#honorabledragon

[sorrowmarked]

can't find the meme || not accepting for obvious reasons

“i’m so scared one day you’ll grow apart from me and be tired of me, and fall out of love and i won’t know what to do." -- @honorabledragon

Katara looked up at him, she knew the thing she should be feeling was empathy and compassion. Zuko's life had not been easy. And she did! She felt totally compassionate and empathetic, and also a little angry. Because what was she? Some fickle hearted, fair weather, love 'em and leave 'em type?

But if she got mad he'd just get hurt, so ... she leaned into compassion. She leaned into empathy.

"Zuko, I know that falling in love can be scary," she says, "But you kind of just ... have to trust that it'll work out. People don't just grow apart. They don't just fall out of love. Relationships take work. I'm not going to stop working at it, are you?"

[illtakeyourthrone]

Continued from ask @honorabledragon

Stubborn. He was just as stubborn as she was. Katara frowned, head shaking back and forth in silent refusal. “I won’t leave you” Her hand turned, placed squarely on his chest. “Zuko you have to stay awake. For me, okay? We’re going to get out of here” After everything, after every fight they’ve suffered through...Ending it here, leaving him here...when had he ever known her to give up so easily?

There was no denying that she was exhausted, and by the looks of it, they both were. Faint blue glowed at her hand, pulsating the water she had drawn to it. It wasn’t a lot, but it might just be enough for them to get out of there and take shelter. “The others will come for us, we just...have to make it till then”  

[sorrowmarked]

"The entire International Council?" Katara gasped, "And me a married woman, Have they no shame?" she asked, in mock offense. "Well good thing you're there to tell them I'm taken," she said.

"Depends on who you're talking to, sometimes good and bad is subjective," she said, a grin tugging at her lips. "You of all people should know that," she teased. Only so much room the bedroom for her to slip away. Only so much time she wanted to slip away. He catches her, she finds she doesn't mind it when he catches her now.

"I guess that's her right as a spirit," she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. "Who an really tell her she can't cover you up with her paint, hm?" If she stayed this close to him she was liable to completely forget she'd wanted to go out.

"Oh no, you've got the entire International Council talking. I have to remind them that Ambassador Katara is quite spoken for all the time with the way they're always talking about you and your ravishing good looks," Zuko whispers in response.

He then smirks as Katara continues to flirt with him. "And, would that be such a bad thing?" he quips back. It was hard to believe they'd been married so many years the way they flirted as though they were just on the cusp of getting together.

He watches with amusement as Katara holds up her dress and continues to dance around him and away.

"Trust me, I don't mind in the least. The Painted Lady can get whatever she likes all over me," he teases back, drifting his hand out forward, wanting to caress her.

[sorrowmarked]

valentine's starter for @honorabledragon

"What do you think the chances are that we'll be able to sneak out and just wander the festival without anyone realizing who we are? Slim? None?" Katara asked, sighing as she opened the wardrobe. She didn't really feel like doing anything as a politician today. She didn't want to be surrounded by a half a dozen guards. She just wanted to go out with him and have fun. "Maybe if we dressed way down and you left the crown at home we could manage it," she said, before she sighed. "It just feels like it's less a celebration we get to have fun at, you know?"

[sorrowmarked]

Injury Starters || accepting

“Damn— I’d hate to see the other guy.” -- @honorabledragon

Katara half laughs, "I got caught a little off guard," she says, reaching a hand over for the water in the wash basin as she pulls it to her to heal the injuries to her face. "But if you want to see the other guy he was arrested, so that is doable," she says. Katara didn't kill him, because of course she didn't kill him. It wasn't necessary for her to kill him in order to bring him down, so why would she.

A soft little happy sigh rolled from her lips as she healed the injuries she had sustained.

[sorrowmarked]

"I'm always right," she shot back as she smiled up at him, her eyes soft and sad. She got it, it was stressful to watch her brother's marriage fall apart. It hurt. It hurt because they loved Sokka and Suki and they didn't want to see them hurt.

And she could understand it, where his fear was coming from. It could seem like if not them, who could make it. But Katara wasn't worried. She wasn't worried that they wouldn't make it because that wasn't what she looked to the future and saw. They would have their own life, their own future, their own joys and sorrows, their own problems and triumphs.

The important thing was they loved each other, and they wouldn't give up on each other.

She reached for him, wrapping her arms around him. "It's okay, I understand," she murmured, rubbing his back. "You don't have to apologize for being scared," she said. "You know my father once told me fear is a game, you lose by playing," she murmured. "All we have to do is just ... acknowledge it and move on."

Katara lifted her head to look up at him. "I love you, and I trust you. And I trust in our life together."

Zuko squeezed Katara's hands as she took his into her own, looking at her apologetically. "You're right," agreed Zuko, sighing as she eased him. He knew he was being ridiculous and hated the anxiety that always seemed to take over, despite the logic he knew in his head and the unwavering trust he felt in his heart.

"I hurt for them, but you're right. We aren't them," he parroted back to her as he ran his thumbs over the backs of her hands while nodding in agreement with her words.

"I'm sorry, Katara," he said before pulling her into an embrace. "I don't think that we're headed for failure, I'm sorry. I just… I don't know… these fears get in my head, even when I know better… when it doesn't make sense."

"I love you so much," whispered Zuko. "I didn't mean to make you think that I… I doubt you or… or don't trust you. I do. I trust you with all my heart."

[sorrowmarked]

"You know I'm pretty sure the only person who would suspect I'm someone solely based on my ravishing good looks is you, my dear husband," she says, looking up at him. "And if you keep the flirting up we're never even going to make it outside," she jokes.

She holds up the new dress and looks up at him. "Is this your way of telling me you don't want to do it? Is this because last time I got red paint all over you when we kissed?" she grins. "I could always promise not to kiss you instead." she jokes dancing away from him before he could reach out and touch her.

It is clear, Fire Lady Katara is in a playful mood this evening.

Zuko smiled bashfully to the floor at Katara's response. She was smooth and witty in a kind and loving way that melted his heart. Katara knew damn well that his good looks were not what he was referring to.

"You know I have no complaints about you dressing as the painted lady," Zuko said with a smirk as he stepped towards her while she held up the deep blue garment.

There was something incredibly attractive and drawing about Katara dressed as the spirit and her face done up as so. "Only problem is you might look so good that one would only have to suspect that Master Katara is the one behind the getup."

[sorrowmarked]

"Suki and Sokka were Suki and Sokka," she said, "And you just said it yourself, we have no idea what was really going on behind closed doors. What the problems were. If they were trying to solve them. How they were trying to solve them. We might have hints, we might have some clues but that doesn't mean we fully know," she said.

Katara reached over, taking both his hands in hers. "And we don't know what comes next for them. Nothing is ever really gone. Not even love. They have children together, that's a bond that never goes away. I know it's sad to see happen, and scary, but Suki and Sokka are Suki and Sokka," she repeated.

"It might feel like ... us but it's not. Suki and I are different, you and Sokka are different. The shape and course of our relationships are different. What we do will be up to us, just because they couldn't make it work doesn't mean we will. You're right. They aren't us. We don't know what really happened. So it's not worth comparing ourselves to them. And it's definitely not worth thinking we're headed for failure, that's just a self fulfilling prophecy once you get in that mind set!"

Zuko looked over at Katara with guilt and sadness over him. Of course he would never stop working on his relationship with Katara, she was the love of his life, his partner, his best friend, his soulmate, his person.

He trusted Katara, too—with his whole heart and soul—though he knew this didn't really give her the sense that he did, hence the guilt.

Zuko sighed, nodding resolutely.

"I know… I'm sorry," he replied, nodding again. "Of course, Katara, I'll never stop working at it—at us," he assured her. "It's just… I thought… Suki and your brother were like us too and… I know you can never really know what's going on behind the scenes with anyone's lives, but… to see them fall apart, leave each other after being married, having kids together… when they were so in love, so happy, so sure… it's stupid to dwell because I know they aren't us, but… I thought they had with each other like what we have, and… now, for them, it's just… gone, and… it's… really, really scary to see happen."

[sorrowmarked]

"I was just in town when he came out of nowhere, it caught me off guard," she told him. The water was soothing on her face as she healed herself, the injuries starting to ease away from her skin, the pain lessening with each passing moment.

"I don't know. I mean, he seemed to just be going after me specifically, but it's not like we really know why. He's still alive though. I figured that at the end of the day it'd be best to ask these things of the man directly right?"

Zuko smirks as Katara says she was caught off guard, though clearly the victor. He moves over to sit beside her and places a comforting hand on her thigh, looking at her injuries as she uses her talent to heal them.

"What happened?" asks Zuko, more seriously now— worried. "Was he targeting you specifically, Katara?"

[sorrowmarked]

Katara turned to face him looking at his face as she tipped her head to the side. “You are very handsome, but I don’t think that’s going to mean anyone realizes you’re the Firelord,” she said, reaching in and pulling out something warm but easy to move in. Dark blue in color for the winter months. Even the Fire Nation seemed to cool down during the winter. She would bet even with the scar no one would think the Firelord was out there walking among them with no guards.   “Ooh disguises are fun though. Reviving the Blue Spirit? Huh? Maybe I could revive the painted lady then,” she thought about it, before putting the blue robes back and pulling out something red.

"Hmmm," Zuko said aloud as he watched Katara open her wardrobe and eye over her assortment of clothing. "Well, I sort of have a dead giveaway here," replied Zuko, gesturing towards the scar on his face as he tried to brainstorm.

"Well… an old tradition in the Fire Nation would be, sometimes, to wear your favorite outfits from classic plays, books, or shows," he explained, a smirk growing on his face. "Maybe… just maybe if we put on some Love Amongst the Dragons costumes, including the masks, we just might get away with it," suggested Zuko as his grin grew.

"Used to work well for me as a teenager."