#or a day in the life of Sokka and Katara before they met Aang

[empressofthesunwriter]

Change the Narrative

If people knew the truth, they would call her a selfish monster.

But Katara had sacrificed anything for the world, for an ungrateful husband!

This time she would always choose herself first!

Here is a little one-shot of my anger about what happened to Katara in canon.

I want to give her the end she deserves, so I hope you enjoy it!

Katara knew it was time for her to die.

She felt it in her old bones.

Alone she lay in her bed at the South Pole and watched how the snow was falling.

At least she would die seeing the beauty of her homeland.

It was a good death.

The old woman blinked tears away and tried to be positive about her nearing death.

She would see Sokka, her father, her mother and Gran-Gran again.

It was good.

She had lived a long happy life.

Something burning and unsettling spread through her chest as she thought this.

Was it a happy life?

How often did she and Aang argue over simple things?

How often did she beg him not to play favourites with Tenzin? Yes, their youngest was an airbender, but what about Bumi and Kya? They were his children too.

But no!

The Air Nomad legacy was more important than their two oldest children and their pain.

Once upon a time when she was a young girl and fantasized about the man and family one day she would have, she never would have guessed how she became the kind of mother, who didn't fight for her children.

Who didn't call out her husband for his wrongdoings?

However, she had so with Aang. Since she had met him, she always had mothered him, shielded him from things which didn't fit his narrative.

He was the Avatar, the only hope to end the war, with a track record of running away.

They couldn't lose him, so she had protected him the best she could.

And she did so to her children.

No wonder Bumi and Kya didn't even visit her and Tenzin didn't have much of a relationship with her.

Where did she go wrong in her life?

When did she become a shadow of herself in the name of love?

Why did she even choose Aang?

Was it because of Aunt Wu's prediction, she would marry a powerful bender or because she had a feeling Aang...deserved her?

He loved her and had ended the war.

Was it so bad to give him a chance?

Sadly after sacrificing her best years for him and being rewarded to die alone without her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren around her, it may have been the most stupid decision she ever made.

Spirits, was she a bad person to think that?

She loved her family, really she did, but deep down she had to admit...she wouldn't do it a second time.

Katara wouldn't sacrifice herself, her ideals, and her dreams for Aang's dream.

She had her whole life given and given and was now at the end of it rewarded with nothing.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, as she slowly closed her eyes.

Soon she would join her loved ones...

Just...

If she could...

If the spirits were so kind...

If dear Yue heard her...

She wanted a second chance.

She wanted to live a life for herself and herself alone.

Katara had given in this life all and more...was it so bad that she wished for a second chance to get it this time right?

Was she selfish?

Maybe.

Surely.

But anyone had a point in their life where they had to put themselves first.

Her only regret was that she did not realise it sooner.

Katara closed her eyes and felt the last beats of her heart.

Never noting how the moon was shining brightly down at her...

***

She felt pain in her head.

Katara hissed and touched her forehead.

Why did she get a headache?

Where was she?

She blinked to banish the shadows before her eyes.

Slowly she could see.

Ah yes.

She was outside General Iroh's tea shop in Ba Sing Se.

The waterbender had seen Aang walk out and wanted to join him.

It was high time that she gave Aang her answer about them being a couple.

She had been unsure a few days ago, but now with the war over...why shouldn't she give him a chance?

He was standing at the balustrade watching the setting sun, it was the perfect moment.

As the waterbender made her first step towards him, an avalanche of emotions and vision filled her whole being.

Katara gasped quietly, trying to make sense of this.

It was too fast and also too slow...however, she felt it in her bones...whatever she had planned kissing Aang and getting together with him...it would be the worst decision of her life!

No, she didn't want what she had seen.

How could she sell herself, her principals, and her honour for a guy?!

How could she be together with someone who would play favourites with their children?!

No, absolutely not!

Whether this was a vision from the future to save her from this faith Katara didn't know, but what she knew she wouldn't make the same mistakes twice!

So angry she walked up to Aang and tapped his shoulder.

The Avatar turned smiling towards her. He seemed so happy and hopeful and looked at her like she had hung the stars and the moon.

For a second she flatter, which only made the vision come forth again and made her anger tenfold.

Oh no!

Not with her!

"Aang.", she began. "I don't love you and I never will! Stop pestering me about us being a couple! If you don't accept my feelings I will waterwhip you do your next incarnation, do you understand me?!"

To say he was shocked was the understatement of the century. She could formally see the heartbreak in his eyes and how he tried to speak up, maybe to guilt trip her, however, she wasn't having anything of it.

"Nothing you will say and do will ever change my mind! So don't even try. I will go back with Sokka to the South Pole and rebuild my home. That's where I belong!"

Dramatically she turned around and entered the tea shop again.

The others tried their hardest to seem like they hadn't listened in, yet Katara saw through them.

She sends them all an annoyed look.

"What?!"

No one said anything for a few seconds before Toph snickered: "Oh sugar queen, I hoped you had it in you."

This makes Katara smile.

***

The next months of her life Katara rebuilt with her father and Sokka their home. 

The Nothern Watertribe had tried to turn the South into a second North, except Katara was having none of it.

As a war hero, master waterbender and daughter of the chief she used all her power to stop this chances.

She was a force of nature!

No one had a chance against her.

Her family was so proud of her and she was satisfied with herself.

Yes, this was where she belonged.

Helping people and not being the soulless, passionless arm candy of Aang!

Katara was happy.

A voice inside her told her how she deserved it.

***

A year later found Katara as ambassador for her people at the first peace summit.

She was happy seeing Zuko again, they had written to each other, yet seeing each other in person was much better.

He had become her best friend.

And her wall against Aang.

As Avatar he was at the peace summit too. Of course, he tried to talk with her. Tried to sway her, saying he missed her and wanted to be friends again.

She saw right through him. Aang still wanted her.

Thank the spirits for Zuko having her back and distracting Aang.

When they enjoyed together a cup of tea in General Iroh's tea shop she thanked him for his help.

Awkwardly he waved it away.

It was nothing.

He and Mai had broken up and the black-haired girl wasn't happy about it.

Even if she and Aang weren't exes, Zuko knew how frustrating it was to have a person follow you like a shadow and demand to be together again.

In comfort, she petted Zuko's hand and told him he did the right thing to end things with Mai.

If she couldn't accept a no was she a good girlfriend?

A little crooked smile formed on Zuko's lips, and her heart stopped for a second, as he thanked her for her words and friendships.

Then he asked her to join him in the search for his mother.

***

Being with Zuko on a life-changing field trip again was... exciting.

They still worked flawlessly together, like when they had hunted down the murder of her mother, but now they were friends.

It changed a lot of interactions.

They were playful with each other.

Zuko was the only one who ever laughed at her jokes.

They were there for each other.

In the long days when they hunted down one clue after another and Zuko seemed to lose hope, Katara reminded him to never give up.

They shared the workload.

It was amazing not mothering someone and having someone help her around camp.

They were getting closer to each other.

They shared things they never told anyone.

Zuko told her how he got his scar and Katara hugged him, wishing Aang had killed Ozai.

Wishing Ozai was before her and making him pay for hurting her best friend!

Sometimes they just stared at the stars, inventing constellations, their hands inching closer.

Something new was born between them.

Katara didn't know what it was, but she would enjoy it.

It made her feel good.

After weeks on the road, they finally found Ursa.

And also a society of hiding airbenders.

Katara couldn't help but laugh in utter glee.

***

Was it really that surprising that Katara and Zuko fell in love with each other after their journey?

When she kissed Zuko for the first time, it was like coming home. 

Warm, welcome, familair, intim.

It was the best sensation in the world.

Something inside her told her this was how it was supposed to be.

After two years of dating and being the ambassador of the Southern Water Tribe in the Fire Nation, they married.

All their friends and half of the world were invited.

Yes, even Aang.

Aang was so grateful to Katara and Zuko for having found his people and was busy with the air nomads to rebuild their society, and seemed to finally let go of Katara.

Now they really could be friends.

***

Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, master bender, war hero and Fire Lady became a living legend.

Not only the people in the Fire Nation adored her, but she used the power she wielded to make the whole world a better place.

She was the one who came up with the idea of Republic City, a place where all nations could live in harmony.

She revolutionized the art of healing with her bloodbending.

She installed fountains and aqueducts everywhere she could, so people had clean water.

Statues were built and universities, streets even neighbourhoods were named in her honour.

Katara taught new generations of waterbenders like her daughter Kya and people formally fought over to learn from the Fire Lady.

When their oldest daughter Izumi became Fire Lady, Katara and Zuko retired to Ember Island to live out their twilight years in peace.

They often had visits from their friends and families.

Their son Lu Ten, a nonbender, had married a waterbender named Mizuki and had with her five children.

So the proud grandparents helped their son and daughter-in-law raise the rascals.

It was fulfilling.

As Aang then died and was reborn as Korra from the Southern Water Tribe Katara and Zuko moved to the South to teach the new Avatar.

Korra loved Katara and Zuko like grandparents and loved hearing about their adventures.

After Korra goes to Republic City to learn airbending from one of Aang's sons he had with one of the hiding airbenders, the pair returns to Ember Island.

Zuko died a few months before her.

Katara followed him after the birth of their third great-grandchild.

Both died surrounded by their big and bustling family.

As Katara died, her oldest great-granddaughter, who was named after her held her hand, she couldn't help but feel happy.

She had lived a long and wonderful life.

Soon she would be together again with her beloved husband and her family.

And so the greatest and most beloved Fire Lady died in peace with no regrets in her heart, her story being told for thousands of years to come.

***

The Legend of Katara became a tale which young girls loved.

From a simple waterbender to a master, war hero and ruler over a nation, who changed the world only a few ever could.

It showed all girls, that they could do anything they wanted.

They could reach their goals and go even beyond.

This was Katara's legacy.

As it should have been.

If you liked this one-shot and want more Zutara, a badass OC, personal growth for Aang and the Gaang being amazing check out Yin and Yang! 

Click on my profile and leave a comment.

I hope you liked this little One-Shot!

Let’s now scream together in the comment section how Katara deserved better and if it’s not canon we will give it to her in fanon! :D

#katara #atla katara #avatar the last airbender #atla #zuko #atla zuko #prince zuko #atla zutara #zutara #zutarian #katara deserved better #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #zutara fanfiction #zutara fic #zutara forever #anti bryke #anti kataang #anti maiko #bryke critical

[shifuaang]

vehemently against NATLA existing 😤 but wildly protective over and incredibly charmed by Gordon, Kiawentiio, and Dallas ❤️

#natla #those three ARE their characters #I had the idea yesterday of them doing shorts for youtube of moments that the cartoon didn't touch on #like Aang's day at the FN school or him hanging out with kid Bumi and Kuzon before the war #or a day in the life of Sokka and Katara before they met Aang #or the day Iroh and Zuko have to leave the FN #so that way they can still portray the characters without the writers sullying the original series but rather expanding upon it #being able to breathe more life and depth into something that is already beloved without compromising it #I think that could have been such a fun idea while giving more jobs and voices to POC #which is the only justification I can think of for a remake existing #because these kids really did deserve better and more than what they were given to work with #but like... my proposal would require actual creativity and depth and thought #neflix lacks all of the above lol

[bethanywritesbooks]

my immediate thoughts on the first four and a bit episodes of netflix's avatar!

massive spoilers below!

okay I’m sorry but there is NO WAY sozin was actually present and storming the air temple. dude’s the fire lord. he would absolutely have been sitting behind a desk from the safety and comfort of his own palace and receiving the occasional update via letter at MOST. 

are we supposed to infer the airbender woman who gyatso nods at is aang’s mum? surely the camera lingered on her (and showed her having absolutely bananas-level tornadobending skills) for a reason.

gyatso with the kids :”( literally made me cry. 

honestly I was not as outraged as some people with the whole ‘toning down sokka’s sexism’ thing, bc I do understand some of his lines coming across differently/more maliciously in 2024 than intended at the time they were written. but I have to say … this version of katara opening the iceberg was not entirely convincing :/ like in the OG version you could see how she was so angry at sokka that it fuelled her waterbending enough to break the iceberg, but in this one she just … raises her hands? 

I get that this show is trying to be its own thing, but ‘will you go penguin sledding with me?’ is SUCH a perfect introduction to aang’s character, and I’m kind of bummed they nixed the line :/ 

and I get there are time constrains etc, but they didn’t include any of katara and aang actually bonding together, so it doesn’t really make sense now that she’s willing to go off and travel the world with him. 

the music is really good! 

GRAN GRAN DID THE THING! 

speaking of, why does gran gran know everybody’s business?

they definitely seem to have toned down zuko’s personality? like OG show zuko would not be having a back and forth conversation with iroh about the avatar, he would’ve just shouted at him and stormed off. 

I also really like the interaction between iroh and aang. iroh’s toeing the party line, but you get the sense that he believes differently. 

okay, I have to say this, and this is something I’ve been thinking since the first promo pictures came out. everyone’s clothes look too clean! our real clothes have were and tear, but these outfits don’t look lived in! it’s distracting me!

that said, paul sunghyung lee is completely spot-on as live-action iroh. completely captures the character’s personality and appearance. I want a hug from this version of iroh.

must admit I am glad that appa and momo are 100 times cuter and nowhere near as terrifying as they looked in [REDACTED BY THE DAI LI]. 

okay, heading into episode two. 

seems they have retconned zhao’s origin story, since this seems to be the first time iroh has met him? does this now mean zhao was not present at the zuko/ozai agni kai, like he was in the OG show?

SUKI!!!! 

suki’s reaction to meeting a boy she likes being to throw down and fight him, what a little weirdo (affectionate). 

oh, zuko. having the confidence to try and fight AVATAR KYOSHI is certainly … A Decision. one that a teenage boy would make! 

AVATAR KYOSHI LOOKS SO GOOD! 

avatar kyoshi if you are free to hang out on thursday night, I would like to hang out on thursday night when I am free, if you are free. 

hmm I’m kind of intrigued as to where they’re going with the live action version of zhao. because right now it seems like he’s a nameless commander — like we’re supposed to infer his letter is his first direct communication with ozai? he’s not been around the royal family before? by taking away this backstory, the show is missing out on the total hilarity of a middle-aged man having longstanding, personal beef with a sixteen-year-old.

listen, if daniel dae kim wanted to be in my tv show I would absolutely be like ‘yes, of course, how many close-ups do you want?’ but I do think the OG show not revealing ozai’s face until season 3 was a really smart decision. it built up so much suspense and mystery around this character (who is supposed to be larger than life!) and it had SUCH good payoff IMHO. I do kind of wish they had committed to this too but, like. if daniel dae kim was in my show I’d want his face in it, so I get it. 

time for episode three! 

azula!! introducing her doing undercover work makes sense for her character, given how she later infiltrates ba sing se. though I’m not sure it’s entirely believable that the people … wouldn’t recognise her? in the fire nation capital? she’s a (very!) public figure!

again, season 1 zuko would not have had the patience and self-control to compromise with zhao like this. 

mai and ty lee! I like that the show is already hinting at mai betraying azula for zuko — her first instinct is to defend zuko (even though she walks it back when she sees azula is upset), hinting at where her true loyalties eventually lie. 

being a teenage girl and getting led astray by a bad boy with a shaggy haircut is, unfortunately, a canon event for us all. 

katara brushing by zuko and him touching her scarf!!! not the 2024 zutara crumbs! 

‘zuko, don’t fire bend, it’ll draw too much attention!’ zuko: proceeds to have a huge smackdown fight w aang, destroying multiple vendors’ goods in the process. 

that lady smacking zuko for attacking aang was genuinely the funniest part of the episode. 

‘MY CABBAGES!’ iconic, outstanding, give him an oscar immediately!

episode four! 

more aang and iroh interactions! maybe they'll do a jailbreak together? 

loved seeing the iroh and ozai interaction, I hope we get to see more of their dynamic together. (I think a lot of ozai’s actions make sense when you remember he’s a youngest child.) 

loved the detail of zuko giving iroh lu ten’s broach (badge? pin? it’s late, my brain’s getting fuzzy), showing that his softer side was always there.

bumi’s voice and mannerisms and completely spot-on, but I’m not sure I entirely agree with his new characterisation. he seems so … jaded and bitter? yes, they’ve captured his silliness and eccentricity, but he’s also supposed to be wise, and I’m not sure if the latter is really coming across.

okay episode five! (it’s 11:30PM at this point, and I can feel myself becoming less and less coherent, so don’t expect as much detail at this point.) 

ooof. the CGI while the gaang is on appa seems … worse than in earlier episodes? did they run out of money at this point? 

this version of ozai seems more … pragmatic? he’s strategically playing his kids against each other, but IMHO animated ozai would never praise zuko (even if it was to put azula in her place) bc he didn’t like him enough to do that. ever. 

JUNE LOOKS SO GOOD.

okay I am too tired to keep watching, I'll watch more tomorrow.

#atla netflix spoilers #atla spoilers #atla #avatar the last airbender #the last airbender

[comradekatara]

how often does the gaang and co ummm um AAH I CANT THINK AF ANYTHIG Top eight silly gaang facts part 1 ?

okay I guess this calls for some of my most firmly-held yet largely inconsequential “headcanons” as the kids say (usually not a fan of that word bc it is far too broad and therefore useless, but I do think it applies in this case) [mario voice] lets a go!

aang is a really big fan of lychees, they are his favorite fruit, but since they were primarily grown at the air temples, there is a distinct shortage of lychees in this strange new world. after the war, aang makes sure to repopularize lychees, and he even gets a few lychee desserts and lychee flavored drinks named after him.

after the war ends, sokka finally gets the opportunity to practice his art in earnest. his combination of dedication, adaptability, and innate talent at anything he sets his mind to leads him to vastly improve at a brisk pace. the drawing we see of the gaang at the beginning of lok was actually done by sokka only a couple years later.

aang and suki have had a very intense prank war going since suki first arrived at the western air temple. unlike sokka, who never appreciated aang’s pranks, suki gets pranked by aang and immediately plots revenge. in fact her pranks are so good it causes aang to reevaluate and forces him to step up his prank game. on ember island they are pranking the other at least five times a day, but it seems to die down once the war ends. that said, the pranks themselves escalate from harmless goofs to elaborate schemes. at one point suki is nearly sent to supermax (again) for “endangering the life of the avatar,” but aang vouches for her before it can get to that, because he doesn’t wanna look like a pussy by admitting that suki’s prank could’ve killed him.

one of zuko’s primary coping mechanisms as firelord is adopting all the stray cats who wander onto the premises in search of food. he lets them all roam freely around the palaces, and names every one (which is kind of awkward bc he is so much better at remembering these cats’ names than literally any human he’s ever met, least of all the important political figures he ought to know). there’s one cat in particular, an extremely fluffy white cat with bright blue eyes, who is just his favorite. he doesn’t understand what makes her so special until katara arrives at the palace with aang on one of the rare occasions that she actually agrees to set foot in the fire nation, and the moment she meets this cat she’s like “zuko i think this is my soulmate.” they have no choice but to take this cat back to the south pole, where she lives a blessed life as katara’s cherished and beloved catara.

sokka is king kuei’s most trusted advisor, but sokka really hates king kuei, so as a bribe/incentive for keeping him in ba sing se kuei lets sokka spend most of his time there doing research at ba sing se university. he teaches the obligatory engineering course because it would be a waste not to while they have him there, but it’s clear he mostly cares about physics, and his intense and esoteric physics research alienates 99.99% of the student (and faculty) body. nonetheless, he thinks anyone who doesn’t understand what he’s talking about despite the fact that this category encompasses “most people” is an idiot, and he calls them idiots to their face. the handful of students who can actually follow what he’s talking about and put in the work are deemed “normal” and he asks them to help him with his research. these select few go to bat for sokka whenever someone complains about him. they’re like “he actually makes a lot of sense you just need to try to understand him” and everyone else is like “he told me to drop out and go back to preschool” and they’re like “well you should listen to him then.”

toph goes to see her parents after the war ends, assuming they’ll finally have to accept her now that she’s a certified war hero and the undisputed greatest earth bender in the world. instead they just criticize her and demean her and make her cry, so she’s like “fuck this” and chops her hair off to her chin. she goes back to the fire nation and appoints herself senior advisor and emotional support to the firelord (because he needs it). not only are her lie detecting and bodyguarding skills (as well as just her general savvy when it comes to navigating the court) instrumental in keeping zuko safe those first few years, but she’s also instrumental in azula’s recovery process, taking her on weekly long walks outdoors, sometimes spent in silence, but progressively not, which prove extremely therapeutic not only for azula, but for toph as well.

the first year ty lee spends on kyoshi island, suki goes from not quite trusting her (despite begrudgingly accepting that she’s hot), to enjoying her friendship (despite her overwhelming hotness), to being forced to accept that ty lee might actually have the teensiest upper hand in combat (which is ANNOYING and definitely not sexy!!!), to being forced to accept that she does have an honest to goodness crush on ty lee, to deciding that it’s only embarrassing if she doesn’t actually do something about it. sokka’s just laughing his ass off like “do you hook up with every new kyoshi warrior you recruit from off the island or do you make a point to only recruit the hot ones so you can hook up with them” and suki’s just like “oh my god SHUT UP!!!!!!”

mai takes advantage of zuko’s new initiative to promote the arts across the fire nation by going to the open mic nights in the city and honing her craft of stand up comedy. sokka is her number one fan (in general and when it comes to her art), but whenever mai’s like “sokka you’re funny you should try a set” sokka’s just like “thanks but i have self-respect. i mean, not much, but enough to know better than that. uh............. I mean.......... YOU’RE amazing though.”

suki hears about the cactus juice incident from katara who is attempting to shittalk her brother but suki only hears “best drug in the world ripe for the picking in the si wong desert” and makes aang take her there on appa so she can harvest as many cacti as possible for her lucrative new business model. katara fears she may have created a monster.

#technically that’s one more than eight but cactus jamba juice is NECESSARY #and yes I have mentioned all of these before #real ones know #antejentoastular #asks #postwargaang #aang #sokka #suki #aang&suki #zuko #katara #katara&zuko #catara #catara&zuko #catara&katara #kuei&sokka #toph #toph&zuko #azula&toph #ty lee #sukixtylee #sokkaxsuki #mai #mai&sokka #katara&suki #sokkademia

[transboysokka]

Hm Zuko Sees Sokka Fucked Up For The First Time that one sounds very interesting

OKAY the context for this one is it’s like a tag to @witchering10123’s AMAZING Whumptober series in which Hakoda and Sokka get FUCKED. UP. I loved it so much that I wrote most of this on November 1 and uhhhhh STILL haven’t finished it because Life Gets In The Way

Im just gonna post everything I have so far for this one to get it out of Limbo yay

Zuko took a deep breath before turning the corner into the infirmary. He couldn’t even begin to describe how he was feeling– Excited that Sokka is alive? (He always knew that, he hadn’t let himself believe any differently.) Scared to see what they’d done to him? (More than a little– he’d seen that leg, he’d seen–) The truth was Zuko didn’t know if he could bear to see him right now, but not knowing was somehow even worse.

He steeled himself and stepped into the room.

Katara was already there, hard at work healing the prone figure on a bed that could only be Sokka. Zuko couldn’t see him very well from where he stood, but he met Gilak’s eyes from across the bed as he continued filling Katara in on the state he’d found Sokka in.

It didn’t… sound good.

Zuko’s heart broke as he heard about how difficult it had been for Sokka to walk, how he flinched when anyone came too close to him, how he didn’t want to be touched. How he’d seemed more like a frightened animal than the boy they all knew.

He forced himself to continue breathing deeply. This wasn’t good at all but Sokka would need him, need him to be strong, need him to help him heal. Zuko was probably one of the only people who could even try to understand what Sokka had been through, but knowing that Sokka had suffered far more than Zuko ever had was unthinkable.

He’d assumed it, of course. As the days passed into weeks, as their suspicions grew, as Sokka’s bloody choker and his severed leg had shown up, but now to know it…

“Would you like to see him, Fire Lord?” Gilak’s voice broke through his introspection and Zuko realized he hadn’t even seen Sokka yet. The older tribesman had finished debriefing Katara, still hard at work. Aang stood beside Gilak– Zuko hadn’t even noticed him until now– and fixed Zuko with an understanding look that reminded him too much of his uncle.

Hesitantly, Zuko stepped forward to the bed.

He immediately wanted to scream. And throw up. And hold the poor broken body before him and shut out the world around them. He couldn’t decide which option was best, so instead he just let out a choked sob.

The body before him was almost unrecognizable. The boy on the bed was far too emaciated to be his Sokka. Zuko had seen many bodies like that in the Earth Kingdom during the war, and most of them hadn’t been living. His wrists were heavily scarred and his body was covered in cuts and bruises– Zuko’s eyes lingered on the cuts along Sokka’s cheeks and his blood boiled at the suspicion that the animals had used a muzzle on him.

Zuko made a point to ignore the stump of Sokka’s leg– he already knew it was there, and it was just too painful– as he took in the methodically placed scars Katara was working on healing from Sokka’s chest.

The bastards had straight up tortured him, then…

He was going to be sick. He stumbled back from the bed, looking for any receptacle that would be acceptable to vomit into, when his eyes caught something else he hadn’t noticed yet.

“Aang…” he said weakly. The airbender was already standing close to support Zuko in his obvious distress, “What’s the bandage on his neck?”

“Zuko… This is a lot, I know. Why don’t we go take a walk and–”

“Aang,” his voice was stronger now as he shrugged Aang’s hand off his shoulder, “Take off the bandage. I want to see.”

“Zuko, you really don’t look so good. And I think it’s better for Sokka if we leave it on…”

He was already lunging forward, careful not to directly disturb Katara’s healing, ignoring the protests from Aang and Gilak as he unwound the bandage and…

A hand slapped his as the bandage came away and Zuko’s eyes snapped up to meet Katara’s.

“Are you serious right now?” she demanded, and Zuko could see for the first time how terrible she looked. Her eyes were rimmed with red and bags had already begun to form underneath. He absently wondered how long she had already been healing Sokka before he came in, and how bad things had been before she’d started.

Zuko suddenly felt very stupid.

“I’m sorry, I just–”

“Aang, get him out of here.”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Katara turned back to her healing and Zuko felt Aang’s hands on his shoulders, pulling him back. As he walked backwards under Aang’s guidance, Zuko’s eyes landed on Sokka’s uncovered neck.

“They branded him?!” Zuko shouted, and Aang’s pulling was suddenly faster and stronger.

They were in the corridor now, but Zuko hardly registered it. His vision was red and it was all he could do to keep from destroying the icy walls around him with his fire. He was faintly aware of Aang talking to him but Zuko kept seeing Sokka’s injuries and running through scenarios in his mind of what could have caused them.

How often was he tortured? Had they kept him alone, or had he at least been with Hakoda. Where was Hakoda? Was the branding torture or a punishment? Had he been muzzled for it, or had they let him scream? Had he been awake when they took his leg? What other injuries did Sokka have that Zuko hadn’t seen yet? Why did–

He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe? He couldn’t—

“Zuko!”

It was Aang’s voice but it sounded far away. He tried to focus on it.

“Zuko, come on! You need to breathe! You’re okay. You’re sitting on the floor in the Water Tribe Palace. You feel the ice? Focus on the ice and the sound of my voice…”

Slowly, painfully, Zuko came back to awareness. He took several steadying breaths and opened his eyes to see Aang’s worried face in front of him.

“Agni,” Zuko groaned, “I’m sorry Aang, I just… I know I’m not the only one feeling this way but it’s so much and I wasn’t there for him and… Why is this so hard?”

Aang sighed and slid down the wall to sit beside Zuko.

“Listen… I know how you feel about Sokka, and you’re right, this is hard for me too. But it probably is harder for you and all of your feelings are valid. But Katara’s in there working herself to exhaustion trying to save one of the only two remaining people in her family, while she doesn’t even know if the other one is still alive…”

Zuko groaned, feeling like an even bigger idiot now. Of course this was harder on Katara…

“I’m not saying this to make you feel bad or guilty,” Aang continued, “But I’m saying that it would probably help Katara right now if we stayed strong for her. And Sokka too, when he wakes up. We don’t know what he’s been through, but it definitely hasn’t been good. He’s going to need you.”

Zuko nodded. Of course Aang was right.

He could do it for Sokka.

Making up his mind, he pushed himself up off the floor and started making his way down the corridor.

“Where are you going?” Aang called after him.

“My room. I still have one of Bato’s bottles I haven’t thrown out yet.”

He was going to need it.

—

Zuko was there when Sokka woke up. He’d promised himself he would be, though he hated to admit he was afraid.

If Sokka hadn’t wanted anyone to touch him when he came back to Agna Q’ela… What would that mean for their relationship? Would Sokka be afraid of him now? There was a lot about what might have happened to Sokka in his captivity that Zuko hadn’t allowed himself to wonder about, but he could certainly imagine a world where Sokka would wake up and not even want to see Zuko.

So he stood back by the door and gave him some space. Still, Zuko couldn’t help but to smile, his heart leaping, as he saw the unsettlingly still form on the bed slowly stir awake. He ignored the fact that this Sokka still seemed like such a stranger compared to who he’d been before…

And when Sokka all but ignored him as he reacted to the room around him, Zuko tried not to let that destroy him. Deep down, Zuko knew. He knew Sokka would just need time. Zuko remembered how mistrusting and jumpy he himself had been after getting his own scar, and what had happened to Sokka was infinitely worse.

So when Sokka volunteered to go with them to find Hakoda, Zuko’s first reaction was to shut that idea down completely. Sokka was clearly already in so much pain, physically and mentally, in the infirmary. It could only get worse by going back to where he’d been held and facing his captors. Zuko almost spoke up to say that to the group but… the look in Sokka’s eye when he spoke with such determination… The willingness to face it head on… It meant the Old Sokka was still in there and that he was going to be okay.

Encouraged, Zuko stepped forward to offer Sokka his staff. When Sokka smiled at him, Zuko’s heart fluttered. That was the confirmation Zuko needed that this would be okay.

#atla #zukka #fic #mine

[natlacentral]

Kiawentiio grew up loving ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender,’ and now she’s bringing the cartoon to life: ‘I did my best’

Kiawentiio is starring in a Netflix show. It's a sentence she's still processing.

"Growing up as a little native girl on my reservation, I never thought that this was something I’d even be able to do," she tells TODAY.com. "It was completely out of reach in my mind. So when I got the role, when we were filming and even now, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that it’s all real."

Kiawentiio, a 17-year-old actor and singer from the Mohawk people, plays Katara, a beloved character from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” in Netflix's live-action remake. The show hit the streaming platform Feb. 22 and quickly soared to No. 1 on Netflix's list of top TV shows in the U.S.

Before this, Kiawentiio appeared in "Beans" and guest-starred in Season Three of "Anne with an E." Now, she's adapting a cult classic cartoon and faces a fandom that's hesitant to trust a remake, still sensitive about the previous attempt, a film released in 2010.

"Avatar: The Last Airbender" ran for three seasons on Nickelodeon, from 2005 to 2008. The show achieved worldwide success and a cult following that only grew once the show was added to Netflix in May 2020. Like the live-action show, it became the most popular show in the U.S. on the streaming platform within days.

In a world full of "benders," people who can manipulate one of four elements — water, earth, fire and air — a group of friends embark on an adventure to save the world from impending war and destruction.

The story begins as Katara and her brother Sokka (played in the new live action by Ian Ousley) find a boy named Aang (Gordon Cormier) frozen in an iceberg. Aang turns out to be the long-hidden "Avatar," a bender with power over all four elements who's been promised to bring stability to the world.

Kiawentiio is a longtime fan of the original series and never thought she'd get to play one of the characters she grew up watching.

"The fact that I do get to play her, I cherish these moments, even the rough ones," she says. "When we were filming, there was a lot that I was trying to deal with at the same time. But even in all those moments, I do my best to stay grateful because of how lucky and blessed I actually am to to be in this situation."

Friendship is a core component to the series, and Kiawentiio says the focus on community in the show translated to set. She says she first met the rest of the cast at a boot camp, and was initially intimidated by some of the others — including Dallas Liu, who plays one of the main antagonists, Zuko. But the cast quickly found a close bond that she says will last long after production wrapped.

"With playing Katara, meeting the other cast members and becoming family with them, that is something that we are locked in for life," she says. "We’ve talked about this before, we’re gonna be at each other’s weddings type thing. I’m so grateful to have that, a second family formed for ever."

The whole cast had the difficult task of portraying existing, beloved characters, in addition to trying to translate a two-dimensional character to the screen.

“To have other people who are going through the exact same thing that you’re going through, it really strengthens our bond as a crew." she says.

There will always be differences watching something live action compared to a cartoon, Kiawentiio notes — but they can actually be for the better.

“So much more emotion comes, I mean, just seeing an actual face compared to a drawing of a face is so different on its own. So I’d like to think that the emotion of Katara and her backstory is more amplified or zoomed in on,” she says.

Another difference stemmed from turning a cartoon world into a physical set — which as a fan of the original show, Kiawentiio calls surreal.

In the original cartoon, the core trio travel across terrains, cities and oceans on the back of Aang’s flying pet bison, Appa. 

“All these new things that kept coming up, it was just crazy to see it unfold in front of me,” she says. “And for that to be my job, that’s just incredible. Especially as a fan of the show, I was really almost in tears once a week, or more than once a week if we’re being honest.”

Critics of live-action remakes often point to both the lack of new aspects to the story they bring, as well as some seemingly unnecessary differences from the original story. 

The series is the second attempt at a live-action remake of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." The first was M. Night Shyamalan's 2010 movie, "The Last Airbender," that released to overwhelmingly negative reviews. The film has a 5% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert, who gave the film a half star out of four, wrote that the film "is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented."

The live-action precedent set up Netflix's new series in a unique spot, where returning fans are simultaneously hoping for a more accurate remake while tentatively extending their trust.

Kiawentiio says balancing the appeal to both old and new fans was a through line during production.

“That was in all of our minds — how to appeal to existing fans from the original show and also bring in new fans that have never seen the show before,” she says. 

It's a weighty task for a young actor.

“For me, in the back of my mind was always ‘I’m just doing my best.’ As a person, you can do only as much as you can," she shares. "But I am open to opinions, and I know there’s going to be a whole variety of different opinions. And I did my best that I could at the time.”

Buzz around the eight-episode first season of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" continues to grow. Kiawentiio is looking to relish in any quiet she can find.

"As of right now, I’m trying to enjoy whatever quiet that I can," she says. "It’s hard for me to plan stuff because I don’t know where I’m going to be then. But I’m just trying to soak up the nice quiet, and I’ll be there when I’ll be there.”

#today #article #kiawentiio #natla #atla #netflix avatar #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar netflix #atla netflix

[bruhstation]

a few questions about the avatar au: 1. what are the roles of everyone? is lady aang, thomas katara, percy sokka, gordon zuko and henry toph? 2. what bending power does duck have? 3. how will the last agni kai play out?

yessss a question for the avatar AU…. :D a bit of rambling ahead because I am incredibly autistic about this new AU of mine. I've also answered your second question through the first question, if you don't mind :)

like I've mentioned before, this AU is set in an alternate universe where the air nomads are still alive and there's no hundred year war. there's still conflict though. this isn't really an "X in Y's place" AU -- I'm fitting the ttte/cstm characters in the atla universe. I'll tell you what the steam team is doing in the AU! (art of some of them here)

thomas is a young, amateur waterbender from the southern water tribe. he spends most of his time hanging out with edward and percy. he always gets into trouble -- stuck on ice floes, buried underneath snow, and drenched in water after a failed waterbending attempt. this was also one of the ways he encountered lady, which is after an avalanche near a cave. thomas proposed the idea that all four of them travel the world together and find bending arts teachers for lady ("I need to train too and become a really great waterbender!")

edward is a waterbending master from the southern water tribe. although he still has a lot of fire in him, he displays little interest in fighting and spends his free time brewing tea and writing in his journal. despite not revealing much about his past prior to living in the south pole, he teaches thomas waterbending and is some sort of father figure to him. edward's respected by a lot of tribespeople, though they tend to poke fun at him for being too old. after the formation of team avatar and getting his two old friends to join (after visiting the earth kingdom and fire nation consecutively), they said that edward is able to bloodbend, but edward entertained the silly idea by saying that "he's too old and small for that". he is also VERY quick and agile in chi-blocking techniques.

henry is a strong yet sickly, cynical yet gentle earthbender from gaoling, earth kingdom. after noticing the rising tensions in politics in ba sing se and witnessing how corrupt the dai li has become after a life-threatening accident, henry resides in the quieter part of the earth kingdom and manages his own flower/tea shop. after team avatar witnessed his immense strength in apprehending bandits wreaking havoc in his shop, lady asked henry to get on board the team. henry initially refuses, not wanting to get caught up in any weird life-threatening avatar business, but after being convinced by edward, he eventually folds. thomas does notice that his teacher acts awkward around their team's newest earthbending teacher.

gordon is the youngest son of a nobleman from the fire nation. he had a disgraceful agni kai -- stemming from a difference in political beliefs regarding their family and their relations to the fire nation army -- between him and his older remaining brother, scott. gordon lost, but not officially, as scott refused to scar him, disgracing both him and gordon. he then ran away to the boonies of the fire nation where he honed his lightningbending skills -- his signature bending arts -- in order to restore his pride. he first met team avatar when he challenged lady in an agni kai (gresleys loooove their agni kais) until edward had to chi-block him before he even launched an attack. as prideful as ever, gordon believes lady needs a firebending teacher (true) and joined team avatar. he doesn't seem too thrilled to see his old distant friends on board with him, though.

james is an ember island theater actor who believes he deserves more than what he's paid. he's very passionate about acting but is dissatisfied with the scripts given to him. team avatar encountered him when he was playing gordon in one of the plays (and horribly butchering his character). james joined because he wanted to learn more about their journeys and thought that he's essential to lighten up everyone's spirits. james is still his vain self and once told lady that being the avatar isn't THAT hard but he's a genuinely caring person. he's also the "bard" of the group and has some sassy yet well-meaning pick-me-ups. his favorite songs to cover are "girls from ba sing se" and "secret tunnel". also he and gordon once got drunk off cactus juice and the group never let him live that down.

percy is a nonbender from the southern water tribe. he's a known charmer for both his cute-ish face and determined personality. his mother was duck's sister, an earth kingdom noblewoman, while his father is a south pole tribesman. since there's no hundred year war in this AU, percy trains as a south pole tribe warrior just to guard the south pole village. since there's no threat (until d10's army invaded because he heard that lady is there), he spends most of his days helping out the tribespeople with whatever task they have or getting himself dragged into thomas' antics, including being the avatar's playful "bodyguard" in their world-cross journey.

toby is a waterbender from the northern water tribe and is the first person to be recruited in team avatar after they had left the southern water tribe. he was initially mavis' (the north pole princess) caretaker and one of the waterbending masters, but after an attack from d10's fire army, she turned into the moon to preserve waterbending. toby then joined team avatar out of guilt but found himself to be entertained by thomas and percy's antics and lady's curiosity about the world outside the air temples, which gives him hope for the youth. toby also has a strong dislike towards the fire nation army and the earthbending soldiers, particularly the dai li, and is well-versed in the militaristic structures of the two big countries and their weaknesses.

duck is an earthbender from one of ba sing se's noble families. he's really loyal to his city and the earth kingdom itself. although many people consider him charming and intelligent, he's really adamant about following laws, though this is mostly because of his family's influence. the little western (don, doug, oliver, toad) is kinda his body guards/personally recruited soldiers that work for him loosely and their primary target is to watch over diesel, a suspected spy from d10's army. duck senses that d10 is planning something bad for ba sing se. this is also his reasoning to join team avatar (despite initially distrusted by the strike trio). even though he doesn't always follow them around, he provides updates regarding the fire nation and earth kingdom.

and that's all for the famous 8!

as for the final agni kai, I'm still thinking about that one. at first, I was thinking the final agni kai wil be between spencer and gordon instead of between scott and gordon because the two brothers never genuinely hated each other while the two cousins are seconds away from blowing each other up. but, in what reason would spencer be working with diesel 10? why would he side with a nonbender who wants to abandon the old ways of bending and bring forth a new era in an extreme way? then I thought of spencer just being a massive fire nation glazer (and having thrown scott in jail or injured him) and how his dislike for team avatar turned into hate after they freed the prisoners from the boiling rock prison (including hiro). I'll get back to the idea later because I LOVE gresley family drama

thanks for the ask, anon! this was really fun to answer :]

#asks #anonymous #ttte avatar au #this was A LOT to type out but real fun. I love infodumping hashtag real hashtag girl

[specialagentlokitty]

Katara x Autistic!reader - Little gifts

HI HI HI, I ADORED your oneshots about the earthbending reader! I was wondering if you could make a Katara x Gn reader where the reader is autistic and CANNOT socialize for the life of them? And they also go on rants about certain subjects they like. But when the reader is talking to someone or gets asked a question by someone they don't know, they just go like: Also, the reader is a fire bender Oh, and if you could, can you include some wholesome/funny moments with the gaang and Zuko? - Anon💜

Sitting on the saddle of Appa, you peaked down at the group who were getting ready to explore the town that you were near.

“(Y/N) come on down!” Sokka called.

“Sokka don’t rush them.” Toph hissed.

“Yeah, they’ll come down when they’re ready.” Aang smiled.

You smiled back and went back to laying down in the saddle, gazing up at the cloudless sky with a little smile on your face.

You heard someone climbing up, and Katara dropped herself into the saddle, rolling over so she was laid next to you, a smile on her face.

“Aren’t you going too?” You asked.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just lay here with you, it’s nice.”

Katara reached out, taking your hand so she could lace her fingers through yours.

You gave her hand a little squeeze before letting your hand relax and you carried on staring up into the sky.

“Do you think other water bender know that they could manipulate the clouds?” You asked.

“I don’t think so.” Katara replied.

“I mean it would be more helpful to you guys, especially if more water benders knew they could also just draw water straight from the air. Would it work for any kind of liquid, say lava?”

“I don’t think so, that’s more like fire. You’d be able to bend lava though.”

You hummed a little bit, nodding your head at her response.

“But as magma, it’s in a liquid state, which logically says that you could theoretically bend it if you tried.”

“I definitely don’t want to get close enough to try.” She laughed.

You cracked a small smile, and sat up, peaking over the saddle again before you jumped down.

Katara didn’t say anything as she followed you, pulling your hoods up so no one would recognise the pair of you as you entered the town, you started to aimlessly wonder around.

“If Aang tried could he bend lava?”

“I’d like to think so yeah.” She nodded.

You hummed again, nodding your head as you stopped to look at a few trinkets in the small store.

“Ah I see you like that, can you firebend?” the lady smiled.

You froze up, and you looked at Katara before shuffling yourself behind her, giving her a small poke on the back.

“They can, how much is it?”

“For such a cute pair, have it as a gift. It’s a protection charm, carved from a bit of harden lava we extracted from the base of the volcano.”

“Thank you!” Katara beamed.

She took the necklace and then your hand and guided your away to an alleyway.

“Here I’ll put it on you.”

You shook your head and held your hand out for it, and she handed it over.

Walking around her, you gently placed the necklace over her neck, then walked around and adjusted it with a small smile on your face.

“I wanted it for you.”

“Aw thank you.”

Katara hugged you and you happily hugged her back, tapping her back with your hand a few times.

You guys wondered around for a bit before you met up with the others and made your way back to the campsite.

They all talked about the invasion and what was going to happen and how long they had left until that day.

“What about you (Y/N)? Are you joining us?” Sokka asked.

“No, I don’t think that is a good idea. For now it’s best they don’t know you have a firebender on your side.”

“They’re right, it gives us an advantage.” Toph said.

“Will you wait for us?” Katara asked.

You nodded your head.

“I will wait for you at camp.”

As the day drew closer, Katara got more and more worried about leaving you on your own.

Toph had made you a small cave underground you could hide in just to be safe, and you had everything you needed.

But Katara was still unsure.

“We can’t just leave you here.” She said.

“It’s okay.”

You gave her a small pat on the shoulder, kissing her cheek as you looked around.

“I will be right here.”

“You’re sure you’ll be fine? I can stay? I mean I won’t be much use over there anyway.” Sokka chuckled nervously.

“You have to lead the invasion, you figured this all out, you must go. I will be fine.”

“Okay, momo will stay with you. Right momo?”

The lemur chirped and landed next to you, and they all waved you goodby.

“Katara go.” You spoke softly.

“Okay.”

She sighed and swiftly pulled you in for a hug.

Holding her gently, you sighed and rested your head on her shoulder before you pulled away.

“Go.”

She nodded and had tears in her eyes as she left you behind.

She didn’t want to leave you there, but this was your choice and she wasn’t going to force you to go with them.

You worried, and you stayed close to your little hideout, only leaving at night so no one would catch you under there.

Momo helped you scout the area and make sure it was still safe, and he alerted you to any sound that he heard.

You used this time to practice your firebending, and you carved a few things out of some wood that you found as well just to pass the time.

You had no clue if they had won or not, and you started to grow anxious as the eclipse came and went, and there was no sound of them.

Pacing back and forth on the grass, you chewed on your lip, tapping your hand against your side.

A roar in the sky made you jump and turned around, watching as Appa came rushing down, and you wasted no time in jumping on him so they could get away as quickly as possible.

Katara held you in her arms as they told you about everything that had happened and you nodded your head along.

You guys made your way to an air temple and you wouldn’t let Katara out of your sight.

“We’re not alone…” you whispered.

“What?”

“They’re right.” Toph nodded.

Every jumped up ready, and you all watched as the fire prince came out from where he was hiding.

He claimed he wanted to help you all now, he’d changed his ways and realised what was right and what was wrong.

“I don’t trust him…” Katara whispered.

You placed your hand in hers.

“He is Aangs best shot at learning firebending, I’ve taught him all I can, but I don’t know how to explain anything else to him.”

“I know (Y/N) but he betrayed us.”

“I know, but he seems to mean it.”

Katara looked at you.

You were good at reading people, so she knew when you said he wanted to help that you meant it. And so did he, so she reluctantly nodded.

She took a while to warm up to him, and you did as well, you weren’t sure of him and whenever he tried to talk to you you would scurry away.

“Do they hate me?” He asked around the fire.

“No, they’re just a bit… awkward around people.” Sokka explained.

“They were awkward around us to when we first found them, but they soon warmed up to us.” Toph said.

Zuko nodded and looked over at you and Katara as you guys made your way back to the fire and sat down.

“(Y/N) what’s your opinion on people who can’t bend any elements?” Toph asked.

“Well they’re just as valid as someone who can. They have skills that make them just as important, maybe they can make art, or music, or write. I think non benders are a lot more peaceful, they don’t have the simple minded vision that they are better then everyone else, or that their nation will be the strongest nation. They just want to live simple lives. But at the same time we were given the ability to bend the elements because the first avatar needed to learn this in order to save our world. That’s why the avatar has a duty to the people of the world, and why their lifecycle swaps between the four nations.”

You looked around before staring into the fire.

“Fire is a pretty strong element, it has the ability to destroy, hurt and kill, but it can also be used for good, for light and for warmth. Water can be used to heal, and to protect. Earth to build, and Air to explore the world like never before, but regardless all can be used to hurt and destroy. But because of our nations history, and for starting the war fire is known as the worst one, evil and corrupted.” You explained.

They all nodded their heads.

“But this war could have easily been started by a corrupted leader of any of the nations, all it takes is someone to believe they’re better, and for the first strike to land. That’s it, I’ve seen horrible Earth and water benders, so everyone has what it takes to become the bad guy, they just have to believe that what they’re doing is right.”

“That makes sense, you’ve really thought about this a lot Huh?” Sokka chuckled.

“I’ve had some spare time, speaking of which I was bored and I have something to show you all. Katara knows what it is, but I think it’s about time I showed you guys too.”

You pulled some wooden figures out of your pockets and set them on the grass.

“Hey what’s that?” Aang asked.

“They’ve been working on something to cheer everyone up.” Katara said.

You handed them all out, to every expect Zuko.

“They’re little figures of you all, I know Toph you can’t see yours, so I made yours slightly bigger so you can feel all around it instead, but it’s also made out of a rock I found so you can bend it into anything you want that’s okay.”

You then turned to Zuko who looked disappointed.

“Why are you sad?” You asked.

“It.. it’s nothing…” he mumbled.

He got up and walked away.

“I don’t get it?”

“He’s upset you didn’t make him one as well.” Aang explained.

“Yeah, you gave all of us one but didn’t give Zuko one, he’s feeling left out.”

You went through your pocket.

“I have one for Zuko, I’m not finished with it though, so he has to wait a few minutes.”

They all smiled as they watched you carve away, and after a few moments you finally stood up and gripped the little figure tightly in your hands.

You walked over to Zuko who was sat on a rock and sat next to him.

“I understand if you hate me (Y/N), I did some pretty horrible things to them all, I’m sure you’ve heard about it.”

“Yes, but I also believe that people can change. For the right cause a person can change for the better or for the worse, you didn’t get one because I wasn’t finished with yours. Here, I just needed to add a few extra details to it.”

You held out your hand and Zuko took the little figure, he examined it, every little groove and detail, you had put a lot of hard work into creating this.

“Is this why you and Katara disappear every day?” He asked.

“Yes, I am not very good at remembering details about people, but she is, so she would tell me why everyone looks like so I can add everything. I also have another thing for you.”

You pulled another figure out of your pocket.

“Yours took so long because I was making this as well, you talk a lot about your uncle, and I don’t know what he looks like, so I made a little tea pot for you to remember him by.”

Zuko gently took the little teapot from you, and he sniffled a little bit.

“Thank you so much.” He whispered.

You smiled, patting his shoulder as you stood up and held your hand out to him.

“Will you come sit with us now?”

“Yeah.” He laughed.

You pulled him up and dragged him back over to the fire where you guys both sat down.

You sat between him and Katara, resting your head on your shoulder as she wrapped an arm around you.

Zuko admired his little figures you made, and happily showed everyone what you had made for him and they all smiled and listened as he talked some more about his uncle.

You slowly drifted asleep, and they all just smiled and carried on talking, making them little gifts was your way of showing your love for them all

[zutarabender]

@zutaraweek 2022 day 6 - Closeness. Read on AO3

---

"When I was little, I dreamed of marrying someone with black hair and golden eyes."

Bedtime conversations were Katara's favorite moment of the day. They were even better when they were on vacation in Ember Island. She was cozily snuggled in bed against Zuko, drunk on their closeness, with the sea breeze blowing through the open window and caressing them both.

Zuko seemed to share her glee, because he chuckled. When he spoke, his tone didn't carry nearly the amount of feigned indignation that he wished it did.

"So that's all I am to you. Black hair and golden eyes."

"You're also the ruler of a nation, the most handsome man I've ever met, and a Firebender..." Katara trailed off as an amusing thought caught up to her. "I imagined my partner in life would be a Waterbender. That one I got wrong."

"Well, I... I never thought too much about it." Zuko frowned. "I never thought I'd get to make that kind of choice for myself. It's not really how things were ever done here."

"I thought about it so much, even though I didn't have many options, really. That's part of why I wanted to go to the North Pole so badly." She shifted, pulling slightly away so she could look Zuko in the eye. When it was the two of them, just like this, Katara could say words no one else should ever hear. "I didn't really belong back home. My own brother treated my bending like it was some sort of cursed witchcraft or sorcery before... well. I needed to get out."

"I'm glad we both did, in a way." He placed his hand on her cheek, his gaze full of affection. "It led me to you."

Katara turned slightly to kiss the palm of his hand. She loved him so deeply that her body couldn't contain it.

"I'm so grateful that this is how things turned out," she whispered. "I feel like a spirit must be watching over me and blessing me with good fortune. Perhaps the Blue Spirit," she added cheekily, but then his grin mirrored hers.

"Isn't the Spirit of the Yang-hui River in your debt?"

"I never told you about that."

Zuko smiled wider, but didn't reveal much else. Aang or Sokka must have told him. Perhaps Toph, who had been trying to get them together since her seismic sense clued her in. While she never intended to keep it a secret, it wasn't exactly the sort of thing that came up in general conversation.

"The very land of this nation owes you so much, Katara," he said. "I don't know how to even begin to repay you in the name of the Fire Nation."

"Oh, leave duty and honor out of this bed, Zuko. There are no debts between us. Right now, we're just two people who love each other doing their best."

Zuko's eyebrows shot up.

"You said love." It sounded almost like a question, making Katara giggle.

"What, am I wrong?"

Zuko answered her question before putting it into words, holding her closer and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"No," he said softly. "Not at all."

#zutaraweek #zutara week #zutara week 2022 #zutara #katara #zuko #if there was ever a piece that was entirely within my comfort zone #it's this one #no regrets #sorry for the delay things have been insane #will try to finish up the prompts but no promises #high holidays and all #my stuff

[linnoya-writes]

Zutara sleepover “borrowed friends/borrowed books” Modern AU

Zuko, Haru, Teo and Sokka met when they were 11-13 years old, on a summer camping trip with their local Boy Scout troupe.  

Jet was the tall, charming, model scout leader on that two-week-long expedition in the Canadian Rockies, and Zuko and Sokka immediately bonded over their mutual dislike of the guy.  After that trip -- before September officially drives his friends away to their respective schools -- Sokka invites the boys to his backyard for an impromptu camping trip.  

11-year-old Katara had gone on a trip that summer as well, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity for two weeks.  She had no problem making friends with her bunkmates: Suki and Yue and little tough-nut Toph after talking about the trip leader’s son, Aang.  It was annoying but cute, seeing how this 9-year-old kid had been trying to charm his way into Katara’s heart while not doing squat on the actual trip.  When Aang surprises her with a kiss one day on her morning walk, Katara is stunned.  She immediately goes to tell Yue about this: her first kiss.  How it felt kind of... wrong... and dry... desperate, and childish...and Yue comforts her, saying how it’s okay to feel this way, how Aang should’ve asked her if she wanted to be kissed, and how first kisses aren’t usually perfect, anyway.  Suki steps into the conversation, agreeing, saying how she still gets nightmares about saliva after her own kiss last summer.  And Toph chimes in, her 9-year-old mind grossed out at the thought of kissing anyone.  The girls laugh, and Katara feels happy, like she’s made some life-long friends over a mediocre first-kiss experience.  

She invites the girls to her house for a slumber party before summer ends.

And as it turns out... it’s the same weekend as her brother Sokka’s backyard camping trip.  

Katara and Sokka protest this to their dad, and Hakoda says that it wouldn’t be fair to cancel someone’s plans over another’s.  

“Fine,” Katara side-eyes her brother, “but leave me and my friends alone.  No funny business!”  

“Fine by me,” Sokka mutters. “We’ll just be in the backyard.”  

When the boys arrive for the that sleepover, Haru is the first one to take a notice of the girls arriving in their cars one-by-one and greeting Katara at the porch.

“What’s going on?” Teo asks as he unloads his arm-crutches. 

“My sister’s having a… slumber party.” Sokka crinkles his nose in disgust.

“We should invite them to camp with us!” Haru suggests, already waving to the girls, but Zuko -- who was too busy unloading the giant tent box from his uncle’s car to pay any mind to the girls -- frowns.  

“My sister has slumber parties all the time,” he rasps cautiously.  “We should stay away-- unless you want to wake up with a face full of makeup”  

Sokka slaps Zuko on the back, glad that they see the same way.  

It’s only when Yue shows up that Sokka suddenly forgets what they were talking about.  

“Hey!  What’s this I hear?” Toph’s squeaky voice perks up from the patio.  “Are there boys in front of this house?” 

Katara scoffs, “Yes… but don’t worry. They won’t be bothering us.” 

She expects her brother to snap back at her, but to her surprise it’s the sullen boy with the scar who jumps in.  

“Oh— we don’t plan to,” Zuko quips to her, easily. “Enjoy your fancy makeover, Princess.”  

The last thing Katara expects is that unfamiliar, husky voice to come full swing at her, on her own patio, and Katara’s practically lost for words.  

It’s Suki who chimes in.  “Excuse me-- who’re you calling a princess, Prince Pouty?”  

Zuko doesn’t back down, looking annoyed.  “Isn’t that what slumber parties are for? For princesses?”  

Yue stands next to Katara, almost protectively as she says “for your information, we’re doing a lot more than makeovers.” 

Sokka still says nothing to ease the tension; he is practically drooling over Yue, to the point where Haru elbows him. 

Teo attempts a smile, “um... well… if you guys want to roast marshmallows with us, I brought plenty!” 

Toph raises her hand instantly.  And that’s when Katara speaks.

“Toph— no! We had a whole night of activities planned.” 

“So what?”  Toph exclaims. “They seem fun!” 

"And they brought a volleyball net,” Suki mutters. “I have an idea--” 

Katara braces herself.

“Hey, Pouty!”  Suki shouts, loud and proud to the boy with the scar. “How about some boy-girl three-on-three volleyball action?” 

Zuko stares at the girl’s stance, incredulously.

“Forget it; this was meant to be a boys’ night.”  

It’s when her friend gets thrown off by Zuko’s quip that Katara finally rolls up her emotional sleeves and throws back.  

“Oh come on, Mister Stuck-up Snob.” Katara smirks. “Are you scared to play against some spoiled, dainty little princesses?”  

Toph, Haru and Teo laugh.  Sokka eventually does, too.

Zuko’s brow rises.  He feels his heart racing, and immediately starts to wonder if being Sokka’s friend is worth having to deal with this annoying girl.  Zuko can already see his sister becoming the bane of his existence.  

And Katara feeds that brewing, competitive fire.  “Loser makes the winners s’mores?”  

He clicks his jaw.  “You’re on.”  

Katara wasn’t expecting that determined look to show up on his face-- it catches her off-guard.  She almost misses the high five Suki gives her.  It’s then that she decides this new friend of Sokka’s will is the bane of her existence.  

Of course, Katara, Suki and Yue easily crush the boys in volleyball.  Zuko and Sokka argue like old ladies about who should’ve spiked the ball when. They’re both so red faced and Haru just tries to keep them together in his shy, awkward demeanor.  Teo and Toph seem to hit it off easily on the sidelines, forgetting that they should be monitoring the game for points.  

Zuko sneers at Katara’s winning smirk, but when she puts her hand out for “good game” he holds it firmly... but then, the hold goes soft.  It just happens.  Why, they’re not sure.  But she notices his face, how close Zuko suddenly is to her.  She sees the lining of his scar.  He sees the tiny freckles on her nose.  

It’s awkward. She hates that. He hates that, too.  

Haru then says something to Katara, and her hand flinches out of Zuko’s.  Toph then punches Zuko’s arm affectionately- “How does it feel to get your ass handed to you by some girls?” 

He mutters “girls are crazy” and returns to setting up the tent.  

When Hakoda pops out saying that he’s going to order pizza for the girls, it’s Sokka who looks at Yue and bravely says “how about we all just eat out here?” 

Zuko and Katara whip their heads in unison to Sokka, with a resounding “what?!”  

Suki joins in. “Yeah! It’s too nice of an afternoon to be cooped up inside a house all day.”  

“But… what about the movie night?” Katara attempts meekly. “And manicures? And facials?”  

Toph laughs. “Can’t we do that out here? Maybe give the guys a complimentary facial?” 

Teo raises his hand instantly. “I volunteer!”  

“And  um…” Sokka looks at Yue as he speaks, “we have a projector we can set up to play the movie.”  

“That would be nice!” Yue beams, but Katara frowns. 

“Sokka— it’s a romcom. You hate romcoms” 

“Whaaat?” His eyes bulge, nervously, playfully over to Yue. “That’s not true.”  

“And if the movie gets too lame,” Teo turns to Toph, “I brought my guitar. We can sing in front of the campfire.” 

Suki smiles, “You play guitar?” 

But Toph punches her without warning. “Back off— I got dibs on him!”  

Everyone seems to be laughing and enjoying the idea of a joint camping/slumber party.  Everyone except Katara and Zuko.  But being outnumbered, they swallow that bitterness and just roll with the night barely exchanging any words to each other. 

On the cookout, Zuko handles the burger flipping, and gives Katara hers medium rare as she requested, doing all he can to avoid any more quippy things from her.  She says nothing to him anyway.  Not that he cares.

During the impromptu facials, Haru nervously tries and fails to secure a wet mask onto Katara’s face and she sneezes from the cloth... and when she turns her eyes to Zuko for a moment, she can see him glancing away.  

It sounded like he had been laughing. Chuckling, really.  But it must’ve been her imagination.  This guy didn’t seem the type to smile... much less laugh. 

By the time sun has disappeared and the projector has successfully beamed up for the movie, everyone is exhausted but still willing to payi attention to whatever is happening between these Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky characters.  

“Booo!— he’s too preppy!”  Sokka teases while he, Haru and Zuko finally complete their assembly line of s’more-making for everyone.  

Katara takes a s’more without looking at Zuko, fully engaged with the movie. Sokka and Yue snuggle closely as they look at the projector screen.  Haru is trying to keep his eyes open.  Meanwhile, Teo and Suki are quietly teaching Toph how to play guitar with her nervous fingers.  

As the movie continues, Katara can’t help but notice how Zuko stares at the screen sternly, and she finally grunts: “Okay. It’s stupid. I know.” 

Zuko turns over to her, and just shrugs. “It’s not as bad as Twilight.”  

And Katara perks up, not even missing a beat. 

“Oh my god-- nothing is as bad as Twilight!  That whole dynamic-- that complete and utter devotion to each other— is so toxic!” 

“How that whole thing became the staple for teenage romance is beyond me.”

Katara laughs.  “How do you even know about Twilight?” 

“My sister read the books, and then my mom. I couldn’t get away from it.”

 “Ugh-- I’m so sorry.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Zuko shifts his weight more comfortably on the ground.  “This isn’t so bad. The Peter guy isn’t obsessive. And he has a life.” 

“Yeah. And Lara Jean gets to be herself. She does things outside the relationship!”  

Zuko raises his brow. “You mean, the fake-relationship?” 

And Katara feels the grin on her face. “Oh. Right. You haven’t read the books—never mind.” 

Zuko stares at her.  “You’re telling me they actually become a thing?” 

“Not saying anything!”

By the end of the movie, Katara has already made the trip to her room and brought down her copies of the books for Zuko to read, in case he wanted to. 

He says nothing, but takes the books with a small smile. 

With Haru already passed out after the movie, it seems it’s time for the girls and boys to part ways.  Zuko puts out the campfire to give Sokka and Yue some final time, and he sneers in disgust over at Katara’s direction while she and Suki clean up their facial/manicure things.  Toph makes a fist-bump with Teo, promising more guitar lessons in the future before he goes to his tent, and she and Suki head inside to Katara’s room to hit their sleeping bags. Yue plants a kiss on Sokka’s cheek before leaving, and Sokka looks so smitten and blushed he escapes into his tent.  

Zuko and Katara are the ones to stay behind and finish cleaning.  It doesn’t take too long, and with the only light now coming from heated coals in the campfire, they can barely make out each other’s faces.  

Still, they stay.  Zuko squints as he flips through the first book Katara gave him, quoting parts of it with a weak attempt at a teenage girl voice.  It makes Katara laugh and punch him, and he fakes a weep.  

“Alright-- “ she starts. “What kind of books do you like to read, Mr. Stuck Up Snob?” 

Zuko puts a blanket over his shoulders, looking up at the sky.  “I just finished the last Percy Jackson book, about Greek demigods and monsters.  Now, I’m trying to get through War and Peace, with my uncle.” 

Katara blinks. She doesn’t laugh.  After a moment, she speaks quietly.

“I’ve been trying to get through Pride and Prejudice for years.” 

“Hmm. Never heard of it.” 

“Shut up.” 

He chuckles. Not only is this a revelation for her-- hearing the boy actually laugh, knowing she hadn’t imagined it earlier... but it’s also strange.  It feels like she’s already gotten a grasp of his sarcasm. 

They stay out there in the darkness, laying out on blankets… talking about their time at Scout Camp, at Habitat for Humanity… how annoying it is to have a perfect little sister, a know-it-all older brother… and, after a long quiet moment looking at the sky and hearing a chorus of distant crickets… they get to the other things.  

How she lost her mother, how he got his scar.  

How their families fell apart.  How they’ve managed, since.  

It’s too dark to notice, but their frames slowly shift towards each other at arm’s length as they talk.  They fall asleep out there, under the stars and blankets in the backyard.  

Then, at the crack of dawn, birds chirping, Katara opens her eyes to Zuko fast asleep, so peacefully next to her… and without moving, she studies him.  His dark hair. His frown, softened. His nose twitching by a light breeze that passes by.  

And then she realizes how this looks, a boy and a girl… the two of them sleeping like this, outside, together.  She panics, heart drumming against her chest.  Katara frantically heads inside the house… thanking the gods that Suki, Yue, and Toph are still fast asleep.  Katara quietly sneaks under her own untouched bedcovers.  

Zuko wakes up alone, to the ice cold rush of water thrown on him by Sokka and Haru. 

“Enjoying the slumber, sleeping beauty?” Sokka quips. “It’s breakfast time!” 

Zuko rubs his eyes; he had not had such a peaceful sleep in forever… and for a moment, he’s convinced that it was all a dream, being out there with a Sokka’s sister, talking through the dead of night.  But when he looks up at Katara’s window— the girls are all gathering and gossiping as they awake up in sleepy faces.  And Katara glances over to him through the window, just for a second as she makes her bed… and that’s how Zuko knows: it was not a dream.  

He pinches his nose, wiping the cold water from under his eyes.  

He wonders what the girls are talking about, what Katara is telling them; if she’s saying anything about staying out all night.  With him.  Probably not. 

But Zuko doesn’t frown at that, exactly. 

Hakoda makes enough scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon and toast for the eight kids… and while the boys and girls talk about volleyball and good songs for beginner’s guitar, Zuko and Katara only say a few words to the table; nothing directly to each other.  They steal a few glances, though, and it’s Hakoda who notices.  When Sokka hears that Zuko got on the waitlist for the newest Zelda game, he perks up and says “Hey, Dad!” with a mouthful of egg. “Can we do a video game night next month?” 

“Heck yes!” Suki says happily. “I will most delightfully enjoy kicking all of your butts.” 

Sokka gives Suki a puzzled look. 

Hakoda laughs. “Alright— Katara, how would feel about that?” 

She looks up, unprepared. “Oh… I mean, it’s not really my thing, but sure.”

Zuko looks over at Katara, and she grins, but they say nothing.  

When they all pack up to go home, Zuko barely looks over Katara’s direction, and it’s only when he leaves that he manages to face her.  

“Not the worst slumber party I’ve been to,” Zuko mumbles, hands in his pockets.  

Katara tries not to laugh at that, holding her arms to her frame. 

“Yeah. Um. Let me know what you think. About the books, I mean.” 

“Sure.  I might not even read them.”  

Katara rolls her eyes. “You want to. Just admit it.” 

He frowns dismissively, watching the car pull up. “Whatever.” 

“Fine. Just bring them back to me, okay?”  

Zuko scoffs. “I promise I won’t use them as doormats, Princess.” 

She jabs him, and Zuko ignores it.

He heads straight to his uncle’s car, waving to Hakoda.  “Thanks for having us over, Mr. Kuruk.”   

“It’s Hakoda, son.”  

“Okay. Bye Sokka.” 

“See you soon, buddy!”  

In the car Zuko is quiet while his uncle pulls out of the driveway. 

“Did you have fun?” his uncle asks. 

Zuko just nods, sternly, looking down at the stack of books on his lap.  

Iroh notices those books as well, wondering what’s inspired Zuko to suddenly read the things Azula likes… but not questioning it. 

Instead he says “I’m glad that you’re finally making friends.”  

Zuko just shrugs, and carefully opens the first borrowed book to begin reading.  

When the car rolls out, Hakoda notices Katara, looking out to the car almost as if she were in deep thought.  

“He’s cool, right?” Sokka says to their dad. 

“Yeah.” Hakoda agrees. “He seems like a good kid.” 

Katara shakes her head, arms folded in. “He’s weird.”  

Sokka and Hakoda turn to her direction, oddly, and all Katara does is go straight to her room and falls asleep as her head sinks into the pillow.  

Her brows furrow as she sleeps… trying to think of anything other than a certain boy’s raspy voice, stern face, warm hands.  

And that’s how it starts.  

A month later, during the big video game night, only Zuko, Teo and Suki show up… but Katara and Yue are knee-deep in a science project for Mr. Pakku that they only run downstairs to grab a quick snack from the pantry.  As they does so, Sokka greets Yue sweetly asking about the project.  

“Who’s winning?” Yue asks. 

“I am,” Suki chimes in proudly. 

“But not by much,” Zuko mutters, and Suki laughs which makes Katara turn to see them playing together.  Suki is edging her shoulder teasing against Sokka’s, rather than Zuko’s, and something about that eases a knot in Katara’s stomach.  

It’s only then that she notices all of her three borrowed books returned, as promised... stacked neatly on top of each other at the kitchen table.  

Zuko glances over Katara’s direction and acknowledges her with a nod. 

It’s not enough to say whether or not he indeed read all the books… and Katara decides she doesn’t want to know. At least, not then. 

Before a blush crosses her cheeks, she grabs a bag of chips and apple with one hand and quickly waves a hello to Zuko as she heads back up the stairs.  

His heart skips a beat. He wasn’t ready for it.  Her smile.  

At the end of that night, when Sokka says they should play video games again, Zuko nods in agreement.  But in his mind, only the face of a certain girl passes by.  He sees her competitive smirk, her kind eyes, her soft hands.  It’s not much, really… but it’s enough for Zuko to wonder just how much of him was excited to go back to Sokka’s house to actually play video games.  

The next time he comes over, Katara isn’t studying. 

She has managed to join in on Super Smash Bros brawl, patient with Sokka’s instructions on how to play, despite how much she says the activity seems “mindless… just a bunch of digital characters throwing punches at each other.” 

Zuko fights back a chuckle from that, and his jaw clenches when she throws him a competitive stare… but he stays focused on the game.  He wins, and the look on Katara’s face says she’ll look forward to playing him again.  He doesn’t mind.  

It’s not until the third time he comes over for video games that he and Katara go to the kitchen to grab water together... and they finally, finally talk about the books.  

And school.  

And other things besides the fact that they’d once stayed out all night, talking in the backyard.

A year later, when Sokka gets a smartphone, Zuko happily accepts his Instagram invitation and “Boy Scout” group chat invitations… and he chuckles whenever Katara steals her brother’s phone to text Zuko a quick greeting from cyberspace.  

Another year later, when Katara finally gets her own smartphone... the girl doesn’t wait a minute before accepting her best friend’s Instagram invitation and they text each other at their respective schools throughout the day, almost every day.  

Another year later, and they call each other... almost every night.  

Another year later, and it’s on exceptionally rough days that Zuko finds himself showing up to the house.  It’s alright.  Hakoda has already welcomed him.  It starts with watching some after-school SciFi thing with Sokka, happily eating a snack that Hakoda may offer him, and then... it’s her.  

Katara feels the smile form on her face when she sees him.  

The rough day may be about her, or him (they tend to be interchangeable, at that age), but in any case, the day always ends with them together.  Doing homework quietly on the kitchen table... sitting on the patio chairs, talking  about things... laying out in the backyard just to look up at the evening sky.

And it’s on one of these days when, without words, Zuko bravely asks his best friend if he can kiss her.  Without words... she says yes.

And that’s how it starts.

#zutara #zutara fanfiction #zutara fanfic #zutara modern au #zuko #katara

[zutarawasrobbed]

I posted 123 times in 2022

49 posts created (40%)

74 posts reblogged (60%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@the-badger-mole

@zutaramonth

@stardust948

@sneezypeasy

@zutarawasrobbed

I tagged 102 of my posts in 2022

Only 17% of my posts had no tags

#zutara - 78 posts

#zuko - 37 posts

#katara - 36 posts

#atla - 27 posts

#avatar the last airbender - 12 posts

#anti kataang - 7 posts

#anti maiko - 6 posts

#atla original scripts - 6 posts

#anti k@taang - 5 posts

#incorrect quotes - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 96 characters

#what kind of grown ass man thinks “hmm i should murder this child for disagreeing with my idea?”

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Honestly, after the shit Aang pulled at the ember island players, I 100% would’ve supported the episode ending with Aang walking in on Zuko and Katara making out.

509 notes - Posted March 18, 2022

#4

Sokka: Katara, how many times do I have to tell you-

Katara: Because you don’t know how he feels about me! What if he doesn’t like me? He’s gonna be the Fire lord in a few days.

Sokka: He literally jumped in front of lightning for you! I think it’s clear!

Katara: Pshhh, he would’ve done that for anyone and you know that.

Sokka: … *Deadpan* He used Suki as momentum to save you from falling rocks when his sister found us at the air temple. Suki was just lucky his shove happened to get her out of the way too. I don’t think he’d do that for just anyone.

Katara: No he didn’t-

Suki: Yes, he did. He flat out told me.

513 notes - Posted January 26, 2022

#3

Suki: Why don’t you just tell Katara how you feel?

Zuko: *Scoffs* Are you crazy?!?! That’s the stupidest thing I could ever do. We just started to be friends!!! No. I’ve made enough reckless decisions in my life.

Also Zuko: *Yeets himself directly into lighting*

682 notes - Posted January 11, 2022

#2

Guys..

The original script adds so much context for a lot of scenes, but this one?

Zuko didn’t just start sleeping next to Katara because he wanted to be close to her. He also wanted to be close enough to protect her from another ambush and bomb attack.

And Katara could sleep with a smile on her face because she knew Zuko would be there to protect her. Zuko gave her the opportunity to sleep without being alert 100% of the time for the first time in probably forever…

I’m not okay 😭

696 notes - Posted October 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Katara: So, let me get this straight. You were in a war meeting... thirteen years old… defended new recruits from being used as fodder… and in return, you were challenged to an Agni Kai- at thirteen- by the officer who proposed it… But on the day of the Agni Kai, you- at thirteen years old- were met by your father… who you refused to fight… and instead of calling it off… he burnt half your face off and banished you?

Zuko: Yes…

Katara: *Nods* Excuse me.

2 Hours Later…

Ozai: *Cell opens* What-

Katara: It’s a full moon tonight.

Ozai: … Why-

Katara: *Sighs and starts sand timer* You have 10 seconds.

Ozai: *Apprehensive* For what?

Katara: To run, before I gut you like a fish 😁

1,918 notes - Posted January 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[black-velvet-lady]

"Who's scarier? Ozai, Azula, Hama, or Koh?"

I think a question like this directly ignores some legitimately terrifying characters that we were introduced to in avatar last Air bender. Such as General Fong, the earth bender Prison Warden, Zhao, Avatar Yangchen, Fire Lord Sozin, Fire Lord Azulon, Combustion Man, the dragon of the west, and Long Feng to name a few.

Now many of these characters are undercut by little screen time, narrative framing, being overshadowed, or having their information be supplemental material.

Going in order of the books the Prison Warden of the earth bender Prison is a legitimately terrifying boss with violent impulses as volatile as a grenade locked behind a hair pin trigger. This guy throws fire at a prisoner's feet and locks him in solitary confinement for a week for coughing while he was talking. Coughing. Not only that he tossed his captain overboard for asking a question, he didn’t even know it was the captain. Then later near the end of the episode Haru throws a rock at his head and he immediately went to burn the kid for the offense. Course this is undercut by the end of the episode with him meekly saying he can't swim and Taro calling him a coward.

General Fong is another character that is legitimately terrifying due to his actual power hungry nature. Fong wants to weaponize a twelve-year-old boy and brandishes guilt upon the boy to achieve these ends. When told no he uses violence to achieve his goal against not only Aang, but Katara and Sokka as well. He buries Katara alive to force Aang into the Avatar State endangering the lives of his comrades and the injured stationed at his base, and he doesn't learn his lesson. He still believes he was right in doing all of this by the end of the episode cause he wants to wield the Avatar as the ultimate weapon and carve a bloody path of vengeance through the fire nation straight to the royal palace. Still he's undercut by sharing screen time with Azula who arguably steals the show from every major villain in the series.

The Rough Rhinos are kind of undercut by the fact that they always loose to the protagonist characters, but they were instrumental in the war effort as the forward troops. Not only that but they also have a canonical body count since they were responsible for the deaths of Jets parents during the burning of his village and they did have murderous intent in the village of Chin.

Sozin. Picture is worth a thousand words and I got two.

Enough said.

Azulon. Man was responsible for 90% of the hundred year war and ordered the death of his grandson cause his second son insulted him. He's a horrible POS.

Long Feng. Controls the largest city in the world through mind control and fear and is able to kill kids with impunity cause he's controlling the King like a puppet. Even when placed in prison he is still a danger to the city and its people.

Combustion Man. I think it's very telling that the gang will fight the dangerous ladies but their go to strategy with him is run and hide.

Yangchen and Iroh seem to stick out like a sore thumb now don't they? Don't be fooled. Yangchen's original lore actually states she took her job deadly serious. Yangchen was a fully realized Avatar at 17 and terrorized the world into such a state of paralyzing fear that there was a lasting peace for an entire generation after her death cause everyone feared her wrath. The framing around her and Kyoshi kinda makes them seem like the other way around but I find it very telling that Yangchen says you must sacrifice your own needs to protect the world while Kyoshi equates not lifting a hand to save Chin from dying to be the same killing him.

Iroh is the last one cause honestly you don't need me to explain why Zhao is bad. Let's keep one thing in mind with Iroh. He met the dragons before Zuko was born. He learned that fire is life 9 years before campaigning in the Earth Kingdom and laying siege to Ba Sing Se for 600 days. He only stopped when his son died. Did nothing as his brother took the throne and burned his son. Retired to the place he laid siege to. Brought the white Lotus into power and they continued his father's inhumane prisons on the red Lotus.

And Ty Lee is the scariest and most effective member of the dangerous ladies. No I will not elaborate.

[field-s-of-flowers]

ATLA headcanon: Kyoshi Warriors can get married, but they are forced to resign if they have children- the reasoning being that you can’t devote your life to your island if there’s another life dependent on yours.

Because of this, Suki never wants to have children. But Sokka does, more than anything in the world.

She suspects part of it is Katara, who already has a little boy with another on the way, who has never had anything Sokka didn’t want for himself. Even so, his enthusiasm is infectious. Soon enough, Suki is imagining little versions of her steely eyes set into his soft brown skin.

But they can’t do it. No matter how many medicinal teas Zuko has imported from the Jasmine Dragon, no matter how loudly Aang invokes spirits involved in that sort of thing, no matter which ways Katara and Toph swirl the waters in Suki’s belly. Nothing.

Little Kya is born, a feisty thing with eyes like the deepest depths of the ocean. She will be a warrior, Aang predicts, and Suki can’t help but agree. This is enough, she thinks. A warrior’s life, a nephew and a niece. This is what she was made for.

Sokka keeps begging her to try, though, with those desperate eyes she can’t ignore.

They get lucky, once. Toph is the first one to know, quickly followed by Katara. The three of them cry, together before telling the world, and Suki’s tears aren’t all joy. Aang joyfully tells little Bumi and Kya that they’re going to have a cousin, and Sokka is as wide-eyed as the day they met. He can’t believe the luck they’ve been given.

Their luck, be it good or bad, lasts a little under four months. It ends in blood.

Katara and Aang have another boy. At his birth, as they wait anxiously for it to end, Sokka shoots Suki a glance. It’s been almost two years, he says later, wiping tears from his eyes. We can try again.

No, she tells him. I’m done trying just to feed your jealous ego. I was a warrior when we met, Sokka, and I will be a warrior until the day I die.

They scream, they cry, they hurl insults. It doesn’t come to blows, but when he calls her stonehearted and uncaring and disloyal, it almost feels worse. Of course, she follows back with inconsiderate and unrealistic and asshole, so it’s even.

The last straw is when Suki catches Sokka praying to the moon for a change of heart. That is when she packs her bags and catches a boat to Kyoshi Island. I love you, she says to Sokka’s sleeping form. I will, always.

Suki leaves her dreams of gray eyes in brown skin at the door. She leaves her lover’s heart, soaked as it is in blood, and she leaves her lover along with it.

She takes her fans and her makeup and her heart of stone, and goes to join her sisters.

#soph’s posts #Soph’s fics #atla #sukka #suki atla #sukka headcanons #Sukka fic #atla fic #Suki fic #Suki headcanons #SORRY #Click the readmore at your own risk #Sukka angst #Suki angst #Blood tw #Ask to tag

[zutarasecrettunnel]

Late addition one-shot for Zutara Month is posted!

Allegory

Three years after the end of the Hundred Years War, Katara asks Zuko to tell her the story of the Painted Lady for a second time.

Read it on AO3 or read below the cut.

Katara digs her bare feet into the cool sands of Ember Island. The breeze that lifts her curls across her face is a bitter one, but not cold as the icy tundras of her homeland. She wraps her arms around herself, less for the warmth and more for the touch. The moon is full, casting a silver blanket over the darkened ocean. The small waves that skitter onto the shoreline glitter with firelight from the evening’s festivities. Katara can still hear the celebratory music, the laughter, all the promised jubilee of the post-war world from the large house on the dune that had once been her temporary home. 

She wiggles her toes. The shore seems the same as it ever did, soft and too inviting for a country built on conquest. The waves roar just as they had the days before Sozin’s comet. She takes in the sounds alongside the salty air of the beach, ignoring the cacophony of conviviality she left behind. A small wave crawls its way over her ankles, turning the sand around her feet into heavy plaster. Inside there is a party, an important party. On this beach there is an aching loneliness, an unexpected resignation. 

So much about the world had changed in the last three years, but this sand was the same. Three years of rebuilding, three years of ongoing peace talks and messy decolonization, three years of putting off her actual life. Katara had been an essential part of all of these world-changing processes, and yet still she felt as if the sun and moon had risen and set around her stationary body, stuck in the ground like her feet were now. 

“Can’t stay away from it for long, hmm?” 

The voice lifts itself up among the tides of merriment and salt water. Katara blinks rapidly as she turns around, her feet twisting in their spot, loosening the grip of the shoreline’s grit. She is met with the flickering outline of the Fire Lord. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asks, a quizzical expression on her face. She quickly adds a second question, “stay away from what?” 

“The ocean,” Zuko replies in his usual succinct manner, arms crossed, “and that was going to be my next question to you.” 

Katara pauses, turning back to the water as if to seek advice. 

“I was going to practice waterbending,” she does not face Zuko as she replies, choosing to lie to the ocean instead. “What are you doing here? Isn’t that whole thing for you?” She gestures vaguely to the celebration occurring behind them. 

He shrugs, stepping off the lacquered wooden steps leading from the house to the shore, his bare feet also sinking into the pillowy sand. He had changed from earlier in the night, no longer in his embellished ceremonial robes. No crown adorns his head. 

“I come out here a lot.” He says in a way that suggests the answer should be obvious, “and this is an odd time to be practicing waterbending.” 

“I always loved practicing on this beach.” 

This part was true - an excellent addition to the recipe of a facade. She had spent many hours practicing waterbending forms on this beach, integrating things she had learned from Toph’s earthbending lessons to Aang, Suki’s nimble Kyoshi warrior moves, and even some of Sokka’s swordplay philosophies. 

“I remember.” He was close to her now. The slight chill of the night’s atmosphere warmed in his presence as if it respected his royalty, his natural command of heat. Feeling the difference, Katara loosens her grip on her arms, her feet leaving their hiding spot to face him. 

“We used to practice out here together,” Zuko continues, “don’t think I forgot.” 

He fixes his eyes on her as he says it. In his cadence is an earnestness that only comes with the hard lessons he’s learned. It’s an intensity that is familiar but always unexpected, a type of vulnerability that she still finds unsettling. 

Katara is ashamed. It took less courage to take on Azula than it does to hold Zuko’s gaze. She looks down at the oncoming seawater that engulfs both of their ankles. 

Soju glasses and waves clink and crash. The wind blows her hair across her face again. 

“I guess I also came out here to reminisce,” she adds another dash of truth to her concoction, this time speaking it to the sands, “I’ve been gone for a long time.” She pulls her delicate strands behind her ear. 

“Nearly three years,” he says quickly, like he knew the exact count of days and was eager to share it. “But look at the Southern Water Tribe now. No one would ever be able to tell that an arrogant prince once sailed his hideous war ship right into your village.” 

Katara allows a small chuckle to escape from a half-hearted smile. Zuko is smiling back at her, a phenomenon seen more frequently since the end of the war, but a rare one nonetheless.

“So what were you reminiscing about?” 

Katara chews her bottom lip before responding.

“Do you remember…” 

The words come slowly, navigating all there is to say like the ice dodging rituals of her tribe. She had sought the shoreline to seek refuge from the night’s festivities. She had come to collect her thoughts, to navigate the waves of the last three years, to try to come to terms with why she felt like a shipwreck. 

She changes course. 

“Why did you really come out here?” 

Zuko frowns. 

“Noticed you were gone,” he says. “Do y-...do you want me to leave?” 

“No.” 

It surprised Katara to have uttered the word so quickly. It was as if it had jumped out in response to all the times in the last three years of summits and peace talks that they had missed. 

Zuko walks around her like a priceless vase in a museum, hesitant to get too close. He steps closer to the ocean. The sand is still damp from the receding tide, but he sits anyway.

“Well then,” he pulls his knees up, resting his elbows on them, “let’s reminisce.” 

Katara follows in his footsteps, placing herself gently on the ground beside him. Another small wave splashes onto the shore. It stretches itself toward them, but just falls short. 

“Do you remember after the fight… the Agni Kai with Azula, when I was trying to keep you awake? When I wanted to make sure you would… stay with me while I tried to heal you?” 

The question is disjointed and clumsy. It staggers from her mouth unwillingly.

“Yes.” Zuko nods solemnly. 

“Do you remember how I asked you to tell me a story? Any story? And you were so out of it you didn’t know which one to tell… so I asked if you knew about the Painted Lady?” 

Zuko nods a second time, his eyes fixed to the side of Katara’s moonlit face. She still can’t look directly at him. 

“Will you… tell me again? Tell me about the Painted Lady?” 

Zuko doesn’t remark on the peculiarity of the request, doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t mention that he has other places he’s meant to be, doesn’t note how she must know the story. He just studies her face, his own deliberate and restrained. The breeze blows silently between them until he eventually begins. 

“The Painted Lady is unique among Fire Nation spirits,” he starts, the scratch of his voice suddenly deeper, “because she is actually a water spirit. She is also rare in that she was a human before she became a spirit. The story of the Painted Lady is a story that is, above all, about love.”

He refocuses his attention on the beach beneath them as he begins to fulfill her request, poking absentmindedly at the sand. 

“In her mortal life, she lived in Jang Hui. At the time, the town was just a small village. They didn’t have much, and steep, forest-covered mountain faces surrounded the river. The Painted Lady was then known as Takiko, a humble but gracious maiden in the village. She worked as a seamstress, refining the art of weaving fishing nets into extravagant veils for brides of the Fire Nation aristocracy. When she was not working on her creations, she would swim in the clear waters of the river. She was attached to the river, cared about it. For most of the villagers, the river was prized because of what it could provide to the people, not for what it was. Takiko’s unconventional nature was tolerated because she was not only a talented and skilled artisan… “ Zuko hesitates as he considers the parameters of his storytelling and the request that was made of him. Katara finally looks at him as he hesitates, and he is able to meet the deep blue of her eyes as he finishes his sentence. 

“... She was also incredibly beautiful.” 

He did remember how he had told her the story the first time, glassy-eyed and tender, exposed and forthright. His narrative had been erratic and forgetful, but the emphasis on these words had been the same. She could still feel the way he had clutched her wrist, as if he was desperate to confess a sin to the spirits before entering their realm. The image stuck in her mind like a pearl in an oyster, a seed of knowledge developed over time, only to be harvested at the most inopportune moment. 

“It was this beauty and zeal for life, her skill and legitimate care for her people that caused the Water Dragon, the Spirit World’s guardian of the river, to fall in love with Takiko. He would watch her from afar as she worked, as she swam in the river he guarded, and as she struggled against the forces of the Fire Nation royalty and aristocracy that sought to exploit the river to ruin. Even before the Hundred Years War, the Jang Hui river had been subject to overfishing and other forms of abuse. Takiko would often berate the mercenaries who enforced the trade practices. Each time, the Water Dragon would yearn to step in and help, but he was not powerful enough to cross into the mortal realm. Each time Takiko would stand up to the soldiers, they got more and more aggressive with her. They even left her with burn marks on her face from one of the encounters. Still, she never lost hope, and still the Dragon loved her. “

Katara swallows thickly, realization trickling into her mind like a spring with each word Zuko says. 

“Eventually, the mercenaries tired of her interference, and the tolerance and protection she had enjoyed from her favor with the ladies of the ruling class could not save her. That morning, they had caught Takiko sabotaging a fishing boat set to voyage into an already over-fished area of the river. The mercenaries dragged her to the edge of the docks, binding her arms and feet. They growled insults at her as they threw her into the water. She struggled against the ropes and the deluge of her beloved river. She felt herself sinking steadily, quietly, her breath leaving her body in small bubbles that danced to the surface. The Water Dragon, seeing the encounter, returned desperately to the Spirit World to seek the favor of Paresh, one of the Supreme spirits and the only entity capable of helping him. He begged the more powerful Alldragon to help him cross over into the mortal world, to help him save Takiko, knowing the consequences of his request. Paresh, not always known for benevolence, was moved by the lesser dragon’s plea and self-sacrifice, and granted his wish. However, the deal had conditions - if he saved the maiden and lived out his mortal life with her, upon his death he would serve Paresh in whatever capacity he wished. The Water Dragon immediately agreed, and the deal was made official as he accepted a mysterious mask from the Supreme spirit. Upon making the deal, The Water Dragon raced back to the mortal realm to find Takiko still struggling, still fighting to keep herself alive. She was nearly ready to give up when she felt her lungs fill to the brim with oxygen, and pressure that felt like the softest kiss of a lover on her lips.”

Zuko pauses, nervously rubbing his palms together. It was clear he had a clearer memory of his first telling of this story than she had assumed. She could tell he could remember how close he had been to her, his breath heavy from pain, adrenaline, and trepidation. He must remember how he had reached for her, clasping her cheek as he recounted the tale, thumb brushing over her lips. Her heart roars like the ocean. She reaches for him this time, ceasing the movement of his hands by placing hers on them. 

“Please,” she says sadly, “go on.” 

Zuko swallows his shame as he continues. 

“Takiko was suddenly lifted from the river, her restraints torn asunder, and she stood towering above her attackers on a column of the river’s current. The men screamed, frightened, and tried to run from the impending onslaught. Instead, the water crashed into them, sending them hurtling into the hard wood of the docks. Soggy and terrified, the men scrambled to their feet and ran from the village entirely, never to return. Exhausted, Takiko found herself steadied by the strong arms of a mysterious young man. His face was obscured by a dark blue mask with an imposing protrusion of two tusks carved into it with what looked like the silver threads of the moon. She thanked the man, feeling oddly as if she knew him, knew that he had watched over her. Hesitantly, she gingerly placed a hand on the right side of the stranger’s face, her thumb grazing the gaping maw of his ominous disguise. A feeling of love she could not explain washed over her as she lifted the mask. From that day on, Takiko and the Water Dragon were not parted until it came time for him to make good on his bargain. On that day, the Water Dragon became The Blue Spirit. And when it came time for the end of Takiko’s life, through her immense dedication to justice, hope, and her love she became the Painted Lady, swearing to watch over the river of the Water Dragon who had watched over her, and eventually be reunited with her love.”

Zuko concludes the tale, a wistful tone in his husky voice. A drop of moisture falls between them and quickly melts onto the beach. He can barely hear Katara’s voice, feeble and forlorn, over the continuing sounds of the now forgotten party they had both sought refuge from. 

“Thank you for telling me this story again, Zuko. It… means a lot to me. This story means a lot to me… you-“ 

She stops, unable to finish the sentence, her feelings revealing themselves in a deluge. He had tried to tell her three years ago, tried to pull her from the depths of doubt and confusion. In the midst of the war’s end and the rebuilding of the world, she had not seen what was right in front of her. 

Zuko watches helplessly as a trail of regret leads a crooked path from Katara’s eyes to her chin. 

“Katara, I- “ he searches desperately for the words, “All this time, I… I just thought you didn’t - we never had time to - “ 

“Lord Zuko!” The new voice bursts like a lightning bolt between the two of them. Katara snatches her hand away from the Fire Lord’s fingers, rubbing her eyes discreetly. 

“What are you doing out here, sire?” 

There she was, the source of the joy and merriment of the evening, the reason for the nation’s rejoice. Her voice was light and pleasant, exactly what was to be expected from a well-bred maiden of the Fire Nation upper classes, exactly the kind of tone and articulation the next Fire Lady should have. She stands small and dainty at the top of the stairs, heavily decorated, her face painted in an elegant pattern, still wearing the ceremonial robes of her new station. 

Zuko’s amber eyes are hard, his jaw taut as he turns his attention to the new arrival. His voice is the controlled, disciplined tone of the ruler he is as he calls back to her. 

“I’ll be back inside in just a moment. I’m just catching up with Master Katara.” 

The delicate young woman flicks her eyes over the waterbender. 

“I won’t rush you, my Lord,” she responds, “but I am missing your presence at our celebration.” 

Zuko nods.

“I’ll re-join everyone shortly,” he replies. 

The young woman smiles pleasantly as she bows.  Her elaborate kimono whirls around her slim frame as she returns to the house. 

Katara watches the young woman’s retreat, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Firelord Zuko,”  she addresses her companion dolefully, “thank you again for the story. I think I’ll be able to remember it much better this time. “ 

“Katara, I… we-“ he stutters, realization struggling with responsibility. 

“It’s a beautiful legend,” Katara interrupts. Back only in the view of the moonlight, she dares to face him, smoothing her hands over his tunic to brush grains of sand from the threads. He stops her movement, gently clasping both her wrists as she looks up at him falteringly. She tries unsuccessfully to blink away the unwelcome stinging in her eyelids. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand it before.” 

Their roles, the deal they made with the world when they ended the war, settles between them in a somber silence. 

“Now,” Katara gingerly removes herself from Zuko’s grip, her voice just a breath cracking amongst the sea breeze, “you should go be with your fiancé.” 

Katara digs her bare feet into the cool sands of Ember Island. The breeze that lifts her curls across her face is a bitter one, but not cold as the icy tundras of her homeland. She wraps her arms around herself, less for the warmth and more for the touch. The moon is full, casting a silver blanket over the darkened ocean. The small waves that skitter onto the shoreline glitter with firelight from the evening’s festivities. Katara can still hear the celebratory music, the laughter, all the promised jubilee of the post-war world from the large house on the dune that had once been her temporary home. 

She wiggles her toes. The shore seems the same as it ever did, soft and too inviting for a country built on conquest. The waves roar just as they had the days before Sozin’s comet. She takes in the sounds alongside the salty air of the beach, ignoring the cacophony of conviviality she left behind. A small wave crawls its way over her ankles, turning the sand around her feet into heavy plaster. Inside there is a party, an important party. On this beach there is an aching loneliness, an unexpected resignation. 

So much about the world had changed in the last three years, but this sand was the same. Three years of rebuilding, three years of ongoing peace talks and messy decolonization, three years of putting off her actual life. Katara had been an essential part of all of these world-changing processes, and yet still she felt as if the sun and moon had risen and set around her stationary body, stuck in the ground like her feet were now. 

“Can’t stay away from it for long, hmm?” 

The voice lifts itself up among the tides of merriment and salt water. Katara blinks rapidly as she turns around, her feet twisting in their spot, loosening the grip of the shoreline’s grit. She is met with the flickering outline of the Fire Lord. 

“What are you doing out here?” she asks, a quizzical expression on her face. She quickly adds a second question, “stay away from what?” 

“The ocean,” Zuko replies in his usual succinct manner, arms crossed, “and that was going to be my next question to you.” 

Katara pauses, turning back to the water as if to seek advice. 

“I was going to practice waterbending,” she does not face Zuko as she replies, choosing to lie to the ocean instead. “What are you doing here? Isn’t that whole thing for you?” She gestures vaguely to the celebration occurring behind them. 

He shrugs, stepping off the lacquered wooden steps leading from the house to the shore, his bare feet also sinking into the pillowy sand. He had changed from earlier in the night, no longer in his embellished ceremonial robes. No crown adorns his head. 

“I come out here a lot.” He says in a way that suggests the answer should be obvious, “and this is an odd time to be practicing waterbending.” 

“I always loved practicing on this beach.” 

This part was true - an excellent addition to the recipe of a facade. She had spent many hours practicing waterbending forms on this beach, integrating things she had learned from Toph’s earthbending lessons to Aang, Suki’s nimble Kyoshi warrior moves, and even some of Sokka’s swordplay philosophies. 

“I remember.” He was close to her now. The slight chill of the night’s atmosphere warmed in his presence as if it respected his royalty, his natural command of heat. Feeling the difference, Katara loosens her grip on her arms, her feet leaving their hiding spot to face him. 

“We used to practice out here together,” Zuko continues, “don’t think I forgot.” 

He fixes his eyes on her as he says it. In his cadence is an earnestness that only comes with the hard lessons he’s learned. It’s an intensity that is familiar but always unexpected, a type of vulnerability that she still finds unsettling. 

Katara is ashamed. It took less courage to take on Azula than it does to hold Zuko’s gaze. She looks down at the oncoming seawater that engulfs both of their ankles. 

Soju glasses and waves clink and crash. The wind blows her hair across her face again. 

“I guess I also came out here to reminisce,” she adds another dash of truth to her concoction, this time speaking it to the sands, “I’ve been gone for a long time.” She pulls her delicate strands behind her ear. 

“Nearly three years,” he says quickly, like he knew the exact count of days and was eager to share it. “But look at the Southern Water Tribe now. No one would ever be able to tell that an arrogant prince once sailed his hideous war ship right into your village.” 

Katara allows a small chuckle to escape from a half-hearted smile. Zuko is smiling back at her, a phenomenon seen more frequently since the end of the war, but a rare one nonetheless.

“So what were you reminiscing about?” 

Katara chews her bottom lip before responding.

“Do you remember…” 

The words come slowly, navigating all there is to say like the ice dodging rituals of her tribe. She had sought the shoreline to seek refuge from the night’s festivities. She had come to collect her thoughts, to navigate the waves of the last three years, to try to come to terms with why she felt like a shipwreck. 

She changes course. 

“Why did you really come out here?” 

Zuko frowns. 

“Noticed you were gone,” he says. “Do y-...do you want me to leave?” 

“No.” 

It surprised Katara to have uttered the word so quickly. It was as if it had jumped out in response to all the times in the last three years of summits and peace talks that they had missed. 

Zuko walks around her like a priceless vase in a museum, hesitant to get too close. He steps closer to the ocean. The sand is still damp from the receding tide, but he sits anyway.

“Well then,” he pulls his knees up, resting his elbows on them, “let’s reminisce.” 

Katara follows in his footsteps, placing herself gently on the ground beside him. Another small wave splashes onto the shore. It stretches itself toward them, but just falls short. 

“Do you remember after the fight… the Agni Kai with Azula, when I was trying to keep you awake? When I wanted to make sure you would… stay with me while I tried to heal you?” 

The question is disjointed and clumsy. It staggers from her mouth unwillingly.

“Yes.” Zuko nods solemnly. 

“Do you remember how I asked you to tell me a story? Any story? And you were so out of it you didn’t know which one to tell… so I asked if you knew about the Painted Lady?” 

Zuko nods a second time, his eyes fixed to the side of Katara’s moonlit face. She still can’t look directly at him. 

“Will you… tell me again? Tell me about the Painted Lady?” 

Zuko doesn’t remark on the peculiarity of the request, doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t mention that he has other places he’s meant to be, doesn’t note how she must know the story. He just studies her face, his own deliberate and restrained. The breeze blows silently between them until he eventually begins. 

“The Painted Lady is unique among Fire Nation spirits,” he starts, the scratch of his voice suddenly deeper, “because she is actually a water spirit. She is also rare in that she was a human before she became a spirit. The story of the Painted Lady is a story that is, above all, about love.”

He refocuses his attention on the beach beneath them as he begins to fulfill her request, poking absentmindedly at the sand. 

“In her mortal life, she lived in Jang Hui. At the time, the town was just a small village. They didn’t have much, and steep, forest-covered mountain faces surrounded the river. The Painted Lady was then known as Takiko, a humble but gracious maiden in the village. She worked as a seamstress, refining the art of weaving fishing nets into extravagant veils for brides of the Fire Nation aristocracy. When she was not working on her creations, she would swim in the clear waters of the river. She was attached to the river, cared about it. For most of the villagers, the river was prized because of what it could provide to the people, not for what it was. Takiko’s unconventional nature was tolerated because she was not only a talented and skilled artisan… “ Zuko hesitates as he considers the parameters of his storytelling and the request that was made of him. Katara finally looks at him as he hesitates, and he is able to meet the deep blue of her eyes as he finishes his sentence. 

“... She was also incredibly beautiful.” 

He did remember how he had told her the story the first time, glassy-eyed and tender, exposed and forthright. His narrative had been erratic and forgetful, but the emphasis on these words had been the same. She could still feel the way he had clutched her wrist, as if he was desperate to confess a sin to the spirits before entering their realm. The image stuck in her mind like a pearl in an oyster, a seed of knowledge developed over time, only to be harvested at the most inopportune moment. 

“It was this beauty and zeal for life, her skill and legitimate care for her people that caused the Water Dragon, the Spirit World’s guardian of the river, to fall in love with Takiko. He would watch her from afar as she worked, as she swam in the river he guarded, and as she struggled against the forces of the Fire Nation royalty and aristocracy that sought to exploit the river to ruin. Even before the Hundred Years War, the Jang Hui river had been subject to overfishing and other forms of abuse. Takiko would often berate the mercenaries who enforced the trade practices. Each time, the Water Dragon would yearn to step in and help, but he was not powerful enough to cross into the mortal realm. Each time Takiko would stand up to the soldiers, they got more and more aggressive with her. They even left her with burn marks on her face from one of the encounters. Still, she never lost hope, and still the Dragon loved her. “

Katara swallows thickly, realization trickling into her mind like a spring with each word Zuko says. 

“Eventually, the mercenaries tired of her interference, and the tolerance and protection she had enjoyed from her favor with the ladies of the ruling class could not save her. That morning, they had caught Takiko sabotaging a fishing boat set to voyage into an already over-fished area of the river. The mercenaries dragged her to the edge of the docks, binding her arms and feet. They growled insults at her as they threw her into the water. She struggled against the ropes and the deluge of her beloved river. She felt herself sinking steadily, quietly, her breath leaving her body in small bubbles that danced to the surface. The Water Dragon, seeing the encounter, returned desperately to the Spirit World to seek the favor of Paresh, one of the Supreme spirits and the only entity capable of helping him. He begged the more powerful Alldragon to help him cross over into the mortal world, to help him save Takiko, knowing the consequences of his request. Paresh, not always known for benevolence, was moved by the lesser dragon’s plea and self-sacrifice, and granted his wish. However, the deal had conditions - if he saved the maiden and lived out his mortal life with her, upon his death he would serve Paresh in whatever capacity he wished. The Water Dragon immediately agreed, and the deal was made official as he accepted a mysterious mask from the Supreme spirit. Upon making the deal, The Water Dragon raced back to the mortal realm to find Takiko still struggling, still fighting to keep herself alive. She was nearly ready to give up when she felt her lungs fill to the brim with oxygen, and pressure that felt like the softest kiss of a lover on her lips.”

Zuko pauses, nervously rubbing his palms together. It was clear he had a clearer memory of his first telling of this story than she had assumed. She could tell he could remember how close he had been to her, his breath heavy from pain, adrenaline, and trepidation. He must remember how he had reached for her, clasping her cheek as he recounted the tale, thumb brushing over her lips. Her heart roars like the ocean. She reaches for him this time, ceasing the movement of his hands by placing hers on them. 

“Please,” she says sadly, “go on.” 

Zuko swallows his shame as he continues. 

“Takiko was suddenly lifted from the river, her restraints torn asunder, and she stood towering above her attackers on a column of the river’s current. The men screamed, frightened, and tried to run from the impending onslaught. Instead, the water crashed into them, sending them hurtling into the hard wood of the docks. Soggy and terrified, the men scrambled to their feet and ran from the village entirely, never to return. Exhausted, Takiko found herself steadied by the strong arms of a mysterious young man. His face was obscured by a dark blue mask with an imposing protrusion of two tusks carved into it with what looked like the silver threads of the moon. She thanked the man, feeling oddly as if she knew him, knew that he had watched over her. Hesitantly, she gingerly placed a hand on the right side of the stranger’s face, her thumb grazing the gaping maw of his ominous disguise. A feeling of love she could not explain washed over her as she lifted the mask. From that day on, Takiko and the Water Dragon were not parted until it came time for him to make good on his bargain. On that day, the Water Dragon became The Blue Spirit. And when it came time for the end of Takiko’s life, through her immense dedication to justice, hope, and her love she became the Painted Lady, swearing to watch over the river of the Water Dragon who had watched over her, and eventually be reunited with her love.”

Zuko concludes the tale, a wistful tone in his husky voice. A drop of moisture falls between them and quickly melts onto the beach. He can barely hear Katara’s voice, feeble and forlorn, over the continuing sounds of the now forgotten party they had both sought refuge from. 

“Thank you for telling me this story again, Zuko. It… means a lot to me. This story means a lot to me… you-“ 

She stops, unable to finish the sentence, her feelings revealing themselves in a deluge. He had tried to tell her three years ago, tried to pull her from the depths of doubt and confusion. In the midst of the war’s end and the rebuilding of the world, she had not seen what was right in front of her. 

Zuko watches helplessly as a trail of regret leads a crooked path from Katara’s eyes to her chin. 

“Katara, I- “ he searches desperately for the words, “All this time, I… I just thought you didn’t - we never had time to - “ 

“Lord Zuko!” The new voice bursts like a lightning bolt between the two of them. Katara snatches her hand away from the Fire Lord’s fingers, rubbing her eyes discreetly. 

“What are you doing out here, sire?” 

There she was, the source of the joy and merriment of the evening, the reason for the nation’s rejoice. Her voice was light and pleasant, exactly what was to be expected from a well-bred maiden of the Fire Nation upper classes, exactly the kind of tone and articulation the next Fire Lady should have. She stands small and dainty at the top of the stairs, heavily decorated, her face painted in an elegant pattern, still wearing the ceremonial robes of her new station. 

Zuko’s amber eyes are hard, his jaw taut as he turns his attention to the new arrival. His voice is the controlled, disciplined tone of the ruler he is as he calls back to her. 

“I’ll be back inside in just a moment. I’m just catching up with Master Katara.” 

The delicate young woman flicks her eyes over the waterbender. 

“I won’t rush you, my Lord,” she responds, “but I am missing your presence at our celebration.” 

Zuko nods.

“I’ll re-join everyone shortly,” he replies. 

The young woman smiles pleasantly as she bows.  Her elaborate kimono whirls around her slim frame as she returns to the house. 

Katara watches the young woman’s retreat, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Firelord Zuko,”  she addresses her companion dolefully, “thank you again for the story. I think I’ll be able to remember it much better this time. “ 

“Katara, I… we-“ he stutters, realization struggling with responsibility. 

“It’s a beautiful legend,” Katara interrupts. Back only in the view of the moonlight, she dares to face him, smoothing her hands over his tunic to brush grains of sand from the threads. He stops her movement, gently clasping both her wrists as she looks up at him falteringly. She tries unsuccessfully to blink away the unwelcome stinging in her eyelids. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand it before.” 

Their roles, the deal they made with the world when they ended the war, settles between them in a somber silence. 

“Now,” Katara gingerly removes herself from Zuko’s grip, her voice just a breath cracking amongst the sea breeze, “you should go be with your fiancé.” 

#zutara month #zutara #zutara fanfiction #zk fanfiction #zk month 2022

[a-d-curtis]

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Read on AO3 or Fanfiction.net

Chapter 1: Prologue, Chapter 2: First Impressions, Chapter 3: Stolen Glory, Chapter 4: Pawns & Princesses, Chapter 5: Scars, Chapter 6:Dissonance, Chapter 7: Frustrated, Chapter 8: Obligations, Chapter  9: Private Affair, Chapter 10: Holding on Tight, Chapter 11: Calculated Risks, Chapter 12: Charged, Chapter 13: Blue, Chapter 14: Bonds, Chapter 15: Betrayal, Chapter 16: Repercussions, Chapter 17: The Truth, Chapter 18: Old Friends, Chapter 19: Badgerfrog in a Well, Chapter 20: Resolve, Chapter 21: Caged, Chapter 22: Price to Pay, Chapter 23: Redirection, Chapter 24: Reunions

..................

Chapter 25: Set Free

…………….

The flight to the Southern Air Temple took two full days. 

Throughout the flight they didn't encounter any Fire Nation ships, on the sea or in the air. Katara was surprised that more effort was not expended to find Aang. Perhaps it was because Ozai was dead? Or was Azula just letting them leave?

Katara didn’t know, but whatever the reason, she was grateful. 

Aang’s mood had taken a sudden downward shift after Katara had healed him in the ocean. She could tell that he’d tried to smile for her sake, but a weighty cloud seemed to have descended upon him.

And she couldn’t blame him. So much had happened to him in the previous hours: nearly marrying a woman he’d never been in love with, being suddenly enlightened to the fact that his whole life in the Fire Palace had been a lie, and then being offered a live-or-die choice to join the Rebellion. He'd faced a failed escape, a whipping, and betrayal. He'd been attacked by the man he'd called Father, shot with lightning, and watched Ozai die at the hands of Azula, his deranged adoptive sister and ex-fiancee. And then he'd had to stay up all night helping his sky bison to fly.

So yeah. Aang had plenty of reasons to be down. 

“We should, you know, probably get some rest,” Aang had suggested as he’d trudged heavily out of the water and back towards where Appa lay in the deep shade of the trees.

“You rest, Aang,” Katara had said, following him into the shade of the trees. “I slept a bit on the way here. I’ll keep watch.”

“We can take turns,” Aang said, yawning largely. 

“Sure. You sleep first. We can switch in a few hours,” she’d said with a small smile, knowing full well she hadn’t intended to wake him.

But she did watch over him—her turn to keep him safe.

Aang had fallen asleep almost the minute he’d laid down on Appa’s tail and hadn’t stirred until nightfall.

As Katara had watched Aang’s exhausted body relax in sleep—seeing the way his brow, adorned with the last sacred mark his lost people, softened vulnerably—an intense desire to protect him kindled inside her.

Katara thought of who she had been before she’d met Aang, before she had allowed him to change her. She had come to the Fire Nation a woman full of anger and resentment, jaded by the ugliness she’d seen in humanity. But Aang had helped change that. He’d given her hope. Aang had uncovered within her the long-held belief that there was still goodness and fun and peace to be had after all. 

War loomed ahead of them, but Katara vowed to shelter Aang as much as she could. He’d been through so much, and yet there was still something so good and pure and innocent about him. As though the world could not touch him somehow.

Thinking of the violence she had witnessed already in her short life, Katara wondered if weapons ever could truly bring peace. Perhaps Aang’s gentle soul was paradoxically exactly what was needed to end the war.

True, he had been groomed to be a weapon, and yet at heart, she knew that Aang was no warrior. He was a peacemaker. And who better to save the world from war than a maker of peace?

When Aang and Appa had both awoken, they’d flown through the night to a tiny southern Earth Kingdom island, called Kyoshi, where Aang and Appa had again slept through the day. Katara had ventured into the town and bought supplies with some of Sokka’s money: food, soap, a cooking pot, a sewing kit, some cloth and a couple of blankets, among other things.

That evening when he awoke, Aang's mood had lightened and he seemed a bit more like himself again. As they’d shared their evening meal in preparation for another flight through the night, Aang had talked fondly of his home in the Southern Air Temple. 

But eventually Aang’s mood had turned more pensive, even apprehensive. 

“I’m both afraid and excited,” he’d confided. “I am anxious to go home, to prove to myself that my life before the iceberg actually happened. Sometimes..." Aang's voice suddenly got quiet, and his eyes darted to the fire, unfocused. "Sometimes it feels like my childhood there was just a dream, and I'd imagined the whole thing. I haven't been home in... well, a really long time. And I know what you've said... about what happened to my people..."

He’d paused then and looked absently off into the distance. “But I can hardly believe it’s true. All I can remember is a temple full of laughter and chants and bison.” Katara had reached for his hand then and he’d held hers tightly. “I can’t seem to picture it any other way… And I’m not sure I want to change that memory.”

But they both knew this was something he needed to do. So they had finished their meal, packed up their things, and flown off towards Aang’s old home.

The waterbender stirred from sleep on Appa’s back at the sound of Aang’s voice. 

“Katara, we’re almost there.”

Katara looked up to see that they were no longer flying over the seemingly endless dark ocean, but were now amidst the towering peaks of the Patola mountains, which were just beginning to glimmer to life with the first rays of the new day. They were gaining elevation quickly, and Katara could see Aang moving his arms in wide circles, airbending to help Appa get the lift he needed to rise sharply above the peak in front of them.

And then there it was: The Southern Air Temple! The view took Katara’s breath away.

The Temple stood upon a lone peak, its upward spiraling towers looking almost like a crown of glory upon the mountain’s royal head. The rising sun shone down on the winding paths and white walls of the temple, making the place look majestic and other-worldly. For Katara, Air Temples had been features of legends, of stories from long, long ago. She could hardly believe that what she saw was real.

Aang directed Appa near the top of the temple, and they dropped into a cobblestone courtyard. As Katara climbed down, she heard Aang speak to Appa. “We’re home, Buddy.”

…………………

Aang could feel the difference in the temple immediately. 

Of course it was easy to see the lack of bison and monks and children laughing and flying about, but the feeling went far deeper than that.       

It was the Air.

The air in the temple had always leaped and swirled, darting back and forth joyfully, tugging teasingly at their robes and then running on, inviting the benders to chase it. The air in the temple had been cheerful and eager to play like the family’s favorite pet puppy-bear.

But now the air milled about aimlessly: stagnant, starved, and forlorn. It had become lonely and wild. In some places the air howled endlessly in long, sorrowful mourning. While in other spots it stewed unhealthily, still and pensive. The wind still spoke, but no one answered. And a hundred years without a playmate had made it unfriendly.

Aang felt afraid. Scared to reach out and stroke it for fear the air here would turn its teeth on him and bite the airbender who had abandoned it all those eons ago. Would it rise up and hate him for leaving the others to die without him? Could it ever forgive him for running away?

Aang began to back-step on the cobblestones, fear gripping his insides in a chokehold. He had to get away! He had no thought where to run, only that he had to.

But as he stepped backward to go, she touched him. Katara’s forearm curled around his own, her hand slipping warm and solid into his. Her tangible warmth standing next to him, her side up against his, broke him from his panic.

He looked to her and she held his eye. When she squeezed his hand, he felt his heart rate slow back to normal, and the nervous energy dissipate from inside him. You can do this, her touch said to him. I'm here with you.

As usual Aang hadn't thought more than one step ahead, so now that he was here he wasn't entirely sure what to do. So he simply walked—something he realized he had rarely done here, because as a boy he and his friends had always jumped, raced or flown around the grounds. But now he walked. Walked through the empty courtyards, hallways, and meditation plazas. Katara walked with him, saying nothing, but never removing her hand from his, her touch anchoring him.

All around there were signs of the conflict. Broken walls blown to bits in explosions. Fire scorch marks that crawled and clawed up the stones like ravenous black talons. 

And then there were the bones. 

Shock would ripple through him every time he’d round a corner to find some remnant there. His mind trying desperately not to give the body a name.

There were far fewer bodies than there had been monks who’d lived here, but Aang knew that most had surely been carried away by scavengers, or blown or washed away by storms. Some had long since turned to dust and been carried away in the winds.

Katara was there the whole time, silent but so strong, letting him grasp her hand tightly, his eyes squeezing shut to block out the images. She would stand with him until he was ready to go on.

Time became a blur as they walked quietly through the Southern Air Temple—the dormitories, the kitchens, the library—silently taking in the lifeless emptiness of it.

The airball court, the meditation hall, the stables. Happy places full of laughter and song and community, now all silent. Silent except for the air that, a hundred years later, still mourned them.

For years Aang had tried not to think about his life before the iceberg. It had been one of his many strategies to try to be satisfied with his life in the Fire Palace. But today he was flooded with memories, so many he was sure he would drown. The happier the memory the more painful it was to remember.

But when he opened the next door, Aang's breath stopped altogether.

Bodies littered the room—far more than he had seen elsewhere. All around were the bones and armor of long-dead firebenders. And one airbender: Gyatso. His Gyatso. His wise and playful, mischievous and ever loving Gyatso. Gyatso’s skeleton was wearing the necklace that he had always worn—the one Aang had played with hundreds of times during formal instruction when he’d leaned bored and fidgety onto his mentor’s lap, fiddling with the beads and the tassels, tracing with his chubby baby fingers the spirals carved into the necklace’s face—

And for the first time all day, Aang was completely overcome. Of course he had known already that Gyatso was dead (it had been more than a century and Aang had had years to come to grips with this truth), but to see his kind and peaceful mentor, surrounded by firebenders… to know that his gentle soul had been snuffed out in an act of senseless violence… and to see that in his last moments, Gyatso had been driven to kill—the bodies of the firebenders testament to it—was more pain than Aang could bear.

Aang let go of Katara for the first time since she’d first grabbed his hand in the cobblestoned courtyard. He dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands and sobbed. The reality of it, the tragedy of it all, finally crashed over him, burying him in an avalanche of grief. His pain—his anger—was so big, so strong, that he felt his thousand lives convulse into life, yanking on his soul as though he’d been hooked through the navel and was now being dragged, hand over thousandth hand, downward to the bottom of the sea.

The wind swirled and roared in his ears like white rapids in the spring melts, the stones under his feet surging as hot fire burst from his mouth in a roar of agony. He opened his thousand eyes in a flash of white light, the power of the Avatar vibrating through every cell in his body.

And Aang lost himself.

His own consciousness blended in a fearful blur of lives long past, a thousand familiar voices crying as one in his head, crying of loss, loss, loss.

But then, she was there again. Katara. Her arms real and solid, clinging to him and wrapping around his shattering soul as strong and eternal as the roots of the never-ending banyan tree. 

And Aang came back. 

He slumped onto Katara and cried and cried and cried, while she stroked his hair and held him, promising with her every touch that she understood and she would stay with him. 

“I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you, Katara.”

A long pause…

“I’m sorry that what I told you was true.”

……………………

The next days blurred in and out of focus for Aang, the way that a telescope does when the dial is twisted. 

Aang had not wanted to stay in the temple itself, so they had made camp a short way down the path. Each day he and Katara returned to the temple and walked through its hollow hallways. The wind still mourned through the halls, echoing like a tomb. But not all the memories that came to him hurt as they had that first day. And Katara listened every time he wanted to talk about them.

One day they found chimes on the ground, chimes that had once lined the outer rim of the Assembly Hall. Their stings had long-since burned to ash, but the chimes themselves, the brass tubes of various sizes and lengths, had survived. Aang and Katara gathered them up, and in the evenings before bed, strung them anew with the thinnest branches from the willows and some of the thread from Katara’s sewing kit. 

In their walks they hung the re-strung chimes around the temple. Aang hoped that they would alleviate some of the wind’s stagnancy, it’s sadness. He hoped the chimes would bring back the familiar Voice of the Wind here that he’d known as a child. But so far it hadn’t.

One day as they spent time in the temple burying bones and hanging chimes, Aang and Katara came to the outer door of the Hall of Avatars. Aang looked at it for a long while, remembering how Monk Gyatso had told him that—when he was ready—someone would meet him there.

Was he ready now?

Aang knew that despite being the Master of All Four Elements, he had not been acting as Master of his own destiny. For so long Aang had had so little say in his own life, nearly every choice over the last seven years having been made for him. As a prince he had lived with lies on his lips and self-deceit in his actions, turning his back on his people and his oaths, as he everyday fought for a man he’d feared enough to call Father. Even though Ozai had never cared for him that way… not like Gyatso… 

But now both men were dead: the man he'd called Father out of fear; and the Father he'd never called by that name, but who matched all definitions of the word in love and support.

For a moment longer Aang looked at the door, with its tremendous airbending lock. He felt air jingle by his palms like keys.

But how could he become The Avatar, when he wasn’t even sure who Aang was anymore? 

This door was meant to be opened by an Air Nomad. So he turned and walked away.  

Days passed and yet still he stayed. Antsy to flee, but knowing he couldn’t. Not yet.

It was a strange feeling to have no one telling him what he should do. Of course, Aang could think of all sorts of things he’d like to do—ride the elephant koi, fly on a glider again, run away from his responsibilities forever, taking Katara with him—just to name a few. 

However, Aang knew that this time he wouldn’t run away. His life wasn’t his own—it hadn’t been his own from the moment he’d been born, even though he hadn’t known that until he’d turned twelve and the elder monks had told him that he was the Avatar. As much as he wished he wasn’t, he was the Avatar, and he wouldn’t abandon the world again.

But walking now through the corridors of his carefree childhood, Aang was endlessly grateful for the ignorance he’d enjoyed as a child. Grateful that he’d been allotted twelve years of happiness before the weight of his destiny had descended upon him. He knew Gyatso had fought valiantly to give him that gift, and he loved his mentor all the more for it.

The more time he spent here at his childhood home, the more grateful he was that Katara had come with him. The emptiness of the temple and the stale way the air meandered gave Aang an ever-creeping sense of isolation, of being all alone. The last. But Katara’s hand in his, her compassion and strength, kept him grounded. It was chilling to picture how this would have gone for Aang if Katara hadn’t come with him. Aang was grateful to his bones that she had.

With Katara’s endless support, and with each passing day spent here, Aang began to feel himself unfragmenting—as though he was bit by bit putting the deconstructed pieces of himself back together. 

Aang knew that he could not remove the experiences that had happened to him since running away from this home all those years ago. But he could take them—all of them, even the bitter ones—and examine them, learn from them, and choose which pieces to use as foundational building blocks of who he wanted to be. He discovered with a bit of surprise, that some of his strongest parts had been forged in his darkest moments. He’d learned the value of standing firm for what really mattered, of being true to himself. It may not be the path of least resistance, but he would choose to swallow bitter if it came with the sweet drink of his own peace of conscience.

Aang knew that in fighting for the Firelord, he had compromised himself in ways that shamed him now. But Aang was also aware that there were others out there who, although speaking with a different voice, would want the same thing that Ozai had—to use him as a weapon. 

For the past seven years Aang had believed everything he’d been told. But he’d been told lies. So before Aang could leave—before he could go to meet Zuko and the Rebellion (or anyone else for that matter)—he needed to find his own center and become master of his own destiny. 

He needed to find balance within himself and repair his broken oaths.

…………………

“Katara?”

“Hm?” Katara answered, looking up from the pot she’d been cleaning out in the small stream near their campsite. This morning Katara had eaten breakfast alone—Aang having opted to forego breakfast. He had skipped dinner the night before as well. 

Katara smiled when she saw him coming down the path returning from a long morning meditation. He wore a swath of saffron yellow cloth over his shoulder that tied with a sash over his black pants. In one of their long chats in Aang’s room back in the fire palace, Aang had once mentioned missing the cheery yellows and oranges that the monks and nuns had worn. So when Katara had seen this cloth at the market in Kyoshi, she’d bought it for him. Originally she’d planned to sew it into a shirt to replace his torn black one, but when she’d shown it to him, Aang had asked her if he could keep it just as it was. He now wore it slung over one shoulder, leaving his other arm bare. Katara would be lying if she said she didn’t like the extra skin this style showed…

“Um,” Aang looked a little nervous as he approached her. “I was wondering… if you could help me with something?”

“Of course, Aang. What can I do?”

“Um, well it’s… my hair…” 

Katara looked at his hair. Except at night when he took it down, Aang still wore his hair up in the traditional top-knot of the Fire Nation.

“What about it?” she asked, walking up and pushing a stray black strand of hair back from his face. “You have lovely hair.”

“Well,” he began, grimacing slightly at her praise. “I was wondering if you could… help me shave it off?”

“Oh,” she said, a bit startled, although if she’d stopped to think about it, she shouldn’t have been. She’d seen plenty of images of bald air nomad monks in the art pieces in the temple, their blue arrows prominent on their brows. And she'd known that Aang used to shave his head when he was a child. So she shouldn’t have been surprised. She supposed she’d just… gotten used to him with hair.

But of course she was happy to help. “Sure, Aang.”

Aang came closer to where she was by the water’s edge. He pulled a short knife out of his pocket—one he must have brought in his satchel from the Fire Nation.

“In the Fire Nation cutting your hair off is shameful,” Aang said, looking down at the knife in his hand. 

Katara knew this already. 

Not long after starting her travels with Zuko and Iroh, the news had come to them that Ozai had adopted the Avatar as his son—his new son. When he’d heard, Zuko had disappeared for over 48 hours. There had been a time when ‘the Avatar’ had been Zuko’s one hope of returning home. Now, not only had Zuko failed to capture the Avatar, but the very quarry he’d hunted had taken his place in his Father’s heart, and by his side.

While Zuko had been missing Uncle hadn’t said much, but Katara had known he’d been worried sick about his nephew. When Zuko had finally returned, he’d brought with him a wanted poster for himself. Now that the Firelord had a replacement, Ozai apparently wanted his banished son eliminated.

That night Zuko and Iroh had both cut their hair. Katara hadn’t fully understood the significance of the act, but she knew it meant a renouncement of their titles and social status—a permanent break with the Fire Nation.

Despite how much Zuko had changed over the years, and how much he’d come to recognize the follies of his motherland—becoming even grateful for his break with it—Katara knew that Zuko had still resented the Avatar. Zuko was perhaps one of the few people Katara knew who had hated the Avatar more than she had. 

Katara looked at Aang, wondering how Zuko would react when he met the Avatar again. And how would he react to her being with Aang?

Aang began to speak, drawing Katara’s focus back. “Not long after I moved from prison into the palace, I shaved my hair off. Counselor Zhao just about lost it. He said my bald head was a disgrace—a ‘dishonor and rejection of the homeland and the Firelord’s benevolence.’” 

Aang’s eyes looked downward, and Katara saw him begin to rub his forearm—a motion she hadn’t seen him do as much lately—but then he consciously stopped himself. 

“They couldn’t understand why we Air Nomads would shave our heads—they told me it was another testament to our barbarism. But it wasn’t… I mean isn’t. It's a way for us to feel the Air more closely; to be more in tune with our element. It’s a symbol of detachment from worldly things. It’s a symbol of freedom."

Aang finally brought his eyes up to hers. “And I’m ready now. To be free again.”

Katara swallowed a lump in her throat. She knew that Aang took none of this lightly, and that his time here at the temple was far more than just a way to learn for himself what had really happened to the other airbenders. By now Aang had already come to grips with that horrific reality. Yet he stayed here still. And it wasn’t because he enjoyed it—Katara knew that everyday he had to fight the urge to get away, to close his eyes and turn away from all of the pain this place brought him—and yet still he chose to stay. Katara was not sure why or what he was waiting for, but she was sure that whatever the reasons, today Aang was closer to what he was seeking.

“You want me to…shave your hair?”

“I could do it myself… I probably should do it myself. But I… I’m not sure…” Aang began to rub his forearm again, a visible shake in his hand. “I just… it’s been a long time, and I hoped… you could help me. To be strong enough.”

A part of Katara melted. For Aang this clearly meant more than a simple haircut, the return of his tic showing how emotionally challenging this was for him. The fact that he would ask her for help showed how much he trusted her.

Aang had confided to Katara that, as a Prince of the Fire Nation, he’d had to live a double life: on the outside being what was expected of him, even if it was disingenuous to his inner feelings. But he hadn’t had anyone—outside of Appa he was sure to add—that he could let his guard down with, someone that he could truly be himself with. “Until you came into my life,” he’d said gratefully.

Katara slipped her hand into Aang’s, halting his nervous habit and smiling kindly. “I’d be honored to help, Aang.”

Aang softened, the expanse of his gratitude and love for her unabashed in his eyes. The openness in his look made her heart pound. In a world of strategy and intrigue and war, Katara was not used to this kind of blatant guilelessness, and it made her blush. 

To hide her warm cheeks, Katara led Aang to sit down on a boulder near the stream. Together they took off his saffron sash, which Katara folded carefully and set nearby. Aang then reached up and gripped his topknot with one hand, bringing the knife up to the base of it. Katara saw his chest expand and release with a fortifying breath—

—and then he cut it off. 

His remaining short black hair fell down around his face. But the topknot, held together by a fire-insignia tie, he brought down into his lap to examine.

Aang laughed a relieved huff. There were tears in his eyes when he held the tight little knot up for Katara to see. “I did it.”

She smiled encouragingly at him. 

Aang laughed again and breathed deeply before tossing the bun into the stream, watching it float away down the current. 

“Goody-bye high maintenance!” he laughed, looking visibly lighter. Katara laughed too and stepped behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders. Aang reached up and gave her the knife.

As a small child Katara had watched her mother shave the sides of her brother’s head, and, after her mom was gone, she’d seen Gran Gran do it for him. As he’d grown older he’d eventually learned to shave it himself. Katara had always watched with interest. So, although she had never shaved someone’s head before, she knew the basics of what to do. 

Katara ran her fingers lightly through the remainder of Aang’s uneven hair. She then went to work cutting the longer bits with the razor-sharpe blade, until all that remained was a short black fuzz. Then, using the soap she’d brought with her to wash her dishes, she rubbed a good lather on her hands and massaged the bubbles over Aang’s head.

Although there was nothing inherently provocative about washing and cutting Aang’s hair, there was something unexplainably intimate about it. Despite the fact that the two of them had shared kisses, their bodies drawing together with yearning and restraint, Katara was sure that they had never been more emotionally exposed than right now. Being invited in, to share this moment with Aang made Katara feel trusted and vulnerable, as though they’d stripped down to their souls and now stood bare before one another. 

The blade made clean rows in the foamy soap as she brought it carefully across Aang’s scalp. She started along the sides and back so that it was only with the final few strokes of the blade that the broad arrow on Aang’s forehead finally connected with the thick blue line that traveled down his spine. 

After a final rinse, Aang stood up and faced Katara. He looked so different that at first she felt a little shy, almost in awe of him. The blue tattoo of his ancestry now stood out boldly, no longer hidden, but running long and continuous over his head and down his back as it was meant to. It was like looking at an entirely different person, as though a whole nation had been reborn in him right now. In this moment. And she had been here to witness it! Katara felt overwhelmed by that privilege.

Without his dark hair to contrast, Aang’s already stunning dark eyes now looked even more prominent. And right now those eyes were happy—full of light as though a burden had finally been lifted off him.

“Thank you, Katara.”

She nodded, smiling. But when Katara realized she was staring at him, she ducked her head bashfully and turned to retrieve his yellow wrap. Although he didn’t need her to, Katara placed the cloth over his shoulder, even tying the sash low around his hips herself. 

Then she stepped back to take him in.

“Well… how do I look?” he asked, a small hint of uncertainty in his tone.

Katara thought of the many murals she’d seen throughout the temple—the mosaics, statues, and frescos of monks in their yellow robes with their blue-arrowed brows soft in meditation, the wind swirling around their bare tattooed arms—and she smiled, nodding with the rightness of it. “You look perfect, Aang.”

Aang closed his eyes and smiled softly. He inclined his head this way and that toward the breeze, as though someone had called his name. He ran a gratified hand over his head and smiled. “Like an Air Nomad?”

Katara took a step forward and ran her hand from the tip of his arrow down the back of his head, marveling at the smoothness there and how handsome he looked. "Yes," she answered, tears welling in her eyes. 

She couldn't help herself then; she leaned up and captured his lips in her own, hoping he could feel her overwhelming love and approval and gratitude. Aang responded exuberantly, stealing her breath with a bold kiss before pulling back with a dazzling smile. 

He took a deep breath and let it out in a satisfied rush. “I think I’m ready now.”

“Ready for what?”

“I’m ready to meet someone. Someone I should have gone to see a long time ago.”

……………….

Together they took the last two chimes they had finished re-stringing last night, and hung them in the temple—one in a little square courtyard flanked on either side by arching doorways, and the other under an overhang that covered an outdoor staircase. The chimes clinked cheerfully as they put them up, but—just like all the others—once they were hung in place, the wind seemed apathetic to them, refusing to make them sing. Katara could see that their silence brought a sort of sadness to Aang that she didn’t quite understand. She knew that Aang could easily bend a breeze to make the chimes ring, but for whatever reason, he never did.  

Unlike most days, when they walked slowly, meandering their way through the temple in no particular direction, today Aang was clearly headed somewhere specific. 

Katara soon found herself looking up at an imposing rounded door, framed by the trunk of an ancient arching tree. They had been here once before, but they hadn’t gone in.

But now Aang stood surely before the solid wooden door with its strange convoluted pipes. Letting go of her hand, he took a deep breath and then pushed forward, bending long streams of air into the pipes. The pipes shook, whistling, until the locks turned one by one and the great door swung open.

Aang then took Katara’s hand again, giving it a squeeze, before walking with her into the vast, cool chamber. 

Before her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, Katara thought the room was full of people. But as her vision focused, she realized that the people were really just statues—hundreds of statues standing in one long, swirling line starting at the center of the echoing room, and spiraling outward and upward, like the inside of a gigantic conch shell. Katara strained her eyes, but she couldn’t see the end of where the statues disappeared up into the dark of the rounding upward pathway. The ceiling, and the statues, seemed to go on forever.

“They’re Avatars!” she said in surprise, noticing how the statues repeated the avatar cycle by their nationalities—Water, Earth, Fire and Air. “These are your past lives, Aang!”

Aang didn’t say anything, but he squeezed her hand tighter.

They walked to the center of the room, and Aang stood before the final statue. It was of a tall Firebender with a double-flamed crown pinned in his top-knot. 

“This is Avatar Roku,” Aang said. He then let out a long, accepting breath. “I think this is who I’ve come to see.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m not sure… I just… know it somehow.”

Aang then let go of her hand and placed his fists together, their blue arrows pointing towards one another. He took a deep breath and, as he released it, he looked deeply into the eyes of the statue of Avatar Roku.

At first Aang simply looked at the statue, seeming to slip into a bit of a trance. But then, suddenly, his eyes and tattoos burst with white light! The statue of Roku’s eyes lit as well, followed immediately by the next statue, and the next one, and the next, their eyes lighting up in a quick, sequential spiral like knocked over dominos. As the lights traveled around the line of avatars, the conch shell room was soon glowing from the endless eyes of Aang’s past lives. 

…………………

Katara wasn’t sure how long Aang was “gone”—three hours? four? But the whole time—while his silent, glowing body stood as still as any of the statues—Katara stayed nearby. It was eerie to have him there, but not there at the same time. 

Aang’s eyes remained open, but blind in that glowing, white stare. Empty. She wondered where Aang, her Aang, was at that moment. Because as far as she could tell, his body was totally vulnerable to the human world, as helpless as a baby sleeping soundly. Although she knew them to be alone here at the temple, the thought still had her uncorking the stopper from the water skin Otōto had given her, keeping her water at the ready to defend Aang if needed.

At one point she tentatively touched his arm. He didn’t stir. His skin under her hand was soft and warm as usual, but there was something else there too: a humming that vibrated with stored up energy—like the coiled muscles of a tiger-roo that was crouched and ready to spring, teeming with potential, but waiting.

Katara had gotten so comfortable being with Aang, so used to him, that this reminder that inside her gentle airbender lived an ancient god-spirit was unsettling. An uncomfortable pit formed in her stomach that she couldn't discern what it meant.

As she waited—her water at the ready to protect Aang if needed—Katara walked along the row of endless avatars. She recognized a few of them, particularly those from the Water Tribes because she was more familiar with their legends. But most of them she didn’t know, especially as she walked further “back in time” following the statues as they panned outward, swirling up the walls of the large round room. Katara examined their faces, looking for something familiar. These were all Aang? The thought made her feel small, and lonely enough that she walked back to the center of the room to wait closer to Aang.

Katara observed Aang. His body need only be rotated to stand next to Avatar Roku, instead of in front of him, and he could be his own statue in line. 

The endlessness of the Avatar began to feel very real, a thought that was both awe-inspiring and intimidating. Being in love with an All-Powerful Eternal Being was not something she had ever planned on or desired. She just wanted Aang. She knew he was both, though, and that was something she needed to reconcile within herself, because she did love him. All of him.

She looked into his white glowing eyes and wished for him to return to her.

Just then, the light from Aang’s eyes and tattoos faded, his own grey eyes reappearing. And then there he was. Her Aang. A soft smile emerged on his face, the one he reserved just for her. 

“Aang!” she said feeling inordinately relieved. “You’re back!”

“Yeah,” he breathed, a happy irony in his smile, even has he exuded an incredible sense of calm, of wholeness. Of peace. “I am.”

………………

Aang opened his eyes to the most stunning sight: Katara’s beautiful face looking right at him. 

Aang blinked, returning mentally from the journey he’d just been on—traveling to the spirit world and meeting with his own past reincarnation, Avatar Roku. Aang had spent what felt like days with Roku, so to find himself still standing here, unmoved from his spot facing Roku’s statue, was more than a little disorienting.  

Aang focused on the wonderful woman in front of him. 

“Aang! You’re back!” she said. 

“Yeah, I am,” he answered—in more ways than she knew. Not only was he back in the physical world, but he was back to himself. 

Aang had accomplished so much with Roku—a spiritual voyage of healing, enlightenment and reconciliation. 

But it hadn’t been easy.

Roku had shown Aang how the war began, making bare his own mistakes. Roku had shown Aang how in sparing his friend, Firelord Sozin, the world had descended into war. Sorrow, pain, and compassion furrowed Roku’s brow when he spoke, “I’m the cause of so much pain, and so much violence. To the world. And to you. Can you ever forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you?”

Aang had searched far into his soul, and found that the answer was surprisingly easy. “Of course I can forgive you, Roku.”

Roku’s golden eyes had then turned on him, as if boring deep into his soul. “And can you forgive yourself, Aang?”

Aang thought of the continuation of the war, of the extermination of his people—of how he had run away and disappeared for a hundred years. So much suffering had happened because he’d been gone. 

He then thought of his life since waking up from the iceberg, and he was filled with guilt, with shame. He thought of all the people he’d killed in the Caldera City Bay. And of how later, because of fear, he had allowed the Firelord to weaponize him, teaching him to manipulate the elements for violence. He had betrayed himself while living as a prince of the Fire Nation. He’d believed so many lies. 

Could he forgive himself? This was a much more difficult ask.

“And yet,” Roku’s voice had resonated, as if in his own head, “I am you. Why do you find it so easy to extend forgiveness to me, while withholding it from yourself?”

And thus they’d begun the long and arduous challenge of self-reconciliation. Sitting across from himself, Aang had been guided through the toilsome—and liberating—self-examination required to cleanse his chakras. In this process, Aang had been forced to acknowledging his shortcomings and traumas, but then had also been given permission to let them go. 

So that by the time Aang opened his eyes to see Katara standing before him, he felt new. New and old. Reborn. Like a renewed start as the boy he’d once been.

Aang took a deep and satisfied breath, looking around him with fresh eyes.

“Come on!” He grabbed Katara’s hand and pulled her, nearly bounding from the room. Katara laughed, feeding off of his joy, and ran to keep up with him. Her laughter sounded like music, and he felt a similar harmony bubble up from his own chest. Laugher. A sound that hadn’t felt so light in him since he’d been a child running through these very halls.

When they got outside, to the courtyard they had first landed in, Aang led Katara to a stone bench to sit down. “Stay here,” he said feeling joyous anticipation behind his smile.

Aang then returned to the center of the courtyard and closed his eyes. The late-afternoon sunlight warmed his bare shoulder and shone with rosy pinkness through his closed lids. Aang turned his face calmly toward it, inhaling deeply. 

But when his ears caught hold of the forlorn wail of the wind that was caught in the temple walls, Aang sobered. The wind mourned for the lost airbenders; it had been howling and crying through these empty halls for over a hundred years. Aang recognized the sound; his own soul had made these sounds, an empty sorrowing wind through his rib cage.

He listened, feeling the Air’s restless scratch in the courtyards and corridors, as it paced, trapped. The temple had been designed for easy airflow, but somehow in the genocide, that flow had been disrupted leading to a hundred years of stagnant air, as though the death of the airbenders had left their element damned in perpetual grieving.

Eyes still closed, Aang lifted his arms calmly in front of him and began to turn, his feet light, heel to toe, as he shifted, coaxing the Air to join him in the circle walk. At first it resisted, stubborn and obstinate. But when a light breeze finally caressed softly over his newly shaven head, Aang smiled.

“There you are,” he whispered, tears welling under his closed eyelids. “I’ve missed you.”

Aang then turned a much larger, and deeper circle, sweeping his arms around, calling the wind to join him. As the wind spiraled around him, kicking up leaves and twigs in the sunshine, Aang began to pray, repeating the words of an oath he’d made as a boy, but that he made again now with new perspective and conviction. 

When his prayer ended, Aang suddenly stopped in the center of the wind, letting the air pull at his saffron clothes and swirl around him like a gentle whirlpool.

He was Aang the Air Nomad once again—

—so he was now prepared to become Aang the Avatar.

Standing still while the air swirled around him, Aang opened his eyes and reached into his soul, calling to his past lives to join him—and they replied easily. Aang felt their presence flash white in his tattoos and his eyes, the glow then disappearing as quickly as it had come.

Aang felt the power within him, could feel the Avatars teeming in his soul.

As the power waited for his command, Aang wondered at how he had once feared this above all other things—had dreaded the Avatar State inside him. But now, the companionship of his past lives felt whole and warm and comforting. Like a reunion with loved ones after a long absence, who were now overjoyed to see you.

Cradling the power in his core, Aang stepped backward, turning all the way around, before letting the power release out his arms. 

And the Air obeyed. Happily!

With 100-fold power the wind rushed outward, swirling and racing along the walls, flooding the buildings and filling the hallways, sweeping every corner, to chase away the melancholy and grief. Circling around the buildings, the wind swept out the leaves and debris, blowing them away as it sailed about the rounded towers, pushing and racing upward and upward until it soared into the sky like a tornado, expelling the stale and  replacing it with new breath, free and joyous.

And the chimes began to sing! As the Air wound its way throughout the whole temple, cleansing it, more and more chimes joined in the song. Their merry voices laughing once again.

The chimes sounded like the laughter of his friends, his family. And for a moment it felt like the airbenders were back. 

Like always Aang missed them. But unlike before, this time—despite the tears that streamed down his face—Aang didn’t feel the bitterness of grief. This time what he felt was that strange happy-sad feeling of knowing that even though something Good was now gone, he was still grateful to have had it, the memory of that Good tasting sweet as honey.

When Aang stopped bending, the strength of the wind calmed, but the breeze still blew on its own, happily dancing along its currents, following the carefully and intentionally designed curves of the Airbender’s architecture, keeping the chimes giggling merrily.

Aang felt the last whips of power from his past lives release. And he sighed, a new contentment expanding in his chest. 

Tears streaming down his face, a huge grin broke out on his face as he turned toward Katara. 

“Aang! That was incredible!” Katara leaped up from her seat on the stone bench and bounded towards him. Aang laughed and scooped her up, swinging her around and squeezing her tightly.

“Aang, how did you…? I mean, what happened in that room with all the statues?”

“I guess you could say that I reconciled with myself. Or selves,” he amended.

Katara arched one eyebrow, tipping ear to the tinkling of the chimes. “It feels so… different.”

“The Air had mourned long enough,” Aang said, his thoughts turning to his own grief. How would the other airbenders want him to live? Moping about being sad all the time? The thought was so un-Air Nomad that it was almost laughable. Aang felt lighter, knowing that it was more than just the wind currents that were unburdened.

“So I set it free.”

………………….

“You know you’re going to spoil him that way,” Katara said, watching Aang hand-feed pieces of moonpeach to the flying lemur that lay blissful and fat on Aang’s folded legs. 

Aang and Katara had just finished dinner—a meal Aang had eaten with particular gusto, having fasted for the previous twenty-four hours—and were now sitting back contentedly in their little camp, an air of comfortable levity between them. They had already packed up what they needed to leave the temple in the morning, so right now they had time to just be together; to relax.

The winged lemur in Aang’s lap had found them in the courtyard just minutes after Aang had used the Avatar State to redirect the air in the temple. Up until then, they hadn’t seen much animal life at all near the temple. But this little guy, who Aang had named Momo, had come scampering up to them, climbing right up Aang's body to perch on his now-bald head. He’d balanced his curious little lemur hands on Aang’s forehead and tipped his head upside down to stare at Aang with his enormous green eyes.

Since then Aang had been feeding Momo a steady supply of food. Gaining trust, he’d claimed, but Katara suspected it had as much to do with bribery than anything else.

“This is an age-old, proven bonding method, Katara,” Aang asserted while using his knife to cut up another half peach into lemur-sized bites. “And don’t think I won’t use the same tactic with our kids either, because I will!” 

Katara’s eyes blew wide at Aang’s comment, and a half-second later Aang froze, realizing what he’d just said out loud. Aang’s ears went scarlet and he glanced at her with an adorably flustered shock.

It’s not that Katara hadn’t thought about it before—marrying Aang and sharing a family with him—because she had. She just hadn’t know that he thought about it too. Aang’s slip, although clearly embarrassing for him, filled Katara with an immeasurably happy flutter.

But that didn’t mean she planned to let him off easy. “Oh is that right?” she said arching her eyebrow teasingly. “Our kids?”

However, Aang surprised her. After thawing from his original frozen dismay, his eyes returned to hers and he grinned. “Won’t that be fun?” he said flirtatiously, the blazon, snarkiness in his unwavering gaze leaving her with burning cheeks. “Every one of them with your beauty and my charm.”

But just then, Momo roused from his lazy, glutenous stupor in Aang’s lap and hopped into Katara’s, where he circled twice and then curled up contentedly.

Katara laughed and gave Aang a look of smug triumph as she ran her hand slowly along Momo’s back, the lemur leaning into it languorously. “Your charm, huh?”

“Traitor!” Aang whispered as he threw an arm up in pretend accusation towards Momo. “Even with bribery, I’m doomed.” He sat back with a huff, but the twinkle in his eyes as he looked at Katara undermined his mock-offense. “I guess I’ll never be able to compete with you, Katara. You will just always be liked best.”

Katara lifted her chin and smirked. Aang’s eyes darted to her lips and she saw his focus stumble, as though his train of thought had suddenly shifted tracks. When she caught his eye next he flushed with a bashful distraction.

Aang glancing enviously at the lemur in Katara’s lap. “Momo gets all the luck,” he pouted.

Katara laughed and ran her hands down to the ends of Momo’s long ears while the lemur-bat cooed blissfully.

Aang’s eyebrows raised slightly in unfiltered envy. Abruptly he stood up and grabbed his knapsack, breaking the infatuated awkwardness that tingled between them. After rummaged through his knapsack, he finally pulled something out—“Aha! Here it is!”—and set it between them with a triumphant flourish.

“This time we play for truths. Whole truths. No more secrets.”

Katara looked down at the pai sho game—the very same one they had played in the palace that first night that Katara had gone to Aang’s room—with a bit of surprise. She had had no idea that he had brought it with him!

“Sure,” she answered with a wry, teasing smile. “The truth.”

Aang earthbent a low raised platform for the pai sho game. Katara slid to the ground from the log she’d been sitting on, and leaned her back against it while Aang sat down across the board from her. Together they set up the game. 

There was something both sad and optimistic about playing this game again. It reminded them both of the prison they’d lived in in Caldera City—the fear, the chains, the lies. Katara even noticed Aang begin to rub his forearms again as he sat down, although he quickly stopped himself. But playing it here, with the wide open sky above them, the fresh smell of ripe moonpeaches wafting down from the orchard, and the distant laughing tinkle of chimes in the temple dancing in the happy breeze, felt like their own conscious rebellion. As though by playing this here, they could symbolically forge new associations to break those formed in bondage.

As each of them began to claim tiles, their questions to one another started fairly light. Katara talked about missing her Gran Gran’s stewed sea prunes and of how as a child she’d always felt left out when her Dad took Sokka, but not her, on the annual arctic hippo hunts over the tundra. Aang told about the way he and the other boys in the temple competed to see who could blow their sheng pipes the longest on one airbended breath. They had thought they were pretty good when Dulop, one of the older boys, managed to keep one note going for four whole minutes. But then Monk Pasang had come down and wowed them all by playing not just one note, but a lovely song for fifteen whole minutes on one long and controlled airbender breath!

When Aang claimed Katara’s Horse tile he asked teasingly, “So… do you miss my hair?” The question was trivial enough, but Katara discerned a small twinge of apprehension in the way he tapped his leg when he asked.

Katara tipped her head, making a show of observing him closely. “I’ll admit I’m still surprised sometimes when I look at you, because I’d gotten used to you with hair. But no. I don’t miss it. This fits you better. I like this look.”

A small dimple appeared at the corner of Aang’s mouth, and he looked down to hide his relieved smile.

“Frankly I can see why you airbenders don’t want hair,” Katara said, pulling the tie from her ponytail and trying to run her fingers through her tangles. “That whirlwind from earlier made a mess of my hair that I still haven’t had time to untangle yet. Now I know why you shaved your hair first, Aang,” she teased.

“Oh I think you look great when your hair is a mess,” Aang enthused, but then stumbling to correct himself, “I mean, when it looks tussled…” he shrugged bashfully, “…like now.”

Katara smiled at his obvious, if a bit bumbling, adoration. It made her love him more.

Katara worked at the tangles a moment longer before Aang popped up from his spot on the ground. “I can help with that!” He then grabbed a gold comb from his satchel and sat down on the log behind her. He lifted her long locks up onto his knee and began working the comb through the ends of it.

“Well, while you do that,” Katara said, trying to keep her voice light despite the way her stomach fluttered excitedly at Aang touch, “I’ll just take this.” And Katara slid her Goat to claim Aang’s Lily tile.

Aang groaned. “I didn’t even see that!”

Katara laughed triumphantly. “Okay, my turn then.” 

Katara’s thoughts turned to the Hall of Avatars, of the endless white stares of Aang’s past lives. And she felt that same uncomfortable pit form in her stomach again. Something akin to jealousy of those strangers that weren’t Aang, and yet were. Jealousy of the other loves that the Avatar had surely had in his infinite lifetimes. Jealousy that one day Aang would die, be reborn, and forget her.

She hesitated, not sure if she should ask what she wanted to know. But finally she let the words out. “Do you remember anything… from your past lives?”

Aang continued to detangles her hair with his comb as he answered simply. “No. I remember nothing.”

A large part of Katara was relieved—knowing that Aang remembered nothing made some things so much simpler. However, there was another, much more complicated piece of her, that was devastated. 

“I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t remember. A mercy really,” Aang said as Katara grappled with her conflicting feelings.

“How so?”

“Well, what if in my next life, I still feel for you like I do now? My love for you would haunt me. I would forever yearn for you, when I couldn’t have you. It would be torture.” Aang’s hands paused their brushing, his voice becoming quiet as he spoke. “I got a glimpse of that when I was engaged to Azula. I still loved you, but I didn’t think I could ever be with you. It was agony.”

Katara understood. She’d felt the same.

“It’s a mercy that I’ll forget,” Aang said. “Otherwise, this life’s happiness would rob all my next lives of joy.”

Katara contemplated this. She supposed she agreed. She didn’t want the Avatar’s love anyway. She just wanted Aang’s. So she supposed she was glad he remembered nothing from before, even if it meant that one day he would forget her too.

“Frankly I don’t like thinking about it much,” Aang admitted as he resumed his work on her hair. “I’d rather live in the now.” Aang pecked a kiss on Katara’s cheek. “Because this is a great moment to be.”

Katara smiled. Because she agreed. Regardless of how long the Avatar’s spirit had lived before, or would live after, Katara could lay claim on this lifetime, and live out the rest of her life with Aang.  

They slowly continued their pai sho game, Katara moving Aang’s tiles as he directed, while Aang combed through the tangles in her hair. Once he could comb all the way down the long brown waves without catching, Aang handed her the comb and began to braid, weaving small bits of hair in as he moved downward. The feel of his hands in her hair caused Katara's eyelids to droop in unfocused pleasure.

Aang reached the end of the braid and wrapped Katara’s hair tie around it, just as Katara took Aang’s Water Buffalo pai sho tile.

“Where did you learn to braid hair, Aang?” she asked, looking at the intricate braid over her shoulder.

“Ty Lee. She used to braid mine and I’d braid hers.”

Katara felt another small pang of jealousy spring in her chest—Ty Lee was undeniably beautiful and she had seemed especially fond of Aang. “Was she your…girlfriend?”

“Once,” Aang said matter of factly. “And as long as we kept things superficial—teaching each other acrobatic moves, talking about tips for radiant auras, and stealing kisses behind Azula’s back—she was a great girlfriend. But what we had together never seemed… able to go beyond that. Like trying to swim in too shallow a pond. And I lost interest. Not in her—I mean, Ty Lee is still my friend—but in… well being with her. It just didn’t feel right anymore.”

Katara thought of her own past romantic interests, and understood. She’d grown and learned things through each, but none of them had lasted. None of them had felt right, not like how she felt about Aang now.

Aang slid off the log to sit on the ground with her. Katara cuddled into his warmth, leaning back into him while he rested against the log. Katara’s body began to zing as his tattooed arms encircled her. 

Her mind was not concentrating on the game at all anymore, so she was a little surprised when Aang leaned forward to slide his Ginger tile forward to take her Orchid.

“Okay, my question.” Aang shifted his body so he could look at her better. “When did you first know you loved me?”

Katara’s eyebrows raised at the question. When had she first know that she loved Aang?

Katara thought back to her first few weeks with the Avatar, remembering how much she had hated him. She was now abashed by her thoughts, knowing how wrong her assumptions about him had been. But when had that changed? She thought of the waterbending scroll Aang had lent her, and of the surprise she’d felt when he’d been so eager to heal. Compassion once again filled her chest as she thought back to the first time she had seen Aang’s scarred back—a testament to the brutality he’d experienced, challenging her assumption that the Avatar lived a blissful, pampered life as a prince. Katara thought of the first time she’d been brought to his room, of how her fear had turned to confusion when he’d asked her to play a game with him. She thought of seeing him with Appa for the first time, and of his veiled flirtations in the sparring arena. She thought of the many nights they’d spent talking together as she’d gradually discovered the gentle, playful, and good soul behind his Title.  

“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “It just kind of… happened. Gradually. So gradually in fact that by the time I noticed, I’d fallen too far to stop it.”

Aang’s intense eyes studied hers for a moment longer, before he pulled her closer to him. Turning his face into her hairline he placed a kiss behind her ear. A resulting tremor rippled down her body making every part of her tingle. Her vision blurred as she unintentionally—or intentionally, she genuinely wasn’t sure—tipped her head to give Aang better access to her neck as he peppered a series of gentle kisses down to her collarbone.

Katara sighed a gentle note that tasted like candy on her tongue. Aang chuckled into her neck, the warmth of his breath pulling another singing sigh from her without her permission.

“When did you fall in love with me?” she breathed, fighting for conscious thought again, as her mind seemed entirely too willing to slip into a blissful muddle at Aang’s touch.

“You want a freebie?” he smirked against her skin. “I didn’t see you take one of my tiles,” he teased.

So Katara stubbornly willed herself to push away from him and study the pai sho board. As she sat forward, Momo was disturbed from the nap he’d been taking on her lap and scampered off to find a comfortable place on her blanket to resume his slumber. It did not escape her notice the way Aang pouted just a little at the loss of her body against his, but it was his own fault. After a moment, Katara claimed his Ginger tile and turned smugly toward him. “Okay, fine. There. Now you can tell me when you fell in love with me.”

“Oh I…” Aang’s dark eyes looked at her with besmitten honesty, “I loved you from the moment I saw you, Katara. Maybe I didn’t know why at the time, but I knew from that very first day that you were special. That somehow you were meant to be in my life; that you were a piece of my destiny.”

Katara swallowed thickly.

“And you were, Katara,” Aang continued. “You are! I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t know the truth, I wouldn’t be free, without you. You broke me out of that endless nightmare—just as though you’d broken me out of ice a second time. I’m me again because of you.”

“You seem pretty sure for a 19 year old,” Katara teased, even though her eyes brimmed with tears.

“119 year old!” he corrected her with a smile. “I may not remember, but I think my soul has lived enough lives to know real love when I feel it. So why would I waste any of this life looking anywhere else…” Aang brought his hand up to her face, his own close to hers, “when what I want is right in front of me?”

Katara didn’t have the right words to express it, so she brought their lips together, showing him that she felt the same way. 

Resting her forehead against his to catch her breath, Katara ran her fingers down the wooden beads of Aang’s necklace until they rested on the large, circular pendant on Aang’s chest. This necklace had been Monk Gyatso’s, and was the only thing she had seen Aang take from the ruins of his old home. “Are you… sure you are ready to leave tomorrow, Aang?” 

What Katara had seen today—Aang’s display of mastery over his Avatar power, as well as the more subtle, but no less important, peace he seemed to have found within himself—was impressive. But she wanted to be sure that he was ready to face what lay ahead of them. Despite the grief and tragedy they’d faced here at the Air Temple, Katara would be lying if she didn’t admit that a part of her was loath to leave. The complexities of politics, the Rebellion, and war loomed ahead of them, and the time they’d taken here, however fleeting, had been a much needed hiatus. Part of her did not want to leave.

But there was confidence in Aang’s voice as he spoke. “I’m ready. I’ve done what I came to do, and it’s time now.”

Katara listened to the chimes in the distance. “You are ready to leave your home then?”

Aang looked at her steadily, reading something deeper behind her words. Katara had told Aang what had happened to her own home—of how the Fire Nation had destroyed it, and how the Southern Water Tribe didn’t exist anymore. And unlike here, with its crumbling walls and ruins leaving testament of the airbenders, her little tribe would have left nothing permanent behind. By now all that had been left behind had surely already been buried by the wild snows or pilfered by foraging animals out in the tundra

Helping Aang work through his grief here at the temple had helped Katara to work through some of her own grief as well. They both had experienced atrocities in their lives that felt too heavy to bear. And alone, maybe they were. But together, each was better able to grieve without being lost. To mourn without it becoming insurmountable.

Aang looked at her with understanding; compassion—not pity—in his eyes. She knew that he of all people understood.

“Home is a concept we Air Nomads seemed to see differently from the other nations,” Aang began. “It’s true that we had our temples, but they were places of instruction, of gathering, and of childhood more than a permanent residence. We are nomads after all. Our concept of Home was more fluid. Home was something we carried inside us, and shared with the people we love.”

Aang looked up the path towards the southern air temple. “This place… it’s not my home anymore.” He looked significantly at her, those endlessly youthful and ancient eyes boring into hers. “My home is wherever you are.”

Katara leaned into Aang, kissing him to show him how much she loved him. 

When she pulled back to look at him again, Aang’s eyes were dilated with a deliriously transparent love, almost like worship. Immediately he pulled her mouth back to his again.

Katara didn’t know where she would be in the coming weeks and months, but somehow she knew that as long as she was with Aang, she would be where she was meant to be. 

Because for them, together was Home.

………………. 

The End

......................

#The Hand That Rocks the Cradle #Prince Aang #aang #reconciliation #katara #Southern Air Temple #aged up characters #Avatar State #final chapter! #kataang #happy ending

[shimmersmuts]

My father had always been a unique man but before either of us had knowledge of the war, he was the kindest man I knew.

The day I met team avatar was a life changer. Long Fang had always drove a wedge between me and my father, saying so often how 'unfit' I was as a princess. In truth I was never unfit nor unproper nor a problem.. unlike my father I hated not knowing of my own kingdom.

This incredible world is my birth right. It wpuld be one day my rule and I had every Right to know what was happening in it but this made Long Fang believe I was noisy. I should focus on the newest fashions, the latest music and poetry. Don't get me wrong, nothing I adore more than a evening reading a good poet novel, by the fire place and a hot cup of camimeel tea.

But I wasn't an ditsy girl, I was not a ornament! Nor did I want to be treated as such. I could remember when I barely reached womanhood and the horror of a maybe marriage to Long Fang was mentioned to me.

My father never knew my wrath wnd will up until that day. The tea table was flipped over, my voice so load pour (bear) was running away. More than 3 ways I said never.. one of them threatening to take Long Fang's life.

Luckily 3 years later, reaching now marriage age, team avatar came to Ba sing se. My might or might not marriage to Long Fang and Long Fang himself was thrown away in one go. How happy I was to be free of that man.. but than Sokka and Katara told me about the war and the devastation it took on their village and the rest of the world.

I believed marriage problems was the end of the world for me but how foolish and little my problems really were. Our Kingdom was almost almost took and my people almost enslaved. Soldiers that had been dying before my death and my small reality more silly than I could imagine.

When the Aiko took place and the earth Kingdom fell I experienced the world for the first time. My father was traveling with our bear and to say it was undeel would be a lie. I couldn't leave my Kingdom, and how my father did need my care, the people needed a form of hope.

For the first time I was expose to my people, the common folk, and when I saw the horror I must admit it broke my soul. The starvation, the pain, the lack of basic humanity. The fire nation was ruthless and one night they did capture me. If it wasn't for Smullerbee and Long shot.. I would've experienced the fear of all woman.

Smullerbee convinced me of joining the rebellion, becoming a beacon of hope for the people. It took much to convince the people that I was truly THEE princess especially since Long Shot actively tried to keep me a secret but sharing stories of Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph. They slowly started to believe me and slowly we all helped each other.

I leaded the people to the catacombs and there for most we lived in secret. Little by little we started to gather the young children and woman, led them to safety as we left the men to lead the rebel. For the first time I was a care giver. To feed and takecare of my people were my duty, a duty I accepted with great honor and tried my very best to serve.

The plan was for a few months successful up until the fire nation princess caught us and led us back to land. I confronted the Dui Lee for turning their backs on me, their kingdom, and this amused the child princess who's heart was pure black. "Oh dear, are you surely one of those ladies." She stated with boredom. "I'm no lady, I'm THEE princess of the earth Kingdom. The next in line for my father." With pride those words came but with regret they were followed.

Azula wanted to have my head and murder me on sighg when she discovered my identity, and would've done it but just when blue lightning could been struct, she changed her mind.

The Dui Lee saw this as hesitation and offered tk do the ugly deed but Azula warned her against it. "The earth Kingdom will advances her. She's the princess and shall be the next true ruler. To murder her will start a monarch. We are spreaded thin already with the war. The troops we have are enough to monitor the City, big as it is, but not enough to keep a uprising when other City choose to strike." The wicked girl smiled down at me.. a oval smile that was the beginning of my downfall. "Let's keep her alive but only to use her as a tool."

From there I was ledt back to the Fire nation. The furthest anyone of my royal bloodline had gone over 150 years. I was beaten, starved and torture by the wicked princess all the way till I met her father. When I finally met the face of the worse war in history.. I was scared.

Fire lord Ozai had this coldness to him, a glee for pain just like his daughter. But as Azula would hurt for a reason and purpose he did it out of enjoyment. I remember seeing him out of my only good eye. He made comments of my bad oder, broken teeth and bruise face. "I heard rumors of your beauty but under such peasant clothes I can't see the appeal." With that I was send off to a cell, to heal.

I was there for a month by myself, only a doctor allowed to visit me. He mever spoke, never did much, only checked my broken ribs and jaw from time to time. "I'm sorry of your hurt and I'm sorry what your going throw but if I don't fo my job, I shall be killed and done worse to then what you had experience." Hearing the words for the first time I remembered how disjointed I felt.

The fire lord's own citizens feared him. It made me realise the root of fear wasn't spared for his own people. Fire lord Ozai loved power, hurt and pain. He loved belittling people and breaking them to nothing. The doctor told me stories of how his wife was treated before she disappeared. Mental diseases she left with, in fear she lived in and her only strength her children. To love a beast like Azula you must be insane. It's a miracle to love such a heartless c×nt.

For most I couldn't say much of my stay in the fire nation accept for the awkward dinners I had to share with Ozai. Be would let me have private dinners with him every night when I had healed good enough from the outside. My bones were still broken but my skin.. peach and warm again, had healed enough.

Ozai would say how much he loved my porcelain face. "A small little doll." He than started calling me Porcelain and he had an act to take my clothes off with his eyes. He never did, to which I'm glad to say. He never went pass making me uncomfortable but never touched me under my clothes.. my neck, breast and back was another thing.

His cold finger always traveling down it.. and in truth each day I lived in fear when he will rape me. But now a bit older I realise that was his game. He bad no intend to hurt me but to mentally break me. Around midnight he would always summon me, when the palace was at his quietest. I remember being led by the gaurds every night.. they never said what he wanted.. they left that for my imagination.

Some nights I had to bathe him. Other nights I had to read to him. Hos favorite was singing him a lullaby his mother use to when he was a child. He made me lay in the bed, his head on my lap, and I had to stroke his head up until he fell asleep. Sometimes his hands would roam my legs but never between my tighs but I knew he toughg about it. Never understood what was his restraint but he never went that far to touch me between my legs.

The night I thought he would rape me was the night he gave me a bath. Now that was now fear.

"Don't worry little doll, I just want to give you the treatment you had all those years in your own palace." Hjs dark tone whispered. His eyes seemed so dark, his face unamused as he said it. I was fool of chills. I tried to lie and say I was on my period but he dared me to open my legs and allow his hand up to feel. The horror, the fear I felt. Never touched by a man all my lifebut now a man old enough to bemy father i was at his beg and call.

I didn't say a word but instead undress. Got in the bathe and allowed those horrible hands to touch me. It was a experience I try so hard to forget. How he washed my hair, told me how beautiful I was, how I could see his erecation and wondered the whole time when he would just force himself on me. I knew in strength I could never beat Ozai. I wasn't a bender, a warrior or had any form of combat. I was a princess, to learn those things were forbidden. If he chose he could've had his way with me and I was helpless to do nothing at all.

Luckily the horrow show was cut short when a emergency meeting was called. They bad to prepare for the day of black sun. Hearing this made me glad. This was a day I could try to escape.. The previous eclipse, that took too many years prior, the fire nation was horribly attack by warriors from the in land and was driven out of the land up to where they stand today. None benders took their kingdom away and send them to the furthers of all the states. If those none benders could drive fire nation out of their lands, me as a none bender could escape.

The plan worked and I did have an opportunity to steal a knife, pick the lock and in time when Azula was baiting Aang and the gang, they found me. They saved me and we all escaped together when the other people, who had evaded the fire nation, had been captured and taken away.

We flew away on Appa to a long lost Air Temple. To had been around people my age was a miracle and a blessing. Sokka was an angel and took so well care of me especially when the horror show Zuko join. In my captivity I never met the prince but I met his father and sister, I knew what horros his family had to offer.

In the time when Zuko was allowed to join the gang I was terrified and wanted to run away but once again Sokka found me and told me I would be okay. Many nights when I would have terros he would hold me, soothe me to sleep, promising to protect me. Sokka had a handful with me but he never lost his patience with me.

He helped me threw my worse and was a stability in my life like none other. Everytime Zuko came around he saw my visible fear, as did the rest of the gang, and took me or him out of the room. Aang thought me meditation to cope and deal with my pain. Aang was the first person to make me laugh after weeks. Every moment with Aang was like being with my better half, like seeing a small part of the old me.

Cause of my up bring I learned a lot of Air monk's culture and he and I could speak hours about it. I could tell to be with someone that felt like home meant a lot, and in truth so did it for me. I may not bea bender but I did practice Monk philosophy and culture everyday, evening being a vegetarian.

Aang would late nightsgo with me on Appa and we fly far and wide. He spoke of how he felt he failed again and that he did not know where to go from his shame. In truth, cause of how much time we spend and how much we could relate, me loosing my kingdom and unable to keep them save, we grew closer and Aang without trying became like a brother figure.

Katara and Toph had a very complicated relationship but Katara helped me physically heal and when I had to speak of what I went threw with Ozai, she was always there to hear. Toph and I knew each other for years and she saw me as stuck up but regardless this she did show great respect for me. "Your the princess of mg nation. My loyalty lies with you more than to my family." The Beifongs was a Huge name in my world and we all knew who they were. Theg did not have the title to rule but they had the money to do so, aswell as the connections. Unlike my father and I, they always had control over their lives and staff.

I had grew close with everyone but one, Zuko. Aang had tried to bring us close but I never got over my trauma to the extend I could get along with the fire nation prince. When he and Sokka left for their tour, Sokka told me the truth and asked I kept it a secret. I did not truth Zuko but I saw them off and it broke mg heart dearly to see Sokka leave. I knew Sokka would give his life for me and now my protection, my save place, was leaving with the face of my trauma. "Please, I need you to come back to me." Were my final words before kissing his hand.

Sokka smiled fondly at this and said he return in a week's time. He didn't keep his word but when he came back he was different. Sokka had regained some of his honor and had brought his father, Suki and another friend with from their travels. When I saw Suki and Sokka I knew they were madly in love. In truth I had a small crush on Sokka but he loved Suki, and getting to know her.. I could understand why. She was a honorable warrior, a good hearted person and so extremely beautiful. I stood no chance against her and I just wanted them to be happy.

Sokka asked Suki to give me fighting lessons and this is were she and I became a little more close. Suki knew of the close relationship Sokka and I shared and did know of my feelings. She made it clear she would not back off of hom though regardless how much she respected my title as a princess. "Koishy isn't part of the earth kingdom." I pointed out. "No, but that is what my warriors and island were defending and fighting for." Suki took a breathe, letring down her fans. "I almost lost him to a princess once before, I won't loose him again." Seeing the passion ane seriousness of her words, i couldn't bare to see a woman in pain.

I gave Suki my word that I had no more feeli g for Sokka but saw him now only as a brother. "From a crush to a brother?" "I rather take Aang before I go for Sokka." "Your aware Katara will have your head." We laughed at this. Seems like no one on the team was available. I then told Suki that I actually meant someone in my servitude in Bei sing sang. "He was apart of the rebel but he died protecting me. When i lost him.. it hurt so much. He was too good to be lost." A tear left my eye.

Suki surprised me and actually console my sadden state. "He died for his princess and for what he believed, he should be remembered as a hero not a lost." She encouraged me. For some reason I just hugged Suki in this second and she gave it back to me. "Priya, your kind and wholesome. I'm sorry for what you went threw but I promise that you will find love again. True love this time." "I rather die than open my heart, lr my legs." We chuckled.

We than continued the lessons but the grunts and the fumes of Zuko not so far giving Aang a lesson could be heard. Suki and I had grew respect for one another woman to woman. I did not havethe physical strength or warrior attitude of her but I had endured heartache and lost so frequently and was still standing. That was something no one could take away.

That evening I offered Aang and Zuko some tea but to both's, and myself, dismay. When Zuko took his cup it fell from my hands and I was in a small ball of nerves and fear.

Zuko and I had been around another for weeks and when Sokka is not there I barely speak in a group when Zuko is around. I could tell some way Zuko wasn't his family but at the same time.. his family had taken my kingdom, had tortured me and my people and had kept me captive and mentallh abused. I feared him and I did not care how much it hurt him.

When nighg came Katara and I spoke of the matter and she hated Zuko as much as mebut they too went of a adventure, and when they returned tat hate she had was also gone. Katara was the strongest woman I knew. She forgave Zuko and I hated him for it. I was the only one now left that did not like him.

Zuko tried to fix the relationship but it never worked. Somehow his presence always trigged my trauma. In the end Sokka and Aang told him to keep his distance from me before I have a nervous breakdown.

The final night ne gang and I had fun was when we left to see a play. The night was full of laughs, hurt and insults. The play of us was a joke and completely a insult of our journey. My role was played my a small child, depicted to be naive, dumb and completely unfunctional.. to my surprise this made me a bit laugh.. with Zuko of all people.

He told me how the play made him mad for he saw all his past mistakes and felt shame especially for his uncle and his relationship. "The dragon of the west? Did he not attack the wall?" "My uncle is a good man, the best man. He left his nation behind when my father gave me a planned doom mission to capture the avatar. In that raid he lost his son and he had never recovered after that. He's a good man, the kindest you would ever meet. He's the best of my nation and of my people." He defended nail and bone.

I saw Zuko for the first time as a human and it was refreshing. I even consoled him and said his uncle would be proud he was with the avatar and was trying tk fix his mistakes. "Anyone can make mistakes but only a man would try to fix them. Your a wonder to me Zuko, you really are." I slightly touched his hand.

The intend was good but Ozai flashed in my brain and the night of the bathe came back. I had to leave him and apologized to him at least. "Is okay Priya, your at least trying." He gave a sweet smile. This was the only time Zuko and I ever had a conversation and how small and silly it was.. it had meaning for both out journeys.

My part in the play was silly and I was glad when it ended with me being beheaded when Azula captured us in the catacombs. I was glad when I saw this, for in truth I wish that was the case.

The next few days were insane with Zuko revealing that his father was to burn down my kingdom like he had done with the air nomads. The gang had decided to get me to safety for even if my kingdom dies the people would live and will need a leader. "But I can't leace you!" "You have to Priya, I'm sorry but it's for the best." Sokka had decided to take me to the white lotus.

I met Iroh and he was as honorable as Zuko had said. Meeting the white lotus was a honor and the gang was going to kill Ozai, something I blessed them for. "Kill him barely, I want the final stab.. for my kingdom." No one believed those words but all feared the bloodthirstiness of myself. Suki had thought me little sword fighting but I was cable. With Iroh, on Sozin's commit, I took back my kingdom. Paindo was with me at all times to protect me and in the end we had prevailed, and so did Aang.

The next week we had tk travel back to the fire nation tk crown Zuko as the new fire lord and declare the war over. Aang,Zuko and I stood in front of the people and gave our speechess. It was the most emotional but joyous moment in all my life. The people celebrated us, the people celebrated the peace and for a long time we had that.

My father came back to rule the kingdom and we try to fix as much as we could from our City, till it was back to normal. I couldn't see Aang and the gang as much as I once did but I do remember the day Aang and Katara kissed. We were at Iroh's tea shop. Sokka was painting, Iroh playing music and new and old faces all together that ended the war. Instead of heroes we were family and I loved it greatly.

Sokka doscovering Aang and Katara was a big surprise especially when all believed Aang and I would marry. "WHAT!" Katara, Aang and I screamed loudly. We all were confuse for how could they think, me a 17 year old girl could marry a 12 year old boy.

The white lotus pushed the idea a bit longer but Aang and I saw one another as siblings. "He's like a little brother to me Iroh. How could I marry someone who I did not love?" It was Long Fang all over again.

Iroh explained it would show union in the world. The avatar and the earth princess, what a better match to show war had past. Since Katara was a waterbender and Aang needed his line to be airbenders, to preserve the air nation, a none bender like me would make more sense.

The logic and the reason I could see but neither of us three could stand this. "Aang loves Katara, and she him. I have no desire to get in between my friend's relationship." I killed the story before it could grow to much.

To Aang's and my dismay, how organically we got along, was noticed by everyone where we went. The stories of our may or may not romance was like wild fire to the world. Aang, too kind for words, did not know how to approach the people on the matter, so instead I had to deal with it. How many times I had to hear Aang and I would have beautiful children together.

At some point I did sever, he was like a brother to me. The best way to deal with the rumor was to spend less time with Aang which had to happen. Aang, Sokka and Katara went to fix the long lasting damage that the war had left as I went back to Ba sing Se. My father and I had a kingdom to rebuild and in a different way helped Aang.

For two years there was peace. Aang and the gang went to rebuild the places of the war that took long term damage. The first sever problem was when they came to the earth kingdom colonies.

For almost a 100 years fire nation and earth kingdom citizens were living together in the colonies. The problem was when Zuko asked his people to return to the fire nation and they refused, claiming the colony was their home. The fire nation did not want to leave and the earth kingdom did not want them there.

Myfather wanted Zuko's people out of his land but Zuko later decided to support his people. They had made a home there and should rightfully live there. Many of the citizens had become of mix raise and felt that way, and this me or my father couldn't see.

I had for 2 years been well until Zuko was ready for war and my trauma of the past cane back.

#ATLA #Arrange marriage #Fire Lord #Earth Princess #Zuko #7years after war