#sokka and toph nearly dying and suki showing up to save them

[stabbyfoxandrew]

okay, i finished my atla rewatch a couple hours ago and i've been a Lump ever since

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[zukos-tsungi-horn]

Souvenirs We Never Lose

Chapter 1: the moment passed me by (1 | to be continued) (Read on AO3 | FFN)

Summary:  The past is never far. Zuko remembers what Katara said about the spirit water. Now there's a second scar to heal, and Katara's feelings are more complicated—but if he wants to erase the past, she's willing to give it a try. She owes him that much, and more. Zutara

Notes:  First Zutara (and atla in general) fic!  I saw @hanszimmr‘s post at like 1am one night and my brain demanded I write this immediately (post is a bit of a spoiler for this chapter though be warned if you click).  A gazillion thanks to @lexosaurus for betaing this I legit can’t thank you enough, you’re amazing my dude! This fic takes place post-canon but is slightly au to the finale, but what ways it’s au will become clear in this chapter. In other notes, the title and chapter headings are from the song “Name” by the Goo Goo Dolls.  Enjoy!

XXX

~Even though the moment passed me by, I still can’t turn away~

“Feeling nostalgic?”  Katara grinned out the corner of her mouth, strolling up to the prow of the ship.  

Zuko’s head twitched just enough to show that he’d heard, but he remained leaning against the railing, staring at the horizon as they cut through the frozen sea.  Despite the no-longer-familiar cold that sunk into her bones as they travelled farther north, he looked as comfortable as ever – well, as comfortable as he could be in those bulky Fire Lord robes.  She didn’t miss how he tugged at his collar when he thought no one was looking.

“No,” he replied without looking up from the water.  

She gazed at the ocean too, following the waves as they rolled away from the ship’s metal sides in mesmerizing patterns. White foam mixed with the stormy cobalt water to create a palette of swirling blues.  Mist sprayed up and tickled her face when she leaned closer, a comforting sensation that she hadn’t gotten while travelling on Appa.

“The last time I was here I almost died, remember?”  He said, managing to make it sound like any ordinary fact.  Koala sheep ate grass.  Water froze when it got cold.  Zuko almost died.

Phantom lightning flashed against the back of her eyelids when she squeezed them shut.  The North Pole wasn’t the closest he’d come to dying. Not by a long shot. His hand hovered just below his chest over the hidden scar, as if he was recalling the same memory.

Well, soon he’d be able to forget a little more easily.  

“You’ve almost died a lot of times.  I wasn’t sure this one was that memorable.”  She forced a joke, hoping to distract him from the melancholy he’d settled into.  He’d been so quiet this entire trip… alright, he was the quietest of her friends anyway. But lately he’d had that scrunched look permanently plastered on his face.  Normally that expression only surfaced when he was puzzling through something particularly difficult, like when he’d tried to get Aang to focus on learning firebending, or when they’d devised their plan to face Azula.

Maybe his mood wasn’t over anything that big this time. It could be because this was his first time out of the Fire Nation since his coronation four months ago.  But with his uncle taking care of everything back home, she’d thought Zuko might be able to relax.  Or, well, whatever the Zuko version of relaxing was, since he’d never quite known how to handle a break.

Not that this trip was a break, technically.  They were meeting to discuss opening trade with the Northern Water Tribe, which might not be his idea of a fun vacation.  But he’d complained enough about sleazy politicians trying to sway him back home that Katara thought he’d appreciate the blunt nature of the Northern Tribe.

Ignoring all of the official reasons for the trip, she knew at least one thing that he was looking forward to.  Even though his suggestion had cut her inside, she would help.  She owed him that much.

She owed him more than that.  Even if he wanted to forget, she didn’t.

“I don’t think I could forget almost being crushed by the ocean spirit.  Or nearly freezing.  Or…”

He finally met her eyes, his lips tweaking into a smirk.  She met it with a relieved grin of her own.

“Or what?”  She snarked back, leaning against the railing too.  After all, it wasn’t like she had anything to worry from falling overboard.

“Or you kicking my butt,” he admitted.  Her face warmed.

“I hope you’re not expecting an apology.  You were a real jerk back then.” The words came out before she thought them through.  Spirits, he was her friend; even if she’d been feeling conflicted about the purpose of this trip, there was no reason to snap at him.

He winced and then shrugged.  “I’ll give you that.”

Her stupid mouth—she could be as bad as Sokka sometimes.  She’d come over to figure out what was wrong, not make him feel worse.

“You’ve changed so much since then,” she said.

Just on the horizon, the icy architecture of the North Pole caught her eye.  The early winter sunset set the whole place aflame; the white snow of the buildings bled to ethereal reds, oranges, and pinks.  She held in a gasp at the sight, but Zuko looked like he barely noticed.

“Everything’s changed,” he said quietly, his chin dropping to rest on his hands folded over the rail.  “I just wonder if they’ll see that.”

“They will.  You paid to have the whole tribe rebuilt!  And technically it was the ocean spirit that wrecked it more than the Fire Nation.  You’ve already gone above and beyond what you had to.”

He closed his eyes and sighed.  “It just… it feels like it still won’t be enough.  My country spent one hundred years at war.  Hurting innocent people.  And now here I come, asking for a personal favor…”

His gloves stretched tightly over his knuckles as he gripped the rail.

“This was stupid.  This whole idea was…”

She placed her hand over his.

“It was a good idea,” she insisted, despite her own personal, selfish objections.  This wasn’t about her.  It was his body, his scars, his choice what to do with them.  “You had to come here for the delegation meeting anyway, and Yugoda will listen to me. I’m sure of it.”

Well, maybe sure wasn’t the right word, but she was confident.  She’d done more impossible things before.

“I didn’t have to come.”  He wiped his face with one hand.  Steam puffed up as the frost melted from his glove.  “I could’ve sent the ambassador.”

“Well, I’m glad you came anyway.  I’d much rather be sailing for a week with one of my friends than with some stuffy old ambassador.”

He gave another shadow of a smile.  Spirits, she’d missed those, though she hadn’t realized just how much until she finally saw him again.  

“I’m glad I could convince you to come for a couple weeks.  I couldn’t do this without you.”

It wasn’t flattery, and his matter-of-fact voice showed it.  He really couldn’t do this without her.  She was the only one Yugada would trust with the water from the Spirit Oasis.

She was the only one he would trust to erase the two blistering marks on his skin.  One, seared there by his own father, he’d finally told her.  And the other, the jagged star below his chest, from when he’d—when he’d—

After months of practice she could keep the memory from completely drowning her, but it still came in fragmented snapshots.  The blinding blue flash. His terrified shout. The paralysis that froze her without a single spark touching her skin–

Because he’d been there to take it for her.  She could have lost him forever, because she’d been stupid enough to look out from behind that pillar.  Because he’d been… been everything enough to try to save her.

To almost die for her.

That had… put a lot of things into perspective.

But not quickly enough.  Maybe if she’d sorted through those feelings before Mai had come back…

No, she wasn’t going down that path again.  Zuko was happy, and alive, and that was all she wanted.

Without warning, she felt a hand shaking her shoulder. She looked up to find Zuko staring at her in wide-eyed concern.  He was closer than she remembered; she shut down the sudden urge to touch the scar under his chest, just to make sure he was still okay.  

“Katara?  Can waterbenders get seasick?”

“I’m not seasick,” she grumbled, brushing him off in embarrassment.  There was no way he could tell what she was thinking, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like his golden eyes would see straight through her.

And see what, exactly?  We’re friends. Which was exactly why she needed to get those traitorous feelings under control.  She wasn’t going to make things awkward, not like Aang had lately.

“Oh.  Err, sorry.”  He turned towards the water again, his face etched with that familiar Zuko flavor of awkwardness.  

Well, at least he didn’t look despondent anymore.  

“I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything too important.  Well, I mean you’re travelling with Aang, and he’s the Avatar, I guess everything you’re doing is important…”

She snorted.  “Are we remembering the same Aang?  He’s probably off riding giant koi or something.  Sokka’s visiting Suki in Kyoshi, but Toph’s sticking around for a little bit longer, so he won’t be by himself.”  

Aang might wish he was after a week of just the two of them, though.  She smiled at the thought of Toph teasing him, and of him shamelessly taking it until she got bored and gave up.  Hopefully that would be the worst of it. Katara didn’t know what she’d do if she came back and found that the two of them had conned an entire village again.

“You’re not worried about him at all?”  Zuko asked, sounding surprised.

“Should I be?”  She frowned, pushing aside her earlier thoughts.  She couldn’t watch over Aang and Toph forever.  This “vacation” would be good for the three of them.  

“No offense, but you’re the worrying type.  And Toph and Aang by themselves…”  He grimaced.

“Who’s the worried one now?”  She laughed.  “Don’t get me wrong, they’ll drive each other crazy.  And probably destroy a few things.  Maybe scam some people… Okay, so I might be worried.  But you’re not the only one who needed to get away for awhile.”

“Really?”  His eyebrow crinkled.

“Really!”  She braced her arms against the railing. “I might not be running a country, but keeping track of those two is probably as much work.”

“I won’t argue with that.  How are they doing?”

“They’re doing fine.” she said.

He must have noticed her undertone, because his eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“How are you doing?”

He’d asked the same thing at the start of the trip. But this time was different.  The first time had been an awkward icebreaker—he’d reverted back to some of his original shyness in the four months since they’d last seen each other—but this question was sincere.  Maybe this trip really could be like old times, when they’d learned to open up to each other more than she’d ever imagined.

Too late she realized that she’d relied on him more than she could ever admit.

“I’m…” Katara paused, letting out a mixture between a sigh and a laugh.  She hadn’t been asked how she was in so long, she almost didn’t know what to say.  The war was over; everyone just assumed she was happy—and she was, mostly.  There was just something, something…

“I miss Sokka,” she found herself blurting.  It wasn’t the main thing, the right thing, but it was what came out.  And it was true.  “I love Toph and Aang, I really do, but Sokka’s my brother.  He’s always been there for me.  I write him every week, but it’s not the same.”

“Oh,” he said a little awkwardly.  Of course, he wouldn’t understand. His sister was literally insane.  But for a brief second, she wondered if he’d ever missed his sister when he’d been in exile, despite how horrible she was to him.

“That must be rough,” he finally said.   “I’m sure he’s missing you too.”

“Pff, I doubt it,” Her eyes fell back to the waves.  “He’s having the time of his life designing machines and spending time with Suki.  He tells me all about it in his letters.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want you to worry about him?”  Zuko suggested.  

“Maybe.”

“Have you told him you miss him?”

“Well—no,” she admitted.

He shrugged. “Maybe he thinks you’re having too much fun without him, too.”   

She hated to admit it, but he had a point.  She was so used to staying strong for all of them, she tended to only write the fun things they did in her letters.  Only allow Sokka to see that everything was okay.

“I could see that, I guess.  He doesn’t know how much–”  She bit her lip.

“What?”  Zuko asked, catching her eyes again.  She felt her face flush, and his brow furrowed.

“Are you really that embarrassed that you miss him?  Sokka’s a good brother.  I’d miss him if I were you too.  I mean, I already miss him, and he’s not—”

She covered her laugh with her hand as Zuko’s rambling became less coherent.  She hoped this didn’t happen to him too often, or else he’d have a hard time as Fire Lord.

“I’m not embarrassed about Sokka, I’m—okay, you have to promise not to laugh.”

“You’re worried about me laughing?”  He raised an eyebrow before putting on his most serious face, one that made her laugh.  

Okay, maybe she wouldn’t mind him laughing—only because she heard his laugh so rarely, and she couldn’t admit that she’d missed it.

“You know what I mean.”  She rolled her eyes.  “Anyway, ever since you and Sokka left, and it’s just been me and Aang and Toph… Aang’s been…”

She massaged her forehead, wishing she didn’t have to say it out loud.  Even more than missing Sokka, this was what had really been bothering her.  She’d never spoken of it aloud, even though Toph had clearly guessed by now.

“Aang’s been what?”  He asked, and for all his talk of her being a worrier, concern laced his voice.  Her face burned; did he really have no idea? Even though it had gotten worse recently, Aang had never exactly been subtle.

“He still… he has this…” She gestured her arms widely, uselessly through the air.  He stared at her, his head tilting slightly.  Spirits, she was just going to have to say it, wasn’t she?  

“He’s had a massive crush on me for who knows how long and it’s just getting really really awkward.”  It all came out in one breath.  His good eye widened, but before he could comment, she continued, “Somebody put it into his head that because he’s the Avatar and he beat the Fire Lord, he can have any girl he wants.  As if that’s how love works!  I swear, whatever idiot gave him that idea must never have spoken to a girl in his life!”

Her voice was rising, grating as harshly as the steel against the ice the ship began to cut through.  She was drawing stares from the crewmen on deck, but she almost couldn’t bring herself to care.  She was tempted to just glare back at them, as if asking, was it you?  Were you the idiot who told him that?  

“I told him I was confused before the comet, but I was just trying to let him down gently, since he had enough to deal with getting ready to fight Ozai.”  She dropped her voice but kept rambling, wanting to get it all out while she could.  “I should’ve just told him no then, then I wouldn’t be—I thought his crush would just go away if I ignored it long enough, but I—I just don’t want…”

There were too many thoughts, too many feelings, trapped in her head for too long.  They couldn’t all come out at once.  It wasn’t like her; normally even when she was angry, her words came out in a steady stream of righteous indignation.  But it was too hard to stay angry at Aang.  Maybe she wasn’t confused about how she felt about Aang, but she was confused about what to do about it.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” she finally muttered, still not daring to meet Zuko’s eyes.  “But if he keeps trying to woo me, or whatever he thinks he’s doing, I’m going to have to.  I think it’s the only way he’ll listen.”

She finally looked back to Zuko, wondering what he was thinking.  It had been a while since she’d dumped a rant like this on him, though it certainly wasn’t the first time.  He’d listened to her vent a number of times on Ember Island, on the nights he’d follow her into the kitchen to find her scrubbing dishes so hard they almost shattered.  She hadn’t taken that for granted, but after all these months without him, she wished she’d thanked him for that more.

His expression wasn’t anything like the calm commiseration he had back then, though.  He blinked at her like she’d been speaking a different language this entire time.

“Wait.” Zuko shook his head quickly.  “So you don’t like Aang… like that?”

“What?  Were you even listening?  No I don’t like him like that!”  She didn’t mean to snap, but she couldn’t believe he would think she’d actually… Well, at least it meant he hadn’t guessed her true feelings.  

“Of course I’ll always love him, but like, as another brother.  Anything else would just be weird, especially the way he’s being now.”  She crossed her arms, as if they could keep the rekindled frustration from fuming out of her like a hot geyser.  “Not that it stops him from trying. Or Toph from teasing me about it. I’m sure she’s just doing it since you and Sokka aren’t around anymore to joke with her, but it’s still the worst.”

“Sorry,” he said instinctively, his gaze dodging hers.  His hand hovered just below his chest again.

“It’s not your fault.” She felt a little bad for dumping that all on him.  He had more important things to worry about than Aang’s crush. Considering where his hand was brushing, his scar might even be hurting him again.  Her heart twinged, but there was nothing she could do for it now.  

Soon, though.  She was the reason he bore that scar; it was only fitting that she helped him be free of it.  That was what he wanted.

“It’s not like you could’ve stayed, anyway,” she added.  Hopefully none of her regret over that—or over anything else—bled through.  

“...Yeah.”  He frowned.  “I guess not.  Anyway, even if it’s not my fault, I’m sorry.  That sucks.”

Well, that was one way of putting it.  For as calm as his voice stayed, she caught the flicker of fire in his amber eye.  But before she could wonder what it meant, he turned back towards the interior of the ship.

“Sorry, Katara.  Just feeling kind of—seasick.  I’ll find you when we dock, okay?”

“Yeah.  Okay.”  She breathed as he strode away, the cape of his Fire Lord outfit billowing out behind him.  

The wind felt colder without him standing next to her.  

XXX

The candles in Zuko’s room erupted, threatening to ignite the ridiculous fancy drapes the crew had insisted on hanging in the otherwise bleak cabin.  He bit back his anger before any lasting damage could be done, but an acrid stench still lingered.  His nostrils flared as he paced the cabin, trying to control his breathing.  The candles flickered in time before settling back down.  His own emotions weren’t so easily tamed.

Aang had lied to him.  Aang, the Avatar—no, his friend—had lied to him.  

His bedroom door had creaked open.  

“Zuko?  Can I ask you something?”  The normally cheery voice was subdued, but Zuko didn’t process that yet.  He was too busy wondering if this night could get any worse.  Why couldn’t they just let him sleep this whole humiliating experience off?

“Nngh.  I’m trying to sleep, Aang.”  He rolled over, flipping the pillow over his head.

“Yeah, but…”  Aang trailed off.  Still standing in the doorway, a flickering fireball in his palm casting shadows across the room.  He obviously wasn’t going to be swayed easily.  Maybe answering his question would take less effort than sending him back to bed.

“Fine, I’m awake now anyway,” Zuko grumbled, but didn’t sit up.  “What do you want?”

Despite the gruffness of his voice, Aang took the invitation to sit on the edge of his bed.  Nngh, that light was so bright…

“It’s about the play,” Aang said quickly.  His voice was way too urgent for the middle of the night, especially if it was just about that horrible excuse for a play.

“Forget it,” he said, eyes still shut.  “It’s all fake anyway.”

It was an echo of Katara’s earlier reassurances, the ones she’d given to the whole group as they’d eaten a subdued dinner.  But really, if Katara hadn’t been able to comfort him before, what made Aang think Zuko could?

“But was it all fake?  Really?”

With a long-suffering sigh, Zuko finally caved and sat up, wiping crust out of his good eye.  

“Why are you asking me this now?”

Aang just stared at him, his face almost ominous with the flickering light held under his chin.

“What happened in the tunnels under Ba Sing Se?”

Zuko blinked.  Out of all the questions Aang could’ve asked, he picked that?  This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to be having in the middle of the night.  Or ever.

It’s none of your business, he wanted to say.  He’d done a lot of stupid things that day, but that moment… he couldn’t bring himself to regret letting her in, as much as he regretted everything after that.  She was the first person he’d allowed to touch his scar. He couldn’t help remembering how cold her fingers had felt.  But soft too – like ice water.  Fitting.

And her offer.  For all that the stupid play had made fun of her for it, Katara did know how to share hope.  The idea of the magic spirit water still lingered in the back of his mind.  He didn’t know how to bring it up again without saying, “Hey, Katara, remember that time in Ba Sing Se when you tried to help me and I totally stabbed you in the back?”  Even though she’d forgiven him, he couldn’t see that going well.

“Something did happen,” Aang muttered darkly, reading the wrong meaning into his distracted silence.  

“It was nothing,” the lie was dry in the back of his throat.  It wasn’t nothing, not to him, but it definitely wasn’t what the play had made it out to be.  As if Katara would ever see him like that.

That thought pricked at something in his core, but he chose to ignore it.  Nothing good would come from it, anyway.

“Look, Aang,” he said when the younger boy kept glaring.  “What do you think happened?  I was working with Azula.  You know Katara didn’t want anything to do with me.  Agni, I fought you guys right after that!”  

But he realized he was addressing the wrong problem.  “Why does it matter anyway?”

He had a sinking feeling he already knew the answer.  There was only one reason the boy would wake him up in the middle of the night for this.

“Katara’s my girl,” he said, the fire in his palm leaping up.  “And she said she’s confused right now.  I just wanted to make sure you’re not the one confusing her.”

Katara?  Confused?  But she was more sure of herself than anyone Zuko knew.

“Look, if anyone’s confused here, it’s me,” he snapped, rubbing the heel of his palm against his forehead.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were threatening me.  In my own room.  While I’m trying to sleep.”

Aang had the decency to look a little abashed.  Good.  If things weren’t going well between him and Katara, it wasn’t Zuko’s fault.  As much as he sometimes wished it could be.

He immediately shut down that thought.  Agni, this is why you didn’t have conversations like this in the middle of the night!

“Can I go back to bed now?  Or is there something else you want to accuse me of?”  

He probably shouldn’t have released his frustration at Aang, but it worked.  

“Just… be sure to give her some space, okay?”  Aang said, sounding a little more like his usual self before he slunk back towards the door.

“Whatever,” he mumbled before flopping back on the bed.

So this day could get worse after all.

Aang had lied.  The play had been accurate in one respect, at least—Katara did see Aang as a brother.  Zuko snorted.  That would’ve been nice to know months ago, when…

When what?  When he’d actually had a chance?  He was kidding himself. He’d almost let himself go down that path right after the Agni Kai, when she’d brought him back from the brink of death.  Those memories were little more than a blur.  The only clear image he had from that time was her face hovering inches above his, her eyes glittering with tears, her lips parted in an endlessly repeated prayer.

“Stay with me.  Zuko please, stay with me…”

And that was probably just a wishful fever dream, anyway.  Even if she hadn’t been with Aang—if he’d known she wasn’t with Aang—he couldn’t have told her how he felt then.  What if she thought it was just trauma-induced delirium? Or worse, what if she said she liked him too, but only because she felt that she owed him for taking Azula’s lightning bolt?  That wouldn’t be fair to her at all.

That was months ago though.  Now you could.

The candles flickered again as he shut out that voice in the back of his head.  It was hardly like he could ask her out when she’d just complained about Aang’s unwelcome advances.  That would be insulting.  Besides, he was with Mai again.  For however long it would last this time…

He scratched at the scar on his chest through his robes. He wasn’t sure when scratching at the scar had become a habit.  Maybe if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t be in this mess now.

But he had to wonder how long Mai silently narrowed her eyes at that simple action before she’d spoken up about it.

“It’s a scar, Mai.  It’s not like I can get rid of it,” he grumbled, self consciously drawing his hand away from the one over his abdomen and brushing the one at his face.  “Believe me, if I could I would, but I... passed up that opportunity.”

Her eyes widened for a moment with unusual interest.  “But it’s possible.”

He turned so his scarred side was hidden from her.  “Maybe.  I don’t know.  I didn’t exactly give her the chance to try…”  Which was a good thing, he had to remind himself.  She’d needed the spirit water to save Aang.  Would he have been able to live with an unblemished face if it had meant the world burned?

Mai snorted.

“What?  There wasn’t time!  That was when—”

“Seriously, Zuko.  I didn’t ask for your excuses.”

He felt his old temper flaring up. “You never ask me about anything!  Do you really not want to know what happened at all?”

“Why does it matter?”  She asked flatly.

“Because—” He stopped himself. How could he explain it?  He knew in his heart that it did matter, that everything he’d been through had forged him into the person he was today.  But he couldn’t figure out how to put it into words.  Not now. And he really didn’t want to fight again.  He was so tired of fighting.

“Nevermind,” he muttered.  “Point is, my scars are just a part of me now.  You’ll just have to get used to them.”

“Hmm.  If you say so.”

But when she pulled him close to kiss him, he couldn’t help noticing her hands never danced near the scar in his core.

After that, he hadn’t been able to ignore it.  She glared every time he drew inward, holding a fist over his middle.  But the more he tried to hide it, the more his habit seemed to grow, as if he needed to protect that most vulnerable spot.

“Does it hurt?”  Mai finally asked.  

His eyes had widened in surprise at the concern.  “Not anymore.  She did a fantastic job.”  

He knew that was the wrong answer when her lip curled.

“Then why are you always touching it and making that face?”

“What face?  I don’t make a face!”  For a second he hoped she was going to mimic whatever face she’d made, just to show him.  But of course she wouldn’t break her mask for that.

“Whatever.  I’m going on a walk.”

“You don’t go on walks.” His brow furrowed.  He really didn’t know what she was talking about.  Did he make a face?

“And you don’t make faces.”  She shrugged, heading towards the edge of the courtyard before he could stop her.  But she paused at the edge of the columns.

“Her name.”

“What?”  His heart skipped.

“You don’t say it.  You assume I know who you’re talking about.”  It seemed clear that Mai had been thinking about this, but he didn’t understand why.  But her question was something he could grasp onto.  Maybe for once, he could find out what she was thinking.  That was, If she didn’t walk away first.

He stood and reached out, but couldn’t bring his feet to move towards her.  “What—”

“I do know who you’re talking about, Zuko.  But if there’s any girl who’s name should go without saying, it’s your girlfriend’s.  Right?”

“...Right,” he replied, a chill running through him at her sharp gaze.  Don’t ever break up with me again, she’d said.  This look seemed to say the same thing.  He was supposed to belong to her.

The scar he scratched over his middle said he belonged to someone else.  And suddenly it all made sense.

He was making that face.  Mai had been right.  He couldn’t keep going on like this.

Three sharp knocks on his door pulled him out of the thoughts.  His hand shot away from his scar as if Azula’s lightning still buzzed there.

He cleared his throat.  “Come in.”

The crewman cracked the door but didn’t take his invitation.  “Ship’s about to land, my Lord.”

Zuko sighed.  “Thanks.”

“Uhh, you’re welcome,” he replied before striding away.  The crew was still getting used to Zuko showing them basic human decency.  He didn’t even want to think about how they’d been treated under his father and Azula, not to mention his own past self.

Agni knew he had plenty to think about already.  

[bellatrixobsessed1]

The Fishbone and The Firelily (Part 6)

Now Azula found herself some feet ahead of everyone, but that only came to be after they agreed to not pester her about how she’d come to know the heart’s location. She could feel it though, an atmosphere of unspoken curiosity that lingered heavily over the group like some nagging specter.

 “How much further is it?” Katara broke the silence.

 Azula looked in the direction of the mountains, they were still looming pretty distant. “Maybe a week on foot. Probably a few more days since we’ll be stopping to sleep.”  

 Katara’s face paled some, “that’s cutting it pretty close.”

 “If you have any ideas on how we can speed things up, feel free to share.” Azula replied. She took the waterbender’s silence to mean that the woman had none. The three days to follow were uneventful and had the princess falling into a sort of rhythm. Walk, eat, sleep. Walk, eat, sleep and then once more. To her content, she found that sleep was coming easier now; alongside the pattern she was growing used to the pain. She was nearly numb to it now. The knots in her belly weren’t quite so awful when she thought of her appearance either—mostly because she pushed herself to simply keep it from her mind. Even so, it was what it was, she came to terms with knowing that she wouldn’t be able to fix it, so she may as well get used to her collection of welts and sores.

 Four days in was where things grew interesting, and not just for herself. Day four was something of hell for everyone in their own special way. It started with a new assortment of bumps and a different kind of rash and ended in fury.

 .oOo.

 “Sokka, what happened to your face?” Suki sprung up, her face was the picture of horror.

 Sokka gave her a once over. “Probably the same thing that happened to your arm.” With that, her horrified look grew threefold. Katara and Toph still slumbered, as they did he assessed them. The rash located itself on Katara’s neck and Toph bore the same raw and bumpy red patches on her feet. Sokka groaned, his mind already formulating who would be carrying Toph and when. She would probably insist that she could still walk but he could allow her to risk infection. As things usually went, he would probably be carrying her the whole time.

 He peered over at the other woman. She still had herself buried under heaps of clothing, but all the same he could tell exactly where the rash plagued her, for she was scratching quite vigorously at her right hip. Just like that he found that his face was feeling rather twitchy and was doing some scratching of his own, not that doing so provided any relief. The only one who went unscathed was Aang, whatever pest bit the rest of them in the night, knew to stay away from him lest the poisoner became the poisoned.

 “Did anyone happen to bring along some mosquito-mantis ointment?” Sokka asked even though only the statement would only fall upon two ears. Evidently the stranger was so deep in trying to rid herself of the itchy feeling that she didn’t even hear him.

 That left Suki to snap, “don’t you think I would have offered it to you if I had it, you infuriating oaf.”

 “Infuriating oaf?!” Sokka threw his arms in the air, his itchiness momentarily forgotten. “I’m trying to come up with solutions here, what are you doing?”

 “Telling you that your solutions aren’t going to work.” Suki replied.

 “Will you guys keep it down, some of us are still sleeping.” Toph grumbled. It was already too late though, in her newly awakened state, she too became well aware of their latest mishap. Obviously sleep was no longer an option. She gave Katara’s arm a quick jab. “Say, Katara I could use some waterbending right now.”

 “Hmm?” Katara muttered dreamily.

 “Ya know, waterbending.” She demonstrated with a few exaggerated arm gestures and a couple of swishing noises.

 “Are you even listening to me?” Suki asked.

 “Actually I was kind of paying attention to Toph.” Sokka replied rubbing the back of his head. All at once he felt bad for blowing Suki off. He didn’t like to admit it, but he’d been doing that a lot lately, be it to talk to the stranger or to offer words of comfort to Toph. This was supposed to be their vacation, and he’d been snubbing her the whole time. He could hardly blame her for being so on edge with him.

 “Alright fine, you know what, it’s okay.” Suki replied, the shrillness in her voice indicated that it was anything but. “Since you don’t really want to listen to me…or talk to me, I’ll just…I’ll just.” She stammered trying to come up with some kind of punishment. Her smug smile had him guessing that he’d be receiving the cold shoulder for the better part of the day. It couldn’t prepare him for what actually came to follow.

 He tried anyhow, “Suki, it’s…I just have a lot to deal with right now. I didn’t mean to cut you out.” She looked him straight in the eye, stood, turned in the other direction, and stomped right across their campsite.

 .oOo.

 Whether she wanted one or not, Azula found herself in the company of a new friend.

 “And you know what I did next?” Azula didn’t prompt her to continue, but she did so anyhow—loudly and with purpose at that. “I knocked him on the ground, flat on his face, and I said, ‘anything else you want to teach us?’ All of the Kyoshi Warriors were clapping.”

 “Fascinating.” Azula muttered.

 Either completely missing her disinterest or purposely ignoring it, Suki continued her tale. “So of course after that, Sokka comes blubbering up to me like,” she paused for a moment and then in her best Sokka voice continued, “Uh hi Suki.” She took special care to make sure her laugh sounded like she was having a blast. “I asked him if he wanted another dance lesson.” This time her laugh was more genuine, but it did nothing to strike Azula’s sense of humor.

 At this point the princess couldn’t tell which was more aggravating; the nagging itching sensation on her new travel companion.  “After that he was all, ‘Suki please let me explain, pleeeeease!” For good measure she took Azula’s hands and dropped to her knees to demonstrate.

 Finally, Sokka’s temper flared, “I was not that whiney!”

 “I know.” Suki nodded in agreement. “You were much worse.”

 Azula could see the man’s eye twitch in frustration. And in that moment she felt connected to him in a way that she’d never been connected to anyone before. As bad as she felt for him however, she used their blossoming war of tongues to quicken her pace, ditch the Kyoshi woman, and get back to her peaceful solitude.

 .oOo.

 Katara listened to them argue from a distance. “If you were awake you’d know what to do.” She whispered to Aang. “You were always really good at keeping this group together.” She set one hand on his chest, savoring the heartbeats below. He was hanging in there pretty well and she admired him for it. If anyone could outlast demon blood, it would be him. Even still, the dark splotches were branching out. They unfurled like macabre roots from his chakara points and ebbed into his veins leaving them to show black through his clammy, discoloring skin. Katara gulped, but the lump in her throat came right back, bringing a few tears to her eyes with it. “We’re going to make it Aang, she,” she looked towards Azula as if Aang could follow her gaze, “said that we’re getting pretty close.” She stopped to listen to Sokka and Suki, hoping for an indication that their quarrel was dying down. She caught the word ‘infuriating’ and ‘sexist asskisser’ from Suki and from Sokka, ‘snooty’ and ‘try hard’. Katara sighed miserably. “I suppose this is probably a bad time to ask them if they’d mind staying awake longer.” Every bit of her longed to pull another all nighter, just to cover that much more ground. She didn’t know that the group could handle that—tiredness probably had a good hand in all of their edgy moods. That was exactly why she was trying to keep quiet and keep to herself, the last thing she wanted to do was go off on someone over something as silly as asking for ointment.

 .oOo.

 “How many times do I gotta ask you two,” she sat up in Sokka’s arms and brought her mouth fairly close to his ear, “to STOP BEING SO LOUD!” The earthbender had, had quite enough of this. She thought Katara and the stranger lucky, at least they could listen at a distance. She got the full v.i.p, front row experience to the Sokka & Suki soap opera. The only thing that was making this venture more bearable was thinking of it as a comedy sketch put on by the Ember Island Players. In terms of giving their journey a title, she was flopping between, ‘Bender Blues’ and ‘Surviving Sokka: Jungle Edition’. Or maybe ‘The Twinkle Toes Trouble.’ She snickered to herself. Her joy was short lived though, in his irritation he loosened his grip, nearly sending her to the floor. She just barely had time to save herself with a good display of earthbending.

 “I thought that the whole point of you carrying me was to keep me from being on the ground.” Toph grumbled.

 “Sorry.” Sokka mumble.

 “Nice goin’, Sokka.” Suki taunted.

 “See, Toph, this is why I’m having a hard time.”

 Naturally, when Toph glanced at Suki the Kyoshi warrior had trotted back up to the hooded woman and announced, “you know why the whole trip has been awful? It’s because of Sokka!”

 “Sokka, I just want to go home, watch an Earth Rumble, and maybe get some fire flakes.” Toph frowned. “I should have stayed at the palace with Zuko. At least I could leave when he and Mai fight.”

 “I don’t see why you’re so upset.” Sokka remarked.

 “Because your constant bickering is annoying.”

 “Hey, you know what that reminds me of?” Sokka asked. Toph knew what he was going to say before it was vocalized. “It reminds me of this one time when a certain earthbender was fighting with my sister and wouldn’t stop when I asked her to.”

 “Okay, look here boomerang brain, that was different.”

 “Oh really?” Sokka asked.

 From up ahead the stranger chided Sokka, “are you really going to pick another fight when you haven’t even finished the first one.”

 “I have finished the first one, and I won.”

 “I beg to differ.” The other replied.

 “I did so.” He insisted.

 “You really are a that dense, aren’t you? You’ve started two fights and you’re asking for a third.” She paused. “A third argument you can’t even hope to win.”

 “Yeah, you tell him!” Suki cheered.

 “On second thought, I’ll just pretend like you didn’t even say anything to me.”

 “Y-you were the one who started the conversation!” He accused.

 “I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that either. You’re welcome.”

 “Great work, Sokka.” Toph murmured.

 “If I stop arguing with Suki will you forget about our squabble.” Sokka asked.

 “I’d do more than that to get you two to cut it out.”

 .oOo.

 Azula didn’t truly start to feel the brunt of the misfortunes until later that night. Sure, Suki had been a mild agitation but it had been mildly amusing to listen to all of the ridiculous comebacks and taunts. No, as per usual, her miseries came at night. It was seldom just one thing either.

 The first dismal thing came to her as she was tending to her mosquito-mantis bites. A little earlier on, Azula had come across a few herbs and some aloe. This was the one moment of relief for everyone, and the moment everyone else’s dreadful luck seemed to be dying out. There was a sense of unity in mashing the ingredients together and an even bigger sense of comradery when the ointment was finished. Even Azula felt some tingle of a bond with them, at that point. Her luck, however, held no better than Toph’s had earlier that day.

 She had just finished rubbing the ointment on the rash when she came to realize that she had scarcely been bitten by the mosquito-mantises at all. No, most of the rash had been gifted to her by the cave guardian. All at once, the thoughts she had shoved back to the deeper sections of her mind resurfaced. She was tainted and unlovable, no amount of aloe essence could alleviate that.

 It was never just one insecurity. Thinking of one always conjured the rest; maybe if she were stronger, if her bending was as good as it once was, she would have been able to fend the spirit off. Maybe if her mind had been as sharp…

She ran a hand through her hair and kicked the first rock she spied.

 Despite herself, she touched her ruined face, feeling the swells and lumps beneath her fingers. She bit the inside of her cheek, if for no other reason than to keep herself from tearing up again. She already made a spectacle of herself in front of Sokka, she wouldn’t do it again. It was only when she wandered away from the camp, for some privacy when she realized she wasn’t alone in her tears this time. The way things worked out, someone else had the same idea as she. She supposed it was her turn to offer Sokka some words of consolation. The problem was, she didn’t know how to initiate such a thing, so instead she just dropped herself down next to him and said nothing.

 “She broke up with me.” He said at last.

 Something about that statement sent a wave of joy through her. Azula figured it was the satisfaction of seeing an enemy in distress.

 “We were supposed to be snuggling on the beach.” He added, his tone was unsettlingly level. This sapped the amusement out of Azula almost immediately. From experience, she knew that the calm indicated a fury of some sort to follow. “Instead, she wants to beat me with her fan or something.”

 “I’m sure that, that’s not true.” Azula replied. “She’d probably rather do it with her fists.”

 “Gee, thanks.” Sokka grumbled. She knew that he wasn’t just referring to the snide comment, he was blaming her somehow. And maybe it was her fault, he did mention blowing Suki off for her on numerous occasions.  

 “Look, I didn’t mean to come between you and your girlfriend.” And the she stood, she found that she had little else to say.

 “Where are you going?” He asked.

 “Back to camp. Wouldn’t want Suki to see us together.” She shrugged.

 “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Sokka asked. “Not everything is about you, you know that right.” He added.

 “Excuse me?”

 “We were going to take that vacation to help us…figure some things out.” Sokka replied. “I really thought that we could make things work.”

 “Oh.” She replied simply, with a pretty decent impression that she had read his earlier tone completely wrong. He motioned for her to sit again.

 “I don’t want to be alone.”

 “I guess I don’t either.” Azula admitted, both to herself and the Water Tribe man.

 With another exasperated groan, he buried his face in his hands. “I can’t save Aang, I can’t make Katara feel better, I can’t even keep a girl.”

 Azula looked at her palms. Having no ability to maintain even a friendship, she had no advice to give. Still, for some reason or another that she couldn’t quite grasp, she wanted to do something to make him feel less melancholy. Perhaps it was because he had gone so out of his way to make her feel welcomed and comfortable. The maybes mattered none. She didn’t realize she had her arms around him until he leaned into the embrace. In that hug and with a horrible feeling of dread she realized exactly why she found it so amusing when the pair fought; the further he rifted from Suki, the closer he was to her.

This was the second dismal thing, though she didn’t fully comprehend it until the sun rose again.