Chapter Text
The palace is big, and it seems as though every corner harbors at least one face that stops to gawk at Katara’s presence.
It undermines the feeling of pride in herself at escaping the confines of her mind and her room, worming under her skin.
Her skin and her eyes. I don’t belong here, they say. She’s suddenly not so sure. Wearing the Fire Nation’s clothes does little to hide where she’s really from. Katara nearly stops, but Tae lightly grabs her arm and begins directing her effortlessly yet with a purpose.
There’s no memory stuck to these halls; they all look the same. Katara can’t remember who brought her to the room she stayed in and can’t retrace any steps. But Tae is a warm and firm presence at her side, guiding her. She has to remember to up her pay, maybe make her her right hand woman. Can she do that? Katara hopes she can.
Soon they enter a place in the palace that’s large and airy, yet dim and quiet. The voices speaking reverberate around the hall, torches placed so that the space is illuminated enough, yet still personal. Katara starts to recognize voices as they approach a table off on another side of the row of columns, her heart beginning to soar.
“Katara!” Aang shouts as Tae rounds a column.
Aang rushes to her, sweeping her up in a hug. Her brother and father join them, and Katara nearly smiles. Once they’re done crushing the air in her lungs, she pulls back and truly looks at them.
Where her father was exhausted of the war before, he now holds a steady sort of stillness, while still harboring gray hairs, retired yet content.
Sokka- had he grown taller in the time she’d been dreamwalking?- stands taller, prouder. His wolf tail has grown a bit.
Aang’s hair hasn’t grown a fraction. He holds himself taller, too, yet Katara can see the kid he is, was, before the war so clearly.
And all of them are smiling. Her eyes well up.
“Where’s Suki and Toph?” She asks.
The three share a glance with each other. This uneases her- how much had she missed while she was mourning?
“Well…” Aang fidgets.
Sokka shakes his head. “She has to know. She’s the Firelord.” He whispers the last part, like he’s afraid La will rise from the ocean and get him.
“Not here.” Her father says firmly, and Hakoda leads them out of the hall. When Katara hesitates and turns to find Tae, she finds only air. Tae left. Katara must remember to thank her later.
They breach the buildings, coming out into the sunlight again. Katara’s instantly warmed as she blinks to let her eyes adjust.
They’re in a courtyard, perhaps a garden, with a small stream winding through the middle and bushes lining the space, sprouts of red and orange flowers strewn throughout the grass.
Lush, she thinks, remembering the Spirit Oasis in the North.
“Don’t you think people could still hear?” Her brother asks. Katara chews on her lip. This sounds important, secretive, and potentially dangerous.
“Not by the stream. Just keep your voice down.” Her father murmurs.
“Okay, what is it?” Katara demands. Enough small talk.
“So… you remember being declared the Firelord, right?”
The title sends a chill down her spine, but she brushes it away. “Yes?”
“Well… some citizens aren’t happy about that.”
She almost snorts. That’s a normal reaction for a nation who had just been under the rule of a tyrant, monster, genocidal maniac. To be ruled by a Southern Peasant. Her heart aches and she places a hand on her chest. Breathe. “And?”
“There have been whispers of uprisings. A revolt against… well, you. Since you’re not the royalty, you’re not the crown. And you haven’t even had a coronation yet.” Sokka spits the word out as if he can’t handle the taste of it on his tongue.
Katara could’ve guessed as much. But what did that have to do with Suki and Toph?
“Katara you don’t-“ Aang starts, faltering when everyone’s attention is turned on him. He clears his throat. “You can abdicate, right? You don’t have to be the Firelord?” His voice is just on the side of shrill, and, oh, Katara wishes she had Tae right now. Why would she know the ins and outs of the Fire Nation’s royal customs? Why had she been declared Firelord at all?
Katara shakes her head. “I don’t know. But where would that leave us? With Iroh or Azula?” She questions pointedly.
When they found Iroh outside the walls of Ba Sing Se, she would’ve never told Zuko this, but, well, he looked old. He had every right to.
But that wasn’t the face of a leader who had enough power left to spearhead reconstruction without the same revolt they’re seeing now. Where Katara is a foreigner, Iroh is nearly retired. Not to mention he can’t really turn out heirs (not that she wants to).
And Azula. Katara’s heart seizes again. Poor Azula. She had been slipping the day of the comet, perhaps even before that, which Katara guessed had not healed in the eighteen days she’d been asleep. No, Azula couldn’t be crowned.
Who knows what she would do with a throne.
Katara’s voice is small as she shakes her head and says breathlessly, “No… there’s no other option. Right now.” There must be another way. I’ll figure it out.
Sokka nods, his face serious. Katara’s surprised hes so cool about this, but supposes that dire situations and their repercussions have been chasing them since they step foot outside the South Pole. Maybe even before that.
“Suki and Toph are investigating undercover, trying to gather information and nip this in the bud.” Before something actually happens, with your life at stake, are the words hanging in the warm air.
Katara turns, frowning at him.
The heat almost feel like it swells, sweat gathering at the back of her neck, where her unbound waves are heaviest.
She cant remember what the arctic cold feels like.
༄
Zuko’s sitting against a wall, a distant expression on his face.
The play sucked- that’s for sure. It must sting, to see how the Fire Nation really thought of their prince. Katara hadn’t realized the true weight it must have been to be the next in line. To be in any line at all.
She’d thought he’d be revered or at least a little respected. She had a hunch, though, that the Firelord let rumors run their courses, let the people expel him on their own accord without so much as a flick of the hand to confirm it.
Katara settles beside him, bumping their legs together.
He’s so, so warm.
Memories rise to the surface of her inner lake, the feeling of his lips against hers rippling over the water. She shivers slightly, pushing it down.
“You okay?” She asks quietly, tilting her head at him. He turns to her, looking her up and down briefly. Katara holds her breath.
“Yeah. Just trying to accept that my nation wants me dead.” He responds, monotonal. Katara knows that when he speaks like this it’s really him desperate to not let any emotion show.
She clasps her hand in his when he averts his gaze again. His eyes widen as he whips his head at her, mouth open as if to say something. But he doesn’t find it.
“They see what they want to see.” She says, and he shakes his head. He can’t actually believe that he’s who they showed up there, it’s dangerous thinking. “No- look at me, look at me.”
When he does, she smiles at him carefully, emphasizing her words. “They don’t know you. Not the real you. That wasn’t you up there, that was an actor for a play they widely exaggerated, with Fire Nation bias spitting all over the real story.”
Zuko shakes his head again. “But what if it’s not just here? Who knows what my father told them, what happens when the whispers of the palace bleed throughout the city?” He rasps. All she sees is a terrified little kid now, searching for his mother- that loving hand that could cradle him. The fear of the weight of the crown.
“You’ll get the chance to prove them wrong.” She squeezes his hand. “When we win.” He stares at their joined hands, his gaze slowly raking back up to her face. He swallows.
“Thank you.” It isn’t as enthusiastic as she could want, but it is Zuko, after all. It’s enough.
“Guys! It’s starting back up soon!” Sokka nearly yells, speeding around the corner. Katara looks up to find Aang watching her and Zuko from the railing, a frown on his face.
She absconds Zuko’s hand. What his reaction is, she doesn’t know, because she hurries behind Sokka and Suki, back into the theatre.
Once the play has started up again, she finds her and Zuko’s hands frequently brushing against eachother. Each time it sends a thrill to her heart.
Better to focus on his hand than the stupid play.
After the play they trudge back to Zuko’s old place as a group, quiet for once.
Everyone’s tired, she thinks, and the play just took out all our spirit. Even Aang is less energetic than usual.
Before they all retire to their respective rooms, they make a late night snack of puffy pastries and a white, cloud like chewy substance that sticks all over your hands they found in a stall outside the theatre. Zuko offered to light a fire for them, saying that was what the white stuff was usually for.
“What do you mean? You put it in the fire? It’s not for eating?” Katara questioned.
He lit the fire, embers and smoke curling towards the dark blue night sky, casting the clearing by the beach in orange hues. “No.” he smiled, just a slight upturn of his mouth. “You’ll see.”
Her heart fluttered at the sight of Zuko’s face in that firelight again, this time smiling at her. She’s glad he’s better now, that’s why it feels like this, Katara tries to tell herself.
When he beckoned, Sokka handed him one of the fluffy snacks and Zuko put the end on a stick. He then put the end with it in the fire, turning it over slowly. Sokka squeaked indignantly, but Zuko just held up a finger at him. Wait.
After a minute, Zuko blows on the white mush at the end of the stick after it lights on fire, turning the edges brown and crackly. He hands the stick to Sokka.
“Great. Thanks. What exactly did you do?” He asks, peering at the treat.
“You put it between two pastries. Then eat it like a sandwich.” He just smiled when Sokka raises a brow at him. “Or, you could eat it like that. Be careful, though. They get sticky.”
His warning is too late. Sokka’s full-sent the treat into his mouth, having trouble chewing and getting his hands all sticky. Katara dissolves into a fit of giggles at her brothers dorkiness, and when she looks at Zuko he’s gazing at her with a pleased expression.
Suki comes over to do damage control. When her fingers just get messier after trying to wipe Sokka’s face, she licks the white stuff.
“Mmm, that’s good. Katara, you have to try it.”
She shrugs and takes her own puffy white thing, handing it to Zuko. He does the same thing he did for Sokka.
Aang and Toph are approaching down the trail towards the fire, in a heated discussion. Zuko hands her the stick, and Katara grabs pastries to wedge the fluffy snack in-between.
“- no, the Boulder lost to Fire Nation Man. He’s only won once, I could’ve beaten him ten times over-“ Toph grumbles.
“-But he was from the Fire Nation-“
“That’s a stage name, Twinkle Toes.”
Katara takes a bite out of her put-together treat, warmth and airy and sweet and crunchy delight filling her mouth. She makes a contented noise, punching Zuko lightly in the arm.
“I’m glad you like it.” His eyes are sparkling.
“Iss so good.” She says, her mouth still nearly full. She notices his hands are empty and swallows. “Where’s yours?”
“Oh, well, we were kinda late to the stall. I got enough for you guys, but they ran out when it came to me.” He scratches the back of his neck.
Katara still has half of hers left, which she offers to him.
He shakes his head. “No, you have it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t much care for sweets.”
“You liar.” Zuko huffs good-naturedly at her accusation.
“It’s yours.”
“And I already ate some of it. I can share.” Katara insists.
“But do you want to?”
She gives him a pointed look, why would I be offering if I didn’t want to? His good cheek turns pink in the firelight. She knows him enough to make it out.
“Okay, fine.” He goes to reach for it, but she holds it out of reach. He furrows his brow. She tuts him, shaking her head.
“I’ll feed it to you, so your hands don’t get dirty.”
“But what about yours?” He asks, narrowing his eyes and crinkling his nose. She smiles.
“They’re already messy, see?” Katara holds up the snack and her hands, which are all crummy from the pastry and sticky with the white stuff. He doesn’t stop squinting suspiciously at her, but slowly says:
“Okay.”
Katara scoots closer to him on their log bench, careful not to drop the treat. Closer to him, she can make out the way his eyes look in the firelight. Again. She shivers, memory of their time in the cave filling her head. Above his golden eyes, his eyebrow quirks. In her hesitation she’d been caught staring.
She slowly lifts it to his mouth, which he doesn’t open until the treat is closer. Before he can take a bite, a hand pushes her mid-back, jerking her forward.
Sokka snickers behind her and Katara turns, annoyed. “Sokka!” But he’s not paying attention to her, covering his mouth and pointing at Zuko, laughing even harder.
When she turns, she can’t help but snort as well. Where the snack is a little more crumpled in her hands now, part of the white sticky stuff has been smeared across the corner of his mouth, making a mess of his face.
At his pained expression and curled upper lip and messy face, Katara starts laughing harder, twin to Sokka. The rest of them have gone quiet she notes subconsciously, but nothing can take away from the joy she’s feeling right now.
Katara’s afraid he’ll be pissed, but once she wipes away small tears formed from laughing so much, she finds his expression has softened. He now harbors his own small smile, while close-lipped, his eyes are sparkling.
“How dare you.” He growls, wiping his face. Katara has no time to react as he reaches to her and wipes the sticky stuff and crumbs on her face. Squealing in dismay, she glares at him.
“You just got your hands dirty!” She huffs. The thing she was trying to avoid.
“You got my face dirty!” He barks back.
“I wasn’t trying to.”
“Well, payback anyway.”
“Oh, I’ll show you payback.”
When he opens his mouth to speak again, she shoves the rest of the treat in his mouth, which he involuntarily bites. It makes even more of a mess, but it doesn’t matter, even as he swipes even more crumbs on her face in retaliation.
Katara’s too busy feeling weightless, like it’s just the two of them in the world and in this moment forever.
What’s more, he’s laughing now, too. Stoic, aloof, edgy, serious Zuko is laughing.
She wishes this moment could last forever.
༄
They eat their midday meal while waiting for Suki and Toph to return.
Katara tries not to worry about what they found. If they found anything. If they can stop more fighting before it rises.
Like before, during the war, she feels useless to be sitting and doing nothing. She didn’t think the feeling would persist afterwards. Oh, how wrong she was.
They’re in the quarters Sokka is using- Katara abstained from the royal dining room. It would’ve been too much.
The birds chirp outside the cracked window, clinks of porcelain and eating sticks (they are so hard to use) filling the room. She was grateful beforehand that there wasn’t a barrage of questions thrown at her during their meal, though she might prefer it now than her own thoughts.
How are you feeling? Why couldn’t you get out of bed? Are you really intent on reigning over the Fire Nation?
The last question unsettles her as it surface, though the feeling is quickly overridden as someone bursts into the room. Katara’s heart squeezes at the sight of the facial hair, the short old man gathering himself into a deep bow.
Iroh.
“Lady Katara.” He greets formally.
She immediately gets up and beelines for him. Maybe it’s a little surprising to everyone else in the room, but not her. Katara needed this.
As she pulls him into a firm hug she lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“I’m sorry.” Katara breathes. He returns the hug quickly, patting her on the back.
“No, it is me who is sorry.” When they pull apart, she can see the tears punctuating his words, not yet falling. “I should have came with you to the Fire Nation that day.” Katara, however, is already shaking her head.
“I-“ her voice catches- she should’ve rehearsed. There was never a moment she wasn’t thinking it over, wasn’t thinking about him. But verbalizing it was harder than she could’ve guessed. “I should’ve known, when she challenged him- I should’ve-“ Katara’s wobbly voice breaks and she can’t use it anymore. She can only hope that he understands.
He nods, giving her a moment to collect herself. He does the same.
When Iroh clears his throat, Katara fills with trepidation.
“I’ve come to warn you- the advisors want to talk to you. They’ve been planning the coronation for some time, as you’ve been… asleep for a while now.” He adds quieter, “Even though some of them are against you being crowned.”
Icy water substitutes for the blood in her veins. She swallows.
Her family have all gotten up now, quiet and Katara feels them exchanging glances.
“You don’t have to go through with this. Though it would not be easy, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I can reclaim my title. I can bear the crown, for the time being.”
“And then what?” Sokka asks. “Wait for Azula to get better?” Iroh’s expression turns grim at his rhetorical question. What is Azula’s state?
“Whichever road we take, it won’t be easy.” Iroh returns.
“Why is she an option?” Sokka points at Katara- Katara doesn’t like his accusatory tone. It’s not like it was Iroh’s fault- though Sokka might see it that way, upset and eager to lash out at anything that might fit the criteria.
It’s not everyday that your sister is crowned the lord of the Nation that scorched the world.
They’re all near-arguing now, discussing with pointed words and heated tones that unsteadies her.
Iroh is trying to figure out how to solve this. Sokka knows, deep down, like she does that her leading may be the most viable option. Hakoda’s the quietest, but Katara knows he shares Sokka’s disdain for the situation. After all, their family had been cleaved for some time now. Her being the leader of the Fire Nation would keep them worlds apart. Aang is grappling with the reality that he cant do anything about this, even as the avatar.
Katara breathes in. Out.
“I want to do this.” She butts in, voice quiet, though she knows they hear her.
They all cease talking and look at her.
༄
Katara’s actuely aware of everyone else’s stares as she washes her hands and face clean of the treat. She hears Suki whisper something to Sokka as she does the same to Zuko.
The fire’s dying and everyone’s finally winding down, tired enough to forget the abomination that was the play and done with their snacks. Katara offers to clean the others’ hands, and they go dutifully quiet about whatever they thought of Zuko and Katara’s situation.
When they’ve packed up and are headed back to the house, Aang falls into step beside Katara, Zuko at the back and Katara at the front.
Aang holds his hand together at his back. “Soo, what was that?” He questions. They’re both looking ahead, neither making eye contact.
“What was what?”
“You feeding Zuko?”
Katara tries not to falter in her steps- she hadn’t thought he would be so blunt about it- and takes a second to gather herself.
“There wasn’t enough for everybody. I wanted to share.” She responds quietly.
“Right. But you didn’t have to feed him.” Aang responds, and white-hot heat licks up Katara’s spine in embarrassment, perhaps shame. Why?
“I was making fun of him. Retribution, for everything he’s done.” She tries joking.
“But you forgave him.” Aang deadpans. Katara’s two more question-statements close to barking at Aang to drop it.
“Yes, that’s why we were joking around.”
“Also, there was enough for everybody.” Katara stops in her tracks, almost turning to look back at Zuko trailing behind everyone but stops herself.
Hushed, she hisses, “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t eat mine. That’s why Toph and I went back to the house, remember? To grab my nuts.” He’s stopped walking, and the others are catching up
Katara starts again, putting distance between them.
“Right. I guess I forgot. You could’ve offered it to him, you know.” She adds the last part quieter.
“I know that now. But it looks like you had it covered.”
When she finally looks at him, he wears a mask of indifference, yet his eyes hold more fire than she would like. He’s talking practically, gauging the situation to figure out how he’s supposed to feel. He’s also talking pointedly at her, which she doesn’t like. There’s no room for condescension- she hasn’t done anything wrong.
Katara wants to tell him to back off, that they’re just friends, but the lies won’t leave her.
We aren’t just friends; she frowns to herself. But there’s no time for this.
“We were just having fun.” She finally finds, but Aang is two paces ahead now.
She’s fine with the conversation being over. She doesn’t have the space to add figure out my relationships on her list of things to get done. They have a war to win, allies to find. Training to do. There’s absolutely no time to think about getting into anything right now.
Or so she thought.
Katara couldn’t sleep, the moon being near full. Also, every time she closed her eyes she could see Aang’s disappointed face, Zuko’s golden eyes and happy-soft features. Sleep was a distant dream.
So, she’s using the restless energy to do what she can now for everyone.
Each of them, besides Zuko who packed for himself, only had two outfits. Which meant daily laundry. Which usually befell her.
Only, when she retrieves the pack with all their dirty clothes, she finds Zuko in the common space of the house, dusting off old family paintings.
When Katara turns to leave, a floorboard creaks and Zuko’s whips around.
“Oh, its just you.” He rasps quietly.
Katara’s mind goes blank. It’s easy to pretend like everything is normal when they’re near everyone else. But when it’s just the two of them?
“Yeah, just me!” She responds, voice on the side of just too high. She staves it. “What are you doing?”
Zuko scratches the back of his neck. Katara thinks he looks cute when he’s awkward; it beats the frown she usually finds him in, though she still likes that look, too.
“Just… reminiscing, I guess.”
He sounds so young all of the sudden. Katara warms, setting the basket of clothes down. They can wait. Gesturing to the chaise sofa, she slinks into one. He must’ve tidied them up, too, because no dust flies when she sits.
“No- no, I wouldn’t want to bother you. Chores and all.” His eyes twinkle in the low lamplight, his arms crossed. He’s still standing.
Katara huffs. “They can wait. I can’t sleep anyway, the moon is almost full.”
Zuko lets out a soft “oh,” brushing his hair back then letting it fall in the exact same way it was before. He must be deciding something, because his expression has gone distant.
“I don’t want to bother you, still. Talking about… my mother, and family, all of the time.”
If Katara thought she was pushing she would’ve ceased insisting that they talk, but it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about it. Katara could see, could feel how much he wanted to. He genuinely thought he was bothering her by speaking about his life before.
Katara couldn’t want anything more.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to, Zuko.” She says softly, nodding for him to sit beside her. His hard expression softens, and he settles beside her, albeit a bit hesitantly. But he brought some of the paintings with him.
“This was my mother.” He points to the woman in the picture, sitting elegantly for her own portrait. His golden eyes and softer features come from her. When he shows her the next one, she can tell that beautiful inky, sleek hair runs in the family.
Him, Azula, Ozai, and…
“What was her name?” She asks quietly, leaning on his shoulder, into his warmth. His gaze slides to her, and Katara tries so hard not to back down. Though, she’s afraid he can hear her heart threatening to beat out of her chest.
“Ursa.” He says, voice low, his raspy voice cracking.
Katara wonders when the last time he said her name was.
“She was very beautiful.” Katara murmurs, circling the painting with her thumb.
Zuko doesn’t follow her pointing, though. He hasn’t looked away from her.
“Yeah, she is.”
Katara blushes, and laughs slightly. “Is?”
Zuko swallows, “Was.” He breaks their eye contact and shakes his head. Then, he mumbles something like, “I’m not sure if she’s even dead.”
Though he moves on before Katara can ask him to explain.
“This is Iroh and my cousin, Lu Ten.”
Lu Ten. Why does that name sound familiar? Gran Gran spoke to her once, when she was little…
“Lu Ten died during the siege on Ba Sing Se. It’s why my Uncle never became Firelord.” Zuko’s exhale is shaky. “He gave up.”
She wants to ask if he and Lu Ten were close, but there are so many topics they could get into, and not enough time. If she had her way, they’d be here all night.
“That’s why you and he…” She realizes out loud.
“Yeah.” His voice comes with dry humor. “We’re like a makeshift family, trying to piece back together what little we had.”
“Wonder how that feels.” Katara tries to joke, but like his voice, it falls flat.
“I’m sorry.”
When she smiles at him, it’s a little sad, but it’s real.
“It wasn’t you.” She says. “You didn’t do it.”
“How can you look at me differently when I chased you around for the past months?”
“You were lost,” she whispers. “You hadn’t found us yet.”
This time, his dry laugh is real. “You sound like Uncle,” he says, and:
“I’m glad I found you.”
༄
They’re staring at her as if she’s grown a second head.
Iroh’s voice is weak, “You want to do it?”
She smiles sadly at him, “What other choice is there?”
“I could take the throne. I don’t want to, and it will be hard, but I can.”
Katara takes his hands. “Zuko wanted you to be free, Iroh. He wanted you to live your life in your tea shop.” Iroh’s eyes well up again.
“Katara, you don’t have to do this.” Sokka says. She smiles ruefully at him.
“I know. But don’t you remember what I said, back in Jang Hui?”
He sighs and puts his face in his hands as Aang says, “You’ll never turn your back on people who need you.”
Katara nods.
Her father hasn’t said anything. When she looks at him, she sees herself. Tears threatening to spill and him holding them, his face set, understanding strewn across his features.
Was she not him, leaving the last of his family, his village, his home- everything he loved behind for the greater good? Sacrificing all he knew so that his kids, and maybe her kids later, wouldn’t have to know that much struggle?
He understands, Katara knows, more than anyone.
“I’m not turning my back.” She affirms.
༄
They talk late into the night, Zuko telling stories of his upbringing- before the scar, before his mother left. The laundry is long forgotten and Zuko’s eyelids are drooping every time there’s a lapse in conversation, but he goes on.
“- and then I copied Azula and threw the bread at the ducks.” He explains sheepishly.
Katara gasps, poking him in the chest. “You didn’t!”
“I did.” He scrunches his nose, looking up at her from laying over her lap. His head is at the end of the chaise, his legs over hers. Katara’s sitting upright, back against the cushioning. Her hand strays at the hair on the back of his neck.
“You better apologize once you get back home.” She fake scolds.
He smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He goes somewhere else again momentarily, sitting up and turning his head to the wall of paintings that he hadn’t yet dusted.
“What if I’m not a good Firelord?” He asks after a while.
Katara matches his quiet, not breaking eye contact. “Zuko. I think the fact that you’re afraid means you’ll do the best you can. You’ll do good. You care enough to be scared.”
“What if they want Azula instead?”
She doesn’t tell him that they might have to fight his sister, too. Weighing what to say, she bites her lip, not unnoticing the way his gaze flicks to her lips.
“Doesn’t the oldest become Firelord?”
“My father could declare her his heir before. He might’ve even done it already.” He sighs deeply. “She could also challenge me to an Agni Kai.”
Katara suddenly goes cold. “How did your father become Firelord?”
Zuko blinks at her. “You don’t know?” Katara shakes her head. Why would she? “It was Azulon’s dying wish.” He explains, though it sounds more like a rehearsal, a sentence drilled in his head that he memorized to repeat. She’s about to respond when he shifts his legs off from over hers, sitting so that they’re side to side.
He waves at the wall lazily, then crosses his arms.
“Ozai lied. My father lied.” She glances sideways at him, at his scar. “He told Azulon to crown him instead of Uncle, because Iroh lost all the fight in him after Lu Ten died.” He let it hang in the air, and Katara braced for him to say- but Azulon didn’t and Ozai killed him but what comes out so, so quietly is-
“That’s why my mother is gone. He was going to kill me. I think she stopped him, somehow.” His voice breaks as it rushes out, as if saying it out loud let all his fears and worst nightmares out. Zuko chest rises and falls as he tries to fight the emotion baying to be released.
So she wraps her arms around him, sinking into him like a stone in a river. He’ s tense and still trying so hard to just breathe but eventually he melts into her. They lay like that for a while, the moon bathing his old house of memories in its silver light, a blanket to the darkness.
In the morning, Katara will be woken up instead by a blanket of sun. Where Zuko’s chest was will sit a pillow and where his arms were, a blanket.
But as they hold each other through that night where everything is steady on the world’s axis, yet trembling nonetheless, Katara hopes.
We will fix what has broken, she vows silently. We will heal and triumph from this.
༄
Katara sits in the chair before the vanity in her quarters she never noticed before, Tae brushing through her hair.
When had it gotten so long? She was used to It cascading down her back, swirling in its braid when she moved through her bending forms. But it feels different somehow, as Tae sweeps it into a topknot shes seen before.
Katara wonders what Zuko would have looked like, hair grown out, long enough to cascade down his shoulders just like his mother and father.
Katara wonders what he would say, seeing her preparing for her first appearance as Firelord.
I was supposed to do this with you, her mind whispers.
I know, his memory says. I know.