Chapter Text
This shouldn’t be happening. A waterbender shouldn’t be chilled to the bone by a rainstorm, of all things, but Katara was exhausted after walking and bending for the entire day. Each step was an exertion.
Really, she should’ve been thinking about how she was going to possibly find her friends again, but a single word replayed in her mind. Shelter. I have to find shelter.
She looked up at the sky for any sense of hope, and patch of blue or some stars—she’d long since lost her knowledge of what time it was—but was sorely disappointed. Not even the moon or sun could be seen behind the clouds pouring out sheets of cold water. Sighing, she pondered where she was, and how much longer she’d have to walk, and—
Splat. One second, her legs, were underneath her, taking cautious steps, and the next, they were out in front of her, getting relentlessly beaten and scratched by branches as she wooshed past them. It wasn’t until she landed in a large puddle with a resounding splash that she realized what had happened.
A mudslide. A monkey-feathering mudslide. Of course, she hadn’t known where she was before, but somehow falling La knowns how far felt even more discombobulating.
She grunted and heaved herself up, cautiously shifting her weight to make sure her legs would still hold her up. They did. The shivering was almost too much, but she could still stand. She was tilting her head up to the sky to mumble a prayer—not while walking, this time—when it caught her attention.
A cave. Shelter. Moving as quickly and cautiously as she possibly could, she made her way to the entrance, and collapsed onto the dry floor. “Finally,” she exhaled. There would never be a sound more comforting than the splash as she bent the water out of her clothes, nor the campfire smell behind her.
Wait, the what?
She sat up, and whipped her head around. Then she peeled her hair—which had apparently come loose, excellent—off of her face. Great going, Katara.
There was indeed a warm campfire there. And there was also a damp Fire Nation prince curled into a ball looking at her with wary eyes.
“You!” She pulled on the water, and gathered a tsunami at her back in an instant. His eyes widened.
“Wait, please! I-I’m n-not going to h-h-hurt you.” His eyes had widened with fear, and he was shivering. She kept the water where it was.
“How can you expect me to trust that?! You hunted me and my friends for months!”
“I-I never h-had anything against y-you,” she arched an eyebrow, and he scooted closer to the fire. “It was always just the avatar. And it’s not like there’s anything I could do now.” He gestured to the thick wall of water at her behest.
“Ah yes, you only wanted to kidnap a child, not any of his friends! That’s so much better!”
He ran a finger through his wet hair—which he apparently had now—and sighed. “Look, I-I don’t expect you to trust me—”
“No kidding.”
“—but… can we at least call a truce for tonight? Neither of us have anywhere else to go, unless you want to get back into that storm.”
She pondered it for a minute. There was no use in worrying about her doing this potentially leading him to Aang, since she had no clue where he was either. And she had all the water in the world to use, if he did decide to attack.
“Fine.” She pushed the water back outside, pulling all the water off of him, while she was at it. It made his hair go all fluffy. If she was trapped in a cave in a storm with literally anyone else, she would’ve thought his hair was cute. Of course, this was Zuko so she took extra effort to not think that.
He gestured for her to sit closer to the fire, so she plopped down in front of the mesmerizing flames. It almost reminded her of the hearths back home, the ones she and Sokka and Gran Gran would huddle around during a blizzard. As it crackled and popped, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier…
A particularly loud clap of thunder shocked her awake. She wasn’t scared of thunder per se, given that she was fourteen years old and far too old to be scared. But thunderstorms weren’t really a thing in the South Pole…
She clutched her pillow tighter.
Then it groaned.
Her eyes shot open, and found that her pillow was actually a person. A person with his arms around her waist. And around whom she’d wrapped her own arms. And who happened to have a large scar on the left side of his face.
Every one of her muscles stiffened as she realized who he was, and remembered what had happened earlier. Somehow, in the middle of the night, as the campfire died out, she and Zuko (Zuko!) had made their way to each other and were now… well…. cuddling.
She tried to untangle one of her legs from him, but with the fire dead, and without any of her warmer clothes, it was freezing. The leg went back to where it had been before, back to the boy who was positively emanating heat.
Sleep evaded her. Cold wasn’t the problem, nor even (to her surprise) fear of Zuko. It was more of… fear of how Zuko would react to their, uh, situation. So she lay there, watching drops of water falling just outside of the cave.
She squeaked at a flash of lighting, not out of fear, thank you very much.
“Wuz going on?” Katara’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Zuko's golden eyes blinked open and locked onto hers. She felt his arms stiffen around her, and hoped he wouldn’t untangle himself because it was freezing out there. His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something—
The thunder rumbled, and Katara gasped. Because she was startled, not scared.
But then Zuko relaxed again and closed his eyes. “’S okay K’tara,” he mumbled, running his fingers through her hair. "Everything's ok."
She didn’t know why he was choosing to comfort her, or why he was so effective at it, but she was tired enough that it didn’t matter. She snuggled into his warmth and let the comfort of his embrace ease her back into a deep sleep.