Swimming in a Mirror
Sparring is good for her then, she thinks. It’ll keeps her mind off things.
But, as she assumes her starting stance across from Zuko, she see’s the middle of his chest and falters. Because that’s not how his chest used to be and she knows it. She stands limp and sees lightning and doesn’t even really hear him say her name.
And Katara, feebly, asks, “does it still hurt?”
Because it looks like it hurts.
She’s worried that it hurts.
Summary: There's a heat wave in the Earth Kingdom so Katara and Zuko take refuge in the first river they find. And Katara thinks a lot about scars. (Finished for @zutaramonth 2024 day 5, Katara kept her scars)
Words: 4,141
Rating: G
Read Here!
And if you want, you can see the whole series here (it can be read in any order)
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Extreme long shot, but looking for a fic I read years ago, that to my knowledge is NOT on AO3 or FF, just on someone's blog or maybe a small hosting site. It's a three(?)-part series.
Stuff I remember: Zhao kills Iroh pre-north-pole; he dies on a beach due to shrapnel, I think. Zuko wanders off in a daze, stays with a nice Earth Kingdom woman for awhile, then embarks on Messing With Zhao's Shit until Zhao catches him. Gaang rescues him (from Pohuai?) after whump.
Zuko leads them back to the Earth Kingdom woman for a safe place to rest, meanwhile Zuko's crew has found her and given her a letter+their location+tell our stupid prince he's not the only one who wants to Mess The Fire Nation's Shit Up. Zuko and the Gaang go to his ship, whose treason against the Fire Nation is already in progress (and they've gotten their families out of the Fire Nation to avoid reprisal, so Jee's wife is there). Katara bonds with the ship healer, who teaches her non-bending healing and is both salty and instructive. Ends incompletely right as Zuko and the Gaang are about to leave the ship.
Those parts of the series are a good read, but I am dying to re-read the part that's an Iroh POV of the royal family, including Ozai's strategic murdering of all of Iroh's children (he had more than Lu Ten in this AU), and Iroh's extremely chilling "maybe I should do the same to his" thoughts until baby Zuko wins him over. It is PEAK disfunctional Fire Family.
I thought I bookmarked this somewhere, but I can't for the life of me find it. Plz send help.
EDIT: FIC FOUND! See the reblog chain for the link, it's in the second post.
EDIT EDIT: This is. Even better than I remembered. My heart hurts, ow. <3
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Katara felt exilhirated, her hands catching the cool night air as it whipped past. Bright flashes of colorful light popped on either side of her, accompanied by the huge crackle-boom of what she had learned were called fireworks.
At first, she'd been hesitant to the idea of explosions during a festival, but over time, she'd become more used to the Fire Nation's idea of fun. She had even found it beautiful. Aang laughed, leading Appa to race through the colored smoke while Sokka and Suki screamed in delight, and Katara screamed, too, holding up her arms and feeling free.
Until she looked over at Zuko, whose face seemed to be turning a shade halfway between ghost-white and bogwater green.
She tried to edge closer to him in the wide saddle, but it was impossible to move with how fast Appa was flying. Zuko's eyes met her gaze, and she asked "are you alright?" Her words were swallowed by the wind, and Zuko hadn't heard her, his eyes far away. There was another reverberating boom as an explosion of color went off on her other side.
"You want to know what fireworks are like for me?" Toph said to Sokka as Appa landed, a mischievous grin plastered on her face. She had not been enjoying the festivities any more than Zuko had.
Katara winced as Sokka closed his eyes at Toph's bidding, then watched her brother yelp as Toph screamed "BOOM!" into his ear.
Sokka wasn't the only one to jump. Zuko was still clinging to the side of Appa's saddle, even after they had stopped.
"Hey," Katara said, holding out her hand to him. "You alright?" she asked again, now that she could hear herself talk.
Zuko stood up without taking the offered hand, and climbed out of the saddle only a little shakily.
"I'm fine," he said, and walked off.
She found him later sitting on the edge of a fountain ringed by lantern light.
"I used to love fireworks when I was a kid," he said as she approached, his gaze on the bright reflections in the water. "Now it's just...I...I can't see as well, when Appa goes so fast, and it's hard to hear anything."
Katara remembered how noisy it had been when they were in the air. She remembered her first Fire Nation festival, back before the war had ended, and how afraid she had been of the fire. Now, fear was part of the thrill. Experiencing something like that in a way that was safe and fun, knowing it couldn't really hurt you. It was the kind of fun that Zuko must have grown up with. He must have always known that the fire couldn't really hurt him. Until it had.
"It took me a long time to be able to bend again, after," he said, looking up at her, finally, and Katara didn't have to ask him what he meant.
"Maybe someday I'll be okay with fireworks again," he said.
"It's okay," she said. "Even if it's never the same as it was."
It would never be the same, of course. Sometimes, a part of her wondered when she had become so desensitized. It had to be the opposite for Zuko, now. She saw the way he looked sometimes, when people made references to his past, the way he cringed when he spoke about it, how angry he grew on behalf of the Earth Kingdom citizens he had once considered beneath him. It was funny how time changed the way you looked at things. She wondered if it changed the way Zuko looked at her, the way it had for her. Sometimes it seemed to her that they were always just missing each other. Maybe they would never be able to see each other face the face, but for that one moment long ago, under Ba Sing Se. There would always be a part of her that remembered the feeling of being seen, of being known and having been known, by an enemy who was no longer an enemy, but something else entirely.
Together, they sat on the edge of the fountain, just the two of them. They stayed beneath the lantern lights, while everyone celebrated around them, and remembered what it felt like, to burn.
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