#Sokka: please stop calling my Gran-Gran by her first name. please.

[muffinlance]

Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.

Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more.

---

Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--

Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the arctic water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and

and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.

Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.

Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.

“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”

---

She choose her own.

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in here with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He fell asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said.

The crone led him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great icy arrow pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that was what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines and images, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eyes from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then; someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky above him, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it had come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.

[themoonandhersun]

thinking about

a no hundred year old war au where zuko goes the southern water tribe with his family, and he’s grumpy about the cold.

but he’s not grumpy about spending time with katara again. (he’s ten, she’s eight and they met two years ago.)

when they see each other, they get excited and bow traditionally, then give each other a big hug.

and of course, sokka and azula tease them about it.

they tell their siblings to shut up and walk off together.

zuko tells katara about the plays he sees on ember island. “i can take you to go see a play sometime, princess katara—but only if you want to, of course,” he looks at her, cheeks pink, fiddling with his fingers. “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“i would love to go see a play with you, prince zuko,” katara tells him, her cheeks pink too.

they make eye contact, and look away from each other quickly, their pink cheeks turning a bright red.

zuko and his family spend a few days at the southern water tribe, and zuko spends a lot of time with katara there, of course. he loves penguin sledding and watching katara waterbend.

(spoiler: he thinks she’s so cool.)

when zuko has to leave, she quickly kisses his cheek and tells him she can’t wait to see a play with him. zuko blushes hard and says he’ll take her soon.

he leaves.

they write letters to each other for months (and they send each other gifts on their birthdays like they always do), then zuko comes with his family again to take katara to see a play. kya and gran gran go along with katara, and they talk with ursa on the ship (hakoda is on a hunting trip with sokka during this time, but he knows it was gonna happen and is okay with it). zuko and katara spend time together on the ship, and he tells her he can’t wait to see the play with her.

a few days later, they’re on ember island.

zuko tells her that he should hold hands with her so he can show her around better (yes, uncle iroh gave him this tip) and katara agrees (she wanted to hold hands with him anyways). he takes her to their house on ember island and shows her around. he shows her where she’ll be staying, and she tells him how excited she is to be spending time with him on ember island.

(she’s only been to the palace before, not ember island.)

she asks about azula, and zuko says that azula is spending time with her friends and doesn’t really like watching plays anyways. but he assures her the play is really good and that if she doesn’t like it, that’s okay. (she jokes that it would be a bummer if she came all this way just to not like the play, and zuko laughs and agrees with her.)

they play together and talk together until they have to go to the theater. they don’t hold hands this time, but katara loops her arm with his. ursa, kya and gran gran sit by them, but not too close—they don’t want to disturb katara and zuko’s little date (even though they both insist it’s not a date).

zuko glances at katara throughout the play just to make sure she likes it, and he thinks she does. he asks at the end of the play (just to make sure) how she felt about it and katara beams. “i loved it! thank you for taking me, prince zuko,” she hugs him.

he pulls away and slowly shows her a bracelet he had in his pocket. “this is for you, princess katara,” zuko smiles timidly. “i thought of you, and i got it...um, for you. well, actually, uh—i made it. i know, i could have done better, but i just really wanted to make you something—“

“thank you, prince zuko. i love it, it’s so pretty,” katara giggles and nudges him gently. she points to her wrist, “so, can i—“

“um—here, let me,” zuko ties it around her wrist securely, cheeks red. it’s a black, cotton string with a charm on it: a silver crescent moon connected to a gold sun.

“do you really love it, princess katara?” he asks quietly, fidgeting in his seat.

“i do,” she nods and kisses his cheek. zuko smiles at her. “and...i may have made you something as well.”

his jaw drops. “wait, what? really?”

“yeah,” katara grins and hands him a bone dagger with blue handle and a fire carved into its side. she looks at him nervously as he holds the dagger.

she rambles: “you mentioned in your letters that your cousin got a really cool earth kingdom dagger and that you wanted one, so i—i made one for you. well, my dad helped me, but—“

zuko hugs her. “this is so cool, princess katara! thank you so much!” she hugs him back, both of them feeling butterflies in their stomachs.

they get up and join their family members, and they all go back to the ember island house. then zuko admits that he has another gift for katara. “wait here,” he tells her when they’re in the living room. he runs up to his room and runs back downstairs.

“here,” zuko whispers as he blushes and holds out a fire lily, “for you, princess katara.”

“oh—thank you, prince zuko,” katara whispers, grabbing the flower as her cheeks get hot.

(yes, she knows what a fire lily means.)

they hug again.

when zuko travels with her and her family on their journey back to the south (with ursa, of course), they bicker about cloud shapes (katara swears it’s a flower and zuko swears it’s a baby turtle duck) and when it gets to be night time, they argue about what a constellation is named.

“it’s the little penguin named tuka,” katara insists.

“no, it’s a baby dragon named eyala,” zuko shakes his head.

“no, it’s not!”

“yes, it is!”

“last person to the other side of the ship has to admit that they’re wrong!” katara calls out and they race to the other end of the ship, laughing as they do so.

they tied, then played a game of elements (the atla version of rock, paper, scissors. idk if that’s the name of it though?) to break the tie.

katara won. (and zuko didn’t mind saying he was wrong all that much.)

when they make it the south pole, and they hug, it’s zuko who kisses her cheek this time. “i’ll write to you soon, princess katara,” he whispers and pulls away.

“you better,” she whispers back, and watches as zuko gets on the ship. she waves goodbye until she can’t see him anymore.

they keep writing to each other.

but then, gradually over the course of a few years (she is eleven now and zuko is almost thirteen), zuko’s letters get shorter and more vague, and they don’t come in as often as they used to.

then he completely stops sending letters by the end of the year, and she remembers how, the last time they talked in person, he admitted to her: “listen, so—um, i don’t know what’s going on with my dad—but if i ever stop sending you letters, katara, please know i had nothing to do with it. you’re my best friend—and i’ll always want to talk to you.”

(then he placed his hand over hers, his thumb stroking her skin. “you’re my best friend, and...i love you, katara,” he whispered it like it was a secret. she whispered it back, and they hugged.)

(and they had a joke only written in their letters to each other—that she was his, and he was hers. she’s gonna be honest: she doesn’t remember how the joke started, but she knows she keeps it going even when he’s not around. mostly because she thinks about it all the time. he’s her zuko, her zuko, her zuko. she’s his katara, his katara, his katara.)

she’s very worried, angry and sad all at the same time. and she never liked ozai in the first place if she was gonna be honest with herself.

as three years pass, she doesn’t hear from zuko. once, she wrote to azula asking about zuko, and azula wrote back with a vague letter that gave no information on zuko. she tried two more times and got vague responses each time. (she gave up writing to azula after the third try.)

all she found out was that ursa left, and she had to find out through her dad.

but why doesn’t anyone know what happened to zuko?

she doesn’t want to think negatively, but she’s fourteen now, and if her dad knew anything about zuko, he would’ve told her by now. she often stares at the bracelet zuko gave her when she was nine. she was six when they met and they wrote to each other until she was eleven.

she misses him.

(a messager arrives and gives a letter to hakoda. he reads it in his office. he doesn’t know how to tell katara, but he knows he has to.)

hakoda goes to katara, and tells her gently that zuko was burned and banished by ozai three years ago, and she feels sick to her stomach.

her zuko?—burned by his own father?

and he could be anywhere in the world right now?

and he could be—

no.

she can’t think like that.

she tells hakoda that she needs some alone time. he hugs her and walks out the room.

she starts writing to her friend, aang—who has an air bison—and hopes that he’ll agree to help her find zuko. and aang is also friends with zuko.

(they can find zuko, can’t they?)

unfortunately, though, hakoda intercepts the letter (the messager dropped it, and it popped open, and he recognized katara’s handwriting.)

he tells her that she can’t just leave and they argue. kya was trying to be the mediator. it did not help.

katara attempts to leave at night on a boat, and sokka catches her. he tells her, “katara, you can’t leave—“

“—oh, not you too—“

“—without me,” sokka finishes.

katara looks at him, confused. “what? you wanna come along?” she notices he has a bag slung over his shoulder.

sokka nods. “yeah, why not?”

“okay, then, come on, sokka,” katara motions for him to hurry up and get on the boat. sokka gets on the boat and informs her that he left a note for hakoda and kya.

she grumbles something like, “whatever,” in response. (she’s still grumpy about the argument with hakoda.)

she uses her waterbending to make their trip to aang’s temple faster. sokka sleeps while she waterbends, and sokka rows the boat while she sleeps. and the cycle repeats until they’re at the air temple.

aang agrees to help them (he’s also very concerned about zuko after katara tells him what happened) and they all get on appa. aang says that zuko once told him that if he ever ran away, he would go to the earth kingdom. so they head to the earth kingdom.

“i think he mentioned gaoling,” aang tells them. “so let’s head there.”

they search for a few days.

and...

they don’t find zuko.

instead, they find toph, an amazing earthebender who didn’t want to be miserable with her parents anymore.

(basically, they went to an earth rumble, and watched toph fight, and aang was like, “she’s so cool, can she be part of our group?” and sokka was like, “if you can convince her to join us, sure, why not?”)

(by the way, sokka didn’t mean it.)

(he also didn’t think aang would do it—or that toph would agree.)

either way, they ended up with a confident, blind earthbender who ‘carries her own weight’ in their group. (at least she brought a bag full of money with her. they were already running low on funds.)

(sokka has a bad spending habit.)

(plus, him, aang and toph have big appetites for their sizes.)

(seriously.)

“i heard there was a good fighter in ba sing se with a big scar on his face,” toph tells them as she picks at her feet. “they say he’s a firebender. it could be this zuko guy you guys are looking for.”

“we can try ba sing se,” sokka nods. “especially since we don’t have any other leads.”

“i hope we find him,” katara mumbles, staring at her bracelet. she’s scared—because he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead, he can’t be dead. she can’t accept that possibility. “i mean, he’s been by himself for three years, and we just found out about him. he—i hope he’s okay.”

“well, you know how zuko never gives up without a fight, katara,” aang says to assure her and to lighten the mood, “after all, you knew him best out of all of us.”

“yeah,” katara smiles a bit. “he’s so stubborn—in fact, he’s more stubborn than me.”

“okay, let’s not go that far, katara,” sokka snorts. “because you are—nothing,” sokka whistles when katara raises a small water whip and raises an eyebrow at her brother. “i mean, i wasn’t—i was just—i think you’re great, katara,” he says quickly.

“i know i am. thank you, sokka,” katara laughs.

they travel for about two months (appa needs rest, he’s not used to traveling for so long.) they make a stop to omashu mostly because aang insisted it would be a good idea (and appa needed a break too), and aang’s friend, bumi, joins them in appa. (toph is more than delighted to meet another earthbender on her level.)

all of five of them head to ba sing se, bumi talking excitedly about ba sing se and the great deserts they have. and this, of course, leads to a discussion about food, and then—of course—everyone gets hungry.

so they have to stop and make camp, and katara goes to get some water for the rice, when she sees someone sleeping on the other side of the river next to a small fire, wearing a—a blue spirit mask.

her heart races.

a blue spirit mask.

it’s—that’s—that’s zuko’s favorite ‘love amongst the dragons’ character.

it couldn’t be.

could it?

katara puts the pot down. she doesn’t hesitate to swim over, with a water whip in case she’s wrong, and quietly gets out fo the river. katara gently shakes the guy awake, cautiously trashing her water whip in case she’s wrong.

the guy sits up immediately and draws his swords at katara. “what are you doing?” he demands. (her heart beats faster—that’s his voice. it’s his voice.) “do you—wait...katara?” he sheathes his swords slowly. “is—is that really you?”

“zuko?” katara whispers, tearing up. “it’s you. oh, spirits, it’s you.”

she bends the water out of her clothes, and moves to hug him, but zuko scoots away before she can touch him.

she frowns, hurt. “zuko, why did you—“

“i don’t want you to see—it.” zuko awkwardly adjusts his mask. “i don’t—you—i want—just...katara. trust me—you’re not gonna like...it. you’re not gonna like me.” his voice breaks with vulnerability, with sadness, and katara does her best not to cry.

how could he think that?

because—

she loves him.

“are you kidding, zuko? i’m your best friend. i’m always gonna love you,” she sniffles, and zuko doesn’t hesitate to hug her tightly. she hugs back, her head in the crook of his neck.

“i love you, too,” zuko tells her softly, holding her. “i missed you.”

“i missed you, too.”

a beat.

“katara, i’ll show you...my scar,” zuko swallows.

“are you sure?”

“yes, but—but i’m just scared. i don’t want you to think i—that i’m...ugly,” zuko confesses, “i’ll show you, and then i’m, um, gonna put the mask back on.”

“okay, zuko,” katara nods and gently pulls away from his arms. she misses his warmth already. it’s been too long.

she sits across from him, watching him patiently.

zuko’s hands shake as he takes off his mask, and puts it beside him. his eyes are closed tightly.

katara gasps softly as she looks at it. her zuko—he—it must have hurt so much.

she leans forward, and carefully cups his cheek. zuko tenses up, then relaxes. he leans into her hand.

“my zuko,” she whispers, fingers brushing against his scar.

“my katara,” zuko whispers back, opening his eyes, and placing his hands over hers.

“it’s not ugly,” katara informs him as his fingers curl around hers. “and you’re definitely not ugly. my zuko—how could you ever be ugly?”

zuko stares at her, almost as if trying to see if she’s lying, almost like he doesn’t...believe her. “katara, you can’t be serious,” he gently pulls her hand away, but keeps holding it as he grabs his mask with his free hand.

“i am,” katara says, eyes soft. “i’ve never lied to you before. can...can i heal it?”

zuko frowns. “it’s a scar. you can’t heal it, katara.” a beat. “but it itches, sometimes.”

“can i...?”

“you can.”

katara summons water around her right hand like a glove. she cups his cheek with her left hand, tilting his head to the side. zuko closes his eyes and katara presses her water gloved hand on his scar. she watches as the water glows, and feels the scar change, somehow. (yes, she wishes she paid more attention to her healing classes. she knew enough, but she didn’t know everything.)

when she’s done, she puts the water back in the river. “it feels...better,” zuko admits. “thank you, katara.”

“of course,” katara grabs his hands and squeezes. “anything for you, zuko.”

they smile at each other.

then katara remembers—“i still have to get the water for the rice!” she gets up and zuko looks at her, confused.

“i’ll tell you everything later, just—please,” katara reaches a hand out to him. “come with me, zuko.”

zuko nods slowly, and grabs her hand. he gets up, and puts his mask on. “okay, katara, i’ll come with you. after all, we still have a lot to catch up on, don’t we?”

“we do,” katara smiles brightly, holding his hand, and intertwining their fingers. they go into the river, and katara puts water into the pot.

then they head to camp, both of them smiling like idiots.

_____

this......got way longer than i originally thought it would. (it was supposed to be short and cute)

i promise i can do better than this though. i promise!!!!!

(i might write a fic about this now....but it would be different from this obviously)

also, you can thank @ pokidokies for making me think about baby zutara.

like, i was already thinking about them, and then i saw this on instagram—and oh my god,,,,!!!

i had to! express! my thoughts! i just had to!

baby zutara is just...something that can be so personal, you know?

follow her on tumblr and on insta! :D (her blog name on here is the same as her insta name!)

[reinerispretty]

beneath the moon. (sokka x f!reader) pt3

hello and thank u for all ur support with this story!!! i couldnt do it without u guys :) pls enjoy!!

pt1

pt2

pt4

(Y/N) reached her igloo and walked to her room, stalking past Yue in the process. “Your boyfriend’s looking for you,” (Y/N) said before she entered her room and slammed the door shut. She flopped onto her bed and buried her face in her pillows. 

(Y/N) was surprised to see Katara enter the hut where her healing lessons were held, the expression on her face deeply agitated. She spotted (Y/N) immediately and took a seat beside her, crossing her arms. (Y/N) raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay?” She whispered as the instructor, Yugoda, spoke. 

“That horrible waterbending master won’t teach me because I’m a girl,” Katara whispered back harshly. (Y/N) blinked at her. 

“I could’ve told you that,” She said. “Women in our tribe aren’t allowed to do anything other than healing.” 

“But that’s ridiculous!” (Y/N) nodded sadly. 

“I’ve tried for years and they won’t let me. And I’m a princess,” She sighed. “I thought Master Pakku might give an outsider a chance, but I guess I was wrong.” She noticed Katara’s solemn expression and gave her an awkward smile. “Yue promised that when she’s chief, she’ll change that!” 

“But I don’t have time to wait for Yue to become chief,” Katara whispered. The lesson ended before (Y/N) could say more. She stood at Katara’s side as she thanked Yugoda for the lesson.

“So who’s the lucky boy?” The healer asked, gesturing to Katara’s necklace. Katara looked at (Y/N), confused. 

“Your betrothal necklace,” (Y/N) explained. “I assumed you were getting married to the Avatar.” Katara’s face paled as she shook her head quickly. 

“Absolutely not!” She exclaimed. “My grandmother gave this to my mother, who passed it on to me.” 

“I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner,” Yugoda gasped. “You look just like Kanna.” 

“You knew Gran-Gran?” Yugoda nodded. 

“She and I were friends when I was your age. She was born here, in the Northern Water Tribe.” Both (Y/N) and Katara’s eyes widened. 

“She never told me that,” Katara said. Her fingers instinctively wrapped around her necklace. 

“She had an arranged marriage with a young waterbender. He carved her that necklace.” 

“If she was engaged, why did she leave?” Yugoda shrugged. 

“She never told me. She left without saying goodbye.” (Y/N) and Katara bid their goodbyes to the instructor before walking out the hut. 

“I wish Yue would take a page out of your Gran-Gran’s book,” (Y/N) grumbled as their boots crunched in the snow. Katara looked at her, confused. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Yue’s engaged to one of the worst boys in our entire tribe,” (Y/N) explained. “She’s only doing it for the good of the tribe, but sometimes I wish she’d put herself first.”

“It’s very admirable of her to do that,” Katara said. (Y/N) remained silent. 

Sometimes she wondered if she was a selfish person, for wanting to put her own goals and dreams ahead of her tribe’s. She loved her home but sometimes she felt like an outcast in her own house. The only person who really understood her was Yue, but she would never think of ever leaving their tribe. It made (Y/N) feel guilty for daydreaming of a life beyond the icy shores of the Northern Pole. 

She parted ways with Katara and ventured into the city. As she walked around the canals, she heard a voice call her name. (Y/N) turned around to see Sokka running toward her, a bright smile on his face. 

“I don’t know where my sister is,” (Y/N) said once he had reached her. She continued her walk. Sokka fell in step beside her. 

“I wasn’t looking for your sister, I was looking for you.” He rummaged around his pocket and pulled out a small piece of wood. “Do you think your sister would like this?” 

She squinted her eyes to scrutinize it. “Is it a fish?” Sokka pulled it away from her, giving her a bright grin. 

“I knew you can tell what it is! Katara said it didn’t even look like an animal.” He shrugged. “Whatever, Yue will get it. I hear you’re a waterbender, is your sister one too?” 

“No, she isn’t.” (Y/N) held her chin high to maintain her regal appearance as she and Sokka rounded the corner. 

“That’s fantastic! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a bender, but I’m not one either.” 

“Congratulations,” She said in a monotonous tone. She hoped that if she kept giving him short answers, he would leave her alone.

“Do you happen to know what her favorite flowers are? Do flowers grow here?” (Y/N) sighed and stopped in her place, turning to face Sokka. He towered over her, but she could see him gulp as he stared at her. Being the youngest daughter of the chief, (Y/N) had mastered intimidation tactics.

“Look. I understand that you’re head over heels for my sister. Get in line, there isn’t a single guy in this tribe who isn’t. But if you’re only going to talk to me to just get to know her better, I’d appreciate it if you never talked to me again.” She stormed off in the direction of her igloo. 

She had dealt with people like Sokka her entire life. Yue was a wonderful person, blessed with beauty and kindness. People had always adored her. But what infuriated (Y/N) was when people only got close to her to get closer to Yue. It was like they saw her as a stepping stone on the way to her sister’s approval. It was moments like these that she wished she knew more waterbending moves, so she could take out her anger on a glacier. 

(Y/N) reached her igloo and walked to her room, stalking past Yue in the process. “Your boyfriend’s looking for you,” (Y/N) said before she entered her room and slammed the door shut. She flopped onto her bed and buried her face in her pillows. She tried to push down the sting she felt as not being acknowledged as her own person. She was always “Yue’s sister,” or “The Chief’s youngest daughter.” (Y/N) had never been herself to anyone else. 

She sat up, continuously pressing down the tears that threatened to spill. Reaching under her bed, she pulled out her paints and papers. She retrieved her easel from her closet and positioned it in front of the window that faced the horizon. (Y/N) began painting, stroking blues and greys and blacks onto the canvas. By the time she finished her painting of the glaciers, the sun was nearly set. 

(Y/N) jumped as Yue entered her room without knocking. She turned around to see her on the verge of tears. (Y/N) rushed to her side, wrapping her arms around her shoulders as she guided her to sit on the bed. “What happened?” she demanded as she kneeled at her sister’s side. 

“It’s Sokka,” Yue cried. She wiped away her tears with the sleeves of her robe. 

“Did he hurt you?” (Y/N) asked. Yue shook her head furiously. 

“No! Goodness, no. He’s amazing and so sweet, and I feel so happy when I’m with him, but I’m engaged to Hahn. I can’t disrespect him like that.” Her hands reached up to touch the betrothal necklace he had carved for her. (Y/N) frowned. 

“I wish you’d follow your heart,” (Y/N) sighed. Yue’s bottom lip quivered. 

“I think you were right,” Yue whispered. She grasped (Y/N’s) hand tightly. “But I’m scared it’s too late.” 

“You’re the princess, Yue. You have the power to do whatever you want to do.” 

“I don’t want to disrespect the tribe.” (Y/N) rolled her eyes. 

“The tribe will get over it. Everyone adores you.” She booped her sister’s nose. “Whatever decision you make, I’ll support you no matter what.” 

Yue swallowed another sob. “Do you promise?” She held out her pinky. (Y/N) hooked it with her own. 

“I promise.” 

(Y/N) and Yue had been awoken by their mother early the next morning. They threw on their clothes and walked down to the common room, where the Chief met with his people to help them with their issues. Her father was already there, speaking to both Katara and Pakku. 

“What do you want me to do?” Her father asked of Katara. “Force Master Pakku to take Aang back as his student?” (Y/N’s) brows furrowed. She was missing an important detail. When had Aang not been Pakku’s student? What had happened since the last time she had seen Katara?

“Yes, please!” Katara begged. 

“He might change his mind,” The Chief conceded, “If you apologize to him.” Katara gritted her teeth. 

“Fine.” Pakku stared down at her smugly, with his arms crossed. 

“I’m waiting, little girl.” Katara’s frowned deepened as she shook her head. 

“No. I’m not apologizing to a sour old man like you!” Katara exclaimed. The pots of water that surrounded them began to crack. “I’ll be outside if you’re man enough to fight me.” The girl stormed off as Yue gasped. (Y/N) wore a bright smile on her face. 

“Finally, something exciting!” She exclaimed. 

“I’m sure she didn’t mean that,” Aang assured the Chief. Sokka gulped. 

“I think she did.” 

(Y/N) darted outside before the others, her family and Aang and Sokka trailing closely behind. Her mother grabbed onto her arm before she could get too close to the battle. 

“Stay here,” Her mother insisted. “It’s too dangerous.” (Y/N) let out an exaggerated sigh, but obeyed. She watched as Katara and Pakku began battling. Her own hands itched to control water like they could. She tried to repeat some of the moves that they were making, but her father looked at her disapprovingly. 

(Y/N) was impressed to see Katara holding her own against Master Pakku. She leaned over to speak to Aang. “Do you think she’ll win?” 

He looked at her, a worried expression on his face. “I don’t think so. But Katara’s strong, she’ll fight until the end.” (Y/N’s) eyes analyzed every single one of Katara’s movements. It was obvious she was a fighter, and a skilled one at that. (Y/N’s) heart sank. She wanted to be like Katara.

Their fight finished as Pakku picked up Katara’s necklace. “This is mine,” He said quietly. Katara, locked in ice, thrashed against her holdings. 

“No it’s not! It’s mine, give it back!” 

“I made this, sixty years ago, for the love of my life,” Pakku explained. The ice holding Katara melted back into water. 

“My grandmother was supposed to marry you?” Pakku nodded. 

“I made her this necklace when we got engaged. I thought we would have a long, happy life together. I loved her.” 

Katara’s face softened. “But she didn’t love you, did she? It was an arranged marriage. Gran-Gran wouldn't let your tribe's stupid customs run her life. That's why she left.”

“That must have taken a lot of courage,” (Y/N) said. Yue’s breath caught on a sob. She darted away from the group, Sokka running after her. 

Pakku handed Katara her necklace, straightening himself and holding his chin high. “Very well, Katara. You have proven yourself as an excellent waterbender. You may join my lessons.” 

Katara grinned at Aang and (Y/N), who cheered excitedly for her. “Master Pakku!” (Y/N) said as she ran up to him. “May I join your lessons with Katara, please? I promise I’ll be just as dedicated as any waterbender you’ve ever had!” 

“(Y/N’s) the best at all of her healing lessons,” Katara added. “There’s not any more she can learn from them!” 

Pakku stared at (Y/N) for a moment before turning back to look at her father. Her own eyes trailed back to her dad, whose anger was apparent on his face. “Absolutely not,” The Chief said decisively. 

“But Father-” 

“You are a princess of the Northern Water Tribe. You know our customs and will adhere to them.” She opened her mouth to defend herself once more, but her father turned around and ignored her.

(Y/N) looked at Katara. The shock on her face told her that she hadn’t anticipated their conversation going that way, either. (Y/N’s) eyes remained downcast as she walked back up to her igloo with her family, hot tears melting the snow at her feet. 

---

Tag List!

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[yukippe]

wonder what she thinks of me

for @yuekiweek ​ day 3: reunions | word count: 2.3k | read on ao3

“you need to buy your books suki!!” sokka lectures through the phone. last year suki didn’t buy the books for any of her classes and she was fine. she isn’t actually planning on buying books this year either, except now sokka’s roped her into coming to his book club and she can’t lie and say she doesn’t like to watch sokka rant about something dumb while enjoying the baked goods that sokka will have convinced his gran gran and his parents to make for them.

unfortunatley, this means suki has to brave the bookstore during some fancy author signing to try to buy the book sokka’s demanded everyone read for next week. he’s still talking through the phone, though suki’s mostly tuned him out. she’s normally much better at listening to sokka’s rants, but the bookstore is packed with awkward high school students and suki would rather not, at the moment. she slips around a table of overpriced waterbottles and planners and weaves past a random grandpiano over to one of the computers with the bookstore directory. “sokka,” suki asks as she almost trips over a four year old holding a picture book. “why did you have to send me to this bookstore at this time?”

there’s a huff on the other end of the line and suki sighs deeply, “suki, please you should be thankful! they’re running a special discount if you buy a tote bag to go with the book this weekend!!” well. okay, maybe suki collects tote bags and sokka is probably being a good friend. but suki hasn’t been to this store before, having not bothered with buying her textbooks last year and getting anything for fun as an ebook. but sokka believes in the experience of a physical copy or whatever, so tote bags and author signings it is. 

suki puts her phone between her shoulder and ear as she sets her fingers onto the keyboard of the computer directory, “hey, what’s the name of the book again?”

“have you listened to anything i’ve ever said to you?” sokka asks her. suki can picture him in their apartment at his desk, doing something fancy with math as he coaches her through a bookstore, pinching the bridge of his nose out of frustration. suki doesn’t actually need him to tell her the name of the book, she just likes to rile him up sometimes. she types in the title. suki thanks him for his help, asks him if hes found his glasses yet (the same glasses she hid before she left) and hangs up with a smirk.

adaptation by malinda lo. there, young adult section. it’s supposedly sci fi thriller and sokka, though he lacks taste in most things, has always had solid book taste. suki looks around for the sign to section she needs and spots it, tucked behind a tech display and next to the little cafe. suki walks over, eager to grab her book and get out of the shop. she walks through the shelves searching for the author’s with the last name l. malinda lo. there, suki reaches out to pluck the book of the shelf, when the back of her hand brushes against someone else. 

suki steps back, book in hand, to look at the girl next to her. she has brown hair in a pretty updo and really cute heart shaped beaded earrings. she looks familiar, but suki isn’t sure where she recognizes her from. 

“hi,” the other girl says, her voice sounds like a princess. all bells and whistling wind. 

“uh,” suki coughs, smiling crookedly and titling her head. “hi!” 

the other girl giggles at her, but her smile is warm and suki finds herself settling. “i’m yue - so adaptation? what made you interested in it?”

“oh, my friend is hosting a book club and this is this months pick,” suki tells her. maybe she should have done a little more research on the book before she’d shown up. she hadn’t really pictured a bookstore as the spot to meet a cute girl. 

“oh!” yue says, surprised. “i have the same one assigned for my book club. do you want to grab something to drink and let me tell you about it?”

“sure,” suki says, her smile growing even wider. “that sounds great” 

yue winks at her as she grabs the same book of the shelf, “perfect, there’s this bubble tea place a block a way i want to show you.” yue turns on her heel, her hair falling onto her back as yue bounces in her steps. suki checks to make sure her flannel is neat and her docs are tied before hurrying after yue. 

the two of them wait in line one behind the other at the register and yue flips through the display before the register of pins and pens and bookmarks. a rainbow lion turtle eraser set catches suki’s eye and she lifts it up to her face to look at it closer. it’s the type of thing aang would like, so suki puts it on top of her book when she gets to the register. after she picks out the simplest canvas tote bad (most of them have obnoxious book puns katara would make fun of her for months about) and pays, suki finds yue waiting by the door peeling a sticker off of a sticker sheet suki remembers seeing on the display. 

“so,’ yue asks. “where do you want your sticker?”

suki blinks, “what?”

yue waves the - oh it’s a hello kitty sticker with fairy wings. suki blinks at it, “um. cute?” she gets a smile for her efforts and then yue leans in and grabs her wrist, turning suki’s hand around and carefully placing the sticker onto the back of suki’s right hand. 

“so,” yue says, after failing once more to steal a drink of suki’s boba. her mouth is screwed up in a light pout, but it feels teasing. “do you go to ba sing se u?”

only a little while later, they are wandering to nowhere in particular, still holding hands. yue keeps trying to steal a sip of suki’s drink even though when suki ordered yue had made a face at the idea of coffee boba. yue’s own drink is sweet like her. strawberry, reportedly to match yue’s nails which are done up in a neat mimic of the fruit. 

suki nods, squeezing yue’s hand and lifting her drink over her head, too high up for yue to reach, though that doesn’t stop yue from playfully batting at it. neither of them caring about what passerby might think as they wobble on the sidewalk smiling at each other full of silliness. “yeah, i’m majoring in gender and women's studies with a minor in literature and art.”

yue lights up, the way she’s done every time suki’s shared a fact with her. suki’s face feels flushed, yue makes her feel like she’s on her first date ever. “oh wow!” yue says. “i’m majoring in four nations politics with a minor in theology and spiritual studies but i would love to see what your classes must be like. i think i could be a student forever, you know?”

and then yue doesn’t let go of suki’s wrist. instead, she links their fingers together and suki watches their hands held together hang between them. she looks up and smiles at yue, stupidly happy for a moment. and really, suki doesn’t even know for sure if yue is into girls even if yue does seem to be flagging. for now, suki just lets yue tug her down the street as her phone buzzes in her new tote bag with texts from sokka she’ll ignore for now. 

“hm, not really, i think one degree is enough for me. but academics are cute,” suki says, watching as yue swings their hands back and forth as they walk. they’re both absolutely terrible at walking together, suki’s noticed. they can’t seem to walk in a straight line and suki’s almost fallen off the sidewalk twice already. it’s nice. suki’s finding that yue makes her comfortable everywhere. 

“oh?” yue asks, her eyes twinkling. “does that mean you think i’m cute, suki?”

“hmmm,” suki teases out, a trace of laughter in her voice as yue finally manages to dart forward to steal her drink, finally realizing her success would be increased if she let go of suki’s hand. suki doesn’t even mind that much, wow. “well,” suki settles, after a moment of false consideration. “yeah, i think you’re pretty cute.”

yue winks at her, the same way she did in the bookstore, and takes a sip of suki’s bubble tea. then she makes a completely disgusted expression shoving suki’s drink back at her. “suki! that’s so gross, tui and la, how do you drink that?” 

suki can’t help the laugh that spills out of her as yue sticks her tongue out and crosses her eyes, making a fuss that shouldn’t be as sweet as it is. well, suki’s always been a sucker for clowns. suki reaches out and links their hands back together and they both sip at their drink as they seem to stop together at the bus.

they make shy eye contact as a bus comes up to the stop. “so,” yue says. “i’ve got to go, i’m meeting up with a friend. but this was really fun, right?”

suki smiles, “yeah, it was really fun.”

“that’s great! i really liked talking with you!” yue informs her. then, yue leans forward and kisses suki’s cheek before turning around, and her earrings sparkle in the sunlight as she jumps onto the bus right before the bus doors close and it pulls away with the rest of the flow of traffic. suki blinks and watches it go, still feeling the soft touch of yue’s lips on her cheek.

when suki pulls her phone out of her bag to video call sokka he immediately points out the lipstick mark on her cheek and she resolves not to give him any details, no matter how much he pesters her 

-

two weeks later, after bemoaning to ty lee about how she was dumb and completley forgot to ask the cute girl she met at the book store for her number, she sees yue again. at sokka’s book club.

the members of the secret book club hadn’t been a surprise for the most part, consisting of sokka (obviously), aang (one of sokka’s only friends who wasn’t a gay girl), azula, mai, ty lee and suki (the gay girls sokka was friends with). sokka’s parents, hakoda, kya and bato, had baked with sokka all last night and prepared a whole table full of snacks that sokka had made her haul over to their apartment. suki thinks it’s a ridiculous amount of food for their handful of friends, and then she and sokka ate a good section of it before their friends even show up.

mai, sokka and azula are arguing over the finer points of the book already even though the meeting has yet to officially start. sokka and azula, to be fair, have actual opinions that they are fiercly defending from their spots on the floor as mai causes problems on purpose on the couch she and ty lee stole as soon as they stepped through the front door. 

there was only one person that had yet to arrive, and apparently only aang had met her before. azula had raised an eyebrow at the pronoun and asked sokka if he’d made friends with another gay girl. the answer had been yes, and suki who was looking for another chance at talking to a cute gay girl after flopping earlier in the month and failing at getting yue’s number or social media or anything, was looking forward to meeting the newest cute gay girl sokka was friends with. 

sokka had impeccable taste in cute gay girls (besides azula). so really, maybe suki shouldn’t have been so surprised to answer the door when the bell rang to find yue holding a tray of pastries. 

yue stands out in the hallway with its broken light, looking as pretty as the moon in the sky. her face breaks into a smile at the sight of suki, and suki’s sure her expression matches. “suki?!” yue asks. “wow, small world huh?”

suki nods back, her cheeks starting to hurt with how big she was beaming. “so,” suki says. “do you think i could make up for last week and get your number?”

laughter comes from behind suki, and suki knows her friends are probably making fun of them right now, but she’s too interested in yue’s answer to pay any attention. 

yue rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t stop smiling, “of course suki, now do you want to help me bring these in so i can program it into your phone? no excuses not to call me this time.”

“don’t worry,” suki says as she takes the sweets from yue. “i’ll be sure to blow your phone up more than sokka when he’s trying to prove a point.”

she’s rewarded with another kiss to her cheek (and teasing from her friends at another lipstick stain) and yue’s number in her phone saved as yue🌙💖😘. 

yue, through suki’s phone, texts something to herself and suki leans over yue’s shoulder to see what it is. 

omg yue you’re so hot please go out with me <3

suki bumps yue’s shoulder as best as she can with her hands full and raises an eyebrow. “so, yue?” suki asks. “will you go out with me?”

yue giggles, her lipgloss sparkles and suki wonders what it tastes like, “of course, suki.” 

a few seconds later, suki has her question answered and can confidently report that yue’s lipgloss tastes like mango. 

suki passes the tray off to sokka, who was helpfully waiting right behind her with the tried familiar expression of accidentally setting up his exes. then, suki tugs yue into the loveseat, kicking out aang who had been sprawled across it.

book club is much more fun than suki was expecting, though almost all things are improved, suki finds, when she’s hanging out with her friends and eating sweets and practically sitting in the girl she likes lap while yue braids her hair and teases sokka with her. yue winks at her as aang and ty lee stop azula and sokka from getting into a fistfight with mai and sticks another hello kitty sticker onto her cheek. suki leans over and kisses the same spot on yue. fair is fair after all. 

[nights-legacy]

Over Time- Eventual!Zuko

+ Kira is an airbender a few years ahead of Aang in training. Her and Aang are as close as siblings. She goes with him into the storm and is there when they are forced down, joining Aang in his journey 100 years later. Unlike Aang, Kira notices there is something different the moment she gets her barrings outside the ice. The first kicker to be something wrong is the size of the Southern Water Tribe. The second being a prince of the Fire Nation was certainly not Azulon.

Note: This will be a slow burn romance. This was a scenario that has been in my head for a bit and the name stuck when I was imagining it, so the reader (you! lol) is Kira.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kira’s POV

           “Aang!” I ran through the halls looking for the boy. “Aang, please! Where are you?” I called. I stopped, exasperated. I sighed after catching my breath but paused halfway through. On a feeling, I look right and saw a running figure. I followed until I saw Appa and knew it was Aang. I ran and vaulted myself onto Appa’s back.

           “Kira! What are you doing?” Aang turned toward me surprised. He looked like he had been crying. “Go back!”

           “No, I am not letting you do this alone.”

           “You’re…you’re not going to make me go back?” I shook my head and hugged him.

           “No I know you need to get away but I won’t let you go alone.”

           “Thank you, Kira. I don’t know what I would do without you. Get settled, a storm is coming.” I nodded and settled myself in the saddle. We flew and the rain came. We kept going until it was too dangerous.

           “Aang we need to land! It’s getting too dangerous!” I yelled over the wind. Aang looked back at me and I saw worry and fear in his eyes. He nodded and tried to land Appa but a lightning strike scared Appa, him to jerk and stall.

           “Appa! Kira!” I heard Aang yell barely over the ringing in my ears. I couldn’t see anything but all of a sudden, I felt the cold of the water below before I didn’t. Air surrounded me before I blacked out.

           *Time Skip brought to you by Katara and her Water Magic*

           “Kira! Kira! Wake up please!” I groaned before opening my eyes. I quickly moved my hand to block the sun. “Thank the spirits.”

           “Aang?” I saw him and two other people standing over me. I sat up slowly. “What’s going on?”

           “We crashed into the water. I was able to create a bubble that froze and we fell asleep.” He scratched the back of his neck in guilt. “I’m sorry, Kira.”

           “It’s okay, Aang.” I hugged him. “Where are we?”

           “You’re in the Southern Water Tribe. I’m Sokka, this is my sister Katara.” The boy held out his hand for me and helped me up.

           “Are you an Airbender too?” Katara asked. I smiled and nodded.

           “Yes. I am Kira. I am 16 years old. We are from the Southern Air Temple.” I held out a hand to Katara. She smiled and shook it.

           “Kira is like an older sister to me. She is the closest friend before Monk Gyatso.” As they talked, I looked around. Something felt different. The air felt different around me, heavier. Not long after, we made way to their village. It was a lot smaller than I remember.

           We were greeted warmly. I was enjoying the tranquilty and the people. The food not so much but it was alright. It was nice until the Fire Nation showed up. The feeling I got from earlier intensified.

           “Something is not right.” I said as Aang boarded the ship. He turned and shared a look with me before disappearing into the machine. I held Katara back by the hands so she wouldn’t use her bending. She looked at me surprised. “You are not trained enough to fight them yet.” They left on the ship

           “Why did they not take you two?” Sokka looked at me confused.

           “They didn’t think I was a bender. I do not have the tattoos and I dress with a different color then the normal Air Nomad colors.” I said motioning to my blank skin and the purple wrap around my waist. “Not tell me…” I looked at them intently. “How long has it been since Avatar Roku disappeared?”

           “It’s been over a hundred years.” Sokka told me while rubbing his arm. I closed my eyes and took a big breath. “How did you know? That more time had passed then Aang thinks?”

           “I could feel a change in the air. I have had more spiritual training then Aang and I have always had a knack for sense on a different spectrum. Also, when we feel asleep, there were a bountiful amount of benders in the Southern Water Tribe and the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation’s name was not Zuko.”

           “Oh…” Katara and Sokka shared a look. I ran towards Appa as he grew antsy. I turned back and saw the two were gone. I sighed and set my head against Appa.

           “Those two are going to go after him.” I looked over my shoulder at Gran Gran. “They are good kids and they will go try and save him.”

           “They won’t be going alone.” I turned completely toward her.

           “Please watch over them I know they won’t be back for a long time. Their destinies have intertwined with yours and the Avatar’s.”

           “I give you my word.” She smiled before she pulled something out of her sleeve. It is small trinket with a small white lotus. I gasped.

           ‘This was given to me by my mother. She said her friend from the Southern Air Temple gave it to her just before she disappeared. Her friends name was Kira.”

           “Mira…you’re Mira’s daughter.” She placed the comb in my hair before she hugged me and sent me on my way. I wiped the stray tear from my eye as I found the two. “What do you to think you are doing?” I said, spooking them.

           “Ummm…” Sokka looked down at the canoe and them back up at me on Appa. “Going after Aang?” He said unsure. I chuckled and looked ahead where the ship was a ways away.

           “Not in that you’re not. You would never catch them.” I clicked and told Appa to land. “Get on. I’ll give you a lift.” I smirked as a smile spread across both of their faces.

           *Time Skip*

           “Who even are you?” Zuko asked me harshly. I sat with my arms tied behind my back on the ground. He was currently circling me like a predator. I had stayed behind, stalling Zuko so Aang and the others could escape. Aang didn’t want to leave me but I gave him no choice. “You dress in the clothes of the Air Nomads. You act like one and you are protective of the Avatar as if you know him.”

           “Because I do.” I said simply. Also, he didn’t know I was Airbender.

           “He is over a hundred years old. You can’t!”

           “But she does, Zuko.” The older gentleman I came to know as Iroh stepped up. I smiled and bowed my head. He did as well. “Because she is as well. If my guess is correct, you’re older then the Avatar.”

           “Yes.” Zuko was looking at me intently. I sighed before standing. He got into a ready position. I jumped and flipped around to bring my hands in front of me. “I’m sorry.”

           “What?”  He asked confused. I brought my hands up before kicking into the air, forcing a gust straight towards him. He flew back. “You’re an air bender.”

           “That I am.” I flipped a dropped blade from the ground and caught the ropes, cutting them. Zuko darted and shot a blast of fire at me. I pushed it aside before grabbing his arm, blocking him. “Why do you fight?”

           “To regain my honor. To regain my father’s favor.” He pulled out of my hold and fought me. I blocked each attack.

           “The only person who can give and take you honor is you. No one else has that authority over your life but you. Not your father, not your sister, not even your uncle, only you!” I told him before I hit him in the chest. He flew back into a tree, getting knocked out. “I am sorry, Iroh.”

           “It is okay, my dear. If only he would listen.” Iroh handed me my staff.

           “He will over time.” I smiled at him. I bowed and so did he.

           “The White Lotus. A flower of beauty, truth, and philosophy. People who bare the flower usually ones who share ancient knowledge despite divides.” I reached up and brushed my fingers across the comb. “Maybe we can speak over tea sometime?”

           “I would love that.” I said. I walked over and knelt beside Zuko, brushing a finger across his scarred cheek. “One day things will fall into place.” I stood and walked to the edge of the cliff. “Good evening, Iroh.”

           “Good evening.” I dove off the cliff and fell through the air. I opened my staff just a few yards from the ground flying off into the night.

[chaoticevilbean]

The Flames of the Moon

Chapter Two : The Fire of Loss

Appa was fast, and it appeared that he really had only needed some rest to get back to his apparently-normal flying self. The warship was easily located, moving through a canyon of ice. On the deck, Prince Zuko and Aang were in the middle of a battle. It seemed Aang was making his own daring escape right then.

"Appa," he called up to the bison, his voice echoing slightly off the ice. Zuko took this distraction as an opportunity to strike, sending fireball after fireball at his enemy. Aang managed to dodge all of them, backing up against the edge of the ship. His staff was knocked away and two blasts suddenly send him flying unconscious over the railing.

"Aang!" Katara was leaning over the side of the saddle, trying to get a glimpse of her friend in the water. Tui and La, please don't let him die, both teens thought as they waited for some sort of movement. "Aang! Aang! AANG!"

On Katara's last shout, a bright blue glow rose in the ocean. Something shot out from the water in front of the ship, and Sokka could see that it was Aang, his eyes and tattoos glowing much like they did when he was still in the iceberg. A swirling vortex of water surrounded him, towering above the metal deck of the ship. On the deck, the Fire Nation soldiers stared in dismay and fear at the display of power.

The Avatar lands on the deck, bending water from the column that had held him up into a circle. He releases it, sending out as a shockwave into the soldiers, knocking them off their feet.

"Did you see what he just did?" Katara shouted from where she was crouching, relieved and as amazed as everyone else.

"Now that was some waterbending!" was Sokka's only response as he steered Appa towards the deck. The Avatar stopped glowing, and Aang collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Appa landed, allowing Sokka and Katara to slide off and run towards their friend.

"Aang! Are you okay?" Katara knelt down beside him, Sokka following closely.

"Hey, Katara. Hey Sokka. Thanks for coming," Aang reacted weakly.

"Well, I couldn't let you have all the glory," Sokka quipped.

"I dropped my staff." Sokka searched with his eyes hurriedly before spotting the glider.

"Got it!" The teen ran over and grabbed onto the staff, lifting it up only to see a hand firmly gripping the other end. Sokka panicked momentarily as Prince Zuko attempted to pull himself upward. Sokka tried to pull the staff away, but when that only succeeded in giving Zuko a better hold, he instead used the end to poke the prince repeatedly in the head. The royal's grip loosened and then released and he fell, only just managing to grab the anchor chain.

"Ha! Water Tribe, baby!" Sokka crowed in victory, turning back to Appa and moving towards the bison. However, Katara chose that moment to freeze the deck, also succeeding in freezing her brother. After calling out her name in exasperation, Sokka got straight to work using his boomerang to hack at the ice while increasing the temperature of his feet so the ice melted a bit on the inside.

"Hurry up, Sokka!" Katara called from Appa, just as he broke his feet from the ice. Hopefully no one would notice that there were two puddles in the piles of ice where Sokka's feet had been.

"Yip-yip! Yip-yip!" he shouted at Appa as he climbed aboard the bison's head once more.

"Shoot them down!" Sokka turned just in time to see an old man and the prince shoot a huge blast of fire at them. The teen was halfway standing in the saddle when Aang leapt up, redirecting the fire towards one of the cliffs. The impact caused an avalanche of ice and snow to fall, burying the front of the ship and preventing them from following the group. Aang waved goodbye at the ship, much to Sokka's frustration. Will he please stop being so friendly with enemies?

Sokka leaned back slightly, only pointing Appa in the general direction of the Southern Air Temple before turning to his new traveling companions. Katara sat with Aang next to her, the two of them propped up against each other.

"How did you do that? With the water? It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!" Katara questioned Aang, sitting up properly so as to address him better. The twelve-year-old sat up as well, his eyes on the bottom of the saddle. After a small moment of silence, he quietly spoke up.

"I don't know. I just sort of... did it." The siblings looked at each other before Sokka asked his own question.

"Aang, why didn't you want us to know you were the Avatar?"

"Because I never wanted to be." Aang moved away, watching the sunset from their place above the clouds.

"But Aang, the world's been waiting for the Avatar to return and finally put an end to this war," Katara stated, as if that would change anything.

"And how am I going to do that?"

"According to legend, you need to master water, then earth, then fire, right?" This got Aang's attention.

"That's what the monks told me."

"Well, if we go to the North Pole, you can master waterbending!" Finally, Aang was back to his normal exuberant self.

"We can learn it together!"

"And Sokka, I'm sure you'll get to knock some Fire Nation heads on the way." And maybe learn some more bending yourself remained unsaid but heard. Katara was always happy when Sokka practiced his bending, since she worried he would be scared of his flames.

"I'd like that. I'd reeally like that."

"Then we're in this together!" Aang smiled as he pulled out a scroll, speaking to both of them as he did. Sokka did not think that smile was good news for their trip.

"All right, but before I learn waterbending, we have some serious business to attend to. Here, here, and here." He pointed at three different places on the now unrolled map, two in the Earth Kingdom and one in Air Nomad territory.

"What's there?" Katara pointed at one of the spots.

"Here, we'll ride the hopping llamas," Aang pointed to the first Earth Kingdom spot. "Then waaay over here, we'll surf on the backs of giant koi fish." Sokka watched the boy in wonder as he pointed to the Air territory place. "Then back over here, we'll ride the hog monkeys." He moved his finger to the last location, drawing mildly horrified looks from his companions. "They don't like people riding them, but that's what makes it fun!"

~_~_~_~_~_~

The next morning, Sokka woke up with the Sun and decided to start meditating once again. He and Katara had meditated every day for many years, but had stopped once their father left and they had to take care of the tribe. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, palms up. Breathing in and out deeply, Sokka felt the heat and energy of the Sun feed his inner flame. The Moon was gently feeding him energy as well, a cooler version of the Sun's power. In and out, in and out.

Sokka didn't know when Katara and Aang joined him, but when the morning had fully come and he got up to make breakfast, Aang and Katara were sitting on either side of him. His sister was in the same pose as him, and Aang was in what must've been the Air Nomads traditional pose. The teen's movement caused the other two to stand as well. Aang looked ready to burst from happiness, despite having just done something that was supposed to calm the mind and body.

"I didn't know you meditated, Sokka! Most nonbenders don't because they don't have a reason!" Katara giggled as she moved to get food out, leaving her brother to answer the airbender's questions.

"Katara had to learn to meditate because she's a waterbender and Gran-Gran wanted her to know as much as possible. I learned as well because I didn't want her to feel alone." A half-truth. Katara meditated every night and Sokka every morning, so the two started doing it together at both times.

"Do you want to meditate with me?"

"Well, the two of us had to stop because of the workload after the men in our village left. I guess, if we start the habit again, there isn't really anything stopping you from joining us. Although we do it at dawn and dusk." Aang nodded sagely, a smile still on his face.

"Of course!" With that, he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Sokka's middle. Normally, the teen wouldn't mind that much, especially after meditating. But this time, Aang didn't let go. Instead, he just gripped a little harder and seemed to melt into Sokka.

"Um, Aang? What're you doing?" Sokka asked. Aang buried his head into the other boy's chest and mumbled something. "I can't hear you, but we need to get breakfast before Katara drags us over by our ears."

"I said you're warm," came Aang's voice again, just barely audible. Sokka tensed slightly before trying to gently pry the Avatar off him.

"Aang, let go of Sokka and I'll make you some food," Katara called from where she was fixing up breakfast. "Why don't you tell me about the Air Temple while I finish." That got the boy moving in seconds. Sokka breathed a sigh of relief that Aang apparently found no suspicion in his unusual body temperature.

"Wait 'till you see it, Katara! The Air Temple is one of the most beautiful places in the world!" Aang really was excited to visit his old home. Sokka could hear his sister trying to break the news to Aang about the Air Nomad genocide, but she just couldn't do it. Probably the polar-bear-pup resemblance in his eyes.

Soon after breakfast, the trio set off. They flew for hours, and at lunch, when Sokka's stomach was growling, they discovered the bad news about Aang using the blubbered seal jerky as firestarter. The kid felt really guilty about it, especially because Sokka's stomach let itself be heard every ten minutes or so. The worst part was that Sokka's firebending caused him to need a bit more food, and he hadn't eaten much any of the days before. Katara looked at him in sympathy a few times, but mostly just focused on trying to break the news to Aang about his people.

They reached the Southern Air Temple sometime a few hours later, a large stone structure built into the clouds around it. Aang rushed into it on foot the moment they landed, telling his new friends about every piece of culture he could. Near the airball area, his head began to droop, a sigh coming from the small boy.

"What's wrong?"

"This place used to be full of monks and lemurs and bison. Now there's just a bunch of weeds. I can't believe how much has changed," Aang responded in the saddest voice Sokka had heard from him yet. Yeah, no way I'm letting him stay that sad.

"So, uh, this airball game. How do you play?" The smiles on the others' faces were well worth losing seven games.

"Making him feel better is putting me in a world of hurt," Sokka gritted out as he sat up from where he had been thrown. Noticing something, he pointed at it for his sister. "Katara, check this out."

"Fire Nation." The helmet was obviously very old and battered, and from the cracks and burns, both siblings knew they were lucky there wasn't a matching skull.

"We should tell him," Sokka insisted.

"Aang! There's something you need to see!"

"Okay!" Katara's resolve visibly crumbled at seeing how happy the airbender was. Snow crashed down on Sokka and the helmet, muffling the world. His first action was to make sure he didn't naturally melt the snow. His second was to dig himself out. Muffled words about waterbending and seeing the temple reached his ears. Popping his head out and grabbing Katara's hand, he took in her sheepish look and knew she hadn't told Aang.

"You know, you can't protect him forever."

"I can for Aang's sake. If he finds out that the Fire Nation invaded his home, he'll be devastated."

"Hey guys!" The two looked up at Aang, who stood in front of a statue of a monk. "I want you to meet somebody!"

"Who's that?" Sokka questioned, dropping the previous subject for that moment.

"Monk Gyatso! The greatest airbender in the world. He taught me everything I know." The preteen bowed to the statue, rising with another sad look.

"You must miss him." Katara spoke with understanding. Sokka could tell she was remembering their own grief because of the Fire Nation.

"Yeah," Aang mumbled, walking away.

"Where are you going?"

"The air temple sanctuary. There's someone I'm ready to meet," the airbender replied as he walked up some stairs behind the statue. Sokka gave a shrug to Katara's questioning glance, before leading the way after the boy.

The hallway they went through ended at a large door, covered in ornate designs and large pipes. They only briefly discussed whether or not there was anyone on the other side, before Aang used his bending to open the door.

Statues. No people, no stored food or supplies, no treasure, just big stone statues. Sure, they were the Avatars before Aang, but they were still statues.

"Aang! Snap out of it!" Katara exclaimed when Aang went into some sort of trance.

"Huh?" was the boy's eloquent response, complete with a dopey grin.

"Who is that?"

"That's Avatar Roku. The Avatar before me."

"You were a firebender?" Sokka asked. Aang nodded, and the teen didn't comment anymore.

"There's no writing. How do you know his name?" Katara inquired.

"I'm not sure, I just know it somehow." Sokka resisted the urge to growl about the kid's weirdness, knowing that his own predicament wasn't much better.

A noise startled them all, and Sokka was quick to get them hiding. The eldest of the trio pulled his club out and at the ready, listening to the quiet creeping sounds. None of them spoke as they waited, and when the shadow reached the statues, Sokka lunged out, Aang and Katara right behind.

"LEMUR!" Aang shouted at the same time Sokka called out, "DINNER!"

"Don't listen to him. You're going to be my new pet," Aang reassured the strange creature, glaring slightly at Sokka. Sokka had dealt with this too many times to believe he had a chance of actually eating the lemur, or even just keeping it from joining the group.

"You know what? If you can catch the lemur, you can keep it," he told his companion before turning swiftly and letting out a warcry at the creature.

"Wait!" Aang lept forward, rushing down the hallway. "Come back!" Sokka followed quickly, not wanting to lose the kid in less than a week. They raced back through the hallway and out into the courtyards, which Aang took a shortcut off a balcony to get to.

Sokka managed to both lose and find him in a moment. He scanned the different areas around him, and found a curtain swaying in nonexistent wind. Bingo.

"Hey Aang, catch that lemur yet?" Sokka called as he pulled back the old fabric. Aang was standing with his head in his hands, crying. "Hey, it's okay if you didn't. I can help yo-" He cut himself off at seeing the battlescene of skeletons in the room. The only Air Nomad skeleton was wearing the same necklace as the statue of Gyatso that Aang had showed them.

"Oh, man... Come on, Aang, everything will be alright. Let's get out of here." Sokka grasped his counterpart's shoulder, pulling back quickly as a glow began to emanate from the boy. Anger radiated along with the light, and the Avatar lifted his head in rage. "Aang! Come on, snap out of it!"

Wind kicked up around the Avatar's feet, a light blue sphere surrounding and growing. It pushed out, knocking Sokka back out of the building and making the ruin rubble. He cried out as he hit the ground, feeling something crack but unable to hear anything besides the screaming winds. Katara joined Sokka from where he had dragged himself over to hide behind some large debris, both shielding their faces from the shrill air.

"What happened?" Katara shouted, her question barely audible.

"He found out firebenders killed Gyatso," Sokka yelled back.

"Oh no, it's his avatar spirit! He must have triggered it! I'm gonna try and calm him down!"

"Well, do it before he blows us off the mountain!" Sokka clutched the rubble, the pain from his cracked bone, which he assumed was a rib, making his fingers cramp with strain. Katara slowly approached the Avatar, struggling to fight the gales he produced.

"Aang, I know you're upset," she was calm despite the very possible chance of death, "and I know how hard it is to lose the people you love. I went through the same thing when I lost my mom." Sokka's chest tightened, a combination of strain and old grief. "Monk Gyatso and the other airbenders may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we're your family now.”

The Avatar's glow doesn't fade, even when his feet hit the ground and the wind died. The siblings came up on either side of the boy, Sokka limping and holding his side to try and not jostle his ribs.

"Katara and I aren't going to let anything happen to you. Promise," Sokka gently said. Aang was a tribe member. He was the moment they opened that iceberg and the kid asked to go penguin sledding immediately.

The glow faded as Katara grasped Aang's hand, and the airbender collapsed into her, the both of them kneeling on the ground.

"I'm sorry," Aang mumbled tiredly.

"It's okay. It wasn't your fault," Katara reassured him.

"But you were right. And if firebenders found this temple that means they found the other ones, too. I really am the last airbender." Katara's face twisted in sadness, and she pulled Aang closer. Sokka once again grabbed his shoulder, this time not letting go.

They stayed that way for a little longer, before Sokka gently told them to start preparing to leave. Katara looked at his hand where it held his side, nodded once, and then quickly but carefully pulled Aang along to Appa, some excuse on her brother's absence spilling out.

Once he was sure he was alone, Sokka smoothly pulled his jacket and shirt off, revealing his side covered in bruising that was quickly darkening. With a wince, he covered his palm in purple flames, lightly touching them to the equally purple skin. A grunt and hiss escaped his lips as he felt the flames begin their work. It pulsed through his chakra lines, or what he assumed were his chakra lines. The crack in the bone fused itself together, smoothing itself out with wave after wave of heat.

It took five minutes to heal the wound, and Sokka was panting by the end from the combination of fiery pain and the use of the purple fire. He shrugged his shirt back on, wrapping his coat around his waist so he could cool off.

The others were almost finished checking over things, so Sokka took over for Aang, ignoring the concerned looks Katara kept sending him. The work was done quickly, and Katara went to get Aang from where he was looking at the Avatar statues.

The lemur that Aang had been chasing earlier ran towards Sokka from where he had entered, though the firebender couldn't tell when he had come. It deposited a load of fruits and nuts at his feet, and Sokka immediately dropped down to eat, his fire having taken a lot from his already low energy supply.

"Looks like you made a new friend, Sokka," Aang commented as the lemur ran away a little.

"Can't talk. Must eat," was the hurried reply. The lemur came back to jump onto the monk's head.

"Hey little guy." Aang turned to face the abandoned ruins of his former home. "You, me, and Appa. We're all that's left of this place. We have to stick together. Katara, Sokka," he turned back to his companions, "say hello to the newest member of our family." The boy walked over with the lemur on his arm.

"What are you going to name him?" Katara asked."Momo," Aang decided as the lemur stole a peach from Sokka, who looked at his empty hand in despondency. Katara laughed as they boarded Appa, her brother taking the reigns and pulling out their map. Next stop, giant koi fish.

[the-yellowturtle]

The Curious Case of Master Katara (Pt.5)

Summary:  In the sixth year of Fire Lord Zuko’s reign, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe is assassinated. (OR: Katara Becomes the Painted Lady! AU)

Rating: T

Chapter Summary: Zuko remembers Katara & has an encounter with the Painted Lady. 

Note: you can read the chapters as a standalone if you want

Part 1 (Toph), Part 2 (Toph & Gran Gran), Part 3 (Sokka), Part 4 (Suki & Katara), A03 Story Link & special thanks to @levitatingbiscuits for enabling me :) 

Reflective of the Reconstruction Period’s changing values, Fire Nation plays and stories originating from this time often depicted protagonists as virtuous and noble. Even the most popular romances of the period featured characters who were willing to sacrifice their chance at true love for the sake of others. This is clearly seen in Mou Ren’s Love Amongst the Spirits :

FIRE LORD. (Pleadingly, on his knees) Please tell me that it is not our love that has led to your current state! That the time we shared has made you unable to pass on to the next life!

PAINTED LADY. (Resting a hand on his shoulder) I loved you, but it is not my attachment to you nor any other man that has led me to this position. I simply cannot sit by while there is still the opportunity to help one more person, one more individual. Only when there is peace will I be able to fully detach myself from humanity.

- Culturally Significant Works of the Reconstruction Period

Zuko gets to say goodbye.

In fact, it’s the last thing he says to Katara before her passing.

The morning after they fought about how to best resolve the water pollution problem, he had found her getting ready to set sail from the docks. She had won. She would be going ahead of the rest of the relief despite his concern over reports of the New Ozai Society potentially being in the area. However, Zuko knew it was futile to get her to stop once Katara had even the slightest suggestion that there were people out there who needed her. That’s just who Katara was.

And so she had smiled at him and said goodbye, and he had replied the same and given her a hug. And that was it. That was the last time Zuko saw or heard from Katara.

___

The officials and citizens would talk about it sometimes. About how they thought it was obvious that he was in love with Katara. About how they spent too much time together to simply be friends, how Zuko was too considerate of her opinions for it to simply be platonic affection.

The hearsay used to always make him scoff; caring for his best friend did not make him in love with her. Zuko had read all of the great romances and devoured the scripts of all the plays as a child (and admittedly re-devoured them as an adult looking for some stress relief). Zuko had read about love and he had heard Sokka go on about it in length; Zuko knew what love was supposed to feel like, and what he felt with Katara was nothing like it. When he was with her, he did not get sweaty palms, his face did not flush a scarlet red and his heart did not feel like it was going to escape from his chest. With Katara he was at peace, not agonizing over his words and yearning for her lips.

So Zuko had thought it was a ridiculous notion for him to be in love with Katara. After all, he was far too busy with his duties as Fire Lord to be falling in love with his best friend. Besides, if he was afflicted with eros, then surely he would have noticed the symptoms.

After her death, Zuko doesn’t think about the great romance his people think they shared. He orders the construction of the Southern Waterbenders Memorial because it is the right thing to do. He builds the Katara Public Park because his citizens deserve to have more public spaces and Katara always did like the flora of the Fire Nation. He funds more shrines and temples in honor of the Painted Lady because her popularity among the people has exploded in the post-war period. Depictions of the Painted Lady in these places of worship always look like Katara because it’s based on firsthand accounts of the Spirit, and because Zuko heard the truth from Aang.

He orders the installation of a Painted Lady shrine in the royal palace because sometimes he likes to believe that there’s the possibility she can hear him when he talks to her in the middle of the night.

Zuko is aware that his actions further encourage the rumors of his tragic love affair with Katara. He’s seen the posters for the blatant adaptations, and accidentally attended the showings of the ones with more subtle advertising. Zuko knows that everyone thinks he was madly in love with her, but he wasn’t. He was not in love with her. He would have known. And she certainly was never in love with him.

___

Eventually he finds a semblance of happiness in his life as Fire Lord. The New Ozai Society is demolished and similar groups become insignificant threats that are easy to handle. The economy begins to pick up again, and international trade flourishes. The Four Nations are in a relative state of peace when he meets his future wife.

Tian is a non-bender from one of the surviving Air Nomad enclaves that hid themselves in the Earth Kingdom’s far south. A proponent for the equality of benders and non-benders, the first time he meets her she informs him that he needs to change the Fire Nation’s rules of succession to allow a non-bender unless he wants to alienate the non-bending population. She’s right, so he finds himself proposing the change when he returns to court.

Over the years, he finds himself seeking out her company more and more at peace summits. Tian is passionate and empathetic and just cares so much. He falls in love with her, and somehow she ends up feeling the same.

They have one child together, Izumi. She grows up loved and immersed in both of her parent’s cultures. Tian teaches her chi-blocking and frequently takes her out on shirshu rides. Zuko meditates with her every morning and performs bedtime stories —with the voices!— every night. In a way, Tian’s first words to him end up being prophetic when their non-bending daughter is officially declared the heir to the Fire Nation.

He loves both of them, but it is this love and decades more of lifetime experience that makes him realize that perhaps the rumors had been right all those years ago. That he had been in love with her then. That maybe a part of him would always love her.

Katara did not make his heart race nor did she make him stumble over his words, no, when he was with her he felt safe. Accepted. Loved.

Maybe his true feelings had and always will be seared onto his chest.

___

When the palace doctors declare that his granddaughter is unlikely to make it through the week, he steals her away in the middle of the night and brings her to the royal family’s private gardens. He brings the baby girl to the Painted Lady shrine by the lake he had commissioned all those years ago.

Zuko has never personally encountered the Painted Lady, but he has heard the tales from his citizens, the ones of travelers from abroad, and from his own friends. When the Painted Lady is not busy influencing the weather to attack polluting bodies, she will most often be sighted healing the sick. Zuko knows that a Spirit has a limited influence on the human realm, but just this once Zuko prays for a miracle that she will hear his call.

He cannot bear to watch his daughter lose her own child.

Holding his granddaughter in his arms, he gets on his weary knees to bow before the lake and beg. “Please help her. Please.”

“I need to be able to see her to do that,” whispers a woman.

Zuko jolts up to find a veiled figure floating on the lake before him: the Painted Lady.

Words don’t come to him, so he simply follows her instructions and presents the bundled up child to the Spirit. The Painted Lady is silent as she reaches out to smooth the black tufts of hair on his granddaughter’s head, soon after a blue glow emits from her hand.

When the Painted Lady is presumably finished, she steps back and the child stirs for a moment in her sleep. The movement brings tears to his eyes as he takes in the improved complexion of her chubby cheeks.

To his surprise, she’s still standing on the lake when he looks up. He can’t make out her face from beneath the hat, but he would recognize her necklace anywhere. It really was her. She was not reborn among humans, but made a guardian of them.

“Katara,” he gasps, causing the Painted Lady to tilt her head, surely confused about why a human was directly calling her personal name. “Her name is Katara,” he clarifies, holding his granddaughter to his chest.

Zuko had been surprised when Izumi informed him what she was naming her second born. It was no mystery when she named her eldest after Uncle Iroh; they had been fairly close when he was still alive. However, Izumi never had the pleasure of meeting Katara, and had only heard about her when Zuko could bring himself to share the memories he had of their short time together.

“I want my daughter to be the type of person who never turns away from the needs of others,” Izumi had explained, “Surely the name of the woman who helped save the world is fitting.”

So when Zuko has the spirit of the woman he had loved in front of him, he has to let her know in some way. She may be revered as the Painted Lady, but there were still those who knew and loved her as Katara. Long before she took up the position of Spirit, she was already saving others.

“Her name is Katara,” Zuko repeats.

The Painted Lady slowly glides forward, only stopping when he can make out her cerulean blue eyes. He can barely breath as she reaches up to rest her palm on his left cheek. “Thank you, Zuko,” she smiles.

He can’t stop the tears that rush down his face. “I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

[bellatrixobsessed1]

The Art Of Remembrance (Part 2)

The sickly feeling is growing in the pit of his stomach. Having fully slumped onto him he can hear and feel that her breathing has grown shallow again, irregular. The rise and fall of her chest is becoming increasingly inconsistent. Some dark part of him wonders if he should care. He tells himself that it might not be her at all, that it wouldn’t make sense for Azula to be anywhere near the tribes. In that vein he couldn’t chance letting someone innocent die. 

Who is he trying to fool, even if it is Azula, he doesn’t feel right letting her die either. 

Katara comes back with a bundle of clothes. “Katara, watch her for a minute, I’m going to find dad.” 

Katara’s brows furrow. “You’re what?! Look at it out there!” She gestures to the window. “You’re the one who told me to stay inside.”

“She’s not going to make it without dad, I don’t know how to take care of her.” He lifts her bundled form onto the sofa and lays her down. “I don’t think that waterbending can fix this.” 

Katara kneels down and inspects the firebender. “Sokka, I can’t lose you. Dad can’t lose you.” She watches him disappear into the other room. 

“You’re the one who always wanted to stop and help people out. Even if it could have gone terrible for us.” He calls.

Katara sighs. “How are you going to find your way home? I can barely see the tree a few feet away from the house.”  

“With this.” He reemerges with an armful of rope, netting, and cloth. “Dad and I keep them for fishing and hunting. I’ll only go as far as all of this can get me.” 

She bites her lip. “Be careful, Sokka. I’ll see what I can do for her.”

Sokka nods as he tugs his parka on and then his gloves, and another set of gloves, and--this time--a pair of snowshoes. 

“If you get too cold, please just go to the nearest house and stay there. Losing two people is worse than losing one.” 

And two alive is ideal, he thinks. He draws his hood over his head and casts a final look at who he assumes is Azula. He hopes that he has bundled her up tightly enough to keep her alive a little longer. 

He takes his first step into the snow storm. With a piercing slap, it shows him exactly what his task is going to be like. The cold is already intolerably biting. The wind screams at him, a shrill banshee wail with a frosty breath. He refuses to look back at the house. The warm house with the blazing fire...he shakes his head and takes another step. He’d last seen Hakoda at the center of town, which isn’t all too far from their own home. By the time he makes it to the first house, his teeth are chattering considerably and his fingers are pulsing. “Gran Gran?” 

“Sokka, what are you doing here?” 

He almost asks her the same before he remembers that she had volunteered to watch their neighbor’s children while they vacationed in the Fire Nation. They certainly chose the right time. “I’m trying to find dad, I need his help.” 

“Sokka…”

“It can’t wait, someone is going to die.” 

Kanna shushes him. “Not in front of the kids. What’s going on Sokka?” She whispers.

Quieter he replies, “I found someone in the snow and now I need to find dad. I’m going to stop in each house to warm up until I find dad. When I find him we’ll go as far as we can and if we start to get cold, we’ll take a break in the nearest house that will let us in.”  He hopes to take as few of those as possible. “Do you know where dad is?”

Kanna nods, “Four houses over with Bato.” 

.oOo.

“...Gonna be fine.” The voice is distorted. 

“...warm....” Under the distortion she can’t tell if the voice is male or female. 

“...back soon...and…” Nor if there are one or many people speaking. 

She fades in and out but she can’t seem to ever wake herself in full. Even if she could she knows that she is too weak to do anything. Her body feels numb. Or maybe she doesn’t have one at all. Maybe she is already in some sort of between state, well on her way to the Spirit World.

She tries to open her eyes again but they are so heavy. 

She can’t feel…

She wants to feel…

“Careful!” It is a different voice. “Be very gentle.” 

There is only blackness but she finally does feel something. That something is warm and it is on her forehead. She is starting to feel more things; a tingling in her right hand, a pressure on her left, a sense that something is horribly amiss. 

“Not yet! Don’t let her wake up yet.” 

Like that she slips away again. 

She tries to fight it but there is no fight left in her. 

She is warm, very warm. Warmer than she has been in ages. She savors it with everything she has. Out in that tundra she had feared that the cold would never leave her, would wrap its icy fingers around her bones perpetually. Her cheek rubs against something fuzzy...or furry? It doesn’t matter, they are nearly the same in sensation. 

She doesn’t yet open her eyes because her head still spins. She rubs her fingers over the fuzz...the fur? 

She inhales and opens her eyes. The light is glaring. She tries to sit up but her head is still dazed. The dizziness within it sends her head back down. She fights to stay awake but her fight brings no fruition. 

“She’s really hot.” Says a voice. She feels a hand on her head. “We should give her some water.” The voice is female. 

Azula forces her eyes open, she squints against the light but only for a moment before the woman eclipses it. She utters a question but her moving lips make no sound. The once soothing warmth is now uncomfortable. She tries to sit up again but she is tangled in blankets. 

She doesn’t remember how she has gotten here. 

She doesn’t remember a lot of things. 

She needs to remember.

She needs to…

“You’re awake.” The woman notes. “Sokka was really worried, we weren’t sure if you would.” 

She stares at the woman.

“Here, have some water.” She holds out a waterskin and helps to unravel the blankets. “Gran Gran has some seaweed stew cooking, I promise that she’s a much better cook than Sokka.” 

“Sokka?” Azula murmurs. 

“He found you in the tundra.” 

Azula’s brows knit as she puts the pieces together. Some of them anyhow. “How bad was it?”

Katara winces and exchanges a look with someone behind her. Azula steals a look at this person and decides that he must be Sokka. 

“It’s...not good.” The man replies.

“Why?” She finds that she doesn’t have the patience for guessing games. “Just tell me how bad it is.” Perhaps she shouldn’t be so cross with the people who have saved her. She lays back down again, rolls onto her side, and presses her cheek into the cushion. 

“You got frostbite and hypothermia. And now you have a fever.” Says a third person. An older man. 

“Look at your hand.” The younger man adds. She isn’t sure if he is Sokka or if it is the older man. 

Instead of asking, Azula holds her hand out in front of her and flexes her fingers. 

“The other one.” Says the younger man. Azula holds up her left hand and flexes her fingers. Her four fingers. She swallows hard, feeling queasy. 

“We had to amputate it, it was already dead.” Noted the older man. 

All she can muster is a soft and hazy, “But I needed that.” 

“You’ll still be able to firebend and whatnot.” Says the older man. “I’ve seen men and women with greater injuries…” 

She isn’t quiet listening anymore. She wonders just how much more she will lose. Her eyes linger on her left hand. She thinks that maybe she should shed some tears, but some how she can’t manage. Instead she runs her undamaged fingers over the bandage until the woman says, “don’t do that you’re going to hurt yourself.”  

Azula withdraws her touch. “Am I missing anything else?”

“We were concerned about your toe.” Answered the younger man. “We decided to let you keep it though.” He laughs. She doesn’t share his sense of humor. 

“I’m going to see if Gran Gran has you stew ready.” The woman gets up. The older man follows her. 

“What were you doing out there?” The remaining man asks. 

“I was getting away from them.” 

“Them?” The man questions. “Who are they.”

She shrugs, “I don’t know. They’re them.” 

His eyes seem to light up with realization. “You need to go back there, it’s for your safety and everyone else’s, as soon as...”

She throws herself off of the couch and sends the both of them to the floor. She holds a small flame to his throat. It flickers orange as it licks dangerously close to his flesh. She hears footsteps and knows that she hasn’t got a chance. She is already feeling faint. She crumples to the ground again. 

“What’s going on?” It is the woman. 

“She tried to get up and she fell…”

She has to give him props for covering for her. 

She wakes up on the sofa once more. Her entire body screams and scolds her for dealing it more abuse. While her body shouts, the man is quiet. She doesn’t think that he realizes that she has come to. She gives a soft cough and he turns around. 

“Sorry, I thought that you were someone else.”

“Who did you think I am?” 

“My friend’s crazy sister.” He shrugs. “She’s dangerous...and completely nuts.” 

Azula eyes him blankly. “Oh.” 

“I’m Sokka, who are you?” 

“That’s a good question, I’ll let you know when I figure that out.” 

Sokka laughs, “you can just say that you don’t want to tell me.”

Azula massages her temples. Her head was already pounding a good one and this man is somehow managing to hike it up a notch. “They did something to me...that’s why I had to leave. I think that they did a lot of things to me…”

His smile fades, “you were serious? You really don’t know your name?”

“I know my name and that I escaped from an institution.” She replies. “But I don’t know the person behind that name. I don’t remember that person.” Azula watches his expression screw into the image of concern. 

“Your stew is getting cold.”

“I just told you that I don’t remember anything and that I escaped from an institution and you want to talk about rank-smelling stew!?”

Sokka flinches. “Look, eating makes me feel better when I’m all bandaged up. I’m just trying to help.” 

Azula exhales and her face softens. She holds her hands out. Sokka gives a half smile and sets the bowl in her hand. Truly the smell is unbearable, like fish and stale ocean water. But her stomach is empty and she can’t particularly afford to be choosy. She reluctantly has a spoonful. The texture is slimy and gushy against her tongue. She forces it down and bunches her face in disgust. After the third spoonful Sokka snickers, “if you hate it that much you can just ask for something else. We can fry up some fish.”

She puts the bowl aside. “How long were you going to make me suffer?” 

“Three more spoonfuls but then you did that thing with your face and I decided to show mercy.” 

“I’ll remember this, Sokka.” She vows. “And I don’t have a lot of memories, so it won’t be hard.” 

He bursts out laughing again. “Just make sure you store that memory next to the one of me dragging you out of the tundra.”

“Yeah, that one is a blur.” 

He leaves the room and in his absence she takes in her surroundings. The place is rather cozy; skins and furs line the walls and floors. They hang above the fireplace alongside a few pots, pans, ladles, and mugs on hooks. The fireplace is glowing warmly. She slowly gets to her feet and wanders closer to it, dragging with her a trail of blankets. She holds her hands out in front of the fire, taking special care to look everywhere but at the bandaged stub. The room is rather cluttered, the previously noted furs are spread out atop each other in a seemingly random array, some overlapping one another.  She sees books and scrolls throughout the room and a chair pushed up against the wall. It has another blanket tossed over it. There are a few shelves lined with herbs and decorated with animal tusks and teeth. In another corner is a rack of weapons that ranged from primitive spears and clubs to rather intricate swords and modern hunting tools. 

“Cod or salmon?” Azula jolts at the sound of his voice. 

She shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never tried either.” 

“I’ll cook them both.” They sit in silence as the fish sizzle and pop. It doesn’t smell all too bad, not compared to the hellish odor that her other meal emitted. He hands her the cod and she takes a regrettably large bite. Her face bunches up again. 

“Alright, how about salmon?” 

She takes a significantly smaller bite. “I’m starting to think that I hated seafood.”  

He chuckles. “You’re definitely Fire Nation. Here, we had some fruits imported from your homeland and dad managed to get a moose-lion.” 

“Why didn’t you mention that before?” 

“Wanted you to try something new.”

She picks out a mango and savors the taste as Sokka begins cooking the moose-lion meat. She still feels dizzy and nauseous. She tries not to think about that too much. “Why did you help me? You could have died.” 

“That’s kind of what me and my friends do.” He shrugs. “Besides, if I didn’t I would have never gotten to see all of those priceless faces.” 

She lets her face go deadpan again. 

He shudders, “alright, that’s a scary face. You look way too much like her when you make it.” He pauses. “You said that you know your name?”

“Only because they kept saying it to me.” She confirms. 

“What is your name?” 

She tosses the mango pit into the fire. “They’ve been calling me Azula.”

[atypicalkataangist]

North and South (Part 1)

Type: Twoparter - Part 1 [Family] Summary: Aang has a rather long talk with his girlfriend’s father. Word count: 1748 Author’s note: Here we go, first part of a two-parter. Takes place after the last scene of the last graphic novel. Some context again, if you haven’t read it: The whole book is  pretty much about the conflict between progress and tradition. A bad guy named Gilak is defeated in the end and there is a big feast where everyone has fun. This is where this story swoops in :D It’s not thaaat cheesy this time, but the next, shorter part will be :) Have fun!

We've spent the whole evening sitting around the fire in gran-grans igloo, eating and chatting in a cheerish manner. It was a blissful evening after some really rough days; but Gilak had been defeated and balance had been restored to the south pole - for now.

The hours passed and from time to time, more and more people left to go to sleep, such as our hostess gran-gran and her husband and my former waterbending master Pakku. My subsequent waterbending teacher however was there too, showing quite a bit more affection towards me than Pakku; Katara sat next to me, held my hand uninterruptedly, snuggling closer and closer into my side, the later it became. She was gorgeous when she was asleep, I mean, she was gorgeous all the time and I have no idea how I deserved someone as great and beautiful as Katara, but seeing her sleep emitted an aura of calmness and peace I've never seen anywhere else.

It was about midnight, and the only people who were still sitting around the campfire were Me obviously, Katara, who had fallen asleep a while ago with her head resting on my lap, Sokka and Toph who were asleep as well, and Chief Hakoda. He has had a pretty intense conversation with Zuko and the earth king about their cooperation in the near Future, and even though it was a really interesting topic to talk about and kinda my job as the Avatar, I wasn't able to focus on what they were saying with the love of my life resting her sleepy head onto my body. From time to time I would touch her face and caress her soft skin with my fingers, or stroke through her hair quite gently. Of course I was tremendously careful with not overdoing it- the last thing I wanted was to wake her up now, so I spent most of the time just watching her sleep peacefully.

After everyone else had left, the igloo became awfully quiet so that I was able to hear Katara's breating and gentle snoring without much effort. I didn't want the Situation to become awkward; it must be a strange view to watch your daughter's boyfriend watching your daughter sleep. But it didn't even seem that his attention was on us, or rather me, but on his thoughts. He rubbed his forehead, making an exhausted facial expression. I wanted to help him. And to disrupt the awful silence that seemed to grow more and more for each passing second.

"Chief Hakoda", I said. "What's wrong?"

He just shook his head. "Outside.", He whispered, first pointing at his daughter, than to the door of the igloo. I nodded and he stood up to leave. This was a tricky situation. If I moved too much, she would wake up. Then I got an idea. I lifted up her shoulders and her head with extreme caution, bending a cushion out of thin air to rest her head on, which allowed me to withdraw from under her, replacing the air cushion with a real one and tossing a sabretooth-snow leopard fur over her to keep her warm, even though I hated animal skins. She instinctively tugged herself in in her sleep and I couldn't help but smile, kneel down before her and kiss her forehead before standing up again, leaving the igloo's inside and my sleeping beauty behind.

Outside, everything was as silent as it was inside, not one person screaming, not one lonely wolfbat howling to the moon, nothing. Hakoda stood there in the middle of the street, watching me clearly in the eye as he confessed to me:

"Avatar Aang... I'm scared."

"What is it, Chief Hakoda?", I responded quietly, honestly surprised by hearing Hakoda, one great warrior, saying something like that.

"What will the future hold for us? You're the master of balance, right?"

"Well..." It wasn't that easy. "My task is to maintain balance in the world, yes."

"So what shall I do now? Obviously I can't deny the progress happening everywhere in world... And the change it brings with itself. But if I embrace it too much... Well, we saw what would happen. Gilak was just a pawn in a giant game of ideology. But if I denied it, all of it, and returned to the style of living from before the war... Well, soon there wouldn't be a tribe to lead anymore. We would live in the shadows of the other nations, irrelevant and completely forgotten one day. I Just... Please, Aang. Help me."

This was a really tough question and there was no perfect answer for it, that was for sure.

"Hakoda...", I said, "there's a dark and a bright side to all of this. The dark side is that there is not a solution to all of this that will make everybody happy. Yes, there will always be people like Gulik who have a craving for nostalgia, and there will always be the risk of being crushed by the changing world if you're not willing to change with it. But the bright side...", I stopped for a second to get the words into the right order in my head, "the bright side is that there doesn't have to be a perfect solution for any of this. But you can at least try your very best to keep progress and tradition in balance. I mean, Sokka and Katara, your own children, have completely different views of the world and come along amazingly- because they balance each other out, living in... Well, almost, perfect harmony. That's the key, Hakoda. Balance. I understand better than anyone else that maintaining balance can be breathtakingly difficult to almost impossible from time to time, believe me. At least if you try it on your own. But you're not alone. You have world's most amazing children, you have Malina, you have your tribe's loyality.... And you have me, Hakoda. The Avatar will be there if you ever need me, I promise.", I finished, bowing down, showing my respect and how serious I was about promises like that.

He looked me straight into the eye and I could feel... relief spreading out inside of him. "Thank you, Aang.", He whispered as he came closer to me and drew me into a hug which caught me by surprise.

"You're very welcome, Chief Hakoda."

He loosened up on me, laughed and held me by the shoulders. "How many times do I have to tell you? Just call me Hakoda, Aang."

I blushed a bit. "Yeah, sorry, Hakoda."

"But don't get too much used to it."

That was confusing. "Hm? Why?"

"Come with me, Aang. Let's talk about something else." He roamed through the streets in a slow temper and I walked next to him as he continued to talk. It was pitch black out here at this time of the night.

"I can feel it, you know? I can see how much you love her, Aang. Call it fatherly Intuition, but I guess even your friend Toph could see that you love my daughter from all of your heart."

Now I blushed a lot. "Yeah... I guess I really do."

"And I know for sure that she loves you in the same way. The sparkle in her eyes when she saw Appa in the sky told me everything I had to know. But I guess you already know that, too."

"I... I think so, yes. I can feel it too. Sometimes I wonder why though."

He suddenly stopped and turned to face me. "You wonder why? Aang, I've known my little girl longer than anyone else and I know why she loves you so much. You're everything she ever dreamed of. You're sweet and loving and caring. Just like she is. But you're also mysterious and so incredibly wise and powerful. You're the Avatar and you're something special, and I know that she realized that the day she freed you from the iceberg. That's why she loves you so much, Aang. And that's why you love her so much. It was destiny that she would save you from the iceberg and that you would save her by helping her unfold her full potential."

His words made me feel warm and comfy inside. God, I really loved her. There was no doubt. Not the slightest.

"That's what I meant in the beginning, Aang. Don't get used to call me Hakoda. One day... Well, on day you will call me Dad."

I was barely breathing. "What... What are you saying?"

"I want you to know that, if, or rather when, you're going to marry my daughter, you have, and you will always have my support and my blessing.", He ended with a smile of pride.

I was in no condition to speak. Marrying... Marrying Katara. It was unbelievable. Too great to even think of. "Hakoda... Dad... I... I this is way too much... Thank you. This is probably one of the best things anyone ever said to me."

"However... there is one condition. She is my daughter and you being the Avatar and all could make things a bit more complicated, I'm sure you'll understand this. I know, you would never, ever Intentionally get her hurt, Aang."

"I... I would rather take my own life than to hurt her, Sir.", I stated coldly.

He nodded. "I know that. But you're the Avatar. You getting into trouble is kind of your duty to the whole world. I know I can't ask you to let go of everything dangerous in your life, it would tear you apart. All I want is Katara to be safe. So do you promise me to do keep her safe at all times when she's with you, Aang?"

I gulped and nodded. "I will. I promise you, I will. I will do whatever it takes to protect her. Without her, I... I couldn't live. Even if it means to bring the whole world in danger... again... even if I have to give up my inner priciples... I love your daughter more than anything, Hakoda. I would sacrifice it all, if necessary."

He simply smiled at me and hugged me one last time. "Welcome to the family, son."

[zutaralover94]

How about a mix of number 7 and 45 for zutara? Love your writing btw!

Wow thank you! I loved writing this one. A fake relationship and pretending to hate each other au! It’s so classic! So I hope you enjoy!

“It’s only for a weekend, Kat.” Suki’s voice rand over the cell phone. “Just go meet the last guy. And I swear this one will be perfect for you to bring back home.”

Katara sighed and looked around her. The Jasmine Dragon was slightly busy with customers. Katara sat at one of the lone tables near the window. “I’m only giving him 5 more minutes.”

When Katara lied to her “dying” grandmother four months ago about a serious boyfriend, Katara hadn’t thought Gran Gran would actually make it through the surgery. Don’t get her wrong, she was hoping her grandmother would pull through. But now she had to bring home her boyfriend. The big problem: Katara didn’t actually have a boyfriend.

Now with Gran Gran feeling much better and wanted to see her favorite granddaughter and her boyfriend. Katara was at a lost cause. Instead of telling her grandmother the truth like she knew she should have, she now sat in the Jasmine Dragon on her third blind date set up by her sister in law.

“Tall white chai.” The waiter sat down a large white cup. She smiled and said thank you but listened to Suki talk about the third guy.

“Seriously, he is like this all around good guy.” Suki paused. “Hold on, I think Sokka just dumped out a whole packet of chili powder into the stewed sea slugs.” There was muffled talk on the other end of the phone. “Kat, I got to go your brother…”

Katara sighed, “I get it. Go.”

Katara drummed her fingers on the table top. She picked up the cup and took a large sip. If she wasn’t going to get a date at least she was going to enjoy this delicious drink. She looked around the Jasmine Dragon one last time. Hoping all-around-good-guy-Jet would be there. No such luck.

Katara looked down at her watch again. She was going to be late for her flight if she didn’t leave soon. She drank the last of the latte, before standing and taking the empty cup to the counter. “Thanks.”

“One to go?” The dark haired male stood behind the counter. “On the house.” He shrugged and began to fill out the order without her consent. “You look like you could use it.”

Katara smiled slightly, “I really could.”

“So,” The guy turned his back and pumped in the white chocolate syrup. “How late is he?”

“I’m sorry?” Katara raised an eyebrow at the barista.

“Your date.” He nodded to where she had been sitting.

“Oh,” Katara ran a tongue across her teeth. “Too late…”

“Mmm.” The barista nodded in understanding. “Too bad. Looks like he missed out.”

Katara gave a small laugh, “Yeah, on a paid trip, to the coldest place on earth, to be my fake boyfriend. He sure missed out.”

The man laughed and turned back to her. “Paid? Fake boyfriend? Now that is a story I’m willing to listen to.”

“‘Dying’ grandmother, her favorite granddaughter lying to her, grandmother recovers and pleads for her most honest grandchild to bring home a non existent boyfriend.” Katara laughed at her own antics. She ran a hand down her face. “And I leave in an hour. Without a boyfriend.” The barista added an extra amount of whipped cream on top. “Such a wonderful granddaughter I am.”

Golden eyes crinkled in a smile. The red scar over his left eye only now really catching Katara’s attention. The black shag of his hair and thick rimmed black glasses doing an excellent job of hiding the large scar. Katara let her eyes wander down the clad in black man. He was cute. Coffee shop kind of guy cute. And not real-cubicle-paper buried-accountant grandmother was expecting. Katara bit her lip as the barista slid her drink to her. “Maybe this will give you the boost you need to tell the truth.”

Katara smiled and took a sip of the warm drink, “Thanks.”

“You know,” The guy smiled, “You could tell her that you two broke up?”

Katara’s lips turned down and she sucked air through her teeth, “So that boyfriend… He actually proposed to me…”

The golden eyed man laughed, “And you couldn’t say no to an imaginary boyfriend.”

“Exactly! I would hurt his feelings and he would never stop calling or texting,” Katara smiled and shook her head. “And then he would try to get into contact with my friends trying to figure out what he did wrong. Just a messy breakup all around.”

The guy was now laughing with her. “Poor guy.”

“Poor him? Poor me! I have to explain all of this to my grandmother.” Katara raised a hand to her chest in mock offense. “In all honesty, thank you, for the coffee.”

“Free coffee to anyone who can come up with a good as story as that.” The guy tipped his head and turned to scrub the counter behind him.

Katara nodded and turned to leave. She had her hand on the door, then turned back to the counter. “Are you busy this weekend?”

The barista looked surprised and up to her, “Just the normal 10 hour shifts. You know running this coffee shop.”

Katara sighed in defeat. “And there is no one else who could help you here?”

“My uncle who owns…”

“I’ll pay you triple for what you make here.” Katara interrupted him. The barista opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Please, I’m desperate. And I already have the plan ticket. The whole entire trip is paid. Just bring yourself.”

“I don’t…” Black shag swayed over the glasses as the guy shook his head. “Triple?”

“Would it make you feel better if I gave you half upfront?” Katara bargained

The guy ran a tongue over his bottom lip. He stood there thinking for a few moments, looking between her and the sign on the door. “I’d have to stop and grab a bag or something.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Katara waved it off. “We can buy whatever you need when we land.” The guy looked around one more time. “Please.”

The guy slammed his hands on the counter and turned. He began untying his apron. “Fine. You know what… this is crazy.” Black started to walk away from her and into a back room. Katara followed along until the end of the counter. She could hear him mumbling about how he really shouldn’t do this, but it was an adventure. Plus a few days off won’t kill you.

Katara leaned closer to the door as she heard the guy yell for someone about leaving and the shop was theirs for the next few days. Katara let out a deep sigh and practically melted down the wall.

The guy slammed open the door and pointed to her. “This is damned near insane. Why the hell I have convinced myself to do this…” The guy shook his head and started for the door. He held it open for Katara to walk through.

He continued to grumble all the way to the airport. “It’s Zuko by the way.” The guy, Zuko said, as he flipped his phone over in his hand.

“Katara.” Katara pulled into a parking spot at the airport. She turned and looked at Zuko. “Well Zuko,” She closed her mouth and sucked her lips between her teeth. “If you want out of this. Now is your chance. Seriously, I won’t blame you for getting out of the car and…”

“Katara, no, I’ll do it.” Zuko held out a hand to stop her words. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I could kind of use the extra cash.”

“Oh.” Katara gave a breath of relief. “Good. Okay. Then let’s go.”

Katara and Zuko quickly checked Katara’s bags, went through security and all but ran to the terminal. They stopped just as they began boarding the first passengers. Katara quickly pulled out the tickets for their seats. “Just in time.”

They boarded and sat down, Zuko taking the window seat. “So, maybe we should start about who you are?” Katara pulled out a notebook. “You can read over these notes. It’s just the few things. Things I know I told my grandmother.” Katara buckled in and rummaged through her purse quickly for a pen. “We can write out a few more. You know if you need…”

“An accountant?” Zuko scratched back of his head. “Beach house in Gaoling?” Katara bit her lip and nodded.”How did you not give away a name?”

“Well…” Katara laughed, “We only talked about my boyfriend.. You… a handful of times. You know since she was in the hospital she couldn’t talk long. So details were very vague.” Katara looked down the airplane’s aisle as it began take off.

Zuko laughed and looked over to Katara. “I sound like a take-home-to-your-mother type of guy.”

“Well not mother.” Katara took in a deep breath. “It’s only Dad, Sokka my brother, then there is Suki, Sokka’s wife and my best friend. She is the only one who know the truth.” Katara pulled out her phone as she felt the airplane even out. She pulled up a picture of the last family holiday photo. “Then there is Gran Gran, my grandmother.”

“Ah, the famous grandmother.” Zuko laughed and leaned over to look at the phone. “Well you are all definitely related.”

Katara laughed, “Thank you?”

“So this is it?” Zuko looked down to the scribbled notes in his hand. “Okay. It’s not too bad. Though we might have a problem with the baking. Everything I touch in the kitchen turns to ash.”

Katara laughed at this, “But you work in a coffee shop.”

“Yeah?” Zuko shrugged his shoulders. “I work with coffee. And any pastries we have we buy off the bakery three doors down. All I have to do is microwave them.”

“Well now that explains why I thought that muffin tastes familiar.” Katara joked, elbowing Zuko.

Zuko chuckled, “Ha, sorry to disappoint.” Katara only shook her head. “So, my soon-to-be bride, tell me about you. If I asked to marry you, I had to have a good reason.”

“Picky are you?” Katara’s face was starting to hurt with all of this real smiling. “You mean you don’t walk into a random place and beg for someone to propose to you? Shame.”

Zuko laughed, “Glad I’m marrying someone with a sense of humor.”

Katara blushed slightly at the compliment. She locked down at her grey pencil skirt and brushed out the wrinkles. “Well, I am a psychiatrist. I mainly work with children who have been abused.”

“Wow.” Zuko sobered at that. “That’s kind of surprising.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are so…” Zuko scratched the back of his neck. “You just look like a receptionist or some sort of secretary to a man in a big tower.”

“Oh, no. I used to,” Katara folded her hands in her lap, “But then I got my own practice and i moved on.”

“So why psychology?” Zuko asked now turning some what in his seat to look at Katara.

Katara blew out a breath, “I once knew a kid who was locked in a closet for ten years.” Katara peaked over to the barista. “And his thoughts and the things he did, well they surprised me. I wanted to know more. I guess so much so, I ended up working for him. In a big tower.”

Zuko smiled, “Well, I think I could marry someone who helps others. What else?”

“Um, I’m 26. I live alone. And I give my grandmother reasons to believe that I actually had someone interested in a workaholic.” Katara ticked off the things on her fingers.

“Ah, well, I’m 28. I traveled for quite a while before settling and helping out my uncle. And I have a sister who runs a family business, because my father knew I wasn’t cut out for that type of work.” Zuko mimicked Katara’s motions.

“As an accountant. I’m impressed.” Katara smiled. “So what were you looking for in all of this traveling?”

“An adventure,” Zuko chuckled. “Little did I know, I would just need to work for my uncle a few months to get it.”

Katara laughed at this. “Well thank you. For helping me with all of this. Seriously.”

“How could I say no?” Zuko folded the piece of paper and stuck it into his pocket.

The two talked the rest of the way, constantly bringing up the fake relationship. But they truly got to know each other before they landed. Katara was in slight surprise at how relaxed she was beginning to feel around Zuko.

Zuko called a cab as Katara picked up her bags from the baggage claim. Zuko helped load the cab as they made their way to a supercenter. “Get anything you need. I’ll go find a suitcase for you to put it the stuff in.” Katara pointed in the direction she was going to go, giving him time to himself. Zuko nodded and headed towards the clothing section. Katara called Suki immediately as soon as she was out of hearing distance.

“Judging by the time, are you almost here?” Suki answered on the second ring.

“Not quite.” Katara bit her lip. “We had to stop and buy a few things.”

“Why?” Katara could practically hear the eyebrow raise. “I told him to bring a bag.”

“Right…” Katara smiled. “Jet wasn’t the one to come with me.”

“Oh my gah!” Suki stage whispered in Katara’s ear. “What did you pick up the first male you came across?”

“Kind of?” Katara walked down the aisle of suitcases. “He was the barista. And I just… kind of asked him.” Katara looked around, like mentioning Zuko would make him appear. “He laughed at my misery and well… He came with me.”

Suki was laughing so hard she had snorted. “Oh my gah’d this is actually working.”

“Shut up!” Katara pulled down a plain black suitcase. She tilted her head as she rolled it through the aisle. “I need to go though. Have to make sure my fake fiance didn’t run off.” Katara ended a call to a still laughing Suki.

When Katara found Zuko he had only a handbasket half-full of things. Katara could see a pair of jeans and a few tshirts, a phone charger, toiletries and a few other small items. Katara looked Zuko over. “That’s it?”

Zuko looked down at the basket confused. “Uh yeah. It’s just for two days right?”

“Yes, but…” Katara looked through the basket.

“Then I don’t need very much.” Zuko kept the basket held out to her. He looked down to the suitcase she had picked out. “That’s too much…”

“We can go pick out a different one. I didn’t know you wouldn’t need this much stuff.” Katara bit the side of her lip.

Zuko followed after Katara as they went back and pulled out a duffle bag instead of the suitcase. Zuko grabbed Katara’s hand after he hand thrown the duffle bag strap over his shoulder. “Let’s go find you an engagement ring.”

“Zuko that’s not.” Katara started but he waved her off.

“It’s on me.” Zuko led her to the small jewelry section. “No fake or real fiancee of mine will be walking around ring less.”

Once they both agreed on a small rose gold band with a single topaz jewel. It was simple but Katara loved it. “My grandfather gave my grandmother a necklace he made himself.”

“I’m sure he had a little more time than I did to propose.” Zuko joked as they rang up the items. “Next time I propose to you I’ll make you whatever you want.”

“Mmm… Another one of those white chias?” Katara’s mouth watered thinking of it.

Zuko laughed and nodded. He grabbed all of the bags and they headed out towards the cab. They quickly pulled off price tags off the clothes and stuffed the duffle bag. When they reached the house it was well past midnight but there was movement behind the curtains of the living room.

“This is us.” Katara paid the driver and Zuko began unloading Katara’s bags from the trunk.

“It was only for two days right?” Zuko laughed as he slung the small of the two bags over his other shoulder. He pulled the rolling bag along behind him.

“Yeah?” Katara gave a small grimace. “Thanks for carrying.”

Katara walked up the steps of the small white house. She turned to look over her shoulder to Zuko one last time before she reached and opened the door. “I’m home.” Katara called out.

“Katara!” Suki was the first to stand but Sokka beat Suki to hug Katara.

“Sis! Spirits, I’ve missed you.” Sokka pulled Katara tighter to him. Katara returned the hug. “And who is this?” Katara looked over her shoulder to Zuko who stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Is this the guy?”

Katara smiled and nodded. She bit her lip as Zuko pushed the thick rims farther up his nose. “Sokka this is Zuko my fiance.” Katara purposely showing off her new ring to a bright eyed Suki. “Zuko, this is my brother, Sokka and his wife. Suki.” Katara watched as Zuko gave a small wave.

“Let me show you guys to your room. Gran Gran and dad are already asleep.” Suki pulled Katara away from Sokka. “Honey, why don’t you help Zuko with those bags?” Suki and Katara walked side by side down the hall to the guest room. “Kat, that guy is gorgeous.”

“I know.” Katara whispered back to her sister-in-law. “And he’s cheap. Plus did you get a good look at this ring?” Katara held it out for both to gaze at. “I don’t want to give it back.”

“I wouldn’t be.” Suki giggled, she held onto Katara’s hand tilting it different ways to catch the light. “You guys will have to sleep in the same bed though. Uncle Bumi ended up coming in and crashing in the den.”

“You serious?” Katara wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure it will be fine…” Katara looked over her shoulder to see Sokka knocking arms with Zuko. Zuko only gave a half smile and nodded to whatever her brother was telling him.

“Well, here you are. If you need anything.” Suki opened the guest bedroom door. “Katara can get it for you. And due to an unexpected guest. We have to ask you guys to share a room. Sorry.”

Zuko looked to Katara with a small shrug. “It’s okay. I slept on many floors before.”

“What too cheap, Mr. Accountant?” Sokka jokes.

Zuko looked confused for a half a second before blinking and letting out a quiet chuckle. “Funny. No, I actually traveled a lot before going to university.”

“We’ll see you in the morning.” Suki grabbed her husband and pulled them down the hallway to their room.

“Right.” Katara began opening her bags and laying out items for bed. “The bathroom is the last door on the left down the hall if you’d like to change.”

“Yeah thanks.” Zuko dropped Katara’s other bag by the door and quickly made his way down the hallway.

Katara listened to the creaky boards as he walked and listened for the door to close before changing into a pair of shorts and old tshirt. She slid into the bed and far against the wall giving Zuko plenty of room to slid in next to her.

When Zuko came back wearing a red tshirt they had bought and his black jeans from work. He swayed from foot to foot for a minute before grabbing the pillow next to Katara. Katara was quick to sit up. “Zuko. Just get in the bed. I may be paying you to be here but I’m not paying for your chiropractor bill.” Zuko looked from the space on the bed to the floor beside it. Katara patted the bed twice, before Zuko gave in and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Is it okay if I sleep in my boxers?” Zuko whispered. “I didn’t think to grab…”

Katara blushed and turned towards the wall. “That’s fine.” She listened as Zuko moved around and clicked off the light. Katara felt the bed move slightly as Zuko slid under the covers. And even though Katara’s heart had sped up. She was quick to realize how it seemed to slow and as the warmth of Zuko washed over her, she fell asleep.

The next morning, Katara woke to still feel that warmth. Except now closer. There was a nice weight slung over her waist and warm breath blew on her forehead. Katara briefly contemplated moving or just staying there for the rest of the day. Zuko took a deep breath in and Katara felt the arm over her waist twist slightly and pull her body closer to Zuko’s. When he released his breath, it tickled the baby hairs of her ear.

Katara hadn’t ever remembered a more relaxed morning. She opened her eyes and watched Zuko for a moment. The red scar almost beautiful against the sea foam green sheets. He should really ditch the glasses.  Katara’s heart stuttered as Zuko slowly opened his eyes. Dark gold greeted her. His eyebrow furrowed slightly in confusion. “Morning.”

“Mmm.” Zuko closed his eyes again. Then as if she were fire he pulled back. A chill ran over where his arm had draped over her waist. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. But we should get up.” Katara said as she began to push away the covers.

The two changed quickly, taking turns in the bathroom. They made it to the dining room table hand in hand. The a perfect couple. “Morning!” Suki called from the kitchen.

Katara could smell pancakes and her mouth watered. “Morning.”

Zuko sat down in one of the empty chairs and before Katara could pull away he tugged on her arm. Katara looked down to him confused. Zuko looked slightly confused too. So he let her hand go and shook his head.

“Hey lovebirds!” Sokka called out. “What do you want to drink?”

“Orange juice?” Katara looked to Zuko, who only shrugged. “And make it two!” Katara turned to the newspaper. “Morning, dad.” The newspaper folded down slightly. Her dad nodded and folded the paper back up. Katara leaned in close to whisper to Zuko. “Don’t ever interrupt dad during his morning paper.”

Zuko watched a sneaky smile slide on to Katara’s face. Zuko was surprised at how relaxed the atmosphere was around here. Zuko couldn’t remember the last time he had ever felt home. But here he sat in a stranger’s home, getting paid to be in a fake relationship.

“Where do you plan on taking your beau today, Kitten?” A voice rang out from down the hall. There was a soft shuffling before Zuko saw the older lady.

Katara quickly moved to hug her grandmother. “No idea. Maybe a little bit of everywhere, Gran Gran.”

Katara moved alongside the older lady and helped her into the chair beside Zuko. The lady reached over and patted his hand. “You two should go to the rose dome. It’s beautiful this time of year.”

Katara looked down sadly at her grandmother as she stood beside Zuko. Katara looped an arm over Zuko’s shoulder leaning in to him. “Gran Gran, the rose dome closed.”

“Oh?” Gran Gran blinked and smiled slightly. “You know this old head of mine, it just doesn’t remember like it use to.”

Katara leaned over and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “I’ll take him to where it use to be. I promise.”

“Breakfast is served.” Sokka called out as Suki and him laid out multiple plates piled with pancakes.

The day went as promised to Gran Gran. Katara took Zuko out to all of the places she loved to visit when she stayed here. Katara was yet again surprised at how easy the conversation flowed between them.

“So,” Katara bumped Zuko’s shoulder with her own. “Not to put a downer on the conversation but…” Katara licked at the blueberry ice cream in her hand. “I was thinking… we could stage a little break up in tonight before we go to bed.”

Zuko’s eyebrows shot up, “What?”

“Yeah,” Katara shrugged. “You know so you don’t have to fake marry me and be here for every holiday for the rest of your life. I figured we could figure out something?”

Zuko nodded and bit into his ice cream. Katara wrinkled her nose at the action. “Okay then… And we are suppose to just sleep in the same bed? Oh gauds… I’ll have to face your brother… and your dad… Can’t we just break up after?”

“No!” Katara shook her head. “Don’t worry about Sokka or my dad. I’ll get them to calm down. As for the bed thing.” Katara reached into her bag and pulled out a credit card. “You can find a hotel and I’ll give you a plane ticket when we get back. You’ll get mad and leave. I’ll cry a few tears. And bang. We are broken up. You’ll be 875 dollars richer and I’ll be back to single.”

Zuko bit into the cone with a hum. “So what do we argue about?”

“Well lucky for us the walls aren’t too thin, so we could argue about how you eat ice cream.” Katara nodded her head in the direction of his half eaten cone.

“What’s wrong with the way I eat my ice cream?” Zuko took another bite of the sugar cone.

“You actually eat it!” Katara licked at a drop of the melting ice cream in her hand. “How do you not get a brain freeze?”

Zuko laughed. Katara joined him. She couldn’t remember the last time she laughed this easily with someone. They slowly made their way back to the house. The sun was beginning to set and dinner would soon be on the table.

When they walked in they were surprised to see the others just now sitting down to the table. “Just in time.” Gran Gran called out.

Zuko walked behind Katara with a hand on her lower back. And went behind her as she leaned to give her grandmother a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry, we were out so late. Zuko seemed it really enjoy it.” Katara looked over to him with a smile.

“I did.” Zuko nodded and pulled out the chair next to Gran Gran for Katara to sit. “Maybe I should trade in that beach house for a place around here?”

“Bro, no.” Sokka piped up. “Trust me, keep the beach house.”

Suki slapped her husband playfully on the shoulder. “Zuko, I would love to see more of my sister in law. With her big city practice, we don’t nearly see enough of her.” Suki looked over to Katara.

Katara rolled her eyes and sat down beside Zuko. “Yes, but then we would never have a reason to go the city?”

Zuko automatically reached over and took Katara’s hand. Katara looked down at their joined hands with a small shock. Her eyes finding Zuko’s quickly. He only smiled. “Yes, that big city.” Zuko gave her a look to go along with it and a slight shrug that was almost non-existent.

Katara glared slightly but pulled on a fake smile and took a deep breath. She picked up her glass and whispered, “Don’t push it.”

“Right.” Katara’s dad called out. The dinner started and with a few purposeful bumps in the conversation, the dinner went just as planned.

“Katara can I talk to you…” Zuko said as he wiped off his mouth. “Alone.”

“Alright, we get it. You two don’t have to do dishes…” Sokka started and Hakoda raised an eyebrow at his son.

Katara ran a tongue over her teeth. “Sure. We’ll be back.” Katara pushed back her chair in faked irritation. She grabbed onto Zuko’s arm and tugged him from the dining room. The entered the guest room with smiles. “That went way too well.” Katara closed the door loudly.

“I’m still afraid I’m going to find a shotgun to my forehead when i leave this room.” Zuko laughed quietly. “Something about HOME.”

Katara took the hint, as Zuko shrugged. “You have EVERYTHING?” Katara looked over to the duffle bag Zuko was stuffing. “I have the plane tickets and my card.”

“SO THIS IS HOW IT’S GOING TO GO?!” Zuko lifted his voice as he took the ticket and card. “You sure this is okay?”

“Yes,” Katara looked up to Zuko with a smile. “ZUKO PLEASE, be safe and thank YOU. For doing this. SERIOUSLY saved ME!”

Zuko stepped forward and hugged Katara. “I’M SORRY, that I CAN’T stay longer. This was fun.”

Katara stepped back, something in her chest giving a twinge. A sadness she didn’t know she would feel settled in. “Just shred the card when your DONE!”

Zuko nodded and picked up his bag. “THIS IS IT!” He leaned into whisper to her. “Will I not see you tomorrow?”

“No.” Katara shook her head. “I’ll take an early flight. It’ll be FINE!”

Zuko nodded, “FINE!”

Zuko took his que to leave and stormed out. Katara heard Gran Gran call out for Zuko and ask him what was the matter. Suki was the first to Katara’s door. Her mouth opened but a smile tugging at her lip. Katara winked then burst into tears. Suki took the hint and wrapped Katara in a hug.

Thirty minutes later and many tears later, Katara laid in her bed. The blankets tucked around her and a fresh Gran Gran kiss placed on her head. “Don’t worry too much sweetheart. They come and they go. Look at your grandfather. He was a very stupid man.”

Katara smiled up sadly to her grandmother. “Thanks, Gran Gran.” She turned over and faced the bedroom wall. Katara listened as her grandmother shuffle out. She sighed a turned over in the darkened room. Loneliness setting in.

When Katara woke the next morning, she was cold. Instantly missing the heat of Zuko. She sighed and quickly got up to change. Her plane was to leave at 6 and she still needed to pack since she didn’t last night.

Katara sluggishly got around. She cringed when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Her reflection looked horrible. Pink puffy eyes and hair falling completely from her top knot. Katara quickly ran through her morning routine and walked into the living room.

Gran Gran was sitting in her arm chair with a small tea cup. “Morning. Early flight?”

Katara gave a small smile, “Yeah, I actually need to be leaving now.”

Katara’s grandmother stood and walked to her favorite grandchild. She pushed Katara’s chin up, “Keep smiling child. Maybe one day he will realize his mistake. Hmm?”

The younger nodded and wrapped Gran Gran in a hug. “I love you. We will talk as soon as I land.”

Her grandmother and a groggy Suki walked her out to the cab. Suki gave her a hug. “Tell Zuko I said hi and that he is welcome back anytime.”

Katara smiled to her sister in law. “Ha, I’m not stepping a foot into that coffee shop ever again.” Katara’s shoulders slumped, “Which is a real shame. That was some of the best coffee.”

Suki laughed and said one last goodbye to Katara. Katara waved to her family as the cab pulled away.

Katara checked her bag into security and walked to the nearest coffee vendor. She pulled out her phone as she sat in one of the seats of her terminal.

“One to go?”

Katara jumped in her seat, nearly spilling the coffee. She turned to see Zuko sitting a few chairs down behind her. Happiness instantly flooded her. “Sadly, I had to pay for this one.”

Zuko laughed and made his way to sit beside her. “So how late do you think this plane will be?”

Katara smiled and looked to Zuko over her cup, “Mmm, at least long enough for you to give a fake proposal.”

The smile never left Zuko’s face as he pulled her left hand to him. Zuko kneeled down in front of her with the fake engagement ring between his fingers. “How about a real proposal? Not for marriage!” Zuko quickly pointed out when midnight blue eyes got wide. “But… A girlfriend proposal.” Katara tilted her head in confusion.

“Katara, I have spent a total of 36 hours with you. And there was never a dull moment.” Zuko chuckled to himself, “I traveled this whole world looking for an adventure. I also hoped to meet someone. Someone who would make me smile and laugh. Someone who would take me on an adventure. Someone who I could take on an adventure. Someone who when I look back in thirty years I’ll instantly remember all the fun we had. And these past few hours have been exactly that.” Zuko took a deep breath in, “So, I am asking, Katara, will you be my girlfriend?”

Katara felt a burst of over excitement in her chest. Tears welled up in her eyes as she started nodding. “For real?”

“Well, we’ve already done the fake relationship.” Zuko smirked and raised the ring to her finger. “So a real one now would be nice. “You know, if you’ll say yes?”

“Yes!” Katara blurted out. Zuko slid on the ring and Katara all but tackled him to the ground in a hug. People around them clapped and a few called out their congratulations.

Zuko slowly helped Katara to her feet. “Is it bad luck that I used the same ring?”

Katara laughed and never in her whole laugh had she ever felt as happy as she did in that moment.

Well until of course their wedding day, when they would re-encounter all of the memories during their vows.

Thanks for the prompt!

[esmeralda-anistasia]

#Sokka: please stop calling my Gran-Gran by her first name. please.#Kanna: you’re right Sokka he can call me Gran-Gran#Sokka: THAT IS WORSE THAT IS SO MUCH WORSE#Meanwhile Hakoda: you adopted WHO#Kanna didn’t ADOPT anyone thank-you-much she was very practically holding that boy for ransom#why Hakoda#what would you have done if you had a Fire Prince#(infinite hot water lady is ABSOLUTELY Toklo’s aunt)#(he looks to the prince looks to her and spontaneously invites the High Five)

Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.

Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more. (I will typo edit this once baby is asleep RIP everyone reading until then)

---

Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--

Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and

and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.

Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.

Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.

“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”

---

She choose her own.

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in there with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He feel asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said, and tried to ignore that there were fewer families in the camp then there’d been the day before.

The crone lead him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said, with grandmotherly sweetness. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great ice trench pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that’s what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eye from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything else more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were all mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then, someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it hard come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.

[bayofalgecirascranes]

Prev gags: #Sokka: please stop calling my Gran-Gran by her first name. please.#Kanna: you’re right Sokka he can call me Gran-Gran#Sokka: THAT IS WORSE THAT IS SO MUCH WORSE#Meanwhile Hakoda: you adopted WHO#Kanna didn’t ADOPT anyone thank-you-much she was very practically holding that boy for ransom#why Hakoda#what would you have done if you had a Fire Prince#avatar the last airbender#atla#Zuko#Kanna#ficlet#(infinite hot water lady is ABSOLUTELY Toklo’s aunt)#(he looks to the prince looks to her and spontaneously invites the High Five)

Hi ! prompt idea : What if Zuko was armed during the first episode and was stranded with the water tribe while the avatar left with Katara and Sokka, Iroh on his trail for white lotus reasons.

Oh we are going to have us some FUN with "stranded with the water tribe", say no more. (I will typo edit this once baby is asleep RIP everyone reading until then)

---

Zuko was dripping, and steaming, and staring down two dozen women and their gaggle of small children, plus that old not-the-Avatar crone from earlier. They were all cowering away from him. Which was--

Good. It was good. If they were cowering, then they hadn’t noticed how steam was not flames. He wasn’t sure he could make flames, not after the water he’d landed in, with that last sight of the Avatar glowing; not after surfacing under the ice pack, after swimming, after kicking slamming breaking through and his ship was gone and there was only ocean all around and

and he’d made it back to this pathetic little camp of the Southern Water Tribe, because that was the only place he knew for sure would have shelter, and he wasn’t going to die just because they were all staring at him, even if felt like he would.

Even if the old not-the-Avatar woman could probably take him, right now. But she didn’t know that.

Zuko pulled himself up, taller than her by at least a few inches, and blew steam from his nose.

“I am commandeering one of your huts,” he said. And added, because Uncle said even a prince should be gracious: “You may choose which one.”

---

She choose her own.

...The only one without children that flames might scar, or younger women to catch a soldier’s interests.

Zuko sat by her fire and determinedly started struggling out of his wet clothes and she was still in there with him--

Zuko pulled one of her animal pelts over himself, and finished fighting off his clothes. When he stuck his head back out, cheeks still reddened from what was obviously the cold, she dropped a parka on his head.

“Dry clothes, Your Highness,” she said.

The parka was much bigger than he was. He feel asleep hoping that the camp’s men were on a long, long hunting trip.

---

He woke up again. Kanna tucked her favorite ulu knife away, newly sharpened, and stopped contemplating the alternative.

---

“I am commandeering a ship,” he said, and tried to ignore that there were fewer families in the camp then there’d been the day before.

The crone lead him across the village, all twenty paces of it, to a row of canoes.

“Take whichever one you want,” she said, with grandmotherly sweetness. “Will you need help getting it to the water?”

Zuko looked at the canoes. Looked at the ocean. Watched a leopard seal, easily the size of the largest canoe, dozing just past the ice his own ship had broken through the day before. It was frozen again, a great ice trench pointing from the waves to the village, snow already starting to cover it over.

Beyond was blue sky and gray ocean and white ice, floating in blocks like stepping stones, like boulders, like cliffsides.

There wasn’t even a hint of gray steel, or smoke. Or any land, besides what they were standing on.

He looked down at the canoes again. Somehow, they seemed even smaller.

“I, uh,” Zuko cleared his throat. “I’ll require supplies. Before I go.”

---

They... did not have supplies. Not extra ones. This didn’t stop them from trying to give him supplies, food and blankets and anything else he could think to ask for. But each blanket was a pelt hunted by someone’s grandfather, had been inked with images and stories by someone’s mother, was the favorite of someone’s husband or brother or uncle or cousin--

They couldn’t go to the nearest market to replace things, here.

And when they talked about food, about what they could spare, they kept sneaking glances to their children, who were sneaking glances at Zuko from the huts, sticking their heads just over the snowy ledges like their fur-trimmed hoods would hide them. Their mothers and aunts shooed them away, and they crept back, like barnacle-crabs. Zuko glared, and they disappeared.

“When are your men coming back?” he asked. “They’re hunting, aren’t they?”

Oh. So that’s what they looked like, when they weren’t trying to hide their hate.

---

Zuko wrapped himself up in the same blanket that night. It was printed inside with fine lines, telling a story he didn’t know. He wondered whose favorite it was.

---

Kanna wondered how quickly he’d wake—if he’d wake—if she built the fire up with wet driftwood and tundra grass, if she had one of the younger girls boost up a child to plug the air hole, if she let the smoke draw its own blanket down over this fire child.

---

It was hard to know when to wake up, because the sun never set. So everyone was up before him, and they all had spears and clubs and—and nets, and trap lines, and snow googles with their single slat to protect the eye from snow blindness. Zuko had seen those once, at the Ember Island Museum of Ethnography, where they’d gone when it was too rainy for anything else more exciting.

Oh. They were going hunting.

“Give me that,” Zuko said, and took a spear.

The women looked at him. One of them adjusted her googles.

“I can hunt,” he scowled.

He did not, in fact, know how to hunt.

---

“Give me that,” the Fire Prince said, and Kanna almost, almost gave him her ulu. Humans, like most animals, had an artery in their legs that would bleed them quick enough.

She kept skinning the rabbit-mink one of the women had snared.

“I can help,” he said, with less grace than most of their toddlers. Likely with the skinning skills of a toddler, too. She wasn’t going to let their unwanted visitor ruin a perfectly good pelt.

“Chop the meat,” she said, and gave him a different knife. “It’s dinner.”

“...This is really sharp,” he said a moment later, looking at the knife with some surprise.

“Is it,” said Kanna.

---

Things the Fire Prince was convinced he could do: hunt (until he realized he couldn’t tell the tracks of a rabbit-mink from a leopard-rabbit apart); spear fish (at least he could dry himself); pack snow for an igloo (frustrated princes ran hot); ice fish (the prince was a problem that kept coming close to solving itself).

Things the Fire Prince could actually do: mince meat, increasingly finely; gather berries and herbs, once he stopped trying to crush them; dig roots, under toddler supervision; mend nets, after the intermediary step of learning to braid hair loopies.

“Can’t I take him ice fishing again?” asked one of the women, as she watched Prince Zuko put as much apparent concentration into braiding her braiding her daughter’s hair as his people had into exterminating hers.

“Wait,” said another woman, sitting up straight. “Wait wait wait. I just had an idea.”

---

Three words: Infinite. Hot. Water.

---

Summer was coming to an end. The sun actually set, now, and the night was getting longer, and colder. The salmon-otter nets were all mended and ready. The smoking racks were still full of cod-lemmings. The children were all a little older, the women all a little more used to doing both halves of their tribes’ chores; a little more used to not watching the horizon, waiting for help to come.

The Fire Prince was staring at the canoes again.

“Are you actually going to try leaving in one of those?” Kanna asked.

“...No.”

“Come on, then, someone needs to watch the kids while the women are hunting.”

She didn’t leave him alone with them, of course. But she could have.

---

Elsewhere, the war continued.

The moon turned red, for a moment none could sleep through; they did not learn why.

The comet came and went, leaving their castaway prince laying on the beach, his breath fogging up into the night sky, as the energy crashed from his system as quickly as it hard come. Above, lights began to dance in the sky; Zuko pulled his hood up, so none of those spirits—children, dead too soon—got any ideas about kicking his head off to be their ball.

The war had ended. The world didn’t feel any different; no one in the south would know until spring came again.

---

Suffice it to say, Sokka and Katara were not prepared for this particular homecoming.