretty obvious, you know!"
"It was so obvious," Sokka sighingly piled on. "I even told him to his face that my sister wasn't the Avatar and he refused to believe me. He was sure it was a trick to throw him off."
"Zuko held onto the hope that Katara might be the Avatar like a lifeline. In no small part because he wanted to be chasing a beautiful girl!" Iroh smiled at Ursa, bright-eyed and holding up his hands in a 'picture it' gesture. "Finally! There had never been a girl before!"
Ursa, Sokka noticed, only squinted back at him. Iroh went on, a little sorrow creeping in as he talked. His focus shifted back to Aang.
"You must understand, I spent five years trying to interest Zuko in anything other than the Avatar. Anything from his life before, anything he had ever seemed to enjoy. It was as if that boy had burned away almost entirely."
Aang's angry expression faded to something closer to irritation as his compassion reasserted itself. He let out a long breath and sat back down, folding his arms over his chest again and frowning into the fire. Iroh went on quietly.
"And the young man who was left only existed to train and prepare himself to face a destiny that seemed, for five years, like it would never come."
"Of course it would never come," Ursa hissed. "He sent him to capture the Avatar. He may as well have sent him to gather up the stars. Zuko was never supposed to succeed."
Her rage was so quiet, so closely controlled, and as quickly as it showed itself, it slipped back beneath the surface. For Sokka, who had seen Katara stew for days about stuff before finally unleashing it all in a rage-lecture, Ursa's restraint sent weird prickles up the back of his neck.
"Anyway," he said awkwardly into the silence, forcing his stare back to Aang, who was peering at Ursa with a similarly unsettled expression. He quickly turned his frown on Sokka. "I feel like I've gotta remind you that Zuko never meant for me to actually reach the Boiling Rock. Remember? We all agreed we were gonna escape in those first few days before I got shipped off? Because he came down to the brig and warned me that the prison I was going to would be tough to get out of again?"
"Yeah," Toph said airily. "After Twinkle Toes tipped him off about my metalbending. I remember that." She grinned hugely in Ursa's direction. "I was sabotaging the ship most of the way here. Apparently Fanboy suspected the entire machine crew and got a little crazy flinging around the accusations."
"I do think the eye-twitch was full-time by then," Sokka shrugged, "but when he found out it was Toph, all he did was warn me to keep a lid on it. Which was just..." He raised his hands, then dropped them on his knees. Grudgingly, peering a little hopelessly at Aang, he pressed on. "It's just... It's always more complicated than just good or evil with the jerkbender. My stupid haircut is actually a perfect example...
"I know it seems like it was just pointless cruelty or some bid to hurt or embarrass me and the Water Tribe that special extra bit, but Zuko didn't cut my hair because I was a prince. He cut my hair to make me a prince - and by extension to make Katara even more a princess - in the eyes of the Fire Nation. All these people who know who I am? They-"
"Yeah, all seven of them," Toph tossed in with a grin.
"Oh ha ha. That's just the people who recognize me before Aang; they pretty much all know me. You're just jealous that nobody here knows or cares who the Blind Bandit even is, pint-size."
"Actually, it's kind of nice to take a break from my adoring public. Just listening to you struggle with your new fame and act all prince-stuffy-britches is exhausting enough."
"Anyway," Sokka said, rolling his eyes back to Aang. "You've seen how people treat me here. I'm not even their prince, but it's like..."
"Fear and respect," Iroh suggested quietly.
"The reverence of the humble for the mighty," Ursa offered even more quietly.
The Fire Nation was so weird.
"Sure, I guess..." Sokka shrugged. "When I tell them about what the Water Tribe will or won't do or does or doesn't believe, it's not just Sokka, Southern Tribe guy running his mouth." He sat straighter, deepened his voice. "It's Prince Sokka, embodiment of the Water Tribe."
Toph snickered. And she should, because it was silly. Sokka meant it to be. Iroh cracked a rueful smile. Ursa did not. She only went on watching Sokka with something like empathy, as if being reshaped into a symbol was a thing she knew a lot about.
Aang rolled his eyes, uncharacteristically surly. "Embodying the Water Tribe with stupid-looking hair."
"The Water Tribe is just about defeated, you know."
Sokka might have felt guilty for speaking sharply to the kid any other day - but today was the day he had decided they had to confront it. All of it. Today was the day they had to go.
Aang, predictably, got that guilty look that hung around him like rain clouds.
"Not your fault; just a fact. The North has fallen. The South is decimated - Katara is the only waterbender we have. All that's left defending the Water Tribe is my dad's fleet," he enunciated, "and those ice-holes hiding out under the mountain."
He paused for a second. Let that sink in for all of them.
"So yeah, my hair looks stupid - because it's a mark of shame and defeat. It's a mark of everything that the Fire Nation has done to my people. A total stranger can look at me and see that everything isn't going super great." He shrugged, shook his head. "Zuko could have done that to me without a word or a thought. But he didn't. He took the time to pace around my cell and tell me what being a prince meant. What a prince had to think about. I'm not sure how much of this he planned to happen - because planning is not that guy's strong suit - but he put a weapon in my hands when he did that."
It sometimes seemed like Zuko couldn't stop himself from putting weapons into Sokka's hands.
"Because now, yeah, I look like a dweeb, but when I can stand up straight and meet people's eyes anyway? When I can be fair-minded and helpful to all these Fire Nation villagers - who, sure, fine, Aang, I get it, they're just ordinary people - when I can do all that, and I'm emblematic of the Water Tribe, I'm showing these people the pride and resilience and generosity of the Water Tribe."
Aang was watching him with that conflicted, almost-stricken look he got sometimes. Sokka held out his hands to either side.
"I'd also like to be showing them the justified rage of the Water Tribe but, you know, we're on a time crunch. Maybe next visit." He turned his eyes to Iroh, saw the gravity there. "We have to leave the Fire Nation. Today."
And there, finally, he saw it. Iroh inclined his head. He had his grown-up ally. These kids were going down.
Toph shuffled her feet. "Fine, Snoozles, jeez, you didn't have to guilt-trip us out of the country."
"Apparently I did. But I'm not above doing what works, so here we are."
.
.
The ride to the first airfield made it immediately clear to Katara that sitting in back was not acceptable. She silently cursed that other eel-hound for tearing his dewclaw, whatever that meant, because his absence had left her in what turned out to be an absolutely intolerable situation.
Firstly, she could hardly see over Zuko's shoulder. Cudi the eel-hound ran so fast it was impossible to brace for changes in direction without being able to see the terrain ahead and Katara had to hold on tight with her arms looped around Zuko's torso. She tried to just grip her own wrist but it was impossible not to get pitched off the saddle without grabbing hold of him when there was a sudden jerk or lurch. Under her hands, she felt the muscular shape of him through his humble tunic, the firm ridges of his pectorals, the hard ripple of his abdominal muscles as his lower body flexed to match the movement of their steed.
It dragged her inexorably to recall other rhythmic flexing she had known those muscles to do under her hands in the dark.
His scent did not help. It wasn't anything overwhelming, just the well-washed boy smell Zuko had had since the royal cruiser, overlaid now with clean sweat... but in the same way it had teased her that day in the hot spring with memories of earlier times, it teased her now. Persistent and welcoming and stronger near his neck.
Undoubtedly the worst part of riding in back, though, was the way her thighs kept pressing snug behind his, spread on either side of the saddle - and the way, when the eel-hound barreled down a steep slope, her crotch would occasionally brush or rub against Zuko's backside. By the time they reached the airfield, Katara was breathing hard and tingling between her trembling legs.
Zuko, meanwhile, was all business. He leapt down and tied the eel-hound to a tree and then began peering through the bushes at the airfield. Katara, blessedly unseen, peeled herself off the saddle and half-fell down to the ground, barely catching herself on her wobbly legs. She glared at the vague shape of his stupid back as he very quietly parted the leaves to get a look.
If he had noticed her touches, they appeared to have had no effect on him at all. It made Katara want to shove his big dumb muscly back so he fell in those bushes. Or... grab the front of his tunic and yank it so he was at least disheveled. Yeah.
Not so much to bare his skin, which had felt so hot and hard through the fabric under her hands...
Katara shook the thoughts off and pulled her cowl up to cover her nose and mouth, then set her mind to scurrying in the shadows and remaining unseen.
They waited for a patrol of guards to pass, then hustled silently aboard the closest airship in one of a few rows of airships. Zuko led the way to the engine room - which was good because Katara had not really been able to picture any of this from her one look at the schematic and would probably have gotten lost. Without speaking, he indicated the targets - the parts that would be expensive and time-consuming to replace - and Katara pulled water from the canteen she wore strapped to her back and froze them, split them, crushed them. She sent her water down pipes to difficult-to-find places and broke them with choking swells of ice to leave fine cracks. She weakened ropes and chains and bolts so they would break unexpectedly. She was careful, methodical, hid the damage well.
When she was finished, she turned to find Zuko watching her. He had, in fact, been staring at her the entire time she worked. There was a low red light here in the engine room, so Katara could very clearly see the warm yellow of his eyes. His mouth was covered by his own cowl, but his eyes were wide and soft, like he was beholding a wondrous sight and committing it to memory.
It made Katara feel two intense feelings at the same time. Deep, furious annoyance dominated - because he had no business looking at her like that ever and it wasn't like anything she was doing tonight was new or surprising.
And at the same time, that hungry pulse beat with desperate force between her thighs. It dragged her toward him so powerfully she actually took a step. One step closer to slamming her body against his and dragging him to the deck. One step closer to making him feel the thrill-stoked craving now pounding through her.
Instead, she scowled at him and snapped up her hands in an irritable What are you looking at? gesture. Zuko jerked back an inch like she'd taken a swing at him and, blinking, turned away.
Then they crept to the next ship and she did it all again.
Once he was sure she knew where to go and what to do, Zuko sneaked off to watch for guards and, if necessary, create distractions that would draw them to the far end of the airfield so Katara would not be discovered.
And she was not. She carried on, quiet and methodical and thorough down the rows. She wrecked her quiet destruction inside and used the intermittent rain to stitch icy needles through steel and fabric balloons, creating so many leaks it would be impossible to find and fix them all. She did not miss one ship.
By the time she was done, she was... kind of tired. This was so much more bending than she was used to, and far more demanding than just leading healers around in the night. But that wasn't a problem; she could rest on the ride to the next airfield.
In fact, it was probably for the best if the edge of her energy was dulled down. Maybe if she was tired, she wouldn't have the same... discomfort... she had had on the last ride.
Katara whistled the night-thrush signal for Zuko to meet her back where the eel-hound still stood tied. She waited in the clearing for only a moment before he emerged from the bushes with the faintest rustle, a darker shape welling up out of the night.
The clouds parted and the light of the nearly-full moon fell on him in spots thrown through the canopy overhead. Moonlight glazed his face in pure white light. For a second, Katara felt a sweet, terrible rush of familiarity as he came toward her. His shape, his scent in the dark, the way he moved, that pristine light illuminating the pale clarity of his one cheek and the glossy rippled darkness of the other.
A thought flitted at the periphery of her mind, so soft and light that it was easy for Katara to shoo it away. It didn't belong here. Not anymore.
Outwardly, she only frowned at Zuko as he came to stand before her, stopping just within arm's reach.
"We need to hurry," he said, his voice coming low through his cowl. "This took a little longer than I expected. We've gotta pick up the pace if we're going to get through the other two airfields tonight."
He untied the reins and started climbing up into the saddle. Katara braced her fists on her hips and tried to set his head on fire with her glare.
"You mean I've got to pick up the pace," she whisper-huffed as she climbed up after him.
"That's not what I mean!"
"I didn't see you doing any sabotage back there."
"I was distracting the guards!" He was silent for a moment as she settled in behind him. "But... they were being pretty negligent. They never even spotted me."
"What were you even gonna do if I wasn't here?"
Zuko reined the eel-hound around and set off at a fast pace. "Blasting jelly, probably."
"Oh right!" Katara whisper-snapped as they took a hard turn and she had to grab around his chest again. "That new quiet blasting jelly I've heard so much about."
She could feel him growling where her hands were planted against his ribs. "Fine. Yes. I would've only been able to hit one airfield before an alarm went up and the others got cleared out or improved security."
"Hmph. We're putting all this effort into being sneaky and without me you would have just blown up one airfield and called it a night."
"What do you want me to say?" he whisper-snarled over his shoulder. "When you're with me, incredible things become possible. That's not my fault."
Katara didn't fire back, too stunned by the warm pleasure she felt hearing him admit it out loud like that. She swiftly shut the thought down and focused on how aggravating he was, but the warmth lingered and was swiftly joined with other, less pure heats.
The second leg of the journey was just as bad as the first. The eel-hound had to swim some miles to the next island and the pull of the waves meant Katara had to hold onto Zuko even tighter, pressing her chest fully against the firm, warm plain of his back. She even had to press her cheek against his shoulder at one point, and the scent of the damp fabric pulled her like the moon pulls the tide to drag her mouth there - just for a second. Just to fill her senses with the warm, rich scent of him.
She immediately felt so very incredibly stupid. What was she doing? Nothing had changed. Just because she had to be close to him now didn't mean he was any less the jerk who had betrayed her and been so awful for months. Just because he was being good now didn't mean he wasn't still that same jerk.
After that, she held her head away or jabbed at him with her chin, hoping to make him just a little uncomfortable. When they got to the second airfield, she found she had plenty of energy and appetite for destruction.
.
.
Aang put his heels on the rock he was sitting on and hugged his knees to his chest. Now that his anger had passed, he was thinking, uncomfortably, about the Avatar State. About how, if his chakra hadn't been blocked, he would almost certainly have slipped into the Avatar State moments ago in his anger over... the thing... between Katara and Zuko.
...which was apparently way more of a thing than he had thought it was...
It was over, though. It had to be over. She'd been so furious with him, had seemed almost to hate him. She would never get back together with him!
...would she?
The thought filled Aang with powerful emotions, just barely restrained. A dammed river of anguish that could flatten villages if the dam should fail.
It was a lucky thing the dam couldn't fail right now.
The last time Aang had entered the Avatar State, he had destroyed so much of the Southern Air Temple. He'd come to in the wreckage and had to start mourning all over again - not just over what his absence had allowed to happen, but over the damage he had done in his rage and pain to the sacred ruins that were all that remained of his people and his culture.
If that had happened here, he almost certainly would have killed everyone in this cave.
Maybe it was best if he never opened that chakra. Maybe such terrible power didn't belong in his hands. Certainly, he didn't want to let go of his attachment to Katara, and if the Avatar state was too dangerous, well, then that seemed like a win-win!
Except... there was the fate of the world to consider. There was the Water Tribe...
Aang felt terrible about Sokka and Katara's people. It wasn't as extreme as what had been done to the Air Nomads, but it wasn't that far off. He had to stop the Fire Nation from destroying the Water Tribe, it was his responsibility as Avatar and his duty as Sokka's friend and Katara's... hopefully-one-day-more-than-friend-but-friend-for-now.
...assuming she didn't reconcile with Zuko...
...which, there was no way she would!
...so... maybe the wisest course was to do what Sokka said, go help the guys in the resistance base under the mountain. Maybe he wouldn't even need the Avatar State to help Katara's people. Then, when he got back, after he'd done his Avatar thing and saved the Water Tribe, she'd have to see him differently. Not just her student. Not just her friend. Not just a sweet little guy, but a hero.
Maybe then, when he'd shown her he wasn't just a little kid, she would be ready to love him in the way he longed for. The forever way.
"How about it, Aang?" Sokka asked at length. "Are you ready to go save the resistance?"
He had the usual reassuring warmth in his eyes, but also a hint of that hard confidence he'd spoken with before. Aang understood. Sokka had been trying to get them to leave the Fire Nation all week, sometimes with direct demands, sometimes with subtle coaxing. Aang had sidestepped all of it. But now he found himself in a carefully built corner Sokka had been backing him into this whole conversation. There was no evading this anymore. They had to go.
And now, Aang saw a way that stepping away from Katara would actually take him closer to her. He let go of his legs and crossed them before him, sat up straight and balanced.
"I'm ready."
"Great!" Sokka said, popping up to his feet and busying himself. "I'll repack the bags. Uh, Mrs.- Lady? Ursa?-"
"Just Ursa," she said with some force. "Please."
"Ursa, I want to leave you with some food and stuff, and you're of course welcome to our cave..."
He went on chatting happily as he stuffed things into bags, and Aang watched the care-worn woman watch him and nearly smile.
Aang knew in theory about mothers. He knew, of course, that an Air Nomad woman had given birth to him more than a hundred years ago and that she had, in the Air Nomad way, passed his care to the monks at the male temple. He had a vague sense of gratitude for her giving him life, but he didn't feel any particular bond to her - not like he felt to Monk Giatso or any of his friends. This was by design. The power of a parental bond could make it difficult to transcend and achieve enlightenment.
So Aang didn't entirely get Sokka and Toph's instant reaction to discovering this woman was Zuko's mother. He didn't really see how it mattered so much apart from the crazy odds of running into her, why Sokka would suddenly start talking about Zuko now like he was an annoying relation instead of the ruthless, domineering adversary he really was.
What Aang did understand - or, more accurately, what he had subconsciously sensed instantly when he met the gentle yellow eyes of this woman as she came in out of the rain - was a sense of kinship. He had wanted to cheer her up and had felt in his heart that her sorrow needed to be alleviated. When he had been angry, she had been afraid. Silently, stiffly frozen where she sat. And that had felt so terribly wrong...
But it had nothing at all to do with Zuko. To Aang, Zuko was not much removed from the Fire Lord. He had faced them both while chained and helpless. Zuko had loomed over him in the brig and snarled his seething rage. Ozai had only gloated in that special Avatar prison under the palace, smirking and smugly self-satisfied. Of the two, Zuko had been more frightening.
...so it was strange to think that the man who had seemed on the brink of violence was the one who had had a terrible act of violence done against him - by the man who had seemed so calm. It was unsettling in the extreme to think that Zuko had been a different person before. That one event could change him so completely from the boy Iroh described - a boy who Ursa had clearly loved in the deep, unconditional way that Aang knew (theoretically) mothers loved their children. Unsettling and horrifying and tragic that one act of cruelty could destroy a normal person and leave him with nothing but anger inside him.
Only... Aang knew that wasn't really true. From the way Sokka and Toph and Iroh talked about him, Zuko was brave and loyal and had a strong sense of fairness. He owed his loyalty to his father - another parental bond Aang only understood in theory - but still found ways to give Sokka and Toph a chance to fight back.
Which was kind of weird, coming from a guy who had snarled at Aang about mercy being weakness.
...no... he'd snarled that he'd been taught that mercy was weakness.
"If it might help, I could carry a message to Princess Katara," Ursa said quietly now, and Aang gladly abandoned his uncomfortable line of thinking. "It seems to me that... I am needed in the palace."
"That would be terribly dangerous," Iroh said at once. "You have avoided notice out on the roads, but I do not believe your luck will hold if you place yourself directly in the path of those who would remember your face most clearly."
"Some risks can't be helped."
"But consider what might happen if you are discovered after reaching Zuko. You are banished! Terrible consequences will fall on you for returning - and on him if he harbors you."
Ursa paused as if considering this, and her eyes fell suddenly from Iroh to the fire.
"Well," Sokka said as he cinched the ties tight on his sleeping bag, "you wanted him to have a chance to choose freely? Here it is. Mom or Dad. Pick a side."
He and Iroh shared a steady, not-entirely-friendly stare.
"Oof," Toph murmured on Aang's other side, "right in the family dysfunction..."
"Ursa?" Aang waited until she turned her head to fix him with those kind eyes. "Going to the palace probably isn't a good idea for you, and you really shouldn't do it... but I want to leave you with a message for Katara anyway, just in case you figure out a way."
"Me too," Toph pitched in, digging her toes into the solid rock floor. "I just want to make sure she knows it was Snoozles' idea to leave and we're not ditching her here forever."
Sokka tossed a couple of bags up into Appa's saddle and huffed. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a terrible brother, I get it. Just tell Katara I love her and we'll be back soon." He stopped suddenly and turned to look at Ursa, a grim sort of smile on his face. "But, if you do get a chance to talk to the jerkbender, I have a thing or two you can pass along to him. I think it'll probably make a bigger impact coming from you..."
.
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"I want to be in front this time," Katara insisted as Zuko loosened the rein from where he had tied it around a slim trunk. He pretended not to hear her and made to climb up in the saddle, but she swept in front of him, glaring.
"I said," she said, "I want to be in front."
"You're not riding in front," Zuko said with every ounce of authority he could muster. The night was growing long and they were both tired and irritable, but they still had one airfield to go. "You don't know how to guide an eel-hound. And you don't know where we're going. Just let me do it."
She slapped his hand off the harness and shoved between him and their mount and started clambering up. "No. I'm shorter than you. I should be in front. It doesn't make sense for me to spend the whole time clinging to your back blind like a baby koala-otter. You can tell me what to do and where to steer. It'll be fine."
Zuko wanted to argue, but there really wasn't time. He couldn't sense the coming dawn yet, but they had been at this for hours. They couldn't have long left. So, against his better judgment, he climbed up behind her and pointed her in the right direction.
If he was being completely honest with himself, he had enjoyed Katara's grasping hands on his chest and belly, the heavy brushes of her body against his. Her breath against the back of his neck and shoulders. Even her pointy chin stabbing at him. It had been entirely too pleasing to feel her against him, even if she only meant it in an entirely platonic I-just-don't-want-to-fall-off kind of way.
And Zuko respected that. He had firmly kept his mind on the task ahead and on the work of handling the eel-hound. Not once - not even when he had felt what he assured himself had not been her nipples stiffening against his back when they were swimming between islands - had he allowed his mind to stray to thoughts inappropriate to have about an ally.
As soon as he mounted behind her, that discipline started to crack.
Zuko had the leg and core strength to hold himself steady without grabbing the rider ahead of him. Which he did, diligently. He braced his hands on his thighs or the back of the saddle except when he was pointing to direct Katara toward the best path. He also kept his seat farther back than she had, so his thighs were close to hers, but not touching. Overall, he had excellent control over his body and his mind.
What he could not control was Katara.
She slipped and swayed in the saddle so much Zuko worried she might fall all on her own. So, after watching her and wincing for several minutes, he just caught her waist with both hands and steadied her.
"You're gonna fall off like that," he grumbled.
"I am not," she snapped over her shoulder - but did not tell him to remove his hands.
Which... he glanced down and saw in a moment of moonlight when the clouds thinned how pale his thumbs were where they curled around her dark-clad sides... how her hips flared out just below where he gripped her, how she leaned forward slightly as they surged over a short rise...
You never asked her if she might like to try it from behind, murmured the hissing voice, low and insidious, because you were too busy kissing her to think how delectable such a view as this might be... but if you'll recall, when you woke her in the tent, pressed behind her with every inch of your bodies touching, she arched her back and ground herself against you... She'd be game - you could bet your crown on it...
"You should start doing strength building exercises," he said instead of thinking about that. He hurled the thought as far from his mind as he could as if it was a lit explosive. "You need muscle."
"I don't need muscle. Waterbending isn't about muscle."
"No, but staying in a saddle is."
"Hmph," she said, and Zuko was annoyed enough to forget about his hands for a time.
But when they hit the sea for the swim to the next island, the impact had her leaning until her back was square against his chest. She straightened away from him, but the buffeting of the waves pressed her back to brush against him again and again.
The rhythm of it was... distracting. Zuko wanted to command her to pick one and just stick with it. He wanted to tell her that it was okay to lean on him. He wanted to drag her back by his grip on her waist and close his arms around her and hold her against his chest.
Instead, he just endured it, the slow, wet impact of their bodies colliding. The warmth of her. The smell of her, somehow stronger with seawater wetting her skin. Her wolftail, brushing his throat with a fiendish tickle that jolted through him.
His grip on her waist... he could feel the way her hips... rocked... with the movement of the saddle...
That thought he had hurled away previously had not been an explosive at all; it came slamming back into his head like a boomerang.
He tried to turn his mind to other things, tried to stop the inertia his body was building, but it came on him nevertheless. In a moment of mortifying inevitability, he felt himself harden in the sodden confines of his pants.
He felt like a creep. An idiot and a pervert and a creep. Katara had been frightened when his desire showed on his face; how much worse would it be if she realized he was having a physical reaction while his hands were on her?
At the same time, Zuko felt a surly, put-upon irritation, because he had tried his best to avoid this situation. He hadn't meant for this to happen! She had insisted! It wasn't his fault!
He bent his mind toward thinking his most chilling thoughts and forcing his body to cool. He tried briefly thinking of his father's dismissal, but that only looped him back around to the fresh memory of Katara destroying the first of the Fire Lord's airships... which led him to invent a few symbolic things they might have done in that engine room...
He banished those thoughts as well, but it was too late. He was now thoroughly worked up. At least Katara didn't know and he'd have the rest of the ride to get a handle on it... if she would just stop brushing up against him!
As they lurched up on the rocky shore, Zuko had just enough time to be relieved the swim was finally over... and then the eel-hound started climbing the extinct volcano atop which the final airfield was hidden. They both leaned forward in the saddle to accommodate the incline as the beast heaved upward.
And then, suddenly, on the wet, slippery saddle, Katara's hips slid back and her butt slammed against Zuko's groin with a wet slap.
"Uhgh-" he grunted helplessly, now bent practically over her.
"Auh-!" she squeaked, freezing where he held her.
His chest was now poised a short span above her back. His grip remained firm on her waist, but that only made it worse. Because instead of holding her body away from his, he found he was suddenly almost pinning her down to the saddle with her thighs flush against his.
And her butt, with the eel-hound's every surging stride up the volcano, ground roughly against his aching erection - which had swiftly rallied, his efforts at control blown in an instant - in the worst, most wonderful accident that had ever befallen him.
"Uh-hum," he said, his mind gone numb with shock and sluggish with pleasure that would not relent.
Katara just sat stiff in his grip, her ribs expanding a little hard against his fingers with her elevated breathing. Her hands still clutched the reins but were braced against the wide front edge of the saddle, the only thing stopping her from falling belly-down against it.
There was no possible way she could not notice this. She was definitely aware of this happening, of him doing this, and was clearly too shocked to react.
"Um!"
Finally Zuko regained his senses, jerked his hands the few inches down to her hips, and shoved her forward, widening the gap between their bodies enough for decency. She let out a startled squeak that instantly became repurposed in his brain. He wanted to yank his hands off her at once, but he didn't dare; she'd just slide back again as their ascent continued. Instead, he gripped her hips and throbbed and focused on his breathing and, because it was solid and available and a distraction, he grabbed hold of his anger and frustration.
"You had to sit in front," he growled near her ear. "Stubborn, bossy little brat-!"
There was an instant while he was talking when he might have felt guilty. The last time something like this had happened, it had frightened her. Zuko had frightened her. But tonight, with his blood and his temper both so hot, apologizing was not at the front of his mind. He really just wanted to make sure she knew that this situation was very obviously her fault and not some sleazy plan of his.
But the moment when Zuko might have felt guilty for blaming her for his reaction passed in the nanosecond it took Katara to respond.
"Not so fun in the back, is it?" she demanded, her voice all breathless vindication.
It took Zuko a moment to put her words and tone together in his muddled brain, but the hissing voice was there, quick to seize an opportunity in his moment of weakness.
She felt it, too! With her arms around you and her legs spread against yours and her nipples scraping against your back - yes they did! - she may not like you, but she feels the enticement of your body on hers. Being in back could be a great deal of fun with her desire awakened to you...
His fingers, unbidden, splayed just slightly wider where he gripped her hips.
She felt it, the raspy voice cut in and corrected, and she did not like feeling it.
It blew his mind a little bit that she could actually be aroused by him at all after everything, but then he quickly realized that was a stupid thought. Of course she could still feel that way about him even though she didn't like him; she hadn't liked him a whole lot when she had first kissed him, either. They had actually been fighting - truly fighting - when it had happened. So it made a kind of sense that, despite the rift between them, they could still both feel the attraction.
This is an opportunity! She might be more inclined toward forgiveness if you alleviate some of her tension first. You could slide your fingers down over her trousers now - you're just inches away and the saddle would make it so easy to give her all the friction she needs... And perhaps afterward she might let you bend her over and alleviate your own tension...
Zuko drew a deep breath and shut his eyes and tipped his scowl up to the rain. He had made a promise. Nothing was going to happen. And just because they both felt it - this simmering attraction laced so tightly together with their animosity - didn't mean anything should be allowed to come of it.
She didn't like feeling this way for him. She didn't want to.
And this situation, for reasons he struggled to put his finger on, was both dizzyingly exciting and wrenchingly sad. The possibilities were as painful as they were hopeful. That he might abandon his promise so easily. That Katara might be so torn within herself that she would forget his crimes against her. That her forgiveness might be won in some half-measure, stripped of a precious weight he needed desperately to give her. That he might have her body and not her forgiveness at all.
Enticingly, that she might feel so aroused by him that she would set aside her pride and hurt...
Or, horribly, that she might simply be excited by the situation and not him, not really...
It just felt... wrong. And maybe it was a really enticing kind of wrong, maybe (as the hissing voice giddily suggested) it would be very satisfying to feel her succumb to him like that, but Zuko simply didn't feel right about it. And he fought now to remind himself that he needed to listen to that feeling, that it was a warning. A warning he had ignored in the past to total disaster.
He had made a promise. And he was going to keep it.
So Zuko grabbed onto his irritation with both hands, just as tight as he held onto her hips. Tighter.
"You're right," he said snidely. "It's kind of uncomfortable back here. Because you don't have the muscle it would take to keep from rubbing all over me."
Katara turned an outraged eye over her shoulder to glower at him. "Fine. Maybe I will start working out. But not because you suggested it!" She stuck her nose up in the air and faced forward again. "I certainly wouldn't be rubbing all over you if I could help it."
"Good. Then you can ride in back when we go to meet our contact."
"I'm not riding in back!"
"Rrgh! Katara, you can't seriously think this is better than just holding onto me!"
"Better for me," she said primly.
"It's better for you," he said with scathing disbelief, "to feel me... pitching a tent behind you? Are you being serious or do you just feed on my embarrassment?"
"I'm serious. It's better than riding in back. You can just hold onto my hips, that's fine."
Zuko rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. She probably wouldn't say that if she knew where his mind went with her hips filling his hands and feeling so deeply right.
But she was saying it, he realized, because she would rather he was teased into a state than be teased herself. And she'd only have to deal with the girl kind of state! Which was a subtle, mostly concealed phenomenon - still largely pretty mysterious to Zuko - that happened under clothing and did not protrude humiliatingly to announce itself to the world. She would rather he put his hands on her and ride all the way across the Fire Nation with a raging hard-on than be forced to feel good herself just holding onto his back.
That didn't seem fair.
But then, when was Zuko's life ever fair?
Zuko tried to think exclusively of this injustice as they arrived at the top of the volcano and began their descent into the caldera. The airfield was cut into the forest below, lit with a few widely-spaced yellow lamps. They could see it for a moment before they descended past the treeline. At length, Katara shrugged and spoke in the leafy dark.
"And you don't have to be embarrassed," she huffed. "It's an involuntary reaction, I know that. It's perfectly natural."
It is also quite natural to take a woman on her hands and knees in the dirt. That's how all the animals do it. Very natural. And wouldn't it be especially pleasing to have this superior, demanding woman in such an undignified state? To drive her into her own involuntary reactions..?
Zuko huffed out a sigh through his teeth as a fresh pulse beat through him. "Can we just stop talking about it? You win. You can have the front."
"Such a gentleman."
"Shut up. You're doing hot-squats when we get back. At least fifty."
"What are hot-squats? And no?"
"You said you wanted to work out. They're good for building leg and core strength."
"I don't want to do your fire-themed exercises, thanks."
"Then you can rename them," Zuko growled at the back of her head, "but I'm giving you the front and I want something in return."
"What, and you're just dying to micromanage my fitness regimen?"
"I just want to be the reason you're too sore to walk comfortably for a few days."
She gasped and stiffened in front of him and Zuko immediately gritted his teeth in frustration at his own stupid flapping mouth.
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Azula led her soldiers down from the pass under the midday sun. She did not bother with the rope ladder - merely leapt from the cliff and landed with a puff of blue flames and an expert stance.
Her scouts had informed her there did not seem to be any way through the wall that surrounded the estate, but that was what grappling hooks were for. She divided her forces. Half she sent to beset the front gate and the other half would accompany her over the wall. When the signal came, the assault was swift and efficient from both prongs. Just as it should be. Perfect.
Except the villa was empty.
Azula had it searched thoroughly, but nothing of any use remained. No escaped slaves. No witnesses. No documents or plans stupidly scribbled down in her brother's heavy-handed characters. The house had been stripped even of stores of food and spare clothing.
The only sign of what had happened here was the heap of clipped iron collars left in the drive like a message.
She had not planned to set fire to the villa. She had thought she would march her traitorous brother through the streets of Harbor City to show the rabble what a deficient weakling they had so foolishly thrown their support behind. But then she had been staring at those collars and a fragment of memory had knifed through her mind - running in the swaying grass of a dune, chasing-
Too slow, Lala!
It hardly mattered if the hovel burned, she thought as she watched her blue flames catch and spread. The Gans were obviously traitors in any case. Their support for Zuko had so far publicly extended only to proper hospitality for a royal guest and saccharine enthusiasm for his humanitarian endeavors, but their private meetings were another matter. Even just in the hours it had taken to arrange this raid, Azula's agents had reported back to her a number of little events and get-togethers held prior to some trivial business that conveniently took the Gan family - and their entire household - from the city.
That conniving inveigler and her bleeding-heart husband were obviously moving against the Fire Lord. Father had suspicions, but Azula was certain. It could be nothing else-
Haste makes you foolish, Azula.
You wouldn't want to disappoint me like your brother...
Azula's eyes were wide as she watched the flames - yellow now and sickeningly ordinary - lick up the walls and fill the windows with smokey shadows. She felt, horrible and unfamiliar, a lancing pang of doubt pierce through her.
She was right, of course, the Gans were traitors. It was obvious!
But perhaps burning their villa had been premature. Perhaps such an act of obvious aggression would incite more unrest. Perhaps there would be a backlash among the court when it became known that the Princess was at it again...
Perhaps Father would not approve.
The fire before her roared, but the heat felt so far away from her numb fingers, suddenly clenched tight on nothing.
She crammed those pathetic misgivings deep into the back of her mind. Azula did not make mistakes and she did not doubt her decisions. She was the crown princess, the heir apparent. She was perfect.
She had to be.
Completely unaware of the wide, furious set of her eyes, Azula ordered her forces to return up the cliff the way they had come. It would not do for any riled-up peasants to see the royal guard leaving this scene. Without any witnesses to the event, it could remain unconfirmed who had started the blaze. If it turned out to be a misstep - which it wouldn't, of course, the Gans were traitors and traitors did not deserve unburned houses - then at least the arson would not be connected directly to Azula.
The royal guards themselves knew better than to cast their unnerved sideways glances where the Princess might see them. They knew to remain silent for the entire march back to the palace. They knew to stare straight ahead until they were dismissed and had made their way back to the barracks.
And they knew, when they talked behind closed doors about what had happened with their friends and families who worked in the palace or the fine houses surrounding it, they must even then speak of it only in whispers.
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AN: Thanks for reading! I'll aim for Sunday again for the next chapter. But no promises on that one... it also has missing scenes atm.
I borrowed Lala from this comic by demaparbat-hp on tumblr: (idk it's on tumbr) demaparbat-hp/751511401044066305?source=share
